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It's Time to Say Goodbye to Facebook's Static FBML

2011-10-18T05:14:00.000-07:00

You may have been redirected to this page from one of our Static FBML articles or tutorials.

We've decided to terminate the Static FBML tutorials because FBML is increasingly less reliable, which leads to confusion and frustration, and to help encourage users to move on to iFrames before Facebook pulls the plug and your Static FBML tabs and FBML tags cease working altogether. It was a good run, but it's time to move on...

In March, Facebook made it clear that page admins should begin transitioning their Static FBML tabs to iFrame tabs.

Shortly thereafter, page admins discovered they could no longer add the Static FBML application to their fan page and, if they already had it installed, they couldn't create new tabs.

Facebook continues to support existing installations of Static FBML, but users are finding that some FBML tags aren't behaving like they used to and the truth is that the functionality of existing FBML tags will gradually diminish until it's finally terminated altogether.

Page admins should immediately transition to iFrame tabs.

Although creating iFrame custom tabs is technically more difficult, involving creating a Facebook application, using FTP to upload files to a server, and making sure that all the iFrame page assets are hosted in a secure HTTPS environment, a number of free Facebook applications have arisen to help the less technical admins to create custom iFrame tabs without requiring all these skills.

TabPress: a Free Facebook iFrame Tab Application

Here at HyperArts, we developed TabPress, a free iFrame tab application that takes care of the secure hosting of the iFrame page itself.

And using a free secure-hosting service such as Amazon Web Services S3, admins can upload their images and other page assets to a secure server and avoid browsers displaying "mixed content" warnings when both HTTP and HTTPS are used in the iFrame page code.

And instead of having to deal with the eccentricities of using fb:visible-to-connection FBML to create the Reveal / fan-gating feature, TabPress automates the Reveal feature for you, allowing you to enter content for fans in one box and for non-fans in another.

Facebook iFrame Tab Application Tutorials for Coders

For those who are fine with creating Facebook applications and working with Web coding, HyperArts offers some excellent detailed Facebook iFrame tutorials:

Replace your FBML tags with XFBML Social Plugins

Several of Facebook's Social Plugins, originally developed for use on external websites so they could integrate with Facebook's Open Graph, can be used on your iFrame tabs.

Just go to the Social Plugins page, and navigate to either the Like Button, Send Buttonor Comments Box, and Facebook will generate the code you need via a simple interface.

Accept this Change — It's a Definite Improvement

FBML always seemed like a pretty buggy and unsustainable approach to Facebook coding. The move to IFrames takes the load off of Facebook's servers (iFrame "canvas" or "index" pages are hosted off of Facebook), and restoring the ability to use standard Web coding practices is a great relief to developers.

And you can use standard HTML, CSS, JavaScript, , jQuery and PHP to create your custom iFrame tabs, forever leaving behind FBML, FBJS and all the accompanying headaches.

Also, the new fan page layout, rolled out around the same time, has greatly improved the branding possibilities and options for page admins. (Read my Social Media Examiner article about taking advantage of branding possibilities with the latest Facebook page layout.)

Facebook is constantly growing and changing and when you think about it, it's really quite amazing that it works as well as it does! It's a free service, has created an amazing global community, and is approaching 700,000,000 users.

VII. What Does Cloud Computing Really Stands For ?

2011-09-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

The next big trend sounds nebulous, but it's not so fuzzy when you view the value proposition from the perspective of IT professionals

By Eric Knorr, Galen Gruman | InfoWorld

Cloud computing is all the rage. "It's become the phrase du jour," says Gartner senior analyst Ben Pring, echoing many of his peers. The problem is that (as with Web 2.0) everyone seems to have a different definition.
As a metaphor for the Internet, "the cloud" is a familiar cliché, but when combined with "computing," the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier. Some analysts and vendors define cloud computing narrowly as an updated version of utility computing: basically virtual servers available over the Internet. Others go very broad, arguing anything you consume outside the firewall is "in the cloud," including conventional outsourcing.
[ Get the no-nonsense explanations and advice you need to take real advantage of cloud computing in InfoWorld editors' 21-page Cloud Computing Deep Dive PDF special report, then go deeper in our Private Cloud Deep Dive. | Stay up on the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]
Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities.Cloud computing is at an early stage, with a motley crew of providers large and small delivering a slew of cloud-based services, from full-blown applications to storage services to spam filtering. Yes, utility-style infrastructure providers are part of the mix, but so are SaaS (software as a service) providers such as Salesforce.com. Today, for the most part, IT must plug into cloud-based services individually, but cloud computing aggregators and integrators are already emerging.
InfoWorld talked to dozens of vendors, analysts, and IT customers to tease out the various components of cloud computing. Based on those discussions, here's a rough breakdown of what cloud computing is all about:

VI. Cloud Computing Deployment models

2011-09-26T05:58:00.000-07:00

Deployment models

Cloud computing types

Public cloud

Public cloud describes cloud computing in the traditional mainstream sense, whereby resources are dynamically provisioned to the general public on a fine-grained, self-service basis over the Internet, via web applications/web services, from an off-site third-party provider who bills on a fine-grained utility computing basis.^[13]

Community cloud

Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organisations from a specific community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally. The costs are spread over fewer users than a public cloud (but more than a private cloud), so only some of the benefits of cloud computing are realised.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models.

Private cloud

Private cloud is infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally.

They have attracted criticism because users "still have to buy, build, and manage them" and thus do not benefit from lower up-front capital costs and less hands-on management,essentially "[lacking] the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept".

V. Cloud Computing Architecture

2011-09-26T05:53:00.000-07:00

Cloud Computing Architecture

I Computed Lonely as a Cloud

Although cloud computing is an emerging field of computer science, the idea has been around for a few years. It's called cloud computing because the data and applications exist on a "cloud" of Web servers.

When talking about a cloud computing system, it's helpful to divide it into two sections: the front end and the back end. They connect to each other through a network, usually the Internet. The front end is the side the computer user, or client, sees. The back end is the "cloud" section of the system.

The front end includes the client's computer (or computer network) and the application required to access the cloud computing system. Not all cloud computing systems have the same user interface. Services like Web-based e-mail programs leverage existing Web browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox. Other systems have unique applications that provide network access to clients.

On the back end of the system are the various computers, servers and data storage systems that create the "cloud" of computing services. In theory, a cloud computing system could include practically any computer program you can imagine, from data processing to video games. Usually, each application will have its own dedicated server.
A central server administers the system, monitoring traffic and client demands to ensure everything runs smoothly. It follows a set of rules called protocols and uses a special kind of software called middleware. Middleware allows networked computers to communicate with each other. Most of the time, servers don't run at full capacity. That means there's unused processing power going to waste. It's possible to fool a physical server into thinking it's actually multiple servers, each running with its own independent operating system. The technique is called server virtualization. By maximizing the output of individual servers, server virtualization reduces the need for more physical machines.

If a cloud computing company has a lot of clients, there's likely to be a high demand for a lot of storage space. Some companies require hundreds of digital storage devices. Cloud computing systems need at least twice the number of storage devices it requires to keep all its clients' information stored. That's because these devices, like all computers, occasionally break down. A cloud computing system must make a copy of all its clients' information and store it on other devices. The copies enable the central server to access backup machines to retrieve data that otherwise would be unreachable. Making copies of data as a backup is called redundancy.

What are some of the applications of cloud computing? Keep reading to find out.

IV. Cloud Computing Layers

2011-09-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

Cloud Computing Layers

Once an internet protocol connection is established among several computers, it is possible to share services within any one of the following layers.

[Client

Application

Platform

Infrastructure

Server

The servers layer consists of computer hardware and/or computer software products that are specifically designed for the delivery of cloud services, including multi-core processors, cloud-specific operating systems and combined offerings.

III. How Cloud Computing Work's

2011-09-26T05:45:00.000-07:00

Let's say you're an executive at a large corporation. Your particular responsibilities include making sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. Buying computers for everyone isn't enough -- you also have to purchase software or software licenses to give employees the tools they require. Whenever you have a new hire, you have to buy more software or make sure your current software license allows another user. It's so stressful that you find it difficult to go to sleep on your huge pile of money every night.

More Computing

Shared Computing
Utility Computing
Grid Computing
Curiosity Project: What is ubiquitous computing?

