5 Golden Questions to Ask Your Technology Consultant Before Hiring Them

Jitendra Desai Webzworld- Technology Consultant

Choosing the right technology consultant can significantly impact your business’s success. Asking the right questions upfront is crucial to ensure you find a partner who aligns with your needs and delivers the desired outcomes. Here are 5 golden questions to consider:

1. “What is your approach to understanding our unique business challenges?”

  • Why it matters: This question assesses their ability to go beyond surface-level inquiries.
  • Look for: A response that emphasizes:
    • Discovery phases: In-depth interviews, workshops, and data analysis.
    • Industry expertise: Demonstrated knowledge of your specific industry and its challenges.
    • Tailored solutions: An assurance that solutions will be customized to your unique requirements.

2. “How do you measure the success of your projects?”

  • Why it matters: This question ensures they focus on your desired outcomes, not just technical deliverables.
  • Look for: Metrics that align with your business goals, such as:
    • Increased efficiency: Reduced operational costs, faster turnaround times.
    • Improved customer experience: Enhanced customer satisfaction, increased loyalty.
    • Revenue growth: Increased sales, market share, and profitability.
    • ROI: Clear demonstration of the return on your investment in their services.

3. “How do you handle project scope creep and unexpected challenges?”

  • Why it matters: Projects rarely go exactly as planned. This question assesses their ability to adapt and mitigate risks.
  • Look for: A response that includes:
    • Agile methodologies: Flexibility and adaptability to changing requirements.
    • Regular communication and reporting: Transparent updates on project progress and potential roadblocks.
    • Contingency planning: Strategies to address unforeseen issues and minimize disruptions.

4. “How do you ensure data security and protect our sensitive information?”

  • Why it matters: Data breaches can have severe consequences. This question assesses their commitment to data security.
  • Look for:
    • Security certifications and best practices: Compliance with industry standards (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC 2).
    • Data protection measures: Encryption, access controls, and regular security audits.
    • Clear communication of security protocols: Openly discussing their security measures and how they protect client data.

5. “Can you provide references from past clients in our industry?”

  • Why it matters: Client testimonials and case studies provide valuable insights into their past performance.
  • Look for:
    • Positive testimonials: Satisfied clients who achieved their desired outcomes.
    • Case studies: Detailed examples of successful projects in your industry.
    • Willingness to connect: A willingness to provide contact information for client references.

By asking these 5 golden questions, you can gain valuable insights into the consultant’s approach, expertise, and commitment to your success. This will help you make an informed decision and choose the best technology partner for your business.

Why Webzworld is the Ideal Technology Partner for Your Business

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, selecting the right technology consultant is paramount for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve.

With numerous options available, making the right choice can significantly impact your company’s efficiency, productivity, and overall success.

1. Expertise and Experience:

With over 24 years of experience in the industry, Webzworld brings unparalleled expertise to the table.

Our seasoned professionals have a deep understanding of various industries, allowing us to tailor our solutions to address your specific challenges and opportunities effectively.

2. Comprehensive Range of Services:

From technology consulting to cybersecurity, cloud solutions, and strategic planning, Webzworld offers a comprehensive suite of services to meet all your technology needs under one roof.

Our diverse expertise ensures that we can handle every aspect of your IT infrastructure with precision and efficiency.

3. Reliability and Responsiveness:

At Webzworld, we prioritize customer satisfaction above all else.

Our team is committed to providing prompt and reliable support, ensuring that any issues are addressed swiftly to minimize downtime and maximize productivity for your business.

4. Scalability:

Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, Webzworld’s solutions are designed to grow with your business.

We understand that scalability is crucial for long-term success, which is why we offer flexible solutions that can adapt to your evolving needs seamlessly.

5. Security Measures:

Protecting your data and systems from cyber threats is paramount in today’s digital landscape.

At Webzworld, we take security seriously and implement robust measures to safeguard your business against potential threats, giving you peace of mind knowing that your sensitive information is protected.

6. Cost-Effectiveness:

We understand that budget constraints are a reality for many businesses.

That’s why we offer competitive pricing and flexible packages designed to deliver maximum value and return on investment for your technology spend.

7. Client Satisfaction:

Our proven track record speaks volumes. Numerous delighted customers have witnessed the significant benefits of teaming up with Webzworld. Their testimonials stand as evidence of the excellence of our services and the concrete outcomes we achieve.

In conclusion, choosing Webzworld as your technology consultant is an investment in your company’s future.

With our unmatched expertise, wide-ranging services, dependability, scalability, security protocols, cost-efficiency, and dedication to client contentment, we’re certain we can enhance your business’s performance in the digital era. Reach out now to discover how we can assist your business objectives and drive you towards triumph.

Google Workspace Emails: Enhancing Collaboration

In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, effective communication and collaboration are vital components of any successful business. Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite, offers a suite of tools designed to enhance productivity and streamline communication. In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of Google Workspace emails and why they are essential for businesses of all sizes.

1. Seamless Integration

Google Workspace emails are not just standalone email accounts; they seamlessly integrate with a wide range of productivity tools, including Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Meet, Google Docs, and more. This integration fosters collaboration by allowing users to access and share documents, schedule meetings, and conduct video conferences directly from their email interface. This unified experience enhances efficiency and reduces the need to switch between different applications.

2. Cloud-Based Accessibility

Google Workspace email services are hosted in the cloud, which means users can access their emails, calendar, and documents from anywhere with an internet connection. Whether you’re in the office, at home, or on the go, your email and work-related data are always at your fingertips. This level of accessibility promotes remote work, flexibility, and uninterrupted communication.

3. Scalability

Google Workspace offers scalability that accommodates businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, you can easily add or remove user licenses as your organization grows or changes. This flexibility ensures that your email and collaboration tools can adapt to your evolving needs without requiring substantial investments in infrastructure.

4. Enhanced Security

Email security is a top priority for businesses, and Google Workspace takes this seriously. It provides robust security features, including advanced threat protection, spam filters, and data loss prevention tools. Google’s infrastructure is designed with security in mind, and regular updates and patches are applied automatically to protect against emerging threats. Additionally, two-factor authentication (2FA) adds an extra layer of security to user accounts.

5. Collaboration and Real-Time Editing

Google Workspace’s suite of tools promotes real-time collaboration. With Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, multiple users can work on the same document simultaneously, making edits and suggestions in real-time. This collaborative environment enhances teamwork, reduces version control issues, and speeds up project completion.

6. Cost-Efficiency

Google Workspace operates on a subscription-based model, which can be more cost-effective than managing on-premises email servers and software. It eliminates the need for costly hardware and software maintenance, as Google takes care of infrastructure management, updates, and maintenance tasks. This cost predictability allows businesses to allocate resources more efficiently.

7. Reliable Uptime

Google boasts a high level of uptime for its services. With redundant data centers and a robust infrastructure, Google Workspace offers reliability that ensures minimal disruptions to your email and collaboration tools. This high availability keeps your business running smoothly and minimizes downtime-related losses.

8. Centralized Management

Google Workspace provides centralized management through an admin console, allowing IT administrators to manage user accounts, security settings, and device policies from a single interface. This simplifies the management of user access and security, ensuring that your organization’s data remains secure.

In conclusion, Google Workspace emails are an indispensable tool for modern businesses. Their seamless integration, cloud-based accessibility, scalability, enhanced security, collaboration features, cost-efficiency, reliability, and centralized management make them an essential component of any organization’s digital toolkit. By adopting Google Workspace, businesses can empower their teams to communicate and collaborate more effectively, ultimately driving productivity and success in today’s fast-paced business environment. If you haven’t already, consider making the switch to Google Workspace and unlock the full potential of your email and collaboration tools.

Microsoft Office 365 Emails: A Business Necessity

In today’s digital age, communication lies at the heart of every successful business. Whether you’re a small startup or a multinational corporation, effective communication is essential for collaboration, decision-making, and customer interaction. Microsoft Office 365, particularly its email services, plays a pivotal role in ensuring seamless and efficient communication within organizations. In this blog, we’ll explore why Office 365 emails are crucial for businesses of all sizes.

1. Accessibility Anytime, Anywhere

One of the key advantages of Office 365 emails is their cloud-based nature. Unlike traditional email systems that rely on on-premises servers, Office 365 emails are hosted in the cloud. This means you can access your emails, calendar, and contacts from anywhere with an internet connection. Whether you’re at the office, working from home, traveling, or on a mobile device, you can stay connected and productive.

2. Scalability

Office 365 offers scalability that can accommodate businesses of all sizes. Whether your company has ten employees or thousands, Office 365 can be tailored to your needs. You can easily add or remove user licenses, storage space, and services as your organization grows or evolves. This scalability ensures that your email infrastructure can grow with your business without the need for significant capital investments.

3. Security and Compliance

Email security is a paramount concern for any organization. Office 365 incorporates robust security features to protect your emails and data. It includes advanced threat protection, encryption, and data loss prevention tools to safeguard against cyber threats and unauthorized access. Moreover, Office 365 assists in compliance with industry regulations, helping you meet legal and industry-specific requirements related to data protection and privacy.

4. Collaborative Tools Integration

Office 365 is more than just email; it’s a comprehensive suite of productivity tools. With services like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive seamlessly integrated with your email, collaboration becomes effortless. You can share files, conduct virtual meetings, and work on documents in real-time, fostering teamwork and boosting productivity.

5. Reliability and Uptime

Downtime can be disastrous for business operations. Office 365 boasts a high level of reliability and uptime, with Microsoft managing the infrastructure and ensuring constant availability. This means you can trust that your emails will be accessible when you need them, minimizing disruptions and ensuring business continuity.

6. Cost-Efficiency

Office 365 operates on a subscription-based model, which can be more cost-effective than traditional email systems with upfront hardware and software costs. You pay only for what you use on a per-user basis, making it easier to manage your IT budget. Plus, you eliminate the need for on-premises hardware maintenance and reduce energy costs.

7. Automatic Updates and Maintenance

Microsoft takes care of all the updates and maintenance tasks, ensuring that your email system is up to date with the latest features and security patches. This not only saves your IT team valuable time but also keeps your email infrastructure secure and efficient.

In conclusion, Microsoft Office 365 emails are not just a convenience; they are a strategic necessity for businesses in today’s fast-paced, digital world. Their accessibility, scalability, security, collaboration capabilities, and cost-efficiency make them a valuable asset to any organization. By adopting Office 365, businesses can streamline their communication, boost productivity, and stay ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape. If you haven’t already, it’s time to consider making the switch to Office 365 and harnessing the power of modern email communication.

Crafting Digital Success: Website Design Artistry

Website Design Services

Crafting Digital Success: The Art of Website Design Services In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, a strong online presence is essential for businesses to thrive. Your website is often the first point of contact with potential customers, making it a critical asset for success. At Webzworld, we understand the importance of making a lasting impression in the virtual world. Join us as we explore the world of website design services and discover how our expertise can elevate your online presence.

The Power of a Well-Designed Website:

Your website is your digital storefront, your 24/7 sales representative, and the face of your brand online. Here’s why investing in a well-designed website is crucial:

1. First Impressions Matter: A visually appealing website immediately grabs the attention of visitors and creates a positive impression.

2. User Experience is Key: An intuitive, user-friendly design enhances the overall experience, leading to longer visits and increased engagement.

3. Credibility and Trust: A professional website design establishes trust and credibility, encouraging visitors to explore your products or services.

4. Search Engine Visibility: Search engines prefer well-structured websites, which can lead to higher search rankings and increased organic traffic.

Our Website Design Process:

At Webzworld, we take a comprehensive and collaborative approach to website design. Here’s a glimpse into our process:

1. Consultation: We start by understanding your business goals, target audience, and unique selling points to tailor our services accordingly.

2. Design Concept: Our talented designers create custom design concepts that align with your brand identity, ensuring your website stands out from the crowd.

3. Development: Our skilled developers bring these concepts to life using the latest web technologies to create a functional and responsive website.

4. Testing: Rigorous testing ensures that your website functions seamlessly across various devices and browsers, guaranteeing a positive user experience.

5. Launch: Once everything is perfected, we launch your website, making it accessible to your audience.

Our Comprehensive Services:

1. Custom Website Design: We believe in delivering unique solutions for every client, ensuring your website is tailored to your brand and objectives.

2. E-commerce Solutions: Our expertise extends to creating engaging and efficient e-commerce websites, designed to boost sales and customer satisfaction.

3. Responsive Design: With mobile devices dominating web traffic, we prioritize responsive design to ensure your website looks and works flawlessly on all screens.

4. Content Management Systems (CMS): We offer seamless CMS integration, enabling you to easily manage and update your website’s content.

5. SEO Optimization: Our team specializes in optimizing websites for search engines, increasing your visibility and driving organic traffic.

Website Maintenance: Beyond launch, we provide ongoing support and maintenance to keep your website current, secure, and performing at its best.

Conclusion:

In today’s digital era, a well-designed website is a non-negotiable asset for businesses of all sizes. At Webzworld, we are passionate about crafting websites that not only impress but also deliver results. Whether you’re looking to establish your online presence, revamp your existing site, or venture into e-commerce, our website design services are your gateway to digital success. Dive into the world of excellence with Webzworld, and let’s make your online dreams a reality.

6 Reasons Your Business Needs a Technology Consulting Partner like Webzworld

Stay Connected to one of the leading technology consulting company – Webzworld. Companies can benefit from hiring a technology consulting. Few good reasons:

1) Expertise: Technology consulting companies have skilled professionals who specialize in various technology areas, offering valuable insights and guidance to make informed decisions and implement appropriate solutions.

2) Cost savings: Hiring a technology consulting company can be cost-effective compared to maintaining a full-time technology team, allowing businesses to pay for services as needed and scale up or down accordingly.

3) Increased efficiency: Technology consultants help identify and eliminate inefficiencies, suggesting more efficient technology solutions to streamline operations and enhance productivity.

4) Access to latest technology: Staying updated with the latest trends and innovations, technology consultants can implement cutting-edge tools and systems to improve business operations and maintain competitiveness.

5) Customized solutions: Technology consultants provide tailored solutions to address specific business needs and goals, aligning technology with unique challenges and opportunities.

6) Risk management: Technology consultants help identify and mitigate technology risks, including cybersecurity threats, data breaches, and system failures, ensuring business continuity and disaster recovery planning.

In summary, hiring a technology consulting company empowers companies to embrace technology, optimize operations, reduce costs, manage risks, and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving business landscape.

5 Reasons to Start Technology Consulting with WebzWorld

5 Reasons to Start Technology Consulting with WebzWorld

Introduction:
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses are constantly seeking ways to harness the power of technology to enhance their operations, drive growth, and remain competitive. WebzWorld, a distinguished technology consulting firm, offers a unique opportunity for individuals and businesses to embark on a journey of innovation.

Expertise That Matters:
WebzWorld boasts a team of seasoned professionals with a wealth of expertise in various technological domains. As a technology consultant with WebzWorld, you’ll have the opportunity to tap into this pool of knowledge and gain insights into the latest trends, tools, and strategies shaping the industry.

Driving Digital Transformation:
In today’s business landscape, digital transformation is no longer a choice; it’s a necessity. You’ll have the chance to help businesses navigate the complexities of technological change, offering solutions that streamline processes, boost efficiency, and open doors to new opportunities. Being a catalyst for positive change can be immensely fulfilling and impactful.

Tailored Solutions for Unique Challenges:
One size doesn’t fit all in the world of technology solutions. Each business faces unique challenges and aspirations. This personalized approach ensures that your recommendations resonate with clients, fostering trust and long-lasting partnerships.

Entrepreneurial Freedom:
Starting technology consulting with WebzWorld offers a degree of entrepreneurial freedom that’s hard to find elsewhere. You’ll have the autonomy to shape your consulting practice, choose your focus areas, and define your approach to helping clients achieve their goals. This level of freedom not only fuels your creativity but also empowers you to make a meaningful impact on your terms.

Community of Innovators:
Joining WebzWorld means becoming part of a vibrant community of innovators, thinkers, and problem solvers. You’ll have the opportunity to collaborate, learn, and exchange ideas with like-minded professionals who share your passion for technology and consulting. This sense of belonging fosters personal growth and continuous learning, ensuring that you stay at the forefront of industry developments.

Starting technology consulting with WebzWorld opens doors to a world of opportunities and possibilities. With a team of experts, a focus on innovation, and a commitment to tailored solutions, WebzWorld provides the ideal platform for you to make a significant impact in the ever-evolving tech landscape. Whether you’re an aspiring technology consultant looking to shape your career or a business seeking to leverage technology for growth, WebzWorld promises a journey filled with discovery, growth, and transformation. Embrace the power of technology consulting and join hands with WebzWorld to make a difference that matters.

Security Vulnerabilities and 4 Ways to Protect Your WordPress Site

Security vulnerabilities are unprotect areas of your site or site host that attackers can exploit to steal your data, modify your site, or otherwise cause damage. These vulnerabilities often exist due to insecure plugins that you may add to your site, lack of control over visitor interactions, or failure to regularly update plugins.

While you may think that attackers would have no interest in your site, attacks happen regularly to every type of site, regardless of size or traffic.

Attackers value user data that your site contains and the site’s access to visitors. For example, a successful attack may allow an attacker to plant a malicious script on your site. Then, when users visit your site, that script runs and enables attackers to steal user passwords or gain access to webcams.

Top WordPress Security Vulnerabilities and How to Overcome Them

To protect your site and your visitors, it helps to understand what type of vulnerabilities you may be expose to. Below are some of the most common vulnerabilities that site owners face and some suggestions on how to manage these risks. 

1.Insecure WordPress logins

Your WordPress login is a valuable target for attackers because it provides access to your site administration dashboard. If attackers can gain access to your login credentials they will have full control over your site. An insecure or weak administrative password provides easy entry for attackers. 

Weak passwords are passwords that can be easily guess or uncover through brute force attacks. Brute force attacks are attacks that keep trying different password and username combinations until access is gain. These attacks are possible because WordPress doesn’t limit the number of login attempts an attacker can make.

To prevent these attacks, it’s important to: 

  • Use a secure password and change it periodically. Secure passwords are typically passwords that are:
    • eight or more characters and
    • a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters 

The easiest way to ensure you have a secure password is to use a password generator such as the one provided in Google Chrome browsers.

  • Enable two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication requires you to correctly enter your username and password. Then a code is sent to your email or a personal device, such as a mobile phone. Once you provide this code you are allow to finish logging into your account. Two-factor authentication can help ensure that even if an attacker steals your login information, they are not able to access your account.

2.Outdated themes and plugins

Any theme, plugin, or application that you add to your site may introduce vulnerabilities. If attackers discover these vulnerabilities they can exploit these weak spots to gain access to your site and users. 

After plugins, themes, and applications are release, developers often continue working on these components. For example, adding new features, fixing bugs, or patching security issues. If you do not keep your various components up-to-date, you miss out on these improvements and may leave vulnerabilities exposed. 

To avoid this, it is important that you: 

  • Keep track of current versions of your components and that you are aware when vulnerabilities have been report. To remain up-to-date, you should periodically check for new versions or patches. If you can enable automatic updates for components you should. Webzworld WordPress Hosting provides automatic WordPress updates, making it easier to stay up-to-date.

If automatic updates aren’t available, you need to use a different method of alerting yourself to possible threats. One way is to monitor a vulnerability database. Vulnerability databases are listings of known vulnerabilities and include information about what components are affect and how to fix the vulnerability. These databases can help you ensure that you are aware of any known vulnerabilities regardless of whether an update is currently available. 

for more information contact us

Master your email with these essential Gmail tips

Master your email with these essential Gmail tips

Email is an integral part of our daily lives, whether it’s for work, personal communication, or staying informed. For many, Gmail is the go-to platform for managing emails efficiently. However, to truly master your email and make the most of Gmail’s features, it’s essential to know some tips and tricks. In this blog, we’ll explore valuable Gmail tips that can help you optimize your inbox, boost productivity, and stay organized.

