GSA Schedule | Contract # GS-02-0144P
What does WestLake teach?
When are courses offered and how do I sign up?
What is HTML?
What is a CGI script?
What is Perl?
What is Active Server Pages (ASP)?
What is ColdFusion?
What is JavaScript?
What is XML?
What is JavaServer Pages?
What is WML?
Which course should I take?
Does WestLake offer financing?
Does WestLake offer job placement?
Can I use my vouchers for a partner course?
Will I receive a receipt after I pay for class?
Does WestLake have a policy for retaking classes?
What's the added benefit of the Capstone Series?
Does Westlake offer certifications?
Does WestLake offer customized on-site training?
Can I get a list of student references for classes?
WestLake teaches hands-on, instructor-led Web development courses on various tools and technologies used in building Web sites:
HTML
Dreamweaver
Flash
JavaScript
ColdFusion
Active Server Pages
XML
JavaServer Pages
To get more information about our courses, visit our Information Request Form
When are courses offered and how do I sign up?
WestLake's courses are offered from 9 to 4 on weekdays.
For a complete schedule or to register, visit our registration form or call 866.WESTLAKE or 202.872.8010 to request a course catalog and class schedule/registration form.
Customized classes for groups of eight or more, during normal business hours or on evenings or weekends, can be arranged; contact us (customized@westlaketraining.com) for details.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the document description language in which Web pages are written. The language is easy for any experienced computer user to learn.
Each page on your Web site is a plain text file whose name usually ends in .htm or .html. Each of these files contains the text of a page, plus formatting tags that control how the page will appear. For example,
<html>
<head><title>My First Page</title></head>
<body>
<center><h1>Hello!</h1></center>
</body>
</html>
Produces a page with the title "My First Page," containing the text "Hello!" in large, bold, centered letters (<h1> is the tag for the largest heading style).
Each of the pages for your site, along with related graphics, sounds, and other files will eventually be placed on a computer called a server, which will make these pages available for others to explore.
CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts are programs that reside on your Web server and are primarily used to process information entered into forms.
To explain further: when you have a form on your Web site (e.g., a product order form or a class registration form), there are two components to it:
The HTML page containing the code for the form. When the user visits this page, the form is displayed in the browser so that the user can fill it out. Once she has finished filling out the form, she clicks the submit button to submit the form to a CGI script on the Web server.
The CGI script that processes the form. When the user clicks the submit button, the data from the form is transmitted to a CGI script on the server. This CGI script can use the data from the form to send an E-mail message, save the data to a file, or query a database. For example, when a user fills out our information request form, the CGI script we have E-mails the information the user fills out to several people in our training department and prints a thank you message back to the user's browser.
Appropriate classes (in order):
CGI Scripting with Perl for Programmers
Advanced Perl: Database-Driven Web Sites
Perl is the most popular programming language for writing CGI scripts. Due to its popularity, power, and flexibility, as well as the fact that scripts written in Perl can run easily on most Web servers, Perl is the language that we teach for CGI scripting.
Appropriate classes: See the CGI scripting courses immediately above.
What is Active Server Pages (ASP)?
ASP is a server-side scripting platform supported by Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS), and by other Web servers via ChiliASP. It provides the same functionality as CGI scripts, discussed above, and is especially useful for integrating data from Windows based databases (e.g., Microsoft Access and SQL Server) and other ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) compliant databases with your site.
If your Web server is running Windows NT and has IIS installed, we recommend using ASPs instead of Perl-based CGI scripts. ASPs are easier to program (especially for novice programmers) and run more efficiently.
ColdFusion, developed and sold by Macromedia, makes it exceptionally easy to integrate database data with your site. ColdFusion has two components:
ColdFusion Application Server: The Application Server is an add-on to your Web server that enables your server to process Web pages written in CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language). CFML is an extension to HTML that provides an easy-to-use set of tags for dynamically including data from databases within your Web pages, without extensive programming.
ColdFusion Studio: The ColdFusion Studio is an easy-to-use development environment for building CFML pages. Although you can build CFML pages with any text editor, the ColdFusion Studio makes this process much easier.
ColdFusion Application Server and the ColdFusion Studio run under Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, and Solaris (Sun's variant of Unix).
JavaScript is a scripting language that can be used to make your Web pages much more interactive. The JavaScript scripts that you write are embedded directly with the HTML for your pages.