Soon, there may be an alternative for executives like you. Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you'd only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job. Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs. It's called cloud computing, and it could change the entire computer industry.
In a cloud computing system, there's a significant workload shift. Local computers no longer have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. The network of computers that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware and software demands on the user's side decrease. The only thing the user's computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing system's interface software, which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud's network takes care of the rest.
There's a good chance you've already used some form of cloud computing. If you have an e-mail account with a Web-based e-mail service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, then you've had some experience with cloud computing. Instead of running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web e-mail account remotely. The software and storage for your account doesn't exist on your computer -- it's on the service's computer cloud.
What makes up a cloud computing system? Find out in the next section.

II. Cloud Computing Characteristics

2011-09-26T05:39:00.001-07:00

Characteristics Of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing exhibits the following key characteristics:

Agility improves with users' ability to re-provision technological infrastructure resources.
Application programming interface (API) accessibility to software that enables machines to interact with cloud software in the same way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. Cloud computing systems typically use REST-based APIs.
Cost is claimed to be reduced and in a public cloud delivery model capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure. This is purported to lower barriers to entry, as infrastructure is typically provided by a third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks. Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained with usage-based options and fewer IT skills are required for implementation (in-house).
Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile phone). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere.
Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing for:
- Centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate, electricity, etc.)
- Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load-levels)
- Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10–20% utilized.
Reliability is improved if multiple redundant sites are used, which makes well-designed cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery.
Scalability and Elasticity via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads.
Performance is monitored, and consistent and loosely coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.
Security could improve due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources, etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack of security for stored kernels. Security is often as good as or better than under traditional systems, in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford. However, the complexity of security is greatly increased when data is distributed over a wider area or greater number of devices and in multi-tenant systems that are being shared by unrelated users. In addition, user access to security audit logs may be difficult or impossible. Private cloud installations are in part motivated by users' desire to retain control over the infrastructure and avoid losing control of information security.
Maintenance of cloud computing applications is easier, because they do not need to be installed on each user's computer.

I. What Is Cloud Computing ?

2011-09-26T05:37:00.000-07:00

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet).

Overview

Cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, wherein end-users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to provide the service.

The concept of cloud computing fills a perpetual need of IT: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities.

Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on Internet protocols, and it typically involves provisioning of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet. This may take the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if the programs were installed locally on their own computers.

Cloud computing providers deliver applications via the internet, which are accessed from a web browser, while the business software and data are stored on servers at a remote location. In some cases, legacy applications (line of business applications that until now have been prevalent in thin client Windows computing) are delivered via a screen-sharing technology, while the computing resources are consolidated at a remote data center location; in other cases, entire business applications have been coded using web-based technologies such as AJAX.

Most cloud computing infrastructures consist of services delivered through shared data-centers and appearing as a single point of access for consumers' computing needs. Commercial offerings may be required to meet service-level agreements (SLAs), but specific terms are less often negotiated by smaller companies.

Comparison

Cloud computing shares characteristics with:

Autonomic computing — Computer systems capable of self-management.
Client–server model — Client–server computing refers broadly to any distributed application that distinguishes between service providers (servers) and service requesters (clients).
Grid computing — "A form of distributed and parallel computing, whereby a 'super and virtual computer' is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely coupled computers acting in concert to perform very large tasks."
Mainframe computer — Powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.
Utility computing — The "packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility, such as electricity."
Peer-to-peer — Distributed architecture without the need for central coordination, with participants being at the same time both suppliers and consumers of resources (in contrast to the traditional client–server model).
Service-oriented computing – software-as-a-service.

List of Great Firefox Plugins for SEO

2011-09-20T06:51:00.001-07:00

I’m a fan of Firefox mainly for the additional functionality you get from using plugins. In fact, it’s always frustrating when I am on someone else’s computer, and I don’t have access to my own set of “tools” that I use on a daily basis. Simply put, if you aren’t using Firefox, you’re missing out on a more effective way to work.
Below is a list of some of my favorite SEO plugins. I have also included a short list of web developer plugins that have some crossover into SEO. I know there are other tools out there, so if you have some additional plugins you like to use, please add them in the comments!

Plugins Specifically for SEO

SEO for Firefox
This one is a standard tool for most of the SEOs that I personally know. This plugin gives you a ton of additional information when you do a search on Google. You can see a site’s PageRank, age, Yahoo links and other data that can help you when analyzing your competitors.
It also gives you access to a handy little tool called SEO XRay. This sub-tool will show you the meta information, H tag use and internal and external links on a page. There are so many ways to use SEO for Firefox, it’s no wonder that it’s a standard tool! Aaron Wall (SEOBook) did a great job with this one!
Get it here: SEO for Firefox

Rank Checker
This is another great tool from Aaron Wall. If all you want to do is a quick ranking update, Rank Checker is the way to go. This tool is usually quick, and you can export your findings to a CSV document if you want to compare them with previous rankings.
As with any rank checking tool, it is not always 100% accurate. However, it is still a great free way to keep up on all of your keywords.

Get it here: Rank Checker

SearchStatus
Do you ever get tired of the Google Toolbar? If you’re like me, the only reason you really use the Google Toolbar is to find out the PageRank of the page. Well, with SearchStatus, you can get PageRank, Alexa Rank, Moz Rank and Compete Rank in your status bar. There are many other things that this tool does, but that’s what I mainly use it for.

Get it here: SearchStatus

SEO Link Analysis
I consider this plugin to be one of the essentials in my toolbox. This tool works when you go to the Yahoo Site Explorer or into your Google Webmaster account looking for back links. Rather than just seeing what sites are linking back, you can see the anchor text and the PageRank of the page linking back. You can also find out if the link is still there or has a no follow attribute.
This tool is great for spying on your competition. Go to the Yahoo Site Explorer and you will very quickly find out what keywords your competition is targeting. This makes it great for site analysis and competitive analysis.
Get it here: SEO Link Analysis

Helpful Web Development Plugins

If you’re going to do SEO, you need to know some of the basics of web development as well. Because of this, I thought it might be helpful to list a few plugins that you can use mainly for web development, but also have a crossover into SEO.

Firebug
I have loved this plugin ever since I first found it. As an SEO, I find that I am constantly helping to fix web development problems as part of the job. This tool will let you go through a site and find the different elements so you can see where the problems are in the HTML or CSS of the page. You can also make changes to a live site to see what would happen if you tweaked certain things.
Get it here: Firebug

HTML Validator
By having your HTML valid, your site is more likely to look the same in the different browsers. This tool will show you where the problems are in your code that could be causing inconsistencies from browser to browser. It also gives you suggestions on how to fix them.

Google & Facebook Are Pushing To Replace Anonymity Online For Real Identities Only: Good Idea Or Bad?

2011-09-20T00:30:00.000-07:00

Cyber titans Facebook and Google are pushing to ban anonymity online or at least on their domain. They reportedly feel using real identities foster better communication for it makes people act "nicer."

Many turn into extreme bullies online, hiding behind their anonymity. But is this safer for us or more dangerous? Yes, giving real identities may make folks more polite for they are held accountable when everyone knows who each other is but this can also be a two-edged sword.

Indeed, there is a flip side to this honesty. Putting your real identity out there in cyberspace is permanent and available for anyone with a little smarts and resources to find.

Moreover, Facebook and Google will have a permanent record of you and your history, which can come back to haunt you.

If you blog or write for online sites, using your real name and locations can be dangerous for there are a bunch of extremists and fanatics lurking behind computer screens, who may take what you write personally.

So what do you thing: should Google and Facebook force us to use our real identities or is it our right to remain anonymous if we choose to?

recommendation prior to hire a SEO

2011-09-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

SEO is an acronym for "search engine optimization" or "search engine optimizer." Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site. Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:

Review of your site content or structure
Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
Content development
Management of online business development campaigns
Keyword research
SEO training
Expertise in specific markets and geographies.

Keep in mind that the Google search results page includes organic search results and often paid advertisement (denoted by the heading "Sponsored Links") as well. Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results.

Before beginning your search for an SEO, it's a great idea to become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work. We recommend starting here:

If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site.
Some useful questions to ask an SEO include:

Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
What's your experience in my industry?
What's your experience in my country/city?
What's your experience developing international sites?
What are your most important SEO techniques?
How long have you been in business?
How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site's presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things to consider:

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue. Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

"Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."
Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do. Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you. If an SEO has FTP access to your server, they should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site.
You should never have to link to an SEO.Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.
Choose wisely. While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry. Google is one way to do that, of course. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002002970_nwbizbriefs12.html. While Google doesn't comment on specific companies, we've encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful.
Be sure to understand where the money goes.While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they "control" other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn't work with Google because our advertising is clearly labeled and separated from our search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you're considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.
What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?
What are some other things to look out for?

owns shadow domains
puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
offers to sell keywords in the address bar
doesn't distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
gets traffic from "fake" search engines, spyware, or scumware
has had domains removed from Google's index or is not itself listed in Google

Mobile application development

2011-09-16T02:42:00.000-07:00

Mobile application development is the process by which application software is developed for small low-power handheld devices such as personal digital assistants, enterprise digital assistants or mobile phones. These applications are either pre-installed on phones during manufacture, or downloaded by customers from various mobile software distribution platforms.