1. Organize with Labels and Filters

Gmail allows you to create labels and filters to categorize and organize your emails automatically. Labels work like folders, but an email can have multiple labels, making it easier to find and sort messages. Filters let you automate actions like archiving, labeling, or forwarding emails based on criteria you set.

2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts

Gmail offers a variety of keyboard shortcuts that can significantly speed up your email management. For example, by pressing ‘C,’ you can compose a new email, and ‘R’ allows you to reply to the selected message. To see a list of available shortcuts, press ‘Shift’ + ‘/’ while in Gmail.

3. Enable Priority Inbox

Priority Inbox automatically categorizes your emails into three sections: Important and Unread, Starred, and Everything Else. This feature helps you focus on the most crucial messages first, making your inbox less overwhelming.

4. Undo Send

Ever hit the send button only to realize you made a mistake? Gmail’s “Undo Send” feature comes to the rescue. You can set a delay (e.g., 10 seconds) during which you can undo sending an email and make any necessary corrections.

5. Schedule Emails

If you want to send an email later, you can use Gmail’s email scheduling feature. Click the arrow next to the “Send” button and choose a specific date and time for delivery.

6. Customize Swipe Actions (Mobile)

On the Gmail mobile app, you can customize swipe actions to perform various actions like archiving, deleting, or marking as unread with a simple swipe. Go to Settings > General settings > Swipe actions to configure them according to your preference.

7. Explore Add-ons and Extensions

Gmail offers a range of add-ons and extensions that can enhance your email experience. Whether you need to track emails, schedule meetings, or improve email content, there’s likely an extension to help.

8. Use Templates

If you frequently send similar emails, you can create and use email templates in Gmail. This saves time and ensures consistency in your messages.

9. Search Like a Pro

Gmail’s search capabilities are robust. You can use operators like “from,” “to,” “subject,” and “has:” to refine your search.

10. Stay Informed with Notifications

Customize your notification settings in Gmail to receive alerts for essential emails. You can choose to be notified for all emails, only important ones, or none at all to minimize distractions.

By mastering these Gmail tips and incorporating them into your email management routine, you can optimize your inbox

Beyond the password: Google Workspace brings a major security innovation to customers with passkeys

Google Workspace brings a major security innovation to customers with passkeys

Phishing attacks continue to grow in their scale and sophistication by taking advantage of security weaknesses in passwords. Beyond the password: Google Workspace brings a major security innovation to customers with passkeys For example:

1. Over 60% of data breaches in 2021 involved stolen credentials or phishing

2. Data breaches caused by phishing cost organizations $4.91 million on average in 2022

3. Phishing attacks grew 61% in 2022, reaching 255 million in a six-month period

Over the past decade Google has been at the forefront of the battle against phishing and password-related threats, including with our automated defenses powered by Google AI. We championed the development of physical security keys and their standardization under the FIDO Alliance. As a generally simpler and more secure alternative to passwords, passkeys represent the culmination of this work to bring phishing-resistant technology to billions of people worldwide. In early May, we made passkeys available as an additional sign-in option for personal Google Accounts. Starting today, in an open Beta, more than 9 million organizations can allow their users to sign in to Google Workspace and Google Cloud accounts using passkeys instead of passwords.

Passkeys introduce meaningful security and usability benefits to users, and we’re thrill to be the first major public cloud provider to bring this technology to our customers — from small businesses and large enterprises to schools and governments. While users can still continue using passwords to sign in to their work and personal Google Accounts, passkeys can offer a simpler and more secure alternative and can reduce the impact of phishing and other social engineering attacks.

What are passkeys?

Passkeys are a new, passwordless sign-in method that can offer a convenient and secure authentication experience across websites and apps, allowing users to sign in with a fingerprint, face recognition, or other screen-lock mechanism across phones, laptops, or desktops. Passkeys are based on an industry standard and available across popular browsers and operating systems that people use every day, including Android, ChromeOS, iOS, macOS, and Windows. Unlike passwords, passkeys don’t need to remember or type and cannot be written down or accidentally given to an adversary. Passkeys are simply easier to use.

Passkeys are based on the same public key cryptographic protocols that underpin physical security keys, such as the Titan Security Key, and therefore can be resistant to phishing and other online attacks. In fact, Google research has shown that security keys provide a stronger protection against automated bots, bulk phishing attacks, and targeted attacks than SMS, app-based one-time passwords.

Snap Inc. has already leveraged passkeys to help reduce the burden of password management and strengthen security for their employees: “Partnering with the Google Workspace team to move from passwords to passkeys reduces the risk of password leakage and account takeovers of our employees,” said Jim HigginsCISOSnap Inc. “Our Corporate Security team is deepening our security partnership with Google and is excited to expand the adoption of passkeys across our company to provide a more secure and convenient sign-in experience.”

Passkeys have also been design with user privacy in mind. When a user signs in with a passkey to their Workspace apps, such as a Gmail or Google Drive, the passkey can confirm that a user has access to their device and can unlock it with a fingerprint, face recognition, or other screen-lock mechanism. The user’s biometric data is never sent to Google’s servers or other websites and apps.

Why Dedicated Servers Are The Best Option For Growing Businesses

Dedicated Servers Are The Best Option For Growing Businesses

Just like ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, it takes a team of dedicated resources to build and run a successful business. 

Owning and running a business means absolute dedicated efforts 24X7 to make sure everything runs smoothly and your customers or clients have the best experience doing business with you. It’s this dedicated hard work that allows you to scale and grow your business. Whether you start as a one-man army or have your team by your side, a growing business demands growth in every aspect  manpower, time, efforts, tools, capital and a lot more. 

Nowadays creating an impactful online presence and being able to serve your customers digitally has become key to success. From e-commerce websites to service providers, every business and every industry is scaling their online efforts to keep up with their customer’s expectations of being available digitally.

As a new and small business, it’s easy to create a website and get online with Shared Hosting or VPS Hosting as the traffic is considerably low and your website data and resources are not very heavy or large at this stage. However, as your business grows, so does the traffic and your need for more resources. 

Keeping in mind the needs of a growing business in this era of digitalization, let’s understand why you must consider Dedicated Servers, the benefits of Dedicated Servers for a growing business and how it allows you to scale your online presence. 

Let’s start by understanding what are Dedicated Servers and their benefits. 

Decoding the Benefits of Dedicated Servers for Emerging Businesses 

“Dedicated Servers,” or Dedicated Server Hosting, is the go-to choice for businesses experiencing significant website traffic and data demands. As companies evolve beyond Shared or VPS Hosting plans, Dedicated Servers offer an exclusive solution. Your server and its resources are solely dedicated to your business, ensuring security, power, and customization tailored to your needs. While it comes at a higher cost compared to shared hosting, it’s a worthy investment for businesses prioritizing security and scalability. With high-performance SSD servers and full root access, Dedicated Server Hosting enhances website performance, making it an ideal choice for growing businesses.

Dedicated Resources

Dedicated Servers don’t just come with a high processing power but also 100% of the server resources are allocate to you. All the server resources, including RAM, CPU, Disk Space etc, are dedicated to your website. 

Full Root Access

Full Root access means you have complete administrative control over your server. You can thus easily install any software of your choice to better your hosting experience and customize it to meet your website requirements. 

Continued Scalability

With continued efforts, it’s only natural that your business will only keep growing. From small to medium, to even a large business dedicated servers support growth and allow you to easily scale. The resources and system hardware of a Dedicated Server can be scale to meet your exact needs and business goals. 

Better Uptime

Dedicated Servers offer 99.99% uptime which means no matter how much or how rapidly your website traffic increases, the servers efficiently handle it and ensure your website is always up and running. 

Enhanced Security

With Dedicated Servers, you can guarantee better security and control over your security measures to keep your and your customer’s data safe and secure. You can ensure optimum security for your Dedicated Server. Since you get complete control over your server, you can choose the best security tools and software. Additionally, since the server is entirely dedicated to your website, threats because of other websites being vulnerable are minimize. 

Dedicate Your Efforts to Growth! 

Running a business is undoubtedly challenging! It demands relentless efforts, a commitment to excellence, and ongoing strategies for improvement and expansion.

In this journey, Dedicated Server Hosting becomes a valuable ally for every growing business. As your enterprise evolves, so do your requirements for substantial resources. Dedicated Servers are purpose-built to cater to the needs of expanding businesses.

For additional insights, tips, and useful hacks, explore our Servers Blog category. Should you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to drop a comment below.

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5 Gmail tips to start your inbox fresh

1. Steer clear of spam.

Gmail automatically keeps your inbox clean from spam and unwanted emails thanks to AI smarts. Gmail protects users from nearly 15 billion unwanted messages a day, blocking more than 99.9% of spam, phishing and malware. But if a message pops up that makes it past the filters, you can report it as spam by checking the box near your message, then clicking the Report Spam icon. (If you’re already in the message, it’s just one click on the Report Spam button and you’re all set.) And if it’s not quite spam, but it’s annoying anyway, you can set up a filter to block the sender’s messages from ever reaching your inbox.

2. Archive emails in bulk.

It can be overwhelming to look at a crowded post-holiday inbox. Where do you even start? One way is to minimize the number of emails you’re looking at by archiving in bulk. Let’s say you have a lot of emails from your child’s teacher that you don’t need to take action on. On desktop, search for the email address of the teacher, then look at the check box on the top left of your computer screen, below the “From” search filter. You can check that box to select all the emails, or click the arrow to select only read, unread, starred or unstarred emails. Once you’ve done that, hit Archive to remove them from your inbox view without deleting them entirely.

3. Mute email threads that get out of hand.

If you’re planning a group gathering or family reunion for 2023, chances are your email discussion is going to get long. Can’t deal with your friend’s cousin’s constant opinions on bachelorette party planning? You can mute the thread so you don’t see every update pop into your inbox, and instead these emails are sent to the “All Mail” label. On desktop, check the box to the left of your message in your inbox, click the three-dot menu near the top of the page and select Mute. On mobile, tap the message, click the three-dot menu on the top right of your screen and select Mute. Now the emails will be ready for you to read later, when you search for them or visit your “All Mail” label, but you won’t see every single update at the top of your inbox. Phew.

4. Separate incoming emails by creating multiple email addresses with a plus sign.

You use your Gmail address for lots of things: making plans with friends and family, tackling professional projects and keeping track of online shopping, just to name a few. Basically, lots of activities that ramp back up after the holiday-season lull. When all those updates end up in your inbox, though, it can leave you feeling overwhelmed. An easy way to tackle this is by signing up for things using different forms of your email address with a simple plus sign. Try it with online shopping, or even social media sites, to keep things clear of clutter.

5. Keep your messages safe.

Bringing peace to your inbox doesn’t just include cutting clutter. It also includes keeping your emails private and secure. Take action to protect your entire Google account by taking a Security Checkup and a Privacy Checkup, then take the recommended actions like choosing a secure password, enabling 2-factor authentication and adding in Account Recovery information so you never get locked out. That way you can start your year safely, too.

Microsoft Intune securely manages identities, manages apps, and manages devices

Microsoft Intune

Microsoft Intune securely manages identities, manages apps, and manages devices As organizations move to support hybrid and remote workforces, they’re challenged with managing the different devices that access organization resources. Employees and students need to collaborate, work from anywhere, and securely access and connect to these resources. Admins need to protect organization data, manage end user access, and support users from wherever they work.

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based endpoint management solution. It manages user access and simplifies app and device management across your many devices, including mobile devices, desktop computers, and virtual endpoints.

Key features and benefits

Some key features and benefits of Intune include:

1. You can manage users and devices, including devices owned by your organization and personally owned devices. Microsoft Intune supports Android, Android Open Source Project (AOSP), iOS/iPadOS, macOS, and Windows client devices. With Intune, you can use these devices to securely access organization resources with policies you create.

2. Intune simplifies app management with a built-in app experience, including app deployment, updates, and removal. You can connect to and distribute apps from your private app stores, enable Microsoft 365 apps, deploy Win32 apps, create app protection policies, and manage access to apps and their data.

3. Intune automates policy deployment for apps, security, device configuration, compliance, conditional access, and more. When the policies are ready, you can deploy these policies to your user groups and device groups. To receive these policies, the devices only need internet access.

4. Employees and students can use the self-service features in the Company Portal app to reset a PIN/password, install apps, join groups, and more. You can customize the Company Portal app to help reduce support calls.

5. Intune integrates with mobile threat defense services, including Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and third party partner services. With these services, the focus is on endpoint security and you can create policies that respond to threats, do real-time risk analysis, and automate remediation.

Integrates with other Microsoft services and apps

Microsoft Intune integrates with other Microsoft products and services that focus on endpoint management, including:

1. Configuration Manager for on-premises endpoint management and Windows Server, including deploying software updates and managing data centers You can use Intune and Configuration Manager together in a co-management scenario, use tenant attach, or use both. With these options, you get the benefits of the web-based admin center and can use other cloud-based features available in Intune.

2. Windows Autopilot for modern OS deployment and provisioning With Windows Autopilot, you can provision new devices and send these devices directly to users from an OEM or device provider. For existing devices, you can reimage these devices to use Windows Autopilot and deploy the latest Windows version.

3. Endpoint analytics for visibility and reporting on end user experiences, including device performance and reliability You can use Endpoint analytics to help identify policies or hardware issues that slow down devices. It also provides guidance that can help you proactively improve end user experiences and reduce help desk tickets.

4. Microsoft 365 for end user productivity Office apps, including Outlook, Teams, Sharepoint, OneDrive, and more Using Intune, you can deploy Microsoft 365 apps to users and devices in your organization. You can also deploy these apps when users sign in for the first time.

5. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to help enterprises prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to threats In Intune, you can create a service-to-service connection between Intune and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. When they’re connected, you can create policies that scan files, detect threats, and report threat levels to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. You can also create compliance policies that set an allowable level of risk. When combined with conditional access, you can block access to organization resources for devices that are noncompliant.

Integrates with third party partner devices and apps

The Endpoint Manager admin center makes it easy to connect to different partner services, including:

1. Managed Google Play: When you connect to your Managed Google Play account, admins can access your organization’s private store for Android apps, and deploy these apps to your devices.

2. Apple tokens and certificates: When they’re added, your iOS/iPadOS and macOS devices can enroll in Intune and receive policies from Intune. Admins can access your volume purchased iOS/iPad and macOS app licenses, and deploy these apps to your devices.

3. TeamViewer: When you connect to your TeamViewer account, you can use TeamViewer to remotely assist devices.

With these services, Intune:

  • Gives admins simplified access to third party partner app services.
  • Can manage hundreds of third party partner apps.
  • Supports public retail store apps, line of business (LOB) apps, private apps not available in the public store, custom apps, and more.

Enroll in device management, application management, or both

Organization-owned devices are enrolled in Intune for mobile device management (MDM). MDM is device centric, so device features are configured based on who needs them. For example, you can configure a device to allow access to Wi-Fi, but only if the signed-in user is an organization account.

In Intune, you create policies that configure features & settings and provide security & protection. The devices are fully managed by your organization, including the user identities that sign in, the apps that are installed, and the data that’s accessed.

When devices enroll, you can deploy your policies during the enrollment process. When enrollment completes, the device is ready to use.

For personal devices in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scenarios, you can use Intune for mobile application management (MAM). MAM is user centric, so the app data is protected regardless of the device used to access this data. There’s a focus on apps, including securely accessing apps and protecting data within the apps.

Protect data on any device

With Intune, you can protect data on managed devices (enrolled in Intune) and protect data on unmanaged devices (not enrolled in Intune). Intune can isolate organization data from personal data. The idea is to protect your company information by controlling the way users access and share information.

For organization-owned devices, you want full control over the devices, especially security. When devices enroll, they receive your security rules and settings.

On devices enrolled in Intune, you can:

  • Create and deploy policies that configure security settings, set password requirements, deploy certificates, and more.
  • Use mobile threat defense services to scan devices, detect threats, and remediate threats.
  • View data and reports that measure compliance with your security settings and rules.
  • Use conditional access to only allow managed and compliant devices access to organization resources, apps, and data.
  • Remove organization data if a device is lost or stolen.

Simplify access

Intune helps organizations support employees who can work from anywhere. There are features you can configure that allow users to connect to an organization, wherever they might be.

This section includes some common features that you can configure in Intune.

Use Windows Hello for Business instead of passwords

Windows Hello for Business helps protect against phishing attacks and other security threats. It also helps users sign in to their devices and apps more quickly and easily.

Windows Hello for Business replaces passwords using a PIN or biometrics, such as fingerprint, facial recognition. This biometric information is stored locally on the devices and is never sent to external devices or servers.

Technology Consulting: What It Is & How to Succeed in It

software or smart devices

“Technology is a pillar in today’s economy. There are few things we do without the assistance of software or smart devices, and the same goes for businesses worldwide. It’s unlikely, however, for these businesses and their leaders to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology.”

“This is where technology consultants come in. These technology specialists provide a unique, objective, and specialized approach to technology and how to leverage it for business success. In this article, we’ll explore the world of technology consulting and discuss how to get started in a career as a technology consultant.”

What is technology consulting?

“Technology consulting is the process of advising businesses on how to best use technology and software to benefit their business. It can refer to the design and development, implementation, or management of new technology.

There are many names for technology consultants: IT consultants, computer consultants, software consultants, business and technology advisors, and more. The variety of nomenclature is due to the vast world of the modern technology industry — and just how many things technology consultants specialize in.”

Why technology consulting?

Technology has become a critical component of business success. Due to its rapid growth and expansion into virtually every industry, and it’s more important than ever for organizations to understand how to leverage various technology.

Technology consultants can help business clients accelerate growth, cut costs, mitigate risk, attract and develop talent, and streamline important processes.”

What does a technology consultant do?

“Technology consultants are hired to do many things. These could include custom software development, infrastructure planning, security analysis, and risk assessment. Technology consultants could also advise on the strategic or financial sides of technology and software, such as how to invest in cost-efficient systems or how to integrate new software across multiple departments.

Technology consultants may be asked to solve a variety of business problems with technology, such as security risks, scaling issues, or high employee turnover. Regardless of what problem they are solving or what solution they are proposing, technology consultants often work with a business’s executives, leaders, and senior managers.

How to Become a Technology Consultant

If you’re interested in a career in technology consulting, here are a few tips to help you get started.

Earn a degree in IT or computer science.

Employers and clients alike prefer technology consultants with professional education in a relevant field, like IT, computer science, or computer engineering. A degree also gives you a unique experience with software development, coding, data science, and web design — types of expertise that could come in handy for future clients.

Some consultants also opt to obtain a business minor as consulting requires just as many business skills as it does technology know-how. Marketing, business management, and communication classes can help hone these skills.

Gain some experience.

Both internships and jobs can help give you the hands-on, out-of-classroom experience it takes to start your technology consulting career. Consider interning with or shadowing a technology consultant to gain relevant field experience. Other internships in IT or software development can help, too.

After (or instead of) working in an internship position, apply for entry-level IT jobs. This step is important as employers and clients prefer technology consultants with experience (either internship or professional). While working in these positions, mix up your projects so you can figure out what parts of technology consulting you like and can specialize in.

In addition to the technology-related skills you’ll gain through these experiences, you’ll also hone your networking, communication, and problem-solving skills.

Follow technology trends.

Technology is an ever-changing industry, and the best technology consultants keep up with the latest technology trends. Not only does this keep you informed, but it meets your clients’ expectations of you as the technology “expert”. The most up-to-date expertise will also help you remain competitive in the industry.

Grow your network.

Get to know other professionals in the IT and technology consulting industries. This will help you establish relationships that could lead to new clients or colleagues. Attend events in your internship, job, or community to expand your technology network.

Technology consulting is a highly valuable and lucrative industry, and technology consultants are major assets to the clients that hire them. Follow the steps above to start your career in technology consulting.

