What stays behind the Software Craftsmanship?

Software Craftsmanship is a well-known movement that reunites all software developers around the world who strives towards quality.

Software Craftsmanship is a well-known movement that reunites all software developers around the world who strives towards quality. These developers organize annual conferences around the world as well as local meetups to share experiences and move software development to the next level.

Software Craftsmanship

The idea of software craftsmanship is to encourage software developers to strive for excellence in their work and to add value steadily. Great software is a product of enough computer science, creative design decisions and pragmatic judgement calls. Some of the science is taught in universities, but what of the art and judgement? How do software developers learn their craft?

Software craftsmanship is an approach to software development that emphasizes the coding skills of the software developers themselves. It is a response by software developers to the perceived “ills” of the mainstream software industry, including the prioritization of financial concerns over developer accountability.

So, those software developers who take an active part in software craftsmanship movement always improve their craft and put quality software before anything else. These developers are not afraid of proposing new ideas, sharing their experiences, coming up with new software products, revolutionizing the industry. They pass on their tricks, the reasoning behind their decisions.

The idea behind the software craftsmanship is very well stated in their Manifesto:

Not only working software, but also well-crafted software

Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value

Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals

Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships

If you go their page, you will be scrolling down reading the names of software developers who signed to take part in this movement for 1 hour or more. I understood why so many developers had signed it. The concept is appealing. And they can be proud of what they are doing. Unfortunately right now people sacrifice quality over speed and in the long term it transforms into a headache for product owners, developers and all the stakeholders.

Software crafters prefer to do everything right from the beginning. To become a craftsman, you have not only to code correctly, but also to think about the way the application is built and to consider the team’s responsibility over it. Design plays an integral part in this. The use of methodologies like TDD, high unit test coverage and the understanding of the business features certainly help. Software craftsmanship is about continuous feedback.

Another widespread craftsmanship concept is pair programming, in which programmers work together in pairs at a single workstation. Also, there is “refactoring,” the process of refining existing code. The goal is to edit the code to better understand it and have less bugs.

Software Crafters event

Even though there is a huge amount of material on this topic, the problem of maintainable, sustainable and successful software development is not yet solved, so it is important to have events dedicated to this topic, where people can learn and collaborate on how to deal with these problems and how to push to find better solutions. And the importance of software craftsmanship is increasing constantly. People start noticing that the software which is built right from the beginning is actually easier to maintain and it is cheaper in the long run. Also, they start seeing that software development made right can unlock a lot of hidden potential in organizations, and conferences like Software Crafters help companies to understand how important it is to invest in the way they develop.

The conference is organized in different cities like London, Barcelona, etc and normally has three pillars:

  • Language agnostic methods and best practices: TDD, BDD, DDD, CI, security, performance, software architecture.
  • Team/organisational level topics and  best practices like agile, DevOps, etc. that can help companies work more effectively.
  • It is becoming increasingly important to be familiar with new trends and emerging technologies

Virtual Churches: Is VR the Future of Religious Technology?

In the 18th century, the American colonies experienced an enormous swell of religious fervor known as the First Great Awakening.

Leaving the cold, dark churches and their solemnly delivered sermons for exuberant traveling preachers in the town square, the colonials must have felt a profound spiritual transformation.

Since that First Great Awakening, there have been many other breakthroughs in the way people worship and interact spiritually: televangelists, megachurches, and online churches, just to name a few.

They’re all part of the constantly evolving way that we experience religion, and for the church to stay relevant, it will need to continue to embrace innovation by listening for new voices coming from the town square.

VR is one of the most recent examples of technology altering the way we worship, and in this article, we’ll look at how your Virtual Church could become a virtual church.

What is virtual reality?

Virtual reality uses computer-generated 360-degree images to immerse the viewer in a comprehensive, realistic experience.

When I recently came home from a summer in Washington, D.C., I brought my little sister a virtual reality viewer that let her visit the national monuments without ever leaving her room. She loved it, and spent hours that night looking around the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, and (my favorite) the Lincoln Memorial.

Virtual reality offers an escape from ordinary content consumption, but it also offers an exciting educational experience.

Students can work with virtual reality in the classroom to visit historical sites, watch a demonstration, or learn about the stars. Employees can train on the job without entering into dangerous or uncomfortable situations in real life.

Virtual reality can also be a portal to faith and spirituality for those who might not otherwise get the chance.

Virtual reality and the Church

L. Michelle Salvant, founder of Mission:VR, considers virtual reality to be vital for faith formation.

“We have a lot of people talking about faith,” she says. “But I know for a surety that when you can experience someone’s faith and their hope, when you can go inside of their life and feel it, conversion will increase.”

Mission:VR partnered with Covalent Reality to create an environment for the virtual reality platform Google Cardboard called BelieveVR.

BelieveVR uses 360-degree cameras to follow the stories of people of faith as they struggle to overcome spiritual challenges. The first story, called “Healed,”follows Florida pastor Nicky E. Collins as she finds spiritual support during her battle with breast cancer. After the premiere of the short film, Salvant said viewers were “uplifted” by the experience, which they called “awesome” and “touching.”

That’s just one example of how virtual reality is affecting the worship experience.

#1 Case: Church Online Platform

Church Online is developing a virtual reality platform to supplement its online presence.

#2 Case: Virtual Reality Church

The Virtual Reality Church uses the software platform AltspaceVR (free for most Android VR devices) to bring their congregants a 360-degree church experience.

What is VR Church?

In recent times the Church has been slow to venture into new technology; with many pastors siting allegiance to the good old pen and paper over an iPad. Indeed technology is often met with mistrust; but this was not always the case for God’s people. In 1454 one of these new technologies in it’s infancy was used to print the Gutenberg bible. At one point the pen and paper was a new technology, and God has embraced that in order to communicate his word. As Christian’s it is our mandate to communicate God’s loving kindness through whatever means we have available to us. Advanced technology and recent breakthroughs such as virtual reality present new media channels through which the Church can communicate the timeless message of Jesus.

VR Church is not so much about being a Church as it is about making use of technology to engage in the mission of the Church. Virtual Reality is an upcoming media channel that can be used like any other to communicate God’s words. Virtual Reality is different from many channels though in that it presents more ways for us to communicate God’s word that other channels: it is actually most similar to theatre in that respect. An important aspect of this channel is that we can communicate God’s word using different learning modalities: kinaesthetic, audio and visual learning styles are all represented and this has been shown to help with memorisation, as well as engaging a wide range of people.

So what specifically can we do with virtual reality that we couldn’t do already? Well, in a quick moment in our busy lives we can put on our VR headset and:

  • Be transported to a new and beautiful place which reflects the words of the Psalms
  • Be completely immersed in scenes from the bible
  • Find a quiet and still place to pray and worship
  • Join in a unique communal prayer room

There are a lot of different possibilities for how we might engage with God in virtual reality, what is left to do now is to get out there and present these ideas so that might be experienced and enjoyed.

#3 Case: SecondLife

SecondLife, one of the earliest virtual reality software systems, offers three different churches in its platform, and you can start exploring for free.

The National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Second Life

No one expects any of these platforms to replace traditional churches, and even a megachurch would be ill advised to buy hundreds of high-end Oculus Rift headsets for their congregation.

But as VR devices become more and more affordable and ubiquitous (Google Cardboard can turn your smartphone into a VR headset for about $15, for example), virtual reality will become another channel for people to communicate on.

For people who can’t physically come to church, people who want to enhance their experience with new technology, or people who want to come back to the church, virtual reality offers another opportunity to do so.

Using virtual reality in the church brings a holistic spiritual experience to those who can’t or wouldn’t normally go to church. Making faith accessible to more people was one of the major goals Salvant hoped to achieve with her church software. People with disabilities are less likely to attend a service, so virtual reality quite literally opens the door for hundreds of thousands of disabled religious people across the country.

Clearly, VR is making its way into the spiritual community. But what are some ways you can use it in your own church?

1. Live stream in VR

I love watching live streams. They’re like a little window into someone else’s life. My church at home sets up a live stream at every Mass for those who can’t make it. But VR takes it to a whole new level. Your congregants can meet in a common space that requires no travel time, no cleanup, and no reservation.

VahanaVR by Orah

Software such as VahanaVR by Orah, or Facebook Spaces for Oculus Rift provides real-time hangout spaces for any kind of event, meeting, or service. Your congregants don’t necessarily need a headset. All you need to broadcast in 3D is:

  • the software (VahanaVR sells for $2,195; Facebook Spaces is free on Oculus devices)
  • a 360-degree camera (which start at about $100)
  • a connection to a livestreaming platform such as Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter

Anyone who wants to watch can simply click the link, put on a headset or watch on their computer screen, and become immersed in the experience.

2. VR small groups

You can also apply virtual reality to smaller groups of people. Instead of meeting at the church for department decisions, your staff can simply log onto an online VR platform.

A demo in Hyperfair

  • Hyperfair, which is usually used for businesses, could be used to meet in a virtual space. Pricing for Hyperfair is not available online.
  • Mozilla’s MozVR is a free, open-source virtual reality framework that allows you to create your own online VR experience and share it with your coworkers or friends (assuming you have advanced programming ability, of course).
  • vTime is a VR social network that allows people to meet in virtual space, and is free on Windows Mixed Reality devices.

Meeting in virtual space provides a chance to meet new people without the pressure of meeting in person. It gives your congregants a chance to talk to like-minded people about their faith, without having to leave home. For people who are new to the church, a virtual reality group just for them can give them a chance to get to know new people before they arrive.

3. VR group retreats

Retreats are expensive. There’s no way around it. From finding a place to accommodate everyone in your group, to catering food for each night, to planning the content and activities, retreats are labor intensive and costly.

What if you could join them from anywhere in the world using your computer?

Meeting in a virtual space (using the same devices and apps outlined in the sections above) can reduce the cost of reserving a building or campground, as well as travel to that location.

Guest speakers can give talks without ever having to leave their homes. People with disabilities can participate without having to worry about whether the space will accommodate their needs.

And the possibilities are endless. In the near future, you might be able to virtually travel all over the world on your retreat without having to pay for tickets or hotels. Because the virtual environment is computer generated, the options are only limited to what the designers and programmers can dream up. Just be prepared for a little push back if you try to convince your congregation that a virtual Hawaiian beachfront is as good as the real thing. We’re not quitethere yet.

How will you include virtual reality in your church?

Media professionals say virtual reality is the future. Classrooms, real estate, and construction are just three industries where virtual reality is already becoming a part of everyday life.

Places of faith and worship are not far behind. Will you incorporate VR in your church experience in the future? How will VR help your church? Tell us what you think in the comments!

Instagram Search for Business: Everything You Need to Know

How to use Instagram Search for business needs?

Hi, I’ve been involved in internet marketing since 2006, and before I hadn’t come across a search tool stronger than Google Search. But this year I found a new discovery. This is a search for Instagram. You yourself have already used it many times, but since this year the concentration of information on Instagram has increased and filled up with the business so much that it has become useful. Previously, only public profiles could be found there. Today it is a complete combine, but with a bad UX.

Instagram Search and Explore Tips

https://webstagram.org/ only Insta Profile Analitycs

http://gramfind.com bulk profile search

https://keywordtool.io/instagram Keyword Tool for Instagram Hashtags

How to use Instagram stories for my Business Goals?

