- Agile can be best described as an approach to software development and project management in comparison to the old methods of software development such as waterfall. Agile methodology is an iterative method in which the requirements are eloquently gathered from the users or external customers during the development process. Agile methodology does not accentuate the traditional way of planning. The solutions are rather continuously delivered, tested and developed. Hence, the solutions are delivered in iterations to the user. The goal behind this is to get a prompt feedback from the user rather than holding on to a predestined plan. This approach enables flexible modifications in a solution as opposed to the traditional method of planning in which changes to a solution are discouraged during the development of a project. Thus, an agile approach emphasizes teamwork and engages client’s contribution throughout the development process rather than just at the beginning.
- Agile Development starts with the identification of a problem or a proposed product and then envisaging a solution around it. The development process starts immediately after that. The concept behind this is to start developing features with minimal functionality as soon as possible and test them rather than waiting for all the features to be built. It all depends upon the release schedule – if the release is delivered faster and the feature sets are delivered in smaller sets, then the time for the next iteration will become shorter and the development process will become more refined. This process results in a solution or a product that is more lined up with the client’s actual needs.
- Active user involvement is very important and is probably the first rule in agile development. However, it is not always possible for the users to be directly involved in the development process, so active user involvement is not always necessary. In such cases, the responsibility to engage with an agile contractor should be delegated to the most experienced user (or person) within the client organisation. The main reason for this is that the requirements are communicated at high level and prioritized based on the user needs. The requirements are explained and elucidated on a daily basis by the user rather than putting them in documents which can be misunderstood and misinterpreted. The product is delivered in iterations making sure that it meets the user expectations and due to this the right product is delivered to the user.
- Testing is a part of the agile development process and the software is tested continuously throughout the development of the project. The testers and developers are involved in testing and writing automated unit tests in order to validate their code. This ensures that the project is kept in releasable state during the process so that it can be sent to the client in perfect condition at any time.
- Plenty of renowned companies are following the agile methodology in their software development process. Among these are: Forrester and Gartner, IBM, Atlassian, CollaNet, Microsoft and Oracle who have been using agile internally for their development. In education, a number of universities such as Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Notre Dame and many others have formed ScrumU, an organisation that is dedicated to agile methodology.
- The agile approach allows the developers to become accustomed quickly to the new information that is available making the development process quick and refined. This process helps the clients in communicating their needs effectively which results in development of solutions faster which are closely related to their needs. It bypasses the traditional method of creating documentation and walks you straight to the actual solution. It can also be seen as a risk management tool in which you don’t find at the end if the project has failed after going through a long and expensive process.
- Besides a great number of advantages, agile methodology has certain characteristics that can be considered as a disadvantage. As mentioned, active user involvement is crucial in this process. These principles can be very demanding for the user if he or she is pressed for time. Secondly, there is a lot of uncertainty at the start of the project and during it as to how exactly the project is going to evolve, which makes it harder for both client and contractor to agree on a fixed price. In addition, though thorough testing ensures high quality, it increases the costs of the project as more resources are required for QA purpose. Moreover, the agile mindset requires a certain level of openness and lucidity that many traditional organizations find outside their comfort zones. Nevertheless, these disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages that agile method has to offer. ]]>
Jot down potential Blogs
The most difficult point is “ where to start?” but you have to deal with because there are plethora of blogs available. All you have to do is to think out of the box. Try to kick off with keeping your audience ‘s mood in your mind and marketing tools with they are in contact.
For instance if you are selling eco-friendly designer jewelry, your prime target will be women who are environmental conscious, for such group of customers you need a blog that has high updates ratio and considered as eco-friendly fashion statement.
You could also consider search string like “ top eco-friendly blog” and place your products in certain category.
Search for individual Blogs’ information
Now you have to contact each of your short listed blogs in the list and inquire them about their media kit. Once you have the media kit you have to fill up your spreadsheet. Record monthly visits, unique visitors cost and size of ad. Also keep track of the information you get from Alexa about the blog like its page rank, other sponsors and sites linking of the blog.