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UX Design Principles: The Cornerstone of Every Successful Mobile App

ux design

If someone time travels from the past to 2020, he would be awestruck with 180-degree evolution in the mobile UX design process. 

They might feel amazed with Voice-based UX or would go overwhelmed with the scope of Artificial Intelligence in the domain. But, there’s one thing that they will find the same. 

Any guesses what is it?

 It’s nothing but the UX design principles

Over the years, various functionalities, technologies, and tools have been replaced or at the verge of extinction. But, the basic UX design principles have remained just the same as before.

Now knowing this, if you are someone who is planning to step into the UX domain this year, it is no wonder that getting acquainted with these principles is vital.

So, keeping the same into consideration, we will be covering the same below.

8 Principles To Guide You in Mobile App UX Design

1. Clutter-free Interface

Every application comes with a primary goal. The one where they target a particular pain point of end-users and provide a solution for the same.

But, because of the increasing competition, designers often introduce many other features and functionalities into their plan.

However, at times the app designers introduce multiple functionalities into the same app screen. This confuses the end-users, resulting in more clicks on the secondary (less important feature) compared to the primary one.

To combat this situation, the best way is to make a clutter-free interface. Meaning, introduce a limited number of actionable things in a single screen. A clear view of which you can take from the image shared below.

2. Personalization

We all love things that give us a personalized and special feel. There’s no denying it. The same psychology applies in the case of UX design too.

When you design a user experience that enables users to perform an action in a quick and effortless manner, they fall in love with your application. On the contrary, if it is cumbersome they exit the platform and share negative feedback.

As you can see in the screenshot of the Netflix app above, it informs and encourages users to continue their app interaction right from where they left. Or better say, continue watching the series they left in between.

3. Don’t Rush For Registration

You would encounter many mobile apps that straightaway ask for registration, without giving users a chance to explore the application. Does that leave a good impression of the app in the users mind? 

Personally, I immediately leave such applications. 

Why would any user register in vain before knowing what are the features that the app offers and whether it’s all worth it or not?

This is why it is again imperative for UX designers to follow the principle of keeping the registration process optional.

When you give some time to the new users to explore your mobile app and get familiar with it, they show more interest in your app. This reduces your app uninstallation rate and increases the chances of user conversion.

4. Avoid Nagging Permissions

It’s true that permissions to access user data open a new door to understanding the user and deliver a personalized experience. 

In such a scenario, an ideal way to keep a balance of the two is to ask for relevant permissions only. 

Let’s take another example.

VSCO, a photo-editing app asks for camera access only, whenever users wish to click a picture. It does not ask permission for accessing contacts, or other built-in device apps. This gives users an assurance that the rest of the information is secure.

5. Focus On Users Goals

Since desktop and mobile apps are essentially different, the goals that need to be fulfilled are also distinct. For example, what a user wants to do in a desktop app/website is not something they would want to do in a mobile app. 

So refrain from making it overwhelming for users to use a mobile app with the functionality of a desktop app. They would prefer selective things, i.e., say a user is using a restaurant app- he/she would want to just view the menu, book a reservation, place an order in advance, or just get directions. All the other information is secondary and can be displayed elsewhere, not on the main screen.

6. Design for Fingers

Gone are those days when mouse pointers were the one interacting with applications. Today, with the advent of touch-screen devices, users are interacting with the platforms via their fingers.

In a situation like this, it is again imperative to understand that the human finger size varies from person to person. So, designing for different human finger size is the right practice to bring more opportunities for interactions and increasing the app conversion rate.

Likewise, investing in hand gestures while creating an app UX design is also an optimal method of getting higher results.

7. Only Relevant Notifications

As a proverb goes, “Too much of anything is bad”, misuse of push notifications can drift your future from higher conversion rate to higher uninstallation rate. 

So, the next principle that every novice and experienced UX designer needs to watch out for is to discover how many push notifications are enough. And this way, prevent frustrating the users while getting their motive fulfilled.

8. Effective Offboarding

Since you have put so much effort into UX design for the whole process, it is equally important for you to end it on a positive note. 

That implies, adding UX elements that impart a positive vibe to the users even when they have performed the requisite action or are deactivating/deleting their account. This will improve the chances of them revisiting your app in the future as well.

Why You Need Interactive Website Design

website design

Interactive design vs. User experience design

Interactive design focuses on the moments of your user’s direct and active engagement – one that involves tapping, clicking, dragging, typing, etc. – with your website. Meanwhile, user experience (UX) design has a wider perspective and considers even moments of passive use – like reading a text on your website’s page – to be interaction.

As such, interactive website design is a part of UX website design that aims at incentivizing and facilitating the moments of a user’s active engagement. Some UX professionals prefer to zero in on this aspect of UX design and hone to perfection the skills of implementing interaction patterns. At Webzworld, we always put such focused specialists on highly interactive web design projects to ensure the quality of interactive design.

Interactive design elements

Interactive design processes break every moment of interaction into 5 elements. Most of these elements apply to all types of interactions, but some can be optional at times. The user experience specialist’s job is to define what elements are necessary for each interaction instance to make it feel natural and seamless.

Here’s the list of all 5 elements:

  • Text – A text or a symbol that indicates the possibility of interaction and focuses on its expected results – not the action itself. Think a line ‘Play’ or a triangle symbol that signifies the same intention.
  • Visual Form – Some interactive elements, like buttons or fields for text input, should have distinctly visible margins to specify the interactive zone. You certainly don’t want your potential buyer to take pains in finding the input zone when they’re filling in a shipping address for their purchase, for instance.
  • Medium/Platform – With interactions requiring different actions on different devices, an interactive design expert should ensure that the choice of interaction-inducing actions is predictable on all platforms.
  • Time – Certain interactions require time for processing input data and your website should always keep users informed about the state of this data processing. Otherwise, users may consider the website unresponsive and leave without waiting for the result.
  • Feedback  To give a user the feeling of accomplishment, your website should present a clear result of any interaction. For instance, show the ‘Success!’ notice after a user shares an article from your website to social networks.

The roles of each of these elements seem to be evident and choosing the necessary ones to assemble a smooth interaction flow appears to be a trivial task. Still, I’m sure that just like me, you’ve encountered plenty of web designs with broken interaction flows that puzzled you at one point or another or confused you enough to make you leave.

Merits of quality interactive design

Just like the negative consequences of bad interactive website design can be grave, the positive effects of quality interactive design can be impressive. Let’s look at just a few of them.

Lower support costs and increased support quality

If users don’t experience any troubles when interacting with your website, they have fewer reasons to turn to your support, which leads to minimized support costs. Thus, by ensuring that every interaction instance on your website is properly designed, you shield your support specialists from such trivial issues, and they can focus on complex and unprecedented cases, thus enhancing support quality.

Decreased bounce rate

More often than turn to support, visitors who experience a confusing interaction simply bounce and never return. Professionally designed and tested interactive design minimizes the chances of users’ frustrations with your website and prevents a high bounce rate.

Higher revenue

Whether your website’s revenue comes from clicks or purchases, it is tightly tied to the processes of interaction. By allowing users to gain a satisfying experience from engaging with your website, you motivate them to engage more often, thus bringing you more revenue.

Increased competitiveness and loyalty

There’s a caveat to what I said at the very start about good interactive design being natural enough to not attract any attention to itself at all. If you draw your users’ attention to interactive elements by adding some feel of freshness and creativity to them.

Benefit from the comfort of your users

A user interacting with your website is a client communicating with your business. Just as you wouldn’t want your business communication to appear confusing and unproductive, you shouldn’t let these qualities define the interactive design of your website. Whether you need to prevent interactive design issues in your future website or want to fix them in the existing one, don’t hesitate to turn to Webzworld’s team for assistance.

Are Cloud Computing Solutions Worth Implementing?

IT companies

The majority of IT companies already favor cloud apps more than on-premises ones, while non-IT organizations start to share that feeling as well. And ScienceSoft’s software development experience proves this trend: more than 80% of our software development projects use cloud technologies.

In this article, I’d like to share the insights on options you have while developing and deploying cloud applications and what benefits you can achieve using cloud solutions in your business.

Public, Private or Hybrid — That’s the deployment question

Public cloud

With the public cloud, a cloud service provider (such as AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform among the most popular ones) offers resources, such as storage, monitoring capabilities, and networking capacities, or virtual machines, to multiple customers on a subscription basis or a pay-per-usage model.

Sometimes, public clouds are associated with insecurity and inflexibility due to their multi-tenant nature. However, the right tenant isolation makes public clouds flexible and secure, even for the most valuable information.

Private cloud

The main idea of a private cloud is that it is used exclusively by one company.

One of the benefits of using a private cloud is a high security level, which is ensured by employing a secure firewall system and hosting the cloud within an isolated network.

However, if you’re a small or mid-sized business and don’t have a huge budget, creating a private cloud for deploying your solutions may be too expensive for you. The costs are definitely higher than deploying in a public cloud, as all management, maintenance, and updating of data centers, hardware and software lie on your in-house team.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud offers a mix of public cloud and private cloud services. Hybrid cloud deployments allow those services that do not need to be on-premises (e.g., due to data security requirements) to be deployed in the cloud with all its advantages. Compared to the public cloud, this cloud type gives you more agility as you don’t fully depend on third-party providers. Hybrid cloud provides you with a unique approach to data security as you can both store your data in a private isolated environment and use the public cloud for data backup and recovery measures.

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IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, FaaS: What are they for?

IaaS

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides companies with an infrastructure to develop their applications in the cloud. This type of cloud computing services offers you such resources as virtual machines, storage, and network services.

With IaaS, companies avoid huge capital expenditures as they pay only for the resources they use. Another strong advantage is that you can get any resources needed in just a few clicks by purchasing a required infrastructure element. Thus, by choosing IaaS, you can launch your cloud app fast.

PaaS

By choosing Platform as a Service (PaaS), besides cloud storage and other resources, like operating systems, you get ready-to-use tools for developing, configuring, customizing, testing, and managing your applications. Such tools can be, for instance, database, application integration, or AI services.

The PaaS model is popular with companies as it cuts the coding time, reduces time to market, and the overall software development expenses.

Serverless

The serverless model allows for quick development and easy scaling as, naturally, there is no reliance on virtual machines since the cloud executes application code without the need to install anything.

Serverless deployment is financially efficient as a cloud provider charges for the exact compute resources needed to execute your code, not for the number of the virtual machines. Maintenance costs are also pretty low.

SaaS

In the SaaS (Software as a Service) model, software is used on a subscription basis and centrally hosted in the public cloud. The companies don’t need to build anything from scratch but can find a pre-built solution that can be configured and customized to meet their needs fully.

SaaS solutions cover a wide variety of business needs, such as marketing, accounting, sales, HR, and etc. Popular examples of SaaS products are Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online, and Office 365.

Why do companies choose cloud computing solutions?

Scalability

One of the great options for companies going for cloud app development is autoscaling. It means that the number of cloud virtual machines automatically changes depending on the load. However, you need to be careful not to pay for the resources you never used or for using more than you actually needed.

ScienceSoft’s experience proves that autoscaling works great for businesses. Our team has developed a billing-as-a-service (BaaS) solution for international payment processing. They created a highly scalable solution that automatically scales from using 2 to 50 app servers depending on the load. This helped to make the inherently scalable, sustainable, and auditable billing system.

Cost-effectiveness

Cloud computing makes app development faster due to the use of cloud services instead of writing custom code, thus allowing fewer human and financial resources to be used. Moving to the cloud helps manage the applications more efficiently and reducing maintenance costs. There is no need to maintain hardware or buy additional equipment when the business starts to grow.

Access to advanced technologies

Besides continuously working on introducing new services to their offering, cloud service providers already deliver a wide range of services based on cutting-edge technologies such as AR/VR, blockchain, machine learning, and IoT. For example, Azure offers Machine Learning Studio (predictive analytics technology), while AWS provides Amazon SageMaker tool for quick machine learning model deployment.

Choose cloud computing for your project

Cloud computing solutions can become highly beneficial for your business. However, you shouldn’t underestimate the knowledge and competences needed to deliver and implement such a solution. Your team needs to be proficient in DevOps, know how to work with AWS, Azure or Google Cloud Platform, and establish ample cybersecurity measures.

The above content is taken from:

Asset Management Software: Types of Assets Covered, Advantages, and Popular Products

Assets manager

Asset management: the essence

Asset management is a process of tracking, organizing, and maintaining a company’s assets. It covers numerous types of assets, both tangible and intangible, depending on business type and scope. Asset management can be roughly categorize as follows:

IT asset management (ITAM) involves hardware (e.g., company-owned devices) and software, including subscriptions, licenses, patents, and network infrastructure components.

Enterprise asset management (EAM) covers physical assets throughout their lifecycle.

Financial asset management deals with investments, securities, loans, and more.

Infrastructure asset management is use by public organizations and large companies. It is focus on maintaining, updating, and removing physical infrastructure assets like roads, bridges, and utilities.

A common goal of asset management is to optimize the utilization of assets throughout their lifecycle, increase productivity, and reduce operational costs. Asset management software helps businesses achieve that via collecting asset data, tracking asset lifecycle, and providing automated reports for company management to analyze.

Why to use asset management software?

Improve accuracy of asset documentation as compared to manual document management, since human errors like typos or accidental omissions are minimize.

Better asset accounting. Asset management software help be aware of what assets are available and where, who should work on them and when. For example, the software helps identify ghost assets as well as avoid asset theft and loss.

Time and cost saving. Automated asset management workflows allow asset management teams to do more in less time.

Enhanced asset utilization. Asset management software ensures better visibility and control over assets. It provides means to analyze asset utilization patterns as well as plan asset availability and maintenance, thus helping improve asset utilization strategies.

Improved maintenance management. The preventive maintenance feature of an asset management solution help achieve stable and continuous operation of assets.

Better compliance. Keeping in mind all license entitlements and requirements of relevant laws and regulations can be challenging. An asset management system helps minimize legal risks and reduce non-compliance costs.

Popular asset management software

AssetExplorer

ManageEngine AssetExplorer is a web-based ITAM tool aim at managing IT assets and offering features for physical asset management. Its features include:

Comprehensive inventory management throughout the asset lifecycle from procurement to disposal for all hardware and software inventory.

Software license management to support compliance, identify unnecessary or underutilized licenses, detect unauthorized software installations, and more.

Contract and purchase order management to monitor contract expiry dates and get contract- or PO-related analytics by parameters like spending patterns, contractor/supplier performance, and more.

Asset reporting to generate pre-built reports or create custom reports on the key asset data in multiple formats. Reports can be schedule and automatically email to selecte recipients.

Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to track all configuration items and their details in one repository and categorize them.

Mobile app to track and manage hardware and software assets in any location.

The starting price is $995 per year for 250 IT assets.

Asset Panda

Asset Panda is a cloud-based asset management and tracking platform that offers a range of features like barcode scanning, unlimited users, and custom reporting. Its features include:

Asset tracking, including asset assignment to users or workplaces, contract management, compliance and maintenance tracking, ticketing management, and more.

Barcode management to design and print custom barcodes and QR codes to optimize asset management.

Mobile app with built-in barcode scanning, GPS pindrop, and access to reports to manage assets on the go.

Pricing depends on the number of assets and is available upon request to AssetPanda.

GoCodes

GoCodes is web-base asset and inventory tracking software for companies that need to manage physical assets. Its features include:

Patented QR code tags with unique IDs show asset details like type, serial number, and assignment help eliminate duplicates, and prove ownership.

Automatic GPS tracking with a mapping feature enables managers to see and update asset location every time a barcode is scan.

Automated field service requests help review service records, schedule future repairs, and set service reminders.

Depreciation calculation and reporting for fixed assets based on common calculation scenarios.

Auditing financial performance and operation of assets using a fixed assets register with a possibility to review a complete audit history.

GoCodes offers five pricing plans on a monthly and annual basis, each including different number of assets, users, etc.

Make the most of your assets with asset management software

Asset management is a complicated and intensive process that plays a key role in the operation of every business dealing with assets. If you are looking for a partner who can develop a custom asset management solution to meet your company’s needs, or help you choose and customize an off-the-shelf product, just let us know.

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Low-Code/No-Code App Development: What’s the Difference?

no code

The terms low-code and no-code are often confused with each other. While both low-code and no-code have some similarities, they’re actually two completely different solutions for app development.

With that said, some low-code development platforms also offer no-code capabilities. Other platforms that are branded as no-code tools have some low-code options built in. (It’s no wonder that even savvy business users confuse these terms).

If you need help distinguishing the difference between low-code and no-code platforms, you’ve come to the right place. 

This guide covers everything you need to know about low-code vs. no-code, including a clear definition of each, the differences between them, the pros and cons of no-code/low-code, and the best no-code/low-code platforms for development. Let’s dive right in.

What is Low Code?

Low-code makes it possible for professional developers of varying skill levels to quickly build applications with minimal hard-coding efforts. 

Using no code to create software can best be compared to traditional development. The only difference is that no-code platforms offer different shortcuts that streamline the process. Rather than spending time coding repetitive tasks from scratch, low-code platforms have basic software elements and infrastructure already built. 

Low-code platforms follow a rapid app development (RAD) approach that includes things like automated code generation through drag-and-drop interfaces, pull-down interfaces, and other visual building blocks. 

Developers can focus the majority of their efforts on writing code for the smaller parts of the application that make it unique compared to other apps on the market. But all the boilerplate and repetitive code is handled by the platform. 

As a developer, you can still write custom code over the automated code provided by a low-code tool. 

What is No Code?

No-code is exactly what it sounds like. It enables anyone, regardless of technical knowledge or programming experience, to create applications without writing a single line of code. 

The possibilities of no-code development stretch far and wide. They’re trusted by citizen developers to create apps for business processes, entrepreneurs launching new websites, and business owners building mobile apps to expand.

Similar to low-code, no-code development also uses a RAD approach. But it’s completely hands-off when it comes to coding and programming.

No-code platforms are 100% dependent on using visual tools, plugins, modules, and drag-and-drop builders to create an app. 

In simple terms, anyone can use no-code platforms without any specialized skills or training.

Some of you might have experience building websites with platforms like Wix or Squarespace. Both of those tools fall into the no-code category. 

What’s the Difference Between Low Code and No Code?

There are definitely some similarities between low-code development platforms and no-code app makers. But at a granular level, you’ll see that there are major differences between low-code and no-code when you look at the details.

Let’s take a closer look at these differences below:

End-User

Low-code solutions are made for professional developers. These users need to have a background of programming and development to use a no-code tool. But they’re just looking for a shortcut that doesn’t require 100% custom code from scratch.

Anyone can use a no-code platform, including average business users who don’t have any development experience. While professional developers could technically use a no-code tool, most would prefer a low-code system—as it allows them to use their unique skills.

Open vs. Closed System

Low-code leverages open systems that allow users to add functionality to an application by writing code. For example, developers can create a custom plugin or feature on an open system and then re-use that code later for another project. 

Traditional no-code platforms are close. This means that you’d need to rely on pre-built plugins and templates for functionality. There’s no manual code written that can customize anything beyond the platform’s capability.

With that said, there are some no-code platforms that do offer custom extensibility through an open system. 

The above content is taken from:

7 Tried and Tested Strategies to Make Your Website a Lead Magnet

Website a Lead Magnet

7 Tried and Tested Strategies to Make Your Website a Lead Magnet, Building a customer base is one of the biggest challenges that new businesses face. While large enterprises will spend thousands of dollars on pay-per-click ads and social media campaigns, small businesses don’t have those kinds of budgets and often have to rely on organic ways to find their customers. However, this should not dissuade you from starting your business. 

Fortunately, there are several easy-to-implement and inexpensive methods of capturing useful leads for your business, such as your official website. The advantage of using your site as a lead magnet is that you have full control over what you publish and how you track visits and conversions. Moreover, it just improves the overall quality of your website, which is crucial when you are competing in cyberspace. 