Shoppable Stickers in Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories Ads

75 percent of Instagram users take action, such as visiting a website or making a purchase, after looking at Instagram ads.

Promoted Instagram Stories

Instagram terminology 

Bio: This refers to the biography section in your profile. Businesses can also use their bio to include a call to action.

Direct messages (DMs): Users can privately communicate with each other through direct messages. If a customer has a complaint or question, it’s best practice to chat with them via direct message to keep the conversation private. Direct messages are often referred to as DMs.

Filters: You can apply preset filters to your photos to enhance features and colors.

Follow: When you follow a user on Instagram, you’ll see their content in your timeline. You can also view their Instagram Stories at the top of the application.

Followers: Your followers are people who will see your pictures in their timelines.

Hashtag (#): Similar to Twitter, a hashtag on Instagram is used to index words or phrases. When you click on a hashtag, you’ll see other posts with the same one.

Highlights: A highlight reel of your Instagram Stories appears on your profile above your photo gallery and stays until you remove it.

Home: Tap the home button to land on your home screen, which is also your timeline or feed. Here you’ll see photos from the people you follow.

IG: IG is an abbreviation for Instagram.

Instagram handle: Your handle is your username. To mention a user on Instagram, you need to use their handle, which always starts with the @ symbol. 

Instagram Stories: Stories is one of the most popular features on the platform. These pictures and videos disappear after 24 hours. Read more about Instagram Stories below.

Tag: There are a few ways to tag people on Instagram, including in a photo’s caption, in Instagram Stories and in photos. Use the @ symbol to tag someone in a caption or an Instagram story. You can tag someone in your photos before you post the picture.


Other Instagram tips and tricks

Best apps for Instagram

  • Instagram
  • Hootsuite
  • Canva
  • Buffer
  • Iconosquare

How to handle the “It’s too complicated” objection in sales

Here are 5 ways to overcome the “it’s too difficult” objection:

  • Pitch them on a simple start
  • Show them how to get help
  • Do the work for them
  • Make them realize the complexity is worth it
  • Demonstrate that it’s not as difficult as they think

I also share how one of our sales reps won a deal with technique #5. (It’s a cool story, you’ll enjoy reading it.)

Best Practices For Deploying Agile

How To Have The BI Cake And Eat It Too: Best Practices For Deploying Agile But Governed BI Applications

Most modern enterprises are data-driven – they make many key business decisions based on the numbers and facts. But being data-driven does not necessarily mean insights-driven. How successfully are you transforming your data into meaningful and actionable insights that produce tangible business outcomes? In this webinar you will learn:

  • The key differences between data-driven organizations and insights-driven organizations;
  • The importance of business agility in the age of the customer and the role of Agile BI;
  • BI governance – a key new component of data governance.

How software engineers powered NASA’s space race

Homer Ahr had been asleep for 15 minutes when he got a call from his boss at Johnson Space Center.
“All he said was, ‘Homer, get into mission control as fast as you can.’ I didn’t have an idea of why I was going in there,” he said.

“Within 30 minutes at most I knew that they were truly in a life or death situation,” said Ahr.
Earlier that evening, Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert had brought NASA mission control to a standstill with the now famous statement, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
The Apollo 13 craft was more than 300,000 kilometers into its journey to the moon when an explosion ripped through the tiny capsule.
On that day in April 1970, with the vessel venting its precious supply of oxygen, NASA knew it had few options for getting the three astronauts on the stricken spacecraft home safely.
“From that realization on, all we did was do everything we could to get them back,” Ahr said.
“It’s sort of like being in the ER, you know? If you have to jam a needle into somebody’s chest to reactivate their heart, you just do it. You don’t think about what you’re doing. You just do it.”

One of the many pressing issues was how to mount a rescue without firing the engines on the damaged part of the craft. At Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, mission control narrowed the options to a maneuver never attempted before. The survival of the astronauts now hinged on using the descent engines on the lunar lander to put the craft on a homeward trajectory.

Mission control had limited time to work out how to pull off the maneuver. Luckily, just months before the crew blasted off from Cape Canaveral, two programmers had written the software for mission control to calculate just such a move.
One of those programmers was the 22-year-old Ahr, just a year out of college and working for IBM as a maneuver-planning expert supporting NASA flight officers in mission control.

Meditation and HOT apps for finding your Zen

Just a week ago it has been it had been announced that the meditation app Calm hitted unicorn status as it raised fresh $88 million funding. Such news is also interesting because this is to be the World’s First Mental Health Unicorn.

Calm was launched in 2012 and since then there had been arose a lot of apps for meditation and wellness as the interest in all the aspects of mental health is growing up for the last years.

Yes, we do know that meditation carries all kinds of benefits as it is transforming the mind, encouraging concentration, clarity, emotional positivity and calmness. But to be sincere, meditation sounds simple enough, but it’s not so easy for oneself to deal with all the sort of distracting thoughts when it comes to the practice. That’s where meditation apps come in. They’re like a little guru in your pocket which make it easy to easy and possible to practice meditation anywhere.

We, at Alty do practice meditation and really enjoy it. So here they are our TOP-5 meditation apps — just choose the one which fits you best, take your seat and concentrate on finding your Zen.

CALM

Nice design with fun animations and a well-organized library of classes. This app offers a nice mix of guided and less structured meditations and it’s easy to customize.

There are also such options as for Daily Calm (a 10-minute program you can practice before the beginning or end of your day), breathing exercises, unguided meditations, sleep stories, and more than 25 soothing sounds to help you improve your sleep.

HEADSPACE

Created by Andy Puddicombe, a former Tibetan Buddhist monk, this app is really cool, trendy, and user-friendly.

The only thing uncomfortable thing is that all of the meditations are guided — there’s no option to hit a timer and simply savor the silence or soothing ambient sounds.

THE MINDFULNESS

App Packed with features, this meditation app includes a five-day guided meditation practice, reminders for when it’s time to relax, and other offers based on individual meditation habits.

And it can also be integrated with other health apps if users enjoy using their devices to improve their health.

INSIGHT TIMER

This free meditation app gives you two options — you can either pick a guided meditation (ranging anywhere from one minute to an hour or more) or you can use the timer option — you choose how long you want to meditate for, then pick a bell sound to signal the beginning and end of your meditation. Also, you can also opt for ambient sound like raindrops or choir music to play while you’re in zen mode.

10% HAPPIER

Based on the book by ABC news anchor Dan Harris, this meditation app offers over 350 guided meditations, as well as video courses with meditation experts. It’s designed for skeptics who want to try meditation, but want to simplify the process with practical, easy-to-apply content.

And a bonus-option is that you can also message meditation coaches and ask them any questions you have about your practice.

How to Add Push Notification in your Android App by Firebase

I hope you all are happy coding and living curiously to learn something new everyday. And like others me too want to make my work easier by creating some useful content which can help me and other programmers around the globe to easily access the code from anywhere and anytime.

Today we are going to learn how to add Push Notification Perk to your Android App and it is one of the peaceful implementation ever. Just Firebase.


Step 1: Sign in to your Gmail Account and Create a New Project in Firebase Console : https://console.firebase.google.com/


Step 2: Clicking on Add Project will pop this dialog up:

Step 3: Now click that green button in the middle for adding firebase to android app:

Step 4: Enter Package Name and SHA1 Key for step one:

Use this to get your SHA1 key — keytool -list -v -keystore C:\Users\user\.android\debug.keystore -alias androiddebugkey -storepass android -keypass android

Step 5: Now Download the googleservices.json file and place in your Android Project.

Step 6: Now Add the below two lines in respective build.gradle files:

Imp Note: Add two java classes in your Android Project main package with preferably these names:

  • FireBaseInstanceIDService.java
  • FireBaseMessagingService.java

Now Add these codes in the respective files:
 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 
 FirebaseInstanceIDService Code:
 ===============================

public class FireBaseInstanceIDService extends FirebaseInstanceIdService{
private static final String TAG = “MyFirebaseIIDService”;
@Override
public void onTokenRefresh() {
//Getting registration token
String refreshedToken = FirebaseInstanceId.getInstance().getToken();
//Displaying token on logcat
Log.d(TAG, “Refreshed token: “ + refreshedToken);
}
}

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 
 FirebaseMessagingService Code:
 ===============================

public class FireBaseMessagingService extends FirebaseMessagingService implements Constants {
private static final String TAG = "MyFirebaseMsgService";
private static int count = 0;
@Override
public void onMessageReceived(RemoteMessage remoteMessage) {
//Displaying data in log
//It is optional
Log.d(TAG, "Notification Message TITLE: " + remoteMessage.getNotification().getTitle());
Log.d(TAG, "Notification Message BODY: " + remoteMessage.getNotification().getBody());
Log.d(TAG, "Notification Message DATA: " + remoteMessage.getData().toString());
//Calling method to generate notification
sendNotification(remoteMessage.getNotification().getTitle(),
remoteMessage.getNotification().getBody(), remoteMessage.getData());
}
//This method is only generating push notification
private void sendNotification(String messageTitle, String messageBody, Map<String, String> row) {
PendingIntent contentIntent = null;
Uri defaultSoundUri = RingtoneManager.getDefaultUri(RingtoneManager.TYPE_NOTIFICATION);
NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
.setLargeIcon(BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.ic_launcher))
.setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_launcher)
.setContentTitle(messageTitle)
.setContentText(messageBody)
.setAutoCancel(true)
.setSound(defaultSoundUri)
.setContentIntent(contentIntent);
NotificationManager notificationManager =
(NotificationManager) getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
notificationManager.notify(count, notificationBuilder.build());
count++;
}
}

Another Imp Note: And register both these files in your Projects AndroidManifest.xml file in the <application> tag.

Step 7: And Now Go back to Firebase Console and Go to Cloud Messagingfrom Side Menu which will open this screen:

Step 8: Now just enter Notification Message and select your app package name to send the push.

Step 9: Hopefully if you have performed each step then you will get the push notification in your device.

Get the Scoop on Virtual Reality Apps Before You Started

Get the Scoop on Virtual Reality Apps Before You’re Too Late

The app is quite easy to use and you don’t even have to produce a Google account to utilize it. Some VR apps allow it to be possible. Daydream’s apps will run just on new phones that were certified by Google. Distributing in-house apps is not too hard. Digital reality apps are altering the game in the entertainment business, noticeably gaming. Applications of digital reality apps are typical today and can be seen in every area of life. Such application of VR can be utilized in many remote control locations.

Depending on the job of a given mobile device the latter sort of AR apps are ready to present contextual info on real objects. Some apps utilize point of your view for a control. At this point you have an app on your mobile phone with the name you’ve configured Unity to use.

What You Need to Do About Virtual Reality Apps Beginning in the Next 8 Minutes

For each and every new technology business, there’s a point in its development once it will become cool. In the start, the notion of digital reality was fascinating and slightly fantastic. You probably have another VR ideas that could alter the world!

Digital reality is potentially the most important technology to continue to keep your eye on in 2016. It should be evaluated with the same rigour applied to other investments or areas of expansion. It can improve the quality of education and reduce education expenditures. Augmented reality and digital reality apps are likely to be the new fashion in the mobile apps world.