Choose among the spreadsheet
Now your sheet is ready for apple to apple comparison among the candidates. You make choice on the basis of constraints like the cost of the ad, number people it will reach in this cost. Also you look into the number of sponsors blog already has and the placement of your add on the blog. Don’t go for a low price if you are 50th sponsor of the blog with a tiny banner at the bottom of the page.
Ads with artist brand image
Now it’s your work to do, make your ad banner artistic and elegant like your collection of jewelry is, this will legitimize jewelry is simple same as the ad is. If you are advertising on many blogs then try to retain the symmetry of your ad on all blog so that it creates a healthy brand image. Don’t be confused while choosing the animated ad or a static ad, it’s quite simple. You first observe what’s other sponsor are doing and do the opposite of it. To stand out in the crowd if all other are static you’ll be with an animated one and if all are animated then your static ad will gather more attention.
Amazing results out of your sponsorship
Your ad should always point to your shop directly lesser the no of clicks greater is the chance of selling products. If you have multi-month plan to sponsor a blog then keep changing the ad images after 15 days, as most of the user turn back day after a day by changing this image you’ll have more chance of getting attention. Both spotlight posts and giveaways are good for your take whatever your blogger offers you.
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Since the introduction of Android in 2007, Google’s flagship open-source OS for mobiles, the dynamics of the mobile phone industry have changed completely. A new mobile ecosystem, consisting of Android apps and mobile hardware has evolved at a rapid pace, challenging traditional market leaders like Apple, Nokia and Blackberry. If you ever wondered how this game-changing mobile OS has evolved over the years, then please read on. However, bear in mind that Google has an odd, albeit humorous, way of codenaming its Android OS products after mouthwatering desserts, so if you have a sweet tooth, we suggest that you find something sugary to enjoy while reading this post!
Evolution of the Android OS:
Google entered the mobile industry after acquiring Android Inc. in 2005, setting off rumors that it was planning on entering the mobile space. The rumors turned out to be true, as Google announced in November 2007 that it indeed was working on an open-source mobile OS, named Android, based on a Linux kernel. This new OS was to be used by members of the’ Open Handset Alliance’, a consortium of 65 companies involved in the mobile space who are advocates of open source standards for the mobile industry. Since then, mobile devices running on Android have gained rapid popularity among consumers, with Android OS currently dominating the smartphone market.
Each major release of the Google Android OS is named after a sugary treat, in alphabetical order. Here is a quick flashback of all the different versions, along with the associated sugary delights:
Android 1.0 and 1.1
The first version was released in September 2008, along with its launch device, ‘HTC Hero’. Both the OS and the HTC device received favorable reviews. The dream of an open-source mobile ecosystem finally became a reality!
Version 1.1 (released in February 2009) just came with a few updates and tweaks, with no major changes. At this stage, Google had not started naming its Android releases after delicacies, so these updates had no names assigned.
Android 1.5 Cupcake
Released in April 2009, this was the first major Android revision to get an official name by Google, heralding the start of the “dessert series” naming convention. With Cupcake, features like video uploading, text prediction and wireless music streaming became available.
Android 1.6 Donut
Released in September 2009, Donut came with major updates, the highlight of which was Google Maps. It also fixed OS reboot errors and enhanced the photo and video capabilities.
Android 2.0/2.1 Éclair
Version 2.0 was released in December 2009, followed by 2.1 in January 2010. These are considered to be a single release by most people, allowing added capabilities for Bluetooth, multi-touch support and live wallpapers, among other features.
Android 2.2 Froyo
Short for “Frozen Yoghurt”, this version was released in May 2010. It allowed for improved OS speed, supported hi-definition screen resolutions and Adobe Flash 10.1, enabling users to stream videos via their mobile browsers. Added support for Wi-Fi hotspot connectivity also became available.
Android 2.3 Gingerbread
This version made its debut in December 2010. The key feature that became available with this release was the much hyped ‘Near Field Communications’ (NFC) capability, allowing users to perform tasks such as mobile payments and data exchange through swiping their mobile phones over a tag. It also added support for more than one camera and other sensors.