Execution environments

Android, iOS, BlackBerry, HP webOS, Symbian OS, and Windows Mobile support typical application binaries as found on personal computers with code which executes in the native machine format of the processor (the ARM architecture is a dominant design used on many current models). Windows Mobile can also be compiled to x86 executables for debugging on a PC without a processor emulator, and also supports the Portable Executable (PE) format associated with the .NET Framework. Windows Mobile, HP webOS and iOS offer free SDKs and integrated development environments to developers. Machine language executables offer considerable performance advantages over Java.

Platform development environment

Each of the platforms for mobile applications also has an integrated development environment which provides tools to allow a developer to write, test and deploy applications into the target platform environment.

The following table summarises the elements in each of the development environments.

Testing

Definition

Testing is a technique to uncover the hidden bugs in the application developed on mobile platform.Mobile Application Testing is a challenging process as it involves testing of applications across different handsets, carriers, languages and locations.

Types

Mobile application testing involves Functional testing, Security testing, Load testing & Performance testing, Localization testing, Usability Testing Many types of tests are automatable.

Tools

FoneMonkey: Free Mobile Application Testing tool for iphone apps
Robotium : Automation tool for Android Mobile Application

Factors affecting success of testing

The critical factors that determine the success of mobile testing program are:

Use of test automation.
Use of emulators and actual device
Testing for mobile environment and application complexity

Application stores

Several initiatives exist both from mobile vendor and mobile operators around the world. Application developers can propose and publish their applications on the stores, being rewarded by a revenue sharing of the selling price. Most famous is Apple's App Store, where only approved applications may be distributed and run on iOS devices (otherwise known as a walled garden). HP / Palm, Inc have also created the Palm App Catalog where HP / Palm, Inc webOS device users can download applications directly from the device or send a link to the application via a unique web distribution method. Recently, mobile operators such as Telefonica Group and Telecom Italia have launched cross-platform application stores for their subscribers.

Patents

There are numerous patent applications pending for new mobile phone apps. Most of these are in the technological fields of Business methods, Database management, Data transfer and Operator interface.

Patent Enforcement

Main article: Lodsys

On May 31, 2011, Lodsys asserted two of its four patents: U.S. Patent No. 7,620,565 ("the '565 patent") on a "customer-based design module" and U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078 ("the '078 patent") on "Methods and Systems for Gathering Information from Units of a Commodity Across a Network." against the following app developers:

Combay
Iconfactory
Illusion Labs
Shovelmate
Quickoffice
Richard Shinderman of Brooklyn, New York
Wulven Games of Hanoi, Vietnam

Challenges and Opportunities in Mobile Application Development And Mobile DSLs

2011-09-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

The world is turning mobile, it would be hard to argue otherwise with over two hundred millions smartphones, tablets and airbooks already sold worldwide. This evolution introduces significant changes to the form factor of software solutions (Table 1) that mandate carefully vetting prior to initiating the development of a mobile solution.

Overall, mobile users generally pay more attention to the user experience (UX), and when they have a choice they prefer a native look and feel be it for email, social networking, checking weather, sport events … even Google is building native apps. Increasingly, developers can emulate a native experience in the browser thanks to the progress made by WebKit.
If these changes can already significantly impact a mobile solution delivery process, the most profound architectural change introduced by mobility is the evolution from “connected” applications to “converged” applications where voice, messaging, location services, data services and video may all contribute to deliver an experience simply unavailable to a desktop or a Web application. In the early 2000s, in the wake of SOA, several companies had developed the concept of Composite Applications or Connected Systems. Mobile applications advance this concept to the next level and enable an arbitrary application to consume a mashup of any number of voice, messaging, data, location and video services maintained by different 3rd parties which each may have a direct relationship with the end user, independent of the application. Converged Apps create strong privacy constraints (as the application is granted access to contacts, location, movies, TV programs …). Standards like OAuth 2.0 have emerged to support these scenarios. Oauth 2.0 requires the developer to maintain individual API keys and (user) access tokens for each type of services. Developers can no longer rely on a “single sign on” mechanism such as OpenID or LiveID because they share the identity of the subscriber with the application and do not provide any authorization capability. Converged Applications are also often requested to perform in a downgraded mode when the user does not grant the application full consent to consume all the services on his or her behalf.

Form Factor	End-User	Developer
End-users carry their client with them	Users no longer need to access the same application on a number of computers (home, work, friends...). They want the best experience for each form factor.	Need to support multiple experiences for each type of mobile client, in a cross platform way, which can be even more challenging than cross browser support
Power/Bandwidth	Battery life/Bandwidth becomes a major UX element	Need to develop software with least power/ bandwidth consumption
Screen size	Seeking optimized UX on such a small screen	Need to forget all current UX design rules and reinvent them for mobility
Sensors	Expect apps take advantage of all on board sensors (camera, motion detectors, …) that can help build very smart applications	Need to master specialized libraries and adapt their apps to device capabilities
Voice and Notifications	Expect seamless integration between apps and voice and messaging, including speech processing	Create compelling user experience and integrate notifications in application workflow
Near-field communication	Help the user bootstrap sophisticated processes which are based on user identity (payments, local app download…)	Complex back-end integration to securely share user data and manage transactions

Table 1. The Impact of Mobility on End-Users and Developers
There is another major change that can be easily overlooked, even dismissed: Mobility has revolutionized both monetization and software distribution strategies from a simple “ring tone” business model. We encourage you to pause for a moment and really focus on the impact on having the ability to reach hundreds of millions of customers, at any time, simply by uploading your app to a few App Stores. For us, this means that a developer has many more opportunities to create apps dedicated to specific market segments and on top of that seasonal features: a successful solution (think Angry Birds) need not only to be released for many types of devices, across several major platforms, but for each of these, we could offer several apps targeted at different market segments, each requiring continuous releases of new features during the course of a year. The bottom line is that, if you plan to be really successful at building a mobile solution you have to be ready to deliver a family of apps, not just “one app” like in the Web or Desktop era. The seasonal aspect and the relative high degree of competition between apps puts even more pressure on the development cycles, and requires that developers release new features often, especially when you factor in Ads and “in-app” payments business models.
Last but not least, by any measure, this new distribution model allows successful mobile applications to grow to reach tens of millions of users, in a short time frame, creating a scalability nightmare and the need to constantly re-architect the back-end ahead of the growth of the user base.
With such short development cycles, this rapidly changing, fragmented and technologically complex new frontier is set for the perfect storm: are Mobile Developers getting ready to face these challenges? Even though the functional scope of mobile applications looks small, the need for back-end development and integration, support for multiple platforms, security standards and optimized UX could potentially drag projects to a black hole and miss both the time and cost windows of a large number of potentially great applications.
And our list is far from exhaustive! The bottom line, is that attempting to build mobile applications with software paradigms, tools and processes that were developed for Desktop, Client/Server or even Web-based Application architectures is pretty much a guaranty of not taking advantage from all that mobility has to offer because no-one and no technology is ready to develop multiple variants of the same applications.
In this article we propose to review the broad choices facing developers in terms of mobile app technologies, tools and development in the light of the form factor of Mobile Solutions and offer a path forward to develop the engineering approach to a practice, which for the most part remains today a complex craft and cannot scale as is to build successful mobile solutions.
The arguments developed in this article do not always apply to “mobile gaming”. Our focus is rather a large class of productivity applications, which could be referred to as “data, and process centric mobile applications.”

