What are SEO services?

To fully understand how these functions, it is first important to discuss what each type of SEO service entails and examine some different services that an SEO marketing company will help you implement. To understand what SEO services are, it’s important the first note there are two types of SEO, off-page, and on-page.

What is On-page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to search engine optimization that you can control these are the distinct elements of your website that are not dependent on outside influences and contain factors that you can change.

1. Optimization of the title tag

The importance of an interesting title tag shouldn’t be underestimated. Keyword usage and length are just some of the best practices an SEO agency will implement to ensure your title tag is effective and optimizes your click-through rate. Title tags contain key information that will be revealed to potential customers when they read search results.

2. Optimization of your Meta tag

They can have the influence of a decision on whether to click through or ignore your website. After your title time, your meta tag shows up underneath in any search result. This highlights what a reader can expect on your website. These can be anything up to 160 characters including spaces and should be fully optimized using crucial keywords to ensure your page ranks higher.

3. Optimizing your website’s headings

Search engine optimization companies will focus on featuring different headings on your site starting with H1 and continue down to h2,h3, h4, etc... Headings are used to helping visitors understand your site’s content and its hierarchy. Ranking these is important to allow Google and users to understand crucial aspects of your content.

4. Optimizing your website page speeds

One of the critical factors to ensure your website ranks favorably on Google is its page speed. One of the key on-page SEO services that companies would provide you is to ensure they optimize your page speed.

What is Off-page SEO

Off-page search engine optimization is the opposite to on-page it is the use of strategies and that are implemented away from your website and are outside of your control.

1. Optimizing your social media presence

One of the crucial aspects of any SEO strategy is maintaining a strong social media presence. Any SEO service list should include the upkeep of your LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.

2. Optimizing your google my business profile

If you don’t have a GMB profile you need one as more and more people are using Google maps to help locate businesses in their area.

3. Optimizing your blog

These are just some SEO services that should be on any full-service list provided by a digital marketing agency you work with. Providing your customers what a database of high-quality linkable content that you can comfortably share in either email or social media form will help Google rank you higher and recognize you as a leader in your given field.

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SiteGround vs GoDaddy: Which is the Best for You?

This SiteGround vs. GoDaddy comparison should help you choose the best provider for your needs. SiteGround and GoDaddy are two of the top hosting providers in the market. However, each hosting service provider excels in different areas, and each website has different needs.

GoDaddy Overview

The US company was founded in 1997 as Jomax Technologies, and it currently has more than 20 million customers and over 7,000 employees worldwide. GoDaddy is one of the biggest hosting providers today, and it is actually the biggest domain registrar. It has 14 facilities around the world, and it has become famous for its advertising on TV and in the newspapers.

However, it’s the overly commercial approach and recent performance concerns have led to the migration of some important clients such as Yoast, and you can also have a detailed look at better-performing alternatives using HotScore data.

Pros

• Excellent uptime
• Unlimited traffic
• Several server locations
• Linux or Windows servers available
• Domain name registration integrated with hosting
• Market reputation

Cons

• Lots of upselling that can be annoying
• Complex check out process
• Overly commercial

Site Ground Overview

The hosting provider is a Bulgarian company launched in 2004 by university students, and it’s currently home to 500 employees and 2 million domains. SiteGround is one of the best hosting providers out there, and it is listed by WordPress as “one of the best and brightest in the hosting world.”

Pros

• Free premium features
• Fantastic customer support
• Excellent uptime
• Unlimited email
• Several server locations
• High-speed hosting
• Automatic updates & data backups

Cons

• Isn’t the cheapest in the market
• Limited storage

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What is Remote Work?

You may have even heard the phrase tossed around in casual conversation: “I’ve been able to travel and take my job with me!” or “I’m working remotely now!” You nod your head as you listen to these people extol the flexibility of their lifestyles and the benefits that they’ve seen in their professional lives because they can work remotely, but you still have a few questions.

Remote work is on the rise. While having the ability to work from outside of a corporate office has been feasible for a few decades, working remotely is only now becoming mainstream.

What is remote work?

Remote work is a working style that allows professionals to work outside of a traditional office environment. It is based on the concept that work does not need to be done in a specific place to be executed successfully. People have the flexibility to design their days so that their professional and personal lives can be experienced to their fullest potential and coexist peacefully.

Think of it this way: instead of commuting to an office each day to work from a designated desk, remote employees can execute their projects and surpass their goals wherever they please. There has been a cultural paradigm shift in what society deems to be an appropriate workplace - and remote work has capitalized off of that newfound freedom.

How do people work remotely?

There are a variety of ways in which people can work remotely. That’s the beauty of remote work - people can choose to work in a way that makes the most sense for their lives. Some remote workers take full advantage of the opportunities that a remote working lifestyle gives them. On top of being able to set their schedules so that they are able to work whenever they are most productive or creative, some remote employees decide to leave their traditional routines behind and hit the road.

Others rely on coworking spaces to be the spots where they can get the job done. Coworking spaces act as hubs of productivity, community, and technology, offering great network connectivity and opportunities to meet others who work in a multitude of industries.

On a typical day, these remote employees work from their home offices or nearby cafés and can work from their company’s office when it’s necessary. They can be utilized by people with full-time jobs, freelance careers and even entrepreneurs who want to rent out an office space for themselves or their small staff.

How Remote Work Benefits Employers

‍Higher productivity

Remote employees are more likely to put in extra effort intheir jobs, going above and beyond toget their work done in comparison to in-office employees. According to the State and Work Productivity Report, 65% of full-time employees believe that working remotely would increase productivity - and their bosses agree.

One of the most touted arguments for remote work is the increased productivity that comes with its flexibility. Two-thirds of managers who were surveyed reported an increase in overall productivity from their remote employees.

Cost savings

Remote employees are also great for a company’s bottom line. To put that learning into perspective, Flexjobs reported that employers can save $22,000 per remote worker per year, even if their entire team is not remote. If a team is fully-distributed, companies can see decreased overhead from money saved on costs like rent and office furniture.

Engaged employees

Remote work is not just a flash in the pan for employee engagement - nearly 75% of employees surveyed in a Softchoice study said they would quit their job for one that offered remote work. That’s something that will make employers who are interested in talent retention listen in a little closer.

Beyond profit margins and higher-quality, more efficient work, employers offer remote work opportunities to keep their employees happy and engaged. Here’s another: in a survey by TINYpulse, remote employees reported that they were happier than non-remote employees and also felt more valued within their role.

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The 5 best Programming Languages for AI Engineers

As AI boosts productivity, product quality, and consumption, the most dramatic sector gains will be in financial services, healthcare, and retail. With demand for AI skills more than doubling in recent years, a career in AI has become a highly attractive option for people with interest in data science and software engineering.

AI opens up a whole new world of possibilities for both enterprises and software engineers, so if you’re eager to take advantage of this opportunity, you might be wondering where you should start. The answer to these questions will depend on your knowledge and experience, the type of AI project you’re interested in, and current industry trends.

After remaining somewhat stagnant for decades, artificial intelligence (AI) is going through a period of powerful acceleration. You’ll be learning an AI language that benefits from a healthy ecosystem of tools, support packages, and a large community of programmers.

1. Python

Python is the leading coding language for NLP because of its simple syntax, structure, and rich text processing tool. When it comes to AI programming languages, Python leads the pack with its unparalleled community support and pre-built libraries (like NumPy, Pandas, Pybrain, and SciPy) that help expedite AI development. For Natural Language Processing (NLP), you can go old school with NLTK or take advantage of lightening-fast SpaCy.

