5 Tips Using Cloud Accounting Software To Achieve Small Business Success

Starting your very own small business is an exciting yet daunting venture. You’re chasing your dream – leaving everything else behind to do what you’ve always wanted to do, the way you envision it should be done. On the other hand, you’re putting it all on the line. You’re risking not only your career but your entire livelihood. The success or failure of your business will have a direct impact on the entirety of your life.

According to the U.S Small Business Association Office of Advocacy, about a third of businesses fail in their first two years of operation and about half fail within the first five years. Poor financial management is one of the main reasons businesses go under. When resources are tight it is easy for ambitious entrepreneurs to overspend, believing that profitability is right around the corner.

There is really no excuse for not staying on top of your finances in this day and age. There are a number of financial tools that are now easier to use and more accessible since becoming readily available in the cloud. The following list highlights the types of web-based software all small business owners should use in order to achieve financial success.

#1. Accounting

Cloud accounting software is the best way to keep track of your business cash flow. It provides owners and their accountants both high-level and detailed views of their current financial situation, in real-time. Many solutions connect with their user’s bank accounts, allowing bank transactions to be fed directly into the ledger, eliminating the need for manual data entry.

What sets cloud accounting software apart from its desktop predecessors is that it is accessible anytime, anywhere. This not only makes it easy for business owners to check their finances on the go, but also lets accountants access their client’s books whenever it’s convenient. The accessibility factor makes for greater collaboration between both parties and really gives accountants the ability to act as trusted financial advisors that monitor the financial well-being of their client’s business.

#2. Payroll

Traditionally, running payroll was a burden that reoccurred every two weeks or so for small business owners. Thanks to the new features made possible by payroll in the cloud, this is no longer the case. Many payroll software vendors provide an employee app, where staff can log in and request time off and access paystubs without having the ability to view the greater financial data.

The payroll manager can set PTO rules and let the software automatically track accruals. The ability to have the entire company take part in payroll removes much of the hassle for the person who ultimately processes it.

In addition to the employee app, features like automatic tax calculations and filing, API integration and comprehensive reporting are now commonplace for online payroll software.

#3. Expensing

Passing along a pile of paper receipts attached to an expense report has no place in the digital age we now live in. There are numerous applications that make expense reporting quick and easy. Like cloud accounting solutions, web-based expensing software can link with online bank and credit card accounts, allowing for transactions to be automatically imported into an expense report.

Many solutions also offer mobile apps that make it simple to track and automate expenses while employees are on the road, spending money. For instance, miles traveled can be tracked using mobile GPS capabilities and expense items can be imported via a photo of a receipt.

#4. Invoicing

Creating, sending and keeping track of invoices is now much more efficient than it once was. Good cloud invoicing software lets users create an invoice, send it from the application and monitor when the client has viewed it. This makes it easy for small business owners to keep a close eye on how outstanding invoices are affecting their cashflow and determine when it is the proper time to follow up with the customer.

Invoicing software often has the capability to pre-load inventory items and their cost and upload company logos. This makes generating an accurate and branded invoice a task that can be accomplished in only a few clicks.

#5. Time tracking

Accurately tracking the number of hours spent on a client project is an absolute must for service-oriented businesses. Not long ago it was easy to lose track of hours, leading to imprecise invoices and questions from the client. Luckily this is no longer the case thanks to the emergence of online time tracking software.

Contractors, freelancers and other service providers can track the time they spend on particular projects by using web or mobile timers, which automatically import the total hours into a timesheet. The project manager can keep tabs on overall progress by tracking the hours of each team member, ensuring everyone stays on schedule and budget.

As much as the cloud has expanded the capabilities of each of the financial management tools mentioned, its greatest achievement is that it lets all of them interact and share information. Accounting ledgers can be updated automatically with external invoices, pay runs and expenses. Timesheets can be imported into your invoicing software. Approved expenses can flow into payroll software. Using the cloud, small business owners can build a custom total business solution that meets all their needs and gives them a comprehensive and accessible view of their financial health.

7 Upcoming Cyber Dangers To Be Aware Of In 2014

Experts are predicting that cyber terrorists will begin attacking clouds, multiple platforms, and global systems in 2014. Prepare now to combat these threats. Every year brings something different and unexpected, and 2014 will be no exception.
When it comes to cyber security, the unexpected can cost thousands of dollars and leave a business on the verge of failure. Even if it’s not that disastrous, it can result in the loss of some customers’ personal information, leading to a nightmare for them and the business. On a personal level, new cyber dangers can result in the loss of information and hours of work, not to mention credit card information.
While antivirus software companies and anti-malware companies do their best to keep ahead of cyber terrorists, they often are reacting rather than acting. However, these companies are already working to put defences in place for what they believe to be some of the cyber dangers consumers will face in 2014. Read on to learn about a few of these dangers that experts in the field suspect will be seen in the New Year.

#1. New Malware that’s Smarter and Sneakier

Malware, or software that infects your computer and steals information or damages files, has always been fairly insidious. However, it’s been predicted that it will get even worse in 2014. Malware, which has primarily infected PCs and laptops, may start targeting smart phones and tablets since more and more people are using these devices for banking and other financial tasks.
Malware can steal people’s credit card numbers or their banking login information, allowing hackers to steal funds. Experts also expect to see an increase of ransom ware, a new type of malware that locks up a device until people pay the hackers to have the ransom ware removed.  

#2. Macs will be Targeted

One of the things many people cite as a reason to purchase a Mac rather than a PC is that they don’t get as many viruses or malware. However, that may change in 2014 simply because people don’t expect to find malware on their Macs. This gives hackers a target that isn’t as well protected. Antivirus and anti-malware companies will need to devote more time and resources to creating software to protect Macs. Mac owners are being encouraged to make certain they have protection on their computers and not to assume that simply because they use a Mac that they’re safe from viruses. 

#3. More Online Devices Means More Targets

As more and more devices are put online, there will, naturally, be more targets. Computers, smart phones, tablets, gaming systems, home climate controls . . . as more and more gadgets are connected to the internet, hackers and virus creators will have more and more targets. The same type of security systems won’t be able to protect everything. Companies will have to start creating more diverse software and protection programs to defend all of these different systems.

#4. Cloud Protection

Many companies are starting to use cloud storage. This type of storage involves saving information to a server or server farm (the cloud) and then accessing it remotely when it’s needed. However, while this does save storage space, it also creates a new security issue. With all the information moving back and forth between computers and the cloud, there’s a greater risk that it can be stolen.
That’s why companies have to create dynamic security with free cloud antivirus programs. Most clouds already have some form of security, but as hackers begin targeting clouds more frequently, companies will have to respond with stronger defences. 

#5. Global Attacks

Because cloud computing allows people from all around the world to access data, attacks on cloud servers are global attacks. The result is that cyber security companies and law enforcement will have to start acting on a global, rather than a local or regional, level. New agreements may have to be formed in order to track down cyber criminals across international lines.

#6. An Increase in Cyber Security Insurance

Because organizations want to protect themselves and their customers in the event of a cyber attack, more of them will begin purchasing cyber security insurance. This insurance will provide protection from major monetary loss in the event of an attack. It will also help provide their customers with a feeling of trust. According to studies, the cyber security insurance industry can expect to grow by about 50 percent in 2014.

