Motherboard

A motherboard is the central printed circuit board (PCB) in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, while providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the main board, system board, or, on Apple computers, the logic board.It is also sometimes casually shortened to mobo (Dell XPS M1210 Battery) .

History

Prior to the advent of the microprocessor, a computer was usually built in a card-cage case or mainframe with components connected by a backplaneconsisting of a set of slots themselves connected with wires; in very old designs the wires were discrete connections between card connector pins, but printed circuit boards soon became the standard practice. The Central Processing Unit, memory and peripherals were housed on individual printed circuit boards which plugged into the backplane (Dell Studio XPS 1340 Battery) .

During the late 1980s and 1990s, it became economical to move an increasing number of peripheral functions onto the motherboard (see below). In the late 1980s, motherboards began to include single ICs (called Super I/O chips) capable of supporting a set of low-speed peripherals: keyboard, mouse, floppy disk drive, serial ports, and parallel ports (Dell Studio XPS 1640 Battery) .

As of the late 1990s, many personal computer motherboards supported a full range of audio, video, storage, and networking functions without the need for any expansion cards at all; higher-end systems for 3D gaming and computer graphics typically retained only the graphics card as a separate component (Dell Vostro 1710 Battery) .

The early pioneers of motherboard manufacturing were Michronics, Mylex, AMI, DTK, Hauppauge, Orchid Technology, Elitegroup, DFI, and a number of Taiwan-based manufacturers.

The most popular computers such as the Apple II and IBM PC had published schematic diagrams and other documentation which permitted rapid reverse-engineering and third-party replacement motherboards (ASUS EEE PC900 battery) .

Usually intended for building new computers compatible with the exemplars, many motherboards offered additional performance or other features and were used to upgrade the manufacturer's original equipment.

The term mainboard is archaically applied to devices with a single board and no additional expansions or capability (Dell RM791 battery) .

In modern terms this would includeembedded systems and controlling boards in televisions, washing machines, etc. A motherboard specifically refers to a printed circuit with the capability to add/extend its performance.

Overview

A motherboard, like a backplane, provides the electrical connections by which the other components of the system communicate, but unlike a backplane, it also connects the central processing unit and hosts other subsystems and devices (Sony VGP-BPS13 battery) .

A typical desktop computer has its microprocessor, main memory, and other essential components connected to the motherboard. Other components such as external storage, controllers for video display and sound, and peripheral devices may be attached to the motherboard as plug-in cards or via cables, although in modern computers it is increasingly common to integrate some of these peripherals into the motherboard itself (Sony VGP-BPL9 battery) .

An important component of a motherboard is the microprocessor's supporting chipset, which provides the supporting interfaces between the CPU and the various buses and external components. This chipset determines, to an extent, the features and capabilities of the motherboard (Sony VGP-BPL11 battery) .

Modern motherboards include, at a minimum:

• sockets (or slots) in which one or more microprocessors may be installed
• slots into which the system's main memory is to be installed (typically in the form of DIMM modules containing DRAM chips)
• a chipset which forms an interface between the CPU's front-side bus, main memory, and peripheral buses (Sony VGP-BPL15 battery)
• non-volatile memory chips (usually Flash ROM in modern motherboards) containing the system's firmware or BIOS
• a clock generator which produces the system clock signal to synchronize the various components
• slots for expansion cards (these interface to the system via the buses supported by the chipset)
• power connectors, which receive electrical power from the computer power supply and distribute it to the CPU, chipset, main memory, and expansion cards (Dell Inspiron E1505 battery) .

The Octek Jaguar V motherboard from 1993.This board has 6 ISA slots but few onboard peripherals, as evidenced by the lack of external connectors.

Additionally, nearly all motherboards include logic and connectors to support commonly used input devices, such as PS/2 connectors for a mouse and keyboard (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .

Early personal computers such as the Apple II or IBM PC included only this minimal peripheral support on the motherboard. Occasionally video interface hardware was also integrated into the motherboard; for example, on the Apple II and rarely on IBM-compatible computers such as the IBM PC Jr. Additional peripherals such as disk controllers and serial ports were provided as expansion cards (HP Pavilion dv6000 Battery) .

Given the high thermal design power of high-speed computer CPUs and components, modern motherboards nearly always include heat sinks and mounting points for fans to dissipate excess heat.

CPU sockets

Main article: CPU socket

A CPU socket or slot is an electrical component that attaches to a printed circuit board (PCB) and is designed to house a CPU (also called a microprocessor) (Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31S battery) .

It is a special type of integrated circuit socket designed for very high pin counts. A CPU socket provides many functions, including a physical structure to support the CPU, support for a heat sink, facilitating replacement (as well as reducing cost), and most importantly, forming an electrical interface both with the CPU and the PCB (Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31S battery) .

CPU sockets can most often be found in most desktop and server computers (laptops typically use surface mount CPUs), particularly those based on the Intel x86 architecture on the motherboard. A CPU socket type and motherboard chipset must support the CPU series and speed.

Integrated peripherals

Block diagram of a modern motherboard, which supports many on-board peripheral functions as well as several expansion slots (Hp pavilion dv6000 battery) .

With the steadily declining costs and size of integrated circuits, it is now possible to include support for many peripherals on the motherboard. By combining many functions on one PCB, the physical size and total cost of the system may be reduced; highly integrated motherboards are thus especially popular in small form factor and budget computers (Sony VGN-FW11S Battery) .

For example, the ECS RS485M-M, a typical modern budget motherboard for computers based on AMD processors, has on-board support for a very large range of peripherals (Sony VGP-BPS13A/B Battery) :

• disk controllers for a floppy disk drive, up to 2 PATA drives, and up to 6 SATA drives (including RAID 0/1 support)
• integrated ATI Radeon graphics controller supporting 2D and 3D graphics, with VGA and TV output
• integrated sound card supporting 8-channel (7.1) audio and S/PDIF output
• Fast Ethernet network controller for 10/100 Mbit networking (Sony VGP-BPS13B/B Battery)
• USB 2.0 controller supporting up to 12 USB ports
• IrDA controller for infrared data communication (e.g. with an IrDA-enabled cellular phone or printer)
• temperature, voltage, and fan-speed sensors that allow software to monitor the health of computer components

Expansion cards to support all of these functions would have cost hundreds of dollars even a decade ago; however, as of April 2007 such highly integrated motherboards are available for as little as $30 in the USA (Toshiba Satellite P10 Battery) .