Digital reality could add a good deal of culture to our lives. It is something that has to be experienced to be understood, so come by the Lab and ask for a VR demo to get a hands-on experience and figure out how your brand can use it to excite and engage with consumers. It has had an unprecedented impact on education. Augmented reality (AR) is a kind of reality when you may see the real planet, and you’re able to observe some information in addition to the reality.

Choosing Good Virtual Reality Apps

Today there are lots of digital reality app growth businesses on the current market, so there’s no problem to implement your ideas from scratch to a fully functional app. Today market isn’t very developed, so there are a great deal of chances. Nonetheless, the market of VR app development is now unoccupied. The VR market for games is among the most developing.

Essentially, a user can call any place in the planet, but the telephone call will nonetheless register as though it were local. Users will also require a powerful PC to establish the Vive experience, minimum requirements of which are very similar to the rival Oculus Rift. A great deal of InstaVR users are thinking about creating apps for the headset. The system includes an integrated camera that could scan the perspective of users’ surrounding, very similar to what is supplied by Vive. To boost your immersion you are able to buy a high excellent device for a reasonable price on VU Dream’s VR Headset Shop. To be able to perceive the technology correctly one has to use exclusive VR systems or headset called HMDs, which has a screen in the front of the eyes.

Dump a specific table or few rows in MySQL

The ‘mysqldump’ command is used to dump databases managed by MySQL. Let’s consider three the most useful cases of MySQL database dumping.

1. The simplest case is the whole database dumping:

mysqldump -u username -ppassword database_name  > the_whole_database_dump.sql

2. Sometimes, there’s a need to dump a single table from your database. You can do it in the next way:

mysqldump -u username -ppassword database_name table_name > single_table_dump.sql

You can also specify several tables separated by whitespace to dump these tables only.

3. If you want to dump only rows that meet a specific criteria, you can add ‘where’ option to your mysqldump command. For example, dump only rows where date_created is today:

mysqldump -u username -ppassword database_name table_name --where="date_created='2013-06-25'" > few_rows_dump.sql

How to make a Java Web Crawler?

This post is for those who want to step-by-step learn how to create their own Crawler in Java. A web-crawler is considered by many to be a complex application requiring deep knowledge. The guide will guide you through several simple steps to quickly master the creation of Web Crawler. You can change the creation of the scanner using Java using this textbook for your needs after spending a little time.

Given:

– You need to know the basics of Java, a bit about the SQL database and MySQL.
– Computer or remote server.

Unknown:

Web Crawler for collecting information on a given logic.

Choose goals:

For example, let’s collect all the information on the site of your university “BigBrain.edu” on the topic “apples”.

Progress:
1. The algorithm of the searcher’s work consists in the following steps:
– Open the root web page (“BigBrain.edu”) and collect there all the external links from this page. To do this we will use JSoup, which is a convenient and simple Java library for analyzing HTML.
– Then we analyze the received URL-addresses and collect new links.
– When performing the second and subsequent steps, we check which page was processed earlier so that each URL is processed only once. It is for this control that we need a database.

2. Configuring the MySQL database
Owners of Ubuntu and a guide for Windows users.

2.1. Create a database and table
Create a database named “Crawler” and create a table called “Record”, as shown below:

3. Run the crawling using Java

1) Download the main JSoup library from http://jsoup.org/download.
Download the file mysql-connector-java-xxxbin.jar from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/

2) Now create the project in its eclipse with the name “JavaCrawler” and add the jar jsoup and mysql-jar files that you uploaded to the Java Build Path.

3) Create a class called “JCDB”, which is used to handle database actions.

4) Create a class with name “Main” which will be our crawler.

Recommend to use Selenium to crawl a web below code by open Firefox:

How develop custom web crawler on Python for OLX? You can do it by guide from Adnan.

Help people find your site on Google

  1. What users are searching for when they find your site? Open the Performance report for your site to see a list of search queries at the bottom.
  2. Are you appearing for the queries that you expect? Sort the table by impression count and see if you appear in search for the right queries. If not, you should restructure your site to appear for these queries. Some tips:
    1. Use text: Don’t put your important page titles or content in images, video, animations, or other non-text formats that Google can’t understand as easily. If you do use an image for your site or company name, include the name in the page text as well.
    2. Be complete: Mention everything that you have to offer. Google is smart, but we can’t guess what you don’t tell us.
    3. Be topical: For instance, if you run an ice cream store that also sells hot chocolate, be sure to feature your ice cream in the summer, and your hot chocolate (or coffee, or sandwiches) in the winter, when people won’t be searching for ice cream. If a new trend starts for kiwi ice cream and you have it in your store, feature it prominently.
  3. Are you getting visitors for these queries? Select and sort by “Average CTR”. Try to improve your click-through rate by making your site best in class. Some tips:
    1. Get noticed by other sites: Have your site mentioned in appropriate places online. See if you can get mentioned on your local news sites or in any other appropriate resources.
    2. Be descriptive: Use accurate, descriptive titles for your pages. We recommend focusing on one topic per page.
    3. Keep your site up to date: If your restaurant website hasn’t updated its menu since 1925, then update it; there aren’t a lot of customers searching for sarsparilla these days.

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9050677?hl=en

U.S.-based Furniture Startups

Fernish – Series A

Fernish is a subscription service for your home. We give you stylish home furnishings for however long you want them. Los Angeles, CA

Money Raised $30,000,000 – Jan 24, 2019

Cylindo Angel

DKK 13,000,000 – Jan 11, 2019.

Envizzo Seed

$935,000 – Nov 9, 2018.

The Inside Seed

$2,600,000 – Sep 4, 2018.

ROOM is a tech startup from New York that designs smart, affordable solutions for the modern workplace.

Money Raised $2M – Aug 15, 2018

How To Begin Your Career Path As A Digital Nomad

In today’s digital world it is, at times, more common to have a job that allows you to work remotely without any physical ties to a specific location. If not, then you might be considering embarking on the lifestyle of a digital nomad as your next career choice so that you are afforded the freedom to work from anywhere around the world. Rather than being tethered to a desk in your company’s head office, explore a variety of cultures all while working, communicating and collaborating within your laptop. Below are a few ways you can kick off your digital nomad career path.

Recognize Your Skills

Before you begin your new business that you plan on taking on the road, it’s important to understand where your skills lie and build on them. Rather than forcing yourself into an industry that you think might work and expect to commit to it as you travel the world, focus on growing your abilities in industries you are genuinely interested in. Doing this will make the transition to a digitally nomadic life that much easier to stick to for a long period of time, or however long it takes to build your business and be able to support yourself without concern.

Freelance For A Bit

Once you do recognize your skills and create a plan that you would be willing to stick to for a few years on the road, begin slowly by freelancing in that industry while still in your country of residence. This will give you a taste of what it’s like to work for yourself without the added stress of booking hotel rooms, flights, and making enough to pay for your next meal. Once you get the hang of what it takes to live a freelance lifestyle, working on the go won’t be that much harder to handle.

Cut Physical And Locational Ties

When you’re ready to pack up and fly out with your laptop in hand and a travel itinerary planned you should first begin the transition by cutting out any physical ties to where you are currently living. This can include apartment leases, car payments, subscriptions, and any unnecessary things that you don’t plan on packing with you when you leave. You want to be sure that both your bank accounts and your suitcases don’t have any added burden on them before you leave and begin working remotely. The sooner you begin cutting these ties, the easier it will be to get comfortable in your new lifestyle.

Implement More Digital Tools In Your Daily Routine

From communicating via Skype to using a secure virtual data room to store and share confidential work data, implementing more useful digital tools in your every day life will make a world of difference when you are finally on the road. By synching your smartphone and your laptop, your clients will always be able to reach you, even if you are working from a long stretch of sand on a beach or from an airport before you are about to board another flight. You will have to rely on these tools at some point, so familiarizing yourself with them as soon as possible is vital.

Grow Your Presence Online

It’s not uncommon that many people who embark on a digital nomad lifestyle, building their own business in the process, also grow their online presence in order to gain more clients in their industry of choice. Considering the enormous shift to the digital space many individuals are making on a daily basis, it would be counterproductive to not create a personal platform online where you can promote your services and gain an audience that is willing to work with you, no matter where in the world you are.

This can be done through a website specific to your work, or on social media platforms that can be used to gain a following based on more than just your business, but rather combining your personal and professional life in order to maintain your digital nomad lifestyle for months or even years on end.

Autor: Gabriel

Difference between Chatbot and Digital Agent

Technology evolves at such a fast pace that one has no choice but to keep up with it. Earlier, knowing a difference between a PC and a laptop meant you were tech savvy. However, now with the evolution in artificial intelligence there are several nuanced technologies that one will have to learn to differentiate between and adopt.

Difference between a Chatbot and Virtual assistant

Let us take two of the most current technologies powered by artificial intelligence – chatbots and digital agents. According to a study conducted by Capgemini this year, voice assistants are set to become a dominant mode of consumer interaction in the next three years – 24% already say they would use chatbots and voicebots instead of a website. The surge of voice assistants such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri is transforming customer relationships dramatically, and businesses are being forced to consider how they can be leveraged. However, chatbots and digital agents are not exactly the same. With a host of tools available in the market currently, it would do well for one to remember the scope and role of both these technologies. For example, one of the key differences that can be pointed out is that a chatbot is largely server or company oriented while virtual assistants like Cortana or the more popular one Siri are user-oriented. Chatbots and digital agents are cut from the same cloth which is artificial intelligence which is being leveraged upon hugely by organization to automate several of their functions. The return on investment too has been massive too with artificial intelligence benefitting not just businesses but personal lives too. However, these two ‘intelligent’ applications of AI are often confused as one.

Chatbots are more like information interfaces that can perform tasks like extracting product details. Digital agents are more like virtual assistants who can support you in conducting various tasks such as meetings reminders, taking notes. When it comes to using digital agents for customer service they are able to provide a more human-like experience and have the ability to learn from experience and grow.

Both of them are quite similar, however it is necessary for a company to understand the nuances of the two in order to be able to effectively use them. Hence, let us look at them a little more in detail.

What do chatbots do?

Chatbots are essentially text-based software that are designed to reply to a given set of questions and hence cannot comprehend questions that are not preinstalled in their system. They cannot perform long conversations with a likeness to humans and do not have the particular ability of processing languages. They pick certain words and give a programmed answer and are thus very structured. Chatbots fail to reply if the question or statement is complex.

As such, this shows that chatbots essentially have limited use and do not have enhanced algorithms that can be used in areas of sophisticated customer support. Hence, chatbots are a basic requirement for most customer service requirement but they are limited in the tasks they carry out.

When it comes to the technology of chatbots, there are two types of models – generative and selective. The generator ranking model has a lot of layers and finally comes up with a suitable response based on what the user has requested. In the selective model, the information given by the user is ranked with its current memory information and goes into a sequence to come up with the best response. Chatbots can easily be made with languages node.js, javascript and python

What do digital agents do?

Contrary to chatbots, digital agents have a more sophisticated and interactive platform. They understand the language as well as the intention of the user and can learn from instances to predict future occurrences which in turn ensures that they can have a long human interaction.  They are also able to process languages. Digital agents mainly concentrate on natural language processing (NLP) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU). There has been a substantial amount of research in NLP to build advanced capabilities in virtual assistants; case in point Virtual Assistants can now understand slangs used in everyday natural conversations and analyse the sentiments by the use of languages, to enhance an even better set of communication skills.