If you are looking for ideas on how to turn your website into a lead magnet, read on for seven useful tips.

1. Pick the right domain name

This may seem unusual, however, it is a great strategy to attract quality leads. Your domain name is the first thing people will see when they search for you. Finding the right one is a small yet crucial first step towards creating a strong web presence. By making it easier for people to find you and remember you, you increase the likelihood of converting them into leads. 

When thinking about your domain name, you must consider the following:

Is it short?

Long and clunky domain names are hard to remember, prone to being misspelt, and may also seem spammy. For instance, if you are looking to buy a secondhand car online and find two links in the search results, would you rather click on www.used-carz123.com or www.usedcars.store

Pick a domain name that’s short and simple, ideally not more than 18 characters. Avoid using a hyphen, numbers, or modified spellings that may confuse people.

Is it contextual?

Avoid going with something random and completely unrelated to your business just because the domain name of your choice wasn’t available. Try finding your top preferences on new domain extensions such as .STORE, .ONLINE, .SITE, .SPACE or .TECH. 

Not only are they easier to acquire, but they also provide more context to your domain name. For instance, if you come across the domain name www.getgrocery.online, you immediately know what the website is about and the domain name has an appealing ring to it too.

Is it creative?

You need a domain name that sets you apart from your rivals and intrigues people to click on your URL and learn more about you. Try to be creative without being cryptic. For instance, www.yourzen.space is a great choice for a wellness and fitness center. 

2. Focus on your website’s design

Your website’s design should be clean, aesthetically appealing, and easy to navigate. Cluttered layouts can be off-putting for visitors and also make you come across as unprofessional, whereas a well-designed site shows your visitors that you are skilled, experienced and care about the finer details. 

Your design should inspire confidence in the visitors’ mind that they have come to the right place. It should reflect your industry and your brand’s personality. For instance, a website that sells children’s learning aids should use playful elements and bright colors, while a news website should focus on high picture quality and clear, easy-to-read fonts with less distracting elements.

3. Reduce the loading speed

The Internet is all about instant gratification. If your website takes a long time to load, the bounce rate is bound to be high. According to this 2020 report by Ezoic, loading speed of 1-3 seconds may lead to a 32% bounce rate, while a speed of 1-10 seconds may lead to a 106% bounce rate. Make sure that your website pages load within seconds by finding the right web host, compressing your images, installing fewer plugins and minimizing HTTP requests.

4. Start and maintain a good blog

Customers spend a lot of time researching the products they need online. Why not provide them with everything they need on your own website? Starting a blog is not only a great way to engage, educate and inform your audience but also to strengthen your credibility as an expert in the field. 

Post content related to your industry and products, such as latest trends, product reviews, guides and how-tos in different formats such as articles, videos, infographics, and even podcasts. For inspiration, check out these blogs by WalmartExxonMobil, and Hewlett Packard

5. Provide clear call-to-action (CTA) in your blog

Make it easy for visitors to take the desired action by providing relevant product links and CTAs throughout your blog posts. For instance, if you are an online fashion store and your blog post is about 5 stylish must-haves this monsoon, you can provide links to the products mentioned in your post along with short and simple CTAs, such as “Buy these boots at flat 10% off”.

6.Optimize your website for mobile

A lot of online browsing and shopping takes place on mobile phones these days. According to a report published on Broadband Search, mobile traffic in 2019 had gone up by 222% compared to 2013. With so much online traffic coming from mobile phones, every website needs to ensure that it is optimized for use on phones. You don’t want visitors bouncing off your website just because it takes too much time to load or the layout looks weird on their mobile devices. 

Test your website on various mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to see how long it takes to load, how simple the navigation is, whether the layout looks good, and whether the pictures look high-quality and the text readable. You can even run it through an online test such as Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to get a report on what are the strong points of your website and which areas need improvement.

7.Ask for their email addresses

When visitors create accounts on your website, provide you with their email addresses, and subscribe to your newsletter, it helps you get repeat business from them. You can use their information to track what they are browsing, which products and services are of interest to them, their purchase history and whether or not they have abandoned their shopping carts. 

This will help you retarget them with relevant information and products that they are likely to buy and even get them to complete the purchases in their abandoned cart through discounts and other special offers. 

Your website would be the ideal place for capturing people’s email addresses. However, new visitors will most often be wary of divulging personal contact details unless you give them an incentive to do so. For instance, you could offer them a free product such as an ebook, access to tutorial videos and other premium content or attractive deals (Sign up now and get flat 30% off on your first purchase!). Once you have their information and have a fair idea of their shopping and content consumption behavior, your chances of converting them into leads and eventually into repeat customers will increase manifold. 

The above content is taken from:

7 Software Testing Strategies Every Tester Should Know

software testing

Software as a Service (SaaS) has earned a high reputation in the market owing to which startups are joining the software industry on a wide scale. However, when it comes to developing software and releasing it in the market, having a simple idea is not sufficient. There are a bunch of failed software products in the market. But not all of them are successful in satisfying the target audience. Owing to this, software companies are suffering from hefty losses. In accordance with CISQ reports, the cost of development of poor quality of software in the market amounts to more than $2.84 trillion in the United States.

There is deterioration in the quality of the software for a plethora of reasons. One of the top reasons which can contribute to the cost is the failure of the software. The tech start-up industry is rapidly progressing whereas the competition is at its peak. In such a condition, launching a product of top quality is consider to be a start-up survival kit.

If a product, launch in the market is filled with bugs, a lot of time is wasted in the marketing of the product and a lot of money is spent from the pocket. Thus, software companies have to push the deadline for fixing the bugs. Such kind of issues are not affordable for start-ups and newbies in the market.

Immaculate Software Testing

Quality Assurance after the development of the software is useful to the team in detecting a bunch of potential defects which, in turn, helps in avoiding extra loss. Development of detailed software testing plans along with the effective strategies offers a wide array of advantages such as saving resources and time and ensuring the development of a quality product at the same time.

Development of strategies for software testing depends on the process which is adopt for software development. At present, the majority of the products are develop with the aid of microservices architecture which is known to be a variant of SOA. In such a scenario, it is recommend to opt for microservices testing strategies that are suitable for the product.

Third-party services might slow you down

Owing to the innovative technologies such as API integrations, it is possible to hook the website up with a plethora of service of your choice. For instance, you might use a plugin which is helpful in developing a promotional banner or customer analytics. Owing to these services, your website might start malfunctioning or slow down. Though it might not be apparent on the devices, real users with various geographical locations and browsers might get affect. Here is a list of the software testing strategies which helps in ensuring that a perfect and high-end  product is being released in the market:

Let’s look at software testing strategies to boost business growth

1. Aligning the Quality Assurance strategies with the objectives of the business

Specific software is releasing in the market while keeping specific achievements in mind. The growth of the business is generally determine through various achievements. It is essential that the business owners ask different questions like the objective of software testing, the effect of the process on the achievement of the goals of the business. It is necessary to communicate such goals to the whole company which are inclusive of QA services, as well as, the software development team.

2. Developing a detailed plan for Quality Assurance and testing processes

It is a prerequisite that the QA companies devise unique strategies which are align with the objectives of the business. It is possible to execute the strategy effectively if the whole process of testing is document completely. Documentation is consider to be the key to the maintenance of consistency in quality. Thus, it is possible to divide the plan into four segments, which include a quality management plan, testing strategies, test plan, and test case.

3. Creating an ideal work environment for the software testing team

Developing a quality work environment is know to have a positive effect on the attitude of the testers. To ensure a healthy and sound work environment for the team, you require opening communication, expanding the knowledge base, involving Quality assurance team during the product development.

4. Testing for user acceptance

Good quality software is develop while keeping the requirements of the potential audience in mind. The quality assurance team should have a prerequisite understanding of the defined user persona for the test and product, on the basis of user types. In this scenario, it is possible to engage the end-users in the last stage of development. It is also necessary to conduct user acceptance during the time.

To achieve the same, you require defining a method for the User Acceptance Testing procedure. After this, you need to conduct the testing in a proper and organized way. After this, you require documenting the process. There are a plethora of applications which are know to include user onboarding prior to its entry into the app. In addition to this, it also provides a brief about different functionalities and how to use the app.

5. Measuring the quality of the code

Ensuring the quality of code is vital for software testing, there are specific metrics which play a vital role in ensuring the same. The code is free from bugs and errors and is running smoothly. According to the CISQ software quality model, there are certain metrics which are effective in measuring the quality of the code which include security, performance efficiency, rate of delivery, and reliability.

The above content is taken from:

Mobile Automation Testing – Challenges and Tools

mobile automation

Let us begin by understanding the concept of Automation Testing for Mobile apps:

Smartphones are deeply connected with our lives. We use it to do things like call, use Facebook and Twitter, find directions using Maps, check the real-time weather, manage bank accounts, shop online and a lot more things. In short, for almost everything under the sun. Mobile application development in this regard is thus on the rise.

Google Play Store and Apple App Store have a plethora of apps. On average, every idea usually has more than one app. With this increase development of mobile apps, there is an equally increased demand for good quality applications.

More often than not, mobile apps are unresponsive and not compatible with different versions of operating systems. Hence, some users have a good experience while some others don’t. Overall this affects the quality of the apps as well as user experience. To overcome this, quality testing is a must.

As a web developer, testing is at the crux of delivering a fully-functional and bug-free product. Moreover, is an integral part of the Software Development Cycle. However, unlike with desktop software, testing mobile apps is an exhaustive and time-consuming process.

Let us begin by understanding the concept of Automation Testing for Mobile apps:

Automation Testing Life Cycle falls under the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC). Unlike Manual Testing, Automation Testing hastens validating the software. However, automation testing comes with its fair share of challenges. Moreover, this task becomes more daunting with mobile apps as each smartphone is configure differently:

1.Software:
Diverse Operating Systems (OS) is one of the key challenges when it comes to mobile automation testing. Automation Testing helps in testing the responsiveness and functionality of your app across various operating systems like Android, iOS, Windows etc.

2.Hardware:
Taking into account the hardware specifications of a mobile phone and testing it is a challenge, as each phone has a unique design. Hardware includes different screen-size, RAM size & storage, processing speed, CPU optimisation etc.

3.Networks:
Finally, the network plays an important role in the running of a mobile app. Speed and performance of an app may vary on different networks. Also, one should take into account the various network models viz: GPRS/GSM/Wi-Fi/LTE/4G/Bluetooth. Another important concern is that speed of a network may vary depending on the geographic location of the user. If your app, reacts differently to network speed then it could pose a problem.

To overcome these challenges there are different Automation testing tools available today. Let us check some of these.

1.Appium

Appium is an open source automation cross-platform tool, used to test the UI of an app. It is a tool for Android, iOS, Windows development platform. It can test three core types of apps – native, hybrid and mobile web apps. Appium uses Webdriver, Java, C and JavaScript for writing tests and supports several client libraries like Java, C#, PHP, Ruby, Python and JavaScript.As a web pro, this tool is both user and pocket-friendly, especially if you are a new startup and have just begun your development and testing journey.

2.Bugsee

Bugsee is a cloud-based freemium tool that constantly monitors the state of your app. It reports a bug when it is detect and sends you a detailed information report. To send a report to the app developer, a bug tracker software, in this case, an SDK is embedded in the app. Should you want to use Bugsee on a web app, it can be done by installing a Chrome plugin. Bugsee supports Android and iOS apps. It also supports apps built in Cordova and React Native framework. Bugsee can be use during beta testing, live deployment and initial development phase.

3.Cross Browser Testing

  1. Cross Browser Testing is a Cloud tool allowing testers to run manual, visual and selenium tests easily. It is compatible with over 1500 mobile devices and most desktop browsers testing securely behind firewalls. The three core features of this tools are, live interactive testing, automated testing on several browsers at the same time and visual testing to capture screenshots, comparisons as well as testing if the layout of your app is responsive or not.As a web pro, since this is a web-based testing tool it allows you to share test results with your team easily and helps with collaboration.

Overall, mobile testing, though a relatively complex procedure, is the need of the hour. With the growing rate of smartphones in the market, user competition is also increasing. If you wish for your app to survive in the industry making it robust and agile is the only way to go.

The above content is taken from:

Testing in software development cycle

Software development

Many different types of tests can be used in software development to make sure that changes to code are working as intended and expected. However, not all tests are based on the same assumptions. The following article describes the different levels of tests used in the software development process. 

Levels of testing in software engineering 

1. Module Testing

Module testing, often referred to as unit testing, is aimed at finding defects and verifying the functionality of the software (such as functions, objects, classes etc) that can be tested separately.

It can be performed in isolation from the rest of the system, depending on the context of the software development cycle and on the system itself. You can use plugs, test drivers, and simulators.

Module testing may include testing of functionality and some non-functional attributes such as resource utilization (e.g. memory leaks) or resilience, as well as structural testing. Test cases are designed from products such as module specification, software design, or data model.

Module testing is typically performed with source code access and with the support of a development environment (e.g. unit test libraries, debugging tools) and, in practice, usually also involves the developer who writes the code. All defects are fixed as soon as they are discovered without formally managing them.

In this case, it is also possible to prepare and automate test cases before coding. This approach is called “test-first” or “test-driven production”. It is a highly iterative approach and is based on a cycle of creating test cases, then building and integrating small pieces of code, executing component tests, fixing bugs, and repeating the process until the tests are passed.

2. Integration tests

Integration tests check if software components work together correctly, trying to detect errors during the interaction between systems or their parts. The interaction between a web application and a database or between two classes is a great example of this.

We can categorize integration tests as system integration tests or module integration tests which differ in scale.

When we talk about the integration of functions, methods, classes – we are dealing with module integration tests.

When we talk about connecting large elements such as programs, entire application modules, or systems, we are talking about large-scale system integration.

3. System tests

The main purpose of system tests is to check whether the solution meets the specified requirements (functional and non-functional). They take place on a fully integrated system. It is best if the environment in which tests will be performed is as close as possible to the production environment where the system will operate.

The difference between the environments comes with the risk that our tests will not detect a failure that may manifest itself in the production environment.

At this stage, you can run end-to-end testing. This includes functional testing from the user’s perspective. Ideally, system testing should be performed by people who know how the software should work. Therefore, for a tester, it is necessary to understand the tested system. There are situations when the system has incomplete or no documentation at all. As a Tester, you must be able to handle this challenge.

4. Acceptance tests

Acceptance tests are most often performed by the client or a team on the client’s side. Its purpose is not to find faults, but to verify that the software is acceptable to contract, law, and customer and user expectations. You can often find this level of testing referred to as “acceptance”. Remember that acceptance tests may not always be the last tests performed. There are three examples in the ISTQB syllabus that can be performed at multiple points in the software life cycle. Tests can be performed:  

  • when installed or integrated
  • during component tests
  • tests of new functionality can be carried out before system tests

5. Soft skills required? 

To be an effective tester one needs to have so-called ‘soft skills’. Efficient cooperation with team members daily requires a wide skill set including the ability to discuss complex issues, translating them (in a simple way) very often to non-technical people.

Furthermore, a good tester has to be a quick learner who is open to feedback. When Agile is a chosen methodology, good organization work and independence are of great importance, manifested in the ability to carry out individual tasks with a great sense of responsibility. A good tester should also be persistent, consistent and be able to cope with stress and fatigue.

 8 Steps You Must Take Before Starting Mobile App Development

mobile app development

Coming up with a unique app idea, no matter what goals you want to achieve with it, simply isn’t enough anymore the mobile app development markets is simply too competitive. It is getting harder to stand out, and the investment is large, both considering your time and budget.

Going into the mobile app development stage unprepared can result in costly, frustrating and brand-damaging mistakes.

However, if you invest your time to piece these building blocks together, you will make the development process fundamentally easier and give yourself lots of competitive advantage. It takes some effort to have a successful app, but it’s incredibly worth it.

So many app developers get too caught up in their app ideas and the big picture of a complete app, that they overlook the early stages. Forget about the day your app launches right now. You must learn how to start an app first, then you can move on to create an app and really dive deep into the app development process.

Let’s get started!

1) Deeply research your market

The first step to inform everything you do moving forward is a thorough market research. You need to know the current offering on the market and use this knowledge to find a gap your app will fill and serve a fresh, complete solution to the problem you’re solving.

Extensive market research should help you discover:

  • Who are your competitors?
  • What is their strategy?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of other app developers in this market?
  • What are their customers saying in the reviews and on social media?
  • What is their unique selling point?

When you have the answers to these questions, you will be able to avoid your competitors’ mistakes, double up on the strategies that work, and clearly define your unique take on the problem and the path to solving it. There are millions of available mobile apps, and this is your opportunity to ensure yours stands out.

Browse through the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store to see what else is out there. If few apps fit the description, it’s either good news or bad news. On the one hand, there might not be a market at all for the app. On the other hand, there could be a void in the market, opening the door for new app businesses to take advantage.

2) Define your elevator pitch and target audience

Can you articulate your app’s specific purpose? Can you name its difference from your website and its specific use cases? This is probably the trickiest step for business owners and marketers. Boiling all your ideas down to one or two sentences of clear purpose is hard, but it’s also one of the core steps to ensuring the success of your app.

This is the time to define:

  • What will be the app’s key functionality? 
  • Can you define what problems your app solves?
  • Who are the potential app users?
  • Why would people want to use it?
  • What is the added value compared to a mobile website?
  • Which business goals will it help you achieve?
  • What audience will benefit from it?
  • What does that audience need and crave?

Being honest when answering these questions will ensure you don’t waste resources on redundant app features or targeting the wrong groups of people.

If you can’t clearly articulate the situation where your app solves a problem, there might not be an app business to pursue here. App ideas are useless if they don’t solve problems for real app users.

By now, you should also be confident about your elevator pitch. If you accidentally found yourself in front of a potential investor and they asked you about your project, how would you convey your mission in only a couple of sentences in less than a minute? Again, strong focus and clarity this early in the process can amplify your success in so many ways, so don’t miss your opportunity to be precise and clear with your app’s purpose early on.

3) Choose between native, hybrid and web app

There are a couple of technical decision to make early on, and this is a crucial one. Choosing between native, hybrid, or a web app carries many implications for your later development and maintenance. This is why it’s key to leverage your market research and the core purpose and functionality you’ve just defined, so you can make the best decision.

The core differentiations between native, hybrid and mobile apps are:

  • The programming languages they are built in. This affects and depends on your budget, desired time frames, and available expertise.
  • Access to native device APIs. This will depend on the device’s functionalities that you want your app to access.
  • Distribution method. This will largely affect the way you market your app and define your promotion strategies.
  • Multi-platform support. This will be based on your target audience and the market you want to penetrate; most often, you will want to be present both on Apple’s App store and Android’s Play store.

Native apps are perfect for heavy-duty tasks such as gaming or the use of photos or videos. On the other hand, web apps are best for solutions that require easy updates, but don’t require any access to device’s native abilities.

These two types sit on the opposite sides of the spectrum, with native apps being most expensive to develop and findable in different app stores, while web apps are quite quick and low-cost to develop, but you can’t amplify them through app stores or have your users download them to their device.

The best of both worlds are hybrid apps: they use the same code base for both platforms, they can access device’s features and they live in both app stores. In short, you can build an iOS app and Android apps simultaneously with a single build. They are also an ideal choice for most app goals and purposes, including productivity, utility and enterprise apps.

Once you’ve decided on your app type, you will much more easily allocate your resources and plan your entire development project.

4) Know your monetization options

An app can play many different roles for your business and your bottom line. Generating revenue directly off the app is an obvious one, while others may simply be serving as a resource for your audience, or indirectly assisting other phases of your sales funnel and increase your brand’s reach.

As with any other choice, each path as benefits and disadvantages. While your decision now can be changed later, it’s important you gain a solid understanding of all the models first, and steer your mobile app development based on what aligns with your business best.