As this highly flexible AI language is platform agnostic, you’ll only have to make minor changes to the code to get it up and running in a new operating system. But in the grand scheme of things, it makes perfect sense to learn Python, as it boasts the most comprehensive frameworks for both DL and ML.

However, while it’s sometimes referred to as the best programming language for AI, you’ll have to look past its five different packaging systems that are all broken down in different ways, some white spacing issues, and the disconnect between Python 2 and Python 3.

2. Java

Like some of the programming languages on this list, Java is also highly user-friendly, easy to debug, and runs across platforms without the need to engage in any additional recompilation. We can’t discuss the best programming language for AI without talking about the object-oriented programming language, Java.

When it comes to working with NLP, it’s easy to find enough support from the vibrant community that’s built around it. Since it first emerged in 1995, Java has grown to become a highly portable, maintainable, and transparent language that’s supported by a wealth of libraries. As Java enables seamless access to big data platforms like Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop, it has cemented its place within data analytics-related AI development.

3. Julia

Engaging in AI programming with Julia reduces errors and cuts costs because it combines the familiar syntax and ease of use of languages like C++, Python, and R. This negates the need to estimate a model in one language and reproduce it in a faster production language. Unlike the languages above, Julia isn’t exactly the go-to language right now.

Its core programming paradigm includes a type system with parametric polymorphism and multiple dispatch capabilities. Explicitly designed to focus on the numerical computing that’s required by AI, you can get results without the typical requirement of separate compilation. Whenever a task demands high-performance numerical computing and analysis, Julia (developed by MIT) will be the best programming language for AI projects.

This significantly reduces model risk and improves safety. One of the primary benefits of working with Julia is its ability to translate algorithms from research papers into code without any loss.

4. Haskell

Haskell is used in research projects because it supports embedded domain-specific languages that play a significant role in programming language research and AI. Its popularity is primarily concentrated in academic circles, but tech giants such as Facebook and Google have also been known to use it.

Unlike Java, Haskell is perfect for engaging in abstract mathematics, as it allows expressive and efficient libraries to create AI algorithms. Haskell is a standardized strong static typing (general) language developed in the 1990s with non-strict semantics (based on the Miranda programming language).

It’s also an excellent host for probabilistic programming and helps developers quickly identify errors during the compile phase of the iteration. While you can code these algorithms in any AI language, Haskell makes them far more expressive than others while maintaining an acceptable level of performance.

5. Lisp

Lisp can be described as a practical mathematical notation for computer programs. While AI has only started making a significant consumer impact in recent years, research and development within this field goes back as far as the 1950s.

AI developers often turn to Lisp for AI projects that are heavy on ML because it offers rapid prototyping capabilities, support for symbolic expressions, a library of collection types, and is highly flexible and adaptable to their problem-solving needs.

While the program is still running, you can also enable interactive evaluation of expressions and recompilation of functions or files concurrently. It’s also popular among AI programming languages because it allows the easy dynamic creation of new objects, with automatic garbage collection.

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Top Best CSS tricks to shake up your web layouts

Using CSS, you can create in visual styles that go way beyond the ones you may be familiar with. Learning new CSS tricks is one of the best ways to shake up your website design. You can break old habits with new CSS properties that open a new world of possibilities.

If you've been working in the web industry for a while, you may feel you're always coding or designing the same layouts. One way to change it up is to draw inspiration from fields or areas that go beyond digital design.

Try SVG for animation

To be honest, I cannot imagine today’s web without SVG (scalable vector graphics). Its name speaks for itself – it scales, so it answers all concerns regarding responsive web design. Animating SVG with CSS is like animating any other element in HTML – it can be done with transitions, transforms and keyframe animations.

Once you’re familiar with the SVG code, the rest is straightforward and very intuitive, because you basically do it just like you would in HTML. If you have never tried dabbling in CSS animations and SVG code, you must try it now – it’s unbelievable how quickly you can achieve amazing effects.

Aside from scalability, there is another feature that should encourage you to play with SVG: the ability to manipulate SVG with CSS. The SVG graphic will be crisp no matter the screen resolution of the device it’s viewed on.

Think outside the box

Another possible value is the url() function. In this case, this enables the shape-outside property to define an element shape based on the image.

Shape-outside and shape-inside to the rescue! Let’s step out of the box, literally, and discover new forms making our page layouts richer and less boxy. Shape-outside and shape-inside properties allow you to wrap your content around custom paths in CSS.

You might choose to use the url() function instead of the polygon() when you have a particularly sophisticated graphic with many curves and points, and you want the content to wrap around it smoothly.

Don’t be afraid of clipping

The cool thing is that we can use shape functions and SVG as clip paths, which gives us a lot of opportunities – for instance, we could animate them into morphing shapes. Another great feature is CSS clipping. A shape’s boundary is called the clip-path (not to be confused with the deprecated clip property), and clipping defines which image area should be visible.

Clipping is similar to cutting out a piece of paper – anything outside the path will be hidden, while anything inside the path will be visible. It's worth mentioning that masking will consume more memory, as you're working with a full image so everything has to be done pixel by pixel.

Add a mask

Masking is particularly powerful because it enables you to apply the same properties to background images, defining their position, size and repetition. Masking tells your browser which asset elements should be visible, and is very useful for building creative shapes and layouts.

Note that unlike a typical raster image, SVG can be scaled or transformed without a significant loss of quality. Masking can be done in three ways: using a raster image (eg PNG format with transparency parts), CSS gradients or SVG elements.

Explore CSS blend modes

There are a couple of implementation methods, depending on the type of element you would like to apply the effect to. To achieve a satisfying duotone effect, it’s recommended that you use a high-contrast black and white image. You can do this by applying CSS filters to set greyscale and a high contrast level.

Using CSS blend modes is not only a great way to unify the look of the content across websites, it also enables you to set different colour versions of an image, changing only one value in CSS: the colour.

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Make more Money off of YouTube with 5 tools

So, you want to make more money off of YouTube? The top-grossing YouTube channels of today all have one very important thing in common: the quality of their videos. You can upload every day, but the quality will always beat quantity. The more consistent you are with the quality of your videos, the more your channel will grow.

While you can certainly record video with your old smartphone camera, you won’t get anywhere near that high-quality mark you’re looking for. That being said, creating high-quality YouTube videos requires some specific equipment and software. Let’s talk about some of the tools you might need to increase the quality of your videos, and, therefore, your YouTube audience and income.

1. Audio Equipment

Let’s start with audio. What your subscribers hear is just as important as what they see, especially if your channel is based on audio content (such as guitar tutorials, music videos, or reviews). If you’re still just using your smartphone mic to record audio, it’s time for an upgrade.

Making money off YouTube becomes a problem when your audience can’t even hear what’s going on in the video clearly. If you want to keep people engaged and coming back to your channel for more, you must upgrade the quality of your audio elements. This might mean buying a new microphone so you can get paid on YouTube.

2. Video Equipment

Now that your audience can hear you clearly, let’s talk about the 360p video quality you’re stuck with. You’ll likely need to purchase a high-quality video camera if you want to compete with other YouTubers. You’re not going to get very far with grainy videos shot from an old smartphone. The quality of your video can literally mean the difference between keeping a viewer engaged and causing them to leave your channel entirely.