#7. Cyber Security Education will Increase

As more threats occur and more cyber response teams are needed, the education these teams receive will become more diverse and detailed. Only about a fourth of all cyber security professionals surveyed by the Ponemon Institute in 2013 felt like they had the education and knowledge needed to combat growing threats.  

Battling Threats

Overall, while cyber dangers are expected to increase in 2014, security and response times will also increase as companies react to these new dangers and update their security programs.

6 Predictions About How We’ll Use Technology In 2014

Each year, we wonder what the upcoming 12 months will bring in terms of trends that can help us do more with our businesses. Over the years, we’ve benefited from technology trends like social media, cloud computing, and software as a service.

So what will 2014 bring, technology-wise?

#1. More Analog Tasks Will Go Digital

If you’re old enough, you know why we say we have to “balance the books” when it comes to accounting. It’s hard to imagine not using accounting software. This year, I predict the average small business owner will start using digital versions of paper and analog tasks like:

• Employee scheduling (that’s what my company does)
• Keeping track of calendars and appointments
• Tracking travel expenses and scanning receipts

#2. We’ll See More Outsourcing and Virtual Teams

More businesses are letting go of the idea that a team can only be functional if all members work in the same physical office. That opens the door to working with freelancers and dev teams in other locations, as well as letting your staff work virtually. This can help you realize major cost savings if you don’t have to worry about the overhead of an office.

#3. We’ll Get a Better Handle on Analytics

So Google took our keyword data and made it harder to figure out how customers were coming to our site. While this necessitates us changing how we view analytics, it also invites new solutions. I suspect we’ll see several new types of analytics companies presenting options for us to analyze a customer’s behavior before and after arriving on our website, without our Google training wheels.

#4. Voice Recognition Will Become Commonplace

If you’ve been a newer-gen iPhone user, Siri’s old hat to you. If you’re an Android phone owner, you were probably delighted last year when Google rolled out its voice recognition program. Expect to see more widespread adoption of voice tools, as well as integration into different platforms.

#5. Tablets Won’t Be as Novel as Business Tools

Even just a year or two ago, it was a shock to see a restaurant using an iPad to take orders. We’re not seeing complete adoption in the restaurant industry just yet, but we are starting to see more industries using tablets in creative ways, such as doctors using them to record notes while with a patient. Tablets are now affordable enough to be “just another office tool.”

#6. Wearable Technology Won’t Get Far…Just Yet

If you’re tired of hearing about Google Glass and not actually seeing mainstream adoption, you’ll probably be happy if the hype dies down a little. And I suspect it will, though fashion designers might (should, anyway) get involved to make the innovation more user-friendly and fashion-forward.
It’s always interesting to ponder what technology holds for us. We live in exciting times, don’t we?

Satellite Internet vs. Ethernet: Why Satellite is Years Behind

There are plenty of times and places to apply satellite based network services. Many people who have remote locations run an entire branch on one satellite modem. However for a larger network infrastructure or for packet heavy communications, Ethernet services perform vastly better. That’s why businesses are weighing satellite internet vs. Ethernet.

Understanding How Packets Create Network Speed and Quality

Even Satellite Today understands the problem that even advanced satellite modems encounter, data packet partitioning. When information passes through a network, it sends packets of data to the end destination. These packets can be large or small, but each bit of information that needs to be passed is bunched into a packet for the network.
Satellite modems are very capable of sending large packets of data, however they run into issues if they need to send a lot of packets, such as 20 people using VOIP providers to communicate. The modem may be able to handle eight large packets of data, but when it starts to receive more packets than it can handle, quality will suffer if the modem has fail safe protocols, or lock up and reboot. For this reason, it is especially important to carefully consider not only the data speeds of the satellite modem, but also the packet capacity as well.
Ethernet services work on a slightly different principle to take advantage of the hardwired, reliable connections called Asynchronous Transfer Mode, or ATM for short. Instead of allocating a number of packets and sending large volumes of data across the network, Ethernet modems chop up that large data into smaller packets and give them a 16-bit code of address information called an ATM tax in the IT world. This packet allocation protocol allows the network to handle infinite number of packets coming through because at the receiving end, that 16-bit address line tells the receiving modem how the packet is meant to be reassembled.

What Does This Mean to the Large and Small Business Owner?

There are some remote locations where satellite internet is all that is available. In those situations with smart IT planning, a hybrid system of Ethernet routing and a satellite modem can adequately satisfy the needs of the business or operations. However, the reason satellite internet is years behind, is that even with a well managed suite of Ethernet services, the satellite modem and data transfer protocols will always be a bottleneck that can be compensated for, but never alleviated.
An Ethernet based network resulting in a cable or fiber-optic network connection creates a lateral network. Rather than data circulating naturally, only to slow down at the smallness of the pipeline, Ethernet with its ATM protocol can perform almost outrageous feats of networking such as sending one ultimate data files through two routers using standard ATM packets, coping with hundreds of different packet sources requiring data communication of both large and small file size, and Ethernet services also provide IT teams many opportunities to redesign the network to alleviate congestion, or clamp down on an insufficient network.

Making the Ultimate Decision

When deciding on your routing and modem technologies, you the business owner know best what to do for your company, but consider these pivot points before you invest too much in either technology.

1. Consider the actual size of data files passed over the network.
2. The number of packets transferred at one time, think about how many computers, devices, and VOIPs are connecting to the modem.
3. Fiber-optic and cable line development, which can give you more bandwidth often at a cheaper rate, which disfavors satellite.
4. A long distance from cable and fiber-optic services make satellite ideal

I hope this explains Satellite Internet vs. Ethernet. I’d love to hear your comments.

Software Delivery Strategy For Your Business

Is it your business’s objective to release software faster with higher quality? Are you adopting agile methodologies in your application development and delivery? Do you want to automate your application deployment process? Then, you need a continuous delivery assessment.
Nowadays, a critical situation has arisen, where competitors use predatory pricing and hefty promotion to eliminate or weaken their competitors. For this reason, many IT businesses are thinking on “Software Delivery Strategy”. The continuous demand of software across the different verticals of industries led revolutionary changes in the software delivery model. That’s why the Software Delivery Strategy is alluring and has a wide recognition within both IT vendors and the company.

Continuous Delivery Assessment

The continuous delivery assessment enables project managers to evaluate their existing maturity level and develop a roadmap for implementing a robust uninterrupted delivery practice.
To implement continuous delivery with agility, you should focus on your software delivery strategy first, and then build a roadmap for it. In order to provide robust solutions, organizations are reconsidering their application delivery methodologies and investing heavily in their development process.
Businesses are busy in addressing their rapidly changing requirements to improve their quality products and services. Surveys on software delivery assessment show that Continuous Delivery implementation is one of the key drivers for many enterprises.
Major IT companies are adopting the Continuous Delivery model, because it not only removes the traditional obstacles but also automates manual steps. In addition, automating the manual processes will ensure fast and high quality application delivery.

Continuous Delivery Implementation Roadmap

Businesses are working with their IT experts that will allow them to design a roadmap towards an automated and integrated continuous delivery approach. Meanwhile, continuous delivery assessment enables the organization to determine the current maturity gap and assist the program delivery manager to focus on opportunities in their application delivery practices.