Peripheral card slots

A typical motherboard of 2009 will have a different number of connections depending on its standard.

A standard ATX motherboard will typically have one PCI-E 16x connection for a graphics card, two conventional PCI slots for various expansion cards, and one PCI-E 1x (which will eventually supersede PCI) (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ210CE Battery) .

A standard EATX motherboard will have one PCI-E 16x connection for a graphics card, and a varying number of PCI and PCI-E 1x slots. It can sometimes also have a PCI-E 4x slot. (This varies between brands and models.)

Some motherboards have two PCI-E 16x slots, to allow more than 2 monitors without special hardware, or use a special graphics technology called SLI(for Nvidia) and Crossfire (for ATI) (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ38M Battery) .

These allow 2 graphics cards to be linked together, to allow better performance in intensive graphical computing tasks, such as gaming and video editing.

As of 2007, virtually all motherboards come with at least four USB ports on the rear, with at least 2 connections on the board internally for wiring additional front ports that may be built into the computer's case (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31z Battery) .

Ethernet is also included. This is a standard networking cable for connecting the computer to a network or a modem. A sound chip is always included on the motherboard, to allow sound output without the need for any extra components. This allows computers to be far more multimedia-based than before. Some motherboards have their graphics chip built into the motherboard rather than needing a separate card. A separate card may still be used (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31E Battery) .

Temperature and reliability

Main article: Computer cooling

Motherboards are generally air cooled with heat sinks often mounted on larger chips, such as the Northbridge, in modern motherboards. If the motherboard is not cooled properly, it can cause the computer to crash. Passive cooling, or a single fan mounted on the power supply, was sufficient for many desktop computer CPUs until the late 1990s; since then, most have required CPU fansmounted on their heat sinks, due to rising clock speeds and power consumption (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31J Battery) .

Most motherboards have connectors for additional case fans as well. Newer motherboards have integrated temperature sensors to detect motherboard and CPU temperatures, and controllable fan connectors which the BIOS or operating system can use to regulate fan speed. Some computers (which typically have high-performance microprocessors, large amounts of RAM, and high-performance video cards) use a water-cooling system instead of many fans (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31M Battery) .

Some small form factor computers and home theater PCs designed for quiet and energy-efficient operation boast fan-less designs. This typically requires the use of a low-power CPU, as well as careful layout of the motherboard and other components to allow for heat sink placement (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31B Battery) .

A 2003 study found that some spurious computer crashes and general reliability issues, ranging from screen image distortions to I/O read/write errors, can be attributed not to software or peripheralhardware but to aging capacitors on PC motherboards. Ultimately this was shown to be the result of a faulty electrolyte formulation (SONY VGP-BPS13 Battery) .

For more information on premature capacitor failure on PC motherboards, see capacitor plague.

Motherboards use electrolytic capacitors to filter the DC power distributed around the board. These capacitors age at a temperature-dependent rate, as their water based electrolytes slowly evaporate. This can lead to loss of capacitance and subsequent motherboard malfunctions due to voltage instabilities (Dell Precision M70 Battery) .

While most capacitors are rated for 2000 hours of operation at 105 °C,their expected design life roughly doubles for every 10 °C below this. At 45 °C a lifetime of 15 years can be expected. This appears reasonable for a computer motherboard. However, many manufacturers have delivered substandard capacitors, which significantly reduce life expectancy. Inadequate case cooling and elevated temperatures easily exacerbate this problem. It is possible, but tedious and time-consuming, to find and replace failed capacitors on PC motherboards (Acer Aspire One battery) .

Form factor

Main article: Comparison of computer form factors

microATX form factor motherboard

Motherboards are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes called computer form factor, some of which are specific to individual computer manufacturers (Toshiba Satellite L305 Battery) .

However, the motherboards used in IBM-compatible commodity computers have been standardized to fit various case sizes. As of 2007, most desktop computer motherboards use one of these standard form factors—even those found in Macintosh and Sun computers, which have not traditionally been built from commodity components. The current desktop PC form factor of choice is ATX (Toshiba Satellite M65 battery) .

A case's, motherboard and PSU form factor must all match, though some smaller form factor motherboards of the same family will fit larger cases. For example, an ATX case will usually accommodate a microATX motherboard.

Laptop computers generally use highly integrated, miniaturized and customized motherboards. This is one of the reasons that laptop computers are difficult to upgrade and expensive to repair (Toshiba Satellite T4900 Battery) .

Often the failure of one laptop component requires the replacement of the entire motherboard, which is usually more expensive than a desktop motherboard due to the large number of integrated components.

Bootstrapping using the BIOS

Main article: booting

Motherboards contain some non-volatile memory to initialize the system and load an operating system from some external peripheral device (Toshiba PA3399U-2BRS battery) .

Microcomputers such as the Apple II and IBM PC usedROM chips, mounted in sockets on the motherboard. At power-up, the central processor would load its program counter with the address of the boot ROM and start executing ROM instructions, displaying system information on the screen and running memory checks, which would in turn start loading memory from an external or peripheral device (disk drive) (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .

If none is available, then the computer can perform tasks from other memory stores or display an error message, depending on the model and design of the computer and version of the BIOS.

Most modern motherboard designs use a BIOS, stored in an EEPROM chip soldered to the motherboard, to bootstrap the motherboard (Toshiba Satellite A200 Battery) .

(Socketed BIOS chips are widely used, also.) By booting the motherboard, the memory, circuitry, and peripherals are tested and configured. This process is known as a computer Power-On Self Test (POST) and may include testing some of the following devices:

• floppy drive
• network controller (Toshiba Satellite 1200 Battery)
• CD-ROM drive
• DVD-ROM drive
• SCSI hard drive
• IDE, EIDE, or SATA hard disk
• External USB memory storage device (Toshiba NB100 Battery)

Any of the above devices can be stored with machine code instructions to load an operating system or program.

Chipset

A chipset, PC chipset or chip set refers to a group of integrated circuits, or chips, that are designed to work together. They are usually marketed as a single product (Toshiba Satellite M300 Battery) .

