Chosen from a collection of nearly 900 luxury hotels and resorts on Virtuoso’s annual list of the very best.

HOTEL OF THE YEAR

The Goring, London

Each and every year a few new luxury hotels and resorts turn heads and some of them sprawl landscapses while others are towering skyscrapers. This tiny 71-room hotel has been quietly wowing the world for a century. Royalty, rock stars, and conservative British businessmen all find their comfort zone here. Traditionally British it is also not afraid to be a little quirky. Yes, The Goring’s CEO Jeremy Goring (great-grandson of the man who built it) brought in the big guns in British design – Nina Campbell, David Linley, and Tim Gosling – but he didn’t give the heave-ho to those fleece-covered wooden sheep that stand at the foot of the beds and in the lounge- guests just love them like family pets.

BEST DESIGN

The Armani Hotel, Dubai

Giorgio Armani’s first hotel met his goal of wanting to make it feel like home. Known for his classic style, Armani, handed the execution of his concepts to Fino International and had his hand on everything from the A-shaped swimming pool to the zebrawood paneling – even the florist, nightclub, and spa are Armani branded. This hotel speaks and breathes Armani style; classic and chic.

MOST INNOVATIVE GUEST EXPERIENCE

AmanFayun Hangzhou, China

Aman resorts rebuilt a village dating back to the Tang Dynasty. When creating this new village it had a clear cut mission; to save a bit of history and offer the experience of rural China of centuries past. Guests at the 42-room Amanfayun enjoy luxuries that the tea farmers who once lived here could not have imagined. They can feel the living spirit of an ancient Chinese village.

Aman never deviated from the buildings’ original foundations or style, nor did it close off a path that’s always given locals access through the village. Forging a bond with the monks at the fourth-century Temple of Goodness, guests can now hike up the mountainside to join them for prayers before sunrise and afterward share a traditional vegetarian breakfast.

BEST HOTEL DINING

The Dorchester, London

Master chef, Alain Ducasse has been called a culinary genius, perfectionist, and overachiever. With 27 restaurants and a total of 19 Michelin stars, he may run a culinary empire, but his establishments are one of a kind. Guests who book Table Lumière, a table for six surrounded by a shimmering curtain of 4,500 fiber-optic lights, choose their own tableware, silverware, and crystal from Hermès, Puiforcat, and Saint-Louis. With its menu of contemporary French cuisine, the restaurant won a third Michelin star this year, making Ducasse the first chef to hold three stars in three different cities.

BEST FAMILY PROGRAM

Verdura Golf and Spa Resort, Sicily

More than 500 acres on the prized stretch of coastline, two championship golf courses, a standout spa, and food based on the freshest Sicilian ingredients, this sleek 203-room Rocco Forte resort hits the sweet spot with couples. Sicily life is all about family, so naturally Verdura even though a luxury hotel and resorts company, thinks like a parent. Kid-size bicycles, a shallow children’s swimming pool, and free organized activities every day like the little ones who can enjoy mime classes, treasure hunts, and biscuit making and a teenagers club that offers rugby, beach volleyball, football, and golf this resort has something for everyone.

luxury hotels and resorts

BEST SPA

Grand Velas all suites and spa resort, Riviera Maya, Mexico

Grand Velas is an all-inclusive resort with a spa that is so impressively sized –89,000 square feet – it’s the largest spa in the Yucatán. The real attention-getter is its organic style, starting with a towering palapa-style roof and wall of two-story windows that make the lush vegetation outdoors feel like part of the spa. A cavernous lower level takes its inspiration from the region’s underground water pools, or cenotes. A hand-hewn rock wall emerges from a winding chlorine-free pool that’s outfitted with water-bubble beds, cascades, different jets for massaging neck and shoulders, and a gurgling volcanic geyser. We also love the clay room, ice room, rain showers, and sensory water walkway with pebbled bottom.
The most socially responsible of all the luxury resorts and hotels is the Four Seasons in Costa Rica, it is also a perfect example of Citizen diplomat.
Its amazing what can happen when people change the world one destination at a time.

Four Seasons employees and guests built a fence around a rural Costa Rican school, the principal was happy that he could now keep cows out of the classroom. The volunteers saw classrooms with no furniture, so they created a fund to buy desks and chairs. Since 2001, the Four Seasons’ owners have been the backbone of the Growing Together program, which benefits rural communities on the Papagayo Peninsula through customized volunteer experiences that support local schools and conservation efforts. Now 12 staff ambassadors match guests who want to volunteer with communities that have the greatest need – one family planted a garden at a school to show children how to eat healthfully. Another way guests at the 155-room hotel can reach out is through the resort’s Backpack Buddy program, donating or delivering school supplies to children.

For these and other great stories about citizen diplomat please do not hesitate to check out our blog located at http://www.luxetraveldeals.com/luxury-travel-guide.

Me, of course considers myself standing in a white line so I could write this article and share my opinions clearly. I would not explain ‘yaoi’ in wikipedia style because I’m sure that readers can easily search it over the internet and will gain more information than things I wrote here. The idea of writing this subject came from my discussion with my friend few months ago – so you may see that some of contains which written here was mostly based on my personal experience.

“Do you enjoy yaoi?”; I tried to search the answer from joining one of the biggest yaoi’s forum on the internet, and its statistics was resulting that more than 80% percent of the users are female (with various orientation; straight, lesbian, and bisex) and the others are male (mostly gay, once I saw a straight guy and asked him the reason he joined the forum and he said it was because of his girlfriend). So I could say, surely yaoi gives pleasure to most of female.

No! Not all female loves yaoi. Once I’ve ever introduced my friend piece of a ‘beginner-level’ of yaoi, they directly glanced at me over-reacting as they had just seen a ghost – please do not blaming them for that, I also had the same reaction once I unintentionally bought a yaoi manga and I thought “What’s wrong with these guys? Hugging each other?”- so I could understand them a bit.

Of course, I do meet female-school girls who strictly said ‘NO’ to yaoi because of their belief which totally against homosexual – moreover extremely made them (gays’ people) into a part of entertainment (I wonder if those females still up with their thoughts knowing that Canada’s Catholic church has made a legal wedding for gay’s couple). But, still I don’t think this is such a logic reason – some people may say they don’t like yaoi based on their beliefs – but it was mostly because they’ve never read/see it, so they couldn’t exactly understand either about their own reasons.

So, what do they look in yaoi? Two guys kissing, hugging, and making love? Of course yes. Lately, females would think, the romance between male and female is tasteless, jealousy and forbidden love seemed to be too ordinary to be pleased, they’re no longer enjoying a couple struggling for the sake of love, every thing was so ‘drama’ that they could exactly guess what the ending would be, it’s like they’re not up into ‘Romeo and Juliet’ era anymore. They search for more challenging plot, unexpected intrigues – as they enter the yaoi.

