Get in touch now alex.tealdi@dynamic50.com 020 3286 2879

Prestigious countryside town location, Oxfordshire near Reading/High Wycombe

Working in small team on award winning web application.

Opportunity to really contribute in an award winning small company.

Skills:

- Knowledge of relational database design and SQL

- Experience with Linux operating systems and scripting

- Experience with CSS and HTML

You Will be:

- Using and developing infrastructure management and application deployment tools for automation and continuous integration of systems and applications.

- Learning Ruby and Shell scripting as well as using script based tools such as Capistrano and Puppet.

- MYSQL management and programming.

- OS and application builds and updates.

- Capacity planning and application deployment

Send your resume to contactus@dynamic50.com or give us a call on 02032862879

Prestigious countryside town location, Oxfordshire near Reading/High Wycombe

Working in close knit team directly with the CTO on award winning web application.

Opportunity to really contribute to an active product roadmap in an award winning small company. Really make a difference

- 3+ experience developing commercial web applications using Ruby on Rails, Python, Java, .NET, PHP or similar

- Passion for programming a must, daily stand-ups, etc.

- Knowledge of relational database design, SQL.

- Extensive experience with JavaScript, AJAX, CSS and HTML

- Experience with Agile methodologies

- Working knowledge of version control systems, SVN, Git.

- Experience with test driven development

- Knowledge of Eclipse would be an advantage

- Knowledge of Linux would be an advantage

Salary 50k

Send your resume to contactus@dynamic50.com or give us a call on 02032862879

Prestigious countryside town location, Oxfordshire near Reading/High Wycombe

Working in close knit team directly with the CTO on award winning web application.

Opportunity to really contribute to an active product roadmap in an award winning small company. Really supportive development environment.

- 2 experience developing commercial web applications using Ruby on Rails, Python, Java, .NET, PHP or similar

- Passion for programming a must, great opportunity to learn in a supportive environment.

- Knowledge of relational databases i.e. SQL preferred

- Extensive experience with JavaScript, AJAX, CSS and HTML

- Experience with Agile methodologies

Salary £25k+ depending on experience

Send your resume to contactus@dynamic50.com or give us a call on 02032862879

The QR code was invented in Japan by a Toyota subsidiary company in 1994 to track vehicles through the manufacturing process. The code is composed of black dots arranged in a square pattern and can be encoded to include all sorts of information. Reading the code is simply a case of scanning it with one of the the many apps that can be downloaded for free on a smartphone or other mobile device.

In recent years QR codes have become more widely adopted and are now being used on everything from providing nutritional information on food packaging (McDonald’s), adding codes to cars to aid crash victims and save lives (Mercedes), sending personalised videos on bottles of whiskey and other marketing and business information such as links to websites and contact details.

According to a report on “9 Things to Know About Consumer Behaviour and QR Codes” 79% of survey participants had not heard of a QR code before however 81% recognised a QR code when they saw one. The results suggest that QR codes are favoured by marketers more than the general public. Nevertheless, half of smartphone owners had in fact scanned a code and two thirds claimed it was an easy process. Providing your target audience is aimed at smartphone owners then there is a high probability that they will know what they are and how to use them.

There are now a number of services that allow you customise the look and feel of a QR code to make it more appealing and slide into your brand image more easily.

Tips for designing a QR code with the user in mind include:

- Provide an alternative such as a simple URL.

- Use content that is mobile friendly.

- Use creativity and visibility to catch the users attention.

- Ensure it serves a purpose.

- Ideal placement of your code (on a motorway billboard is not very useful).

- Size for readability (typically 1inch or more).

- Tell the user what they stand to gain.

- Test it!

Note that some customisations such as embedded logo’s may look cool but won’t necessarily read as easily so it is always a good idea to test your QR code before the final release.

Source
 

Here at Dynamic50 we think Ruby is awesome! If you’re interested in learning more take a look at our portfolio, or if you would like to talk to us about a startup project or enterprise development then contact us to see how we can help you.

Development Speed: Ruby on Rails allows features to be developed quickly by freeing programmers from repetitive coding. Ruby on Rails emphasises convention over configuration and adopts agile development principles. This allows us to go from concept to estimating to actual development in a short space of time. This has significant benefits for larger projects that can be broken down into smaller parts as well as entrepreneurs developing new products and web based ventures.

Flexibility: Ruby on Rails offers the ability to easily modify a web application in response to customers needs. This allows modifications to be made and new features added to create increased functionality in response to changing business needs.

Reduced Development Cost: In addition to the flexibility and development speed, Ruby on Rails is an open source technology. By using a freely available platform, it is possible to reduce costs without sacrificing performance, speed or security. Developing with RoR means development cost may be significantly lower than if the same project was written in heavier, less flexible, proprietary software (non-open-source technologies), like Java or .Net.

Thriving Community: An additional benefit of open source software is that the Ruby development community is highly active and responsive. This attribute is often overlooked but translates into the strength of the technology and constantly drives it forward through enhancements, extensions and new documentation.

Ruby on Rails = Agile: RoR is the technology which goes hand in hand with agile methodology. Rails development cycles remain short, helping to facilitate the application of agile methodologies. Programmers use Test Driven Development to achieve desired results and so RoR is well suited to Agile and Scrum projects.