The Technologies of Mobile Applications

There are roughly 4 major categories of technologies:

Web–based (HTML5/CSS3/JS) and related Frameworks (JQuery, Sencha, …)
Native platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile 7…)
Hybrid WebKit/Native
Proprietary middleware and clients (Red Foundry,…)

In addition, there are two approaches to facilitate the development of cross platform mobile applications:

Thin Native Clients which provide access to native APIs and / or render Web-based applications with a native look and feel (PhoneGap, AppMobi, AppCelerator…)
Domain Specific Language from which native or Web-based code is generated (Applause, Mobl, Canappi…)

In this article we will not address the proprietary middleware platforms. The mobile app space is evolving so rapidly that likely many of these platforms will disappear or specialize on a given niche that they can execute particularly well (e.g. mobile magazines)
On of the key advantage of Web-based technologies is their rapid and continuous deployment model that circumvents the processes of App Stores. Many developers see this as a huge benefit to the overbearing control of vendors like Apple, and now Amazon. Some view Web technologies as the open door to phishing and fraud as attackers take advantage of young browsers and thin native clients built by startups without enough security hardening experience. By contrast, the incentive for an attacker to take control of a single native application is much lower in terms of potential user base and benefits.
Beyond that, Mobile Web based solutions will suffer from the same issues as their desktop counterparts in terms of browser incompatibilities, latency, UX, an uncertain monetization strategy, not to mention the slow evolution of Web standards. We are not arguing that there is no future market for the mobile Web apps, after all, mobile Web apps are proliferating, however it certainly mandates careful selection of technology and understanding its advantages and limitations in the context of User Experience and the value that App Stores bring to the end-users and a small development team.
Apps developed in native technologies outpace the alternatives both in the number of apps and the % of time spent by the users on their mobile device(s). Ironically, however, these so called “native” technologies mostly evolved from decades old proprietary desktop technologies and tools. For instance, the iPhone SDK is principally coming from a technology that was developed in the late 80s, a time when Garbage Collection was still a service provided by municipalities. If Google has gone the extra mile of re-inventing a programming model dedicated to mobile applications with concepts such as activities, intent, services, content providers… it’s Android SDK feels like a decade old Swing SDK and its declarative UI architecture and the way it connects to the Java implementation, via the “R” class, makes Windows 95 GUI programming model visionary.
Consequently this lineage makes, “native” technologies unnecessarily complex and overwhelmingly diverging because their programming model was rarely built from the ground up to simplify mobile solution construction, this means that for most companies, it is cost prohibitive to scale a development team and a set of processes with such cross-platform skills. Furthermore, none of these environments really take into account the predominance of “Converged Applications” (which didn’t exist a decade ago), offering no easy path to build and integrate with rich back-end APIs. Not a day of our working in the mobile app space seems to go by without hearing another story of an entrepreneur who has spent 12-18 months and has nothing to show for their efforts, simply because developing a native application for both the iPhone and Android devices is way too complex and requires advanced development skills. Whether Apple, Google and Microsoft (and Nokia and RIM) like it or not, this is not sustainable and eventually there is only a very small fraction of the companies that develop mobile applications that will use their native SDK directly.
This is why a number of cross-platform solutions have appeared on the market (PhoneGap, AppCelerator, AppMobi…). Most of them are based on rendering a Web-based app through a thin native client, taking advantage of any device native APIs. This presents multiple advantages in terms of development and deployment, but most quickly come to the realization that developing mobile applications in JavaScript is quite an adventure often perilous (this presentation from Doug Crockford is a must-see for anyone looking to start a project in JavaScript), specially when some of these companies tout the advantage of “keeping the tag empty”. This means that all HTML elements are entirely coded inside JavaScript elements while some parts of your UI are dynamically served by server components. These frameworks (and the HTML5 programming model) is also limited to the client code only as opposed to an entire stack from database, to the service layer to the client implementation. When selecting an HTML5-based technology it is important to pay attention to the Converged App and the ability to mashup authorized API calls.
There is also a small number of companies which have developed Domain Specific Languages from which one can generate native code (Applause from Itemis, Canappi from Convergence Modeling). This generated code can be changed, compiled and deployed as if the application was written natively from scratch. The major advantage of this approach is rapid development cycles due to the simplification of the programming model achieved with a DSL targeted at mobile solutions, and a lower barrier of entry in terms of skills.
For instance, tables, in Objective-C, offer a large spectrum of capabilities but not without the introduction of great complexity making it hard for developers to implement a base line of expected behavior quickly. A DSL like Applause or Canappi’s mdsl in contrast captures succinctly a simple description of the table the developer wishes to render:

A simple layout description in mdsl (Canappi mobile DSL) representing a table of assignments
This simple mdsl snippet already generates quite a complex set of code for the layout view-controller (an mdsl layout is a re-usable set of controls displayed in one or more views, it is also the unit of binding to data APIs).
Now, if you want the table to refresh properly when the rows are added or deleted in a different view, you must make sure that the application delegate acts as a navigation controller delegate and implements “willShowViewController” method that ensures that the view is refreshed when some of its data has changed:

Objective-C Code Generated by Canappi for the Handling UITableView refresh
If you don’t implement that delegate method, the iPhone SDK has no other reliable way to ensure that a view is refreshed when some of its content has changed.
This is just one of the hundreds of tricks you need to get right for your mobile application to behave as expected, not to mention the lack of some key controls like radio-buttons and checkboxes, or the poor UX of important controls such as the picker or date picker and a “personalized” garbage collection mechanism.
DSLs can offer a much simpler programming model compared to native or Web-based programming models on the client side, however, their overwhelming competitive advantage is the fact one can generate the entire stack of the mobile solution from database schema, to the service layer to the client implementation ready to consume these services. For instance, from an entity descriptor, Canappi generates the MySQL schema and the PHP services, which, in turn, can be invoked readily by the mobile client.

Assignment Entity Definition and Corresponding PHP Code Generated by Canappi
This capability alone offer a general path to re-factor the code as needed when the user base grows or better server-side technologies appear on the market. OAuth for instance is a key technology for Mobile Applications, that is still under standardization and will probably continue to evolve significantly over the next two years. Why would a developer really care or its solution be impacted each time a new OAuth specification is released?

Development Tools

As one could expect there is a plethora of development tools that developers would need to know inside out to support an efficient mobile application factory.
The solution delivery process generally starts with mockup or graphical designer tools. One can use, for instance, Balsamiq as a simple wireframing tool that offers a series of controls dedicated to mobile applications. You may also want to use native graphical UI designer tools such as Apple’s Interface Builder (which is still one of the best GUI designer even though it was first built in the late 80s by Jean-Marie Hullot).
As part of the solution, you may also select a number of specialized libraries (for instance, bar code scanners, graphs, maps…) that are not necessarily integrated with the native development environment.
You will also need to use a variety of development environments, each with a very different programming model, not to mention testing frameworks.
Last but not least, your development team will also need to be versed in implementing and/or consuming Web APIs.

An Example of the Technologies a Typical Mobile Development Team Should Master
All these tools and technologies are completely incompatible. There is no way, one would use Interface Builder to create an Android screen, or get an iPhone application directly from a Balsamiq.
When using a DSL (where the “domain” is (Data centric) Mobile Solutions), the DSL itself can act as a “development hub” that supports the transformation of metadata over the entire domain and reduces the many-to-many transformations that would be needed to a many-to-one, one-to-many.
Canappi, for instance has successfully created an integration between most the tools and technologies shown in the figure above. One can take a XIB file (Interface Builder) and generate an RMFL file to rapidly iterate with key stakeholders who can see the application on their phone real time. The same mdsl file generated from a XIB file can also be used to create Android Resource files. Of course the tradeoff is that a DSL based approach assumes a specific programming model and type of mobile solutions. It will never deliver all the nuances that a raw native environment will ever deliver. The integration is also often one way though we are working on bi-directional integration wherever possible.
A DSL can also integrate some key libraries very easily. For instance mdsl integrates a graph library:

Graph descriptor of the Smart Inhaler Application
This simple graph descriptor generates well over 150 lines of code of the Core Plot library, a well designed graph library but quite challenging, even to senior developers. With Canappi, we were able to build an iPhone prototype, including the communication with existing WCF services, for the Smart Inhaler in less than a day, with 175 lines of mdsl and deployed on the App Store within a month by a developer who had never previously touched a Mac. This kind of result is rarely achieved, if not unheard of, without a DSL-based approach.
Invoking Web APIs is an essential part of any mobile project. Such code and the binding of the data to the UI is tedious, boiler plate and adds little value to the whole. DSLs can help here too by creating a simple description of the web services that then can be used to bind the corresponding results to different elements of the UI:

Web Service Descriptors for Facebook Graph API, Twitter and YouTube
Because DSLs can act as a development hub that integrates the best mobile tools from design to deployment, both on the front-end and the back-end, they offer bring a much higher level of efficiency when compared to any other technology (Native, Web or Web-to-Native). This means that the core of a solution can be built much more rapidly with a DSL, on all platforms, even if in the end some native code is added to the generated code.
They also offer the best path to create the opportunity to re-factor the code of a solution when technologies need to change with a minimal impact on the solution itself because there is a clear delineation between the DSL is not tied in any way to the library API. A DSL is at a much higher level of abstraction than the typical abstractions developers create to isolate their code from the usage of a particular library.