When I wrote yaoi; then you may have sensed the differences between Asian gay’s couple and Western’s one. They are totally different – both in manga version or their dramas. Yes, Japan (the yaoi origins) produces beautiful men, skinny, white almost perfect which could directly hit all the girls’ heart, they have good personalities which made you never think that they were made to be gays, they are so heart-warming, smart, rich or they are created to be an elite high school student with full of charisma. It’s really a perfect imagination, more over if you never see that kind of man in person (I’m going to write about ‘bishounen’ later).

So this is how ‘yaoi’ will brainwash all the girls’ brain:  as you know, mostly yaoi mangakas are female, that’s why they are fully aware of “what women want”, “what women’s ideal men”, and “what is the most-wanted drama” – no doubt, right? They know really well how to draw and bring the females ‘the boys they want’, and there you find the ‘seme’ and ‘uke’. Take a first glance toward the character, female will scream ‘Oh, so handsome!’ they take the book and read it.

Now is the process which make the girl starts to love yaoi and ends up hating every of ‘another female character on it (not realizing themselves are also GIRLS)’. Of course, at first, they would only look at the boys, boys, and all the boys. They do not care about the story much; they just want to see the boy’s poses and enjoying every motion of it. As they enter the main point of the story then it was the time they come to this idea: “Man, this guy is too handsome, this guy is too perfect as I (the reader) even couldn’t find a perfect (woman) match to fit him!” and they finally come to this point: “No, I’m sure there will be no woman who could fit him perfectly – not even me (the reader)! He’s too perfect! If there’s no such ideal woman for him – then he shouldn’t (correcting: mustn’t) date with a woman, he should find another perfect man to be his match”

I know, that must be sounded too awkward (almost silly) especially if you’ve never read one of it; but it’s true. Me and my friends had experienced it that’s why I was capable to write this. When they reach the fact that they’ve already in love toward the guys, they’ll agree for they are gay, they do S&M, and for the last step they would absolutely enjoy yaoi.

In male cases, more than 50% extremely claimed that they hate yaoi. This is such a normal, especially for straight guys. Seeing two males together is a big no, so the reason is way pretty acceptable. Not blaming their conservative’s way of thinking, they really think that every gay almost leads to transsexual or transvestite state, but as we all know gay’s lately have a solid and bold personality (even in manga). I put my respect toward some of my male-friends who could perfectly distinguish between yaoi and ‘keeping yourself as a straight’.

But I didn’t say that “The way they hate yaoi means they completely oppose homosexuality,” when I continue questioning, “Do you really hate yaoi?” they simply answered, “It would be different if it’s ‘yuri’“.

So? I guess the readers would have already known the answer of the title.

Where are the real men of yesterday? The ones who worked hard all day till their muscles burned; the ones with blisters on their hands and calluses on their feet, the man that women swoon for at first sight? The answer is, “They’re all dead, Jim.  All that’s left is us backstabbing, spineless, slithering yes-men.”

The real men may be dead, but their lessons from the past, live on. Let’s learn from our forefathers, what it means to be a man’s man. 

#1A Man Must Be Bold

In Chinese philosophy, a man’s body composes mainly of Yang chi – the essence of male energy, representing vigour and vitality. Yang is forceful, the aggressor, and symbolised by fire and heat. Women on the other hand, compose of Yin chi, the cooling, receptive energy that surrounds everything. Yin is subtle, the receiver, and represented by flowing water.

Being a man, it is your duty to represent the essence of Yang chi. There is no time for beating around the bush, being too shy to ask for what you want, and being unsure of yourself. You have to be bold; it is your duty to be bold. You are the Yang, the aggressor. If you want to know a woman, you have to make the approach. You can’t possibly wait for her to make the approach, she’s Yin. She’s the shy, receptive one who is waiting for you to approach her. Let her be the Yin, don’t try to reverse roles and be the shy man who can’t even say ‘Hi’. I’ve never heard someone say, “Hah, he’s such a wuss for thinking she would even talk to him…” What you will usually hear is, “Wow man, you’ve got guts! I wish I could do that.” 

Women are attracted to men who can be their pillar of strength, someone they can lean on, a shoulder to cry on; boldness is a representation of that inner strength. You can define boldness as ‘the courage to act’, turning your fear into strength, accepting rejection and pain as a natural consequence for daring to achieve your dreams. 

Boldness also applies to business and life in general. The British Special Air Service (SAS) has a famous motto: “Who Dares Wins”. If you’ve got the brains, the guts and the tenacity, then chances are, success is yours. Listen to what German Philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” 

#2A Man Must Live with Honour

Honour is a virtue of the Gentleman. Having honour means that you commit yourself to following a specific set of moral guidelines. People trust an honourable person’s word as a guarantee of future moral performance. Nowadays, we sometimes use the word ‘Integrity’ to represent honour.

Learning to live with honour will make you more of a man than ten years of corporate snakes and ladders can. Your promise must be a solemn commitment that you will keep to, no matter what. Your word must be as good as gold, if not better. 

Building an honourable reputation is no easy task. It means total commitment to upholding your integrity and living your life by defined moral principles. If you are successful, your good name will spread. People will recognize you as a trustworthy individual, whom they can count on to take care of the largest responsibilities, and entrust with the most confidential secrets. Taking on more responsibilities and secrets, can raise your life to new levels of prosperity and plenty. But be warned… if you ever breach that trust by committing just one selfish or perverse act, what could take you a lifetime to establish, you can destroy overnight.

In the present Communication Age, good news travels fast and bad news travels even faster. The only way to stop the bad news is to never allow it to be created. So mind your actions because people listen to what you say, but they watch what you do.  

Place your hand over your heart and say…

“Let my principles be my guiding light, distilled from my highest wisdom about what is right. Let my morals stand tall and true, let them choose what I do.” 

Now touch your head and say… “So Be It!”

Make a difference today, put your foot down and be bold about upholding your honour. Adhere to your principles. Never do anything that would compromise your integrity and the trust people have in you. In return for your efforts, you will create more flow in your life; opportunities will come faster and more abundantly. You will have the chance to live your life to its fullest potential and splendour. So be a man of honour, your life depends on it. 

#3A Man Must Be Magnanimous

Magnanimous means to have a generous, forgiving and noble nature. Simply put, magnanimous people have a big heart. They are gracious and kind, philanthropic and benevolent. A magnanimous gentleman gives generously and expects nothing in return. He takes joy simply in seeing those around him happy. He is an intriguing conversationalist and tells jokes to make others laugh.