5) Build your app marketing strategy and pre-launch buzz

If there is an element that so heavily affects your app’s success, it’s the preparation to market and amplify it, including your branding, PR, pre-launch efforts, outreach, and simply overall web presence.

This is the right time to start with the following:

  • Define your branding. How will your name, colors, logo and the tone of your content set you apart from the millions of other apps and businesses? Ensure consistency of all these across your app and all platforms you exist on.
  • Find your channels. Where does your target audience mostly hang out? Are they easier to reach through social media or email? Do they prefer video over written content? How much time are they spending on their mobile device?
  • Create content. Based on your answers in the previous point, you should now know what content your audience craves and where to reach them. Start mapping out your written and/or video content and sharing it on selected channels.
  • Kick off your outreach. What people are influencers in your industry, both small and large? Put some effort into reaching out to them in a personalized manner and provide them lots of value for putting your app in front of their audiences.

You can even create an app landing page that you’ll ultimately use to drive app installs and promote all the features. Even if you just have the app title right, it’s worth it to get this page build. Some of you might even take the app’s graphic design concept to create some nice visuals for the landing page. All of this will improve your app marketing strategy.

These steps will make promotion easier when the launch time comes, and you will have a warm community to launch for.

6) Plan for app store optimization

Many steps you’ve done so far, including your market research, your app’s unique purpose and your marketing strategy, largely affect your app store optimization strategy. This is the key to discoverability in the app store; over 60 percent of all apps are found through this organic search.

It’s important to respect both app stores’ requirements and best practices, and use this as a brilliant opportunity for your app to shine with its visuals, features and distinctive purpose.

While you won’t be able to complete all the ASO tasks this early in the process (nor should you), this is an ideal time to start sketching out your final app store look and feel, and ensure that the development follows your ideas.

The key elements for app store optimization are:

  • App name: it should easy to spell and pronounce, unique, and descriptive, fitting within the length limits (50 characters for iOS, 30 for Android)
  • Keywords: this is only applicable to Apple, and it’s an extra space to specify the search terms relevant to your app for the app meta data
  • Icon: use a clear color palette, avoid using lots of small details, and opt in for contrasting colors and a simple, clear concept
  • Screenshots: make sure to use all five screenshots and to leverage caption texts to tell a story and highlight benefits, including the app design
  • Preview video: it should be short and go straight to the point, with a clear and universal message that will work in any localization. You can create YouTube videos and repurpose the content for ASO as well

You’ll need different an app store connect account and developer account to manage your ASO. Things like your app icon and user feedback can also play a role in how the app market perceives your app project. Early adopters have a big impact on the long-term success of your iOS apps and Android app. Getting this right will make it easier for you to offer in app purchases from actual users.

7) Know your resources

Ideally, you’ll be able to announce your launch date ahead to create the buzz around your launch and make people excitedly wait for it.

For this to happen, you need to be aware of the development time frame in front of you. According to Kinvey’s report, most businesses need between 7 months up to over a year to develop and deploy a mobile app.

This is why you need to start conversations with your developers and technical teams as early as possible. This will help you guide your entire project more effectively and allocate appropriate due dates to various planning and development stages, including:

  • Use case(s) definition
  • Mapping of required functionalities
  • Minimum viable product (MVP)
  • Wireframing
  • Programming language/platform selection
  • Coding
  • App design
  • App analytics
  • Testing

You should also think about the way you’re going to make an app. Will you hire an app developer? Or will you use an app builder to make your own app?

These early decisions in the app making process will have a significant impact on your app business and development process over time. With an app builder, you don’t necessarily need to learn iOS development to make an iPhone app for the iOS app store. You don’t need to learn software development for Android apps either.

Another costly factor is the ongoing support of the app. It will require continuous monitoring, crash logs review, optimizing for user experience based on comments, and keeping up to date with the operating system updates.

Knowing what resources you’re working with early on will prevent any emergencies and delays further down the line.

8) Ensure security measures

And finally, you must include a privacy policy in case your app will collect any sensitive information from users. This policy needs to cover what information is being collected and how is it used.

Lots of app developers are so focused on their own apps and the app idea itself that they neglect crucial security features. But security is an important step whenever you make an app or start a new app project.

The security of your app is one of its key points, and you must ensure it is being built early in app development. Your users’ data is your most valuable asset, and you should ensure you have processes in place to collect, handle and store this data, as well as to manage any potential security risks.

THE MOST POPULAR WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTS TODAY

web application development 

Today’s web application development industry is one of the most competitive and inventive. New programming languages, frameworks, platforms, products, and tools are released every day. So it’s no surprise that even experienced coders find it challenging to stay updated.

Furthermore, it’s getting increasingly popular since it’s less expensive to create, has many features, and is quite adaptable. Although it has advantages and disadvantages, you will discover that the advantages exceed the disadvantages.

The purpose of this article is to inform you about the most popular web application development products today. When you have web application development services, the procedure will be simple. Moreover, these tools will help you speed up and simplify your web development process.

Here is the list of Most Popular Web Application Development Products Today:

Chrome dev tools

Google Chrome provides several features that can assist with web application development. These are incorporated within the browser and are helpful for web developers. For example, users of DevTools will be able to examine messages right in their console; execute JavaScript in real-time without having to write a single word of code. This might be useful when solving issues or speeding up a website.

For any web developer, Chrome DevTools are a must-have. The performance panel allows you to improve site speed, monitor runtime performance, identify forced synchronous designs in Canvas documents and investigate Network activity quickly due to its built-in Developer Tools feature. 

Furthermore, it also has security features like identifying security issues and detecting Web page errors.

AWS Cloud9

AWS Cloud9 is a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) that helps you write, execute, and debug various programming languages like JavaScript, Python, C, and PHP using only a browser. It was open-source in 2010. However, in 2016, it was bought by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS Cloud9 also allows you to share your development environment and code with your coworkers in real-time. It saves you time and dramatically enhances the quality of your work because it comes preloaded with over 40 programming languages. File dragging, debugging, and code completion recommendations are valuable features.

Angular 

Angular is a TypeScript-based programming platform. It contains everything you need as an all-in-one set of libraries and tools for creating web apps that can expand from startups to huge enterprises with many developers. 

It also includes a component-based framework that aids in creating scalable database-driven websites without the need to write a lot of code, comprehensive form management solutions such as sanitisation and data validation features, and routing capabilities that make developing easier by providing readymade components. With this fantastic toolbox, you will not have to go far to work on tasks.

Bootstrap 

The Bootstrap toolkit is a set of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript development tools.  This desktop tool is handy for creating Bootstrap-based responsive websites. It comes with various components that you may drag and drop to make responsive web pages. 

The app’s framework is Bootstrap. It creates semantic HTML that is clear and easy to read. The app offers many premium, fully responsive themes, which you may alter. In addition, each design comes with various pages and widgets that you can mix and match to create your ideal website. 

Many stunning components are included in Bootstrap Studio for creating responsive pages. Headers, footers, and galleries are all included in the design. Slides and essential components are also included. Bootstrap Studio can tell you which Bootstrap components are compatible.

ASP.Net 

Microsoft’s ASP.Net framework is a web application development platform. It is employed in the development of web-based applications. 

The initial version of ASP.Net was launched in 2002. The initial release of ASP.Net was version 1.0. Version 4.6 is the most recent version of ASP.Net. The HTTP protocol is intended to interact with ASP.Net. This is the universal protocol for all web apps.

ASP.NET is a module of the Microsoft.Net platform. ASP.NET applications are compiled scripts created with the.Net framework’s flexible and reusable components or objects. These scripts can access the whole hierarchy of classes in the.Net framework.

CodeLobster 

CodeLobster is a handy and cross-platform IDE that is also free.  Its primary purpose is to make creating PHP websites more accessible and faster. CodeLobster has been on the market for a long time, and each year it attracts a growing number of new users.

CodeLobster doesn’t work with PHP files. However, this IDE allows developers to modify CSS, HTML, Javascript, and Typescript files. Furthermore, it can give contextual help for any programming languages supported.

CodeLobster is likewise a highly user-friendly and straightforward tool. It combines a variety of essential elements into a single, well-organized location.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a “free editor that assists programmers in writing code, debugging, and correcting code using the intelli-sense approach.” In layman’s words, it makes it easier for users to develop code. Many people claim it’s half an IDE and half an editor, but that’s up to the developers to decide. 

Any program we use is based on code that runs in the background. Traditionally, coding was done in traditional editors or simple ones like notepads. These editors used to give simple and basic assistance to developers.

13 NEW ANDROID DEVELOPMENT TRENDS FOR 2023

app development

App development is a constantly innovating field that always find new and intriguing ways to improve user experience. Android was introduced several years ago and started a revolution in mobile operating systems. Since then, many things have changed in mobile app development, mostly for the better.

If you are a developer or entrepreneur, this article will help you find the latest Android app development trends. It is aimed at helping you understand what new features you need in your Android app to make it stand out from the crowd.

1. Rise of Android Instant Apps

What are Instant Apps? Instant apps allow Android users to use apps without downloading them. It opens like a web page and can operate from the cloud. Android Instant Apps were first introduced by ‘Google I/O’.  Check Google Play Instant.

Why do users like Instant Apps? Imagine that you need to use an app that you don’t have installed on your Android device. But you have a poor connection so installing may take a long time. In Instant Apps, you don’t require to install the app on your device. Instant Apps allows users to access in three ways: 

  • Click “Try Now” on the app with Instant functionality.
  • Click on a link and reach directly to that app module.
  • Or by Searching on the web

When a user clicks on a link, banner, or anything with instant functionalities – that user will go directly to a specific page or app’s specific function. 

Consider Android Instant Apps from the developer’s side:

Android Instant Apps require the same source code and APIs, which means you need to create only one app, and you will get users from downloads or web searches. 

2. Android Apps Architecture

Google’s architecture guidelines help in building high-performance and robust applications. Moreover, they serve as a useful starting point building apps with a focus on the code that helps in making the app unique. The architecture helps in creating apps that are more stable and eliminates the confusion between MVC, MVP, and MVVM. 

3. Cloud support

Cloud support is an excellent feature for those who tend to charge several devices and change them often. It helps you access apps on several devices without losing any data. Moreover, you would not need to download all the files again if you have cloud support. 

If you need help with Cloud support, check out SupportPro

4. Improvement of Android app security

As we tend to store a large amount of personal data on our smartphones and other devices, we need to make sure to secure the exchange of personal information over wi-fi networks. With the growth of the mobile industry, there has been an increase in threats and attacks over the Internet. Moreover, app developers are expecting to implement stronger encryption of data and constant security updates to preserve privacy in mobile apps.  

5. Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI and ML are used by smartphones every single day. For instance, you might be aware of Google’s assistant, which helps with the routine tasks efficiently. Moreover, there are several AI-based photo editing apps, which include FaceApp, Prisma, which make use of this technology.

AI-based features such as chatbots, smart predictions, and voice translators are going to gain popularity this year. Moreover, the combination of AI and ML will bring a lot of changes in the future Android development tools. With these technologies, it would be easier to analyze user behavior and make quick interactions with the app to make precise suggestions.

6. Rise of Chatbots

Chatbot has made it easy for the people to respond 24/7. 58% of the B2B businesses are now using chatbots, and it is one of the critical features in Android development. There are a lot of ways in which you can utilize the chatbots as an alternative to customer support as it helps in answering the customers faster. 

7. Wearable App Integration

Wearable technology is becoming a part of our everyday lives and is going to revolutionize how we use digital products for handling our day to day tasks. 

8. IoT-Enabled Mobile App

IoT has brought a lot of opportunities for users and developers over a couple of years, and it is one of the latest trends in Android development. These days you will find almost every device connected with the Internet, and IoT is one such technology that is going to be a developing trend.

According to recent stats, IoT is useful in a variety of industries such as logistics, healthcare, e-commerce, and so on. In addition to that, you can also use IoT for e-learning projects such as Edmodo, C-Pen, Nymi. Tutors can even share learning materials online and communicate with parents to update their children’s progress.

9. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

AR and VR are changing the way high-quality gaming applications are using. They have taken technology to the next level and have created a seamless experience for the users. 

10. Mobile Wallets

Mobile wallets are going to rage this year as more and more people are now shifting towards using mobile wallets such as Google Wallet that will help in driving purchases over this year. 

11. More Demand for On-Demand Apps

On-demand applications help in analyzing a user’s location and offer them the required services. Moreover, you will be able to appropriate suggestions on nearby places and can easily navigate as well. 

12. Beacons and Location-based devices

There are plenty of developers who use location-based services to enhance user experience and incorporate real-time information. Moreover, with the success of games such as Pokemon Go, the location-based services have gotten a boost and implemented in a variety of ways such as retail, navigation, payment portals, and more. 

13.Rising Trend of Blockchain Technology

Blockchain is becoming immensely popular in different industries and is going to evolve shortly as well. It is essential in providing security, public and private blockchain architecture as well as consortium architecture. The app development is achieving great heights and will lead to higher profits. 

Further reading: 12 questions you should ask to your mobile app developer

New Android App Development Trends – Conclusion

Android is becoming more fast-paced and is offering a more unified experience to the users to deliver exclusive customer experiences. The trends in Android app development are surely going enhance business strategies and ensure tremendous growth in the years to come.

I hope that this article helps you to make the best choices for your Android app development project according to latest standard and future-proof methodologies

We can help you to build web and mobile app development according to your requirements. We are best in the results of Clutch for Top Android App Development Company.

INCREDIBLE PHP DEVELOPMENT TRANSFORMATIONS IN 2022

programming language

There are lots of programming languages that exist in the IT industry. But PHP is the most preferred programming language by the developer.

Programs and applications built with PHP technology are more robust. Now, you will know why you should use PHP rather than other programming languages.

What makes PHP development differ from other programming languages?

Some popular social media platforms and websites like Facebook, Yahoo, and more have used the PHP language for their development. 

The following incredible advantages of PHP frameworks will force you to choose this language –

  • Open-source language and free of charge
  • PHP-based applications can run on every OS device, including Windows and Linux.
  • Less learning curve due to simple to use
  • Help in reusing an equivalent code; no need to write new code for the latest event of web development 
  • Assistance in managing codes efficiently and effectively
  • The flexibility of PHP make PHP combine with other programming languages 
  • Faster loading time over slow internet than other programming languages
  • Powerful library support
  • Reduce time and effort to build web applications and content-based sites

This is not the end of the advantages of the PHP framework. PHP development technologies also avail many benefits that you will experience during the use of PHP.

However, some professional developers also deny using PHP for your project. This is because it has several disadvantages, like PHP does not allow modification in the core behavior of online apps. But PHP is helping small businesses develop web applications and websites at an affordable cost.

PHP helps you to create futuristic and entertaining websites and applications. The latest version of PHP, known as PHP 7.4, enhances user experience.

You can also perform several incredible tasks with PHP 7.4. Want to know what you can do with the latest version of PHP and MySQL web development?

Top incredible uses of PHP development language

Some developers think that PHP and MySQL web development language is only used for web pages development. But you will be surprised after knowing the following use of PHP language-

  1. Send notification to your client.

PHP is not only a programming language. It also helps you reduce dependence on third-party email services. For example, PHP lets you create an email list of clients.PHP also helps you send notifications to customers. 

     2. Cyber security 

The number of cyber-attacks is increasing. 64% of companies have faced cyber attacks. That’s why the need for cyber security is increasing. Every company has to make its website safe from hackers.

You can integrate cyber security with your website with the help of PHP. PHP can hold the username and password of your client on a database with full encryption. This feature of PHP helps you to secure the data of your clients.

You can also add two or more step verification for the login of your client username and password. After login, your website will ask for the code sent to the client’s phone number or email address. Most websites and banks use two-step verification to secure website and user data from hackers.

    3. CMS system

The needs of every company from their website is different, and these needs differ from time to time. For example, everyone needs to update data and content on their websites, and some of you want to change the website’s content.

The CMS system is one of the essential needs of every website owner. CMS System helps you manage and update data or content over the website. You can edit or manage the website’s content with some simple steps.

PHP helps you to create and secure a user-friendly CMS system. Some experts have suggested creating CMS with scratch for your website. So if you want to create a secure and user-friendly CMS, PHP is best for you.

     4. E-Commerce development

It takes a lot of time to create an E-commerce website, and it needs extra effort to create E-commerce websites. However, PHP makes development easy. Therefore, you can avail many benefits by creating an E-Commerce website with PHP.

Instead of writing a complete code from scratch, you can use the PHP framework to develop an E-commerce website. Laravel, Symphony, CakePHP, and more are the most used framework to create an E-commerce website. In addition, you can readily access source code from the libraries of these frameworks.

PHP frameworks reduce time and reduce the effort to create an E-commerce website. As a result, many E-commerce companies use these frameworks to develop an E-commerce website and application.

   5. Create images and social media filters

Many are unaware of this feature of PHP. You can also create images with the help of PHP. In addition, you can also create filters for social media platforms like Instagram, apart from photos.

A toolset of GD libraries function in PHP library lets you create graphics in a few lines of code. You can also create filters for Instagram with the PHP extension name Imagick.

Conclusion

Php development is an open-source scripted language used in the web development process. You can avail several benefits of using PHP.

The list of things mentioned above in this article is a quick view. You can also use this language to perform more tasks like AMP integration, cookie handling, and more.

MOST POPULAR MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORKS

mobile applications.

Business strategies are becoming more complex and advanced and enterprises are now shifting towards mobile applications. However, the developers need to build an apt platform using the right set of development tools to reach out to consumers. Over the past few years, the number of programming languages increased for both Android and iOS. 

The fate of a business is completely dependent on choosing the right technology for mobile app development. 

Certainly, mobile apps are playing an important role in our day-to-day lives. If you want to book a ride, shop online, connect virtually, there are numerous advanced technological mobile apps available at your fingertips. 

Have you ever wondered about the things used in making a mobile application that make your life easier? It is also a clear fact that location-based service apps are driving the generation of today. 

Today, numerous mobile app development frameworks are available to give you the best user experience. And these app development frameworks help developers to build mobile apps within a specific time and budget. 

Types of mobile development frameworks:

  1. Native Mobile Development Frameworks
  2. Cross-Platform Development Frameworks

As there are many options available, it is not easy to choose the best framework for app development. It requires more thinking!

While you search for which is the best mobile app development framework? the answer is there is no best. It depends on the requirements of your project.

To help you make a decision, Let’s understand some of the top frameworks for mobile app development. 

10 Most Popular Mobile App Development Frameworks

Listed below are the popular mobile development frameworks that you should look forward to in 2023

1. React Native

Facebook launched React Native and is now one of the most popular cross-platform frameworks available today. Mobile app developers highly prefer it as it offers immense support to the IDEs, along with other mobile app development tools.

It offers an optimal Javascript framework for creating native apps for Android and iOS platforms.

React Native is used for the development of Android and iOS platforms. High-performance mobile apps can be easily built using this framework with less time. As its a cross-platform mobile app development framework, it uses the same code base for iOS and Android applications. To get more idea on React Native, have a look at Real Native vs React Native.

Features

  • Code Re-usability & Cost-Effective
  • Compatible third-party plugins
  • Declarative API for predictive UI
  • Supports iOS and Android
  • Ease of Maintenance

2. Flutter

Google launched Flutter. It is available as an open-source SDK written in Dart language. Flutter is a cross-platform mobile app development framework that uses one code base for Android and iOS applications. It is suitable for developing hybrid apps and makes use of a 2D rendering engine referred to as Skia, which is used to create visuals. Newly launched Flutter is the best hybrid mobile app development frameworks

Features

  • Built-in material design
  • Flexible User interface 
  • Fast Development
  • Support both iOS & Android
  • Strong widget support
  • High-performance application

3. Ionic

It is free of cost and is another highly preferred framework for developing apps. A client-side framework and helps in building native-based apps with HTML, CSS3, and JavaScript. It supports the latest mobile devices and offers a robust ground for mobile apps. You can also build hybrid apps as they provide HTML 5. It works well with SDK kits such as Angular and is ideal for working with PhoneGap and Cordova. 

