Category Archives: Software Development - Page 2

In todays world where everything is technologically controlled, software development has become an indispensable part. As an emerging industry, it is turning out to be increasingly essential for software developing companies to build their product in a manner that matches creative business models. Working with a smart team impacts both the quality of the product and the business’s bottom line. By following the below compiled 4 smart strategies, software development companies in India have managed to enhance their overall efficiency.

1) Multiple Skill-set Team: Team with the right blend of skillset for various requirements and diverse phases of the software development lifecycle is a must. All-rounder employees with expertise in testing & coding enhances the overall productivity. Working with a fully stocked team of experts would ensure hassle free working of diverse representatives all through the process.

2) 24×7 Availability: With most of the companies operating globally, working in shifts optimizes the time management. This has to be done strategically. For instance, a quality testing group can test the software during the night and send bug reports in the morning so that they can be rectified. This way, it will be easy to get out the most from a specific time slot.

3) Delegation of Task: Some phenomenally tedious and distressing tasks such as support, customization & maintenance should be assigned to an external source. By doing so, the development team would be able to concentrate on its core task improving the product quality.

4) Competitive Cost: However cost plays an important role in attracting a customer, it needs to planned well. Organizations can drastically reduce on the development costs by smart utilization of the resources & time. This should instead be given to the customer which again would improve the company’s bottom line by scaling approach.

Before understanding about the tools that are used for usability testing, it is of paramount importance to understand, what Usability Testing is all about?
It is a process in which the evaluation of a product by testing it on users, that is used in user-centered interaction designs, is done. A highly effective mode of testing, it gives a direct and accurate result of viability of a process through user interaction. Not only this, but this process is also used for checking the human made product’s capability to meet its intended customer.

Since the advent of 21st century, human civilization has travelled various miles. From inventing the first computing device to today’s mobile applications, all has been a testimony of our development and evolvement with time. Not only this, but the pace with which e-commerce websites have been developed makes ‘usability testing’ more important.

Software development in India is not new, but the programmers working in India are much more creative and advanced in all terms. Owing to which, they have developed some vital and effective tools for usability testing including, Concept Feedback, the process in which all pivotal information is gathered from experts about new designs for marketing or advertising. Other than this, Chalkmark, Clicktale, Clixpy, Crazyegg, Ethnio, Feng-Gui.com and feedback army are the other tools.

All these tools are very useful and easy in application. And these usability testing tools assist clients in many ways. Removal of errors, easy software learning, better quality software and easy acceptance of software by the users are some of the benefits that end user can have from this.

In recent time software development has turned out to be excessively mind boggling for contemporary businesses, making it impossible to handle. However, a wide range of organizations have possessed the capacity to create distinctive turnkey applications for business use, there are still a few undertakings that require a dedicated solution for best efficiency. This is when searching for a software development services providers comes in.

An accomplished software development organization has the ability to offer secure software that is touchy to your organization’s necessities while as yet permitting you to keep focused spending plan. With a specific end goal to make the most out of employing a software development organization, you need to make sense of what you require from that organization.

Talk about Software Development with Your Management Team
Before you finalize a software development organization, you need to discuss it with your management team. Talk about what the best application would be for your organization. This may be customer tracking, funds or data services. It is best for you to get information from the individuals who will be utilizing the project that is produced consistently.

Write Down What You Are Looking For
After you go to an agreement about your needs with your management team, you should make a fake custom program. You can basically write down it on paper. It doesn’t need to be great. It will offer the software development organization that you procure a thought of what they are really going after. If you don’t know anything about software development, you can simply attempt to make a list of what you require similarly as the software is concerned.

Have a Budget in Mind
When you have noted down everything that you require from the software, you should plan out your objectives to the extent spending plan and time is concerned. This need to be done before you pick a software development company and contract it. This is so you can abstain from being influenced to pay more than you can bear the cost of by the software development service provider. There are some software development companies out there who decide to change the predefined spending plan before the task is finished. You need to demonstrate the software development organization that you have just a certain measure of cash to spend on the task. This will help you acquire moderate software development services.

Clear up Security Needs
In spite of the fact that you require your software to do certain things for your business, the one thing that you completely need is security. You have to verify that your organization and your software is shielded from outside dangers. Be clear about your security needs. Make your security needs the most imperative thing while you are planning the task with the software development company.