A man’s magnanimity does not allow him to easily take offence at the words and actions of others. Anything potentially offensive is simply seen for what it truly is… wind passing through the trees. Like bamboo, he will never break, but only bend with the direction of the wind.

When you have mastered magnanimity, you will intuitively understand that there is a Law of Increasing Returns in the universe which states, “Whatever you give out will come back to you ten times stronger.” For example, if you look down on someone, ten more people will look down on you. If you cheat 0 from an old woman, sometime down the road, you will lose 00. Likewise, if you contribute 0 out of the goodness of your heart, 00 will be available for you to earn back. Perhaps through your business or in a sudden lottery windfall.

If you choose to let your greed get the better of you, manipulate others to your benefit, and refuse to help the needy, you can only expect poverty, hate and disappointment to head your way. You reap what you sow; you get whatever you give out. This is a universal law.

A magnanimous man knows that helping others does not exhaust his resources, but rather because of the Law of Increasing Returns, it increases his resources tenfold, allowing him to do more good for the world. He knows that in helping others, he is also helping himself.

Develop the habit of solving other peoples’ problems and you become a more generative person. You produce and contribute more than the average guy, and thus earn more because you deliver more value to others.

Take little steps starting today, to make these characteristics a part of your character. Help someone in need, keep a promise, dare to speak up. Challenge yourself to become a man’s man: Be Bold, be Honourable, Be Magnanimous.

In the midst this scintillating dilemma called life, no matter the frame of reference in marginal detail or number, we, as humans, are faced with the perplexing difficulty to decipher our place in the universe while adhering to our distinct sacred sensual sexual artistic personalities.

Through the onslaught of complicated, conflicted, sometimes, debilitating factors, (involvement/relationships) associated while being alive; we are chastised and commissioned with the charitable duty to function in some sort of productive, caring, interested, loving, meaningful way. It’s all part of learning how to have genuine human experience.

A remarkable unforgettable song is heard, remotely familiar, but incapable of naming the distinct notes that make up the tune, we formulate the structure of our incalculable lives based on its incomprehensible sacred melody. 

Even more so, not without the intellectual constrains associated, we are assigned the complicated task of learning how to interact with the given environment, romantic affairs, family situations, friends, creative endeavors, careers, educational pursuits, and impending acquaintances without completely giving way to the natural process of influential osmosis (bleeding into of others; remaining independent while living in unity) which is likely to occur without our conscious consent or involvement. In other words, we are discovering how to ‘sing our own song’ regardless of support, encouragement, and/or recognition.

Moreover, when called upon to interact in unexpected situations of indescribable flawlessly maneuvered emotionally draining affairs, do so without a hitch or promise. No doubt, a high order of calling but nonetheless our attempts must be genuine IF we are ever going to gain the enduring profoundly relative wisdom of earth life.

At the same time, while this undulating living is taking place, we will note that our body is saying, doing, perceiving, registering, selecting and tabulating things we absolutely no nothing about. From the unconscious level, we are being influenced, prompted, solicited and geared in a direction that may seem totally contradictory to the conscious desires we recognizably possess.

Two things are occurring at once: the taming/subduing of our PERSONAL higher animal nature while at the same time finding an adequate uninhibited freedom of creative expression of it in the very midst of its convoluted domain.

Masters of Divine Essence, what we inherently are, forgotten due to a veil of mystery and fragmented memory of our sacred heritage, inspiringly enthusiastically guides us, most days. But on some days, we feel more like the natural inhabitants of the darkest fiercest diabolical demons known to mankind. God/Goddess (in whatever manner perceived) innately deferring power as humans is no doubt a horrendously humorous distracting entertainment.

How do we, in fact, subdue the very instinctive creative sacred sensual sexual artistic nature that exalts uplifts, inspires and, at the same time, besets us, casting us to the ground? It’s called: The lion of LOVE.

The inscrutable lion who seeks to destroy and devour us simply because he can is being universally domesticated. Who is this villainous imposter? Some may refer to him as a so called devil. But the fiend is really never any further away-attached to, instilled within- than our own venomous grievous thoughts.

If, in fact, however, the old devil must be transformed and redeemed, then life disparaging compost must be provided. In order to transform something, the precedent hideous residue must be present beforehand. Something to think about: our lives deliver to us the necessary ingredients (scenarios) to overcome because we possess the elements of spontaneously resourceful interruption and distraction to create them.

How incredibly ingenuous: divinity-working through the human form- having imperceptibly disguisedly impregnated the scenes, then through impervious calculated deceptive believable ploys conquers himself/herself/itself because of it.

Wow! By inventing and moving through his/her/its own ploys of carefully devised deceptive-marvelously wonderfully construed (beast, fool, victim, martyr, hero) definitive roles-hallowed evolution continues in as much as we understand and can appreciate the beauty and grace of it.

We are all part of an intricately unfathomably devised plan of sanctified disguise thereby propelling progressive evolving galactic movement. We, as the conflicted demonstrating partners in celestial experimental evolving emotional/physical/mental crimes of passion, are able to win at the game without force of will by voluntarily submitting to something beyond ourselves without any guarantee or lust of results.

We are able to partake, contribute and live the song of inestimable glory by returning an expanded quested portion in the ineffable purpose of the glorious fully lived human sacred sensual sexual artistic existence.

How be it that we, as human contributors to the enormously incandescent envisioned inconceivable plan, contend with ourselves, doubting the very existence of our purpose for drawing breath, condemning our lives in an almost frivolous fashion be so irrefutably discontent?

The expanded sacred sensual sexual artistic avenues of creative expression are limitless! We possess the sanctified unlimited power of self-governing influence to do what we will. The nebulously formulated protocol is solely determined by us, through us, in us and around us at our beckon call. But, we must be willing to surrender the idea of any personal gain or betterment. This is as good as it gets!

Our palatial menagerie of undeniable sacred sensual sexual artistic passions awaits our divulging and demonstrating. The unstated prerequisite to the consecrated creative liberated unfolding demands of us to possess: “no lust of result.” We are not to be swayed, influenced or coerced by the fatuous questions and compliments of others.

We are to do what we do because we love it and for no other rationale reason. We can not reason ourselves out of terror, despair, or agony of debilitating memory anymore than we can attribute the ascending glory attached to so called successful fleeting accomplishments. In other words, we are not to be carried away by our own intoxicating lure of entitlement, or self-congratulatory smiles.

We are simply to engage in the most passionately invoked version of our glorious sacred sensual sexual artistic song of celestial magnitude in gracious celebration, exaltation and gratitude. After that, it’s all done but the sheer inexpressible pleasure of mere seductive innocent breathing.

A villa with a swimming pool seems to be high on the wish list of most people coming to live here in Spain. The thought of owning your own pool conjures images of glamour, especially after watching all those glittering movies and seeing the lifestyle that movie stars enjoy – most of us hanker for a chunk for ourselves – and why not.