Mobile Development Processes

This complex architecture and technology environment is in sharp contrast with the very rapid development cycles and the many versions of an application that are needed to take advantage of the new monetization and software distribution channels. Developers are faced with both opportunity and the challenge to create several major releases per year, and possibly seasonal variants of the same application.
It would quite hard to design development and operational processes that sustain this agility without a DSL-based approach. Their programming model is very compact, and yields code than runs on all platforms and all device types. But, since the DSL programming model is so compact and complete solutions can be built with a few hundred line of code, this approach give you the ability to develop and maintain many variants of the solution, even if that means for each a slightly different (DSL) code base.
DSLs can also help to create an optimized User Experience as it enables the delivery team to rapidly create many more prototypes compared to a hand coded approach. Having the ability to create 10 different UX proposals and/or iterations that real users can interact with can make a big difference in the end product UX.
That being said, we would not want to give the impression that everything is perfect, when using a DSL. There is often the question of “Round Tripping” from the generated code to the model and back when the generated code has been changed. There are a couple of strategies that can make that part of the process flow more smoothly: source control systems can be used diff and merge new versions of the generated code with previous versions that have been modified. One can also programmatically isolate the changes in separate classes, called by the generated code. That way, only a small number of classes need to be merged and the merges are fairly straightforward.

Mockup-to-DSL-to-Native Development Process
The technologies that you choose in your mobile application factory will pretty much command the delivery process of your mobile solutions. It is critical that you design these processes accordingly and prepare for a level of agility hardly seen before.

Conclusion

The mobile revolution is here and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of developers are upgrading their skills to contribute to it. This is 1995 all over (actually, we are already in 1996), mobile technologies will continue to evolve at a very rapid pace over the next 2-4 years until some major consolidation happens and you should expect, just like with the emergence of the Web, to have to rewrite your mobile solution(s) in several different technologies.
The major difference with the Web era is that users are now in control, they vote with their wallet this time, not just with "clicks". These sophisticated users care greatly for the best functionality and the best UX possible that integrate all the capabilities of their phone from Display to Camera to Messaging, to Location and beyond. They also care for every microsecond of overhead you add to their mobile experience, or every minute of battery life you take away from them, or every Mb of data you charge on their plan. Make no mistake about it, you can’t fool the 200+ Millions of socially connected smartphone users.
To be successful, you must seek the attributes and capabilities that will make your mobile solution unique, instead of starting by picking a technology. Even though some proprietary platforms may look attractive and offer short delivery cycles, they are mostly closed and may prevent or slow down evolutions down the line. In any case, you should also prepare for a divided world with both Web-based and a variety of Native Mobile Platforms. This situation is quite new for most developers who have been used to a world dominated by Java, C and .Net for a long period of time and relatively slow release cycles. This new context requires that you carefully architect your mobile solution factory since you can no longer rely on any single vendor to do it for you, at least for years to come.
Model Driven Software Development offers an interesting alternative to the chaotic world of platform vendors. Unlike your old MDA or CASE tool, DSLs are now capable of delivering a world class Developer Experience (DX). This new generation of MDSD is a great fit to effectively support mobile projects which are architecturally complex, surprisingly very complex, but functionally simple and with a large number of variants and short development cycles. Modern MDSD does not introduce any additional lock-in when compared to a hand coded native solution. We argue that only a Mobile DSL-approach provides an effective architecture that will help you transition mobile app development from craft to engineering.

Realizing the Value of Innovation called Innovation Management

2011-09-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

In a world of evolving customer expectations, disruptive competition and restrictive regulatory requirements, coupled with Wall Street’s unrelenting demand for growth, various organizations have acknowledged the importance of innovation to their success.

Realizing the benefits of innovation, however, requires not only “talking” but “walking the talk.” The “walk” is a systematic approach to the continuous development and implementation of value-adding ideas to increase your competitive advantage. This systematic approach, or “innovation management,” involves the establishment of a cross-enterprise model, championed by senior executive leadership.

What is Innovation Management?

Given the increasing velocity of change and the expanding number of change drivers (e.g., customer expectations, technology, regulation, emerging market growth, political instability, natural resource availability and environmental health), you cannot go far without raising the topic of innovation. Brand agencies, marketers, corporations from all industries, the public sector and academia all bandy the term around, talking about how innovation is essential to the success and sustainability of their institutions. But what does “innovation” really mean? And, more importantly, how is the value of innovation realized?
Innovation is the process by which the value of the creation or idea is realized. For purposes of this article, innovation spans “ideation” to “value realization”; and innovation management is the “cultivation of an environment where lightning can strike twice.”
While realizing the value of an idea, let alone coming up with a continuous pipeline of ideas, is not easy, it is not impossible. Surmounting the challenge requires a systematic, senior executive-sponsored, cross-enterprise approach that incorporates the right processes, people, operating model, tools and culture.

Innovation Culture

At the center of the innovation management “value ring” is culture. Without all employees’ acknowledgment of the importance of innovation to the health of the organization and, ultimately, their livelihoods, all the best innovation management processes and tools in the world will not generate a volume of good ideas or ensure the realization of the value sought.
From a leadership perspective, a commitment to innovation reveals itself in the acceptance of the following:

Assets of the core business are to be leveraged, not just protected
Competition to the core business from new revenue streams is not unlikely
Investment of both time and money in innovation will require a re-direction of investment in the core business
The detailing and implementation of ideas may require the best / most-experienced personnel from the core business
Innovation requires more rapid decision-making and a higher risk tolerance
Risk taking and failure is not necessarily a bad thing - entrepreneurialism should be recognized and rewarded
Timely and “fact-based” feedback to idea generators is a must
Innovation is often a cross-enterprise exercise, and, hence, requires working outside a particular “silo”

From an employee perspective, a strong orientation toward innovation is measured by the volume of ideas, as well as the ratio of quality ideas.
A successful organizational change management effort begins with determining where the culture needs to be, assessing where the culture is today, defining the plan to close the gaps and diligently executing the plan.

How is Innovation Managed?

Innovation management is a value ring, i.e., a continuous cycle of strategy setting, ideation, selection, implementation and value realization.
Innovation Strategy and Success Measures Definition: The definition and declaration of the “Innovation Strategy” is the critical first step to value-adding ideation and is the responsibility of the organization’s most senior leadership – the CEO, CIO, COO, CFO, Chief of HR and business unit heads.
Ideation: This involves the following:

Scanning: Looking outside your organization’s four walls at features like customer needs / dis-satisfiers, competitor moves, new technology and regulatory changes
Invention: Formulating ideas that potentially add value and create a sustainable competitive advantage
Collection: Gathering ideas into a single repository

Selection: This phase deals with identifying and approving a select few ideas to enter the implementation phase on the basis of a set criteria.
Implementation: Not all selected ideas are implemented. They are implemented on the basis of their types. This phase could be a “big bang” or in two or more phases.
Value Realization: This involves optimizing an organization’s investment in innovation. It is about ensuring that the ideas being implemented capture the value expected within the estimated timeframe
Innovation management is about continually and optimally capturing value from innovation. It requires executive commitment and alignment, focused governance and a common vision.

In the words of Steve Jobs, “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it. It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much.”

social media SEO tips which can get more traffic to your site

2011-09-15T04:38:00.000-07:00

Items of discussion vary widely depending on the individual interests, likings of each cliques or social groups. Search parameters and algorithms used to bring up search results have been changed and altered accordingly with prominence being given to results with social media links. You don’t need to take my word for it. Try keying in any search terms into Google or Bing and social media results would most probably show up in the top 10 sites displayed.

The reason why search engines especially prefer results with social media links is the simple fact that any information which have been tweeted or shared before are more likely to interest the searcher as they contain what other results do not, a human touch. What will be featured in this article below are a few search engine optimization tips involving social media to help generate traffic for your site.

1. Increase brand awareness and discussion on social networking sites
According to Matt Cutts, Google’s search engineer, Google has begun a significant shift in ranking signals; that is the way they rank and accord sites an order of importance when displaying search results. To determine whether or not a product, person or website is reputable enough to garner a place in their search results, Google now look in social networking sites too.