The first thing to understand about YouTube is that vertical videos don’t really fit the platform. YouTube’s video player uses a 16:9 aspect ratio, which means it’s wider than it is tall. YouTube supports all the way up to 4k HD video resolution, so the higher the quality of your video feed, the better.

HD video is nothing less than the standard for online video content; especially because newer phones can support HD videos and most people access the internet (including Youtube) from a mobile device.

3. Screen Capture Software

Let’s say you’re making gaming videos or some kind of computer-related video content. You’ll need to invest in good screen capture software to make sure you’re getting HD screen captures. This software is easy to find, and for the most part, it functions the same way across brands.

Even if your content is awesome, you won’t get very far if your screen captures aren’t in HD. Take a look at this list of the best screen capture software in order to make the best decision for your channel.

Screen capture software lets you capture stunning HD video from your desktop/laptop. You can create hours of high-quality gaming content, computer tutorials, and more! Some of these screen capture programs are actually free to use, but the free versions usually lack some of the better features you’d find with paid versions.

4. SEO Software

Once you’ve narrowed down your niche, improved your video quality, and created an upload schedule, you’ll need to look at your SEO strategy. Wait, what’s SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it’s essentially the way that people find your content in a sea of online resources.

So, you’ve got great audio and video quality, awesome content, and a regular video upload schedule. Now what? You’re not gaining new subscribers or views, and you seem to be stuck. What could be wrong?

There’s other software out there, so be sure to do some research before you buy to make sure you’re getting exactly what you need. There are specific software programs that are built to improve your YouTube channel’s SEO. Tubics is one of the most popular options, helping to organically grow your YouTube audience and improve your ranking in Google search results.

5. Video Editing Software

After all, your subscribers don’t want to see you fumbling with camera angles for twenty minutes before the content actually starts, right? Even if you capture stunning HD audio and video, you’ll need to edit your footage into shorter blocks of content.

Of course, you can always buy more advanced software if you really want to get serious, but until then, even Microsoft’s free movie maker software should do the trick. Video editing can be easy with the right software. Most video editing software is incredibly intuitive and built for those with little to no experience.

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How to create Uber like applications?

Uber is a business role-model many entrepreneurs try to recreate. The technical information, marketing and key points, which you should be looking at to achieve, are covered in this article.

How Uber Works?

Uber is a free iOS and Android smartphone application that links a passenger and a driver 24/7. Uber is an intermediary since it doesn’t own cars but has a secure win-win partnership. Google Maps is used by the mobile app to display the place and time of the car arrival that is nearest to you. For a driver to agree or to reject it, any request is accessible.

First, Uber offers a solution to a general problem affecting millions. The start-up broke the monopoly on taxi and reinvented private transport. Furthermore, Uber offers great advantages for both drivers and passengers.

You must always fully comprehend that it is necessary to create two separate applications linked to the management panel to build an application similar to Uber. Every part of the system has different functionalities, characteristics, and demands.

Passengers can evaluate driver details and monitor the process in real-time. Passengers can always be informed by a text message or a call. The user will be notified when the vehicle arrives (usually in a few minutes). When the trip is finished, the application charges a user card – no money or change needed.

Customer App Features

High-quality service is provided to customers: price rates are given in advance, cost estimating is extremely useful and drivers, distance, and route are available for monitoring. Pricing is simple and users of all ages can apple the app. Uber’s ability to give its customers a wide range of cars at all times and satisfy their demand in 10 min is the secret to product success.

Features of newer releases can be enhanced to incorporate:

• Promotions, special offers, promo codes.
• Panic button.
• Split payment.
• Schedule ride.
• Ride history.
• Waitlist. Calling a car for another person.
• Favorite directions.

Driver App ‘s key characteristics

The basic characteristics you’ll find useful to make a mobile app for drivers are:

• Booking notification.
• Push notification.
• Payment data connectivity.
• Navigation and route optimization.
• Messaging.
• Weekly or monthly reports.
• Support service.
• Passenger rating.

The functionality of the app’s administration panel is as follows:

• General data monitoring.
• Management.
• Tariff setting, special discounts and offers, software updates, assessment, and feedback.
• Support. Getting clients’ requests, dealing with problems, feedback system.
• Billing. In the occasion of conflicts or mistakes, mangers withdraw and pay the money back.
• Data bank.
• Analysis.

How to get this app started?

Nearly every niche has an “immediate success” potential, so there are countless opportunities to explore, especially as Uber has opened its API. The creators of this revolutionary app show no signs of stopping. Each section represents numerous options for the Uber business model to solve various daily problems outside the cab. In the world of start-ups and entrepreneurship, there is another corporate culture named Uber for X.

Integration of Payment Gateway

Payment gateway providers like Braintree and Stripe are PCI-compliant, which makes integration much easier. You’ll need a certification only if you’re planning to store and process credit card data. It is essential to ensure financial data security for customers when it comes to payment gateway integration. You need a PCI-compliant cashless transfer system.

Notifications and Messaging

How can I make a profit from an Uber-similar app? Premium subscription, alliances with other businesses, driver fees, cancellation charges, and special offers are the most common sources of revenue. Sources of income will be addressed before the app is launched.

Let us note that a well-developed team is a key to success, so let professionals build your mobile app. We recommend you take the steps outlined in the article if you want to make your dreams come true. You are definitely going to avoid competition and hit a milestone with a special offer.

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5 Dangers of using Pirated Software in Business

Software piracy is defined as an act of illegally copying or distributing software without being the rightful owner or having legal rights. With the growing technological advancements, there are so many useful programs and software available online for businesses. Depending on your business, software help to enhance its efficiency.

Software piracy can also come in a variety of other forms that you may not think are bad. So forget about debating whether you consider a certain act as piracy or not. Simply purchase the legitimate software. Software piracy has become a growing problem in recent years. More than a quarter of software installed globally is in fact pirated software, according to the Global Software Survey.

The key reason for such distasteful habits is that many of these individuals complain about how expensive the cost of legitimate software is. And the sad news is that both individuals and even business owners have developed this tendency to pirate software.

Software Piracy is Illegal

Just to spruce up your knowledge, in case you are unaware, software piracy is a felony. This means that if you are found guilty, hefty fines can be imposed on you or you could even face jail time. This is because one can consider software piracy as cybercrime and theft as it results in abuse and misuse of property that you don’t own.

In fact, many firms have been raided and taken down simply for pirating and using unlicensed software. For such corporations, it not only fines, but the consequences can even mean up to five years of jail time for senior management.

 

Potential Malware Attacks

So if you are selfish enough to not be bothered by fines or jail time, malware attacks should scare you. Because this means that you are losing the very same thing you have been working on. Using pirated and unlicensed software puts you at greater risk of malware attacks.

In actuality, individuals that visit piracy sites or download unlicensed software are almost 50% more likely to suffer from malware attacks on their devices or networks. Some of the common risks you are exposed to when using unlicensed software include credit card and banking info theft, identity theft, ransomware ( being locked out of your system until you pay the ransom), ad fraud and even risk the quality of your work being compromised.

Losses To Legitimate Software Developers And Companies

Yes, the online world is virtual and may appear to be superficial. However, legitimate software companies and developers do depend on the sales of this software. So pirating and the use of unlicensed software does actually equate to you physically robbing a store. This does bring about losses to these companies and directly affects the individuals that work for it.