Computers

Diagram of a motherboard chipset

In computing, the term chipset is commonly used to refer to a set of specialized chips on a computer's motherboard or an expansion card. Inpersonal computers the first chipset for the IBM PC AT was the NEAT chipset by Chips and Technologies for the Intel 80286 CPU (Dell INSPIRON 1525 battery) .

Chipsets are the main controllers on the motherboard - they allow the CPU to interface with the various components and expansion cards installed .”

Based on Intel Pentium-class microprocessors, the term chipset often refers to a specific pair of chips on the motherboard: the northbridge and thesouthbridge (Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Battery) .

The northbridge links the CPU to very high-speed devices, especially main memory and graphics controllers, and the southbridge connects to lower-speed peripheral buses (such as PCI or ISA). In many modern chipsets, the southbridge actually contains some on-chip integrated peripherals, such as Ethernet, USB, and audio devices (Dell Latitude D830 Battery) .

A chipset is usually designed to work with a specific family of microprocessors. Because it controls communications between the processor and external devices, the chipset plays a crucial role in determining system performance.

The manufacturer of a chipset often is independent from the manufacturer of the motherboard. Current manufacturers of chipsets for PC-compatiblemotherboards include NVIDIA, AMD, VIA Technologies, SiS, Intel and Broadcom (Dell Studio 1735 Battery) .

Apple computers and Unix workstations from Sun, NeXT, SGI, and others have traditionally used custom-designed chipsets; now that Sun and Apple both have x86 processors in at least some of their lines of products, they have begun to use standard PC chipsets in some of their computers. Some server manufacturers also develop custom chipsets for their products (Dell Latitude D620 Battery) .

In the 1980s, Chips and Technologies, founded by Gordon Campbell, pioneered the manufacturing of chipsets for PC-compatible computers. Computer systems produced since then often share commonly used chipsets, even across widely disparate computing specialties. For example, theNCR 53C9x, a low-cost chipset implementing a SCSI interface to storage devices, could be found in Unix machines such as the MIPS Magnum, embedded devices, and personal computers (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ150E Battery) .

In home computers, game consoles and arcade game hardware of the 1980s and 1990s, the term chipset was used for the custom audio and graphics chips. Examples include the Commodore Amiga's Original Chip Set or SEGA's System 16 chipset (Dell Studio 1555 Battery , Dell Latitude D610 Battery).

Web design

Web design is the practice of creating presentations of content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) that are delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, using a Web browser or other Web-enabled software . The intent of web design is to create a website—a collection of electronic documents andapplications that reside on a Web server/servers. The website may include text, images, sounds and other content, and may be interactive (Dell XPS M1210 Battery) .

Overview

Such elements as text, bit-mapped images (GIFs, JPEGs) and forms can be placed on the page using HTML/XHTML/XML tags. Displaying more complex media (vector graphics, animations, videos, sounds) requires plug-ins such as Adobe Flash, QuickTime, Java run-time environment, etc. Plug-ins are also embedded into web page by using HTML/XHTML tags (Dell Studio XPS 1340 Battery) .

Improvements in browsers' compliance with W3C standards prompted a widespread acceptance and usage of XHTML/XML in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to position and manipulate web page elements and objects. Latest standards and proposals aim at leading to browsers' ability to deliver a wide variety of content and accessibility options to the client possibly without employing plug-ins (Dell Studio XPS 1640 Battery) .

Typically Web pages are classified as static or dynamic:

• Static pages don’t change content and layout with every request unless a human (web master/programmer) manually updates the page. A simple HTML page is an example of static content (Dell Vostro 1710 Battery) .
• Dynamic pages adapt their content and/or appearance depending on end-user’s input/interaction or changes in the computing environment (user, time, database modifications, etc.) Content can be changed on the client side (end-user's computer) by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (Perl, PHP, ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, etc.) (ASUS EEE PC900 battery) . Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

With growing specialization in the information technology field there is a strong tendency to distinguish between web design and Web development. Web design is a kind of graphic design intended for the development and styling of objects of the Internet's information environment to provide them with high-end consumer features and aesthetic qualities (Dell RM791 battery) .
This definition separates Web design from web programming, emphasizing the functional features of a web site, as well as positioning web design as a kind of graphic design. The process of designing web pages, web sites, web applications or multimedia for the Web may utilize multiple disciplines, such as animation, authoring, communication design, corporate identity, graphic design,human-computer interaction, information architecture, interaction design, marketing, photography, search engine optimization and typography (Sony VGP-BPS13 battery) .

• Markup languages (such as HTML, XHTML and XML)
• Style sheet languages (such as CSS and XSL)
• Client-side scripting (such as JavaScript)
• Server-side scripting (such as PHP and ASP)
• Database technologies (such as MySQL and PostgreSQL)
• Multimedia technologies (such as Flash and Silverlight) (Sony VGP-BPL9 battery)

Web pages and websites can be static pages, or can be programmed to be dynamic pages that automatically adapt content or visual appearance depending on a variety of factors, such as input from the end-user, input from the Webmaster or changes in the computing environment (such as the site's associated database having been modified) (Sony VGP-BPL11 battery) .

Accessible Web design

Main article: Web accessibility

To be accessible, Web pages and sites must conform to certain accessibility principles. These accessibility principles are known as the WCAG when talking about content. These can be grouped into the following main areas.

• Use semantic markup that provides a meaningful structure to the document (i.e. Web page) (Sony VGP-BPL15 battery)
• Semantic markup also refers to semantically organizing the web page structure and publishing web services description accordingly so that they can be recognized by other web services on different web pages. Standards for semantic Web are set by IEEE
• Use a valid markup language that conforms to a published DTD or Schema (Dell Inspiron E1505 battery)
• Provide text equivalents for any non-text components (e.g. images, multimedia)
• Use hyperlinks that make sense when read out of context. (e.g. avoid "Click Here")

Website accessibility is also changing as it is impacted by Content Management Systems that allow changes to be made to webpages without the need of obtaining web-based programming language knowledge (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .

It is very important that several different components of Web development and interaction can work together in order for the Web to be accessible to people with disabilities. These components include (HP Pavilion dv6000 Battery) :

• content - the information in a Web page or Web application, including:
  • natural information such as text, images, and sounds
  • code or markup that defines structure, presentation, etc.
• Web browsers, media players, and other "user agents"
• assistive technology, in some cases - screen readers, alternative keyboards, switches, scanning software, etc.
• users' knowledge, experiences, and in some cases, adaptive strategies using the Web (Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31S battery)
• developers - designers, coders, authors, etc., including developers with disabilities and users who contribute content
• authoring tools - software that creates Web sites
• evaluation tools - Web accessibility evaluation tools, HTML validators, CSS validators, etc (Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31S battery) .