Features

  • Intuitive UI components
  • Faster application development
  • Powerful & stable development platform
  • Platform Independent
  • Complete control over app building

4. Xamarin

Microsoft introduced Xamarin. To make the best use of Xamarin, it is essential that you carry out C# codebase and develops apps for Windows, iOS, and Android. It is possible to share code with Windows and Mac OS platforms with this tool, which in return saves a lot of the developer’s time.

Features

  • Versatile backend infrastructure
  • Easy API integration
  • Cost-Effective and Faster development process
  • Targets every platform
  • Storyboard files

5. Adobe PhoneGap

It allows developers to build apps in HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. If you want to build a hybrid app, then this should be your go-to option any day. It has a cross-platform app development framework. It offers developers the freedom with work without hardware restrictions. You can build apps for both Android and iOS platforms with this tool. 

Features

  • Robust Support
  • Flexibility
  • Compatible on all the platforms
  • Code reusability
  • Strong Backend

6. Corona SDK

It is one of the quickest frameworks when compared to its competitors. One of the best things about it is that it is supported by Lua, which is a light-weight programming language and offers speed, flexibility, and ease of usage to develop apps. If you want to code at a fast speed without compromising on the quality of the app, then you should try this out. It is supported on both Windows and Mac OS. 

Features

  • Lua-based platform
  • Pre-dominant APIs
  • Multiple plugins available
  • Strong API support
  • Faster development process

7. JQuery Mobile

This is an HTML5 based mobile development framework and can be run across all devices with just a single code version. It is easier to build both mobile apps and websites with this particular app and is supported by operating systems such as Mac OS, Kindle, Firefox, Blackberry, and more. 

It is easy to download the jQuery version with two variants, which include customized framework or the latest stable version. Its popularity and demand are growing day by day as it offers faster app development in combination with plugins.

Features

  • Lightweight size
  • Various Add-on plugins
  • Automatic initialization
  • Responsive framework
  • Simple API

8. Intel XDK

It helps in creating meaningful apps in combination with the plugin and offers a cross-platform app development framework. With this, it is easy to develop responsive and interactive apps for all devices. 

It is also easy to test, debug, and emulate apart from developing the app. supports technologies such as IoT and popular frameworks such as Node.js. It is easy to preview your project live in case you are making changes in the code and can even drag and drop the apps.

Features

  • Available for Windows, Linux, and Mac
  • Compatible on all the platforms
  • Flexible User interface 
  • Support multiple UI frameworks
  • Supports Cordova plugin
  • App debug and profiling options

9. Native Scripts

Native Scripts is an open-source framework to create native mobile applications. It is one of the top frameworks for developing hybrid apps. It uses Native scripts and utilizes similar APIs, which are similar to using Android Studio and Xcode. You will get enough help with the help of tutorials from the website. The framework helps to create Android and iOS apps with a single codebase. 

Features

  • Cross-Platform Development
  • Direct access to Android & iOS APIs
  • Native Performance
  • Code Re-usability
  • Strong Backend Support

10. Mobile Angular UI

It uses the combination of Angular and Bootstrap frameworks and eases the process of mobile development. With this, you can build apps with the help of HTML5 with this tool. Moreover, developers can also use overthrow.js and fastclick.js to offer a seamless experience to visitors. Not only this, but it is also a free mobile development framework. 

Features

  • Responsive Framework
  • Interactive Components
  • No jQuery dependencies
  • Build fully responsive interfaces with a super-small CSS file

Check the examples for Web/Mobile Application Technology Stacks.

Conclusion

Choosing the right mobile development framework is extremely important to build a robust website. Moreover, as the requirement for every framework is different, you should make a sound choice among the tools so that you can build and develop the mobile app effectively, which is easy to use. 

If you are searching for a mobile app development team then our dedicated development team can help you to build your web or mobile application.

11 STEPS TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL MOBILE APPLICATION

mobile application

11 steps to creating a successful new mobile application.

Today, there’s an app for almost every service you can think of. However, this doesn’t mean no more apps are created. On the contrary thousands of new apps are created each day with very unique ideas. Whether it’s a unique idea that you haven’t found an app to solve or an idea that an app already addresses but you can do better, new apps will continue to be churned out every other day.

So if have had this idea for an app but don’t know how to execute it, here are 11 steps to creating a successful new mobile application.

1. Address a need

The first step to creating anything is addressing a need. If your app doesn’t solve a problem or satisfy a consumer need, why should people use it?

Of course, the need that your app addresses can already be addressed by another app or apps provided that your app does a better job. Of course, the really successful apps are those that address a need that no existing app has addressed yet. After all, every app that addresses the same need can be seen as in competition with each other. If your app addresses a unique need, it has no competition.

2. Identify your audience and revenue model

The next step is two-fold. It involves identifying an audience and in identifying a revenue model.

Identifying an audience is important for developing an marketing your app. If your app addresses a unique need, what kind of people will want to use it? If your app doesn’t address a unique need, why should people use your app instead of someone else’s? Figuring out the kind of people that will be using your app will help you to develop it with them in mind. Once your app is developed, it will also help you to market it to the people who are most likely to pay for it.

That brings us to the next thing that you will need to identify, namely a revenue model. Developing apps cost money. Ideally, your app will be able to raise at least enough money to pay for itself. The only question left is how. Some apps cost money. Having an identified audience can help you to determine how much to charge for your app if this is the revenue model you choose. The other revenue model is to have a free app that runs advertisements. The companies that advertise on your app will then pay your app for advertising space. That’s how radio works. It can be a good investment if you use your free app to advertise your investment. It can also raise your money if you get other companies to advertise through your add.

3. Market research

If you’ve been following along, you probably still have a lot of questions. Market research can provide those answers. Market research involves determining what similar apps already exist. It also answers other questions like how much are people willing to pay for those apps and how much are companies willing to advertise through them.

Conducting market research can cost time and money. Not conducting market research can mean sinking money into an app that no one is willing to pay for.

4. Design your app

Once you have done your market research, it’s time to design your app. Of course, you can hire people to design it for you. They’ll need something to work from, however. You can use tools like Marvel app, Invision app to make what’s called a mock-up. That’s a visual representation of what you want your app to look like.

If you aren’t that computer savvy, you can just draw the mock-up.

5. Identify your development approach

Once you have an idea of what your app will look like, you will have to identify an approach to develop the app.

You could hire someone to develop the app with you looking over their shoulder. You could also outsource app development to a company/agency. Regardless of selecting a full-time developer, freelancer or development agency, you as the product owner is responsible for the mobile app specifications. Here are a guide and editable template on how to write kick-ass specs for mobile apps. It also means that you spend less of your valuable time dealing with app development yourself. Which route you choose should depend on how much you want to put into the app and how much you know about app development.

6. Develop a prototype

Once you know what your app to be and how you want to develop it, the next step is to develop a prototype. The prototype will let you and some of your users know what the app will look like when it’s done. There are two major platforms out there for mobile apps: Apple and Android. For your first app, you should probably pick one platform or other and treat it as a learning experience. Developing an app for multiple platforms can be time consuming and expensive. In the long run, it might be worth your time but take things slow to start out.

7. Identify matrices and measurements

The next step is to identify the metrics that you will use to measure the success of your app. It is important to choose metrics that also relate to the success of your business. After all, if your app isn’t doing well for your business, it might as well not be doing well at all.

The metrics that you come up with will help you decide whether to launch your app as is or invest additional time and resources into it.

8. Identify beta testers

Now that you have metrics chosen, you must test those metrics through beta testers. Beta testers are a limited group of people that will be allowed access to prototype versions of your app. Also called user testing or beta testing is often a way to identify issues that programmers couldn’t identify.

Beta testers should be the kind of people that will use the final version of the app. These are the people that are most likely to identify problems that real users would run into.

9. Release the app

Once you have collected feedback from your beta testers and incorporated it into the final version of the app, it is time to release it to the appropriate app store. That’s the Android Marketplace or the App Store on iTunes. This will allow people all over the world to download your app. That means that this is where the app starts to make you money. It also means that it had better be the best possible version of your app.

How to prevent App Store rejecting your app?

10. Capture Metrics

Once your app has been released you can start collecting metrics from real users. These metrics should help you to understand how people use your app, but it should also help you to understand how people use your business. You can also continue testing at this time.

The most efficient mode of testing is called split testing. Split testing involves having different versions of your app available at the same time. This allows you to determine which version users prefer.

11. Upgrade your app

Once your app has been downloaded a few times and users are engaging with it, you can begin to think about updating or adding features to your app. Updating and adding features are great ways to expand your audience. This also makes your app more appealing to people who already use it. When an app updates, it reminds your users that you are catering to their needs by keeping an up-to-date mobile application.

Conclusion – Building a Successful Mobile App

Creating an app is always hard. It can be even harder for people who haven’t made an app before. Hopefully, this article will help you to navigate the complications that come from being a first-time app publisher. If you have a great idea for the next killer app, talk to our app developers.

The Principles of Mobile Web Design

mobile website

When mobile-mageddon arrived last April, lots of businesses realized that building a mobile website wasn’t just a thing they’d have to tackle eventually, but an absolute must-have right now if they hoped to stay relevant and compete. That Google decided that mobile friendliness is going to influence search rankings is just icing on the mobile website cake.

But even though mobile search has overtaken its desktop cousin, the way people search on mobile and the way they interact with mobile websites once they’ve landed on them is different than the way they behave on desktop. And too few mobile website designers are paying attention.

You can make of that what you will, but here are some hypotheses:

➤Mobile users have a pretty clear idea of what they are looking for when they search—they are on a mission for specific information.

➤If they don’t find what they’re looking for right away on a site, they will look somewhere else. 

➤They don’t have the patience to dig deep through a complicated navigation architecture; they expect to find what they’re looking for with just a few clicks. 

So…what does that mean for your mobile website design? Quite a lot, actually. Too many designers approach their mobile website as just a scaled down version of their main site, which misses the point, in my opinion. Your mobile website should be an opportunity to really leverage the unique qualities of mobile devices and engage the unique behaviors of mobile users.

Your mobile website should do more than just replicate the information on your desktop, it should deliver the information a mobile customer is looking for in a way that’s optimized for a mobile device. And that means a mobile-first mentality and design principles.

1. Prioritize Performance.

Slow load speed is the biggest frustration factor for mobile web users and one of the main reasons a customer will bounce away from a site; in fact, over three-fourths of consumers will click away from a site that loads slowly or won’t display properly on their mobile device. So you need to worry about performance first or your customers won’t stay on your site long enough to see all your other fancy mobile-first elements. Here are some things to keep in mind while you’re planning your mobile pages.

Keep pages to 1 MB or smaller for fastest load times. 

Think carefully about the images you need, and crop, resize, and compress them for faster loading. 

Minify” your code, especially JavaScript; JS requests increase complexity and slow page rendering.

If you want to know how your mobile site is performing, use this Google PageSpeed analyzer for concrete steps you can take if your site is loading to slowly on mobile devices.

2. Rethink Your Homepage Content.

For most small businesses, what mobile website visitors want to accomplish is probably different from what visitors to their main website want to do. All those flashy branding elements and images on your main site homepage aren’t going to interest your mobile visitors. Therefore, the information you put on your homepage should be directed at the needs of your mobile users, most likely some combination of the following:

contact info, with click to call or click to text 

location/directions/hours of operation

search bar/product search

place an order/order status/order tracking

make a reservation/appointment/service request

customer login/account access

option to view main website

mobile app download

social media buttons

3. Simplify Menus and Navigation.

The “hamburger” menu is universally recognized and a very mobile-friendly solution to navigation and it also respects the generally accepted idea that mobile navigation should take, at most, three taps to arrive at the desired page. Ideally, you should have just one sub menu under each menu category for ease of use. Be sure to put your most important pages first.

The key consideration in both cases is making your navigation and menu options easy for fingers of any size to tap and touch. Too many options packed in too tightly makes fingertip navigation virtually impossible. Which brings us, logically.

4. Design for Touch.

This is actually more nuanced than doing the obvious: Making sure buttons are large enough and spaced far enough apart that anyone, even someone with fat fingers, can navigate with ease. The average finger needs at least 44 pixels in both dimensions for a good touch experience; anything smaller and user experience suffers.

But beyond that, you need to design your mobile website around the common gestures and motions mobile   device users naturally use and using those gestures as much as possible to let users accomplish their objectives on your site. What does that look like?

Letting users tap a button or icon to call you, text you, email you, add an event to their calendar, use GPS to get directions, download a podcast integrating the mobile device’s native functions and apps.

5. Reform Your Forms.

For the most part, mobile users really, really hate to type on their devices, so expecting them to enter a lot of information on your website is a real turn-off that is likely to cause a lot of visitors to head for the exits. So what can you do?

➤Only collect the minimum amount of information you need for a particular transaction. For example, if someone is signing up for your newsletter, you really only need a name and an email address (and don’t forget to use the email keyboard!).

➤If you have an e-commerce site, don’t force customers to register for an account to check out, give them the option of checking out as a guest.

➤For longer, multi-page forms/transactions, give users a status bar to gauge their progress.

➤Use best practices when designing forms for your mobile website. Users have an easier time completing forms with labels above the input boxes like the one on the left.

6. Make It Easy for Them to Find the Products They Want.

Most mobile consumers have something specific in mind when they visit your site; mobile shoppers aren’t really browsers, as this chart showing Amazon’s visitors demonstrates.

A mobile visitor spends just four minutes and checks out about eight pages on average, which means he is spending about half a minute per page. That is a shopper on a mission; the desktop visitor spends twice as long on site per page.

For the mobile website designer, then, the challenge is making sure the menus and navigation makes it easy to find a specific product or narrow down the choices to meet a shopper’s particular needs that day. A mobile device user is most likely not going to spend a lot of time scrolling endlessly through products, so you have to be creative in providing menu options to help him find what he wants quickly.

Take a look at this menu from Paperchase, a UK stationery store. The menu options on the left are neatly organized with helpful submenus that will take the user to a very specific product category to help her find what she wants without a lot of searching.

7. Don’t Neglect Your Fonts and Colors.

One of the worst things you can do is design your mobile website with text too small to be easily read; your users shouldn’t have to zoom to read a single word on your site, especially your navigation text. This leads to a terrible user experience, which is something search engines pay attention to in determining page rank.

For some brands, font choice is a major part of their overall branding, so the decision to switch fonts for the mobile site needs to be made judiciously. If you market to a mainly millennial demographic, you don’t have the same font size issues as, say, a brand that markets to baby boomers.

For easier navigation, choose fonts that are taller and naturally structured to leave a bit of space between letters. Most device manufacturers recommend Arial, Helvetica, Courier, Georgia, Times New Roman, and Trebuchet MS. Pick font colors that stand out from your background colors for easy reading.

And don’t forget the effect fonts have on load times, which is extremely important for mobile websites. When you are choosing a typeface, check it for speed. And only use a limited number of typefaces to keep page loads fast.

Top Free Security Testing Tools

security tools

Security testing is sometimes thought of as being hard to automate or a testing process that lacks tools and resources to help make it easier to learn.  

I find most testers are not even aware of the amount of free, open-source security testing tools available to them. 

This is a shame because I believe the next wave of DevOps is adding security tests to our pipelines. There’s even a name for this next wave: DevSecOps.  

I thought I’d create a quick resource to point you to some security tools that you can start trying out. 

Below are some of the best ones I’ve found or have heard about.

INDEX
DevSlop
Exercise in a Box
Mobile Security Framework
Needle
Frida
Tamper
Nishang
Faraday
InSpec
Pocsuite
OWTF
Astra
Pacu
Taipan
Archery
Retire.JS
mitmproxy
Metasploit Framework
Selenium
ZAP
Secure Guild

DevSlop

You’re probably aware that modern applications often use APIs, microservices, and containerization to deliver faster and better products and services.

This changing landscape means security folks need to step up their game. DevSlop (“Sloppy DevOps”) is an exploration of this area via several different modules consisting of pipelines, vulnerable apps, and The DevSlop Show.

If you’re looking to start learning more about adding security to your DevOps pipeline, this is a good resource to start with.

Exercise in a Box

Exercise in a Box is a free online tool from the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK. It helps organizations find out how resilient they are to cyber-attacks and practice their response in a safe environment. 

The service provides exercises based on the main cyber threats that your organization can do in its own time, in a safe environment, as many times as you wish. It includes everything you need for setting up, planning, delivery, and post-exercise activity, all in one place. 


Top Free Security Testing Tools

SECURITY TESTING Published on: 05/14/2019

Security testing is sometimes thought of as being hard to automate or a testing process that lacks tools and resources to help make it easier to learn.  

I find most testers are not even aware of the amount of free, open-source security testing tools available to them. 

This is a shame because I believe the next wave of DevOps is adding security tests to our pipelines. There’s even a name for this next wave: DevSecOps.  

I thought I’d create a quick resource to point you to some security tools that you can start trying out. 

Below are some of the best ones I’ve found or have heard about.

INDEX
DevSlop
Exercise in a Box
Mobile Security Framework
Needle
Frida
Tamper
Nishang
Faraday
InSpec
Pocsuite
OWTF
Astra
Pacu
Taipan
Archery
Retire.JS
mitmproxy
Metasploit Framework
Selenium
ZAP
Secure Guild

DevSlop

I recently interviewed Tanya Janaca, who told me about her project, DevSlop

You’re probably aware that modern applications often use APIs, microservices, and containerization to deliver faster and better products and services.

This changing landscape means security folks need to step up their game. DevSlop (“Sloppy DevOps”) is an exploration of this area via several different modules consisting of pipelines, vulnerable apps, and The DevSlop Show.

If you’re looking to start learning more about adding security to your DevOps pipeline, this is a good resource to start with.

Exercise in a Box

Exercise in a Box is a free online tool from the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK. It helps organizations find out how resilient they are to cyber-attacks and practice their response in a safe environment. 

The service provides exercises based on the main cyber threats that your organization can do in its own time, in a safe environment, as many times as you wish. It includes everything you need for setting up, planning, delivery, and post-exercise activity, all in one place. 

To use it, you’ll need to register here first.

Mobile Security Framework  

Mobile Security Framework (MobSF) describes itself as an automated, all-in-one mobile application (Android/iOS/Windows) pen-testing framework capable of performing static analysis, dynamic analysis, malware analysis, and web API testing. https://opensecurity.in 

It can be used for effective and fast security analysis of Android, iOS, and Windows mobile applications and supports both binaries (APK, IPA & APPX) and zipped source code. It can also perform dynamic application testing at runtime for Android apps and has Web API fuzzing capabilities powered by CapFuzz, a Web API–specific security scanner.

Needle 

Needle is the MWR’s iOS Security Testing Framework, released at Black Hat USA in August 2016. It is an open-source, modular framework, and its goal is to streamline the entire process of conducting security assessments of iOS applications. It also acts as a central point for you to perform all these security activities. 

Needle was designed to be useful not only for security professionals but also for developers looking to secure their code.

Some examples of testing Needle can help you with are: 

  • Data storage
  • Inter-process communication
  • Network communications
  • Static code analysis
  • Hooking
  • Binary protections.

Needle’s only requirement to run effectively is that you use a jailbroken device.

Frida

Frida is a dynamic instrumentation toolkit for developers, reverse engineers, and security researchers. I first heard about it from Jahmel Harris, an ethical hacker, security testing expert, and founder of Digital Interruption, who highly recommended it.  

Frida is a framework or toolkit for instrumentation, also known as application hooking.  

On the Frida website, it says to inject your scripts into a black–box process. Hook any function, spy, crypto API, or trace private application code.

No source code is needed.

Tamper

Tamper Chrome is an extension that allows you to modify HTTP requests on the fly and aid in Web security testing. Chrome works across all operating systems (including Chrome OS).