Take relevant steps therefore to ensure that your websites are known and discussed by social network users because the more people talk about it, the more likely it is going to be rated highly by search engines. You can do this through simple steps like linking users to sites containing your product through your blog, Facebook page and basically everywhere else you maintain an online presence.

2. Prepare for a long term campaign!
Social network users are huge in numbers; they come from different countries, speak different languages and naturally go online at different times too. To ensure that brand awareness for what you are marketing penetrate through every level of the user base of these social networking sites, do not give up after a few weeks or even months of work.

Take it as a commitment and place aside a set period of time each day for your campaign. Search engines give importance to newer results, whether they are comments, statuses or tweets so if you can ensure constant, long-term discussions take place about your product/brand, you would already have half the battle in your grasp.

3. Staying active with your own posts and tweets!
Do bear in mind that Internet surfers and users of social networking sites have generally short attention spans and you have to prepare a strategy that goes beyond catching their initial attention alone. Devise ways to get them constantly tuned to news or updates about your website such as signing them up for updates via emails.

Remember that users of these sites have a lot of other stuff that may catch their attention and most of them will not be willing to spend time searching for updates on your product, especially if they get disappointed the first few times they do so. Do take the time therefore to constantly update them with the latest news and inform them faithfully when there is scheduled maintenance or downtime for your site. Users appreciate your attention and there is nothing more attractive than the personal touch when sending out emails.

4. Make your posts relevant
When updating your blog or website, remember to make your posts relevant to the service or product you provide. Likewise, when posting your next status or tweet, remember to link your friends to your website too! It is not inadvisable to post certain personal issues from time to time. Your friends would like to feel they are interacting with someone their familiar with after all! However, when possible try to relate your posts with what your are marketing in an inconspicuous way so that people will be familiar with them.

5. Maintain basic courtesy!
Even when marketing your website or product, remember the basic decorum and ethics of Internet usage. Do not for example; spam the inboxes of your contacts with various updates that they may find irksome. People don’t mind information but try your best to ensure they do not get bothered with undesirable contents from your mail. They might get really upset and start telling bad things about your website or you!

To recapitulate, these social media SEO tips are tried and proven methods to ensure increased traffic for your website. The road to success however is long and arduous and you have to ensure that you constantly keep to it. If you failed to keep up previous efforts and decide to continue a few months later, expect it to be more difficult than before. This is because users who have been attracted the first time would be wary of going back to a site with such a track record while newcomers would certainly heed the Chatter from fellow users too.

get back to us to implement Social Media SEO tips on your site to get ranked within all search engines

Samsung Windows 8 tablets will be out by next week

2011-09-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

Microsoft will be unveiling their Windows 8 tablet by next week in California at a conference. This tablet will be manufactured by Samsung and will have an Intel chip inside. BUILD conference will be beginning on Tuesday where Steven Sinofsky, the Windows CEO, will unveil early version of the Windows 8 tablet.

A Korean Website says that this tablet will be made by Samsung and it will be the first collaboration project between Samsung and Microsoft for hardware devices.

It is a bit surprising that Samsung is using Intel chips in these tablets; there were rumours that the tablet would have ARM processors from Texas Instruments, Qualcomm or Nvidia.

ARM processors are used widely in tablets and smartphones because they economical in power usage and hence give a bigger battery life. It is said that these tablets are manufactured by Samsung as a protection in case there are some problems with the Android tablets. Samsung is currently threatened by some legal lawsuits in a lot of countries around the world for their Android tablets. Also, the Korean company is targeting people who are comfortable using Windows ecosystem.

At BUILD conference, Microsoft will try to convince potential tablet buyers to go for Windows 8 as it will give them the traditional Windows experience in a tablet. The new OS is also expected to have Live Tile interface which will be similar to the UI of Windows Phone 7 devices.

How Search Engines Work for WEBSITE

2011-09-12T03:38:00.000-07:00

The first basic truth you need to know to learn SEO is that search engines are not humans. While this might be obvious for everybody, the differences between how humans and search engines view web pages aren't. Unlike humans, search engines are text-driven. Although technology advances rapidly, search engines are far from intelligent creatures that can feel the beauty of a cool design or enjoy the sounds and movement in movies. Instead, search engines crawl the Web, looking at particular site items (mainly text) to get an idea what a site is about. This brief explanation is not the most precise because as we will see next, search engines perform several activities in order to deliver search results – crawling, indexing, processing, calculating relevancy, and retrieving.

First, search engines crawl the Web to see what is there. This task is performed by a piece of software, called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, as is the case with Google). Spiders follow links from one page to another and index everything they find on their way. Having in mind the number of pages on the Web (over 20 billion), it is impossible for a spider to visit a site daily just to see if a new page has appeared or if an existing page has been modified, sometimes crawlers may not end up visiting your site for a month or two.

What you can do is to check what a crawler sees from your site. As already mentioned, crawlers are not humans and they do not see images, Flash movies, JavaScript, frames, password-protected pages and directories, so if you have tons of these on your site, you'd better run the Spider Simulator below to see if these goodies are viewable by the spider. If they are not viewable, they will not be spidered, not indexed, not processed, etc. - in a word they will be non-existent for search engines.

After a page is crawled, the next step is to index its content. The indexed page is stored in a giant database, from where it can later be retrieved. Essentially, the process of indexing is identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page and assigning the page to particular keywords. For a human it will not be possible to process such amounts of information but generally search engines deal just fine with this task. Sometimes they might not get the meaning of a page right but if you help them by optimizing it, it will be easier for them to classify your pages correctly and for you – to get higher rankings.

When a search request comes, the search engine processes it – i.e. it compares the search string in the search request with the indexed pages in the database. Since it is likely that more than one page (practically it is millions of pages) contains the search string, the search engine starts calculating the relevancy of each of the pages in its index with the search string.

There are various algorithms to calculate relevancy. Each of these algorithms has different relative weights for common factors like keyword density, links, or metatags. That is why different search engines give different search results pages for the same search string. What is more, it is a known fact that all major search engines, like Yahoo!, Google, Bing, etc. periodically change their algorithms and if you want to keep at the top, you also need to adapt your pages to the latest changes. This is one reason (the other is your competitors) to devote permanent efforts to SEO, if you'd like to be at the top.

The last step in search engines' activity is retrieving the results. Basically, it is nothing more than simply displaying them in the browser – i.e. the endless pages of search results that are sorted from the most relevant to the least relevant sites.

3 Creative Ways to Effective SEO for your website

2011-09-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Enhancing the search engine ranking of a website is the stepping stone to get traffic, as that ensures better profits. Optimization of the website for SEO is vital, as it is about arranging content, such that it matches a specific category.

Here are a few key steps you can follow to get your website recognized by search engines;

Keywords will considerably improve your ratings in search engine results, as it uses this information to classify the various terms for which the website is relevant. So the key is to concentrate on the keywords in the title tag, the URL, in the main article itself. The title of your article/website should be such that it should attract the attention of the browser.

Make sure that you use the ALT and TITLE tags in all the pictures. These tags are essential as they inform the search engines what the picture is about. Not only do they recognize images, but also determine the keyword density.

The Google Keyword Tool can be used to obtain new ideas, as they help you not only in looking for the required keywords but also provide information on the industry trends and the approximate CPC.

One of the top ways to get recognized by search engines is through Links (incoming). The popularity of a particular link on related websites can give better visibility to the search engine. Besides, outbound link, linking within the relevant pages can also be done.
Google can determine that, while a page linked to another page, with an assigned page rank, will increase the former’s ranking as well, one should keep in mind that each page has its own page rank. With superlative content, your website is bound to get recognized and hence be considered for linking. You may consider link exchange with related websites, or maybe write an article for a website and avail a quality link back.
Make sure that you do not exchange links with SEO spammers, as your ranking can get jeopardized and furthermore, avoid hidden text/links.

Content that you use on your website is a vital element for SEO, which enables your site to get more visibility on search engines. The main aspect for search engines is content, as it dictates the rankings, and in turn, brings in the audience. Ensure that you have relevant and substantial content, with the keywords going with a natural flow.

Last but not least, make you website primarily for your users. Search engine optimization methods are designed to increase traffic to your website by giving more visibility to search engines.

So, reach to me and my time getting quality SEO done on your site!!!

Get More traffic to your site through Social Media SEO

2011-09-08T12:44:00.000-07:00

This article is being shared with you to describe in what way you'll get more traffic into your site through SOCIAL MEDIA.

here are the 5 ways to get it going fruitfully.