When it comes to tasks, digital agents have a wider scope and range such as decision making and eCommerce. They are more sentient and thus mature gradually with use.

Why adopt digital assistant?

New technologies are being innovated and created at a scary pace and companies are scrambling to adopt them. The motto that ‘customer is king’ applies to every single brand and hence it is important for companies to adopt technologies that help improve customer experience but at the same time reflect the brand persona as well. At the same time, it also helps the company to retain talent as customer service agents are no longer burdened by an onslaught of mundane, repetitive tasks and can thus enjoy a higher level of job satisfaction and less burnout. This newly found time will also enable agents to address complex service complaints and deliver a more personable customer experience.

Interestingly, using digital agents that are powered by conversational process automation has not only proven to increase customer satisfaction by leaps and bounds and has smoothened the operational process but it has also contributed to employee morale. Agents have self-reported higher employee satisfaction (ESAT) scores when using AI tools, which puts them at a lower risk of burnout, which in turn helps business owners manage turnover, decreasing recruiting and training expenses within the department.

Bottom line

Like we said in the beginning, there are several nuanced technologies that one will have to learn to differentiate between and adopt. With the rapid pace at which artificial intelligence is growing, we can expect newer disruptions at a shorter turnaround time. Our job has now become to understand the applications of this technology and to figure how they may be used in tandem so as to gain the best results.

Top 5 DIFM Website Builders Compared

Many website builders like Hibu, Deluxe and Weebly now offer DIFM (Do-It-For-Me) services, which can bring your unique vision to life and give your site an edge over the competition. Compare the top DIFM brands and get a professional website today.

1. Web.com – Good Choice for Best SEO Rankings

Web.com is the Big Kahuna of DIFM website builders. Plans start at $114.95, and while that may sound high, consider that there are no up-front costs to build a website (some platforms charge thousands of dollars up front), and the monthly plan includes ongoing maintenance. Not only will you get a beautiful, functional, and mobile-friendly website, but the site will have the potential for higher search engine rankings thanks to the company’s commitment to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices. Other benefits include Google Local setup, a variety of tracking tools, and 24/7 phone support.Web.com Pricing

1st monthAfter that
Website builder$1.95/month$22.95/month
Website and marketing$2.95/month$32.95/month
Website, marketing and Ecommerce$3.95/month$42.95/month
Build-it-for-meFree$114.95 and up

*Prices last updated June 2018

If you’re willing to invest a bit more, Web.com can provide custom copy, images, and even off-site marketing for an additional rate. Whether the base rate or a custom plan is the right choice for you, Web.com can provide a fully customized site in as little as 8 days.

Web.comVisit Web.com

2. Hibu –  Custom-Built for You – Now for Free

Hibu is ideal for small- to mid-sized local businesses that are looking for an alternative to do-it-yourself (DIY) website builders. All Hibu-created websites are fully responsive for mobile devices and tablets, and include built-in SEO tools and detailed analytics to track website performance.

There are hundreds of templates to choose from, with simple, modern and clean designs. Hibu’s experts will do all the work, though you are encouraged to provide input to designers. Once your site is live you’ll receive proofs, giving you an additional opportunity to many any final changes.Hibu Pricing

Package 1Package 2Package 3
One-time design & build Fee$99$299$399
Estimated total fees$600$1,200$1,600

*Prices last updated June 2018

Overall, using Hibu to create your site will likely be much cheaper than paying for a website designer – depending on the services you want.

HibuVisit Hibu

3. Weebly – Just Right, If You Can Go It Alone

If you’re willing to pay more up front and potentially save money in the long term, consider Weebly. This website builder offers straightforward pricing to accommodate different needs, including a free domain name, Google Ads, and a host of site features.Weebly Pricing

StarterProBusiness
Monthly price (when paid annually)$8$12$25
StorageUnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited

*Prices last updated June 2018

Once the site is completed and approved, the maintenance becomes your responsibility. Signing up for a Pro or Business plan is a must in order to maintain your hosting and web building capabilities, and you’ll have to use the DIY website editor to make additional, ongoing changes to your site—unless you pay for additional DIFM services.

Members do have access to a community forum, live chat, email support, and phone support, but live help is only available between 5AM and 5PM PT on weekdays, and 7AM to 4PM on weekends. If you’re just looking for a quality custom web build that you can then take control over, Weebly offers a tremendous value.

WeeblyVisit Weebly

4. BigCommerce – Perfect If You’ve Got a Full Plate

BigCommerce is considered one of the best web-building and content management services for Ecommerce businesses. The editor is simple to use even when managing thousands of products, and its inventory management tools are on another level. BigCommerce offers phone, email, and chat support 24 hours a day, and the Ecommerce apps marketplace makes it easy to personalize your site with every kind of customization imaginable. 

While BigCommerce does not have an integrated DIFM package, it does have a Partner Services program that can connect with thousands of 3rd-party designers, developers, SEOs, and marketing experts. This is both good and bad news. On the one hand, it means that purchasing a separate package from a separate expert or agency will be necessary. On the other hand, it means that you’re not locked into a single rate for web design and development. You can compare your options and choose the plan that works best for your budget and needs.BigCommerce Pricing

StandardPlusPro
Monthly price$29.95$79.95$249.95
Online sales per yearUp to $50kUp to $150kUp to $400k

*Prices last updated June 2018

For Enterprise-level companies, you must call for a price quote. All BigCommerce partners are carefully vetted and rated, and they’re required to endure an exhaustive approval process, so have complete confidence in their skills and reliability. 

BigCommerceTry BigCommerce

5. Deluxe – Simply Sites with Easy Customization

Deluxe has served 4.5 million small businesses. It is best for small businesses and startups that need a website designed on a budget. Services include a complete-done-for-you website design, with custom designs to fit your tastes or business, all for a flat monthly fee that includes both design and hosting.Deluxe Pricing

BasicAdvancedPro
Monthly price$30$49$99
Email marketing300 contacts5,000 contacts10,000 contacts
Business Email1 inbox10 inboxes25 inboxes

*Prices last updated June 2018

All packages include a free domain name, email marketing tools to increase your reach and logo design services. It’s easy to get in touch with the support staff through multiple channels, including email, live chat, social media and phone.

DeluxeVisit Deluxe

No DIFM Website Builder Is Right for Everyone

Hopefully, these summaries have helped to clear thing up when it comes to the pros and cons of some of the major DIFM website builders. If you’re seeking a simple, affordable solution that provides ongoing maintenance and the freedom to make changes, check out Web.com. If you’re looking for a one-time web build after which you can take the reins and maintain full control over your site, you won’t do better than Weebly. For serious ecommerce professionals, BigCommerce remains an industry leader for good reason.

Web.com, Weebly, and BigCommerce all have excellent options for when in need of a pro to build a website. Choosing the right platform just boils down to individual needs and budget.

Origynal post https://www.top10.com/website-builders/top-reads/top-5-difm-website-builders-compared

Native vs. Cross-platform Apps which are best?

Native app development takes twice as much time as cross–platform apps. The cost is also higher since it usually requires building more than one app. Maintenance is equally time-consuming and costly, as the developers have to identify bugs and problems for each platform and create different updates accordingly.

Choosing the Right Dev Tools for Your App Project

That’s why you should consult an experienced developer (or CTO) and plan your mobile app strategy taking into account the expected workload and feature set.

Top 12 VR/360 Video Editing Apps for You

VR and 360 video offered a new way for filmmakers and video editors to tell their story. Given the difference between the new medium and traditional 2D media, content creators need different tools for editing 360 videos. You might be familiar with regular video but are at a loss for 360 editing, either on your phone or desktop. We’ve compiled a list of mobile 360 video editors and PC software for you to choose from.

Mobile 360 video editing apps

V360 (Android & iOS)

V360 is a leader in 360 video mobile editing. It packs the following features that enable you to edit multiple clips, where you can trim, rearrange, delete or add clips; add background music; share to mainstream social media complete with 360 metadata.

On the App Store, On Google Play

Editor by Veer (Android & iOS)

VeeR Editor is a free virtual reality video editing software to revolutionize the way you edit 360 videos.

It comes with innovative features tailor-made for 360 content creators:

You can add animated “live stickers”, filters, and background music with volume adjustment;

You can edit multiple clips at the same time, rearrange clips and preview in VR mode before sharing;

You can share to VeeR, Facebook and YouTube with just one tap, as soon as you’ve finished editing;

You can import and export up to 4K resolution videos.

This list has more details concerning the resolution limit for various phone models:

For Android
Note 5, S6, S7,S8, S8+ (3840*1920 editing and 2560*1280 exporting)

For iOS
7p and 8p (3840*1920 editing and exporting)
7 and 8 (3840*1920 editing and 2880*1440 exporting)
5SE, 6, 6P, 6S and 6SP (2880*1440 editing and exporting)

With its most recent update, VeeR Editor also supports 360 photo editing and you can make your photos into a slideshow. Try it out now!

VeeR Editor is currently available for download for both Android and iOSdevices.

Download VeeR Editor on the App Store

Download VeeR Editor on Google Play

When your videos and photos are rendered, share them to VeeR — — your one-stop solution for organizing ALL your 360 content, YouTube, Facebook and WeChat!

Collect (Android, iOS on alpha testing)

Launched in February, Collect is a 360 video editing app that allows you to:

-Compile several clips, trim, rearrange, speed up and slow down clips

-Add filters and background music

-Edit intro scenes

-Add customizable watermarks

The app supports up to 4K resolution, and sets no maximum limit of video length.

Download Collect Beta on Google Play

You can join Collect’s iOS alpha on their official website.

Theta+ for Video and Photo

Theta has two mobile 360 editing apps for photos and videos, named Theta+ and Theta+ Video respectively. The Theta+ Video app features clip trimming, filters, and background music. Four types of formats are available, namely mirror ball, little planet, equirectangular, and rectilinear. Most importantly, the app is camera-agnostic and can work almost any 360 camera.

To edit 360 images, download Theta+:

Download Theta+ on the App Store

Download Theta+ on Google Play

To edit 360 videos, download Theta+ Video:

Download Theta+ Video on the App Store

Download Theta+ on Google Play

Or, download it from Theta’s official website.

TOP 8 VR Video Editing Software for PC

Click on the heading for each item below to purchase and download each software.

Adobe Premiere Pro

During IBC 2017, Adobe showcased new 360 editing tools for Premiere Pro and After Effects, centered around the acquisition of the Skybox Studio plugins from Mettle and their inclusion inside Premiere Pro CC and After Effects CC. VeeR has ever written a blog about how to create a 360 hub video with Adobe Premiere Pro.

Here’s a video tutorial on how to work with Adobe Premiere Pro on VR videosand a second tutorial on how to edit 360/VR videos with the software. You can also refer to Adobe’s full “Support for VR Workflows” page for more specific user guides.

Adobe After Effects

Autopano Video Pro

You can also watch this video by Justin Odisho on how to edit and stitch 4K 360 videos using Autopano Video Pro.

Final Cut Pro X

The latest Final Cut Pro X release includes new features such as 360-degree VR video editing, advanced color grading tools and support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) video. iMac Pro users can even edit full-resolution 8K video using Final Cut Pro X. Apple is also extending 360-degree VR video support to Final Cut Pro companion apps, Motion and Compressor.

