Articles in ‘Development’

• Windows 8 – should it be more revolutionary?

  by Webfusion in Development, misc on September 16th, 2011 Post a comment

  Windows 7, we were told, was designed from the ideas of Windows users. Feedback. Great, but surely really innovative stuff, goes beyond just feedback and comes from innovative companies investing heavily in R&D and the top techie geeks breaking down barriers and finding and designing truly new ideas?

  Microsoft may feel they have got that with Windows 8, but have they really? Windows 8 Developer Preview  is now in the public domain and while it’s presentation is different – offering twin split of views that mimic traditional mouse and keyboard on one hand and the “Metro” tablet look and feel on the other – is what it can do and how it stretches our PC use really radical enough?

  The Metro look and its success will be heaviliy dependant on the succes of the windows Apps market. The current number of 30,000 apps may sound a convincing number – and it is sure to be much higher come the full launch of Windows 8 late next year – but that figure is nothing compared to the availability of Android (200,000 + apps) and Apple iOS (425,000 apps) so will it all come too late at a time when Tablets may have already taken over the way we work, rest and play?

  This article from the Huffington Post crew covers what they see are biggest and best innovations in Windows 8 but are email notifications, fast boot-up and touch-screen really enough, or are they just features we have all grown to expect?

  What are your thoughts?

• Maximize your traffic by understanding Alexa

  by Webfusion in Development, Search Engines on January 21st, 2011 Post a comment

  

  Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  So 2011 is here and the internet is set to play a more important role in business success than ever before. Economics and customers desire for interactivity mean that role of the internet in revenue building and customer relationships will be key in the 12 months ahead.

  However, to start building on that you need to make sure you are monitoring and maximizing the traffic your website is getting.

  Alexa.com is recognized as one of the best tools in measuring a website’s popularity and with a growing user base, expect its own role to continue to grow too. Alexa ‘measures’ traffic by using data collected from web users who have the Alexa toolbar activated in their browsers. With a reported 1.9 million users by the end of last year, that is a fairly comprehensive set of users, making it one of the largest Web Crawlers around. However, its results are by no means comprehensive. With no toolbar yet available for Opera or Safari browsers, nor older versions of other browsers, the results are somewhat skewed however.

  Anybody can use Alexa to see the ranking of a specific site. Alexa provides stats on page views, time spent on the site, sites that link in, bounce rate and where the audience is from (geographically). It also offers socio-demographics of audience – although the accuracy in households where more than one user uses the same browser must be questioned.

  Yet, despite the flaws with Alexa it is essentially the best there is in terms of truly measuring traffic web-wide. So it is important that when you are formulating your online plan, you consider the four key metrics that Alexa bases it’s rankings on.

  1.Traffic Rank: Provided by Alexa Toolbar Users and supplemented by data collected from other, diverse sources over a 3 month period. Updated daily and based on a combination of Reach and Pageviews.
  2.Reach: The percentage of global internet users who visit your site
  3.Time on Site: This is the daily time spent on your site (minutes), not necessarily single visits.
  4.Upstream Site: The sites users visited immediately after visiting the site.

  So that’s how Alexa ‘measures’ and creates its rankings but how can you affect that? Well the rankings offer a few pointers. Social Media is set to be ever more important this year so it is important to note that Alexa ranks the top 10 of these sites in this order:
  1. Google, 2.Facebook, 3.Youtube, 4.Yahoo, 5.Twitter, 6.LinkedIn, 7.Flickr, 8.Digg, 9.StumbleUpon, and 10.Delicious. So you should consider if and how you feature within each of these. Learn how each works and what features they offer, such as Googles Adwords and Facebook advertising.

  Facebook is possibly the most key for upstream traffic and the like and share buttons, along with a fully featured Facebook page likely to boost your ranking substantially. A re-tweeted post on Twitter could also have similar effect.