Future Demand: It should come as no surprise why entrepreneurs and businesses have chosen Ruby on Rails to create their web application. Here are some well known web services that are run on Ruby on Rails:

1. Twitter
2. Groupon
3. LivingSocial
4. Hulu
5. SoundCloud
6. ZenDesk
7. GitHub
8. YellowPages
9. Basecamp
10. Shopify
11. Urban Dictionary
12. Lumosity
13. SlideShare
14. Scribd

Here at Dynamic50 we think Ruby on Rails is awesome! If you’re interested in learning more take a look at our portfolio, or if you would like to talk to us about a startup project or enterprise development then contact us to see how we can help you.

Wireframes commonly take into account user needs and user journey through the page, online tool, or mobile app. It is an important part of the “interactive design process” and allows the client to focus on the layout without the distraction of colour, type and other design and marketing elements. It is a good way of working closely with the client to create a visual understanding of a page. This is important at an early stage in a project to ensure the web service meets the stakeholders approval before the coding and creative process has begun.

Quicker to adapt:

A wireframe is quicker and cheaper to adapt than a page where all the coding and design elements have been put into place. Being part of an iterative process allows the client and design team to make alterations until the page meets the outlined objectives.

Project lifecycle:

Wireframing is used at the early stages of the design process. A wireframe prototype can also be used for usability testing and gain insightful feedback prior to development.

Wireframes can be sketched out on paper or can be put together using Adobe photoshop, illustrator, or other graphic software. There is some good software that allows you to do this easily, here at Dynamic50 we use specialist wire framing software Balsamiq Mockups.

Wireframe elements:

• - Simple layout structure such as navigation buttons for the main areas of the site.
• - A shape or wording to show the company logo
• - Content areas for articles and other features. How will they be arranged on the page?
• - Images and video placeholders
• - Calls to action such as user login area and search box

Conclusion:

Wireframes should be used early in the project lifecycle to gain client approval on the layout and key navigation for the page. This will allow the project to be managed effectively and will save both time and money in changes that would otherwise need to be made at later stages. This allows for a more accurate and productive project outcome.

If you’re interested in learning more take a look at our portfolio, or if you would like to talk to us about a new or existing project then contact us to see how we can help you.

Step 1:
In your config/routes.rb file add:

match 'sitemap', :to => "sitemap#index", :as => :sitemap

Step 2:
Create a controller called “app/views/sitemap_controller.rb”
Paste the following into it:

class SitemapController < ApplicationController
  def index
    static_urls = [ {:url => '/home/about',      :updated_at => ""},
                    {:url => '/home/help',       :updated_at => ""},
                    {:url => '/home/contact_us', :updated_at => ""},
                    {:url => '/home/terms',      :updated_at => ""} ] 
    @pages_to_visit  = static_urls
    @pages_to_visit += Article.all.collect{  |a| {:url => article_path(a) ,  :updated_at => I18n.l(a.updated_at, :format => :w3c)} }
    @pages_to_visit += Category.all.collect{ |c| {:url => category_path(c) , :updated_at => I18n.l(c.updated_at, :format => :w3c)} }
    respond_to do |format|
      format.xml
    end
  end
end

Step 3:
Create a view for the xml. I have used Haml for my view, you could use builder as an alternative. Call this “app/views/sitemap/index.xml.haml”

- base_url = "http://#{request.host_with_port}"
!!! XML
%urlset{:xmlns => "http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"}
  - @pages_to_visit.each do |page|
    %url
      %loc #{base_url}#{page[:url]}
      - if page[:updated_at].present?
        %lastmod= page[:updated_at]
      %changefreq= page[:changefreq].present? ? page[:changefreq] : "monthly"
      %priority= page[:priority].present? ? page[:priority] : "0.5"

Step 4:
Sitemaps require the date to be in the w3c DateTime format. This involves creating a specific Time format. In “config/locales/en.yml” add the following format:

en:
  time:
    formats:
      w3c: "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S+00:00"

Note: The timezone is has been hard-coded here. In ruby 1.9.3 you can specify “%:z” to get the timezone at the end of this, however heroku is running 1.9.1 so this cannot be done. However Heroku is at UTC time anyway so this does not matter!

If you don’t have anything custom inside this file that should be the entire contents of the file.
This means you can now use “I18n.l” to specify your custom timestamp format, for example:

I18n.l(a.updated_at, :format => :w3c)

which we used above.

And thats your sitemap on the fly! You could also generate a html sitemap if you wanted alongside this, or any other format you wish.
For the html one just add a format.html in the respond_to block of the controller and then add a new file in “app/views/sitemap/index.html.haml” and put your haml view for the html sitemap there. If you are not using haml substitute “.haml” for “.erb”

The courses are tailored to the ability of the group and we have run several different versions now, from basic programming skills all the way through to expert in different technologies or basic experience with rails.

All courses went really well and the feedback has been very positive:

“Excellent value for money, and I’m now coding RoR on a project!” – Dan Murphy

If you are interested in Dynamic50 running a course for your company, or would like to be included on the mailing list for our future courses please get in touch!, we’d love to hear from you.