Magix Movie Edit Pro

Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus 2018 can stitch 360 videos in realtime, a feature that was introduced in Magix Video Pro X.

Mocha VR

Mocha VR features Academy award-winning planar tracking technology, and a 360° optimized workflow designed to simplify cinematic VR post-production processes. With this program, horizon stabilization, camera masking and general spherical tracking and masking tasks can be easily performed.

Mocha VR is available as a standalone application or plug-in for Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer and OFX Hosts: Nuke, Fusion & Vegas Pro.

Molanis VR

Molanis VR 360 Video Editor features a collection of tools that simplify the process of editing 360-degree video captured from multi-camera systems of up to 14 individual camera sources.

Watch the video below for an overview of MolanisVR’s main features.

Cyberlink PowerDirector

In Cyberlink’s learning center, you can learn about its new features and check out its tutorials under the 360 Video Editingtab.

Also, you can read this guide we developed to learn about more VR video stitching software.

The list is constantly being updated, if we missed anything, let us know in the comments below; or stay tuned for more new tips and product recommendations!

Website vs. Web Application

An IT business may face a common dilemma: create a web app or website for further online sales. At the same time, the eCommerce sphere is rapidly growing. Statista reports that, in 2021, retail eCommerce sales in the US are expected to reach over $638 million dollars.  

For most people, there is no difference between a web app and a website; however, online retailers and eCommerce agencies know the difference, which requires a team with a different skill set.

Let’s talk more about:

  • Websites
  • Web apps
  • Their advantages and what you should choose for your eCommerce business.

Workplace Retaliation

What Is Workplace Retaliation? Retaliation occurs when an employer punishes an employee for engaging in legally protected activity. Retaliation can include any negative job action, such as demotion, discipline, firing, salary reduction, or job or shift reassignment.

What are some Examples of retaliation?

Examples of retaliation include demoting, giving poor evaluations, disciplining, reassigning, reducing pay, or even firing an employee.

10 Year Challenge: How Popular Websites Have Changed

As the #10yearchallenge is making its way around the internet, I thought I would look at how some of the most visited websites on the internet have aged over the last 10 years.

Note: this post is best read on a computer or tablet.

Google

The most noticeable change in Google is its redesigned 2015 logo. 10 years ago, it still had the logo that remained unchanged from 1999 to 2010. Aside from that, the site has certainly become less visually cluttered and dare I say, more minimal.

YouTube

10 years ago, YouTube was only 2 years into its life as a Google subsidiary. It has clearly undergone the flattening and simplification the rest of the web has experienced over the last decade.

Amazon

While Amazon has added nearly $800 billion to its market cap and countless product lines and services over the last decade, the site seems to have become simpler, hiding most things behind menus.

Facebook

Facebook is well-known for being data-driven in its design decisions and not changing things that aren’t broken. Its home page is a perfect example. Little has changed aside from its 2015 redesigned logo.

Reddit

Reddit actually survived most of the last 10 years with few visual changes until mid-2017 when the current design was announced and mid-2018 when it started to roll out to large groups of users.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia’s familiar circular language picker has changed little in the last decade aside from the list of languages represented.

Yahoo

Yahoo may be a new shade of purple and may have a new logo, but it still maintains its jam-packed layout.

Twitter

It’s easy to forget that back in 2009, Twitter was still competing with Facebook, Myspace and others in the hot social networking arena. I find it funny that it had to explain what it did in so many words. Now it’s a household name not requiring any explanation and the homepage is simple and to the point.

eBay

In the last 10 years, eBay has shed a lot of color in its user interface and has tried to position itself as both an e-commerce site and a way to make money.

Imgur

10 years ago, Imgur was little more than an image host built for Redditors by a college student. Fast forward and it’s now one of Alexa’s top 20 most-visited sites in the US.

The New York Times

The New York Times website has visually become more and more like a print newspaper, with simple flat lines, black text and a 4-column layout.

Craigslist

Craigslist is well-known for changing very little since its founding in 1995. I was expecting to see almost no change in the last 10 years, but I’m surprised to see more white space, bigger text, and a better use of space.

IMDB

IMDB has stripped away quite a bit over the last 10 years to focus mostly on video content, awards, and openings.

CNN

CNN, just like the New York Times, has a simpler layout with more visual hierarchy and larger text.

Microsoft

The Microsoft of 2009 was a completely different company. Just look at the labels on the navigation bar in 2009 and 2019. They show how much the company has shifted its focus from technical software to tools for consumers’ lifestyles.

Apple

10 years ago, the iPhone App store was 6 months old and was celebrating 500 million app downloads. Now, the store has sold more than 130 billion apps. That’s 260 times as many. The main site has a new design language with larger type and full-width imagery.

Walmart

Walmart has simplified its site just like many others with more whitespace and less content.

Github

10 years ago, Github was nearly 1 year old and was quickly building its following that would later cement it as the default place for hosting open source repositories.

Zillow

It seems like Zillow has focused its homepage on just the few most common use cases while moving everything else to the header and footer.

Yelp

Yelp is another example of focusing on the most popular use case, finding a restaurant nearby.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow still has its listing of top questions, but it has dedicated quite a bit of its homepage to converting new users.

Etsy

In the last 10 years, Etsy has shifted to be not just a marketplace for handmade items, but an e-commerce site for also finding vintage, custom or unique items.

How to estimate software development time

As was promised, this story is about honesty, courage and sailing dangerous waters.

Honesty is in making fair estimates with the risk of clients falling for a more pleasing estimation. Courage is in facing rejection followed by the struggle to prove your point. Dangerous waters are the pipe-dream estimates attracting inexperienced companies seeking prompt and efficient outcome.

Selenium – Web Browser Automation

Selenium automates browsers. That’s it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should!) be automated as well.

Selenium has the support of some of the largest browser vendors who have taken (or are taking) steps to make Selenium a native part of their browser. It is also the core technology in countless other browser automation tools, APIs and frameworks.

What is an Amazon Alexa skill?

How to find Alexa skills developer?

I’ve been announcing it for a long time, the big technology companies are betting heavily on virtual assistants and home devices or smart speakers. In this race to colonize our homes, Google and Amazon announced their arrival. However, at the hands of Amazon and Alexa there is a new concept that has come to the fore: the skills. An innovative term that is raising doubts and causing the question “what is an Amazon Alexa skill?” Sneaks in all meetings.

So that you are an expert in this technology, in this post I am going to focus on a series of aspects that you must take into account when handling this new concept and environment.

1. What is it?

The first thing you have to be clear about is what is. So that you can assimilate the concept in a simple way, we will say that Alexa’s skills are like the applications you download on your smartphone. Through the Alexa application or a website, you can incorporate or disable these skills. Somehow, an Alexa skill is similar to a web application: there an interface and a server. When interacting with an ability, users talk with Alexa-enabled hardware as the interface, instead of typing in a browser. Alexa developers create the voice interface code for in the Amazon developer console, instead of HTML and CSS on a web server.

2. What kind of skills is there?

Absolutely of all kinds. Just like you find in Apple Store or Google Play a wide variety of applications with which to perform almost any activity, now you already find skills in recipes, games, home automation, music 
 Although among the most used are those that allow some household components such as heating, television and even the rumba robot.

3. Where to find the development manual in these environments?

With so much information have you wanted to start developing Skills? You might need a good app developer to do it. The first tool to move around in this world is Alexa Skills Kit, a set of tools, codes, documentation and, of course, API so that all developers who want to can integrate and develop Skills. In this way, Amazon opens the door to all interested developers to include their developments on the platform and so that users can activate them. Currently, there are more than 30,000 active skills in English.

At the same time, we found Alexa Voice Services, a product similar to the previous one but which aims to allow developers to integrate Alexa directly into their products. In this way, with AVS, developers can really integrate Alexa into their own hardware device, be it a loudspeaker, a bedside alarm or even something bigger, like a vending machine with which they can interact using voice commands. The commands help us a lot to transform what we really want to the applicable solutions.

To note, Amazon offers an AWS credit of $ 100 per month for public skills, and I have not yet incurred a charge for my immobile development skills. So, unless you create the skills of Angry Birds of Alexa, chances are you can use AWS Lambda for free to host your skills.

Final Words

Today we can say that Home Devices or Smart Speakers will colonize your home in a matter of months. The big companies in the sector are promoting that and I have no doubt that next Christmas and Black Friday, Amazon Echo, Google Home or HomePod will be the gift in many homes. Hopefully this article can increase your knowledge. Thank you for reading!

How to connect to the API backend Angular.js

In this article we will learn how to connect our application with a simple API using Restangular library. Restangular – a popular alternative to the built-in self Angular.js library for working with REST API. On its advantages over the standard library are well described on the project’s page at github: https://github.com/mgonto/restangular. For example, it supports all the HTTP methods and devoid of various nasty bugs embedded in Angular.js library.

5 Easy Steps to connect to the API backend Angular.js

As an API, we will use a small web application, written in the framework, of Sinatra, which is written in Ruby. You do not need to write ruby code. To run the API on your machine, perform the following steps:

  1. Install Ruby if you do not yet have. Online set of guidelines on this subject, including the official website https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/
  2. Download the app git clone https://github.com/mkdev-me/sinatra-api-example
  3. Go to the folder with the application and run bundle install
  4. Then run rake db:create db:migrate
  5. Finally, run the application command ruby app.rb

Done! Your little backend ready to go at localhost:4567. Now we can update Angular.js application to work with the API.

We have already connected Restangular step setup of our application: you can see it in the list of dependencies in a file bower.json. Moreover, the library is already loaded as a module, pay attention to the line in src/app/index.js :

angular.module('ngmkdev', ['restangular', 'ui.router', 'ui.bootstrap'])

Therefore, we can go directly to the code. First of all, we need to set the base URL, using which Restangular will build more links. To do this, the library has RestangularProvider provider that we can use in the config block in src/app/index.js :

// src/app/index.js
angular.module('ngmkdev', ['restangular', 'ui.router'])
  .config(function ($stateProvider, $urlRouterProvider, RestangularProvider) {

    RestangularProvider.setBaseUrl("http://localhost:4567");
    < 
 >
});

The main reference for the default will be a link to the server with our API. Now update TransactionsStore so that it uses data from the server. Add two new methods: loadTransactions load all the data from the server, and addTransaction add a new transaction.

// src/components/transations_store.serve.js
angular.module('ngmkdev').factory('TransactionsStore', function(Restangular) {
  return {
    transactions: [],
    loadTransactions: function() {
      this.transactions = Restangular.all('transactions').getList().$object;
    },
    addTransaction: function(transaction) {
      var that = this;
      return Restangular.all('transactions').post({transaction: transaction}).then(function() {
        that.transactions.push(transaction);
      })
    },
    sum: function() {
      var sum = 0;
      this.transactions.forEach(function(el) {
        sum += parseFloat(el.amount);
      })
      return sum;
    }
  }
});

Note the function then(). It is performed only when the completed request to add transaction. This mechanism is called the promises, which is an alternative for the usual jQuery callback mechanism. promise The difference is that we do not need to keep in mind when a callback is executed. Angular.js thus provides a guarantee that if the function A has finished its execution, the function B is executed (and only if the function A really well done).

