When purchasing a new computer or upgrading an old model, one of the biggest questions is what size hard drive you will need to store all of your applications and associated information. Personal computer hard drives have come a long way in the last twenty years, now offering storage up to several terabytes. But how much space do you really need on your computer, and when does extra hard drive space just become a waste of money?

Evaluate Your Current Hard Drive Usage

The best way to know how much you need is to know how much you’re currently using. On a Windows PC this is as simple as going to Start > Computer and right-clicking on your main hard drive. You can easily see how large your hard drive is and how much of it you’re using. If you’re approaching your storage limits and noticing any sort of performance issues on your computer such as slow application processing, you may need to invest in a bigger hard drive.

Determine Your Primary Computer Activities

Once you’ve decided you need more space, you have to consider what tasks your computer is performing. Do you just use it for research, opening a word processor and browsing the web? Is your hard drive full of music and movie files? Do you need extra space for large applications that eat up 10-20gbs apiece?

Most people will have plenty of hard drive space with the standard 250gb shipped in basic factory models. If you download a lot of multimedia or compile videos on your computer, you may find the need to purchase up to 500gb. Only gaming computers should ever need more than that, but if you find yourself running out of space, you can always purchase an external hard drive to help lighten the load.

If you want to ensure your career in web design is successful, it’s important that you always stay up to date with the latest advances in internet and web design technology. By doing this, you will have access to tools that will simplify your job and can incorporate the latest technology advancements into your website programming. Here are a few web design tools worth utilizing, if you aren’t yet familiar with them.

Color Matching Tools

Various free color matching tools are currently available to download. These applications are wonderful because they allow you to view how colors will appear in a web based setting and can greatly simplify the color matching process.

Additionally, if your budget doesn’t yet allow the purchase of expensive designing software, these free color matching tools can act as great supplements until the budget gets a little larger. Color is major element defining the attractiveness of websites and should be a top concern as you begin each project.

Screen Sizing Applications

The days of designing websites for one screen resolution have passed since most people now access the Internet from a variety of platforms. To ensure your designs are accessible from a variety of gadgets, consider using one of the many screen sizing applications that are currently available.

These screen sizing applications are valuable tools because they allow you to view how various website elements appear in various screen resolutions so you can make adjustments if necessary. The last thing you want is to create a wonderful design only to have it be incompatible with a popular gadget.

Pursuing a career in web design can be a very profitable decision. As online technology continues to expand, the need for skilled web developers will also grow. By staying up to date with the latest online advancement and utilizing web development tools, you can experience immense success in this career field.

If you’ve used your web browser to visit Google lately, you may have noticed that the web pages at the top of the list have one thing in common: they’re all very well written.

Too often, people in the web design business get caught in designing flashy pages and eye-catching graphics. As a result, they lose focus on more basic elements, such as compelling content. During its inception, the Internet was referred to as the “information highway,” but a few people still feel that flashy websites are more important than good content.

Despite the opinion of others, it’s no surprise that Google, the media giant, places a great deal of importance on traditional standards and quality content. Apparently Google recognizes that websites and web pages with good content are more important than attractive web design.

As an example, some recent studies by web developers determined that the high-ranking websites shared the following features:

1. The web pages contained frequently updated content, at least once every few weeks.

2. The web pages had little or no spelling and grammar errors.

3. The paragraphs on each web page were shorter, and didn’t contain big blocks of text or run-on sentences.

4. For the most part, the sentences were much shorter (approximately ten words), making them more readable.

5. Lastly, the web pages contained several references of keywords, and stem variations of those keywords as well.

Although many web designers and others say that people don’t read web pages, the statement isn’t necessarily true, and Google experts also beg to differ. Whether you’re a novice web designer or an expert, keep in mind that the text is just as important (and in some cases, more important) than the other elements on the page.

If you are looking for open source software packages to work with in web design, then you have many options. Open source is a type of software that is offered for free. This stems from the free software movement founded by Stallman. Its goal is to ensure software users the freedom to run, study, and change software as well as distribute it without repercussion. Among many choices, web designers might want to consider using the following open source software packages for web design:

• Web Servers: Web designers might want to consider using the open source software, Apache. It is the most popular Web server and is known for its programming language support of Python, PHP, Perl, and Tcl.
• Graphic design software like GIMP which is used for image manipulations and touch ups or the incredible Blender software which allows you to create any graphics from scratch.  These programs allow web designers to add deatiled and creative graphics to their web sites.
• Browsers: BookmarkSync is a handy tool web designers might use so clients can access bookmarks from any web browser or any computer. It runs a small program within the system tray of the computer and monitors bookmarks in a browser. The program updates automatically, keeping tabs on changes, and makes the changes on a central server. It synchronizes the data on multiple computers. Mac OS X clients also perform cross-platform synchronization.
• Web Analytics: Web designers using open source technology might want to consider using Open Web Analytics software for websites. This framework is written in PHP and is used to collect, measure, analyze, and report on Internet data on designated web pages. Open Web Analytics provides built-in support for application frameworks such as Gallery 2, MediaWiki, and WordPress. It also provides JavaScript APIs and PHP for integration with websites and web applications.
• 7 Zip is a simple but very useful open source application allowing users to read and write compressed files to several alternative format files and has great value when trying to share large files with others.

There are many benefits to using open source software. For example, since anyone can go in and manipulate coding in open source software, fixes are generally quick when problems arise. No one has to wait for a customer support team to address the problem.