In another scenario, these legitimate software developers and companies are the ones that save us from deadly malware attacks thanks to their incredible software designs. It’s like a chain reaction – you and a million other pirate software, the company suffers significant losses in sales, and has to retrench some of its employees.

Turns out it the same company that your sister works for and she is one of those retrenched. Yet, incapacitating them financially can get them out of business or even limit their resources to allow for more protective software designs. So this, in fact, turns out to be both our loss.

No Updates for Your Software

Because you have unlicensed and pirated software installed on your devices, this means that you will not be able to do the constant updating of the software. Once the software is newly introduced, over time it becomes susceptible to bugs and other malware attacks. This is because crackers use their time to try to navigate and penetrate the system.

Hence, because a pirate program is cracked by illegitimate individuals after certain updates, the software fails to download the legitimate updates for the actual software developer, thus, leaving your devices and networks vulnerable. However, for those with legitimate software, this is a worry they can push to the back of their minds as software developers provide constant updates to counter the problem and leave crackers a step behind.

Pirated Software May Be Malfunctioned

Because they are acquired illegally, you may not know who developed the software and even where they came from. Thus, if the software malfunctions, you will not be able to know this. Thus, the use of such software can be detrimental to the quality of your work. This means that pirated and unlicensed software is more likely to crash, lose files, and even corrupt files.

The touch screen compatible Microsoft 10 or cloud-based Office 365 for example, cannot be accessed with pirated software – so you will be missing out. Plus, legitimate software guarantees you a clean record! Therefore, as much as legitimate software appears to be expensive, it is always wise to go for them. This ensures that even your work and the durability of your devices are not compromised.

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Best Platforms that provide free Django App hosting

I am one of those people who love to work on a remote machine, rather than my own. Trying to find free web hosting is hardly a problem, as there are plenty of options available for those who want to try remote environments for the first time.

It becomes difficult when we need a server that can enable us to run applications like Django, and host apps created through the framework. It’s not even the fact that there might be limitations, or it seems more difficult – it’s just the way I’m used to developing and doing testing. I’m sure there are a lot of other people who prefer to do it the same way.

They’re obviously not limited to Django only, and I’m only using the terminology so I can have the post rank for that keyword. That’s as transparent as it can get. I’m a huge fan of Heroku – which is also going to be included in the list – and the service they provide at no additional cost. I hope you’ll be able to find a free Django hosting platform that will suit your needs.

1. PythonAnywhere

This is a cloud-based platform – like most are – that allows you to have a server instance for all your Python development needs, and you can set up a fully functional web server within a couple of clicks. It currently supports one-click install for the following Python applications:

The free plan offers enough specifications for you to do some basic testing, and even host a portfolio site if you’d like. Head over to the ‘Batteries‘ page and see which libraries, frameworks, and other Python tools are available for easy importation and installation. You can upgrade to a ‘Hacker Plan’ at $5 per month, and that will allow you to have up to 10k visits per day, depending on the source and type of traffic.

2. Amazon AWS – Free

The Amazon AWS free plan is pretty much a way of learning more about the services that AWS & EC2 provide to the world, and perhaps get you hooked on the way their instances and system works in order to become full-time customers. It’s, of course, good to learn more about such platforms, as you never know when it might come in handy, especially when working in the field of development. You’ll be able to do just about enough to get your feet wet with testing applications and deploying them.

3. OpenShift

OpenShift is very popular in the community, and fully supports hundreds of applications and types of programming languages for you to launch from their ‘gears’. This is a project maintained by the original Red Hat board, and provides a free – and paid – cloud service to those who need it.

The official OpenShift blog is full of tutorials, guides and other juicy information that will help you get going quickly. Most importantly, yes, it does support free Django hosting!

4. Heroku

It provides incredibly cloud facilities and the server performance is really great, especially when it’s free! This platform is the perfect example of successful growth, over the last couple of years, Heroku has become the place to go to when someone is looking to launch a new startup or a business.

You can head over to the Heroku’s own ‘Getting Started with Django‘ guide and learn how to set up a fully functional Django installation on your Heroku node. It has now grown and offers a ton of enterprise capabilities and plans for large companies that need infrastructure that can scale, we’re after Django hosting!

5. Platforms for Free Django Hosting

I’ve played around with only Heroku, as far as this list goes – but I’ve heard good recommendations for the rest, and I’m sure you’ve too! I’m not sure if I was able to catch and list all of the good ones on this list. I’ll appreciate it if you help me out by sending in a tip to more platforms and hosting providers like this, as I’m always looking for something like that myself. And if you feel a certain predisposition towards learning more about Django, you can go for this incredible online course 'Projects in Django: Learn Django Building Projects'.

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10 Essential tools for graphic designers 2020

In this guide, we've rounded up the hardware, software and other graphic design tools that will help creatives of all levels work more effectively. Whether you're starting from scratch or looking to upgrade a specific piece of equipment, our recommendations will help you pick the best option.

1. Laptop

Apple's most powerful laptop to date, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is the perfect tool for graphic designers, whether you're working on the move or at home.

When creating the new MacBook Pro, Apple's stated aim was to give fans "more of what they love", and it did exactly that. The most obvious feature is the new, larger screen, which is ideally suited to design work. It's also improved the keyboard; gone are the troublesome Butterfly switches that plagued earlier models, replaced with more responsive scissor switches, as found on the Magic Keyboard.

Of course, all this doesn't come cheap, and the highest specifications command particularly high prices, but if you're looking for a laptop that'll keep performing flawlessly for years and will never hold you back, this is an excellent investment.

2. Desktop

A desktop powerhouse created with professionals in mind, the iMac Pro remains the gold standard for graphic designers. It features a true 5K Retina display and can be configured with an astonishing 256GB RAM, an 18-core Intel Xeon W processor and Radeon Pro Vega 64X graphics with 16GB of HBM2 memory.

As with the MacBook Pro above, this kind of power comes at a price, but for resource-intensive work like rendering 3D models, video editing and animation, the cost will be well worth the time saved. Despite some serious upgrades under the hood, Apple has maintained the iMac Pro's signature look, with a chassis that's just 5mm thick and weighs a mere 700G, keeping your desk clear and clutter-free.

3. Monitor calibrator

A properly calibrated monitor is essential for making sure your screen displays colours as accurately as possible. Windows and macOS both include their own calibration tools, but for the best results, you can't beat a hardware calibrator like the superb Datacolor Spyder5ELITE.

This calibrator is a particular choice if you need to calibrate several displays to a single target configuration, whether they're laptops, desktop monitors or a mix. It features both wizard and expert settings for different levels of experience.

4. Reliable hard drive

The Western Digital My Passport Ultra is a neat external drive that gives you up to 5TB for your most important files. The optional WD SmartWare Pro software (available for Windows and macOS) lets you easily configure automatic backups, so you never need to worry about losing a client's work.

The My Passport Ultra is fast too, with impressive read and write speeds for quick transfers (essential for large image and video files). This is made possible by its USB-C connectivity, though it comes with a USB 3.1 adaptor for older devices too (albeit at slower rates).

5. Graphics tablet and stylus

Only a couple of years ago, the name Wacom was synonymous with graphics tablets for professionals, but the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil have now stolen the crown – particularly for designers who struggle to justify a tool that's tied to their desk. The iPad Pro is a superb device for digital drawing but does far more besides.

Whether you opt for the 11-inch or 12.9-inch model, the latest iPad Pro borrows the nearly bezel-free design of recent iPhones, giving you an expanse of smooth glass to work on. Apple's Smart Keyboard transforms it into a powerful laptop, and the new Apple Pencil makes it even more versatile.