Here are a few recommendations:

• Improve code quality
• Use proactive development practices
• Configuration Management
• Version control
• Unit and automated testing
• Infrastructure provisioning technique
• Application build, packaging and continuous integration workflow
• Application availability and its performance
• Modernization of the application environment
• Utilization of patterns and adoption of automation tools

Businesses are following the continuous delivery implementation roadmap that enables them to gain a competitive advantage enabling rapid software development and greater penetration into the market. The roadmap brings innovative thoughts to market effectively while building justifiable cost and capital efficiencies.

Initiation

The first question that arises in our mind is how to start? You can find many books and references that describe the principles and best practices of Continuous Delivery. If you want to develop your own Continuous Delivery vision then the books and references can provide you with important theoretical knowledge in context ofthe current development and release environment for a large enterprise.

Structured Approaches to a Continuous Delivery Implementation

Below are structured approaches, taking you from the current situation to the realization of your vision.
Firstly, identify the potential changes – you must have a clear picture of your current business situation before taking any practice-oriented implementation initiative. Below are the few mitigating steps, which should be a part of your business plan to cope up with potential impact on your project delivery.
Here are 7 challenges for enterprises:

#1. Large, Tightly Coupled Applications:

Every enterprise needs to develop an application that aims to deliver unique value of their customers, which stand out in the mobile market. Yet, a very small percentage of applications at the infrastructure level are truly unique. The major threshold in Continuous Delivery is creating minute, incremental changes to your applications and services.
Development of a large and tightly coupled application must start from a small part each time. It not only helps the developers to pinpoint and remedy the source of errors and other problems such as compatibility issues, run time errors, slowdowns, but also it will streamline the Software

#2. Development Life Cycle:

A successful Continuous Delivery setup must follow the process of improvement through fast feedback and continuous support. Synchronizing the large applications will help developers to build, test, and deliver the best solution for the enterprise.
Application into Separate Modules: An effective software development process can only be possible with the use of agile development methodology with shorter iterations. Source code must be built for the specific environment so that the development, testing, and integration can be done separately for different modules.
As a result, the development professionals get more time to debug the changes. In order to deal with the pipeline projects, developers could fix the errors rapidly by incrementally break out modules of the application into separate components which could be built and deployed independently.

#3. Automate Development to Production:

A continuous delivery process requires the environment to transit a new application version from development to production. Identifying many manual steps that need automation during the development phases (Requirement gathering and analysis, Design, Implementation or coding, Testing, Deployment and Maintenance).
If your development needs more and more manual steps, this will stop you from being able to scale your Continuous Delivery execution to the anticipated number of pipeline runs. Therefore, it is advisable to automate numerous currently manual steps by using alternatives in your delivery process, or remove certain steps from the process altogether.

#4. Build a Favorable Environment:

Limiting your organization in terms of infrastructure will not work at all. If you have a limited testing environment, then there is a risk of obstruction during Continuous Delivery implementation. Furthermore, misconfigured or broken environment that have been changed by previous developers or testers are one of the leading causes of deployment failures. A dynamic pool of developers and clean target environments are required to run delivery pipeline projects. To tackle these challenges, you need cloud platforms, coupled with provisioning and configuration management tools that allow you to flourish and shrink the requirements automatically on demand.

#5. Release Management Requirements:

Let’s take a few examples for release management requirements like the a change ticket creation, placing the change on the agenda for the Board meeting, getting Change Board approval, and confirming deployment, which is very vital for Continuous Delivery of the project. It is right to say that necessity is the mother of invention and the origin of change management practices is based on providing assurance in quality and consistency during production. Experience from well-known companies that are proficient in Continuous Delivery indicates that traceability, excellence and consistency of releases can be achieved using pipelines irrespective of their change management practices.

#6. Scale Continuous Delivery Implementation

If you are running a large organization, then there will be many pipelines to manage as you scale your Continuous Delivery implementation. You have a different service portfolio that you are handling during Continuous Delivery implementation like different departments, different internal and external customers, different technology platforms, different development, and support groups.
Management and measurement of your Continuous Delivery implementation will be affected, when application defines its own custom pipeline. In the delivery process, every pipeline ends at a different stage. Therefore, it is hard to make performance matrix for successful implementation of the project. To simplify the process, a standard pipeline is needed that not only saves the time but also make the Continuous Delivery process agile. You have to create templates depending upon the variations across your service portfolio.

#7. Project Ownership and Security

Nobody will interrupt you while everything is running smoothly. But when pipeline stages fail, you will have to face many problems from the project manager and the customer as well. Therefore, it is essential that clear responsibilities must be in place to fix these things and get the delivery process effective and organized. The sense of ownership should be there with the owner (responsible person/team), who has to tackle the problems occurring during the Continuous Delivery Implementation.
There must be a visibility into the state of the entire pipeline in the different stages. Enterprises should provide a greater level of security for users or groups that will be defined by the admin rights; who can enable, disable, or modify the development and functional testing step.

10 Tips To Protect An Ecommerce Website Against Hacking And Fraud

Do you have enough security to protect your Ecommerce website? This question must be thought about nowadays as we constantly hear about website hacking or stealing confidential information from an Ecommerce website. Hacking and fraud are becoming a critical problem for Ecommerce websites from both the user and business points of view.
In this technological era, most people prefer to do online shopping and if the Ecommerce website is not secured from hacking and fraud then the business and the shopper may have to pay a high price in terms of the stealing of confidential information and loss of customers.  Hence, the question is how do you secure your Ecommerce website?
I have gathered 10 security tips for Ecommerce stores that can save your customers from being victims of a cyber attack.

#1. Keep Data Encrypted

Data that flows between a company’s web server and the customer’s website should have encryption to avoid eavesdropping or a phishing attack. For this, an SSL (secure socket layer) certificate is the best option that reassures customers about their online transactions. A secured SSL site seal on a website is a sign of an authenticated website. Currently many corporates and search engines have started to adopt an SSL certificate on their websites for their customer’s security. It helps to lessen fraudulent purchases and keeps financial information secure over the website.

#2. Don’t store confidential data

It is very risky to keep too much of a customer’s confidential information on a server that can possibly intice an attacker to steal such sensitive information. Each Ecommerce website should just use minimum information for current use and no more than that. Mainly because this type of information is prohibited to be stored – specifically credit card information, expiration dates etc., according to the PCI security standard council. Besides this, there are certain penalties for merchants if they infringe any security guidelines.

#3. Instruct the customers to keep passwords long

• Customers should not share their password with anyone.
• Longer passwords are harder to break so keep the password long.
• Notify customers to change their password every 15 days or monthly.
• To create a password, always use a mixture of numeric numbers, small alphabets, capital alphabets, and special characters.

#4. Set up a System Alert

If any person seems suspicious during their online transactions, then merchants should have an “alert system” to identify such transactions. For example, a person places multiple orders with different addresses, credit cards, phone numbers etc. If a multiple order request is coming from the same IP, it should be traced and the server administration informed. Always check that the order recipient name is matched with a credit card or debit card to avoid suspicious transactions.