Software development companies have expertise in developing the software as per the unique needs of a business. As today many tasks are been performed with the help of software and applications, According the software development companies develop customized software solutions for businesses & organizations that effectively manage their complex tasks & operations. Software applications help businesses through automated services with best execution inside organization. The powerful techniques achievable by customized software application produce far better results and enhances productivity.

Today, information Technology is the key driver for businesses and the way technology is advancing everyday is truly commendable. However, the standard IT solutions are not capable to meet unique requirements of all businesses. Indeed, it doesn’t make any sense to apply same software on different businesses as they might have unique needs. Moreover, an organization itself may have the requirements of different solutions that can be integrated with their in-house processes and workflows.

Benefits of custom software development services:

1. Optimize Investment: As custom solutions are meant to serve specific business needs, businesses can optimize investments by cutting down extra features of a standard solution.

2. Skilled Professionals: When you look for custom software development services, you will get an opportunity to leverage experienced professionals with domain expertise who will give their best to solve your business problems.

3. Cost-Effectiveness: Getting your customized software from outsourcing company is not only cost effective way but it will also ensure the timely delivery of your software. Most companies prefer to outsource the development to software development company in India as they get access to the extremely knowledgeable professionals at very affordable cost.

4. Modern Technology: Custom software development companies in India have well developed IT infrastructure. They also have broad partner network and expertise across cutting edge tools and reliable technologies.

Software development is quite risky at times when there is less feasibility of a project attaining success. There are a wide range of factors that govern these risk and underestimating any of these factors can lead to sure-shot failure of your software project. If you want your project to be safe of all risks, then proper risk management is highly desirable. For sure, risk management has traditionally & effectively been a crucial, integral part of software development life cycle.

The gradual shift from traditional models, like the waterfall model, to more agile software development methods has further created obstacles & challenges in the area of risk management. Risk management while following agile software development approach requires high levels of caution and care. Security & risk management in modern software projects may be not just something that one may do even if time and resources are available. High-end security has become a crucial part of the final product; that simply means that software development risk management is not something that should be left for the end time when the risk actually arises.

It must be actually introduced at the starting phase of the project when the project requirements are being analyzed. Its then only that the risks must be evaluated as well as assessed so that the whole development cycle remains safe of such risks. For this, making use of the existing models while adding in fresh ideas is ideally required to make sure that an effective solution is devised to fix the issues; most professional companies offering software development in India are well aware of this fact.

One of the most crucial aspect related with software development risk management is the maturity of the software. Lesser time is needed on risk management as the development process proceeds further. Risks identified earlier in the process would lead to lesser financial loss. What this indicates is that a robust model for suitably integrating risk management with agile is needed to address this issue.

Taking note of the risks that can be a problem for your software development project in the coming time is a critical activity that every company involved in software development should take care of. Almost every software development company in India and abroad these days takes crucial measures to ensure that all factors leading to a potential risk are taken into consideration.

If you are a software development company that is not addressing all the risk factors in the test plan, there may be deep trouble in store for you. It should be especially understood that all risks, whether small or large should be identified, classified as well as managed properly prior to commencing the actual execution of program. Let’s take a broader look at the risks that should be taken into consideration.

Schedule Risk – If you are not addressing your schedule risks then there are high chances of your project schedule being slipped. Your project may be severely affected if this risk is not taken well care of. There are a number of reasons due to which your schedule may slip; wrong time estimation being the most prominent one. Improper tracking of resources such as system, staff, skills of individual etc., is another big reason. Schedule may also slip due to unexpected project scope expansions and failure to pin-point the complex functionality.

Operational Risks – As the name suggests, these risks are involved at the operational level. Various reasons due to which there can be a loss due to operational risks include – incorrect implementation of the process, inability to address priority conflicts and delegate responsibilities suitably in the team, insufficient resources, improper resource planning and inadequate communication.

Budget Risk – There can be a number of scenarios in which you can suffer a loss due to the budget. Even the slightest of inaccuracy in estimating the budget may bring the scope of your software development project under high risk. Project scope expansion is another major reason that may impact your project due to budgetary reasons.