History

Tim Berners-Lee published what is considered to be the first website in August 1991.Berners-Lee was the first to combine Internet communication (which had been carrying email and the Usenet for decades) with hypertext (which had also been around for decades, but limited to browsing information stored on a single computer, such as interactive CD-ROM design) (Hp pavilion dv6000 battery) .

Websites are written in amarkup language called HTML, and early versions of HTML were very basic, only giving a website's basic structure (headings and paragraphs), and the ability to link using hypertext. This was new and different from existing forms of communication - users could easily navigate to other pages by following hyperlinks from page to page (Sony VGN-FW11S Battery) .

As the Web and Web design progressed, the markup language changed to become more complex and flexible, giving the ability to add objects like images and tables to a page. Features like tables, which were originally intended to be used to display tabular information, were soon subverted for use as invisible layout devices. With the advent of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), table-based layout is commonly regarded as outdated (Sony VGP-BPS13A/B Battery) .

Database integration technologies such as server-side scripting and design standards like W3C further changed and enhanced the way the Web is made. As times change, websites are changing the code on the inside and visual design on the outside with ever-evolving programs and utilities (Sony VGP-BPS13B/B Battery) .

With the progression of the Web, tens of thousands of Web design companies have been established around the world to serve the growing demand for such work. As with much of the information technology industry, many Web design companies have been established in technology parks in the developing world as well as many Western design companies setting up offices in countries such as India, Romania, and Russia to take advantage of the relatively lower labor rates found in such countries (Toshiba Satellite P10 Battery) .

Website planning

Purposing Web design is a complex, but essential ongoing activity. Before creating and uploading a website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what is needed in the website. Thoroughly considering the audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose and deciding what content will be developed, are extremely important (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ210CE Battery) .

Context

Web design is similar (in a very simplistic way) to traditional print publishing. Every website is an information display container, just as a book; and every Web page is like the page in a book. However, web design uses a framework based on digital code and display technology to construct and maintain an environment to distribute information in multiple formats (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ38M Battery) .

Taken to its fullest potential, web design is undoubtedly the most sophisticated and increasingly complex method to support communication in today's world .

Purpose

It is essential to define the purpose of the website as one of the first steps in the planning process. A purpose statement should show focus based on what the website will accomplish and what the users will get from it (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31z Battery) .

A clearly defined purpose will help the rest of the planning process as the audience is identified and the content of the site is developed. Setting short and long term goals for the website will help make the purpose clear and plan for the future when expansion, modification, and improvement will take place. Setting a goal practices and measurable objectives should be identified to track the progress of the site and determine success (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31E Battery) .

Audience

Defining the audience is a key step in the website planning process. The audience is the group of people who are expected to visit your website – the market being targeted. These people will be viewing the website for a specific reason and it is important to know exactly what they are looking for when they visit the site. A clearly defined purpose or goal of the site as well as an understanding of what visitors want to do or feel when they come to your site will help to identify the target audience (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31J Battery) .

Audience Characteristics

• Information Preferences
• Computer Specifications
• Web Experience

Taking into account the characteristics of the audience will allow an effective website to be created that will deliver the desired content to the target audience (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31M Battery) .

Content

Content evaluation and organization requires that the purpose of the website be clearly defined. Collecting a list of the necessary content then organizing it according to the audience's needs is a key step in website planning. In the process of gathering the content being offered, any items that do not support the defined purpose or accomplish target audience objectives should be removed (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31B Battery) .

It is a good idea to test the content and purpose on a focus group and compare the offerings to the audience needs. The next step is to organize the basic information structure by categorizing the content and organizing it according to user needs. Each category should be named with a concise and descriptive title that will become a link on the website. Planning for the site's content ensures that the wants or needs of the target audience and the purpose of the site will be fulfilled (SONY VGP-BPS13 Battery) .

Compatibility and restrictions

Because of the market share of modern browsers (depending on your target market), the compatibility of your website with the viewers is restricted. For instance, a website that is designed for the majority of websurfers will be limited to the use of valid XHTML 1.0 Strict or older, Cascading Style Sheets Level 1, and 1024x768 display resolution. This is because Internet Explorer is not fully W3Cstandards compliant with the modularity of XHTML 1.1 and the majority of CSS beyond 1 (Dell Precision M70 Battery) .

A target market of more alternative browser (e.g. Firefox, Safari and Opera) users allow for more W3C compliance and thus a greater range of options for a web designer.

Another restriction on webpage design is the use of different image file formats. The majority of users can support GIF, JPEG, and PNG (with restrictions) (Acer Aspire One battery) .

Again Internet Explorer is the major restriction here, not fully supporting PNG's advanced transparency features, resulting in the GIF format still being the most widely used graphic file format for transparent images.

Many website incompatibilities go unnoticed by the designer and unreported by the users. The only way to be certain a website will work on a particular platform is to test it on that platform (Toshiba Satellite L305 Battery) .

Planning documentation

Documentation is used to visually plan the site while taking into account the purpose, audience and content, to design the site structure, content and interactions that are most suitable for the website. Documentation may be considered a prototype for the website – a model which allows the website layout to be reviewed, resulting in suggested changes, improvements and/or enhancements. This review process increases the likelihood of success of the website (Toshiba Satellite M65 battery) .

The first step may involve information architecture in which the content is categorized and the information structure is formulated. The information structure is used to develop a document or visual diagram called a site map. This creates a visual of how the web pages or content will be interconnected, and may help in deciding what content will be placed on what pages (Toshiba Satellite T4900 Battery) .

In addition to planning the structure, the layout and interface of individual pages may be planned using a storyboard. In the process of storyboarding, a record is made of the description, purpose and title of each page in the site, and they are linked together according to the most effective and logical diagram type. Depending on the number of pages required for the website, documentation methods may include using pieces of paper and drawing lines to connect them, or creating the storyboard using computer software (Toshiba PA3399U-2BRS battery) .