#5. Use Firewall Security

There are many Trojans and virus attacks that can be avoided with a Firewall. A firewall is a kind of layer of your network that alerts you whenever any suspicious events occur on your server. To avoid SQL injection and cross-site Scripting attack, online merchants should have an extra layer of security to a customer’s login page, contact forms, and search queries. Firewalls monitor traffic coming onto the server and you can set a predefine access control list to allow only consented communication.

#6. Educate Your Employees

As an owner of an Ecommerce website, you should provide education about online theft and security measures to your employees. Generally, employees access many websites without awareness of web security precautions and can become a victim of cyber attack. With proper education on laws and policies related to customer security, you can prevent a possible cyber attack. If it is necessary, then make a security protocol and policy that educate employees about customer online security.

#7. Check your Website Regularly

You should monitor your website regularly. There are many tools available on websites that monitor your traffic activity and will give you an alert whenever any suspicious behavior is found so that you can take immediate steps to prevent it. Even check the server of your hosting provider for any malware or harmful software. Always scan your website once a day to prevent a virus or malware entering your website.

#8. Keep your system updated

To avoid being a cyber victim, software companies frequently release the latest versions that also fix bugs in software, and provide smooth functionality. Whenever an update is available to your system just update it’s patch because cyber criminals always take advantage of those software or systems that are not updated regularly. Whether you use Zen Cart, Xcart, or OsCommerce, it should be patched regularly.

#9. Regularly back up your Data

Data backup is an essential task of the company or any hired hosting service. If you have a hosting company that is looking after your data back-up, then make sure your hosting service is performing it on a regular basis. It is sensible to take a back up of your important data otherwise. However, many companies ignore data backup tasks and in the case of power outage, hard drive failure or virus attack they lose their data.

#10. Other Recommendations

In addition to the above security measures, Ecommerce merchants should follow the steps below to prevent attacks:

• Consider security alerts issued by card brands and keep updated with emerging threats.
• Keep an additional firewall between the application server and the database server to minimize the risk from the online web server.
• Once the account number of customers is confirmed then do not show the whole number back to the customer in order review.

Conclusion

Customers now prefer security first, and if your Ecommerce website is lacking security measures, then you may say good-bye to your business revenue. From the above security measures, you can ensure your customers by protecting the ecommerce website with robust security. It is essential to protect your ecommerce website not just for potential revenue but for the sake of your customers.

How To Make Your WordPress Blog Mobile Friendly

Mobile technology is increasingly growing. Science has invented many things and one of the greatest inventions is mobile internet. In fact the whole internet is now in our pocket. We have the capability to visit the world wide web through just a mobile phone and as a result mobile internet users are increasing day by day. Therefore it is essential that all websites are mobile friendly.
WordPress is one of the most popular blog softwares available and many websites use it. Used by more than 18.9% of the top 10 million websites in the world (August, 2013) WordPress is mainly a software for blogs of all types. Is your blog optimized for mobile devices? If not, you’d better do this to keep the valuable mobile readers in the future. But as a newbie your question would be “How to Make a WordPress Blog Mobile Friendly?”. Through this post I am going to discuss the easiest ways to make your blog mobile friendly.

Top 3 Ways to Create a Mobile Friendly WordPress Blog

#1. Use a Responsive Theme

A responsive theme means a theme that will render automatically depending on the web browser width. For example, if you are using a device of 1280px X 720px, 640px X 240px or any dimension, the theme will load it’s responsive style sheets as per the dimension of web browsers. Using a responsive theme, you don’t need to think about mobile optimization.
You can even turn your existing WordPress theme into responsive by the help of a responsive CSS file. If you are a website developer, you could do this by yourself. Otherwise, you should contact your web developer. I would recommend you buy a high quality premium response theme from a good provider as it will ensure the best performance and you could get support from the provider.

#2. Use Mobile Themes Through Domain Mapping

To create affordable usability for your mobile visitors, you can make custom domain mapping such as m.yourdomain.com or anything else like this. Similar to setting up Facebook and Twitter. All you have to do is set up a subdomain and function it to render for mobile visitors. You also have to set your mobile theme for the subdomain. As a result, your mobile users could enjoy your blog by just visiting m.yourdomain.com. This way you don’t need to add a responsive style or anything.

#3. Use Mobile Plugins:

Here are a top list of plugins to optimize WordPress for mobile devices without much effort.

• WordPress MU Domain Mapping: It is a plugin for WordPress that can easily handle all the domain mapping processes. Those who are unable to add this manually should try this plugin.
• WPtouch: This is the best mobile plugin to optimize a site for mobile users, especially for touch screen devices. Nowadays, almost half of mobile internet users prefer to use touch Smartphones, so this plugin is highly recommended. It will generate a simple elegant theme for mobile. As per your needs you can simply customize the appearance through the settings from the WordPress Dashboard.
• WordPress Mobile Pack: This is a complete package of all mobility requirements. It has the functionality of custom switcher, themes, widgets and mobile WordPress admin panel. If you are looking to optimize your admin panel for phones, you must use this plugin.
• Jetpack: Jetpack is a must have for every single WordPress blog. It has its own plugins list integrated a nd one of these is Mobile Theme. Just install the plugin and enable the mobile theme from the Jetpack settings. That’s all you have to do. If you have already installed this plugin, just go to the settings and activate the theme functionality.
• MobilePress: It is another great mobile plugin that renders a mobile friendly version of every WordPress site or blog. There are also some friendly settings available for custom appearance. It has the custom themes functionality too.
• WordPress Mobile Edition: WordPress Mobile Edition is one of the simple plugins that has a beautiful interface for the mobile viewer. As like other plugins, it will automatically detect all devices and render a nice interface. Plugins like this one are really easy to use as well.

Now Test Your New Mobile Interface

If you have followed the steps above you have optimized your WordPress site for mobile viewers. Before going live it is recommended to test it. And it is also important to test the usability from the different devices such as iPhone, Tab, Smartphones etc. So here are some online resources where you can easily input the mobile website addresses and see the rendered interface – even from a computer.

• iPhone 4 Simulator: It is a simple mobile website simulator to test site view from iPhones. Currently iPhones are the most used among global mobile phones. So it is a must to test through this simulator.
• iPad Peek: This is a simulator to test the rendering of iPads or Tabs. These pads and tabs are bigger than phones so we should really take notice of them because a large number of people are using these all over the world.
• Opera Mobile Simulator: Using this simple simulator you will be able to view the site as on normal phones. Many people use Java based phones and this gives you a look just like a Java device.

Final Words About Optimizing WordPress Sites

In this competitive era everything needs to be perfect, however, if it is a website or blog, it has to be optimized for all viewers. A good quality site always needs to have perfection and professionalism. If you lack these qualities your platform won’t be attractive to the readers.
So, it’s time to enrich the usability of your WordPress sites. I don’t think it’s very hard. Just spare 10 minutes to apply the above methods and create a professional WordPress mobile site.