  Looking ahead to 2011, if you find things a little slow you may be well placed to spend some time getting to know the top 10 social media sites and implementing what you know. It may bring in more traffic and potentially more revenue simply by getting a higher rank.

• Start 2011 with a new look Facebook Profile

  by Webfusion in Business trends, Development, Web Design on December 31st, 2010 Post a comment

  Earlier this month, Facebook introduced an update to present everyone with new layouts to their profiles and walls which made posting status updates slightly different in format.

  Since then, customized profiles have been popping up around the place and we thought you might like to know how you can produce something as elegant as the examples below.

  

  (Images found on Google image search “personalised Facebook profile”)

  Get your image

  Firstly you need to select an image that will look good in pieces like the ones in the examples above. You will need Adobe Photoshop or other image slicing software to do the next part.

  Slice it up

  The biggest part of your image on the left (your main profile picture) needs to be 180 pixels in width. The height can be as tall as you wish.

  The small boxes at the top of the image need to be 68 pixels high x 97 pixels wide which will contain other elements of the main photo to achieve the effect shown above.

  Upload

  Go to photos > upload photos and select the images you want that compile the whole image. Be sure to allow the images to share with everyone so that everyone can see.

  Once saved don’t publish them to your stream unless you want to. Tag the photos from last (furthest right) to first furthest left (not the profile picture) with your own name so they can appear at the top in the way the examples do.

  Last but not least upload the biggest portion (the profile picture) as your profile picture to complete the effect.

  Your Facebook profile will now hopefully now stand out from the crowd and your friends will be bugging you to ask how you did it. Be sure to send them our way.

  The steps above were inspired by the very useful video “Facebook ‘Profile Picture Hack’ Tutorial” by xadacka which is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vhvJqGgzmoQ#!

• Get to grips with Social Media ahead of 2011

  by Webfusion in Development, marketing, Online Business on December 23rd, 2010 Post a comment

  We have to admit, even we get carried away with posts about Twitter, Facebook and apps like WordPress. They are the main social media tools, that even your grandma might be using nowadays, but what about Web 2.0 tools out there for the more discerning web user? We’ve had a trawl and picked out a handful of those social media sites you may have not yet signed up to, but might be of use:

  1. Dopplr
  Dopplr makes your travel planning smarter. Whether it is travel with your family, work or as a social group, you can share your travel plans with the people you trust. They needn’t be people you are intending to travel with either. Dopplr acts like a travel calendar for you and if you are linked with other friends, family and colleagues Dopplr will analyse all your travel plans and can spot coincidences when your travels overlap. This can be a great tool for meeting up with old faces when you all have a busy social and working life. There are tips and advice from other travellers too, so if you are looking at somewhere new you can get an insight into what to see and do and what to avoid.

  2. Audioboo
  The best way to explain Audioboo is probably ‘the audio equivalent of Twitter’. You can record and share your thoughts in audio format from wherever you are in the world using a downloadable app for your smart-phone and have them shared on the web almost instantaneously. It is not just your thoughts either. Spotted a celebrity? Why not try and grab an impromptu interview with them to share with your friends. Others use Audioboo to record the sounds of an event, be it silence, bird-song or racous chanting. Sports fans and festival goers have been the fastest to embrace this. You don’t need a smartphone either. You can upload your sound file easily using your web browser, which is a useful tool if you want to use another type of audio recorder and or edit the audio before you upload it.

  3. Ipadio
  Similar to Audioboo Ipadio is a personal or business tool that can help you create an audio blog. Phlogs as they are known can be embedded in a player on your site, or  you can direct visitors to your own Ipadio site that updates with your latest postings. You can organize these, edit them and customize your channel. Again there are smartphone apps to record and upload in one slick movement – it updates in real-time opening the possibility of live commentary on an event. No smartphone? Don’t worry. You can upload an audio file via a web-browser or you can  use the access telephone number and pin you are given when setting up your account and just ring in your Phlog down the line. It can even be used for sports commentaries using a live stream-type facility.