Some or all of the individual pages may be designed in greater detail as a website wireframe, a mock up model or comprehensive layout of what the page will actually look like. This is often done in a graphic program, or layout design program. The wireframe has no working functionality, only planning, though it can be used for selling ideas to other web design companies (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .

Website design

Web design is different than traditional print publishing. Every website is an information display container, just as a book is a container; and every web page is like the page in a book. However the end size and shape of the web page is not known to the Web Designer, whereas the print designer will know exactly what size paper he will be printing on. "Design Issues for the World Wide Web" (Toshiba Satellite A200 Battery) .

World Wide Web Consortium. 2009-06-09. Retrieved 2009-06-10.

For the typical web sites, the basic aspects of design are:

• The content: the substance, and information on the site should be relevant to the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with (Toshiba Satellite 1200 Battery) .
• The usability: the site should be user-friendly, with the interface and navigation simple and reliable.
• The appearance: the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency. The style should be professional, appealing and relevant.
• The structure: of the web site as a whole (Toshiba NB100 Battery) .

A web site typically consists of text, images, animation and /or video. The first page of a web site is known as the Home page or Index Page. Some web sites use what is commonly called a Splash Page. Splash pages might include a welcome message, language or region selection, or disclaimer, however search engines, in general, favor web sites that don't do this which has caused these types of pages to fall out of favor (Toshiba Satellite M300 Battery) .

Each web page within a web site is a file which has its own URL. After each web page is created, they are typically linked together using a navigation menu composed ofhyperlinks.

Once a web site is completed, it must be published or uploaded in order to be viewable to the public over the internet. This may be done using an FTP client (Dell INSPIRON 1525 battery) .

Multidisciplinary requirements

Web site design crosses multiple disciplines of multiple information systems, information technology, marketing, and communication design. The web site is an information system whose components are sometimes classified as front-end and back-end. The observable content (e.g. page layout, user interface, graphics, text, audio) is known as the front-end. The back-end comprises the organization and efficiency of the source code, invisible scripted functions, and the server-side components that process the output from the front-end (Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Battery) .

Depending on the size of a Web development project, it may be carried out by a multi-skilled individual (sometimes called a web master), or a project manager may oversee collaborative design between group members with specialized skills.

Issues

By its very nature, web design is conflicted, involving rigid technical conformance and personal creative balance. Rapid technological change complicates acquiring and deploying suitable resources to maintain web presence (Dell Latitude D830 Battery) .

Environment

Layout is a double edged sword: on the one hand, it is the expression of a framework that actively shapes the web designer. On the other hand, as the designer adapts that framework to projects, layout is the means of content delivery. Publishing a web engages communication throughout the production process as well as within the product created (Dell Studio 1735 Battery) .

Publication implies adaptation of culture and content standards. Web design incorporates multiple intersections between many layers of technical and social understanding, demanding creative direction, design element structure, and some form of social organization. Differing goals and methods resolve effectively in successful deployment of education, software and team management during the design process (Dell Latitude D620 Battery) .

However, many competing and evolving platforms and environments challenge acceptance, completion and continuity of every design product.

Collaboration

Early Web design was less integrated with companies’ advertising campaigns, customer transactions, extranets, intranets and social networking (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ150E Battery) .

Web sites were seen largely as static onlinebrochures or database connection points, disconnected from the broader scopes of a business or project. Many Web sites are still disconnected from the broader project scope. As a result, many Web sites are needlessly difficult to use, indirect in their way of communicating, and suffer from a 'disconnected' or ineffective bureaucratic information architecture (Dell Studio 1555 Battery) .

Form versus function

A web developer may pay more attention to how a page looks while neglecting other copywriting and search engine optimization functions such as the readability of text, the ease of navigating the site, or how easily the visitors are going to find the site. As a result, the designers may end up in disputes where some want more decorative graphics at the expense of keyword-rich text, bullet lists, andtext links (Dell Latitude D610 Battery) .

Assuming a false dichotomy that form and function are mutually exclusive overlooks the possibility of integrating multiple disciplines for a collaborative and synergistic solution. In many cases form follows function. Because some graphics serve communication purposes in addition to aesthetics, how well a site works may depend on the graphic design ideas as well as the professional writing considerations (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ11z Battery) .

When using a lot of graphics, or sending a lot of instructions to the end client computer, a web page may load slowly, often irritating the user. This has become less of a problem as the internet has evolved with high-speed internet and the use of vector graphics. However there is still an ongoing engineering challenge to increase bandwidth and an artistic challenge to minimize the amount of graphics and their file sizes (Dell Precision M70 Battery) .

This challenge is compounded since increased bandwidth encourages more graphics with larger file sizes.

Layout

Layout types

Layout refers to the dimensioning of content in a device display, and the delivery of media in a content related stream. Web design layouts result in visual content frameworks: these frameworks can be fixed, they can use units of measure that are relative, or they can provide fluid layout with proportional dimensions (Sony VGN-FW11S Battery) .

The deployment flowchart (a useful tool on any design project) should address content layout. Many units of measure exist, but here are some popular dimension formats:

• Pixel measure results in fixed or static content
• Em measure results in proportional content that is relative to font-size
• Percent measure results in fluid content that shrinks and grows to "fit" display windows (Sony VGN-FW11M Battery)

Proportional, liquid and hybrid layout are also referred to as dynamic design. Hybrid layout incorporates any combination of fixed, proportional or fluid elements within (or pointing to) a single page. The hybrid web design framework is made possible by digital internet conventions generally prescribed by the W3C (HP Pavilion DV4 Battery) .

If any layout does not appear as it should, it is very likely that it does not conform to standard design principles, or that those standards conflict with standard layout elements. Current knowledge of standards is essential to effective hybrid design.

The earliest web pages used fixed layouts without exception (Sony Vaio VGN-FZ61B battery) .

In many business pages fixed layouts are preferred today as they easily contain static tabled information. Fixed layout enforces device display convention, as viewers must set their display to at least a certain width to easily view content. This width can include display of corporate logos, cautions, advertisements and any other target content. Design frameworks for fixed layout may need to include coding for multiple display devices (Hp 520 battery) .

Hybrid design maintains most static content control, but is adapted to textual publishing, and for readers, to conventional (printed) display. Hybrid layouts are generally easy on the eye and are found on most sites that distribute traditional images and text to readers. For some sites, hybrid design makes an otherwise cold text column appear warm and balanced. A good example of hybrid layout isWordpress, where liquid design is now optional, and movie and auditory media is stretching the envelope (HP Pavilion DV7 Battery) .