Being a proud possessor of your own swimming pool isn’t all a bed of roses though. The first thing you have to learn is how to actually handle it. If you’re not prepared to put in a little work, forget it.

Swimming pools garner mess.

Leaves blow in, dust falls, insects settle on the surface and drown. A swimming pool collects spiders, ants, and sometimes mud –rainstorms are often filthy, especially the ones in the Alicante area of Spain. All manner of dirt is washed out of a previously dusty atmosphere and deposited into your sparkling pool.

Most modern swimming pools have a pumped filtration system of some kind to help maintain it in a healthy state. The system filters out surface and suspended matter, but inevitably, debris settles on the pool floor

A swimming pool has to be cleaned at least once a week so be prepared to handle a water vacuum cleaner – twice a week sometimes. After debris has been sucked into the sand filter, the filter has to be backwashed to rid the debris to drain. Several times a year the whole of the swimming pool floor and walls need brushing, and the water subsequently treating with flocculent. Brushing creates a cloudy haze in the water and sometimes this takes a few days to settle unless flocculent is used

A swimming pool needs constant maintenance even in winter

How much of the year can you swim

The chemical balance needs to be carefully controlled on a regular basis to avoid bacterial growth and algae formation. The last thing you or your visitors want is to catch something nasty after taking a leisurely dip. At the very least, the level of pH and chlorine has to be maintained. Tablets are available to adjust both. Some tablets are multifunctional and add an anti-algae component, and flocculent to keep the water at its Sunday best.

But how often are you able to use the swimming pool?

Most people are under the impression they’ll be swimming for most of the year – rubbish. An outdoor swimming pool is only useful for about four months of the year –yet still needs to be maintained…. Ouch!

Help is at hand – DIY solar pool heating.

I’m not one for wasting energy, time, or money, and for me, not using the pool is a waste. I search for ways to improve – and improve I do. First on the list of enhancements was a swimming pool cover…. Wow – great improvement – my first step towards DIY solar pool heating. It really made a difference

Solar pool heating – Heat heat heat.

Outdoor pools gain solar heating from the sun, absorbing 75%–85% of the solar heat energy that strikes the pool surface. This is an important contribution to our DIY solar pool heating requirements. It isn’t all gain, though. A pool cover will decrease the DIY solar pool heating gain contribution to some extent, depending on what type you use. A transparent bubble cover may reduce your DIY solar pool heating energy absorption by 5%–15 % …. but just think of the overall gain – it’s some heck of a sized DIY solar pool heating system….

Bubble-wrap covers

A blue translucent bubble-wrap cover allows energy from the sun to heat the swimming pool, acting like an enormous DIY solar pool heating panel. The swimming pool cover also insulates the pool and keeps the heat in at night: a win-win situation – heats the swimming pool during the day, keeps the heat in at night – what more could you ask? An unprotected swimming pool can loose up to 3 degrees Celsius overnight. With a swimming pool cover, the DIY solar pool heating loss is reduced to 1 degree Celsius or less.

A swimming pool cover not only heats and insulates, it protects pool water from evaporation. Evaporation is evil. Evaporation wastes the precious resource and in doing so removes heat from the pool – bad, bad, bad. Wet your finger on a windy day and see how much colder it feels.

With the combined effects of heat input, insulation and protection from evaporation, the temperature of a covered pool can be more than 8 degrees Celsius higher than a similar uncovered swimming pool.

If you use your pool during the day, for maximum advantage, take off the cover just before swimming and replace the cover as soon as you’re finished.

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Gains here, gains there…

The benefits of a swimming pool cover doesn’t end there. Dust and leaves collect on the swimming pool cover instead of in the pool – and can be washed off in a safe area – so reducing debris problems in the swimming pool. Not only that, but chemical consumption is greatly reduced, a great environmental benefit. Overall, having a swimming pool cover makes a lot of sense and should be treated as number one priority on the list of pool improvements and DIY solar pool heating.

Pool temperatures can be further improved by adding external DIY solar pool heating panels. The only problem with commercial devices is capital expense. A homemade DIY solar pool heating system can be installed at a much lower cost.

I installed 180 metres of 15mm copper tubing formed into a zigzag matrix, painted matt black to give maximum thermal transfer, covered it with transparent roof plastic to avoid heat loss to surrounding air, and added a water pump. The pool pump delivers 60 litres of water per minute, and the exit temperature of the water from the system on a warm sunny day is at least 1 degree Celsius higher than the input.

So let’s do the math

Amount of heat transferred with the DIY solar pool heating = mass x change in temperature x specific heat

q = m(DT)Cp

Where:- q= quantity of heat m= mass DT = change in temperature Cp= Specific Heat

In SI units we should use grams, metres and seconds.

The volume of water per second is 1 litre, which has a mass of 1000 g. The specific heat of water = 4.186 per gram Change in temp = 1C

Therefore q = 1000 x 1 x 4.186= 4186 joules

A joule is defined as 1 watt of energy dissipated over 1 second. We’re dealing in seconds, therefore the heat energy is equivalent to 4186 watt

In excess of 4kW of heat is continuously added by the DIY solar pool heating – a nice little bonus – leave that on for 6 hours a day and it makes a difference.

And more?

With a swimming pool cover and a DIY solar pool heating system, the swimming period can be extended by three or four weeks at the start of the season and a similar period at the end – a nice little extension. What more could you wish for…

Okay, the DIY solar pool heating works … Now what inexpensive mod can I do next?

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Types of Fraud – Your Must-Know GuideHeadache Symptoms – What Everybody Ought to KnowHow to Handle Diet and Arthritis – Chasing the Cure10 Free Writing Tips To Jump-Start Your Book

Note: If you cannot see the code or if you think anything is missing (broken link), just contact me at forchatrans@yahoo.com. That is, contact me for the slightest problem you have about what has been typed.

Introduction
Any information that you have in a grid form should be put in a table. An example of such information is the marks of students during an examination. This is an illustration of the arrangement of such marks:

            History  Math  Geography
John        75         60          70       
Peter       50         55           80
Mary       54         62           73

In this example there are four rows and four columns. The first row has texts. The first column also has texts. A table can be made up of any number of rows and columns. Each item (word or number) above is said to be in a cell. So a table is made up of cells. Each cell can take numbers or text or both numbers and text.

In this tutorial series, you should try all the code samples to really appreciate what is going on.