In this case, we ensure that the array is updated only after the transaction is successfully saved a new transaction to the server. To reduce the number of server requests we will keep in memory all the transactions and update the array manually, instead of each time getting all transaction server.

Most Restangular functions return a promise-objects. For example, getList(), which we use for all transactions. To get yourself a transaction, we can either use then(), a method of $object, which immediately returns us all transactions.

Using the method of all(), we specify with some resource work. Restangular he guesses which links to send and receive data, provided that your application complies with REST API standards. Thus, post() will create a new record, get() will get a record, etc.

Controller code has not undergone major changes:

// src/app/main/transactions.controller.js
angular.module('ngmkdev').controller('TransactionsCtrl', function($scope, TransactionsStore) {

  TransactionsStore.loadTransactions();

  this.addTransaction = function() {
    TransactionsStore.addTransaction(this.newTransaction);
    this.resetTransaction();
  }

  this.resetTransaction = function() {
    this.newTransaction = {
      amount: 0.0,
      date: "1993-02-01",
      description: null
    }
  }
  this.transactions = TransactionsStore.transactions;
  this.resetTransaction();
});

Now all new transactions will be stored in the database and then reload the page, they will not be lost.

You probably created numerous test transactions to see how everything works. Now you have to be on them as something to get rid of. Commit to the changes: a0629f.

Homework:

  • Add and implement the delete button transaction.

This is the last article on Angular.js course. For 6 issues, we met with all the basic tools of modern frontend development and, following the best practices, a full written application running with the backend via the API. The knowledge gained will serve as an excellent foundation for writing more complex applications Angular.js. Write in the comments what you think about this series and how is your study and application Angular.js.

Becoming More Efficient with Text Messaging Tools

It’s no secret that effective communication is essential to running a business; that means communicating with your customers as well as your employees.

Communication is so important that a recent study by Willis Towers Watson said

Companies with good communication practices are three and a half times more likely to outperform their competitors.

  • Efficiency Increases
  • Text Makes Documents Easy to Access
  • Your Communication Strategy
  • Put it in Writing
  • Send Out Reminders

In this article, we’re going to look at why mass text messaging makes you more efficient and what are the benefits of incorporating it into your communication strategy.

Efficiency Increases

When your team communicates, and everyone is on the same page, there’s less chance that mistakes can be made.

While most communication in the workplace still takes place face-to-face, technology brings new ways in which to get in touch with your team and to ensure everyone is working toward the same goal.

Several ways employers can use technology to communicate with their employees are text messages, video conference calls, emailing, and social media. However, what’s becoming most popular with companies is to employ an automated text messaging system. This system proves crucial time and again to lessen the chance of missed appointments and costly mistakes.

Text Makes Documents Easy to Access

Data shows that people open and read text messages at a rate of 98%, which is astounding when you compare that to emails which are opened and read at a rate of about 20%.

If you have relevant information or documents you need to share with your team, the text message is far more likely to be read than any other form of communication right now.

What’s Your Communication Strategy?

Text messaging is the primary way people communicate now, and it’s even more widespread with Millennials and Gen Xers. As these people age, and with new generations coming up, the number of people using text messaging is only going to increase. If your sales team and marketing team aren’t incorporating a text messaging strategy into your communications efforts, you’re missing out on millions of potential customers because we’re all on our phones all day.

To increase communication between employees, many companies are adding a social intranet to their system. This intranet when combined with internal texting, helps to modernize outdated communications systems that exist in many offices today. Also, this system increases the speed at which communication happens and ensures higher response rates.

Put it in Writing

You can tell someone in a meeting to do something, but you can’t always be sure they got the message and understood it. Texting orders to your team ensure that everyone gets the same message and that everyone understands what you’re asking.

Send Out Reminders

You can increase efficiency if you send out reminders via text to your team. These can be about meeting reminders, appointment reminders, or company events.

The more you communicate with your team and with your customers, the better off you are as a business. If you’re not utilizing a text messaging system, it’s crucial that you adopt one as soon as possible.

Best International Call Services of 2018

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Use Some IoT Apps for Development your Business

IoT stands for Internet of things is the network of devices, vehicles, and home appliances that contain electronics, software, and connectivity which allow these things to connect, interact and exchange data. These days, many businesses are getting the helps IoT app developments. The main purposes behinds IoT is to create the network of device that will communicate with each other and established strong connections. It allows the devices to exchange and collect data, optimize infrastructure expenses. This connection will be possible to integrate the complex algorithm that helps to reduced routine workload.

If you would like to increase your business, then you have to use IoT apps for your business. These days, the internet of things are increased more popularity across the world. IoT is revolutionizing the interaction between products, people and customers.  Here are some examples of IoT which helps to reduce the workload such as and phones can be used for remote control. Home appliances staffed by sensors and smart TV and virtual reality headsets can be displayed. With the assist of IoT, you can get various benefits and helps to reduce the workload. Here are some IoT Ideas for Business which helps to grow your business and increased popularity.

TOP IoT App Ideas

1.    Smart Home: If you want to open IoT business, then you can choose an idea for your home. Many IoT startups are trying to create unique smart home solutions. While the rapidly growing using cloud computing system that will help to handle the interactions between smart home services.  There are many things where you can implement IoT such as remote light control, access to security cameras, thermostat control, and home appliances control. Another great IoT examples which helpful for watering system Niwa and Lono.

2.    Sports & fitness:  the sports and fitness area is also used the fitness tracker as IoT. It also provides extra embedded sensors into the sportswear. There are many apps of IoT trackers such as posture tracker, pronation tracker, pressure and heart rate monitor, and blood oxygen level control. In the market, numerous water roof sensors and IoT fitness projects. You can also be used as motivation to control your health.

3.    IoT for restaurants: In the hotels and private sports clubs are already using smart bracelets to navigate guests across the territory. The most common and useful IoT are automatic products ordering, expiration date tracking systems, replenishment of cleaners, optimization of expenses.

4.    Industrial IoT: This is one of the most promising areas for IoT integrations. These days, all of the IOT companies are used the Internet of things which helps to improve your business and provide benefits for your business. Some IoT app development software for small and medium-sized enterprise. These IoT are: engine sensor can reduce the equipment wears by 30%. Soil analyzers can cut by 1/3 the consumptions of chemicals, seeds, and fertilizers, and some delivery algorithm that will automatically order the replicable part of the machinery.   

5.    E-commerce: These days, e-commerce also increases the popularity of across the world. There are many e-commerce businesses and online shopping mall. In this field, IoT plays an important role in the management of the cash transactions. These fields are getting great benefits for your business.

Bottom line

With the internet of things become smart, connected to each other, and more focused on increasing the role in the life of each person. The IoT and are truly opened up for provides the great benefits to the businesses and grow the incomes. The main success of the IoT will be achieved through the development of a new economic platform.


How App Development Can Boost Your Business

In the present world, they are all of the pockets now. Of course, I’m talking about mobile devices. It is not one of the sources of calling now; it also includes other functionality like the functionality of devices is to run a whole host of apps that serve every imaginable purpose. With the assist of apps, most of the businesses are growing in the industry. It is offering ridicules range of products if you want to prepare for the future and start seeing the massive benefits of the apps. Apps provide various Services for Business Owners. With the assist of apps, you can increase profits for your business. These benefits are:

 Provide huge value to your Customers:

Through apps, you can offer a product; the market opens their wallets with their demand. It is one of the best ways to encourage more of this wallet-opening engagement from your customers. You can promote your business and increase interaction with customers. But, you also have to provide the value of product your customers. It is also one of the ways to create a loyalty program within your app. With apps, more customers interact with your business and products. If you don’t use the app for your business, then you are missing the great opportunity to grow your business. You can digitize your business through apps.

Build a Strong Brand:

It is one of the essential things a mobile app offers to customers is the awareness of and interaction with your brand. Moreover, through regular interaction and target, you can increase the trust of the customers. Through apps, you can quickly build your strong brand. With the app, you will demonstrate to your users why they should trust you by showing. It is one of the great opportunities to describe your business brand in the market.

 Create better Connections between Customers:

The customer’s services are not just about face to face communication and selling products. Through solid mobile apps, you can quickly represent to the customers. It is one of the best ways and interfaces specifically to provide them with the best experience of studying and deciding whether people want to buy or sell products. These days, apps help to ensure complete customer satisfaction in business. If you are not active through the app, then you are missing great opportunity to grow your business across the world.

Boost profits:

Apps plays an important role to enhance business. With the assist of apps, you can easily grow your business and boost various benefits for business. When customer satisfaction increases, automatically sales also increased. It is one of the best ways to improve the customer demands for your business products. If you launch your mobile app with your responsive website, then you will get 100% effective results, and you will boost sales while enhancing the customer satisfaction.

 Other Benefits:

These benefits are not enough of the mobile apps for your business, there are several benefits of the business apps. Moreover, there are various reasons to consider adopting the business apps strategy to increase more customer satisfaction. With the assist of apps, you can boost multiple benefits for your business like inform users of new products and offers. It helps to increase the capacity for competition. It also synchronization user emails and social media accounts. Moreover, if your business website structure is correct, then you will get various benefits for your business with apps. If you want to get all of the benefits for your business, then you have to make your business app to make your services quickly.

TOP web Development Companies

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  • unifiedinfotech.net Best App Development Company New York, USA | Web Development NYC
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  • arckinteractive.com Custom Web Development | Elgg & WordPress Development Portland OR
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  • mobikasa.com Top Web & Mobile App Development Company in NYC, USA – Mobikasa
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  • wdg.co WDG | Elite Web Design & Development Company
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  • 10clouds.com Web and Mobile Development Company – 10Clouds
  • iflexion.com Web Development Company – Web Development Consulting – Iflexion
  • xsolve.software XSolve Agile Software Development | JS, PHP, Java, Python, Mobile

Mobile App Development Trends

Now, everyone uses a smartphone to browse the internet, checking emails, surfing social media platforms, managing events, listening music, playing games, watching videos, taking photos, reading news, writing messages and of course making phone calls. Today all activities can be performed using one single device, but these things were not even in our mind if we think back some 10 years ago.  As a result, smartphones have clearly changed the way we live and perform our daily routine.

Recent research shows more than 3 billion people around the globe own a smartphone. Now we are all connected to our phones in a different way and this usage helps drive innovation, new ideas, and thrilling app development trends.

Here are the most important Mobile App Development trends shared by Moshe Strugano to keep an eye on in 2018:

Apps based on Cloud Computing:

Cloud computing has created a great buzz in recent years. Cloud apps are considered as a combination of usual Web applications and desktop applications. Cloud apps offer offline mode, rich user experience and immediate replies to user actions. In addition, cloud apps don’t require installation on a computer, every data is stored in the cloud.  It’s all regarding dipping the blow on an internal memory of mobile devices. For e.g. Dropbox or Google Cloud.

Apps based on Artificial intelligence (AI):

AI is a prevailing personalization tool that provides business users some extremely delectable insights through user’s information, browsing, and buying habits. AI access superior analytics, cognitive boundaries to multifaceted systems and machine learning tech. Consider Quick Response (QR) codes as its example, which includes location, prices, and online links to content, and videos users normally browse. Microsoft Pix, SwiftKey AI and Hound are some of the best examples of powerful AI tools in the mobile app room.