Fluid design is useful where content is delivered to an 'unknown device' population. Appropriate liquid code displays images, text and spaces proportional to display size. Someone with a handheld can see view and interact with the same content as someone using a large desktop monitor. However, scaling of content for a variety of devices has more recently evolved with modern web browsers, allowing users to see the same layout across all devices (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ Battery) .

Layout concerns

With the onslaught of numerous monitor sizes, "fluid" web sites are becoming less common. The result is that fluid layouts look ... old. In dealing with font layout, even expressed as ems, a static core cannot be escaped and often anchors most page content. However, as new standards are adopted by device manufacturers, viewers notice a wider spectrum of content and a greater interaction between and through content (Dell Vostro 1400 Battery) .

For the World Wide Web Consortium drawing up tomorrows layout conventions, new media types and methods are increasingly in the mix. It is a true double axiom that 'content is all about layout', and 'layout is all about content'. We could say that layout is what designers squeeze into available technology — content is the culture manifested in the layout. "Space' is the envelope holding layout and content together (Dell RM791 battery) .

Space communicates style (layout appearance) to the target population. Understanding how to adapt space to this layout-content relationship is essential to web design. Every design's survivability depends on its sensitivity to emerging technology (within the cultures that its framework is servicing), and immediate acceptance depends on the layout or presentation of that content. On every page, no content is more susceptible to changes and variations in standards, than space (HP Pavilion dv9000 battery) .

While the professional designer casually admits that 90% of design code is used to adapt space, most of his current work deploys spatial manipulations being used to actively reshape Internet communication.

Conceptual barriers to adequate layout abound! Presently layout is challenged by conflicting convention that makes it impossible to fit liquid and hybrid layout to the bottom corners of a display (Dell Vostro 1000 battery) .

Simply put, display device manufactures use the top right and/or left corners to display content. For non-standard equipment, setting custom fixed layout to their device is still seen by some businesses as a means of increasing revenue, as they can sell a 'unique' display. This business approach, domainating the digital market at the end of the last century, is not so useful today (Dell XPS M2010 battery) .

However, some would claim a decade behind schedule, CSS3 and HTML5 are finally taking the four penultimate display reference point seriously. Just in time for 3 dimensional vector layout to tangle designers' templates in conundrums!

A common misconception among designers is to assume their layout is liquid because initial space and text container widths are in percents (Dell XPS M1530 battery) .

However, their 'liquid' framework, while adhering to focused conventions, failed to manage graphic content. A subsequent edit placing a large image on the page, destroys the page appearance. When managing a design framework, it is critical that layout address content, convention and user interaction (Dell Inspiron 300M Battery) .

Device

On the web the designer has no control over several factors, including the size of the browser window, the web browser used, the input devices used (operating system, mouse, touch screen, voice command, text, teletype, cell phone, or other hand-held), and the size, design, and other characteristics of the fonts that users have available (installed) and enabled (preference) on their device (Dell Studio 1555 Battery) .

Unique manufacture and conflicting device contentions are further complicated by varying browser interpretations of the same content, and some content automatically can trigger browser changes. Web designers do well to study and become proficient at removing competitive device and software markup so that web pages display as they are coded to display. Eric Meyers, a well known educator and developer, is one of many resources who have spear-headed HTML reset coding (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .

While they cannot yet leave one local environment to control another, web designers can adjust target environments to remove much common markup that alters or corrupts their web content. Because device manufacturers are highly protective of their patent markup, Meyers and others caution that reset remainsexperimental (Toshiba Satellite M60 battery) .

Tableless Web design

Main article: Tableless web design

When Netscape Navigator 4 dominated the browser market, the popular solution available for designers to lay out a Web page was by using tables. Often even simple designs for a page would require dozens of tables nested in each other. Many web templates in Dreamweaver and other WYSIWYG editors still use this technique today. Navigator 4 didn't support CSS to a useful degree, so it simply wasn't used (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ11S Battery) .

After the browser wars subsided, and the dominant browsers such as Internet Explorer became more W3C compliant, designers started turning toward CSS as an alternate means of laying out their pages. CSS proponents say that tables should be used only for tabular data, not for layout. Using CSS instead of tables also returns HTML to a semantic markup, which helps bots and search engines understand what's going on in a web page. All modern Web browsers support CSS with different degrees of limitations (Dell Vostro 1500 Battery) .

However, one of the main points against CSS is that by relying on it exclusively, control is essentially relinquished as each browser has its own quirks which result in a slightly different page display. This is especially a problem as not every browser supports the same subset of CSS rules. There are the means to apply different styles depending on which browser and version are used but incorporating these exceptions makes maintaining the style sheets more difficult as there are styles in more than one place to update (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ11m Battery) .

For designers who are used to table-based layouts, developing Web sites in CSS often becomes a matter of trying to replicate what can be done with tables, leading some to find CSS design rather cumbersome due to lack of familiarity. For example, at one time it was rather difficult to produce certain design elements, such as vertical positioning, and full-length footers in a design using absolute positions (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ18m Battery) .

With the abundance of CSS resources available online today, though, designing with reasonable adherence to standards involves little more than applying CSS 2.1 or CSS 3 to properly structured markup.

These days most modern browsers have solved most of these quirks in CSS rendering and this has made many different CSS layouts possible (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ21m Battery) .

However, some people continue to use old browsers, and designers need to keep this in mind, and allow for graceful degrading of pages in older browsers. Most notable among these old browsers is Internet Explorer 6, which is viewed in the web design community as becoming the new Netscape Navigator 4 — a block that holds the World Wide Web back from converting to CSS design. However, the W3 Consortium has made CSS in combination with XHTML the standard for web design (Toshiba Satellite Pro M15 Battery) .

Business

A business (also known as company, enterprise, or firm) is a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods, services, or both to consumers or tertiary business in exchange for money. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, in which most businesses are privately owned and typically formed to earnprofit that will increase the wealth of its owners (Dell XPS M1210 Battery) .

The owners and operators of private, for-profit businesses have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for work and acceptance of risk. Businesses can also be formed not-for-profit or be state-owned.

The etymology of "business" relates to the state of being busy either as an individual or society as a whole, doing commercially viable and profitable work (Dell Studio XPS 1340 Battery) .

