Creating glossy/trendy buttons in photoshops:

I used Photoshop to create all my buttons, I thought about using Rollover button but then decided not to as it is bit extra and that I like my current buttons.

Creating the buttons involves using all the tools necessary to get the required button. I have extensively used layers, layer's blending Options as well as Rulers & Grid, Blurr tool etc to get the best button.

From the layer Blending mode, I have specifically used Drop Show for the text, Gradient Overlay for the main button layer and Satin for the base layer. Rectangular Marquee tool is used to cut half a layer which is then filled with White paint. The layer's opacity is then lowered to suit the cutting edge at the half of the button.

Manupulating the Gradient tool with various colour at different length (in %) of the button is useful to get all sorts of trendy button. I managed to play well it and got the button with the desired colour I wanted.

Logo design:

I used the Gradient tool to select the top and base color of the gradient, which is then drag on the screen by holding the shift key. Pencil tool with 1pix is used to draw a border line on a new layer.

Marquee tool is used to select half of the logo screen which is then filled with white color using Paint brush.

I also opened the layer properties and selected various options to make the image look nice. I have chosen properties such as Drop Shadow, Outer Glow and Bevel & Emboss.

Logo Design in Photoshop

I used one picture from the website, from which I used Lasso Tool to cut the image that I wanted for. A new file was opened on which I pasted the cut image. Magic Wand tool is used to further cut the image from its surrounding. Throughout this process, cut and paste as well as eraser tool is used to make the final image as real as possible.

The final image is then shape in to various size until the most appropriate size is drawn out of it. This is done by choosing Edit/Image size from the Photoshop menu.

(Note: however the image size turned out to be bit large when actually put on the website, so I decided to create a new one, besides I don't quiet like this logo.)

Domain name Research & Storyboarding diagrams:

Scanned hand-drawn storyboarding technique applied to design planning for your website:

I did researches on various domain names for my coursework website on the theme of toys for under 5s on www.namecheap.com and www.godaddy.com.

All the interesting names have been already bought but luckily I managed to get one simple and easy for myself. It is www.toys4under5.com.

I tried to keep my domain name as simple and easy as possible to remember, as easy and relevant to the theme and short.

Domain names should be integrally related to the theme of the website and simple/short so that the intended audience easily gets associated to it. For the promotion of the company or a website, domain name plays a pivotal role.

Creating Spacer Gif in Photoshop

Creating Spacer Gif: A spacer.gif is a 1x1 transparent gif image which is used to fill in space, without being visible. A lot of web designer commonly use spacer.gif to fill empty table cells as one can resize it in html coding to any size.

I have created my spacer in Photoshop by: choose new file->1wx1h->background color: transparent.

Working on with Mangage Product Page

To manage products, I have decided to create a manage product page on which there are links to the add product page and update product page.

Mange product page will show the list of product in the database and it has links with each product to the update product page.

Update product page will allow changing any product details or deleting any product details.

Add product page will simply bring a add product form to add a new product. After each addition or update of product, confirmation message will be shown on the manage product page.

Error message 1:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e10'

[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Too few parameters. Expected 1.

/phr004/coursework1/manageproducts.asp, line 102

Error message 2:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14'

[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Syntax error (missing operator) in query expression 'product_id='.

/phr004/coursework1/updateProduct.asp, line 13

Solution:

Above two error messages are from the manageproduct.asp page and updateproduct.asp page. I fixed the problem by creating the correct dsn and pointing it right to the Access Database file on the server.

Open DSN Connection:

Set dsnCon = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")

dsnCon.Open "dsn=phr004cw1;uid=phr004;pwd=ce95099wi;"

Creating/ Opening Database Connection

Creating Connection to the Database:
There are a couple of ways of doing this either by using a system DSN or a DSN-less connection.

To create a DSN-less connection to an Access database we need tell the connection object we created above to open the database by telling the connection object to use the 'Microsoft Access Driver' to open the database 'guestbook.mdb'. For example:

'Set an active connection to the Connection object using a DSN-less connection
adoCon.Open "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; Data Source=" & Server.MapPath("guestbook.mdb")

You'll notice the ASP method 'Server.MapPath' in font of the name of the database. This is used as we need to get the physical path to the database.
Server.MapPath returns the physical path to the script, e.g. 'c:\website\', as long as the database is in the same folder as the script it now has the physical path to the database and the database name.

If on the other hand you want to use a slower DSN connection to the database then you will need to replace the line above with the one below.

'Set an active connection to the Connection object using DSN connection
<%
set conn=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Open "accessDSN"
%>

Error generated:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'

[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified

/phr004/coursework1/manageproducts.asp, line 45

Solution:

I carefully managed to get this code done correctly to get the database connection;

Set adoCon = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
adoCon.Open "dsn=phr004cw1;uid=phr004;pwd=ce95099wi;"