Software Delivery Strategy For Your Business

Is it your business’s objective to release software faster with higher quality? Are you adopting agile methodologies in your application development and delivery? Do you want to automate your application deployment process? Then, you need a continuous delivery assessment.
Nowadays, a critical situation has arisen, where competitors use predatory pricing and hefty promotion to eliminate or weaken their competitors. For this reason, many IT businesses are thinking on “Software Delivery Strategy”. The continuous demand of software across the different verticals of industries led revolutionary changes in the software delivery model. That’s why the Software Delivery Strategy is alluring and has a wide recognition within both IT vendors and the company.

Continuous Delivery Assessment

The continuous delivery assessment enables project managers to evaluate their existing maturity level and develop a roadmap for implementing a robust uninterrupted delivery practice.
To implement continuous delivery with agility, you should focus on your software delivery strategy first, and then build a roadmap for it. In order to provide robust solutions, organizations are reconsidering their application delivery methodologies and investing heavily in their development process.
Businesses are busy in addressing their rapidly changing requirements to improve their quality products and services. Surveys on software delivery assessment show that Continuous Delivery implementation is one of the key drivers for many enterprises.
Major IT companies are adopting the Continuous Delivery model, because it not only removes the traditional obstacles but also automates manual steps. In addition, automating the manual processes will ensure fast and high quality application delivery.

Continuous Delivery Implementation Roadmap

Businesses are working with their IT experts that will allow them to design a roadmap towards an automated and integrated continuous delivery approach. Meanwhile, continuous delivery assessment enables the organization to determine the current maturity gap and assist the program delivery manager to focus on opportunities in their application delivery practices.

Here are a few recommendations:

• Improve code quality
• Use proactive development practices
• Configuration Management
• Version control
• Unit and automated testing
• Infrastructure provisioning technique
• Application build, packaging and continuous integration workflow
• Application availability and its performance
• Modernization of the application environment
• Utilization of patterns and adoption of automation tools

Businesses are following the continuous delivery implementation roadmap that enables them to gain a competitive advantage enabling rapid software development and greater penetration into the market. The roadmap brings innovative thoughts to market effectively while building justifiable cost and capital efficiencies.

Initiation

The first question that arises in our mind is how to start? You can find many books and references that describe the principles and best practices of Continuous Delivery. If you want to develop your own Continuous Delivery vision then the books and references can provide you with important theoretical knowledge in context ofthe current development and release environment for a large enterprise.

Structured Approaches to a Continuous Delivery Implementation

Below are structured approaches, taking you from the current situation to the realization of your vision.
Firstly, identify the potential changes – you must have a clear picture of your current business situation before taking any practice-oriented implementation initiative. Below are the few mitigating steps, which should be a part of your business plan to cope up with potential impact on your project delivery.
Here are 7 challenges for enterprises:

#1. Large, Tightly Coupled Applications:

Every enterprise needs to develop an application that aims to deliver unique value of their customers, which stand out in the mobile market. Yet, a very small percentage of applications at the infrastructure level are truly unique. The major threshold in Continuous Delivery is creating minute, incremental changes to your applications and services.
Development of a large and tightly coupled application must start from a small part each time. It not only helps the developers to pinpoint and remedy the source of errors and other problems such as compatibility issues, run time errors, slowdowns, but also it will streamline the Software

#2. Development Life Cycle:

A successful Continuous Delivery setup must follow the process of improvement through fast feedback and continuous support. Synchronizing the large applications will help developers to build, test, and deliver the best solution for the enterprise.
Application into Separate Modules: An effective software development process can only be possible with the use of agile development methodology with shorter iterations. Source code must be built for the specific environment so that the development, testing, and integration can be done separately for different modules.
As a result, the development professionals get more time to debug the changes. In order to deal with the pipeline projects, developers could fix the errors rapidly by incrementally break out modules of the application into separate components which could be built and deployed independently.

#3. Automate Development to Production:

A continuous delivery process requires the environment to transit a new application version from development to production. Identifying many manual steps that need automation during the development phases (Requirement gathering and analysis, Design, Implementation or coding, Testing, Deployment and Maintenance).
If your development needs more and more manual steps, this will stop you from being able to scale your Continuous Delivery execution to the anticipated number of pipeline runs. Therefore, it is advisable to automate numerous currently manual steps by using alternatives in your delivery process, or remove certain steps from the process altogether.

#4. Build a Favorable Environment:

Limiting your organization in terms of infrastructure will not work at all. If you have a limited testing environment, then there is a risk of obstruction during Continuous Delivery implementation. Furthermore, misconfigured or broken environment that have been changed by previous developers or testers are one of the leading causes of deployment failures. A dynamic pool of developers and clean target environments are required to run delivery pipeline projects. To tackle these challenges, you need cloud platforms, coupled with provisioning and configuration management tools that allow you to flourish and shrink the requirements automatically on demand.

#5. Release Management Requirements:

Let’s take a few examples for release management requirements like the a change ticket creation, placing the change on the agenda for the Board meeting, getting Change Board approval, and confirming deployment, which is very vital for Continuous Delivery of the project. It is right to say that necessity is the mother of invention and the origin of change management practices is based on providing assurance in quality and consistency during production. Experience from well-known companies that are proficient in Continuous Delivery indicates that traceability, excellence and consistency of releases can be achieved using pipelines irrespective of their change management practices.

#6. Scale Continuous Delivery Implementation

If you are running a large organization, then there will be many pipelines to manage as you scale your Continuous Delivery implementation. You have a different service portfolio that you are handling during Continuous Delivery implementation like different departments, different internal and external customers, different technology platforms, different development, and support groups.
Management and measurement of your Continuous Delivery implementation will be affected, when application defines its own custom pipeline. In the delivery process, every pipeline ends at a different stage. Therefore, it is hard to make performance matrix for successful implementation of the project. To simplify the process, a standard pipeline is needed that not only saves the time but also make the Continuous Delivery process agile. You have to create templates depending upon the variations across your service portfolio.

#7. Project Ownership and Security

Nobody will interrupt you while everything is running smoothly. But when pipeline stages fail, you will have to face many problems from the project manager and the customer as well. Therefore, it is essential that clear responsibilities must be in place to fix these things and get the delivery process effective and organized. The sense of ownership should be there with the owner (responsible person/team), who has to tackle the problems occurring during the Continuous Delivery Implementation.
There must be a visibility into the state of the entire pipeline in the different stages. Enterprises should provide a greater level of security for users or groups that will be defined by the admin rights; who can enable, disable, or modify the development and functional testing step.