Specifically, JavaScript enables you to do the following:
Build self-validating forms: Adding JavaScript to your page enables you to build a form that immediately alerts the user if they enter incorrect information (e.g., type in a date in the wrong format or skip a field). For example, the following field expects to receive a value between 5 and 125 . Try typing in something other than this and clicking the button:
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Enabling dynamic calculations within forms: JavaScript can be used to build forms in which fields update automatically in response to user input. As an example, visit the On-Line Mortgage Calculator. As you fill out fields in the form (e.g., cost of house and down payment), other fields will calculate automatically (e.g., balance of loan).
Appropriate classes:
Introduction to JavaScript for New Programmers
XML is the first wave of next-generation Web technologies. Platform-independent and self-sufficient, XML pages, once built, can be interpreted by many applications. No more having to provide backward compatibility for legacy systems of data storage. With XML, the data is complete when written, and can be read by a wide range of applications, from databases to word processors to browsers. In this class, students will master the XML skills necessary to build dynamic, portable web pages.
In HTML, developers are restricted to the tags defined in the HTML specifications. With XML, developers can write their own tags, which can cover a wide range of purposes. Developers can then specify how the tags are interpreted through Document Type Definition documents (DTDs), and how they are displayed on the Web with Extensible Style Sheet documents (XSLs).
Appropriate classes:
Introduction to XML
WestLake Capstone Series: XML Developer
JavaServer Pages (JSP) gives you the skills to harness the power of Java to build cross-platform, database-driven Web applications.
Java is an object-oriented programming language. As a result, your Java programs will be structured very differently from programs written in C and other more procedural languages. Also, JavaServer Pages work on any Web server for which a Java servlet/JSP runner is available.
Appropriate classes:
Introduction to JavaServer Pages
Integrating to JavaServer Pages and XML
Wireless Markup Language (WML) is the language used to design Internet sites viewable by devices such as mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and pagers. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is the framework that allows wireless devices to access the Internet.
WML "pages" are referred to as cards, with related cards for a site grouped into decks. Rather than downloading each card individually, your WAP browser actually downloads the entire deck. As a result, browsing to other cards in the deck is instantaneous.
If you will be developing Web pages for the first time, and plan to use a Web development tool rather than coding by hand:
Introduction to Adobe Dreamweaver
WestLake Capstone Series: Adobe Dreamweaver Developer
If you will be developing Web pages for the first time, and would like to learn HTML (these courses are highly recommended if you plan to do more than basic Web design):
WestLake Capstone Series: Web Fundamentals & Design
If you would like to be able to integrate information from databases with your Web site:
ColdFusion courses (500 series)
CGI Scripting with Perl courses (700 series)
JavaServer Pages courses (900 series)
If you would like to make your pages more responsive to users' actions:
Introduction to Adobe Flash
WestLake Capstone Series: Flash Developer
JavaScript courses (300 series)
DoesWestLake offer job placement?
Currently, WestLake does not formally offer job placement assistance. However, we welcome the opportunity to offer informal career advice to our students and we occasionally receive calls from employers looking to hire graduates from our courses.
Does WestLake offer financing?
WestLake now offers financing on packages over $1500 through SLM Financial's career transition loan program for those interested in WestLake classes in Washington , DC . To learn more about how you can take advantage of this offer go to: (show the link to the SLM Financial page.)
Can I use my vouchers for a partner course?
No - sorry vouchers are only for WestLake class and can not be applied toward partner classes.
Will I receive a receipt after I pay for class?
Yes. Upon a confirmed registration you will receive an auto-generated email to confirm your registration which includes a link to a paid invoices/receipt.
Does WestLake have a policy for retaking classes?
Yes. Anyone who feels they need to retake a class, can do so if there is space-available within 6-months from the original class date, at no charge
What's the added benefit of the Capstone Series?
Students attending the Capstone class receive WestLake Certification along with real-world sample code. Furthermore, students save up to $100 off the list price when signing up for Capstones than when compared to enrolling in the individual classes that make-up the Capstone class.
Does Westlake offer certifications?
Yes, after completion of each class certificates are given to each student. In addition, we offer WestLake Certified Developer certificates to those students attending a WestLake Capstone Series course, who successfully complete the class exercises and/or Capstone Project. WestLake's theory of certifications is they are worthwhile if you have the hands-on experience to back them up!
Does WestLake offer customized on-site training?
Yes, We offer customize on-site training. <<link to Customized Training page.>>
Can I get a list of student references for classes?
Yes - email registration@westlaketraining.com to request references and/or student testimonials.