  4. WhoHub
  Ever fancied being the subject of one of those expert / celebrity Q&A articles? WhoHub makes you the star, inviting you to answer a series of probing questions based upon the interests and knowledge. It is free to create an interview including professional and more personal questions which build up to create an online Q&A for  you. You can link to your pages elsewhere, blogs, photographs, work portfolio. It is a great way to promote yourself and improve your digital identity. With just over 50,000 interviews online you can become part of what looks set to become a growing community.

  5. Jumo
  Created by Chris Hughes co-founder of Facebook, who has more recently been Director of Online Organizing for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. After a part-existence for many months, Jumo finally received a formal launch this week. Designed to let users find, follow and support the causes important to them, it already boasts over 3,000 organizations on board and is set to become one of the most talked about social media tools in the new year.

  6. Diaspora
  Being dubbed as a ‘more private’ Facebook rival, Diaspora finally launched its Alpha test this month and is already making waves.  Developed by a team of 4 US students they originally had difficulty raising the funds for building the project from scratch but in the end 6,500 people contributed with money and the numbers reached $200,000, with further ‘angel’ funding. With a site that doesn’t yet appear to support Internet Explorer however, and some none to complimentary twitter traffic this week. it might be that Diaspora won’t reach its potential.

• Content is King

  by Webfusion in Development on October 1st, 2010 1 Comment

  Well you’d probably expect to hear that from a Copywriter and the same is true of SEO experts, but how often are new websites designed with ‘content to follow’? Most clients are driven by the desire to have a funky looking site. However, pushing ahead without considering what information that site will contain can often leave them with a nice looking advert rather than an enticing and interactive website that will better drive new sales.

  So the majority of websites are designed with the stomach-churning “Lorem ipsum…” text, with the real content forced in at a later date. The problem is this may be several weeks into the design process and far too often the client hasn’t even really considered the precise content until after the designer has created a site-map, wire-frames and mock-up.  Once the content is delivered, invariably there is far more content than anticipated in the original design or just as bad much less, leading to ‘padding’ or non-essential content being included to fit the design. In worse case scenarios the client may even request additional pages to be included, throwing out navigation systems, site-maps and affecting the complete user-experience.

  Content really should be King when designing a website. Content for a modern site is not just text either. Clients may be considering graphics, video, audio, even various feeds from Twitter accounts, blogs etc. The designer needs to know about these from the outset, particularly if rich content is going to be required as it may determine the platform used to host the site.

  From a sales success point of view, design should be seen as complimenting the content. A client should know the message they want to get across. SEO advice will influence their choice of text and realistically how the site looks will not affect search engine rankings greatly.

  Essentially the message needs to be set-out and decided upon before true design gets underway. Like making a cake, the ingredients (content) are essential to creating the finished product and they can then be tidied up and presented with icing, decoration etc. In addition, once the ingredients are set there may be a number of ways of cooking and combining them. Being a designer is about everything after the ingredients have been decided upon. Of course a good designer is aware of what makes good colour choices and nice graphics but they are also able to help organise content and how the site is put together. Design includes structuring the customer journey and to do that you need to know what content you are driving them through and to.

  Clients then, need to be educated about the importance of content, that Content is King. This means designers need to be firm with them. Presenting a dummy text mock-up will not give a true representation of the final look of a site. It is a false economy for designers to follow that route as far too frequently it results in clients coming back requiring design tweaks once the final copy is inputted.

  So the next time you set-out to design a site or instruct somebody else to remember for the best results: Content is King.

  Do you agree?