Cells
A table is made up of cells. The following example shows how the cells can be identified:

Cell00 Cell01 Cell02 Cell03
Cell10 Cell11 Cell12 Cell13
Cell20 Cell21 Cell22 Cell23
Cell30 Cell31 Cell32 Cell33

This cell arrangement would receive the table of marks above. The number of rows here are the same number of rows above; and the number of columns here are the same number of columns above. In computing, counting begins from zero (not one). There are four rows in this arrangement. The rows are identified as row 0, row 1, row 2, and row 3. The columns are identified as column 0, column 1, column 2 and column 3. You do not have row 4 and column 4 here, since counting in computing begins from zero.

Each cell identifier above begins with the word “Cell” followed by two digits. The first digit is the row number and the second digit is the column number. Fitting the above table of marks into the cell arrangement, nothing would go into Cell00, “History” would go into Cell01; “Math” would go into Cell02, “John” would go into Cell10, “75″ would go into Cell11, and “60″ would go into Cell12, and so on, until “73″ would go into Cell33.

The Code
In this section, we see the tags used to define an XHTML table. The table element contains other elements. The table of marks in the introduction above, would fit into the following table element (see explanation below):

    <table>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td> </td><td>History</td><td>Math</td><td>Geography</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>John</td><td>75</td><td>60</td><td>70</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Peter</td><td>50</td><td>55</td><td>80</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Mary</td><td>54</td><td>62</td><td>73</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>

The TABLE element above has what is called the TBODY (table body) element; it has TR (table row) elements, and TD (table data) elements. The TD element contains the item you see at the browser. The table tag name is “table” in lower case; the table body tag name is “tbody” in lower case; the row tag name is “tr” in lower case and the table data tag name is “td” in lower case. Each of these elements has a start and end tag.

There is only one table, so there is only one table element. There are four rows in the table, so there are four TR elements. Note that there are no column elements. Columns are defined as you place TD elements as content for the TR element. There are four columns, so each TR element has four TD elements. Each item in the table of marks at the introduction above is content to a TD element.

You must have noticed the content, “ ” in the TD element of cell00. “ ” is the character entity for a space (pressing spacebar key once).  In theory, no TD element should be left without content. Note that we did not have to put any item in cell00. In theory, if you leave a TD element without content, the TD element will collapse; this means that at the browser, you will not see the area occupied by the TD element. So in theory, any TD element without content must have, “ ”. In this way TD elements without content will have the area of one character space at the browser. In practice, if in a row or column, you have “ ” in one of the TD elements and the rest of the TD elements in the row or column do not have any content, then all the cells in the row or column will display a one-space character area at the browser.

Now, try the above code with the following XHTML document:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN”

“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <table>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td> </td><td>History</td><td>Math</td><td>Geography</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>John</td><td>75</td><td>60</td><td>70</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Peter</td><td>50</td><td>55</td><td>80</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Mary</td><td>54</td><td>62</td><td>73</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

The TH element
In the above table, you may want to have the items for the first row (History, Math, etc.) and the items for the first column (John, Peter, etc.) automatically bolded. To achieve this, replaces the TD elements for the first row and column with the TH elements. The syntax for the TH element is

                 <th>Content</th>

Here, tag name is in lower case; start and end tags are required. Try the following code that has the replacement:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN”

“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <table>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <th> </th><th>History</th><th>Math</th><th>Geography</th>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>John</th><td>75</td><td>60</td><td>70</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Peter</th><td>50</td><td>55</td><td>80</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Mary</th><td>54</td><td>62</td><td>73</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

Wow, table designing is not as difficult as some thought. It is actually easy. Read on.

Border
You can separate all the cells at the browser with border. To achieve this, just add the attribute, border in the start tag of the table element as follows:

    <table border>

The border attribute can optionally take a value. Here it does not take a value. Modify the start TABLE tag in the above code with the border attribute and redisplay the XHTML document (in your browser); avoid making a mistake, because if you make a mistake, you either will not see any table at all, or you will see scattered text.

Cell Spacing and Cell Padding
Cell spacing is the space between cells. Cell padding is the space between cell content and its borders. You can control the amount of cell spacing and cell padding you want. To do this, use the cellspacing and cellpadding attributes correspondingly. You do not have to use both attributes in a table. If you do not use any of these attributes, the browser chooses a value for you, as in the above XHTML document. If you want a cell spacing of 8 pixels you would add the following to the table start tag:

              cellspacing=”8″

A pixel is the size of the smallest dot of the screen. The cellpadding attribute is similarly declared and assigned. In the following code, you have a cell spacing of 8 pixels and a cell padding of 8 pixels. Try the code.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN”

“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <table border cellspacing=”8″ cellpadding=”8″>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <th> </th><th>History</th><th>Math</th><th>Geography</th>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>John</th><td>75</td><td>60</td><td>70</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Peter</th><td>50</td><td>55</td><td>80</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Mary</th><td>54</td><td>62</td><td>73</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

Row Span and Column Span
You may want to join more than one cell in a row (column spanning) to put an item that is horizontally long. If you want to join two such cells, you use the colspan attribute with the value, 2. You put this attribute in the start tag of the first of the two TD elements; then you omit the next TD element. Try the following code, which spans Cell21 and Cell22.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN”

“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <table border>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell00</td><td>Cell01</td><td>Cell02</td><td>Cell03</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell10</td><td>Cell11</td><td>Cell12</td><td>Cell13</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell20</td><td colspan=”2″>Long Cell21</td><td>Cell23</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell30</td><td>Cell31</td><td>Cell32</td><td>Cell33</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

Note that the TD element (and its content) for Cell22 in the code is omitted. For this example, we say two columns have been spanned; actually two cells have been spanned in a row.

To span a number of columns, which means spanning a number of cells in a row, omit the number of TD elements to be spanned in the row, except one. In the one TD element, go to the start tag and add the colspan attribute. For the value of this attribute, type the number of cells spanned. Note the colspan attribute in the above example. The syntax for the colspan attribute is

                 colspan=”number”

Let us now look at row spanning. You may want to join more than one cell in a column (row spanning) to put an item that is vertically long. If you want to join two such cells, you use the rowspan attribute with the value, 2. You put this attribute in the start tag of the first of the two TD elements; then you omit the next TD element. Note here that the two TD elements have to be in different rows but in the same column. Try the following code, which spans Cell02 and Cell12. There is no column element as we have the row element, so in your code, you have to figure out the cells that are in the same column.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <table border>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell00</td><td>Cell01</td><td rowspan=”2″>Long <br Cell02</td><td>Cell03</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell10</td><td>Cell11</td><td>Cell13</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell20</td><td>Cell21</td><td>Cell22</td><td>Cell23</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell30</td><td>Cell31</td><td>Cell32</td><td>Cell33</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

Note that the TD element (and its content) for Cell02 in the code is omitted. For this example, we say two rows have been spanned.