Android 3.0/3.1/3.2 Honeycomb
Released first in February 2011 and followed rapidly by the 3.1 and 3.2 revisions during the same year, this incremental release added several new features. This version was optimized for tablets and provided developers with more control over UI. It also allowed users the capability to load media files directly from an SD card.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
Released in October 2011, this was a major overhaul to the Android UI, allowing enhanced contact menus, improved keyboard layouts and NFC capabilities. Since Honeycomb was optimized just for tablets, with most phones still running the 2.x Android versions, the Ice Cream Sandwich release strove for a unified platform that was optimized to run on both tablets and phones.
Android 4.1.x Jelly Bean
The latest major Android update was released in July, 2012. Jelly Bean further polished the Android UI, and also refined the software, enabling Android devices to run faster and also making them even more user-friendly than before. The 4.x updates have allowed developers to create quality apps over Android, cementing its place as the operating system of choice among users.
We eagerly await the next release of Android along with its official moniker (rumored to be “Key Lime Pie”). Off to have our sugar fix!
]]>Beginning of 2013 has been very bad for Ruby on Rails developers so far, with two high severity security glitches allowing remote code execution in frame work and separate but related concession on rubygems.org. Several Start-up’s use Ruby on Rails framework and many don’t but one day they may find themselves asking what we do when apocalyptic bad things happen on their framework of choice?
Let’s be more specific on Ruby on Rails here. Ruby on Rails recently released two sets of security patches, in reaction to related susceptibilities discovered in the frameworks.
Those loopholes were sever and apocalyptic. They allowed attackers to execute random code on Ruby on Rails application, without requiring anything to enable the attack.
Literally, it means that attacker can execute any code they would like to and you lose the sever that the code is executing on, ultimately could end up in totally compromised application.
Let’s discuss a bit of Ruby on Rails structure here. Rails makes extensive use of serialization format called YAML to configure files on the server. The core insight behind the recent Rails issues that YAML deserialization is dangerous.
YAML has a documented and “apparent” feature to deserialization into arbitrary objects. Security researchers became aware in late December that just initializing well-crafted objects from well-chosen classes can cause random code to be executed, without requiring any particular support from the victim application.
As a start-up if you lose a server means, you will always going to lose it and you will spend most of time in rewriting server, assuming that attacker has copy of your source code, credentials, database schema and information you had like log files etc.
As a worst case scenario if you have your customer details e.g. Their credit card or checking account details than it would turn out to be a customer relation chaos.
So the question pops up is does Ruby on Rails security really that Vulnerable?
Software security generally lacks and virtually every framework has security glitches in it. Whenever you will audit your application normally your application loses, while Ruby on Rails cherishes its Enterprise image but recent breaches brings Ruby on Rails on bleeding edge.
What shall a start-up do to stop bleeding?
Answer to this question is simple i.e. patch immediately and install workaround or simple pull the plug on your application till your migration plan kicks in. Sit with your team and discuss incidents of past few weeks and if necessary drop everything they are doing and address those issues.
As a preventive action you should establish a security contact page, which will include a working and monitored email address and a PGP key. Start a recognition campaign for security researchers, so they could get in touch with you and identify security vulnerabilities. You must also have a plan for responding to security incidents.
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The market of smart phones is truly captured by two main giants of the industry i.e. Apple’s iPhone and Smart Phones integrated with Google’s Android Operating System. Both of these have millions of apps in their respective app store and today we are going to compare these two stores. The iPhone App store and the Android’s Play store (formerly Android Market). Well there is a lot of difference between the two on the basis of their Quality, Sales and functionality but in general the App store has a better experience than the play store.
There are huge amount of apps in the App store mostly of them has excellent quality but in Play store you don’t have much freedom and also some of these apps are low quality even some may harm your OS to a slight extent. While comparing first you have to open both of the stores, you may find similarities among them.
On the App store you’ll find several options like app of the week, game of the week and featured apps. Along with this the searching options are quite sophisticated for example if you choose genius option in the search preferences it will retrieve all the apps that will help you increase your memory. On the play store the interface is pretty smooth and there are also categories like games, featured apps, free apps and paid apps, the best part of PlayStore is most of the apps are free.
In Apps store the developers need approval from App store before launching their app, developers have to strictly follow the guidelines of App store, while in the Play Store developers do not require approvals and therefore can easily upgrade and release their apps. This the major problem faced by iOS developers and Apple’s ever changing policies further cause trouble to the developers.