With the advent of social networks which started with the likes of Friendster and Myspace and which now boasts of heavyweights worth millions of dollars such as Facebook and Twitter, search engines now have no option but to take their content seriously. The reason they do so is entirely out of necessity. With an estimated number of active users north of 750 million and a global footprint throughout roughly 70 countries, Facebook and other social network users generate an astonishing amount of Internet traffic in the online discussions and other interactions they participate in. terms of discussion vary widely depending on the individual interests, liking of each cliques or social groups. Search parameters and algorithms used to bring up search results have been changed and altered accordingly with prominence being given to results with social media links. You don’t need to take my word for it. Try keying in any search terms into Google or Bing and social media results would most probably show up in the top 10 sites displayed.

The reason why search engines especially prefer results with social media links is the simple fact that any information which have been tweeted or shared before are more likely to interest the searcher as they contain what other results do not, a human touch. What will be featured in this article below are a few search engine optimization tips involving social media to help generate traffic for your site.

1. Increase brand awareness and discussion on social networking sites
According to Matt Cutts, Google’s search engineer, Google has begun a significant shift in ranking signals; that is the way they rank and accord sites an order of importance when displaying search results. To determine whether or not a product, person or website is reputable enough to garner a place in their search results, Google now look in social networking sites too.
Take relevant steps therefore to ensure that your websites are known and discussed by social network users because the more people talk about it, the more likely it is going to be rated highly by search engines. You can do this through simple steps like linking users to sites containing your product through your blog, Facebook page and basically everywhere else you maintain an online presence.

2. Prepare for a long term campaign!
Social network users are huge in numbers; they come from different countries, speak different languages and naturally go online at different times too. To ensure that brand awareness for what you are marketing penetrate through every level of the user base of these social networking sites, do not give up after a few weeks or even months of work.
Take it as a commitment and place aside a set period of time each day for your campaign. Search engines give importance to newer results, whether they are comments, statuses or tweets so if you can ensure constant, long-term discussions take place about your product/brand, you would already have half the battle in your grasp.

3. Staying active with your own posts and tweets!
Do bear in mind that Internet surfers and users of social networking sites have generally short attention spans and you have to prepare a strategy that goes beyond catching their initial attention alone. Devise ways to get them constantly tuned to news or updates about your website such as signing them up for updates via emails.
Remember that users of these sites have a lot of other stuff that may catch their attention and most of them will not be willing to spend time searching for updates on your product, especially if they get disappointed the first few times they do so. Do take the time therefore to constantly update them with the latest news and inform them faithfully when there is scheduled maintenance or downtime for your site. Users appreciate your attention and there is nothing more attractive than the personal touch when sending out emails.

4. Make your posts relevant
When updating your blog or website, remember to make your posts relevant to the service or product you provide. Likewise, when posting your next status or tweet, remember to link your friends to your website too! It is not inadvisable to post certain personal issues from time to time. Your friends would like to feel they are interacting with someone their familiar with after all! However, when possible try to relate your posts with what your are marketing in an inconspicuous way so that people will be familiar with them.

5. Maintain basic courtesy!
Even when marketing your website or product, remember the basic decorum and ethics of Internet usage. Do not for example; spam the inbox of your contacts with various updates that they may find irksome. People don’t mind information but try your best to ensure they do not get bothered with undesirable contents from your mail. They might get really upset and start telling bad things about your website or you!
To recapitulate, these social media SEO tips are tried and proven methods to ensure increased traffic for your website. The road to success however is long and arduous and you have to ensure that you constantly keep to it. If you failed to keep up previous efforts and decide to continue a few months later, expect it to be more difficult than before. This is because users who have been attracted the first time would be wary of going back to a site with such a track record while newcomers would certainly heed the Chatter from fellow users too.

So, use my time to get the SEO done for your website in a smooth way.

GET IN TOUCH AS EARLIEST!!!!

10 effective ways to get your website searched in various search engines

2011-09-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

Getting traffic is one of the most important tasks for any web master. What is more, you can't get traffic once and then just reap the benefits. Getting traffic is an ongoing task and you must be constantly doing it, if you want to get traffic and keep it. Here are some of the ways to get traffic for free:

1. Optimize your site for search engines.

Search engines have always been a major way to get traffic for free. That is why you need to do your homework and optimize your site so that it ranks well for the keywords you target. SEO is still the most powerful way to get traffic for free and you really need to invest some time and efforts in the optimization of your site. SEO is not that difficult and if you want to get familiar with it in a nutshell, check our SEO Tutorial. If you are too busy for that, you can start with the 15 Minute SEO article.

2. Frequently update the contents of your site. .

If you expected some shocking secrets revealed, you might be a bit disappointed. One of the first steps in getting traffic for free is trivial but vital – get great content and frequently update it. In terms of SEO, content is king. If your content is good and frequently updated you will not only build a loyal audience of recurring visitors, who will often come to see what is new, but search engines will also love your site.

3. Take advantage of social bookmarking sites.

Social bookmarking sites (especially the most popular among them) are another powerful way to get traffic for free. If you want to learn how to do it, check the How to get Traffic from Social Bookmarking sites article, where we have explained what to do if you want to get free traffic from sites such as Digg, Delicious, etc.

4. Use your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Social networks are also a way to get traffic for free. If you are popular on networks, such as Twitter or Facebook, the traffic you get from there can easily surpass the traffic from Google and the other search engines. It is true that building a large network of targeted followers on Twitter and supporters on Facebook takes a lot of time and effort but generally the result is worth.

5. Get links with other sites in your niche.

Another way to get traffic for free is from other sites in your niche. Getting links with other sites in your niche is also good for SEO, especially if you manage to get links without the famous nofollow attribute. But even if the links are nofollow (i.e. they are useless for SEO), they still help to get traffic to your site. If you manage to put your link in a visible place on a site with high volumes of traffic, you can get thousands of hits from this link alone. If you need list of sites within your niche where you could get backlinks from, check the Backlink Builder tool. However, be careful if you exchange links because linking to bad neighbors can do you a lot of harm.

6. Use any chance to promote your site for free.

Free promotion is always welcome, so don't neglect it. There are many ways to promote your site for free and some of the most popular ones include free classified ads, submissions to directories, inclusion in various listings, etc. It is true that not all free ways to promote your site work well but if you select the right places to promote your site for free, this can also result in tons of traffic.

7. Create a free product or service.

Content drives most traffic when you offer something useful. There are many types of useful content you can create and they largely depend on the niche of your site. You can have articles with tons of advice, or short tips but one of the most powerful ways to get traffic is to create a free product or service. When this product or service gets popular and people start visiting your site, chances are that they will visit the other sections of the site as well.

8. Use viral content.

Free products and services are great for getting free traffic to your site and one of the best varieties in this aspect is viral content. Viral content is called so because it distributes like a virus – i.e. when users like your content, they send it to their friends, post it on various sites, and promote it for free in many different ways. Viral content distributes on its own and your only task is to create it and submit it to a couple of popular sites. After that users pick it and distribute it for you. Viral content can be a hot video or a presentation but it can also be a good old article or an image.

9. Use offline promotion.

Offline promotion is frequently forgotten but it is also a way to get traffic for free. Yes, computers are everywhere and many people spend more time online than offline but still life hasn't moved completely on the Web. Offline promotion is also very powerful and if you know how to use it, this can also bring you many visitors. Some of the traditional offline ways to promote your site include printing its URL on your company's business cards and souvenirs or sticking it on your company vehicles. You can also start selling T-shirts and other merchandise with your logo and this way make your brand more popular.

10. Include your URL in your signature.

URLs in forum signatures are also a way to get traffic for free. There are forums, which get millions of visitors a day and if you are a popular user on such a forum, you can use this to get traffic to your site. When you post on forums and people like your posts, they tend to click the link to your site on your signature to learn more about you. In rare cases you might be able to post a deep link (i.e. a link to an internal page of the site) rather than a link to your homepage and this is also a way to focus attention to a particular page. Unfortunately, deep links are rarely allowed.

Getting traffic for free is a vast topic and it is not possible to list all the ways to do it. However, if you know the most important ways – i.e. the ways we discussed in this article and you apply them properly, it is guaranteed that you will be able to get lots of traffic for free.

Lets help you to get white hat SEO in organic way!!