To span a number of rows, which means spanning a number of cells in a column, omit the number of TD elements to be spanned in the column, except one. In the one TD element, go to the start tag and add the rowspan attribute. For the value of this attribute, type the number of cells spanned. Note the rowspan attribute in the above example. The syntax for the rowspan attribute is

                 rowspan=”number”

Cell Width
You can give a cell a width in pixels. To achieve this you use the width attribute. The browser always gives the same width for all the cells in a column. So if you give different widths for different cells in the same column, the browser would not know what to do. Now you can indirectly give the width of a column by giving the first cell in the column a width value. The browser will use this width value as the width of the column. The syntax for the width attribute is

                  width=”number”

In the following code the second column has a width of 100 pixels. Try it.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN”

“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <table border>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell00</td><td width=”100″>Cell01</td><td>Cell02</td><td>Cell03</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell10</td><td>Cell11</td><td>Cell12</td><td>Cell13</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell20</td><td>Cell21</td><td>Cell22</td><td>Cell23</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Cell30</td><td>Cell31</td><td>Cell32</td><td>Cell33</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

If you do not give any cell a width value, the browser uses the width of the widest content in the column as the width for contents of all the cells in the column.

We have covered the basics of XHTML table. You can imagine your own tables; design and try them. Avoid making mistakes in your code. If you make a mistake, you may not see any tables at all, or you may see scattered text.

We take a break here and continue in the next part of the series with a different topic.

Chrys

To arrive at any of the parts of this series, just type the corresponding title below in the Search Box of this page and click Search (use menu if available):

Getting Started with XHTML
XHTML Elements for Beginners
XHTML Elements
XHTML Tags and Attributes
Formatting Text in XHTML
XHTML Character Entities
XHTML Hyperlink Basics
XHTML Images
XHTML Lists
XHTML Style Attribute
XHTML Colors
XHTML SPAN and DIV Elements
Inline and Block-Level Elements
XHTML Table Basics
XHTML Basic Input Controls
Basics of XHTML Form Controls
Designing an XHTML Form
Guide to XHTML Layout in Containing Blocks
Hosting your Web Site
 

Ordered Lists
The XHTML element for an ordered list is the OL element. OL stands for Ordered List. Imagine you have a list of three school subjects: Geography, History, and English Language. Your ordered list would be as follows:

<ol>
    <li>Geography</li>
    <li>History</li>
    <li>English Language</li>
</ol>

The OL element consists of a number of another element called the LI element. LI stands for List. Each list item is actually the content of an LI element. The start and end tags for the OL element are required (must be present). The start and end tags of each LI element are also required (must be present). Remember, in XHTML for any double tag element, the start and end tags are always required. The tag manes must be in lower case.

On the display (web page), you would have something like:

1. Geography
2. History
3. English Language

As you can see the list items are ordered (numbered).

Unordered List
These are lists, which are not numbered. In this case, on the display, each list item is preceded by a bullet (hyphen). For the above three subjects you would have the following code:

<ul>
    <li>Geography</li>
    <li>History</li>
    <li>English Language</li>
</ul>

The difference between this code and the one before is that instead of ‘ol’ you have ‘ul’, for the outermost tags. ul stands for Unordered List. Again, as with all XHTML double tag elements, the start and end tags are required (must be present). On the display, for the above code, you would have something like

– Geography
– History
– English Language

Note the bullet in front of each list item.

With ordered list it is possible to determine whether the numbers will 1, 2, 3, 4, etc or A, B, C, etc or i, ii, iii, iv, etc. and so on. However this topic is best treated today, under Cascaded Style Sheet. With unordered list, it is possible to determine the type of bullets you want; it is possible to determine whether your bullets will be square dots, round dots, small circles, etc. Again, this topic is best treated today, under Cascaded Style Sheet (CSS). I intend to write a series on CSS, so just be patient.

Definition Lists
You may have a list, which is made up of terms with their descriptions. On the display you may have something like:

Term One
description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one
Term Two
description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two
Term Three
description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three

The content of the definition list element consists of two other elements in pairs. One element of the pair takes care of the definition term; the other takes care of the definition description. The tag name of the Definition List element is, ‘dl’; that for the Definition Term is ‘dt’; and that for the Definition Description is ‘dd’. Without content, this is how you would have the DL element:
<dl>
    <dt>
    </dt>
        <dd>
        </dd>
    <dt>
    </dt>
        <dd>
        </dd>
</dl>

The above code should have two terms with two corresponding descriptions. On the display, by default, the description is indented to the right relative to the term. These three elements are shown in code in the illustration below.

Illustration
The following code illustrates all what we have learned in this part of the series. You can save the code as an XHTML file and then open (double click) it in a browser. The code ends with the “</html>” tag.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
    <head>
        <title>
            Products
        </title>
    </head>
    <body>
<h3>Ordered List of Subjects</h3>
<ol>
    <li>Geography</li>
    <li>History</li>
    <li>English Language</li>
</ol>
<h3>Unordered List of Subjects</h3>
<ul>
    <li>Geography</li>
    <li>History</li>
    <li>English Language</li>
</ul>
<h3>Example of a Definition List</h3>
<dl>
<dt>
Term One
</dt>
<dd>
Description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one description of term one
</dd>
<dt>
Term Two
</dt>
<dd>
Description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two description of term two
</dd>
<dt>
Term Three
</dt>
<dd>
Description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three description of term three
</dd>
</dl>
    </body>
</html>

More on List Content
The li, dt or dd content must not only be text. It can be other XHTML elements. It can be a hyperlink, for example. These three elements can have attributes (in the start tag). However, you do not always need the attributes, so I will not discus them in this series.

Wow, the tutorials are beginning to yield results. If you have tried the code in the illustration above, then you would start having the feeling of what XHTML can do.

We can take a break here. We continue on the next part of the series.

Chrys

To arrive at any of the parts of this series, just type the corresponding title below in the Search Box of this page and click Search (use menu if available):

Getting Started with XHTML
XHTML Elements for Beginners
XHTML Elements
XHTML Tags and Attributes
Formatting Text in XHTML
XHTML Character Entities
XHTML Hyperlink Basics
XHTML Images
XHTML Lists
XHTML Style Attribute
XHTML Colors
XHTML SPAN and DIV Elements
Inline and Block-Level Elements
XHTML Table Basics
XHTML Basic Input Controls
Basics of XHTML Form Controls
Designing an XHTML Form
Guide to XHTML Layout in Containing Blocks
Hosting your Web Site
 

Introduction
Consider the following paragraph element:

<p>In mathematics the < symbol is often used.</p>

Note that you have the Less Than sign < inside the content of the paragraph. This less than sign is the open angle bracket. The open angle bracket begins a tag in your text editor. The browser uses this rule to know the beginning of the tag. If we have the < sign in the content of the paragraph element, the browser might consider it as the beginning of a tag. As you can see, this would cause confusion. So if you want the < sign to appear as content in your paragraph, you have to use what is called an entity. You have to use either, &lt or $ #60 in your text editor. So, in your code (text editor), you would type the above paragraph as either

             <p>In mathematics the < symbol is often used.</p>

or

              <p>In mathematics the < symbol is often used.</p>

and your browser will display the following:

                In mathematics the < symbol is often used.