Wearable apps:

Wearables are contemporary and speedily developing class of devices bringing high mobility, live access to data, and content-awareness to the users. A large number of devices such as from wristbands to chest sensors are developing and giving free access to the wearer for surfing in many different ways. Wearable apps mostly focus on sports and fitness to count your calories, assess your sleep quality and evaluating other fitness constraints.

Blockchain

The Blockchain is the technology that follows cryptocurrencies. The blockchain is an imperishable digital ledger of financial transactions that can be programmed for recording financial transactions and virtually keep everything according to its value. Blockchain apps are useful in everyday life and business.

Conclusion:

We have always prepared for the next big thing in the industry. Tech moves at huge speed and creates innovation and excitement among users. Every new application can resolve big problems and change daily lives on a big scale.

How To Start Your Own Football Betting Blog with WordPress

Pro football is America’s favorite sport. From baby boomers to Gen Xers, every American demographic is obsessed with the gridiron. Why not turn that obsession into a profit by starting a football betting blog?

Everybody is blogging these days. In fact, there are more than 173 million active bloggers. With personal stories and storytelling on the rise, blogs will continue to be a major force in the New Media.

WordPress is a popular blogging platform, perfect for bloggers just starting out. Currently, WordPress is powering 28% of the Internet, making it a great place for those choosing a blog platform for the first time.

Continue reading, to find out how to start a football betting blog on WordPress.

How to Start a Football Betting Blog on WordPress

Before we get started, let’s talk a bit about what WordPress is and does.

WordPress is the most popular Content Management Software (CMS) on the Internet. CMS solutions allow a user to update a website without knowing how to program or code.

With WordPress, users can:

  • Publish and edit posts
  • Categorize articles
  • Search content
  • Manage users’ access
  • Customize themes and layouts

Step 1: Download and Install WordPress

Start by downloading the newest version of WordPress. Unzip the compressed file.

Step 2: Decide on a Hosting Solution

With WordPress, it’s possible to publish on the native WordPress.com site. You won’t be able to customize your domain name, however.

WordPress.com users are stuck with the “yourdomainname.wordpress.com” web address. This may make it more difficult for search engines to find you.

Step 3: Upload WordPress Files to Your Server

For those hosting WordPress on their own site, you’ll need to settle on a server. Bluehost.com and GoDaddy.com are popular choices. When your domain name is registered, upload the WordPress files to the server using an FTP client.

Step 4: Create a MySQL Database

Sign up with MySQL.com. Create a MySQL database and assign a user to it, with full access. Write down the database name, username, and password.

Step 5: Install WordPress

Navigate to “http://yourdomain.com” and follow the installation instructions. Or do the same for “http://yourdomainname.wordpress.com.”

Step 6: Decide on a Niche

Decide what angle will be used to hook readers. Sites that feature personal stories make for a very different football betting blogs than one like UltimateCapper, which posts free NFL picks weekly.

Step 7: Start Writing

Now that a niche has been decided on, it’s time to start creating content.

Remember, blogging is hard work but it pays off in dividends. Don’t worry about it being perfect, either. One of the great things about blogging is it’s possible to learn along the way.

Step 8: Post Consistently

Create interesting, unique content regularly. Decide on a schedule and stick to it. Readers will begin to look forward to the blog posts. They’ll even spread the word, so the marketing takes care of itself.

Step 9: Hard work and Make Money

Whether making money from betting, or getting paid to promote products, blogging can be a fun, inspiring way to make money from home.

A football betting blog can be a lot of work, but writing it is also super fun and rewarding. It’s great to see personal thoughts, perspectives, and opinions go out into the world. It’s also great to help others make a buck doing what they love, while you do the same.

Ready to Take the Plunge and Start Your Blog?

Ready to start making money doing what you love? 

How to Start a Sports Blog on WP

Do you want to do something you love and make money while you’re doing it? You should consider setting up your own sports blog, writing about sports, and making money in the process.

If you don’t know how to start a sports blog, you might be under the impression that it’s too difficult to do it. But in reality, you can set up a blog in a matter of just minutes and then build up a fan base while finding ways to monetize your efforts.

Find out how to start a sports blog below–and then get started on your own.

Pick out a Blogging Platform

The first thing you’ll want to do before you put together a single piece of blog content is to pick the platform you’ll use to blog. Most people choose to go with WordPress, but you have other options. You want to select something you will be comfortable with using.

When trying to figure out how to start a sports blog, this is the part that frustrates people the most. They think they won’t be able to blog because they don’t have experience coding or doing any of the other things you need to do to create a blog.

But don’t worry about it! WordPress and other platforms will allow you to set up a blog in less than 30 minutes with ease. You’ll be blogging in no time once you have your platform picked out.

Come up with a Name for Your Sports Blog

Once you’ve committed to blogging about sports by picking out the right platform, you’ll need to come up with a good name for your sports blog. You want something catchy that people will remember and will want to visit over and over again.

You should avoid using names that are too long. You should also avoid using names that incorporate the name of a team or even a player. You could face a lawsuit in the future and be forced to shut down your blog if you name it something like “NewYorkYankeesNews.com.”

After you have chosen your blog name, you should buy the domain associated with it–assuming it’s available. If it isn’t, you’ll need to go back to the drawing board and find a different name.

Start Blogging About Whatever You Want

Now that you know how to start a sports blog and have picked out a platform and created a name, it’s time to get started!

You should try and figure out exactly what you want to blog about. Whether you want your blog to be all about the NBA’s best players or the best wedges for golfers, narrowing down the focus of your blog is a good idea.

This will allow you to target those who are interested in something other than just a broad topic like “sports.” If you go after, say, amateur golfers who want to gain an advantage on the golf course, you’ll have a much better chance of gaining a faithful following for your blog.

Use Social Media to Build up Your Blog Followers

Social media has become an invaluable tool for anyone looking to start a blog. It’s especially helpful for sports bloggers who are active on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

You can use social media to post links to the blogs you put up. You can also post GIFs, photos, and more on social media to build up awareness about your blog.

You want people to get a sense of your blog’s personality through the posts you put up on social media. It will encourage them to come and visit your blog to see what you’re all about.

Find Ways to Generate a Profit from Your Blog

This is the tricky part. By now, you’ve found out how to start a sports blog and you’ve done it. You’ve also racked up views on your site by posting quality sports blog content.

So, how do you monetize it?

There are so many ways you can do it. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Sell merchandise on your blog that your followers will appreciate.
  • Create a “members only” section on your blog where people can get access to exclusive content for a small fee.
  • Enroll in an affiliate marketing program and get rewarded for helping to sell certain products and services.
  • Use Google AdSense to place ads on your blog.
  • Offer advertising opportunities to larger companies (this will be a real possibility once you’re bringing in about 10,000 unique viewers every month).

Not all sports blogs are profitable. You need to be strategic about how you approach blogging if you want to make money from it.

But if you don’t start making money right away, don’t get frustrated! As long as you’re willing to work at it, it’s more than possible to make money by blogging.

Continue Updating Your Sports Blog

Your blog is up and running. It has a ton of great sports content on it. You’re even making some money on it every month.

Great! But you shouldn’t stop now. In fact, this is really only the beginning for you and your sports blog.

Learning how to start a sports blog is the first part of the battle. But once that’s done, you need to keep putting quality content up on your site so people come back to it again and again.

You should also continue to push the boundaries and create new content so that people are encouraged to come back.

As time goes on, your brand will become bigger, and people will begin to tell their friends about it. This will lead to you running a successful sports blog and making money as you do it.

Learn How to Start a Sports Blog Today

There are so many good reasons to start a blog in 2019. Whether you blog about sports or another topic, it will be fulfilling and could even turn into a full-time job before long.

Own Real Estate Websites for Selling a Home

A 2017 survey by the National Association of Realtors¼ reported 51% of buyers found their homes on the internet, 30% found homes through an agent, and a dwindling 7% discovered their eventual home through a yard sign or open house. This should tell you one thing: if you’re selling a house in 2018, you don’t just need to be on the internet, you need to be on the right real estate websites.

So, exactly what are those websites? I’m so glad you asked because I’ve got a list of favorites below.

Core features of Real Estate platforms

Creating a real estate web platform isn’t the same as just creating a website with a list of available houses. To attract users to your platform, it should offer something more. We studied the five most popular real estate platforms in the US and the UK and analyzed their main features.

  • Registration
  • Search filters
  • Listings + photos
  • Maps
  • Favorites
  • Local info
  • Payments
  • Messaging
  • Calendar

Best Real Estate Agent Websites

1. Zillow

  • Best for: Buyers, renters, sellers, finding agents, finding mortgage lenders
  • About: Whether you’re buying, selling, or browsing Zillow has something for you. If you’re listing a home on Zillow yourself, you’ll receive access to a sales proceeds calculator, your home’s “zestimated” value, a local news feed, and tools to help you price your home accurately.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

2. Realtor.com

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, renters, finding agents, finding mortgage lenders
  • About: Sellers can calculate what their home’s worth, discover how to start the home-selling process, and learn how to select just the right agent for their needs. And, Realtor.com is licensed from the National Association of REALTORSÂź, so you can trust the content you find here.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

3. Redfin

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding agents
  • About: Redfin helps you sell your home for as low as a 1% listing fee. In this entry package, you’ll receive the help of a local Redfin Agent, professional photos and a 3D walkthrough, premium placement on Redfin.com, a yard sign, and open houses. Willing to pay a little more? Their 2% Listing Fee service includes everything in the 1% plan, plus, a custom home improvement plan, vetted service providers, and cost coverage for project management, deep cleaning, professional staging, and decluttering.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

4. Trulia

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding an agent
  • About: Trulia goes beyond static listings. They source insights from the people who live in your neighborhood to offer buyers neighborhood map overlays that provide deeper understanding of the community they’re buying into. See the prices of recently sold homes in your neighborhood and home values in your community. And, get advice from local real estate agents, brokers and others on Trulia Voices, their namesake real estate community.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

5. MLS

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, realtors
  • About: MLS.com is a free Multiple Listing Service search for real estate MLS listings from licensed RealtorsÂź and other real estate professionals that are members of their local MLS. List home for sale, new homes, resale homes, new construction, acreage, lots, land, commercial property, and investment property here.
  • Mobile App: N/A

6. CENTURY 21 Real Estate

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding an agent
  • About: Did you know the typical home sale today involves more than 20 steps after the initial contract is accepted? CENTURY 21Âź agents walk you through each step to move toward a quick-and-easy close. Together, you’ll create a marketing plan, add value to your home before selling, set the right price, and show your home at its best. With CENTURY 21, you can expect a traditional, full-service approach to real estate.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

10. Craigslist

  • Best for: Adventurous buyers, sellers, renters
  • About: Oh yes, it’s possible to sell or at least advertise your home on Craigslist. And with 50 billion pageviews every month, it’s easy to see why so many people choose Craigslist as a real estate hub. Simply create a new post, click “housing offered,” and optimize your ad with a killer headline, great photos, and descriptive copy. Obviously, you’ll want to beware scammers and unwanted investors — but if you favor an avant-garde approach to life, listing your house on Craigslist might give you a thrill.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