8 Ways To Improve The Wi-Fi Capabilities In Your Laptop

Firstly we need to give thanks to the development in radio communications that has made us live in an unplugged world. Often we cannot, or rather do not want to, think of wired internet any more. It has become a thing of the distant past. With the increasing innovation in the technical world, the majority of us enjoy wireless internet access.
Today’s wireless networking systems are easy to set up but whether it is easy to manage or not is a big question. One of the major problems encountered by the majority of the wireless internet users is a weak Wi-Fi signal which prevents a good data transmission speed, causing connectivity problems.
Next time you have some urgent work to get done and find your laptop’s wireless networking capabilities extremely slow or cannot find a signal, here are a few important things you can implement to boost your laptop’s wireless capabilities to the next level.
#1. Upgrade your wireless hardware: Recent laptops are equipped with 802.11g or 802.11n Wi-Fi circuitry and if your router is an 802.11b device that is the speed that you will receive. Therefore, upgrade your wireless hardware so that it matches the capabilities of your laptop. Nowadays, with the increasing capabilities of the wireless connection, the price of the wireless equipment like any other technology have invariably gone down.
#2. Expand or repeat the Wi-Fi signal. To add more strength to the connection a wireless amplifier, also called a repeater or range expander, can be an advantage that picks up signals from the router and then retransmits it. To make the best use of the wireless amplifier place it somewhere near the edge of the existing signal. The device then rebroadcasts the signal to cover other areas for the connection.
#3. Upgrade the standard antenna of the router from the omnidirectional design. The significance of the Omni antenna is to provide a signal in all directions. This directional signal allows you to target the location where you want the signal. However, check with the manufacturer or electronic suppliers to learn more information about purchasing a replacement antenna.
#4. Install an external adpater. If you want to boost the capabilities of your older laptop’s wireless hardware, simply disable its built-in Wi-Fi circuit and antenna and install an external adapter.  This usually comes with a large antenna and uses the up-to-date technologies. You can plug the external Wi-Fi devices directly into your laptop’s USB port or attach to it by a cable.
#5. Change your wireless channel for firmware. Wireless signals get broadcast on several channels. If one channel seems to provide a lot of interference change the channel through the router or access point’s configuration settings. However, if the problem still persists, completely reconfigure the router or access point using Linux based firmware or a DD-WRT program. But make sure that the equipment is compatible with the new firmware.
#6. Reposition your equipment for better Wi-Fi capabilities in your laptop. Try to place your router or access point in a central location, preferably where the signal will not be congested by thick walls or obstructing furniture. Also avoid placing your router or access point near any metal surfaces. Metals interfere with the signal broadcaster.
#7. Check transmission power settings – as some network adapters support the connection by adjusting their transmission power.  This setting can be adjusted through the adapter’s driver interface program with other wireless profile settings and Wi-Fi channel number. To ensure the strongest signal possible set the transmission power to maximum or 100%. However, if your laptop is being run in a power saving mode, this setting will automatically decrease the adapter’s range and signal strength
#8. Disable the network hogs that run in the background. Always check how many apps are running in the background of the normal user’s laptop. It is no surprise that background tasks can be the cause of a slowdown. Disable unused applications or notifications to maximize primary task speed.
No matter how long you use your wireless laptop, following the above mentioned tips will certainly help you to enhance the Wi-Fi capabilities in your laptop.

How To Create Viable Mobile Business Intelligence Strategies For Effective Business

Mobile Business Intelligence commonly termed as Mobile BI, refers to the ability that enables the mobile personnel to gain business insights through information analysis. It is a software that extends desktop business intelligence (BI) applications so they can be used on a mobile device. This is done using applications optimized for mobile devices.
There has been a phenomenal growth of Mobile BI in the recent years, with the change being partially encouraged by the globally prevailing trend of transcending to a wireless world – courtesy smartphones that has ushered into a new era of mobile computing, particularly in the field of BI. In fact, mobility now is no longer a luxury but an essential element in today’s world. Recent statistics are indicating an acceleration in the pace of mobile adoption across devices and applications.
As per Accenture CIO Mobility Survey (2013), “While 79 per cent of respondents cited mobility as a revenue-generator, 84 per cent believe mobility would significantly improve customer interactions.” However, with this paradigm shift comes the gradual transition of business intelligence (BI) to mobile business intelligence (mobile BI) or mobile intelligence. In short, Mobile BI is nonetheless an enabler which if designed, implemented, and executed effectively; can help organizations drive growth and productivity.

Mobile BI Strategies

Most businesses are now considering imbibing mobile BI into their organization, so as to maintain, collect, organize and make sense of data. A survey from Forrester has revealed that while 24 per cent of enterprises are already using or are steering mobile BI applications, another 37 per cent of enterprises are considering mobile BI for near-term implementations.
One of the many reasons why Mobile BI is more prevalent in bridging the gap between it and traditional BI content is because rapid growth in areas such as the cloud, in-memory technology, big data, and prognostic analytics are fueling this innovation cycle. And as we talk and discuss, there has been a gradual and fading gap now visible even between smartphone and a tablet devices. As the tablet shrinks both in size and weight to compete with smartphones, companies are looking for ways to harness the power of mobile BI through innovation and without distraction.
In fact, mobile BI can become a key differentiator as most leading Companies are considering harnessing the power of mobile BI to support a workforce that’s becoming increasingly mobile. As IDC reports, “The global mobile workforce will reach 1.3 billion, which represents 37.2 per cent of the total workforce by 2015.”

• Define the mobility framework you will use.
• Decide your Company’s stance towards BYOD.
• Ensure before deploying a mobile BI that you have a solid business case for it
• Contemplate highly aggregated data marts for mobile BI apps
• Consider creating more BI apps with very specific business functions instead of trying to force your current BI apps to do things they are not really capable of doing.
• Avoid having dynamic derivation and transformations
• Ensure you hold your mobile BI apps to a high standard
• Ensure that existing traditional BI security roles and privileges are carried over to mobile BI apps

Mobile BI Applications

Using mobile apps for business intelligence, you can have access to information whenever and wherever it’s required. You can use mobile BI apps for Apple, BlackBerry and Android; and interact with reports, analysis, dashboards and more on smart phones, tablets and notebook computers. Moreover, you can use the BI platform to help IT support these mobile apps and provide the same type of experience to everyone like:

• Networking with information in a rich, visual and interactive experience.
• Experiencing insight anywhere through fast and simple access to BI.
• Easy deployment of relevant and reusable business intelligence to any device.

Considerations: Security for Mobile BI

It is important for BI software platforms to extend the authentication options and policy controls to the mobile platforms, so as to ensure high security standards. This calls for the BI software platforms to ensure a secure encrypted keychain for storage of credentials. On the other hand, administrative control of password policies should allow creation of security profiles for each user’ while allowing seamless integration with centralized security directories for decreasing administration and maintenance of users.
Most smartphone manufacturers provide a complete set of security features including full-disk encryption, email encryption, as well as remote management including the ability to delete contents if device is lost or stolen. In short, the attribute of a comprehensive mobile security solution must be to provide device security, transmission security, and authorization, authentication, and network security as well.
Have you created your mobile BI strategy yet?

5 Tips To Ensure A HIPAA Compliant Hosting Provider

Compliance is always a tricky and complex subject, and HIPAA compliance takes this complexity to an even higher level. Fear of compliance woes tends to make many businesses wary of cloud computing solutions, but it is possible for companies to ensure that they safely employ HIPAA compliant hosting.
By addressing five key components, cloud computing and HIPAA compliance can peacefully coexist.

# 1. Always protect the data

The biggest factor for ensuring HIPAA compliance is the protection of data. HIPAA compliance revolves around the concept that sensitive data needs to be protected at all points on a network. This goes for cloud computing as well as old-fashion in-house networks. For in-house networks, physical security and a tough perimeter are vital for adhering to compliance.
With cloud computing, it is also vital to utilize secure transmissions while the data is in transit. Strong encryption should be always used, and sensitive data should be segregated from non-sensitive data. Sensitive data requires more stringent security while in motion or at rest, and this means that stronger security has to follow this data as well. There are many compliance tools that can aid in the secure storage of sensitive data, and this level of security may not be necessary for non-sensitive data on the network. By segregating data on the network, it is possible to reduce costs by highly securing only the data that needs this level of security.