• Website Presentation Zen with High Charts

  by Webfusion in Development on January 22nd, 2010 Post a comment

  

  If data is king then quality charts are the visual equivalent of Presentation Zen. We recently spoke with Torstein Hønsi, development manager at Highcharts, a web-based charting application:

  How did the idea for Highcharts come about? What real world projects influenced its inception?
  Back in 2003 I purchased a weather station for my private website and was unhappy with the charting software supplied. I wanted something dynamic but at the time all Flash solutions were expensive and I wasn’t too happy with the idea of urging my low-tech readers to install a plug-in. So I set out building a JavaScript solution bases on div pixels, which soon was abandoned due to the slow rendering and memory consumption.

  The next effort was JavaScript tooltips laid over a chart image created by JPGraph. A good solution, but it showed the need for a native JavaScript charting solution. When vector graphics finally were available in all common browsers two or three years ago, the time was in to give it a go. By that time I had my own company, and development on Highcharts has been going on for the last two years. The configuration syntax and functionality has been inspired by projects like JPGraph, FusionCharts, AnyChart, amChart, Flotr, Ext JS and MooTools. Highcharts enables web developers and entrepreneurs to quickly set up and maintain a visual report without actually understanding much of how JavaScript works.
  What are the advantages to using Javascript for the application over client side plug-ins such as Flash?
  

  Flash is a proprietary technology, and many developers hesitate to become dependent on one specific vendor. Moreover, Flash and other plug-ins like Java or ActiveX require the end user to install a plug-in in their browser. Although Flash is very common in today, it will still confuse first-time users.

  Highcharts can replace Powerpoint in a website environment. It is limited to run in a webpage, but as more and more software – including presentation programs – is becoming web based, Highcharts is the ideal data visualizer.
  
  What are your future plans for Highcharts?

  We are currently working on methods for updating the charts dynamically after render time. For example by appending a point to a series while shifting one off the screen, we will have live charts. Imagine getting refreshed data over an Ajax connection for monitoring some remote value. The next great update is to allow saving the chart as an image. In standard browsers this doesn’t raise any technical problems, but in IE the vector graphics are drawn using VML which can’t be converted directly. The solution will be to use the Chrome Frame to generate the images in IE. But as this doesn’t comply with our philosophy above, we will probably also add an option to generate the image at our servers. Other features on the roadmap are wrapper components for PHP, ASP.NET, .NET and JSFP.

• Agile Web Development with Team Trick

  by Webfusion in Development on January 18th, 2010 Post a comment

  

  As agile software development has gained prominence in recent years, a number of apps have emerged to organize the process. Webfusion (WF) recently spoke with Manuel Morales (MM), the creator of Team Trick which is a Ruby-based scrum platform where development teams can chart their progress:

  WF: Agile development has taken off in recent years – what do you see the main advantages over traditional processes? How has your own development experience influenced the project?

  MM: Software development is such a complicated an unpredictable thing that an agile approach fits way better than waterfall. Agile lets bright teams shine. The way agile responds to change seriously boost productivity, makes the client more satisfied with the final results and reduces failure odds. What else can you ask for?

  
  WF: How can Team Trick help teams working to improve code and reduce project times? Your app has integrated graphical dashboards – how can project managers use this to evaluate the progress toward their next release?
  MM: TeamTrick saves time automating the most tedious tasks of Scrum like burndown chart and sprint planning estimations.In addition to that, the project dashboard demonstrates in a blink how well is your team doing in terms of productivity and estimations.
  Scrum is usually implemented with post-its on a board. This works great for in-place teams but becomes a problem as soon as project members start working outside of the office. You can work around this with tools like Google docs. But TeamTrick provides additional features like the mentioned above.

  WF: You built the application on Rails – how do you see the advantages of Ruby versus PHP?

  MM: TeamTrick wouldn’t have been possible without a good framework behind. Learning Rails in developing TeamTrick has been a really enjoyable experience. Mostly due all the good practices and concepts I learned with it. Like Don’t Repeat Yourself, Test Driven Development, the MVC pattern, etc. About the Ruby vs. PHP vs. Java question: Ruby is really pleasant for the programmer. But that’s not the most important thing. I value much more a good framework and an excellent community.