Apple has dropped the Lightning connector in favour of a magnetic function, so the Pencil now snaps smartly onto the top of a new iPad Pro for pairing, charging and storage.

6. Top-end smartphone

The iPhone 11 Pro Max might be the most sought-after flagship phone of 2020, but our handset of choice is the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus. The S10 Plus is slightly larger than the regular S10, giving you a full 6.4 inches of Super AMOLED screen to work with. Colour reproduction is excellent, and there's an impressive dynamic range.

The trio of rear-facing cameras (for normal, telephoto and wide-angle photos) are superb, too. The main camera's dual-aperture lens captures sharp images, even in low light, and the wide-angle lens captures a 123-degree field of view. Even Google can't match that.

7. Studio camera

The Nikon D5300 is an ideal DSLR if you're looking for something that will perform well and provide many years of reliable service. Together with a versatile lens kit, it'll help you achieve great shots without breaking the bank.

This is definitely an entry-level DSLR, and can't record video in 4K, but it's still images are super crisp (partly due to the absence of an anti-aliasing filter) and the new EXPEED 4 processing engine means noise is well controlled, even in dark images. It's a shame there's no touchscreen, so you'll have to navigate the camera's many menus using physical buttons, but the interface is pretty straightforward and shouldn't present much of a barrier to you achieving professional quality images.

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Best storage and sharing options for creatives

While many of the best-known options that exist today started off with different approaches and purposes, they have grown closer towards offering a similar blend of storage and collaborative tools, making it harder to identify the advantages of each.

Here, we compare 5 of the most popular options for creatives to store files online and share with colleagues and clients and examine the strengths and weaknesses of each.

1. Google Drive

Google Drive is an obvious choice for anyone who uses Google’s other products, and particularly for Android users since it comes built into the architecture. It integrates seamlessly with other Google apps and has one of the most generous free storage allowances around, offering 15GB, although this includes Gmail if you use that as your email.

The platform is easy and intuitive to use and one of the best options for instant collaboration owing to the ability to work simultaneously with others using Google’s own GSuite tools like Google Docs and Sheets, and you can boost productivity with a wide range of third-party add ons.

2. pCloud

Google Drive offers practicality and flexibility for collaborative work, but it isn’t the prettiest option for presenting work to clients. The interface is busy and crops image previews to a square. pCloud can be a better option in terms of looks. Interface elements are discreet and kept to a minimum, giving priority to offering large scale previews of each file that save clicking to open each file.

pCloud doesn’t have the collaborative tools of Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox, but there with features such as the option to customise sharing links to include your own message or branding, it's easy to see why pCloud is one of the most popular options for photographers to deliver work. The free option offers a fairly generous 10GB, and there are lifetime subscriptions available at $175 for 500GB, or $350 for 2TB, which mean you can pay once then get on with it.

3. Dropbox

Dropbox remains one of the biggest names in cloud storage. It’s among the fastest because it uses block-level synching, which means it only syncs changes made to a document rather than the whole file. The professional version also offers a 'smart sync' capability that allows you to save space on your hard drive by sending files to the cloud but still allowing you to see them on your computer.

A new transfer tool just out of beta means you can also send files weighing up to 300GB to anyone, even if they don’t have Dropbox, effectively turning Dropbox into a file transfer service as well as a storage service. The service isn't as integrated with other tools as GoogleDrive or OneDrive and doesn't offer its own full office suite, but it does have collaborative tools, and integrates with Office Online for editing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, and can share files directly to Slack.

Dropbox is one of the most expensive options and offers only a stingy 2GB in its basic free plan. You need to fork out at least £7.99 a month for a more generous 2TB, and £16.58 to get the professional version with the added features that really make Dropbox stand out, such as smart sync, watermarks, viewer history and a 180-day backup of deleted files that beats the 30 days offered by most other services.

4. OneDrive

Just as Google Drive is a convenient option for Android users, if you’re a PC user running Windows 10 or use Microsoft’s Office 365, OneDrive offers comparable levels of integration. It’s much less popular than Google’s option among general users but has a big uptake among companies that use Office 365.

The interface looks good, a chat icon at the top launches Skype so you can talk to colleagues, and OneNote integration beats Google Docs and Dropbox Paper. Free allocation is a rather mean 5GB, which is a lot less generous than Google’s and makes this option mainly useful for storing files that you want to email via Outlook, but storage can be upped to 50GB for a reasonable £1.99 a month, and there’s a business plan that offers unlimited storage along with desktop versions of Microsoft products including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for £7.99.

5. iCloud

This is storage option that only makes sense for Apple devotees but is convenient for storing and backing up images and files from a Mac or iPhone. Like Microsoft’s OneDrive, free storage is limited to 5GB and higher allocations are reasonably priced, but it’s strictly a storage option.

There's no option to share files outside Apple’s Family Sharing and there are none of the collaborative tools that you get with other services. Documents from the iWork suite are saved to iCloud so that you can access them from all your devices. There’s also a Windows client so access is not restricted to Apple devices.

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Best platforms that provide free Django App Hosting

Trying to find free web hosting is hardly a problem, as there are plenty of options available for those who want to try remote environments for the first time. I am one of those people who love to work on a remote machine, rather than my own.

It’s not even the fact that there might be limitations, or it seems more difficult – it’s just the way I’m used to developing and doing testing. I’m sure there are a lot of other people who prefer to do it the same way.

I hope you’ll be able to find a free Django hosting platform that will suit your needs. They’re obviously not limited to Django only, and I’m only using the terminology so I can have the post rank for that keyword.

1. PythonAnywhere

This is a cloud-based platform – like most are – that allows you to have a server instance for all your Python development needs, and you can set up a fully functional web server within a couple of clicks. It currently supports one-click install for the following Python applications:

Head over to the ‘Batteries‘ page and see which libraries, frameworks, and other Python tools are available for easy importation and installation.

The free plan offers enough specifications for you to do some basic testing, and even host a portfolio site if you’d like. You can upgrade to a ‘Hacker Plan’ at $5 per month, and that will allow you to have up to 10k visits per day, depending on the source and type of traffic.

2. Amazon AWS – Free

The Amazon AWS free plan is pretty much a way of learning more about the services that AWS & EC2 provide to the world, and perhaps get you hooked on the way their instances and system works in order to become full-time customers. You’ll be able to do just about enough to get your feet wet with testing applications and deploying them. It’s, of course, good to learn more about such platforms, as you never know when it might come in handy, especially when working in the field of development.

Serdar, an author on InfoWorld has recently published a quick review of the Amazon AWS Free plan and I’d love to have you check it out, as it goes more in-depth about the service and what you can expect.

3. OpenShift

This is a project maintained by the original Red Hat board, and provides a free – and paid – cloud service to those who need it. OpenShift is very popular in the community, and fully supports hundreds of applications and types of programming languages for you to launch from their ‘gears’.

The official OpenShift blog is full of tutorials, guides and other juicy information that will help you get going quickly. Most importantly, yes, it does support free Django hosting!

4. Heroku

This platform is the perfect example of successful growth, over the last couple of years, Heroku has become the place to go to when someone is looking to launch a new startup or a business. It provides incredibly cloud facilities and the server performance is really great, especially when it’s free!