Another key difference between both iOS and Android is, Android OS is an open source therefore there is no licensing issues for developers to build apps for PlayStore.
This absolutely zero obstacles policy of Android is attracting more and more developers and the Play store is increasing rapidly but to keep them free makes less cut for developers. While in App Store many apps are paid or the full versions are paid therefore its more likely a money making platform.
Todays’ trend for brands is to sustain their existence in both markets. Ignoring any of the platforms will make them partially productive. So if you want to head up in striving market today you need a full thrust which can’t be leveraged by ignoring any of these platforms.
The in-house developed Maps application is a move towards self reliance. The functionality promises is pretty good. Maps will direct you on every turn via voice. 3D views are interactive. It uses a vector engine for smoother zooming, clear graphics and street naming. Real time updates for traffic and ETA to your destination. You can identify traffic jam. You can choose explore major areas with realistic photos and interactive 3D views. You can tap a pin on a map to see an information card about that local location. In effect it should provide everything Google maps does, yet the early reviews from users have been generally mixed, at best, focusing on the lack of data in Apple’s map application. The Google Motorola RazrM calls it iLost in its latest ad.
Siri, a feature introduced in iPhone 4S has been improved in the new release. It is now more natural to talk and send messages, make phone calls and schedule meetings. You can simply talk to Siri just like talking to your friend and say “l want stakes now” and it will reply “I found a restaurant for stakes nearby”. It will not only assist you in finding restaurants it will update you about sports, weather and movies.
Facebook interactivity is far easier too. Just log-in once to Facebook and share your photos, game scores, locations all by just tapping the share button or ask Siri to share it. Facebook events are integrated into calendar too. The contact list is integrated to Facebook also so any change in your friends contact on Facebook will automatically be updated in your contacts.
Shared Photo Streams lets you custom photo share with your friends. Just select the photos and select the people you want to share the photos with and tap share. The photos will be instantly delivered to your friends with Apple devices and those without Apple devices can see them on the web. It uses both cellular and wifi connections for sharing photos.
Passbook is a hub for all your flight info, movies, gift coupons and loyalty cards. This will ensure your timely arrival at a location and assist you with any changes made to your bookings. It also helps you find your seat in the theatre or on a flight.
There are some other small changes also FaceTime now works on both cellular and wifi connections so with this you are can receive and make calls anywhere, anytime. You can now add call back reminder when rejecting a phone call. You can set your phone to Do Not Disturb.
Mail is redesigned to make it easier for both reading and writing and also has a VIP list so you never miss an email from an important contact. Safari gives you better browsing while iCloud Tabs saves your pages so that while changing from one device to other you can start from right where you left off. This feature also enables offline page access. Accessibility is improved in a number of ways for people with sight, hearing and mobility disabilities. A new panorama feature for cameras lets you shoot up to 240 degrees or vertically with a single motion. Find My iPhone protects your phone in case you have lost it. Find My Friends lets you check the locations of your friends on a map, if they have allowed it and indicates your distance to them. It can also get location based alerts from friends and family.
With all these new feature, iOS 6 is a formidable OS, but Apple’s credibility has taken a hit with the Samsung case and the clever marketing campaigns Samsung has launched. We are watching the space carefully to see which OS emerges from this with a stronger user base. At the moment though,iPhones are selling very well.
]]>It can get confusing to choose a right app for your business among the plethora of apps in the app store. While App Store Optimization is becoming an art in itself, it is important to have the “must-have” apps on any new smart phone. We look at 7 of the most useful apps for the business user.
Square
Square turns your phone in to a credit card reader machine. With the small device provided by Square, your phone becomes a merchant’s machine instantly, with the ability to accept payments from credit cards. Its very simple to configure, and accepts Visa, Master Card, Discover and American Express. Since there is no need to apply for a merchant account with a credit card company, which can be a time consuming process, Square is a real time saver for start-ups. There are no additional charges besides the 2.75% for each swipe.
BumpPay
BumpPay just bump your phone with friend’s phone which has a PayPal account set up and and transfer money without any typing. This is really helpful for quick transactions as it saves a lot of time which would have been spent in typing.