Interpreting Character Entities
We now know that

     <    means    <

and

    <    also means     <

An entity is code used in text in place of a character (symbol) that has a special meaning in XHTML. A character entity has three parts. It begins with &. When the browser sees ‘&’, it knows that it is dealing with an entity. The second part is either a name or the # sign and a number. ‘lt’ above in the first entity is a name. ‘lt’ stands for “less than”. Even though it is an abbreviation, it is considered as a name in XHTML.

The second part of the entity has to be a name or # and a number. For the Less Than sign if you do not want the second part to be a name, you have to use, “”. Whether, you have used the name or the # and a number, the last part, is a semicolon, that is ‘;’

Note: it is easier to remember the entities (e.g <) that have names, than the entities (e.g. ), that have numbers.

Wow, when I started learning programming, I found topics like this interesting. I hope you find it interesting. Let us continue.

Special Characters
Yes, entities are to be type when you want special characters. In this section, we look at some of the special characters and why they are special.

The reason they are special is simple. Remember, when we talked about attributes; we said that the attribute value should be in double or single quotes. As you can see, quotes are used to identify attribute values. When you type in your text editor, you type content (text), tags and attributes. When the browser receives what you have typed, it has to differentiate between the contents (text) and tags with attributes. So if in your content, you typed a quote, the browser would not be able to differentiate between that and the delimiter (beginning or end) of an attribute value.

Here are the most common character entities:

‘ or ‘ means apostrophe, that is ‘
” or ” means quotation mark, that is “
< or < means the Less Than Sign, that is <
> or > means the Greater Than Sign, that is >
  or   means non-breaking space
& or & means ampersand, that is &

Some other commonly used character entities are:

¢ or ¢ means cent.
£ or £ means pound
¥ or ¥ means yen
§ or § means section
© or © means copyright
® or ® means registered trademark
× or × means multiplication
÷ or ÷ means division

Non-Breaking Space
With a lot of software (word processor, Text Editor), when you type the spacebar key, you create a space. With the browser and XHTML, that space can be represented by an entity. This entity is, “ ” In XHTML, Non-Breaking is abbreviated to “nb” and Space is abbreviated to “sp”. So you have the entity, “ ”. We saw previously that when you press the spacebar continuously, several times, when designing your web page with your text editor, the browser reduces the number of spaces to one. However, if instead of pressing the spacebar you use the entity, “ ”, the browser will produce a space in place of that entity. So if you want five consecutive spaces, just use this entity five times consecutively. In the following code, the browser will precede the text with five spaces.

<body>
     Love is good.
</body>

In the following code, the browser will precede the text with four spaces:

<body>
    This is it.
</body>

Here, the first space is created by the presence of an entity. Only one space can be created by the spacebar key, and the second space is created by the spacebar key. The third space is created by the presence of the entity. The fourth space is created by the spacebar.

It is good we summaries all what we have learned about the space at this point: Within any element, if you want one space, use the spacebar key. Within any element, if you want more than one consecutive spaces, use the “ ” entity element. However, within the PRE element, if you want more than one consecutive space, use the spacebar key.

Browsers and Entities
With some browsers, if you type a special character (e.g <) instead of its entity, the browser might still display the character as you expected. However, avoid this practice, as you do not know the conditions under which browsers would display a special character, when it is typed directly and not its entity is typed.

The question you would ask here is, “Would it not be tedious to be typing the entities”. The best way to solve this problem is to get use to typing them.
 
And that is it. In this part of the series, we have learned that special characters have to be represented by entities. We have seen a good number of the special characters and their corresponding entities.

Rendezvous in the next part of the series.

Chrys

To arrive at any of the parts of this series, just type the corresponding title below in the Search Box of this page and click Search (use menu if available):

Getting Started with XHTML
XHTML Elements for Beginners
XHTML Elements
XHTML Tags and Attributes
Formatting Text in XHTML
XHTML Character Entities
XHTML Hyperlink Basics
XHTML Images
XHTML Lists
XHTML Style Attribute
XHTML Colors
XHTML SPAN and DIV Elements
Inline and Block-Level Elements
XHTML Table Basics
XHTML Basic Input Controls
Basics of XHTML Form Controls
Designing an XHTML Form
Guide to XHTML Layout in Containing Blocks
Hosting your Web Site
 

XHTML stands for Extensible HyperText Markup Language. Do not worry much about this vocabulary for now.

In these articles there will be code samples that you can try. At the end of this part of the series you will see how to test or try code.

Who needs to learn XHTML?
If you are good in your word processor (e.g. Microsoft Word), then XHTML is something you should learn next. You do not have to be good in mathematics to understand XHTML. If you are a writer (e.g. poem) for the Internet, then knowing XHTML is an advantage, because with it you can format your article the way you want for the Internet. If you want to be a web designer, then, today, XHTML is the language to start with.

The Web Page
What you are reading now is probably being displayed on a web page. You need to know the meaning of a web page in order to use the Internet.

A web page has three important bars at the top. The position of these bars can be change by the some experience browser user. These bars are, the Menu Bar, the Tool Bar and the Address bar. The Address bar is what interests us in this part of the series.  Each web document (web page) on the Internet has an address. An example is “http://www.yahoo.com”; another example is “www.google.com”. The Address Bar has what is called the Go Button on its right. When you type an address in the address bar and click Go (the Go Button), the web document (web page) will be displayed on your screen (it might take some time to load). The web page appears below the bars of your browser.

The menu bar begins with the buttons, File, Edit, View, etc. The tool bar has certain buttons like the Back Button and the Reload (Refresh) Button. When you click the Back button, you see the web page you were previously viewing. When the browser is taking too long to display (load) the web page, you can click the Reload Button, to attempt fast and complete redisplay of the page.

Tags
The code of a web page that has no content would have as a minimum, the following:

<html>
    <head>
    </head>
    <body>
    </body>
</html>

Anything between a pair of angle brackets is called a tag. <html> is a tag. </head> is also a tag. The above code consists of tags.