It has now grown and offers a ton of enterprise capabilities and plans for large companies that need infrastructure that can scale, we’re after Django hosting! You can head over to the Heroku’s own ‘Getting Started with Django‘ guide and learn how to set up a fully functional Django installation on your Heroku node.

Platforms for Free Django Hosting

I’m not sure if I was able to catch and list all of the good ones on this list. I’ll appreciate it if you help me out by sending in a tip to more platforms and hosting providers like this, as I’m always looking for something like that myself. I’ve played around with only Heroku, as far as this list goes – but I’ve heard good recommendations for the rest, and I’m sure you’ve too!

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Retail Digital Transformation

Retail is one of the sectors that tries to reap the maximum benefits of the new digital world. Let’s look at the main advantages of retail digital transformation. Digital transformation is no longer a buzzword but a real change that is happening in many companies across different industries and retail is not an exception.

Benefits of digitalization for retail industry

Digitalization helps retailers to tackle this challenge. First of all, tech is increasingly used to attract the customer’s attention. Digital transformation services also help the retail teams simplify the work and become more productive. It starts from classic online order forms to short newsletters, digital event invitations or social media posts.

Merchandising teams have tools that allow them to get information on inventories and products immediately. And marketing teams have a lot of new digital channels to communicate to promote their brand in the best possible way.

Autonomous shopping carts, automated checkout, mobile check-out, digital price tags, mobile wallets, interactive windows in the stores, AR/VR showrooms are only a few examples of countless opportunities that retail digital transformation can bring.

Digitalization of business: The biggest trends in retail

There are many ways in which tech is changing the retail world, but the following are the trends that will probably continue to shape the future of the industry. The boom of tech startups, growing smartphone adoption, deployment of 4G networks, have an enormous impact on shopper’s preferences and therefore, on retailers’ business activities.

1. Smart Beacons

Beacon technology was first introduced in 2013 by Apple and now is widely used in various industries, including retail. Smart Beacons are small transmitters that send signals to other smart devices with the help of low-energy Bluetooth technology. Smart beacons can assist shoppers in finding their destination with in-store navigation.

In addition, with the help of beacons retailers get a chance to develop the individual client approach by tailoring personalized product suggestions or providing special deals to loyal customers.

The technology can send push messages with coupons to the customers passing by the restaurant or provide the information about the best offers to the visitors of the shops. And it is also a great tool for marketers as beacon helps them to reach the right people at the right time.

2. Grab and Go

Grab and Go was pushed forward by the world’s largest retailer Walmart. In 2015 both Walmart and Walmart-owned company Sam’s Club launched applications that allowed customers to scan products and pay through the mobile app. A regular flow of customers at Grab and Go proved a real appetite for the technology so Amazon is planning to expand the concept.

In 2016 the cashier-free store Amazon Go was opened by the retail giant Amazon. How does it work? You check-in at the store, take the products, and then simply walk out. The technology allows to add items to the cart and pay the bill automatically. According to Bloomberg, the retailer is planning to open 3,000 Amazon Go locations by 2021. The idea of Grab and Go technology isn’t new. It was first introduced more than a decade ago by IBM with its RFID technology.

Grab and Go gives them what Generation Y want – speed and convenience. The cashier-free stores are here to stay and there is no doubt that the technology will be developed and matured with time. It seems that retailers who have long struggled with how to engage millennials in the shopping process have found the solution.

3. Artificial Intelligence

With the help of AI, the software analyzes data, including weather data, consumer data and other information to make the supply chain more efficient and predict demand to avoid empty shelves. It promises a lot of opportunities for the retail sector. Retailers have already found many ways how to apply AI in their business.

Another example of using AI in retail is chatbots. Juniper foresees that by 2023 chatbot e-commerce transactions will reach 112 bln dollars a year. Analysts also predict that more than 70% of all chatbots accessed will be based in the retail segment. How do retailers use chatbots? For example, the clients of coffee giant Starbucks can chat with the Starbucks Barista app and place their orders via voice command or messages.

No doubt that the retail industry will continue to harness the potential of AI in the future. According to Juniper Research Global, investments in AI by retailers will grow from 2 bln dollars in 2018 to 7.3 bln dollars by 2022. Global Market Insights predicts that retail spending on artificial intelligence will reach 8 bln dollars by 2024.

4. Augmented/Virtual Reality

The advantages of brick and mortar stores are clear. However, technology advancement,as well as the changing consumer preferences, requires new innovative approaches. Those technologies allow broadening the shopping experience to the new digital level that provides many opportunities to the customers, thus improving their loyalty to the retailer drastically.

Ikea is one of the first companies that started to use augmented reality. The company developed its own AR app that lets its customers preview what furniture would look like in their own houses. And a Danish toy production company Lego has set up AR kiosks in its stores known as “digital boxes”.

Those kiosks allow shoppers to scan boxed LEGO and to view the product from all angles with the help of a 3D animated model. While the guests of the hotel are drinking the cocktail they can also virtually visit the Dalmore’s distillery in the northern reaches of the Scottish Highlands.

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How computing can enables Digital transformation

The IT industry has especially grown to a much greater extent with the emergence of the cloud, making the tech sphere larger and business-oriented according to the emerging needs of the market.

Today, organizations are rapidly stepping up towards cloud technology, in a bid to make their infrastructure more digitally-agile and redundant. This article highlights some of the key points on how cloud web hosting with PHP and MySQL support enables businesses to transform their digital footprint. Here’s how cloud computing helps you to effectively transform your digital presence in the web world.

 

Big Data Analytics

Based on these records, administrators can build a better prototype of the product that can help them achieve the user market value, and simultaneously gain a competitive edge in the industry. Using Big Data Analytics, administrators can figure out what their customers’ needs are.

Using the cloud infrastructure, administrators get the higher bandwidth speed, better memory space and more other features to work with freedom on big data analytics. Cloud technology provides dedicated resources to work on big data analytics.

Scalable Solutions

Using the conventional platforms, their market reach always remains limited and so as their business growth. But, with cloud technology, scaling is just as simple as one can think in dreams.

Cloud technology allows businesses to scale up their resources according to the emerging needs of the market. Many organizations fail to scale up their businesses because of the limitations of the existing infrastructure.
The cloud infrastructure facilitates businesses to scale up the bandwidth speed, storage limits, disk memory and other attributes on fingertips.

Optimum Server Performance & Resources

Cloud platforms provide the best-of-the-class server performance and 100% uptime for its deployed applications. The biggest advantage you get with the cloud technology is the ever-lasting performance of its servers.

It provides a plethora of resources that you can use in your applications to make its digital presence more viable and sustainable according to the emerging market needs. With the cloud servers in place, you will always get an advanced stack of tools that ensures optimum performance for your web apps despite any severe traffic loads.

Data Backup & Recovery

Data safety remains a top priority for any organization, as it contains the cores of their businesses and future growth plans. The infrastructure provides advanced features to perform regular data backups and recovery processes in case of an unexpected server failure. It provides an automated backup mechanism on every alternate week/month so that users don’t have to face any disruption or have to perform any manual function to keep the backup cycle in operation.

This allows administrators to bother less about any server or app level backups, as the Cloud platform takes care of all itself. To safeguard it from any accidental failure is one of the top concerns of any business, and they do pay a lot of attention to it.

Advanced Security

It provides several security tools like SSL certificates, dedicated firewalls, etc. that makes almost impossible for hackers to intrude into your applications and perform any unwanted operation.

The cloud platform provides advanced security features for its deployed applications. It has the best infrastructure built on top of optimized security protocols, to ensure that your application always stays protected from the malicious web attacks. 