DropBox
DropBox makes your files accessible from almost every location without any hassles. Businesses and individuals can share files, documents, photos and videos at multiple locations by just dragging into a dropbox folder. Just install
DropBox on your computer or phone and drag and drop the file in it and access it wherever you need it. It is a cloud based service which is extremely popular due to its simplicity and usability.
Quick Office
Quick Office is a suite that handles Microsoft Office documents across several platforms like Android, iPhone and Symbian. It has recently been acquired by Google so let’s see what new features and integrations turns up with this product. Commentators suggest that this partnership will give an edge to both companies in the market for mobile apps as users will be able to edit documents wherever they are with this suite on their your phone.
FatStax
FatStax is an app which assists sales representatives. This apps combines PDF files, Power Point presentations, HD images and videos. This app has an edge over others in that it works offline so you don’t need a wireless connection, for example in sales meetings.
Skype, a name almost every computer user is familiar with, is even more useful and usable on your phone? Skype mobile supports all voice and video calls. With normal phone use however, it is best to keep it offline to save battery and bandwidth.
Ego
Ego is an app that helps online business owners to keep track of visits to their website. It gives you statistics on monthly, weekly, daily and hourly basis. It also shows you the twitter followers and FaceBook fans stats.
With so many amazing apps available to the business user, go ahead and start with our list and add to it to customize your iPhone or Android phone to match your needs.
We are already almost half-way through December and nearing the holiday season that almost everyone looks forward to.Most of our readers must have already planned their vacations schedule. While planning for your holidays, you must have undoubtedly come across hordes of exclusive giveaways and mega-sale offers from multiple brands and stores. The holiday season brings the stingiest of customers out of their homes, so it is the best time for businesses to ‘leverage’ the holiday spirit to advertise, build bonds with customers and sell-out their products or services.
If you are a business owner, you must be wondering about how to do this. Firstly, you have to giveaway a discount offer,or a gift, on a purchase for the products or service you sell on account of this Christmas. You should redesign your website with a Christmas theme to it, giving an overall feel of the holiday spirit to your customers. This theme will also attract customers who were waiting for annual sales of your product all year long. In addition, this might help you in creating a long-term bond with the customer, leading to a lifelong sales, mutual trust and free word-of-mouth advertising. An appealing homepage, redesigned to reflect the spirit of Christmas, will represent you as a company that recognizes the festivities of its customers and puts extra effort in ensuring that they are celebrating these holidays in the best possible manner.
You can even bundle up your Christmas and New Year Offers to make them more appealing and beneficial for your customers. So redesigning your website has a very healthy effect in terms of building relations with your customers on the occasion of Christmas.
The most popular themes use a snowy background, with extensive use of green and red. Images of things that identify with Christmas are also very popular, such as, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, Flying Reindeer, Gift bags and Christmas Ornaments. You can integrate these pictures and colors for your website, giving it a more Christmas feel, with your deals/coupons/discounts mentioned clearly to attract customers.
We also advise you to build a fresh new look of your product that isaesthetically similarto the Christmas theme of your business, especially for this occasion. If your product is good, the customers will appreciate the added care that you take in celebrating their joyous occasions with them. Building bonds on an emotional level with the customer requires some effort, but putting in this hard work can help you attain, retain and grow your existing customer base and your business.
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Businesses belonging to organizations, whether large or small, cannot survive in today’s challenging market without the use of a relevant business solution. Today, business apps are supporting the entire infrastructure of large-scale organizations in many modes. While some use them solely on intranet for internal management, many are using both web-based and desktop- based applications. Their value is maximized when businesses use these apps in their entirety – combining the use of desktop, web and mobile apps.
Our aim is to update you with the latest versions of mobile-based and web-based technologies. Let us take a look at Mobile apps first. The Mobile apps market is an emerging market, which is already experiencing explosive growth in many parts of the world. Previously, Nokia had a lion’s share of this market with its Symbian OS. However, with the arrival of smart phones, Nokia rapidly lost its market share to Apple and Samsung, who came up with devices that were much more suited to their target consumers’ needs.