The term "business" has at least three usages, depending on the scope — the singular usage (above) to mean a particular company or corporation, the generalized usage to refer to a particular market sector, such as "the music business" and compound forms such as agribusiness, or the broadest meaning to include all activity by the community of suppliers of goods and services. However, the exact definition of business, like much else in the philosophy of business, is a matter of debate and complexity of meanings (Dell Studio XPS 1640 Battery) .

Basic forms of ownership

See also: Types of business entity

Although forms of business ownership vary by jurisdiction, there are several common forms:

• Sole proprietorship: A sole proprietorship is a business owned by one person. The owner may operate on his or her own or may employ others. The owner of the business has unlimited liability of the debts incurred by the business (Dell Vostro 1710 Battery) .
• Partnership: A form of business owned by two or more people. In most forms of partnerships, each partner has unlimited liability of the debts incurred by the business. There are three typical classifications of partnerships: general partnerships, limited partnerships, and limited liability partnerships (ASUS EEE PC900 battery) .
• Corporation: A limited liability entity that has a separate legal personality from its members. Corporations can be either privately-owned or government-owned, and can be organized as either for-profit or not-for-profit. A privately-owned corporation is owned by private individuals while a public corporation is owned by multipleshareholders and is overseen by a board of directors, which hires the business's managerial staff (Dell RM791 battery) .
• Cooperative: Often referred to as a "co-op", a cooperative is a limited liability entity that can organize for-profit or not-for-profit. A for-profit cooperative differs from a for-profit corporation in that it has members, as opposed to shareholders, who share decision-making authority. Cooperatives are typically classified as eitherconsumer cooperatives or worker cooperatives. Cooperatives are fundamental to the ideology of economic democracy (Sony VGP-BPS13 battery) .

Classifications

There are many types of businesses, and because of this, businesses are classified in many ways. One of the most common focuses on the primary profit-generating activities of a business (Sony VGP-BPL9 battery) :

• Agriculture and mining businesses are concerned with the production of raw material, such as plants or minerals.
• Financial businesses include banks and other companies that generate profit through investment and management of capital.
• Information businesses generate profits primarily from the resale of intellectual property and include movie studios, publishers and packaged software companies (Sony VGP-BPL11 battery) .
• Manufacturers produce products, from raw materials or component parts, which they then sell at a profit. Companies that make physical goods, such as cars or pipes, are considered manufacturers.
• Real estate businesses generate profit from the selling, renting, and development of properties, homes, and buildings (Sony VGP-BPL15 battery) .
• Retailers and Distributors act as middle-men in getting goods produced by manufacturers to the intended consumer, generating a profit as a result of providing sales or distribution services. Most consumer-oriented stores and catalogue companies are distributors or retailers (Dell Inspiron E1505 battery) . See also: Franchising
• Service businesses offer intangible goods or services and typically generate a profit by charging for labor or other services provided to government, other businesses, or consumers. Organizations ranging from house decorators to consulting firms, restaurants, and even entertainers are types of service businesses (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .
• Transportation businesses deliver goods and individuals from location to location, generating a profit on the transportation costs
• Utilities produce public services, such as heat, electricity, or sewage treatment, and are usually government chartered (HP Pavilion dv6000 Battery) .

There are many other divisions and subdivisions of businesses. The authoritative list of business types for North America is generally considered to be the North American Industry Classification System, or NAICS. The equivalent European Union list is the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE) (Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31S battery) .

Management

The efficient and effective operation of a business, and study of this subject, is called management. The main branches of management are financial management, marketing management, human resource management, strategic management, production management, operation management, service management and information technology management (Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31S battery) .

Reforming State Enterprises

In recent decades, assets and enterprises that were run by various states have been modeled after business enterprises. In 2003, the People's Republic of China reformed 80% of its state-owned enterprises and modeled them on a company-type management system (Hp pavilion dv6000 battery) .

Many state institutions and enterprises in China and Russia have been transformed into joint-stock companies, with part of their shares being listed on public stock markets.

Organization and government regulation

Most legal jurisdictions specify the forms of ownership that a business can take, creating a body of commercial law for each type (Sony VGN-FW11S Battery) .

The major factors affecting how a business is organized are usually:

• The size, scope of the business firm and its structure, management, and ownership, broadly analyzed in the theory of the firm. Generally a smaller business is more flexible, while larger businesses, or those with wider ownership or more formal structures, will usually tend to be organized as partnerships or (more commonly) corporations (Sony VGP-BPS13A/B Battery) . In addition a business that wishes to raise money on a stock market or to be owned by a wide range of people will often be required to adopt a specific legal form to do so.
• The sector and country. Private profit making businesses are different from government owned bodies. In some countries, certain businesses are legally obliged to be organized in certain ways (Toshiba Satellite P10 Battery) .
• Limited liability. Corporations, limited liability partnerships, and other specific types of business organizations protect their owners or shareholders from business failure by doing business under a separate legal entity with certain legal protections. In contrast, unincorporated businesses or persons working on their own are usually not so protected (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ210CE Battery) .
• Tax advantages. Different structures are treated differently in tax law, and may have advantages for this reason.
• Disclosure and compliance requirements. Different business structures may be required to make more or less information public (or reported to relevant authorities), and may be bound to comply with different rules and regulations (Hp Pavilion dv3-1000 battery) .

Many businesses are operated through a separate entity such as a corporation or a partnership (either formed with or without limited liability). Most legal jurisdictions allow people to organize such an entity by filing certain charter documents with the relevant Secretary of State or equivalent and complying with certain other ongoing obligations (Dell Precision M70 Battery) .

The relationships and legal rights of shareholders, limited partners, or members are governed partly by the charter documents and partly by the law of the jurisdiction where the entity is organized. Generally speaking, shareholders in a corporation, limited partners in a limited partnership, and members in a limited liability company are shielded from personal liability for the debts and obligations of the entity, which is legally treated as a separate "person ." (Acer Aspire One battery) .

This means that unless there is misconduct, the owner's own possessions are strongly protected in law, if the business does not succeed.

Where two or more individuals own a business together but have failed to organize a more specialized form of vehicle, they will be treated as a general partnership. The terms of a partnership are partly governed by a partnership agreement if one is created, and partly by the law of the jurisdiction where the partnership is located (Toshiba Satellite L305 Battery) .