Many tags exist in pairs while some tags exist as single items (not in pairs). All the tags in the above code exist in pairs. These are the pairs:

<html>
</html>

    <head>
    </head>

    <body>
    </body>

Each pair of tags consists of the Start Tag and the End Tag. After the opened angle bracket, the first thing you see for the end tag, is the forward slash, ‘/’. There are three pairs of tags above. Let us look at them again. In the pair, “<html> </html>”, <html> is the start tag and </html> is the end tag. This particular pairs of tags are used to begin and end the web document (web page). Notice that the other two pairs of tags are included inside these <html> </html> tags.

The <head> </head> pair holds elements that are useful to the web page but are not displayed by the browser. These elements are typed between this pair of tags. The <body> </body> pair contains elements that are displayed on the screen (at the browser). All the elements you see on the screen are type in the code between the <body> </body> pair of tags.

A Simple Web Page
In this section, we shall design a simple web page. All the page will display is,

Hello World!

So the content of the page will be “Hello World!”. The page will have a title. The title of the will be,

Simple

Now the tile of a web page appears in the Title Bar of your browser. This is the first bar at the top of your browser. Whenever, your browser displays a new web page, the title of that page appears in the title bar of your browser. We shall come back to this title issue. Let us first of all look at the requirements, you need.

Web Page Design Requirements
You need:
– A computer with its operating system running.
– A Text Editor, e.g. Notepad.
– A browser installed in your computer.

I personally have the following browsers: Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla Firefox 2, Netscape 8, Opera 9 and Safari 3. Everything I give you in this series, will work with these browsers and their later versions. I got some of the above browsers free from the Internet. The purpose of the browser is to display your page after you have finished your design work. You type the code in your text editor such as Notepad. A text editor is word processor in its simplest form. 

In order for you to understand this series, you need to know how to use the computer and the Internet.

Let us begin. Open your text editor and type the following:

<html>
    <head>
        <title>
            Simple
        </title>
    </head>
    <body>
        Hello World!
    </body>
</html>

Let us look at the above code. The start and end tags, <html> </html> for the document are there.  The pair of HEAD tags, <head> </head> is there. The pair of BODY tags, <body> </body> is there.

Now, our content is the text “Hello World”. It is in between the pair of BODY tags.

We said our title would be the text, “Simple”. I want you to note that in between the pair of HEAD tags is the pair of tags, <title> </title>. The pair of BODY tags is called the BODY Tags; the pair of HEAD tags is called the HEAD Tags; and so the pair of tags, <title> </title> is called, TITLE tags. This pair of TITLE tags holds the title of your page.

You can describe the content of your web page as the Body of the page. In other words, you can describe what you see at the browser below the browser bars as, the BODY of the web page. Anything that is in between the BODY tags is what you see as content on your web page (browser). Our only content is “Hello World!”, so it is all we have in between the Body tags, in our simple web page code above.

Our title is “Simple”. This is what we have in between Title tags. Any text, you have in between the title tags appear in the Title Bar of your browser, when the page is displayed.

After typing the above code, save the file with the name, simple.html, in any directory (folder) of your choice, in your hard disk.

Now open the directory and double click the file simple.html. Your browser would open and display the file. You should see as content for the web page, “Hello World!”.

True XHTML
The above code is not true XHTML. Open the file simple.html in your text editor again. Re-type the above code (delete the previous) as follows (you can copy from here and paste):

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
    <head>
        <title>
            Simple
        </title>
    </head>
    <body>
        Hello World!
    </body>
</html>

Save the above file with the same name, simple.html. Double click the file in its directory. The browser will open displaying the file. You should still see the same content, “Hello World!”. The re-typed code is true XHTML. Let us look at what is in true XHTML.

The first line is:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

For now do not worry about what this means. Just know that you need to begin your code with it. The second line is,

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>

Again do not worry too much about it for now. Just know that this should be your second line. The above two lines are single tag elements as opposed to the double tag elements we have been seeing.

The third line is

<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>

This third line, is the start tag of the web page document. According to the specifications of XHTML, the start tag of the document is this line and no not, <html> as we had above. All our documents in this series will begin with the above three lines. The end tag for the web page document is still, </html>. The rest of the new code is the same as the previous. So the display is the same as before: same content, same title.

Extension of the XHTML file
Your XHTML file name must end with “.html” or “.htm”. For the above code, the file name ends with “.html”.

Wow, we have seen a lot of exiting things. There is more to be seen. Let us conclude, take a break and continue in the next part of the series.

Conclusion
We have seen that an XHTML code is made up of tags. Some tags exist in pairs while others exist as single tags. For tags that exist in pairs such as the BODY tag, you can include content in between the pairs of tags. This content can be text or other tags (with their own contents). The extension of an XHTML file must be “.html” or “.htm”.

Remember, you can try all the code in this series.

Chrys

To arrive at any of the parts of this series, just type the corresponding title below in the Search Box of this page and click Search (use menu if available):

Getting Started with XHTML
XHTML Elements for Beginners
XHTML Elements
XHTML Tags and Attributes
Formatting Text in XHTML
XHTML Character Entities
XHTML Hyperlink Basics
XHTML Images
XHTML Lists
XHTML Style Attribute
XHTML Colors
XHTML SPAN and DIV Elements
Inline and Block-Level Elements
XHTML Table Basics
XHTML Basic Input Controls
Basics of XHTML Form Controls
Designing an XHTML Form
Guide to XHTML Layout in Containing Blocks
Hosting your Web Site
 

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Ok, you stop there, now I am going to tell you about my real story on how to make money on the internet by solving my perfectionist problem. After I solved my perfectionist problem, I tried to analyze the opportunity in a proper way (not too much information and not too much time to spend), I made a decision (limit my time) to take the opportunity by spending few bucks (I got only .9 in my Paypal account but I bought that opportunity for ).

I did some actions, I learnt the guide on how to make money on the internet, at the beginning I was so excited about the idea but when I clicked one of their recommended links, guess what, it was a broken link. The company of the site was for sale. The opportunity was not working anymore. I failed.

You are probably glad that you didn’t buy that opportunity and said to me “I told you to be more careful! Now you lose your money right?” My answer is “Yes, you are right, I lose my money but wait, this not the end of the story”

You need to realize that I collected that .9 with blood and tears (well, I am not a killer, it is only an expression). And buying that opportunity was my first transaction online. I had so many failures to make money on the internet in the past. Can you imagine how I felt at that moment? Maybe you guess “do you want to kill someone to take your back?”

Maybe, but no, that’s kidding and to make it short, I finally had a new Idea based on their idea on how to make 0 in less than 3 days. Wow amazing, I never get that idea if I don’t buy that opportunity and fail (That is the fact that you should remember). So, my failure was my doorway to my next higher level of success in life and now I have a higher confidence level to take more risk to make money on the internet. Of course now I am happy because my is not only gone but it is a good investment.  

Interested in my idea? Keep on reading my articles (especially about paying the price to make money on the internet) and soon you will find out how it works.