 Tamper Chrome also allows you to monitor requests sent by your browser as well as the responses.

You can also modify requests as they go out and, to a limited extent, change the responses (headers, CSS, JavaScript, or XMLHttpRequest responseText).

Nishang

Is PowerShell your go-to security scripting language?

If so, you should check out the Nishang framework.

It’s a collection of scripts and payloads that enables the usage of PowerShell for offensive security, penetration testing, and red teaming.

Nishang is useful during all phases of penetration testing.

Faraday

If you’ve done any type of development in the past, you know how helpful a well-designed IDE can be to your productivity. 

But what about security testing development?

Faraday calls itself an IPE (Integrated Penetration-Test Environment), which is essentially another way of saying a multi-user Penetration Test IDE.

It was designed for distributing, indexing, and analyzing the data generated during a security audit.

Faraday was developed to allow you to take advantage of the available tools in the community in a multi-user way. 

They designed it with a focus on simplicity, so users should notice no difference between their terminal application and the one included in Faraday.

Developed with a specialized set of functionalities to help users improve their workflow.  

InSpec

At a high level,InSpec is an auditing and software testing framework.  

It’s basically an open-source testing framework for infrastructure with a human- and machine-readable language for specifying compliance, security, and policy requirements.

Pocsuite

Pocsuite is an open-source, remote vulnerability testing and proof-of-concept development framework.

It comes with a powerful proof-of-concept engine and many niche features for the ultimate penetration testers and security researchers.

OWTF

Offensive Web Testing Framework (OWTF) is a framework that tries to unite great tools and make pen testing more efficient. 

Astra

Need to security test some APIs?

Astra was made for automated security testing of REST APIs.  

Their GitHub page mentions that security engineers or developers can use Astra as an integral part of their process so they can detect and patch vulnerabilities early during the development cycle. Astra can automatically detect and test login and logout (Authentication API), so it’s easy for anyone to integrate this into a CICD pipeline. Astra can take API collection as an input, making it able to test APIs in standalone mode. 

Examples of the types of security tests you can perform with Astra are:

  • SQL injection
  • Cross-site scripting
  • Information leakage
  • Broken authentication and session management
  • CSRF (including Blind CSRF)
  • Rate limit
  • CORS misconfiguration (including CORS bypass techniques)
  • JWT attack
  • CRLF detection
  • Blind XXE injection 

Pacu 

Speaking of API security testing, are you worried about your Cloud-based application AWS APIs getting hacked?

Pacu is an AWS exploitation framework, designed for testing the security of Amazon Web services.

Taipan

Taipan is an automated web application vulnerability scanner that allows identifying web vulnerabilities in an automatic fashion. This project is the core engine of a broader project which includes other components, like a web dashboard where you can manage your vulnerability scans, download a PDF report, and a scanner agent to run on a specific host.

Archery

Archery is an open–source vulnerability assessment and management tool which helps developers and pentesters to perform scans and manage vulnerabilities.

It uses popular open-source tools to perform a comprehensive scanning tool for web applications and networks. It also performs web application dynamic authenticated scanning and covers the whole application using selenium. The developers can also utilize the tool for the implementation of their DevOps CI/CD environment.

Retire.JS

Have a bunch of javascript that you would like to scan for different types of vulnerabilities?

Try Retire.JS, which can scan your code for the use of JavaScript libraries with known vulnerabilities

mitmproxy

Need a way an intercepting proxy for your security testing and be able to run it from the command line?

Check out mitmproxy, which is one of the highest–rated (14,997 stars) on GitHub. Their GitHub page describes it as An interactive TLS-capable intercepting HTTP proxy for penetration testers and software developers.

Metasploit Framework

Metasploit Framework is one of the more popular penetration testing tools out there. It was designed specifically for penetration testing—like how to attack MS SQL, browser-based and file exploits, and social engineering attacks. This is one of the main tools used by hard-core security professionals.

Metasploit contains a suite of tools that can help you do things like performing attacks and testing security vulnerabilities. It contains a number of different modules that can test your application against common vulnerabilities that many hackers exploit. You can also use it to develop your own exploits. In Metasploit, a module is a software component that performs a chosen attack on a specified target.

Selenium 

Umm… what is Selenium—a functional automation testing library—doing on this list?  

Well, believe it or not, there are many ways to leverage existing functional automated tests, including security testing.

For example, in his Secure Guild session on integrated security testing, Morgan Roman will demonstrate how he leverages his existing Selenium tests to check his applications for cross-site vulnerabilities.

This works mainly by taking existing Selenium tests (or any other kind of test) and then adding a simple security payload to it, and finally injecting some extra detection into it. 

This may seem complex at first, but he’ll show us just how simple it is. Register for Secure Guild and check out his session now

ZAP

 Speaking of Selenium, another popular way of expanding its capabilities is to use it with the OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP). 

ZAP can help you automatically find security vulnerabilities in your Web applications while you’re developing and testing your applications. It’s also a great tool for experienced Pen testers to use for manual security testing. 

Many testers have leveraged ZAP within their Selenium tests to help with their security testing efforts. 

Secure Guild 

As you can see, there are many tool options available to testers who are looking to get more familiar with Security Testing.

Also, if you are just beginning your security testing career, another resource you should check out is Secure Guild, an online conference 100% dedicated to security testing. Learn more here.

Mobile App Design Process – The Ultimate Guide

Mobile App Design Process, the thought of creating a mobile app from scratch sounds like an uphill task full of corny, complex coding activities.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! Before developing a new mobile app, you need to design it first. It’s critical to plan every step, and at some point, you might want to retreat and examine what you’re building.

If you’re in a customer-first business (every business is), then you need a mobile app. It’s no longer an option, but a necessity.

Global app downloads surpassed 218 billion last year. Businesses that made the mistake of not creating a mobile app will continue to suffer in the coming years too.

Having a mobile strategy is essential because this research shows that users spend 90% of their time in apps as compared to surfing the internet.

It’s great to have a mobile responsive website backed by a solid mobile marketing strategy with major resources being allocated to cross-device reach. In today’s competitive era, not having a mobile app has severe implications.

A mobile app helps businesses reach more customers, improve marketing strategies, provide value to the customers, increase brand awareness, increase customer engagement and loyalty, and create one or more competitive advantage(s). Plus, mobile apps can improve your bottom line.

When the average user spends more time looking at a mobile phone than watching television or using a desktop or laptop, what excuse does your business have for not having a mobile app?

The question remains, where and how to start?

There are two phases of any mobile app design.

  1. Mobile app design strategy
  2. App design process

Mobile App Design Strategy

It starts with a strategy. It defines the future and the path to reach your destination.

The issue, however, is with creating a mobile app design strategy. You simply can’t create an app just because your competitor has one. Your competitor might have a different business objective and mobile strategy which are quite different from yours.

Developing a mobile strategy links back to the company strategy and has four stages:

i).   Understand the business strategy

ii).  Business mobile app strategy

iii). App strategy

iv). Product management strategy

1. Understand Your Business Strategy

Understanding the overall business strategy should form the basis of your mobile app design. Misalignment between company strategy and the mobile strategy might be suicidal.

Recent statistics from the Harvard Business Review show that 70% of employees don’t have enough information about their company’s strategy or their perception of strategy is much different than the actual strategy.

There are several benefits of creating and executing a mobile strategy that’s derived from (and supports) the overall company strategy.

  • It maximizes ROI by as much as 74%.
  • Reduces training needs.
  • It leads to customer satisfaction.
  • Decreases integration requirements and bugs.
  • Improvement in quality, value, productivity, employee efficiency, and customer engagement.

2. Business Mobile App Strategy

Your mobile app strategy is your surefire path to achieving success with your mobile app design and marketing in general.

Yes, the success or failure of the app depends on the strategy since everything will be linked to the strategy. It will be easy to create if you have answers to these two questions:

  1. What is the purpose of the app?
  2. What is the benefit that the end-user will drive from using the app?

The simplest way to chart your app strategy is none other than:

“We will build this so that our customers can do that.”

The strategy has to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Anything that’s too vague or looks seemingly unachievable, strike it out. For example, having more downloads than WhatsApp isn’t a practically achievable goal.

Other Requirements

If you think a functional app idea, a roadmap, and budget allocation are all that you need for the strategy, think again.

There are several other non-functional requirements that will be needed. They include:

  • Access points
  • Network availability
  • Maintenance costs
  • Architectural support
  • Payment processing
  • Security Solutions
  • Access to tools
  • CDN
  • SLAs

3. Defining The App Strategy

Now is the time to define clear use cases on the basis of the customer journey. This calls for a clear definition of the single app strategy.

use case is at the center of defining app strategy. It’s defined as the list of actions that define the interaction between a role and the system. The image below represents a simple use case that defines the actions of the buyer and the seller – the roles.

“The number one secret is to focus on one or two main use cases. Let’s not overwhelm the user, but really focus on one or two use cases and do them really, really well.”

The best app strategy is one that uses not more than two use cases. Think of Instagram, people use it when they have to share a photo. This is a perfect example of a single-use case.

4. Define Your Product Management Implementation Strategy

Once the mobile app strategy is defined and documented, it’s time to implement it.

The test strategy should be defined before the coders get to work. Here’s what to include in the test strategy:

  • What is the scope of the app?
  • What is not in the scope?
  • The features
  • Individual cases
  • Outcome
  • App versions and integration

Know The Required Tools

What tools do you need for development, testing, and for maintenance? Though, it mostly depends on the budget allocation.

List all the tools required at every stage of the development and post-development.

Some of the tools that you may need include:

  • JIRA or TicketsNow for documenting and tracking time.
  • Google Analytics, Site Catalyst, or Omniture for analytics and performance.
  • Splunk, FogLight, or AppDynamics for app performance.
  • PractiTest, Test Collab, TestRail, or qTest for QA testing.

Basic App Design Process

Benji Hyam, the co-founder of Social Proof Interactive, stated that before you approach an app designer, you must have the following things ready:

  • Understanding your target market and the end-user
  • List of things that a user might want to accomplish with the app
  • Initial wireframes
  • Budget

This is, more or less, what we have covered in the previous section. Having a mobile app strategy will make app designing super easy.

Mobile app design strategy is an in-house process while app design process can be outsourced or done in-house.

The basic app design process consists of the following steps:

  1. Setting the scope
  2. User/market research
  3. UX wireframe
  4. Prototype
  5. UI design
  6. Animation
  7. Software architecture
  8. iOS development
  9. Testing
  10. Release

Let’s roll.

1. Setting The Scope

The scope refers to what needs to be done, what you want to achieve from the app, and how large/small it has to be. The scope may include all of the following:

  • The nature of the app
  • Target audience
  • Most crucial functions and features of the app
  • App’s visual design features
  • Potential technologies to be used
  • Consistency with the business strategy
  • Specific preferences

Did you notice that consistency with the business strategy is just one part of this process?

In order to document the scope of the app, it’s crucial to identify all of the following:

  • Objectives and goals of the app
  • Phases and subphases
  • Tasks and resources
  • Budget
  • Schedule

Based on the scope, the design and flow of the app will be prepared.

2. User & Market Research

This is the phase where the UX and UI designers will get to work based on the scope of the app and on the app strategy. It involves market research and user research.

How is it Done?

Start by conducting in-depth market research and analyzing the existing apps in your industry. If you’re going to create an image-sharing app, you’ll have to look at the existing image-sharing apps, their color schemes, patterns, flow, etc.

The user research will reveal colors and themes that will help you develop an emotional connection with the target audience.

What type of colors and styles will the end-users prefer? You can use different methods to collect data from potential users such as surveys, focus groups, design workshops, etc.

3. UX Wireframe

The visual representation of the user interface is known as the UX wireframe. You have to create a structure of the user interface, transitions, and interactions. It must be based on market research, user research, competition, and strategy.

You can use wireframing software or you can create a simple outline on paper. Lay down the user flow as you want it to appear on the actual app.

The purpose of UX wireframing is to define the flow of the app such as the number of windows, buttons, where each button leads the user, the registration process, the login screen, and everything related to the front-end of your app.

4. Create A Prototype

Prototype lets you see and feel the app. It must be created as early as possible. Once you have the UX wireframe, creating a low-fidelity prototype is easy.

The low-fidelity prototype is a sketchy prototype that can be created right away as the wireframe is ready. There is no need to waste money on expensive prototypes.

Not only does a high-fidelity prototype consume resources but it takes time.

simple physical prototype will show you how the app looks. The purpose of a prototype, by any means, is not to test or improve the functionality.

A lot of experts recommend using low-fidelity prototypes to save cost and time. Instead of wasting money creating expensive prototypes, spend money on app functions, features, and on coding.

5. UI Design

Do not confuse UX wireframe and prototyping with the user interface (UI) design.

The UX research, wireframing, and prototyping are about how the app works while the UI design is about how the app looks.

Once the UX has been tested, tweaked, and several prototypes have been tested and finalized, you have to move to the UI designing phase.

At this stage, you have to deal with the visual representation of the concepts, color schemes, fonts, shapes, buttons, font size, images, forms, illustrations, animation, etc.

You have to test multiple designs to see what works best for your users. The color schemes, skins, themes, and all the visual elements have to be tweaked several times to find what works.

It’s somewhat similar to A/B testing with the difference being that in the case of UI design, you have to make the judgments yourself. You cannot bring customers on board at this stage.

6. Interface Animation

The animation should be applied and tested with the UI design phase, so as to test different styles of animation in real-time.

Animation refers to the user interface animation such as how a new screen will pop out and how gestures are defined, and so on.

Interface animation has the power of grabbing user attention, as pointed out in Google’s material design principles:

“Motion design can effectively guide the user’s attention in ways that both inform and delight. Use motion to smoothly transport users between navigational contexts, explain changes in the arrangement of elements on a screen, and reinforce element hierarchy.”

The animation should be functional instead of a simple design element.

Anatoly Nesterov has shared seven types of animations for mobile apps. You can choose from the following list.

  1. Visual feedback
  2. Function change
  3. Element hierarchy
  4. Orientation in space
  5. Condition of the system
  6. Visual prompts
  7. Fun animations

7. Software Architecture Planning

This is perhaps the most crucial part of the entire design process. The core purpose of software architecture planning is to scale the app, and make it better in terms of functionality and design.

It takes place as a parallel stage of designing.

It involves the entire team including the designers, programmers, and managers. The idea is to improve the frontend and the backend processes by constructively tweaking the software architecture.

It calls for regular constructive discussion on platforms, frameworks, abstract layers, design platforms, technology, components, etc.

Some of the best practices include:

  • Build to change.
  • Understand the end user needs before designing and redesigning.
  • Do not hesitate to invest in architecture.
  • Identify key interfaces, layers, and subsystems.
  • Use an iterative approach to designing.

8. App Development

This is the phase where coding begins and the developers start creating the app.

This is something that developers have to do, so make sure you deal with the best coders. The app can be developed for android or iOS depending on your choice.

Instead of creating the app for multiple platforms simultaneously, the better approach is to create the app for one platform first.

Why?

Because developing an app for a single platform from an expert will cost you tens of thousands of dollars. If it turns out to be a poorly coded app, you will find yourself in the middle of nowhere.

Better yet, choose android app development first, since it’s cost-effective as compared to iOS.

9. Testing

When the average failure rate for app testing for android is 16.4%, you can’t afford to launch your newly created app without testing.

The purpose of testing the app is to ensure there aren’t any bugs and the app works as expected.

There are several stages in an app testing process. This type of rigorous testing process will ensure that your app works smoothly.

There are different types of testing and a decent approach is to test for all the types.

  • Functional testing
  • Memory testing
  • Performance test
  • Security test
  • Interruption test
  • Usability test

The app can be tested in-house, outsourced, or the developers can do the preliminary testing. The app testers should not be your developers or partners of the developers.

10. Release

Finally, it’s time to release your app once it has passed the tests.

The app must be submitted to the appropriate app store. It will take time since most of the apps are reviewed before they are published. It can take up to a week for the app to get approval so plan your release accordingly.

Most developers believe that a proper release strategy should be used for app launches.

Partnering with the right business is the best approach that worked exceptionally well for David and Goliath. They partnered with David Eckstein for the launch of their app which turned out to be a huge success.

Mobile Design Tips

The following mobile design tips will help you in achieving your set goals:

1. Iterate user interface designs: This tip comes from Amanda Cline, who is a developer with intensive experience under her belt.

She says:

“It is an excellent idea to iterate the interface design options so as to achieve apps that are fully engaging and retain the attention of targeted users.”

Every single iteration will help you learn a valuable lesson that might not be useful for this project, but it can help you in another project.

2. Understand your users: There is only one rule to designing better apps – understand your users. The best mobile app developers collect user feedback and apply it to the design. This is a crucial part of the mobile application design process. 

There are three ways to understand your users.

  • Create personas – characters developed to represent your target audience.
  • Experience maps – help you explore all the possibilities for a single interaction.
  • User scenarios – how a person acts based on different UI designs.

3. Design for the future: Yes you should look beyond today and design for the future.

Jeff Haden says:

“When I decided to put speed radar on a mobile device, the capability really wasn’t there, but I knew it would be.”

While designing an app, keep the future in mind. Never design for today because by the time you will finish designing the app, the hardware will have been upgraded and when you launch the app, you will always be behind.

System Architecture

This stage is often overlooked in the app development process. But taking the time to understand your system ensures that you can grow your business without outgrowing your app.

The best apps are scalable, reliable, and secure—but also achieve your goals.

Without a system architecture analysis, something will eventually get lost in the shuffle. So make sure you understand the various entities of your system. Figure out the different data flows between each entity as well.

What workflows will be required for each process? Do you need third-party integrations? What are the technical requirements on the backend?

Create a functional spec sheet that details all of the data flows and flow charts. This information can ultimately be handed off to your design team. A designer will need to understand your system architecture to create a design that makes sense for your specific app and its goals.

Wireframes

Your wireframe will be another crucial tool for your app’s design. Anyone can create a wireframe—you don’t need to be a designer to accomplish this.

Think of your wireframe as a rough sketch of your app’s usability. These can be super informal. I’ve even seen some wireframes sketched on napkins or pieces of paper, although most people today will create a digital version.

Conclusion

Mobile app design can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.

To nail the design of your app, make sure you follow the design guidelines explained in this article. Rather than trying to tackle this on your own, contact our team here at BuildFire. We can handle all of the design elements, and more, while providing consultancy services for your app as well.

Our mobile app designers and app developers will double as strategic partners for your app development project. It’s time to take your design to the next level. Let’s build something great together!

Qualities of a Great Marriage

Despite the fact that a large number of couples forget to make this beyond daylight hours first 365 days, there are a few marital relationship worthy features that can help be sure a happy and healthy long term romance. Marriages which can be based on mutual admiration can help you communicate your emotions in a more effective fashion, and help you stay calm once complications happen. The key to using a successful marital relationship is to be selfless and not reluctant to make eschew for the other.

The most successful marriages are the ones that are built around a common set of interests, values, and desires. Once two people will be connected by shared areas, it makes sense to share the tasks and chores at home. Good marriage partners should also discuss finances, exactly where they want to live the moment their kids will be grown, and also other such important matters.

There are a number of qualities that will make a marriage powerful, and picking the best types for your marriage is not easy. However by looking about and playing your partner, you may discover some of the even more essential ones.

One of the best qualities to get a good relationship is having a strong work ethic. It is not unusual for a good man to want to assist his better half out throughout the house, or to make her feel special. If he’s an attentive dad, he’ll make sure to provide her with the time and space the woman needs. In fact , a good guy may even use hours aiding his better half learn how to operate the computer.

It is also essential to be honest along with your partner. The best marriages are those where each are willing to look for the best solution and compromise to the details. For instance, your partner mylistingbride.com may want to use all of your financial savings on cryptocurrency, while you might not be so fired up about that. However , if you fail to see eye ball to eyesight, it might be far better to cut the losses and move on.