  WF: Where do you see the feature of web apps headed in the next few years?

  MM: Companies are going crazy about location based apps. And it seems obvious that we are going to see revolutionary apps in this field. Augmented reality is impressive. However, it’s easy to be confused and start thinking that people will use your app just for being location based. What I’m sure is that mobile phone compatibility will become essential.

• Code Remotely with PHP Anywhere

  by Webfusion in Development on January 11th, 2010 1 Comment

  Working with remote teams on coding projects is easier than ever thanks to the growth of collaboration tools and open source version control software. Webfusion (WF) recently spoke with the creators of PHP Anywhere (PA), a web application designed to make PHP team projects easier to manage:

  WF: Tell us a bit about where the idea for the project came from – what tools was the team using before you created the app?

  PA: The idea came from our co-founder Vedran Jukic, who did a lot of php freelance work at the time but was often away from the office. So he need a way to get his work done without dragging his laptop with him all the time – shortly after that the idea of PHPanywhere was born.

  WF: Many developers collaborate internationally – how does the interface allow for multi-lingual communications?

  PA: Currently PHPanywhere does not support any type of communication between users (this is planned for a later date) but PHPanywhere does support all encoding formats, so no matter what language you use – you can use PHPanywhere.

  WF: What has your team learned since your launch in 2008? How has the project roadmap evolved?

  PA: We have learned quite a bit, mostly about UX, and what we need to do to make our users more satisfied. So we are now constantly in contact with our users letting them guide our roadmap. As for the evolution, it is evolving more or less as planned; here and there we reach a “bump in the road” but nothing serious.

  We see web based applications taking a major piece of the software market in the years to come, because they are cheap (often free), allow mobility, and of course  the release of web-based OS – Chrome will just make this happened sooner.

• Mobile Social Answers: Development of the QPixl iPhone Picture App

  by Webfusion in Development on December 18th, 2009 Post a comment

  If a picture is worth more than its relative bandwidth in words, then Tom Sprows’ new social answers application QPixl is poised for an impressive growth curve. Webfusion recently spoke with Tom about his iPhone application, the mobile development process and how to effectively innovate in the social space:

  QPixl is a unique name – how did you go about selecting the domain? Tell us a bit about the background to the idea and implementation for the site.

  I wanted to get a name that blended pictures and questions. My first ideas were Qpics/Qpix/Qpic but all were taken. I was having lunch with a friend and discussing my different name ideas. We started to brainstorm and QpixL was brought up. We thought it was catchy and a decent domain name (and only 5 characters!) We did a quick domain
  search and found it was available.

  I always liked sites such as Answers.com and Yahoo! Answers but they seemed boring. Also, they lacked a mobile component and social network integration. I was looking for an internet connected iPhone project to consider and decided I would make my own Q/A site with pics.

  You have both an iPhone and a Web App – how did the development process for each differ? Do you have plans to produce an Android application?

  The iPhone app is written in objective-C (Apple’s proprietary iPhone language) and the website is written using C#/Asp.net. I wanted to learn objective-C and thought by bringing both C# and objective-C together it would be a pretty good challenge. It was!

  I have a bunch of plans for the site that will make QpixL available to any Smart phone with a camera and access to email. So at this point I am not considering an Android application.

  QPixl adds a multi-media element to popular sites such as Yahoo Answers – what separates you from your competitors, and which innovative features do you have planned for future releases?

  My biggest features that separate me from the other competitors are as follows:
  - A heavy mobile component
  - Questions with pics!
  - Social network integration (Ask your friends for answers)
  - Serious and not so serious questions (“How do I look” type questions)
  - The ability for people to answer questions without having to sign in.