Effective principles of the User Interface Designing

2011-09-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

as being a technical in my own terms the UI stands for easy navigation, great experience.
Useful and breathtaking designs are made by creating a successful and Clean UI for your website users. It really consume too much time to understand how to make a very terrific user experience on your and on your clients website unless you are UI master and here we are to fulfill it getting good customers traffic on your site by applying a great UI experience.

below are some tips which helps all UI designers and web designers to get a customer-oriented site and by sharing 5 extremely helping and effective UI designing principles that pop ups from some of greatest minds in designing User interface field…

UI (User Interface) are what that classify the top-notch websites from crappy websites. Not well design UI can make very useful Web apps useless apps…why? You know the answer this question just asks from yourself if you don’t know then let me tell you.

Because your UI are not well tested and optimized.. Imagine if Twitter has more complication in its UI then I don’t think right now Twitter doesn’t have very bright future like today. Or if you keep your eye on Google then you able to see Google is also changing its UI because of increased complexity so to get the high volume of customers we need to keep changing the user interface when needed it also play a vital role for site's growth.

If users are not able to easily navigate a website, then they’ll skip your website and move to another similar website that provides better UI structure and UI experience then your website.

1.) Don’t forget about your audience

UI designers have their concentration on using CSS and XHTML to build a terrific UI interface in mean while they forget about their audience and people who going to use that UI. CSS and XHTML or other Coding languages are just a tool; you only have to know how to use these tools for building terrific user interface.

I’m very glad that your UI doesn’t include tables. So what? Who cares if it doesn’t allows peoples to achieve their goals. Web standards are good, but people’s own standards are getting things done.

UI designers are making the same old school basic mistake, and forgetting about your audience and human being for just making their code look clean and good.

Remember human beings are not code validations; they are just UI users….

2.) Background Color

It’s very common mistakes by lots of web designer and UI designer they forget about specifying the background color on their website. They will spend there most of times on designing wire-frames and making CSS hacks for browser and they will test it in every platform from old Mac to blackberry, and of course they are going to validate their CSS style sheets.

But after doing all of this they will forget about applying background color for their website. And they don’t even think for checking it out…

3.) Error Pages

The most common words are used in error pages of website.

“Something Wrong , please go back and check it out “ without explaining how and why this error page has been shown to user and how can they get rid of by this error page… this types of messages leaves users stranded..

Informative error message help your users to fix the problem, and they can also able to learn something new at this stage. Typically human nature says that lots of human doesn’t waste to much time on reading and learning features, but they will spend enough time to understand and error situation for coming out from the error situation.

4.) User Control And Freedom

Sometime users by mistake choose system functions and then they will clearly get a messaged pop up marked as “Emergency Exits”….. Undo and redo support…

5.) Keep The Consistency

Consistency is one of most important and very powerful UI principle.

Remember when things are always acting same then you user doesn’t have to think about what will going to happen next. Instead, they will know very well what will going to happen if they do this and they do that from their past experience with your website.

Every time you are going to release apple over Newton, it will fall on his head….

The more users exception get rights, the more they feel they have control over the system and in end the more they will going to like it. And the more users expectations gets break by your system (UI) then the more they will feel insecure.

And these will going to lead your system get fail’s…

What you think about this post or you have some extra ideas to improve UI then please share it with us in below comment section…

Lets help your business for rich-feel experience towards a business-oriented approach.

Why you have to choose eCommerce for your business?

2011-09-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

What is eCommerce and why its demanding?
eCommerce is a acronyms of Electronic commerce which has a vast use in present technology era. eCommerce is defined as the buying and selling of services and products on the internet. It covers a variety of different types of business from music sites to consumer based retailed sites. eCommerce is currently one of the most important aspects of the internet to emerge.
nowadays its demanding in two ways 1. seller can add their products to sell 2. buyer can compare the rate, can review features and buy online which is a hassle-free process at all

Why you have to choose eCommerce?
eCommerce is getting lots of business in today’s world of technology. It has been unaffected by the economic downturns from past few years and is achieving a enormous amount of success of what would formally have been now known as “niche” market.

In today’s day internet is well established and integrated into normal life’s that eCommerce should be an automatic consideration for any kind of business, new or already established. Off-line shopping becomes more about having a physical experience of shopping or immediate necessity it’s most important than ever to maintain a very decent online presence as anything that is not required or a niche product will most likely be bought online.

Setting up the eCommerce solution is not a very expensive investment. You can start your own eCommerce solution by investing a very small amount of money. Amazon and eBay are also started by someone and now see them leaders of eCommerce business. So you also have the ability of creating one more Amazon or eBay.

So remember it not always money problem, it always idea problem. Sometime you have money to invest but you do not have any idea where and how to invest that money. So investing a piece of money into eCommerce business is a very good option.

safe, secure online transactions

Golden Rule of eCommerce Development
There only one rule in eCommerce business to achieve success and that rule is put right product in front of right audience. If your audience is search for Mobile phones then make a way for them to reach to the mobile section of your eCommerce website or Mobile eCommerce Website (It’s called M-Commerce) which can be run on mobile browsers and it will be purely mobile compatibile, not to the computer section. Remember give your audience what they want…

Technology that can be used to develop eCommerce website
there are lot of technology and open source available to getting the eCommerce site developed

Joomla, Virtumart
Magento
Open-Cart
Zen-cart
OsCommerce
Wordpress

We are highly expert in above mentioned frameworks.

We'll design and develop your eCommerce website Web 2.0 styled, W3C recommended and valid CSS, xHTML and will give you option to fill meta tags, keywords and SEO description for every product while adding the products through admin through which you'll get your website searched in various Search Engines and we'll do also do Media Optimization.

So gives try to eCommerce development…and get the best eCommerce application/ Website for your business to grow.

use Joomla for blogging as wordpress

2011-08-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

Learn more about WordPress for Joomla!

Look, we all love Joomla!. But in all honesty, its blogging features are severely lacking. Ask any serious blogger what powers their blog and they will almost always say, “WordPress!”

And so that’s why we created WordPress for Joomla! — to give Joomla users the best of both worlds where Joomla can be used as a wordpress in some cases. WordPress for Joomla gives you an instant access to all of WordPress’s awesome blogging tools right INSIDE your Joomla framework (CMS). Now you can use what the pros use (WordPress) and enjoy everything Joomla has to offer at the same time.

Sure, there are other Joomla blogging components out there that try to mimic what WordPress does, but why waste your time on buggy WordPress imitations when you can now have the real thing — WordPress, the No.#1 blogging software on the planet — working inside your Joomla CMS.

WordPress for Joomla! makes it happen!

Others have tried to integrate WordPress into Joomla in the past, but have never succeeded. We’ve spent two years developing WordPress for Joomla! and it’s become the No.#1 extension on our site — and for good reason. Our WordPress for Joomla! component works perfectly.

If you need a serious blogging component for Joomla!, WordPress for Joomla! is a dream come true.

Here are just a few of WordPress for Joomla!’s powerful features:

WordPress for Joomla! is EASY to install! No need to install & configure WordPress separately. WordPress for Joomla! installs like any other Joomla! component and only takes a few minutes to set up.

Can power multiple blogs on your site from multiple authors (something a native Joomla!-powered blog or even “MyBlog for Joomla!” cannot do).

Can run thousands of powerful native WordPress plugins on your blog. You can even use Joomla! content plugins on your WordPress posts, too!

Includes built-in commenting, trackbacks, and pingbacks. No need to purchase 3rd party Joomla! commenting software, it’s all conveniently built-in for you!

Comes with 8 exclusive Joomla! modules that will broadcast your latest WordPress blogs (multi-users), latest blog posts, recent blog comments & more throughout your entire Joomla! site

Comes with a free default theme and also works with most 3rd party Joomla! templates (including Joomla!Shack templates, Shape5 templates, RocketTheme templates and many others). WordPress for Joomla! will inherit styles from your website template right out of the box ensuring your blog always matches yours site!

Integrates with JomSocial — the No.#1 community-creation software for Joomla!

Can import “MyBlog” posts into your new WordPress for Joomla! blog, so switching is easy.

Supports Ping-O-Matic, which helps you promote your blog by pinging popular sites everywhere you post a new entry And so much more!

Requirements:
———————

WordPress for Joomla! requires PHP version 5.0 or greater and MySQL version 4.1.2 or greater. SEO URLs and mod_rewrite must be turned on in Joomla! in order to use the Search Friendly URLs and Multisite features.

So, the blogging in Joomla is so easy to work, integrate now.

made your Joomla blog in few easy steps within seconds.

to get help write us at vijendra123456789@gmail.com