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8 Tips for trading Bitcoin

1. Set strong passwords

Protect the entrance to the wallet and to your exchange account with long, strong passwords. Install a password manager, write down the generated passwords on a piece of paper and hide it away. Everyone knows that there are hackers in the world who break everything and steal everything. And everyone is sure that something definitely will not happen to them.

2. Configure 2FA verification

Cryptocurrency exchanges enable two-factor verification. In case of loss of access to Google Authenticator on your Smartphone, you can only restore access to the exchange using this backup key. During the configuration of this verification method, the exchange will give you a secret key. Save it – take a screenshot, print it on a piece of paper.

3. Verify on exchanges

Bitcoin Trader Login also allows you to verify your identity and regain access to your account if you lose passwords or lose Google Authenticator. Yes, you will need to highlight your personal data, indicate the address of residence and take a selfie with a passport. But verification is a guarantee that your money will be safe.

4. Do not buy “on highs”

Growth is followed by a recession. How soon the coin will return to its previous position and whether it breaks the upper mark is unknown. The first major mistake of novice traders is the purchase “on highs”. Seeing that the currency has gone up, the newcomer is in a hurry to jump into the last carriage and grabs a coin at a sky-high price.

5. Do not panic

If a coin was bought at a lower price, then it’s okay – the trader takes profits. If panic selling happened after the purchase “on high”, then this is a tragedy – you have to fix the losses. The second major beginner mistake is Panic Selling. Seeing that the coin suddenly rolled down and is not going to stop, the newcomer freaks out and merges it before it’s too late.

6. Do not be greedy

Strictly determine your threshold, after which throw off a coin and take profits. 20-30% is already good. If you wait a moment, and your coin has flown up, that is, shot, do not be greedy and do not wait for it to reach a peak and begin to fall.

there is a chance that the first wave of growth will be one more, and more, and more. When the coin falls, you can re-purchase and withdraw another 10-15%, but re-purchase is always a risk.

7. Just hold it

The recent sharp, but a short-term drop in Bitcoin, and with it the entire cryptocurrency market with subsequent panic, once again proved the value of this rule.

The best rule in the highly impulsive and emotional cryptocurrency market, where everything is constantly jumping, is to collect the will into a fist and hold a coin until better times. Know, sooner or later the very moment will happen when you wake up as a millionaire, but for this, it is important to be patient and not to listen to alarmists, foretellers, and skeptics.

8. Automate bidding

This is ineffective on long time frames and even exhausts. The second is to place sales orders at a specific cost. There are two main ways to trade on the exchange. If the price set is in the usual daily range, and the coin is more or less stable, then there is nothing to worry about – during the day the order will work, and you will take your profit.

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8 Things new Android Developers should do

Some of them are extremely popular, some remain almost unnoticed by users. If you’ve got involved in Android app development, you’ll soon notice that the Google Play store features hundreds of thousand Android apps.

If it’s your first Android app to develop, you should find ways how to make it outstanding. Here are 8 great tips that will direct your activity in the right direction.

1. Delve Into Android

To be at Android development, you should think of Android. It’s imperative that you yourself use an Android device as much as possible and participate in the multiple and vibrant Android communities on the web.

2. Limit Required Permissions

When they see a long sequence of permissions for your app or that they are requested too much data, it’s very discomforting for them. Try to minimize these as much as possible. With the increased malware rate in Android, many users have become more cautious with the things they download.

3. Learn From Google

If you follow these closely, your users will intuitively grab how your app works and enjoy it much more. Google has already developed a set of helpful guidelines for building great and consistent apps.

4. Optimize

One of the common mistakes of many beginners you should watch out for is using unnecessary variables or objects. Users hate it when their app performs slowly and takes up much unnecessary space, that’s why optimization is crucial for your app’s success.

5. Be In Trend

Try to keep your app updated constantly to be in the lead of those to implement new features in order to stay competitive and provide users with a better experience. Google tends to occasionally release new updates to its SDK which gives developers new ways to do things.

6. Have Fun

Only when you are passionate about what you are doing will you be successful. And you surely will! The most important tip about developing anything is having fun during work. The app development business should feel like your hobby rather than a chore.

7. Listen to Users

The easiest way to get user feedback is to create your app’s community on Google+, for example, and ask for reviews. When it comes to app improvements, the best thing you can do is ask for user input. Users really love it when app developers seriously take their feedback and implement it in their product.

8. Go Cross-Device

One thing to ensure cross-device consistency is to use density-independent pixels. Though it’s virtually impossible to test your app across all of them, you should look for ways. What distinguishes Android from other mobile platforms in the first place, is the diversity of devices supporting it, each with different screen sizes and characteristics.

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Using Microservices to improve Software performance

In this blog post we would like to provide a practical demonstration of the ways in which a microservices-based architecture can prepare a software product for a very large influx of new users.

About the Project and its Challenges

They own the startup company and actively use the advanced technologies developing digital products. Our client is a reputable person within their industry. The code was unreadable while the general product concept didn’t meet the client expectations and initial requirements.

Its performance was quite slow, which worried our client the most. However, when the client requested us for the development and testing services, the augmented reality product they were working on was the low quality due to the disparaging attitude of their previous IT provider to the product.

At the stage when the project came to us it included four main components:

• The dashboard concept was simple and intuitive and was also realized with the help of separated Yii2 elements.
• The project API was implemented with the help of Yii2, a popular PHP framework.
• The application supports two major platforms, IOS and Android.
• Dashboard and API of the project were united by a common database of PostgreSQL supported by the Amazon RDS.

Initially, we had only to finalize several backend units, therefore after the deep analyze of the system and the further plans of the client concerning the application scaling and improvement, our responsibilities were expended.

Results & Further Steps

After the precise exploring of the application capabilities, its current state, and the client requirements, we decided to apply the further steps for the app’s performance improvement. As expected, the current server configuration could not resist the projected loads.

• The Amazon RDS will be replaced by the fastest one.
• To develop the most optimal microservices architecture we decided to use the Golang programming language, as one of the most suitable languages for our purposes.
• We decided to change the initial application architecture. The most loaded fragments of the application will be separated into microservices in exchange to the monolith architecture.

The above-mentioned actions were approved by our senior-level experts and the client. To ensure the stable result of our development and testing services. We also took into account the business objectives of our client and their further plans concerning the product optimizing and improving.

Solutions & Technologies

To optimize the testing processes we also used Jmeter — the load test functional behavior and measure performance QA tool. As QArea has its own fully-equipped testing lab, we involved our senior-level QA whose main goal was to develop the needed test scenarios to indicate the application performance and also to check the individual Dashboard elements.

To fully explore the application capabilities, we decided to apply performance testing, which would show how many users the current configuration can sustain.

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Top 5 Software outsourcing companies in Ukraine

Let’s focus on companies with comprehensive experience in healthcare, fintech, e-commerce and entertainment niches that are currently in great demand. The main value of outsourcing is getting the necessary resources to reach different business goals, if there are no in-house facilities of such kind.

We will consider the ones that provide the full stack of development services, starting from project evaluation, planning and finishing with product testing and post-production support.

Any business today is represented online and/or managed programmatically. That is why software outsourcing is a highly popular type of services all over the world. Let’s make this task a little easier by reviewing the TOP software outsourcing companies in Ukraine with the time-proven reputation, enforced by the world business giants among their clients.