  Phase II of QpixL will be coming shortly. I am focusing more on the web site of QpixL. Here is a sample of some of the features:

  1. - Ability to log into the site with Facebook Connect
  2. – Profile creation (QpixL.com\Spiderman)
  3. – Ability to upload pic/questions via email, iPhone and website
  4. – Geolocation (Google maps integration to see where the question/pic was asked)
  5. – Posting to many more social sites
  6. – Categories
  7. – Scoring and Fans
  8. – A Cool/hip Q/A community.

  How does QPixl approach social integration? How do you see open standards in social networks changing, including more open APIs (such as Twitter recent implemented)?

  The goal for QpixL is to become a community for asking questions. I want to be able to send questions/pics/vids to any social site. Then bring the users back to QpixL. Open APIs make this possible. There will only be more sharing the more social networks open up their services.

  What advice can you offer to beginning web developers who are looking to start building their own apps?

  Don’t just dream it. Build it.

• A Market for Websites – an Interview with Blarket

  by Webfusion in Development on December 17th, 2009 4 Comments

  While traditional real estate markets may still be under water, the market for websites is starting to heat up. The New York Times recently profiled the topic, citing the rising trend of entreprenuers moving into the space. We recently spoke with Zach Tyler (ZT) at Blarket (blog + market) about his new website marketplace start up.

  WF: How did the idea for the Blarket app come about? Which other sites or ideas inspired the development?

  ZT: I’ve been selling blogs for a few years now. About a year ago I started thinking about building a new website marketplace because at the time there was only one solid marketplace which was on Sitepoint.com. At the time, Sitepoint’s marketplace didn’t offer anything special so I knew it was a market I may be able to disrupt. While gathering some information for my new project I came across Flippa.com while it was still in beta. I thought it looked great, but then I noticed the new payment structure. $20 plus 5% commission. I knew that wouldn’t go over well with the frequent buyers and sellers so I decided to build a new marketplace with a flat fee that offered more than Flippa could.

  WCan you share some insight into how you came up with the Blarket domain name and what is means exactly?

  When looking for a domain I debated going with something generic like “sellandbuywebsite.com” for SEO reasons, or go with something short and memorable. I contacted a few domain owners with related domain names but all were too expensive for my budget. I spent the next couple of days brainstorming and eventually thought of Blarket, which initially meant “Blog Market.” Although Blarket isn’t just for blogs, the domain hadn’t been taken, and it was just too good to pass up.

  Your site features a clean, easy to navigate design – how did you approach the site architecture and front-end development?

  I had designed the first mockup of Blarket, but let’s just say my design skills aren’t superior. Once the backend details had been completed, I met up with two amazing graphic designers at my college and they worked with me to build the current design. We wanted to build an attractive and vibrant website that was clean and simple. We removed a lot of the clutter on the homepage and showed only the most important details, with other details available through the info button. We put all the personal function like profile access, and messaging in the dark bar at the top of the header, leaving the rest of the site mainly for browsing the marketplace. I’m extremely happy with how everything turned out, I like to think I accomplished one of my many goals, which was to build the nicest looking website marketplace.

  What separates Blarket from other sites on the web such as Flippa, and what new features can we expect in the next year?

  The biggest difference between Blarket and Flippa is the payment structure. Blarket charges $30 for a website to be listed with no commission. Flippa charges $20 plus 5% commission. Blarket is sticking with the flat fee because it’ll entice more valuable websites to post because they can save hundreds. I think it’s important to have a marketplace that charges for a listing. It creates a sense of friction between the poor and quality websites. Most of the site marketplaces are free, but you’ll find that most have a bunch of spammy sites marked up too high because they have nothing to lose.

  I have a bunch of interesting features I’m going to add in the future. I ultimately want to make Blarket a community for buyers and sellers. Right now profiles are very bare, but soon they’ll be statistics on every buyer and seller with success badges that can be earned as one builds their account. I’m also adding RSS to the listing category’s for those only interested in say, forums. I also plan on developing a site verification and escrow system so every transaction is completed safely. I don’t want to give away to much, but there’s definitely some exciting features that will be added in the near future.