Technical Risks – Such risks result in total failure of software functionality; thereby affecting the performance as well. Constantly changing requirements is a major reason for the same while difficult project modules integration is also equally responsible for bringing in such risks.

Managing a software development project can give you a hard time if proper planning is not done. A number of software projects fail due to various reasons like incompetency to meet deadlines, going over the budget, not fulfilling customer requirements etc. However, there are few points that you can consider to follow to ensure that your software development project is not a failure. Let’s take a look at the points in detail –

Software Development is More than Simple Coding – A software development project’s productivity to a large extent depends on the choice of software language. The impact of using one language compared to other may make marked differences in the end software. However, if the capabilities of the team are strong, choice of language rarely makes a difference. Another thing that needs to be considered is that requirements gathering, analysis, design, configuration management, documentation, system & integration testing comprise around 70% of the total efforts on a project. Hence, coding is not the major task in a software development project as there are many other tasks that require equal focus.

Software Development is Not Same as Manufacturing – Normally, in a manufacturing facility, for increasing production, one goes for adding another assembly line or increasing the number of workers. The same concept does not work for software development too. It would be a wrong approach followed by a software development company in India or abroad if it considers adding more resources to attain the project deadlines. Adding more members in the team would degrade the work quality besides increasing the cost too. More importantly, there would be wastage of time in establishing sync between the old & new members.

Cost & Schedule Cannot be Interchanged – Schedule and cost of a software development project share a non-linear relationship. Shortening a pre-set schedule to meet a deadline will lead to inefficient team operation, increased communication complexity, reduced testing and to be more worse, lowered software quality. One of the most common causes of project failure is unrealistic schedules. So, try avoiding falling to any of such conditions.

These are some of the points that one should consider while working on software development projects.

PHP is one of the most important web development language used by the developers. Almost all the versions of PHP that have been released till now have only added to the much valued image of the language. But the most awaited version has that been of the PHP 5.6.0. Being a PHP software developer you are aware of the fact that the majority of the code is not written by you. Another thing that you realize is that it is easier to write new code rather than fixing the older one. Thus debugging is something that really requires a new approach.

Thanks to the release of PHP 5.6.0 the new phpdbg is going to be a prominent feature of this latest version of the language. It is not only going to help the PHP software developer but would also herald a new beginning in the web development process. The best part is that you would not have to compile the phpdbg yourself and use Netbeans to get it running.

Some of the other important features that would be included in the PHP 5.6.0 are:

Exponential operator

These new exponential operators works so like to arithmetic operators that we learnt in school.

Constant scalar expressions

We can now write a scalar expression involving numeric and string literals and/or constants in contexts where PHP previously expected a static value, such as constant and property declarations and default function arguments.

• Importing namespaced functions
• Streams for post data
• Variadic functions
• Default character-Encoding improvements
• TLS improvements.

Extracting more from the release of PHP 5.6.0, there are some more changes with the new version that may affect compatibility as :

• Array keys won’t be overwritten when defining an array as a property of a class via an array literal.
• json_decode() is more strict in JSON syntax parsing.
• Stream wrappers now verify peer certificates and host names by default when using SSL/TLS.
• GMP resources are now objects.
• Mcrypt functions now require valid keys and Ivs.

It is no doubt the best update of PHP version, offering more performance and changes to syntax that could use variadic functions passing any number of arguments now.

All these new features would simply go on to make sure that the PHP software developer has his job cut out for him. Developing websites or doing other programming would become a lot more fun and easy with these new features added to PHP.

Microsoft now has a new CEO in Satya Nadella and with him the company has set sails on a boat that is poised to take their success story ahead. Without any doubt, in the technology niche, they are undisputedly the biggest name. Being such a big name is not always that easy as it seems to be. Every year they keep on trying many things in their lab out of which only 14% seem the reality of beta and alpha stage. From that 14% on average 4% of the products or solution witness the success for which they are developed. A great deal of thought always plays behind the scene. Microsoft’s SharePoint is just another such splendid feather in their cap.