SoftServe

What makes SoftServe stand out is a constant growth, great command of the newest technologies and programming approaches. The main industries include:

• Healthcare
• Retail
• Finance
• Smart Manufacturing
• Media and Entertainment

The client niche for this company is mainly midmarket (about 45%). Enterprise and small businesses are 30% and 25% respectively. This means SoftServe is interested in professional challenges of any scale.

SoftServe was founded in 1993, and over the last 26 years has grown up to a company with more than 7800 employees, offices in 12 countries, being able to provide development services comfortably for clients worldwide.

Core Value Inc

Core Value Inc. has built a reputation of a highly powerful and reliable contractor for Data Science, Big Data, QA services, as well as traditional app development. 

Core Value Inc. is twice younger than SoftServe. It is a US-based company with the main teams of developers located in Ukraine and Poland. It stands out from the rest of companies by quite narrow specialization, mainly including:

• CRM and SI
• BI and Big Data
• Custom software development – only 10%.

If you need a reliable contractor for optimizing your commercial business infrastructure with the aim of a CRM system, Core Value Inc. is definitely worth your attention. The most of projects involving CRM consulting and management are focused on sales and marketing automation, and the most popular CRM system among the company’s clients is Salesforce.

Daxx

Daxx is registered in the Netherlands. However, there are more than 400 of its developers based in a few Ukrainian cities. The 90% of Daxx clients are midmarket and small business representatives.

Besides traditional outsourcing they offer IT relocation – ability to get on-site tech specialists into your office, if needed. That’s why it is fairly included in the list of the biggest software outsourcing companies in Ukraine. Main areas of expertise include:

• Custom software development
• Web development
• E-commerce solutions
• Cybersecurity services
• QA

Having experience in various industries, including Healthcare, Travel, Telecom, Fintech, it is an interesting outsourcing partner for creating highly secure commercial web, desktop and mobile apps.

QArea

QArea was founded in 2001, and this is a company with huge experience in offshore outsourcing. This means that QArea team of 250+ programming experts follows the highest development standards and working principles. The major services include:

• Web development
• Mobile app development
• Desktop software development
• IT strategy consulting
• Application testing

Its main value is customer-obsession: the team of specialists working on a specific project fully adjusts for the client’s needs, objectives and terms. The company has exceptionally smooth operation model, being capable to deliver solutions within challenging timeframes.

IT Svit

The company’s experts perform security audits, design and implement cloud infrastructures, perform training of ML&AI models. The major specialization of IT Svit experts is DevOps services, most of the projects involved improving customer’s IT infrastructure, performing proper analysis, research and designing required solutions.

IT Svit data engineers are experts in:

• IT Managed Services
• BI & Big Data Consulting
• Cloud Consulting and SI

IT Svit mostly outsources development services to midmarket customers (about 50% of all clients). The company’s portfolio includes successful DevOps projects for Telecom, Healthcare, Banking, and other industries.

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Top 5 Technology trends in 2020

From the exponential growth of the Internet of things, artificial intelligence, and immersive digital experiences to the future of data security, management, and storage. 2020 is just around the corner with new technologies and approaches that bring us ever closer to the 4th Industrial Revolution.

What was but a theory yesterday may as well become a standard tomorrow. The increasingly rapid pace at which technology is evolving today makes it extremely hard but crucial for companies to keep up with every change, every bit of progress in the digital world.

1. Edge Computing

Internet-of-Things systems, industrial automation, augmented reality, and other promising technologies that rely on high-performance computing require a significantly lower latency to show their full potential than cloud computing can provide today.

Thus, the devices become small, local data centers capable of efficiently processing data in remote locations with limited or no connectivity to the cloud. The idea of keeping traffic local and distributed helps companies to drastically improve response times, save bandwidth, as well as enable greater autonomy of their software and hardware solutions. According to the report by Allied Market Research, the global edge computing market is expected to reach $16.55 billion by 2025 and create various new jobs, primarily for software engineers.

One of the most successful examples of edge computing is Amazon’s PrimeAir and its package delivery drones. This raises an increased interest in edge computing and its distributed capabilities. Microsoft Azure—showing a perfect fit for the needs of thousands of companies today, there are still many current and emerging technologies that require a different approach to information processing.

2. Artificial Intelligence

Today AI-powered software is an integral component of digital transformation strategies of practically every company out there. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other cognitive tools drive automation across IT ecosystems. The statistic shows that the global AI software market will reach approximately 15 billion dollars in 2020 which means AI is becoming a lot more than just a trend.

Organizations redesign their core systems, establish new business approaches, and reorganize their processes around AI solutions and their strongest cognitive possibilities: data-driven insights, data-informed decision making, and increased productivity. The adoption has already begun across industries—from ubiquitous chatbots to complex predictive analytics tools—and the demand for AI-powered solutions is growing at a great pace.

See more technical topics: software outsourcing, software development outsourcing, website design terminology

The most realistic options to consider in 2020 are AI-as-a-service and open-algorithm models. Though still pretty pricey in terms of customization to the specific tasks an organization may require, the AI-as-a-service model will be an attainable option provided by the likes of Google, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft.

3. Robotic Process Automation and Hyperautomation

While automation has always been a hot topic for numerous employment disputes—recent Forrester Research report estimates that automation currently threatens about 9% of the global workforce—today merely 5% of jobs can be entirely automated.

Over the next decade, the technology is more likely to alter existing jobs, making them easier to do through partial automation, and significantly increase the demand for business analysts, software architects, engineers, and other IT personnel. Like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is meant to make our lives easier through digital transformation and automation of complex business processes—data processing, workflow optimization, supply chain management, and other complex, repetitive tasks that once required humans.

Such AI-fueled decision making will drive significant value and business opportunities for companies that adopt it the earliest in the next decade. The next step in automation will be combining RPA with the aforementioned AI, ML—as well as other automation tools, intelligent business management software, and process mining techniques—that give us the opportunity to automate processes and augment humans in even more impactful ways.

4. Extended Reality

Extended reality (XR) is a term that refers to the three representative forms of immersive digital experiences provided by computer technology and wearables: virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR).

AR provides an interactive experience by enhancing real-world objects with computer-generated perceptual information that you can interact with through smartphones, tablets, eyeglasses, and all kinds of other devices. Even though XR technologies are mostly applied in entertainment and experiential marketing today, they are changing the way we perceive and interact with the real and digital world.

In 2020 and forth, these technologies are expected to be widely implemented across numerous other domains like healthcare, education, and retail. VR is a full immersion into a digital environment where you interact with digital objects using special headsets with controllers or multi-projected environments.

5. Intelligent Interfaces

One of the most common features of these human-computer interfaces is the ability to gather data about the user, predict what the user wants, and provide them with information or services more adequate to their needs. Extensive capabilities of artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, robotics, edge computing, and extended reality in combination with human-centered design techniques open the way for a system called Intelligent Interface.

Over the next decade, there will be major improvements in natural language processing, computer vision, facial recognition, eye tracking, emotion recognition, gesture control, and other related technologies that will drive the development of new, advanced intelligent interfaces for both private and business needs.

Such significantly more intuitive and efficient interfaces will play a huge role in the Industry 4.0 transformation. Intelligent interfaces will be able to understand customers at a deeper level, providing them with more personalized services and custom products. The convenience of intelligent interfaces and their cognitive capabilities will help companies enhance the individual productivity of every employee and increase the company’s overall operational efficiency.

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