7. RE/MAX

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding an agent
  • About: Whether you’re looking to sell your home locally or expand your real estate globally, commercially, or into the luxury realm — RE/MAX can help. And with franchises and agents available in all 50 states, you’re sure to find one that specializes in your city and specific needs.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

8. Coldwell Banker Realtors

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding an agent
  • About: CBx is new Coldwell Banker technology giving their agents an edge. It provides more accurate pricing, uses big data to locate the right buyers for your home, and strategically markets your property by focusing on only the most qualified prospective buyers. Request an estimate on Coldwell Banker’s website to get started.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

9. HomeFinder

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, renters
  • About: HomeFinder is purely a listing tool. For $39 per month, you’ll be able to upload as many photos of your home as you’d like, easily share your listing on social media, and receive priority sorting, which means your listing will appear ahead of basic properties. HomeFinder also gives you the option of allowing home buyers or renters to email or call you directly.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

11. Facebook

  • Best for: Sellers
  • About: Want to sell your home, fast? Find a Facebook-friendly real estate agent and start running ads. Ensure your agent is up to date on the latest in this social media giant’s algorithm changes, because you’ll want to know whether to create videos, static images, or text forward posts to get the most bang for your buck. Facebook’s targeting abilities allow you and your agent to get your home’s ad in front of the people who will find it most relevant, and a link back to your realtor’s site or the MLS listing will funnel leads directly to your doorstep.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

12. Homes.com

  • Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding an agent
  • About: Let Homes.com know what matter most to you in a home and they’ll match you with properties that meet your demands — plus, they’ll give you a unique match rating so you know just how much of a match each home is. See a home you like? Snap a picture and Homes.com will help you source a few similar option. Like a dating site for your house, Homes.com promises to find the perfect buyer or home for you.
  • Mobile App: iOS | Android

13. PropertyRecord.com

  • Best for: Sellers
  • About: Current property value, land value, number of bathrooms, and government property records are just a few of the details you’ll learn from this information aggregator. It might not be fancy, but it uses an advanced algorithm and real reviews to give you a high-quality report on any home you’d like to sell.
  • Mobile App: N/A

Selling your home is one of the biggest financial decisions you’ll ever make. Don’t choose the wrong website or agent. Start with this list and find the right fit for your needs. Are you a realtor hoping to grow your business?

GitHub Actions

This is the biggest thing we’ve done since the pull request.

Since GitHub’s launch in 2008, engineers on over 96 million projects have used the platform to store their code, control their versioning, and collaborate with teammates. It is one of the most impactful tools in the history of software—and it just got a lot more powerful. 

This week, the company announced GitHub Actions, a workflow automation tool. With an interface that will be familiar to anyone who has used IFTTT, Actions will help engineers run their workflows directly from GitHub. 

That means no more mucking around with 10 different services just to get your code into production. Engineers will be able to automate time-consuming, low-level workflows and, as GitHub puts it, “Focus on what matters: code.” Just like repos, Actions will be shareable and discoverable. 

The product reveal comes just before the anticipated close of Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub. While many initially questioned the high price—GitHub was on its 10th month without a CEO when it was acquired, and analysts pegged its value closer to $3 billion —Microsoft’s thinking is clear: 

Like its acquisitions of Skype and LinkedIn, the real payoff from purchasing GitHub isn’t revenue—it’s all the users (31 million in GitHub’s case) it’s able to bring into Microsoft’s world. 

As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently reminded, “Every business is a software business.” Engineering talent is one of the most valuable assets in the business world right now, and with GitHub, Microsoft just turned most of the world’s engineers into Microsoft users. 

At $7.5 billion, that’s a steal.


Your equity could be worth millions—or nothing

In 2014, mobile security startup Good Technology was valued at $1.1 billion. Employees thought their equity packages were winning lottery tickets. They were wrong. 

One year later, Good sold for $425 million. Employee share prices tumbled from $4.32 a share to $0.44. While executives made millions, employees—some of whom paid $100,000+ in taxes on their equity—made next to nothing. 

Good Technology

Good Technology’s situation isn’t uncommon. Like many startups, it had investors and board members whose equity was protected by high liquidation preference—a guarantee that they get paid first and at least a certain amount when the company sells. When startup investors make millions in a sale, but money runs dry before reaching employees, a bad preference stack is often the cause. 

The key for employees is knowing what to expect, so we made a simple guide to what preferences are, why they’re important, and how you might negotiate with them in mind.

TOP 50 Questions to Hack your Audience like a Boss

Product-Fit Questions:


1. What is the primary benefit that you have received from (product or service name)?
2. What are the top three benefits you get from (product or service name)?
3. How would you feel if you could no longer use (product or service name)? Why?
4. What would you likely use as an alternative to (product or company name) if it were no longer available?
5. Have you recommended (product or company name) to anyone? If so, how did you describe it?
6. What other roles or titles besides yours do you think would get a big benefit from (product or service name)?
7. How could we improve (product or company name) to better meet your needs?
8. At what point would this product/service get expensive but still be worth it?
9. What problem were you trying to solve when you initially came across our product or service?
10. What’s holding you back from using (product or company name)?

Market Research:


11. What’s the biggest challenge you currently face in your role?
12. What are your 3-6 month goals in your role?
13. What’s the biggest stress in your job?
14. What are the biggest obstacles to achieving your goals?
15. What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to X industry?
16. What would hold you back from making a purchasing decision?
17. What features or values to do you look for when purchasing from a company?
18. If you were to hire someone for your position, what skills would they need?
19. Do you tend to stick with the same brand for most of the products you buy?
20. What might cause you to switch from one product or brand to another?

Online Habits:


21. Where do you go for advice on X industry?
22. What other company or industry blogs do you read in this space?
23. What people do you trust most for advice on X topic?
24. When you think about X industry, what people or companies come to mind?
25. What publications, newspapers or magazines do you read on a weekly/monthly basis?
26. When looking for a product or solution, where do you search first (Google, Bing, Amazon, etc.)?
27. What social media networks do you use regularly?
28. Are you active in any LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, or other online communities?
29. Are there any YouTube channels in X industry that you subscribe to?
30. Where do you spend the most time online?

Employee Satisfaction:


31. Would you recommend a friend or colleague to work at our company? Why?
32. During a typical week, how often do you feel stressed at work?
33. How well are you paid for the work you do?
34. If you were to quit tomorrow, what would your reason be?
35. Do you feel there is room for professional growth/advancement within our company?
36. Do you see yourself working here one year from now?
37. Has your manager given you any recognition in the past two weeks?
38. How proud are you of your employer’s brand?
39. On a scale from 0-10, how meaningful do you believe your work is?
40. Have you noticed your job taking a toll on your personal life?

Post-Purchase Survey Questions:


41. Why did your purchase from our company?
42. How did you find our website?
43. Was it easy to find the products you wanted?
44. Are you satisfied with the product or service you ordered?
45. How can we improve our purchase process?

Post-Chat or Post-Support Survey Questions:

46. Was your issue resolved as a result of this chat, phone call, or email?
47. How long did you have to wait before speaking to a support member?
48. How satisfied are you with the support you received?
49. What type of support communication methods do you prefer?
50. How could we improve our customer service?

Posted here growthhackingidea.com by Aladdin Shchaslyvyi

TOP matching platforms 2019

Today I want to show you the results of the analysis of the most popular applications in the category of a matching platform.

These are platforms that help you find an artist or contractor to solve your problems.

For the analysis, I used the base of available applications of crutch base and Google Trends popularity statistics.

#1 Jurny – The Core Values Matching Platform

Jurny is a web-based platform that helps its users discover their core values and matches them with related businesses.

#2 SocialHouse

SocialHouse A matching platform that matches housemates for shared housing to connect like-minded people for living.

#3 TalentPool

Talent Matching Platform. SME focus.

Agile Development in Real Life

First, let me be clear about one thing: I love Agile development. I ran a software company for 10+ years and we exclusively did Agile development. I have trained multiple teams on how to be Agile and love to talk about it. I absolutely don’t think that Agile is bullshit.

That said, I think that 90% of what’s grown up around Agile is total bullshit. Call it the Agile-verse. The Agile-verse includes all the Agile consultants, books, keynote speeches, events, conferences, agile software, and the endless list of Agile-centric processes that people keep inventing. It’s just too much. It’s even become fashionable to blog about the Agile bullshit carnival, or how Agile is a scam (irony mine).

So What’s Real About Agile Development?

The methodology of Agile, as described by the Agile manifesto, is real. The essential elements that comprise Agile are a profound paradigm shift from old-school development. An abridged version is below:

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan

These are valuable and meaningful statements, to say the least. The Agile manifesto, however, doesn’t tell us much about how to execute an Agile project, and that has left the door open for a whole lot of, well, crap.

Agile Is Different For Everyone

Having participated or observed hundreds of Agile projects, I’ve arrived at two truths:

  1. There is no “right” way to do Agile. Each organization is unique and must adapt the nuts and bolts of an Agile process to their needs. Agile anticipates this type of flexibility.
  2. Since there is no ‘right’ way to do it, just about anyone can call themselves “Agile” and start consulting or advising everyone else about how to do it right. There is no barrier to entry; everyone can be an expert.

When you combine these two points, it’s easy to see why a bullshit firehose has been unleashed on the software community.

So What’s Bullshit About Agile?

Simply put, most of the culture, articles, research, infographics, blog posts, reports, opinions, consultants, books, events, etc. surrounding Agile.

Be wary of these different shades of Agile brown (in no particular order):

  1. There are many flavors of Agile development, but most of them taste about the same. Try searching Google for different types of Agile and you’ll find a convoluted mess of discussion about it. Ignore this — most of them are so similar that it won’t matter much for your organization. Just try to understand Agile concepts, and maybe scrum and kanban, and ignore the rest.
  2. Agile doesn’t work for everyone. It’s not the end-all, be-all and it’s certainly not a good fit for many organizations. A big percentage of the bullshit comes from people who want to apply Agile to domains outside software, like Agile government, Agile marketing, or Agile education
or even silly mashups like Agile education marketing! Agile government? Please. I’m sure there are some valuable tidbits, but mostly this is a waste of time and should be ignored.
  3. Agile consultants suck. Not all of them, but close. It’s a circus out there, and anyone can grab a scrummaster certification and repeating talking points for money. Over the years I’ve only met a few Agile consultants who really brought value, and none of them called themselves “Agile consultants.” Worse yet are the Agile consultants who feel compelled to blog about their tired insights. Ignore anyone who promises to teach you how to be more Agile.
  4. Arguing over the best way to do Agile is a total waste of time. Once you have a process that is working for you, it’s not going to help you to dig into the big “what is true Agile” debate. It’s Agile enough if it’s bringing productivity or quality gains to your team. Ignore these esoteric and useless debates. Resist the urge to find that perfect path to Agile bliss and forge your own path.

That all said, there are great Agile-related resources out there. I spend much of my days looking at Pivotal Tracker and Jira or reading articles by the great Martin Fowler. I’ll put more of these together into a future blog post.

Pragmatic, Real-World Agile

If you take care to remain reasonably true to the Agile manifesto while ignoring the other 90% you should be just fine. It doesn’t matter if you are more on the kanban side or the scrum side, or if you have a quasi-Agile approach with a few necessary Waterfall elements. If you are applying Agile concepts to your organization and seeing value, you’re doing it right. Make no apologies.

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