The Prologue

SharePoint is a tool developed in the den of Microsoft using which top-notch websites can be designed with extensive features. Its primary usage area is that of enterprise. Among many of its utilizations generally SharePoint is a great combination for intranet based websites and document management system. In SharePoint 2013 the social angle has been additionally incorporate to make it more robust for users.
This is a quintessential tool meant for adding value to the production structure of any organization and paces up the speed of delivery. SharePoint can be customized through HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Thus, based on each and every business requirement people goes for tailor-made customization.

Know your Magician:
With so many options to play with one need to hire someone who is a master of custom SharePoint development with an extensive knowledge on the subject. Though it seems very easy the hiring process is not that simple, one must know how to make the right selection. To begin with one must look for following points in a developer who is portraying himself as a SharePoint developer:

• Technical and Programming Expertise: A person who is developer of SharePoint must have thorough .Net knowledge as it is the framework on which it is based. While performing the customization knowledge over HTML, jQuery and JavaScript is a must. Along with all these complete understanding about Windows Server and SQL Server is also considered additional trait. The list does not end here as other chapters include Windows SharePoint 2.0 & 3.0, workflow solution, WCF SharePoint, Infopath, .Net development, Microsoft Office SharePoint, MOSS 2007/2010, portal solution, etc. If you are looking to hire someone for SharePoint make sure get one with these chapters’s knowledge.

• Microsoft Certification: As always hiring someone with certified skills is of great advantage. This proves this person’s metal and Microsoft SharePoint Certification is really a tough module to crack. Only the cream of the crop gets past this barrier, so one is rest assured of getting the finest services from a developer who is certified. Thus, this pointer is a must follow one.

• Full competency over Website fundamentals: SharePoint is must for creating intranet and extranet website. This along with the design understanding makes one perfect for development based on SharePoint.

• Understanding of Business Movements: SharePoint is meant for productivity increase of any company and that too with the help of several supporting tools. A developer must have thorough understanding of business flow.

When you go for searching the right person for your next project keep in mind the pointers shared above.

Innovation calls for drastic measures and out-of-the-box calls for customization. Someone someday might have thought that our species can be master of the world and that lead to where we are today. Every company comes up with unique ideas as brainstorming is a common aspect of an agency, but at the end of the road most of those ideas don’t see the light of reality due to the fact that those look impossible to implement overtly looking. People who have changed the web world as we see it today were mere laughing stocks due to their different way of thinking in their preliminary years.

Facebook turned 10-years older just few days back. Who would have thought about the height it scaled? 1.15 Billion And still growing – is what it says, and Facebook is leaving all others behind. A simple statistics shows how great they have done going the customized way.

If they had gone the conventional way of the famous orkut from same niche they would not have been able to draw such number of people towards them and gain such a stature of popularity. This is what is called for by an organization looking for custom software development authority. The selection of developer in such scenario is most crucial as they are the ones determining the fate of your application or software. Around the globe people are now moving more towards mobile platform from desktop and hence a huge addition in the mobile usage penetration has been witnessed globally. This goes up to 151% in Central and Eastern Europe.

This has made it very much necessary to go for hybrid apps and responsive web development – compliant with both mobile and desktop user for ruling the future. In most of the cases, any custom project does not go its intended way and there are various reasons for that. The prime reason can be attributed to fact that any custom work cannot have a fixed timeline as being in the pipeline of project there are many scope that keeps on adding both from the client’s port and even developer’s port as a form of suggestion. Thus, to keep everything under control one must make the hiring of a dedicated developer who is conversant with the software framework is the allotted project.

Dedicated Resources Advantage:

Group studies were always very much helpful in your teenage life and the simple reason behind that was several minds goes after a single goal dedicatedly. When you hire someone dedicatedly for your software or application development he makes himself full-time available to you and hence you both get to plan the project execution path together. All your ideas and vision gets imbibed in him and there is no other projects’ distraction. Hire software developer from a firm having a good track record and never go for saving money and hire per hour people as that will never offer you a mind in same boat.

Know your right custom software developer by asking:

• How many years of experience you have?
• What are your core power areas of expertise?
• Show what you have done in similar projects in past?
• What should I pay you this much?
• What development path do you consider for this particular project of mine?
• Do you see a potentiality of successful idea in this project?

When you find someone answering all these in the most convincing way you know that you have hit the jackpot. Set sail with him and do innovate.