The introduction of iPhone in June 2007 rapidly changed the entire mobile landscape. It has grown to be the single-most sought after mobile device all over the world. The iPhone has undergone rapid development after multiple product upgrades since it was first launched. The current version, the iPhone 5, was released this September in 2012. The 6th generation of iPhone is more powerful than any of its predecessors, having a dual core 1.2GHZ CPU, PowerVR SGX 543MP3 (triple-core graphics) GPU, giving the finest display which Apple calls the“Retina display”. It runs on the iOS6, the operating system behind the hardware, which was released in the second quarter of this year.
This powerful device has revolutionized the apps space as now you can find utility apps for almost any use imaginable in the Apple’s App Store for a few bucks. Online businesses can develop customized apps that target consumers who own an iPhone device, giving them (the customers) the power to interact with their businesses on-the-go. In addition, they can also develop apps that enhance their work productivity. For instance, using these apps, a delivery boy can deliver a parcel and update the delivery status at the time of delivery or a production manager can take his/her routine documents onsite without having to carry a physical file.
The other popular mobile platform these days is Android. The Android OS is a product of Google and its first prototype was announced in March 2007. It has a Linux-based kernel and is an open-source platform. Android became famous after 86 companies formed an alliance to capture the growing market of smart phones. Its latest release is the Android 4.1 Jelly Beans – the smoothest, fastest and triple buffering operating system that can execute GPU, CPU and display unit in parallel. Top-of-the-line phones like Samsung Galaxy S 3 and HTC X are much more powerful than the iPhone 5 in their hardware specifications and they can run almost anything that an iPhone can. Android apps can be found on the “Play Store”, many of which are similar to those that can be found for the iPhone, even for businesses.
We will now discover platforms that are famous for web-based apps. The most popular web-based platform is PHP (version 5.4.7 released this September). It is an open-source platform that offers diversified options under one umbrella. You can go for plain PHP and develop applications from scratch, or you can use frameworks built on PHP that allow you to quickly develop custom web applications. Examples of popular PHP based frameworks are: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Magento.
Ruby-on-Rails (RoR) is also gaining rapid popularity for developing large scale apps and its current release 3.2.8 was launched in August, 2012. It uses MVC architecture and Ruby language to build applications which makes it simple, powerful and manageable. Using RoR, you have multiple options to develop apps in recent technologies. Correct use of RoR can add flexibility, manageability, productivity and growth to your business by ensuring a solution that is customized to your business needs.
]]>We will now discuss different methods to maintain and organize large applications or enterprise level applications.
Adopt Frameworks
Frameworks might assist you in maintaining an application because they implement default architecture on overall application and segregates application into different layers according to implemented design pattern. For instance Ruby on Rails is based on MVC framework it handles many user requirements for you. It setups few things for you by default, like an app name folder which has model, view, controller folders in it. There are also mailer and helper classes which mockup distances between controllers and models. Along with these Rails generate separate folders for static constraints of application like HTML, CSS and Script files.
Similarly WordPress gives developer some flexibility which Ruby does not allow. WordPress is generally used as a CMS for relatively smaller application although Joomla supports both small and enterprise level applications.
What’s special in these frameworks? They have particular structure for maintaining the application. They compel developers to follow guide lines of the framework and work accordingly, giving efficiency and systematic organization to your application.
Adopt Standard of Frameworks
There are certain documented standards of every framework. Deviation from these standards will ends up in a mess for your application. People who are familiar with Rails definitely know its standards and they avoid violating them. Working with enterprise-level applications needs firmer implementation of framework standards because enterprise-level applications have modules and each module itself is an application. Different modules may develop on different platforms and without their standard implementation your application may be vulnerable during integration phase.
Integrated parts should be Uniform
If you are developing a service based application whose data will be consumed by other modules of application then its structure of data which is exposed should be uniform across application but its internal processing might be separate, which suits its internal working. For example there should be a standard pattern for all the URLs, API syntax and a certain naming convention for labels, function naming and classes naming. Also the static assets should have the same naming conventions. For example if you write CSS for a particular div on a particular page then it should have the name of div related to page. Develop these conventions once and then stick to them throughout the application. This will on one end make organization of application easier and on the other end it will make your documentation easier. In addition these conventions will help new developers on board to grip the standards quickly.
For enterprise-level organizations it is recommended to follow a pattern either provided by framework otherwise you should develop your own conventions. Following standards will ensure organized application.
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