SMART SKILLS
Worldwide opportunities
Usha Albuquerque

A click gets us the information we need, a few more and we have a report written or a memo faxed. Don’t bother to go shopping, the computer is a virtual shopping mall. Buying a plane ticket, making a hotel reservation, finding out about the latest music video —check the Internet. Millions of pages of information, thousands of sites where you can source anything — from the latest electronic gadget to interesting nuggets of historical or scientific information. It is all available on the Internet.

The World Wide Web is a network of computers connected through a standard language and coding, and is part of the Internet — an even larger network of communication links.

Webmasters ensure that information placed on the Internet is creatively exhibited and attractive enough to make the Internet user stop and read. Webmasters can specialise in web designing or web development, or combine the skills of both. Webmasters design, develop and maintain websites for various organisations, institutions and individuals. As most web sites, like physical newspapers have information that changes, or gets updated, webmasters have the responsibility of maintaining and remodeling the pages and working out the linkages from page to page.

Webmasters are also responsible for the content put onto the pages, which may need to be edited and proofread, and checked for accuracy, and so work with web content developers or specialists on the subject.

Attracting the maximum number of "eyeballs" to the sites is the responsibility of the web designer. Web designers ensure that the web pages are visually appealing, well-organised, easy to navigate and created to attract maximum attention.

Some of the larger websites and those maintained by large organizations may also have web writers or content providers, web marketing professionals and e-commerce specialists. Web writers are normally subject specialists with writing skills who can prepare the content in the best concise manner.

Web marketing professionals bring in the advertisers and sponsors for the site and also work on increasing the traffic to the site. E-commerce mainly involves buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, E-commerce specialists need to know all about the net-com business-e-commerce fundamentals, security issues, electronic data interchange, etc. They must also be able to set up, develop and maintain websites and handle the commercial aspects of the job.

Webmasters do require to have a good knowledge of computer technology, the operating systems, programming languages, computer graphics and Internet standards. While those with computer science degrees may be more familiar with such specialised knowledge, students from any field can get into web designing and development if they have basic computer skills and an interest in computer technologies, and good creative abilities.

As web designers handle the visual appearance of a site they need a good knowledge of how websites work, and the responses of the audience to the material posted on it. While web designers can be graphic designers, visual communication specialists, computer engineers, or from any other field, they need not only to have strong aesthetic sense, but also to be proficient in HTML, DHTML, FrontPage and CSS. To display text on a webpage it must be formatted using Hyper Text Markup Language or HTML, a system of coding text that the computer can ‘read’ and display. A web designer should also be familiar with architecture of computer information, and be able to use design tools like Adobe Photoshop, and web design programmes like Macromedia, Dreamweaver and so on. A good awareness of scripting languages such as Perl, VBScript is also useful.

In addition to have a thorough knowledge of the Web and its functioning, Web developers also need to know about ASP, databases, JavaScript, and be conversant with scripting languages like Perl, java, C++. Dynamic HTML and XML are also useful. Although most webmasters are given the text used, or employ web writers to prepare the text of the information to be displayed, some webmasters may be required to write out the content, and so need to have good writing skills.

E-commerce specialists can be computer professionals handling the technical aspects of the Internet site, or marketing, advertising and accounting professionals with a knowledge of e-commerce platforms and tools like Internet Information Server, Microsoft Site Server, Microsoft Transaction Server and Commerce Server.

There are many computer training institutes that include web designing as part of the computer courses they teach. There are also short specialised training programmes in web design, or in the many languages and tools required to be proficient in this field.

However, with technologies evolving all the time, those getting into web mastering have to keep up with all the rapid technological advancements.

Moreover, they have to be punctual with deadlines otherwise the customers/ clients will lose faith .

The writer is a noted career expert