No paperwork or filing is necessary to create a partnership, and without an agreement, the relationships and legal rights of the partners will be entirely governed by the law of the jurisdiction where the partnership is located.

A single person who owns and runs a business is commonly known as a sole proprietor, whether he or she owns it directly or through a formally organized entity (Toshiba Satellite Pro M15 Battery) .

A few relevant factors to consider in deciding how to operate a business include:

1. General partners in a partnership (other than a limited liability partnership), plus anyone who personally owns and operates a business without creating a separate legal entity, are personally liable for the debts and obligations of the business (Toshiba Satellite M65 battery) .
2. Generally, corporations are required to pay tax just like "real" people. In some tax systems, this can give rise to so-called double taxation, because first the corporation pays tax on the profit, and then when the corporation distributes its profits to its owners, individuals have to include dividends in their income when they complete their personal tax returns, at which point a second layer of income tax is imposed (Toshiba Satellite T4900 Battery) .
3. In most countries, there are laws which treat small corporations differently than large ones. They may be exempt from certain legal filing requirements or labor laws, have simplified procedures in specialized areas, and have simplified, advantageous, or slightly different tax treatment (Toshiba PA3399U-2BRS battery) .
4. To "go public" (sometimes called IPO) -- which basically means to allow a part of the business to be owned by a wider range of investors or the public in general—you must organize a separate entity, which is usually required to comply with a tighter set of laws and procedures (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .
5. Most public entities are corporations that have sold shares, but increasingly there are also public LLCs that sell units (sometimes also called shares), and other more exotic entities as well (for example, REITs in the USA, Unit Trusts in the UK). However, you cannot take a general partnership "public (Toshiba Satellite A200 Battery) ."

Commercial law

Main article: Commercial law

Most commercial transactions are governed by a very detailed and well-established body of rules that have evolved over a very long period of time, it being the case that governing trade and commerce was a strong driving force in the creation of law and courts in Western civilization (Toshiba Satellite 1200 Battery) .

As for other laws that regulate or impact businesses, in many countries it is all but impossible to chronicle them all in a single reference source. There are laws governing treatment of labor and generally relations with employees, safety and protection issues (Health and Safety), anti-discrimination laws (age, gender, disabilities, race, and in some jurisdictions, sexual orientation), minimum wage laws, union laws, workers compensation laws, and annual vacation or working hours time (Toshiba NB100 Battery) .

In some specialized businesses, there may also be licenses required, either due to special laws that govern entry into certain trades, occupations or professions, which may require special education, or by local governments. Professions that require special licenses range from law and medicine to flying airplanes to selling liquor to radio broadcasting to selling investment securities to selling used cars to roofing (Toshiba Satellite M300 Battery) .

Local jurisdictions may also require special licenses and taxes just to operate a business without regard to the type of business involved.

Some businesses are subject to ongoing special regulation. These industries include, for example, public utilities, investment securities, banking, insurance,broadcasting, aviation, and health care providers. Environmental regulations are also very complex and can impact many kinds of businesses in unexpected ways (Dell INSPIRON 1525 battery) .

Capital

When businesses need to raise money (called 'capital'), more laws come into play. A highly complex set of laws and regulations govern the offer and sale of investment securities (the means of raising money) in most Western countries. These regulations can require disclosure of a lot of specific financial and other information about the business and give buyers certain remedies (Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Battery) .

Because "securities" is a very broad term, most investment transactions will be potentially subject to these laws, unless a special exemption is available.

Capital may be raised through private means, by public offer (IPO) on a stock exchange, or in many other ways (Dell Latitude D830 Battery) .

Major stock exchanges include the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Singapore Exchange, Hong Kong Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq (USA), the London Stock Exchange (UK), theTokyo Stock Exchange (Japan), and so on. Most countries with capital markets have at least one (Dell Studio 1735 Battery) .

Business that have gone "public" are subject to extremely detailed and complicated regulation about their internal governance (such as how executive officers' compensation is determined) and when and how information is disclosed to the public and their shareholders (Dell Latitude D620 Battery) .

In the United States, these regulations are primarily implemented and enforced by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other Western nations have comparable regulatory bodies. The regulations are implemented and enforced by the China Securities Regulation Commission (CSRC), in China. In Singapore, the regulation authority is Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and in Hong Kong, it is Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ150E Battery) .

As noted at the beginning, it is impossible to enumerate all of the types of laws and regulations that impact on business today. In fact, these laws have become so numerous and complex, that no business lawyer can learn them all, forcing increasing specialization among corporate attorneys. It is not unheard of for teams of 5 to 10 attorneys to be required to handle certain kinds of corporate transactions, due to the sprawling nature of modern regulation (Sony VGN-FZ31Z Battery) .

Commercial law spans general corporate law, employment and labor law, healthcare law, securities law, M&A law (who specialize in acquisitions), tax law, ERISA law (ERISA in the United States governs employee benefit plans), food and drug regulatory law, intellectual property law (specializing in copyrights, patents, trademarks and such), telecommunications law, and more (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ38M Battery) .

In Thailand, for example, it is necessary to register a particular amount of capital for each employee, and pay a fee to the government for the amount of capital registered. There is no legal requirement to prove that this capital actually exists, the only requirement is to pay the fee. Overall, processes like this are detrimental to the development and GDP of a country, but often exist in "feudal" developing countries (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ21m Battery) .

Intellectual property

Businesses often have important "intellectual property" that needs protection from competitors for the company to stay profitable. This could require patents or copyrights or preservation of trade secrets. Most businesses have names, logos and similar branding techniques that could benefit from trademarking (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ18m Battery) .

Patents and copyrights in the United States are largely governed by federal law, while trade secrets and trademarking are mostly a matter of state law. Because of the nature of intellectual property, a business needs protection in every jurisdiction in which they are concerned about competitors (Dell Latitude D610 Battery) .

Many countries are signatories to international treaties concerning intellectual property, and thus companies registered in these countries are subject to national laws bound by these treaties (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ11m Battery) .

Exit plans

Businesses can be bought and sold. "Exit plan" describes how business owners refer to disposing of their business. Common exit plans include IPOs, MBOs and mergers with other businesses. Businesses are rarely liquidated, as it is often unprofitable to do so (Dell Studio 1555 Battery) .