# 2. Practice restriction

Restriction is one of the greatest assets available when it comes to protecting data. By employing access control lists and granting the least amount of privilege necessary, it is possible to lock down sensitive data and keep it safe. Access control lists can limit the users and devices that are allowed access to sensitive data keeping those who have no legitimate reason for access away from items they should not be accessing.

# 3. Utilize auditing and reporting

Auditing and reporting are often looked at only after an incident occurs. However, with strong audit and reporting practices, it is possible to stop breaches and other incidents before they occur. User roles and access attempts should be logged and reviewed. By sniffing out suspicious activity, it is possible to remove access before it is abused. Additionally, security audits should be performed at least annually. A thorough security audit can spot weaknesses before they are exploited by hackers, and this can prevent breaches before they happen.

# 4. Adopt proactive disaster recovery and backup solutions

Proactive disaster recovery and backup solutions are another vital key to HIPAA compliance. If a disaster or breach occurs, it is vital to have a contingency plan that ensures employees to know what steps they need to take. Backup solutions provide redundancy of data, and in the event of a disaster or breach, there are backup solutions that can seamlessly take over operations to get the business running again with minimal disruption.
However, it is also important to ensure that sensitive backup data is protected and safeguarded to adequate compliance levels. It’s not enough to just have backups; they need to be protected as well.

# 5. Ensure breaches and security incidents are addressed swiftly

Nobody wants to be the victim of a breach or a security incident. Breaches and security incidents can be expensive and cause reputational damage. There are confusing regulations regarding what needs to be reported and what constitutes an actual breach. As a natural result of these harsh consequences, the question of whether to address a breach or let it slide often pops up. Ethically, and legally, breaches need to be reported and addressed.
While it may be inconvenient or costly, the cost of ignoring a breach that later comes to the surface is much higher than addressing the initial incident. With stakes this high, it is vital that even potential breaches and incidents are addressed swiftly and comprehensively. To ensure compliance during the panic that follows in the wake of a breach or incident, have a well- written incident response plan in place.
Also, educate employees on how to report a breach and encourage open communication. Often, employees are reluctant to report serious breaches due to fear of discipline. It is important for employees to know that an unreported incident or breach is much more damaging than one that was reported right away.
Cloud computing has numerous advantages, and HIPAA compliance fears should not stand in the way of a business reaping these benefits. By paying attention to these five key components, it is possible to have a secure and HIPAA compliant hosting solution.

Upcoming E-Commerce Trends To Attract Customers

Nobody can deny the importance of a strong online presence. In order to do well in the real world you need to have a strong online existence as it is crucial for your future growth. Although the concept of e-commerce is relatively new, it has greatly influenced the manner in which businesses have been carried out so far. A store which is online on the internet can offer a large variety of items as compared to a real store although the main and basic reason would still be to gain profit on the products.
Here’s a look at the upcoming E-commerce Trends adopted by online retailers:

Free or Discounted Shipping

As more and more e-commerce websites are opening up, retailers are finding unique and innovative ways to sell their products. In the past few years we have seen big names such as L.L Bean launching free shipping on all of their items and Macy’s on buying items equaling $99 or more. As traditional retailers’ major competition is Amazon, they strive to adopt business attracting trends such as free shipping, a generous return policy or a large number of product variety to choose form and unedited feedback of the customers.

In-store Pick up or Pick up Depots

In order to attract more customers to their e-commerce website, big names like Walmart are coming up with unique trends to expand their business. They established an in-store pickup for their orders which were placed online. Sears and Kmart can also offer some products to be home delivered to attain as much business as possible. In places like Florida, Farm Store shoppers can place their orders online and then pick them up at drive through.
Online stores which are relatively on a smaller scale are following another interesting trend. They open selected pick up sites for their customers to get access to their online orders. Chronodrive.com is such an example.

A Video does the Trick

Another up-coming trend is to add small videos to the e-commerce website to attract more customers. A model displaying the product can be the best way you can show the customers how the product can be used by them. Whether it’s a clothing item or a kitchen accessory, a small video can do wonders for your product.

Daily Deals

An emerging trend to boost the e-commerce world is to add a daily deal to the online website. As soon as the existing or signed users are sent out an email announcing the specially discounted deal, the customers log in as soon as they can to avail the deal. This gives them a chance to explore other products also on your website and can be another creative trend to attract customers to your business.

Social Media Platforms

Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter are widely used for advertising an e-commerce websites. Users can ‘Like’ the Facebook page of the online store and can also win the ‘Tag and Win’ contests by tagging as many people as possible. This naturally attracts more traffic to any online store and increases the chances of converting potential customers to a large extent. Proper utilization of social media can not only help you in getting more and more leads but can also assist you in your business branding.
As more and more ways of conducting online business in the e-commerce world are being created, only those online businesses which adopt the updated e-commerce trends can survive in the present and in future. Online retailers and market researchers are constantly working on upcoming and emerging trends to sell more and with each passing year we are witnessing more innovating and creative ways to conduct business in the online world.

Harness Wi-Vi Technology To Become Superhuman In Your Daily Life

The concept of X-ray vision is nothing new to us. Having been fed strongly by the popular comics and films, we do fantasize about tracking strangers across the walls or identifying burglars on the other side of a closed door.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has devised a technology, curiously named Wi-Vi to make this fantasy come true for us. The project is currently underway at the Institute’s lab and is a strong attempt to track a moving human being inside a closed room or enclosure. This project, when accomplished, will be beneficial to residential apartments as a security device to spot strangers, hiding beside a wall, and avoiding a conflict with criminals keeping a hostage.
This well conceived system is presently harnessing two antennas with transmission and a solitary receiver. The process, though perceived to be as highly technical, is simple- Identical signals are transmitted by the two antennas. However, there is an interesting concept as the second antenna transmits an inverse signal, contrary to the first antenna. The resultant interference further successfully destroys both the signals.  The process is oriented towards only moving objects and there is absolutely no effect on the static bodies. Finally, the WI-Vi device is able to register just the reflections from moving human beings.
The developers of this phenomenal project, Dina Katabi and Fadel Abib are striving hard to make the device affordable for a larger section of the society. Since security of people is still at stake in the outskirts of large cities and towns, they can use this device to alert themselves by spotting an intruder hiding in nearby surroundings. This device would be really useful while you are alone in isolated places or when you are alone at home. Katabi is a professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT and her associate Adib is a graduate student at the world famous institution.

For People in Distress

Wi-Vi, if harnessed properly can be used to monitor the activities of the elderly at home or children at a creche. It will minimize the huge cost of installing cameras. The device is currently making its presence felt at international conferences. It could be of paramount importance to the police force and disaster management personnel. Victims of natural disasters like earthquakes, cyclones and Tsunamis, lying under concrete rubble can be rescued using this device to its full potential.  Once, available commercially, representatives of rescue teams will find this gadget to be extremely useful in their difficult tasks.

