Programming (free blogs) 101
No commentsBy Marlin Rollins
In a previous article, we introduced automating some tasks with MS-DOS batch files. In this article, we’re going to introduce programming and describe how it can be used to control the way your computer works. Normally, computer novices aren’t interested in controlling the computer. New computer users are typically interested in learning more about how the thing works. However they may be surprised to learn that programming increases computer knowledge as a whole and it can help to diminish the fear associated with using a new computer.
Programming a computer is creating a sequence of instructions that enable the computer to do something.1 The people who program computers (called programmers) use a programming language to communicate with a computer. You might have heard of some of these languages in the past such as Visual Basic, C++, or Fortran. There are hundreds of other programming language and neither one is better than the other. Most of them are capable of performing the same tasks and achieving the same goals. A programmer chooses one language by a simple preference.
Each of these languages differ by the way they communicate with a computer however, and the commands that they follow are very specific. Not a single command of one language can be interchanged with the commands or language of another. But all of them can be used to control a computer.
Now it would be impossible to teach you how to program any language in a single article. But we can still introduce you to some of programming’s most basic concepts - starting with the commands we talked about earlier. Commands are the instructions that a computer follows to perform an action. 2 To make them work inside of a program, programmers assign commands to objects like buttons for example.
The commands in a program are pretty useless unless they have some data to act on so programmers either give the programs some data to work with (list of names or numbers for example) or they make the program generate it’s own data. Sometimes, the data comes from an outside source like the Internet or the computer that the program runs on. The data that a program receives is called input and data that the program generates is called output.
Other times, the data is unknown. If the program were working with a simple algebra equation like, “x + 5 = y,” the variables “x” and “y” would be unknown pieces of data. Or if a program were to calculate a date “x” days from now, the variable “x” would be an unknown piece of data until we tell the program what “x” is. In programming, it’s sometimes required to work with unknown pieces of data.
That’s when conditions come in handy. Conditions allow a program to perform an action based on the outcome of a previous command.3 Using this type of instruction, we could instruct a program to do one thing if the “x” variable in our latter example turned out to be 7 days, and then do different thing if the variable turned out to be 3 days.
Commands, data, variables, and conditions help build the most simple programs and there are certainly many more components of any programming language. But when they’re typed into a programming language and compiled to create a an executable file (a file ending with the .exe extension), they turn into a software application.
As we mentioned earlier, you can use a programming language to control your computer. By using simple commands, you can program your computer to perform mathematical tasks, fill out web forms, compose an email message and send it off, or any number of other things. If you’re interested, you may find Visual Basic is one of the most easiest programming languages to learn. Visual Basic is an object-oriented programming language and it automatically codes much of a program the minute a programmer drags a button onto a screen.
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Small Business Pitfalls of Banner Advertising
By Nazir Daud 1
Despite what you might sometimes hear, banner advertising is still very successful for many small businesses, but only if carried out in the right way. What is the right way, and how does your business avoid the pitfalls of advertising on the internet? The answer is to understand the customer more than many advertisers seem to. There are very many examples of poor advertising on the internet. It is only by being aware of the poor tactics used by those businesses that fail to understand their visitors that you can make sure your own banner advertisements are successful.
An example of a banner advert can be found on the overwhelming majority of web pages across the internet. However, of course, prevalence is no testament to either quality or success, and in many cases, neither attribute seems very evident. Most people have become utterly tired of the clichd banners flashing like a Las Vegas neon sign that is trying to outdo the rest of the website. Typically, these adverts congratulate the visitor on being the 100,000,000th visitor to see the advert, in which case you feel deeply sorry for the other 99,999,999 people who have also had to risk having a seizure and getting nothing for their trouble!
Similarly, banner adverts which try to frighten potential customers into clicking on them have tended to become shunned, ignored or blocked, such as those suggesting that, in the microsecond since the web page was loaded, they have managed to scan your entire hard drive and discover a virus which was evidently missed by that expensive, award winning anti-virus software you keep updated every day.
Visually nauseating banner adverts, or those which either try to frighten people into clicking no longer have very successful click through rates, and do more harm than good. Yet banner adverts persist. Why? Simply because there are enough examples of good and effective advertising out there that work, for them to remain economically viable.
It takes a great deal of thought and effort for a small business to achieve success with this form of internet advertising. Avoiding repulsive flashing colour themes, fear or trickery are just the first pitfalls to avoid. Another major problem is trustworthiness. Most visitors tend to view banner advertisements with a deep sense of distrust. Youre already starting on the back foot, having to somehow persuade the visitor you are trustworthy, honest and reliable, intent on doing no harm, nor of assaulting the senses or of pulling some kind of unpleasant stunt. All this in a handful of words and a small image is asking a lot, but it is possible.
One of the other dangers banner advertisers tend to leap into like lemmings having a bad day is trying to fool the visitor into clicking the advert. This isnt quite the same as frightening them into clicking the advert by making it look like a virus alert or system message, but in visually disguising the advert to appear as though it was a genuine portion of the website. This is not a tactic which your business should employ.
The reason is because visitors do not like being deceived. Clicking on a link because it looks like part of the website menu, and then finding that youre whisked off to a website far, far away on a server somewhere in Eastern Europe is not a good way to encourage repeat visitors.
Remember, your banner advertising is often the very first impression people receive of your business. Take a good long hard look at your internet adverts, and ask yourself if that really is how you want your business to be perceived by your potential customers.
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Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 9:41 am and is filed under internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