The best partnerships also amuse recognize and appreciate every other’s successes. It may be difficult to do this while you are dealing with a number of drama, yet a little compliment goes a long way. Whenever your spouse has a huge job advertising, it’s a good idea to let him be aware that he’s liked, and that you will be there to aid him in his new position.

A good matrimony is the one that anyone looks toward coming home to every night. A very good marriage partner could dream of becoming a business tycoon, nevertheless, you need to be capable to work together to produce that happen.

The best marriages are those wherever both parties talk about a great enlightened perspective on lifestyle, work, and family. These are the marriages in which the partners are motivated to work towards every other’s goals and successes. The most effective marriages https://hridoy.me/rrfpractice/2020/07/04/exactly-what-is-a-mail-buy-bride/ have one perspective on the upcoming and one eye ball on the present.

Influencer Marketing

Matching brands with the right advocates in digital

With more ads than ever vying for their attention, consumers today are selective with their trust. To cut through, brands need advocates their audiences like and believe in – which is where influencers shine.

Smart marketers focus on creating natural relationships with online trendsetters, no matter the size of their following. Look for agencies that:

Aren’t blinded by follower counts.

 Just because someone has a million followers doesn’t mean they’ll get you a million fans. Experienced teams know how to spot the right people to promote your product – whether that’s micro-influencers or a true celebrity.

Understand the needs of influencers.

 Many influencers make their living online. As excited as they may be to work with your brand, they also need to see how it benefits them. Partner with an agency that influencers like and will go the extra mile to help.

Get the brand balance right.

 Influencers have already put in the time to bond with their audience, so good influencer marketers don’t insist on total creative control. At the same time, influencer marketers should always be advocating for a relationship that serves the brand and the creator alike.

Search Engine Optimization

Big or small, businesses that win at search reap enormous benefits. But although SEO is technical, it’s not an exact science, and it takes time to show results.

Search Engine Optimization process

Keyword Research

Keyword research gives us invaluable data about the specific terms users are using to search, and the volume of searches for those terms.

Just as importantly, the keyword research helps us understand users’ underlying intent. Are prospects looking for general information, doing research on a product, or ready to buy? Answering these questions helps us shape content for maximum impact.

Search Engine Optimization Strategy

It’s great to uncover fixes that can give you a bump in the rankings, but our true value comes from being an organic marketing partner. 

Our SEO strategy may be part of a fully integrate digital marketing strategy  or a more channel-specific effort (depending on your needs). The strategy will set the stage,and covering the tactics we’ll deploy and the benchmarks that will help to measure success.

organic marketing icon

Organic Marketing

We believe there’s no longer a bright line between and organic marketing. If you can find it through search, we think of it through the lens of search – from social media, and to customer reviews, also to sites where you’re talk about.

As a result, your team may feature a roster of organic marketing talent spanning content, influencer. Taking a holistic approach to your presence, we seek out opportunities to boost your brand wherever you may be find

Digital Strategy

Why brands need digital strategy

Businesses today differentiate not on product or price, but on the quality.

If you can impress demanding customers with a frictionless journey, you’ll win favor, engagement, and market Digital Strategy share. But the question is: what do your customers really want?

Competitor Analysis

Sizing up your rivals

No business operates in a vacuum. That’s why we take your competitors very seriously. Understanding who is out there, how they set customer expectations, and where there are opportunities to stand out from the pack is central to delivering a digital experience that’s above the rest.

Audience Research

Defining your people

We take every step of our strategy process seriously, and but we’re obsessed with figuring out what makes your audience tick. No part of the process is more important.

Often, the deliverable for audience research is personas – audience profiles that identify who customers are and what they will demand from your digital experience. Personas are informed by a range of inputs, including analytics, social listening data, user testing, and information from the client. They help us focus on what visitors want and how they will navigate your digital experience.

Building a Strategy

Insight turns actionable

Preparing a strategy is a team effort. Strategy, design, UX, and content experts all come together to turn research into a concise plan for your brand in digital. We value a multidisciplinary approach because it’s rare that problems (or their solutions) fit neatly within the lines.

It’s here that problems are distilled and big questions are answered. And because we build digital experiences ourselves, we don’t just describe what you should do, but how it can be done.

Presentation & Implementation

Moving toward the future

. After the initial presentation, the team remains on standby, ready to offer clarity, answer questions, and plan the next steps to set the new experience in motion.

Use your email to get email

You use your to get in touch with lots of people. Use your email signature to get lots of people clicking through to your blog.

Make a friendly call to action in your email signature, inviting contacts to visit your blog. Give a brief benefit to motivate action – such as what your blog’s about. Include an easy to click link.

Example:


Tips for using your email signature:

  • Include a link to your blog in yoursignature, and encourage your co-workers to so too
  • Give a beneficial reason for people to click to your blog
  • Use the signature in all your emails, to generate more clicks

Give emails


Ok, now that you’ve got a robust email list  – people will be clicking through to your blog in droves, right? Not quite.

Are you saturated with inbox info? So are your customers…

To get your emails opened, read and clicked through you need to stand out, connect with your readers, and beat out your content competitors.

Tips for a Better Email Call to Action

E-mails are nothing without a call to action. Simply put, they have no real purpose without a call to action. The “action” you want the user to take, can vary. However, if you’re serious about your business, the place where each email ultimately leads to is a landing page and that is where email call to action comes in.


How to “call for action”?


Email suggestion to take action is somewhat of a mind-drinking spree. On one hand, you have a customer who will never consider what you need from him except if you make it unmistakable. Then again, there is a customer who’ll essentially leave in the event that you “weight” him. In spite of the fact that that reality lies between the two limits was dismissed by thinkers, despite everything it stands valid for email promoting.

A few people have issues recognizing a reasonable suggestion to take action and constraining the customer to make a buy. The first is a training you should utilize consistently, yet a “negative” kind of weight will make you look inept.

Fundamentally, you should call for activity by instructing the beneficiary in the event that they’re intrigued. Obviously, don’t waver to up the enthusiasm by explaining to the peruser why he ought to focus on your invitation to take action.


6 Tips for a Better Email Call to Action


Let’s jump to the tips that will help you create a better email call to action:


1. Unless it’s a sales e-mail, use phrases like “learn more” instead of “click here”


“Snap here” doesn’t generally give a thought of what’s inside the page you’re connecting. In the event that you should tell “click”, expound on the connection and tell precisely what’s inside and what it offers to the one perusing your email. Email promoting’s suggestion to take action depends more on the enlightening side – most changes are as yet done in greeting pages.


2. The call placement


You should position the CTA somewhere high in the page, not only in the bottom. See #6


3. Links, links, links


Individuals like to do things quick. Above all else, including numerous connections in your page will spare time for drive purchasers; besides, it will offer ground to questions like “what to click”.


4. Use markup to your advantage


Strong content gets saw simpler. Italics does as well, somewhat. This is evident yet is frequently abused or overlooked through and through.


5. Measure and analyze what gets you the most clicks


On the off chance that your crusade uses Google Analytics, have a go at including UTM Link labels. Add these labels to your connections. For instance, determine an area in the page – footer, header, body.

In time, you will see that you’re ready to expel a few connections which don’t do much and supplant them with valuable substance.


6. Spread the calls to action within an F-shape across the page


They will get more consideration that way. Despite the fact that a really old bit of research, it’s valuable, by and by. Peruse increasingly about the F perusing example directly here. Fundamentally, make sure to recall that your connections are well-put and enlightening, and afterward center around everything else. Email marketings’ invitation to take action has, be that as it may, dependably been less about “where to snap” and progressively about “for what reason to click”.


Email Marketing Landing Pages And Why Should I Use Them?

Talking in analogies, the greeting page is the Omega, the last goal of your email advertising effort.
You need email showcasing presentation pages in case you’re selling something through email, period.


What is… a landing page?


In fact, a point of arrival is wherever where the client lands first when clicking a connection in your email or discovering your site through Google, or whatnot. Be that as it may, a “greeting page” has of late turned into a term that partners with a page where a specific responsibility is required from the client (for example purchasing an item, filling a review, and so forth).


Why do I need email landing pages?


Email marketing landing pages are needed because:

  • They help to direct the user’s attention

  • They help to soar the conversion rates

  • They offer a way of measuring the efficiency of your campaign

  • Points of arrival are especially alluring to advertisers since you can, at times unequivocally, instruct the client and what you expect of him. On the off chance that the presentation page is your site, the client can end up confounded as there is no clarification of why they are there in any case , and begin doing everything, with the exception of what you need.


    How do I create email marketing landing pages?


    Presently, this is a different science.
    Making a presentation page without any preparation is a remarkable overwhelming assignment, and you’d most likely be in an ideal situation with either getting greeting page formats or perusing a great deal of writing concerning points of arrival.
    However, we can at least point you in the right direction:

  • Landing pages are likely to be short (about 1-1.5 screens), especially for stuff that requires little commitment
  • The bigger the investment, the larger a landing page you should write
  • Include clear calls to action – tell the reader exactly what is your offer, benefits and what kind of action you want them to take
  • Obviously, add stat tracking to your website
  • Email promoting presentation pages is a subject that even an enormous book can’t cover completely.
    You can discover more data about presentation pages directly here.
    When you get into the hang of making such pages, maybe you will even need to make separate points of arrival for guests from Google, informal communities, and so forth.

    7 Email Marketing Mistakes That Will Cost You

    Mistakes – everybody has made them. I came up with a list of seven common email marketing mistakes that you should steer clear of in order to have a trouble-free email marketing experience.


    Email Marketing Mistakes


    This might seem like an article for email marketing novices but even the most experienced marketer’s slip-up every now and then. These seven email marketing mistakes can cost you your reputation, email marketing services provider, potential clients and good email delivery.


    # 1 Using Publicly Available, Bought or Borrowed Email Lists


    It is human instinct to need things snappy and simple (aside from those climbing eight-thousanders without strengthening oxygen). It is actually this nature that drives individuals to search for easy routes. Easy routes are extraordinary… when they are not deceiving.

    A valid example – utilizing purchased, acquired or freely sourced email records in email advertising. It is quick. It is simple. It is additionally illicit. Despite the fact that it might feel that it enables you to come to a bigger or new group of spectators, you are truly connecting your business with spontaneous messages and hurting your notoriety on the web and disconnected.

    As indicated by email promoting best practice, messages in your rundown must be gathered through an (ideally, twofold) select in procedure – that is, you should get individual authorization to send showcasing messages to somebody. With an appropriately assembled show, you won’t just accomplish a superior conveyance result yet in addition, manufacture trust in your organization. Look at the Mailigen ‘How to Guide’ for more tips on email rundown building.


    # 2 Not Having Sign-up Forms on Your Website


    In the event that you are as of now tossing your hands noticeable all around, perplexed about how on earth you should develop your own email list – well, you can begin by putting join frames on your site. You can undoubtedly set these up in your Mailigen account – simply adhere to our directions on the most proficient method to setup a web join structure. While you are grinding away, remember that you can likewise add your sign-up structure to organization’s Facebook page. This is one of the most common email marketing mistakes.

    Site join structures enable you to grow an authorization based email list and not dismiss potential clients. This is a problem free route for individuals to energetically join to get your emails and for you to quickly and productively develop your email subscriber list.


    # 3 Not Keeping Proof of Subscription


    Keep all confirmation of membership proof. This will prove to be useful if there are ever any grumblings about your messages. Individuals overlook things, so there is dependably an opportunity that somebody will overlook buying in to a bulletin and afterward report it as spam. Evidence of membership enables you to exhibit precisely how and when somebody turned into a supporter, if such an issue emerges.

    As indicated by email showcasing best practices, the main real confirmation of membership originates from web join frames. Be that as it may, in the event that you have gathered messages disconnected, authorizations must be all around recorded. For example, paper polls, business cards and even recorded telephone discussions can fill in as evidence.


    # 4 Not Using Your Company’s Domain as Your Email Sender Address


    This is a typical email advertising mistake that is at the core of deliverability. Here is the arrangement – if your email sender address is an open space email address, you won’t most likely convey battles from your stayintouch account. Along these lines, you truly should utilize your organization’s location or private space address. This is one of the greatest email advertising mistakes that you can make.

    This is a somewhat new improvement in the email showcasing world and it comes from the DMARC approach, which is intended to shield areas from maltreatment. Increasingly more email suppliers are grasping this strategy. Thus, there are a few, similar to Yahoo and AOL, who don’t permit bulk emails to be sent utilizing their space addresses. There is no reversing the situation, so a private space address is presently required when sending email campaigns from a Mailigen account.

    You can likewise set up DMARC assurance for your area. Along these lines, you can ensure that nobody is sending emails from your domain without authorization.


    # 5 Sending an Email That Is One Big Image


    Including images and pictures in your email is a great idea. Having an email as one big image – not so much.

    Two things. Right off the bat, email suppliers can’t peruse such an email. Consequently, there is a decent shot that it will go directly to the SPAM envelope, where it will join messages from the Nigerian ruler and other SPAM most prominent hits. Also, regardless of whether the email wonderfully escapes SPAM channels, some email suppliers square pictures so the early introduction when opening the email will be – for what reason is it unfilled? You can work around picture blocking, yet SPAM channels… ? That is a difficult task.

    In this way, keep up an equalization and keep the content and beautiful sight proportion to 50/50 or 60/40. Thusly, you will get an outwardly solid email that still has something to demonstrate when the pictures get blocked and don’t draw in the consideration of SPAM channels.


    # 6 Sending Emails with Large Attachments


    Needing to be viewed as liberal can reverse discharge, particularly if your translation of liberality is enormous connections. Open and private email suppliers will in general have size cutoff points for connections, so if your email has a connection that surpasses that limit, the email won’t be conveyed. Moreover, email suppliers can recognize messages with an enormous connection as conceivably destructive and square it or imprint it as spam. Again – not conveyed.

    So, keep your attachments as small as possible or, better yet, do not attach anything at all.


    # 7 Not Keeping Email Size in Check


    Coming up next isn’t a standard that is an unchangeable reality, it is to a greater degree a heads-up. It is proposed that messages ought not surpass the 100 KB limit, as bigger messages will in general keep running into deliverability issues. Right off the bat, huge messages get captured in SPAM traps. Also, enormous messages are slower to open. This may appear like a non-issue however it is the point at which you recall how restless individuals are in this time of moment this and moment that. In this way, remember these dangers and gauge them against the benefit of sending enormous messages. On the off chance that you need your messages to be conveyed easily, 100 KB is the size furthest reaches that you should remember.

    No email advertiser is resistant to committing errors and, beyond any doubt, you will make your very own portion. In any case, throughout the years, so much experience has been gathered that it would be senseless not to gain from the errors of others. Begin with gaining from these seven email promoting botches and have a smoother email advertising knowledge.


    Best Practices for Email Marketing on Mobile Devices

    email marketing on mobile devices

    The scales have tipped. For years, mobile devices were capturing people’s attention in ways that threatened the sovereignty of desktops. Now it’s official: Today, more people open their email on mobile devices than on desktops, and the gap between desktops and mobile is only expected to grow.

    As of 2019, 60% of all email campaigns are read on mobile devices, compared to a mere 10% on desktops and 29% on webmail clients


    What is Mobile Email Marketing?


    Versatile Email Marketing alludes to the way toward advancing your email advertising effort to progress toward becoming “portable first”, by changing the content and plan that fits cell phone clients.

    Despite the fact that portable currently rules, many email advertisers have neglected to adjust their substance to this pattern. (Truth be told, just a measly 31 percent of advertisers can express their versatile email open rate.)

    That is terrible news, since portable improved messages are basic for holding endorsers. An astounding 80 percent of supporters will basically erase an email on the off chance that it doesn’t appear well on portable, and 30 percent will venture to such an extreme as to withdraw subsequent to opening a solitary email that doesn’t look great on their cell phone.

    The takeaway? In case you’re not improving your messages for versatile, you’re effectively heading out potential clients and hurting your change rates. So it’s significant for advertisers of all stripes to utilize best practices for email showcasing on portable. Here’s the manner by which to get it going.


    Email Optimisation Best Practices


    Let’s look at all the methods you can use to improve your email for mobile readers.


    # Spend time on the preheader text


    Conventional email promoting best practices would state that your subject header is a standout amongst the most significant components of any email. And keeping in mind that headlines still issue on portable, significantly more consideration ought to be paid to the preheader content (or the 1-2 lines of HTML message that show up at the highest point of messages on cell phones). That is on the grounds that preheader content is appointed more space than headlines on cell phones, and it stacks before the body of the email, so it’s normally the principal thing perusers will see. Ensure you’re benefiting from this land by utilizing it to feature significant or eye-getting data.


    # Keep content short and sweet


    Upwards of 50 percent of perusers on versatile will draw in with a given email for three seconds or less. That is a little window wherein to grab perusers’ eye and move them to take you up on your suggestion to take action. So you have to attract perusers quickly, and you can’t tarry getting to your point. Keep your invitation to take action and any offer content “over the overlay” so perusers don’t need to chase for it, and separate content so the email is effectively searchable. Reward? Limiting your email substance may improve burden times, which can improve the probability that individuals really perused what you need to state.
    With everything taken into account, when taking a gander from an optimistic standpoint Practices, content moderation is a standout amongst the most underutilized devices.


    # Let your sentences “breathe”


    Huge lumps of content are difficult to process. While longer passages may look great on a work area, looking through them from portable can rapidly dismiss perusers. Keep away from this by separating your content in littler sections. A decent beginning stage is keeping each lump of content shorter than 20 words.

    Add spacings to give sentences “a chance to breathe” and make your substance increasingly readable by including striking content at the most significant focuses you need to underscore.


    # Design for portrait and landscape views


    Keep in mind that cell phones can consequently flip the direction of an email from representation to scene and back once more—so your messages need to look great in both of these organizations. One of the most effortless approaches to accomplish this is to compel yourself to a solitary segment design. It’s additionally useful to utilize a lot of blank area so the email doesn’t look jumbled in either see.


    # Make social media icons and CTAs touch-friendly


    In the event that you need your perusers to connect with your image on their cell phone (past simply perusing your messages), at that point you have to make it simple for them to do as such. That implies any connections or catches that are intended to guide perusers to your site or web based life nearness ought to be effectively interactive with the dash of a thumb, and they ought to be enormous enough for individuals to click without zooming in. (Same goes for structure fill handle.) The standard least for contact neighborly catches is 44 X 44 pixels.


    # Enlarge your fonts


    One of the least complex approaches to guarantee your messages are contact benevolent is to make the content size greater than you would for messages that are opened on work areas. Obviously, it’s significant not to go over the edge—you don’t need single word to fill the whole screen. Your objective is neatness that limits the exertion perusers need to take so as to process your substance. As such, you don’t need perusers to need to zoom in or out so as to process whatever is on their screen.


    # Shrink your images


    There are a few motivations to downsize your picture measure when you’re sending messages that will be opened on portable. First of all, cell phones burden pictures more gradually than work areas or workstations—and since perusers are probably not going to endure moderate burden times, monstrous pictures that require a significant stretch of time to load can eat into your navigate rates. Furthermore, huge pictures can go through perusers’ information at a speedy rate, which won’t charm them to your image. Consequently, pictures ought to be kept little or left out altogether.


    # Test, test and test your emails


    Very often, you may feel like your email structure is top-notch, only to later realize that you forgot a spacing, an important highlight or other elements that make reading easier. Before sending emails to your subscribers make sure you test your content on your own mobile device. Therefore, to improve your mobile email marketing campaign, go ahead and send it to yourself first.


    # Wrap up


    All the time, you may feel like your email structure is first rate, just to later understand that you overlooked a dividing, a significant feature or different components that make perusing simpler. Before sending messages to your endorsers ensure you test your substance all alone cell phone. Accordingly, to improve your portable email advertising effort, feel free to send it to yourself first.