Operating Appliances, sans any physical movement

An individual need not be present in front of the appliances and electrical gadgets to operate them. It implies that one can switch on and off the lights, ceiling fans, washing machines, televisions and other appliances even while sitting in another room.

For the Gaming Freaks

Wi-Vi will be a boon to the gaming industry too. The next time you are busy at the gaming console; you can disappear in another room and control the controls just like an invisible man. This will give rise to more and more complex interactive games in the market.

Great Hopes

The technology is yet to display the human images in full. The developers are working hard to have high resolution images of strangers and burglars to enhance the security of the citizens. However issues of privacy intrusions are also accompanying this innovative concept.
The ability to detect gestures of an individual across the wall also makes this device a unique one. He can even communicate with another individual just by interpreting his gestures through this device. This innovative conversation will be possible without the use of any wireless gadget.
Let us hope that the developers become successful in bringing the device to the doorstep of the citizens and the officials in charge of the administration. Virtual reality will receive a further boost by blending with the new Wi-Vi technology. Well, it is no longer just crazy stuff. We all have the potential to become super humans for a good cause.

Exploring Web Applications: What Tools Are Available To Freelancers

Freelancers are an interesting group of business professionals that expands each day as more and more day workers leave the corporate world and enter the world of working for themselves. With a much looser operating structure, freelancers can get into bad habits if routines aren’t established from the start. Large and small companies in addition to freelancers themselves have found a niche market in producing tools, applications and software oriented towards freelancers. Applications consist of time trackers, invoicing and billing, project management and quote or proposal web applications. Utilizing available tools whether they be free or paid, can significantly cut down on the amount of time spent doing monotonous or daunting but necessary tasks as a freelancer. Similar to the way that a corporation’s accounting department has ledger software, the creatives have design software and the coordinators have project management software – a freelancer needs to become all of these entities in order to run a successful business.

Project Management Tools for Organization

Once a freelancer starts working with multiple clients at a time, it can be difficult to remember what was emailed to who, said over the phone or promised during a meeting. Using a software that can note these events under clients will save time and prevent heartache in the future.
Certain project management applications even offer internal task creation events to keep a virtual, cloud based to do list for each client. Insightly is a free project management software that also offers Gmail integration; making logging contact with a client even easier. Enjoy all of the benefits of a large company’s system available to you as a freelancer with Insightly.

Contract and Proposal Creation Applications

Freelancing involves a little bit of sales work as well. As a freelancer, you’re constantly pitching yourself and your skillset to new clients who have quite the list of freelancers to choose from. A great contract and proposal creation application offers freelancers the chance to show off their skills while spending half the time than before when putting contracts or proposals together manually.
Motiv is an excellent choice for creative freelancers as it offers industry specific content for freelancers to aid in the proposal creation process. It’s a known fact that each job a freelancer does requires a contract; Motiv also has handy content for aiding in this process including the option for clients to e-sign.

Time Tracking and Invoicing Tools

Projects taken on in the freelancing world either operate off of an hourly rate or a flat rate per project. Both are common depending on the specific industry and scope of the work. A large website would be done on an hourly rate while a small character creation or animation would be done on a per project basis.
Harvest is a legendary time tracking tool that allows freelancers to honestly report the amount of time they spent working on a specific project. It offers one click time tracking from your desktop, browser or mobile device. From there, reports and invoices can be generated for clients when it comes time to invoice. Invoicing in itself may be a feared aspect of the freelancing job. Having to keep track of accounting and produce documents to both clients and accountants is no simple task.
Freshbooks has a wide amount of invoicing tools for freelancing professionals including the option to be paid online versus snail mail checks. 

A freelancer can arm themselves with many tools that will help them succeed in both the long run and short run of their freelancing career. By utilizing one or all of the available tools, a freelancer can adequately track their hours and send professional invoices using Freshbooks and Harvest, create killer proposals and contracts using Motiv and keep track of what’s what with Insightly.
Most of the applications mentioned above offer a free trial period and are under $20 per month for individuals. Considering the amount of time saved by utilizing available applications, many freelancers take advantage of applications available. Finding what works for you may be a process with a significant amount of applications on the market. Achieve a balance between apps and complement them with your work. Remember, apps are here to help you grow as a freelancer; not hinder your work.

How Mobile Apps Have Revolutionized Healthcare

Healthcare industry around the world, and specifically in US, UK and Europe, is embracing mobile technology. Apps targeting specific types of patients, doctors and healthcare processes are launched every day.

While a bulk of health-related apps are more lifestyle than medicine, there are hundreds of apps that have the interest of patients and doctors at their core. There is not one iPhone app development company that doesn’t list healthcare app development as a service. A lot has been written about individual apps, but today we will focus on how exactly these apps are benefiting doctors and patients.

Better Self-Health Management

Several healthcare apps in the market enable patients to monitor their medication and note down the side effects. Such apps also remind the app user to take the medicines on time, and they can also tell the user when he/she is running out of medicines. A number of people end up taking medicines twice, forgetting it altogether or missing a dose because they have run out of medicine. Healthcare apps ensure that such situations never arise.

Easier Access to Information

Almost all the data related to health, diseases and treatment you need is available online. Self-diagnosis is not a good idea, but knowledge regarding one’s condition is very helpful in fighting a disease. Also, access to doctors in the area who can help treat that disease is very useful. Interactive apps, especially ones on tablets, help the patients or their caretakers get a better understanding of the illness, enabling them to obtain better health care.

Billing and Personal Health Profiling

Medical charges are not easy to understand. Mobile apps make it very easy to access and track one’s medical data. All the billing information can be viewed and analyzed through a mobile app. Also, apps can store all the medical information regarding a patient, reducing the need to take off stacks of paperwork. Most mobile app development service providers create apps of this type, as they are in great demand.

Staying Connected

Too many patients fail to take proper care after they are discharged from the hospital. For many, it is simply not possible to visit the hospital frequently. Mobile apps function as a conduit between the doctor and the patient. Patients can simply upload the details of their condition on the app, and the doctors can take a quick look at their leisure. This saves a lot of time and effort, both on the part of the patient as well as the doctors.

Automating Hospital Administration

Managing hospitals are a tough task. There are a wide range of personnel that perform a wide range of tasks. All those tasks have different levels of difficulty, and the time taken to perform them varies. The employees work different shifts.
For example, nurses do a whole range of tasks, and they work different hours. It is not easy for a doctor or administrator to assign tasks justly. This gives birth to resentment on the part of the personnel, who wrongly or rightly think that they are given the worst jobs and have to work harder than most other people. But, an app can automate the task of assigning and monitoring work, cutting the problem at the root.

Conclusion

Over 1.5 people in the world use Smartphones– and the numbers are rising rapidly. Mobile apps are easy to use, and they have the power to replace most paperwork from health care. Also, the 24/7 connectivity extends the capability of mobile apps as healthcare suppliers.
Most processes – scheduling the appointments, monitoring medication, prescriptions, even diagnosis – can, at least partly, be done digitally. And, healthcare apps make things easier for the patients as well as doctors. Both – mobile app development service providers and healthcare companies are equally keen on leveraging mobile technology, and we can expect to see more innovations in this segment of app development.