20 Movies That Can Inspire You To Be A Programmer – Infographic

Many might say that, impact of movies is momentary rather than a life changing one. However, there are a considerable amount of people who beg to differ.

Those who argue, states that exceptional movies can sometimes inspire or scar you for a long time. However, even avid movie enthusiasts can be sceptical when it comes to tech movies. But, Those movies which have managed to are indeed gems.

If we analyze the history of tech or sci-fi movies, the movie which made a profound influence on tech enthusiasts for the very first was the iconic movie Matrix, released in the year 1999.

Talking about the movie, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski (Wachowski brothers) has written the movie exceptionally well. The movie became one of a kind experience for audience owing to the conglomeration of talented people working together towards a common goal, to create history.

What’s special about Matrix is that the movie was able to project the idea of hacking and coding into the public in an exciting way that many became inspired by it.

Other movies like, The Social Network, Loopers, Inception, Source Code, Primer etc. are some of the movies which have influenced people see programming in an exciting way rather than boring like they used to.

The list doesn’t end here. Go through this infographic to know more about the profound 20 in the category.

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Yii vs Laravel: Who Will Win the Match?

Yii vs Laravel, two of the mighty competitors when it comes to PHP based web-app development! But which on is the best? Which one has the upper hand over the other?

Yii is used for swift development and Laraval is used for developing sophisticated syntax application. Differences do not end there. There are many which can help your to select the winner.

Advantages of using Yii

  • Equipped with CRUD generators that use Yii
  • Has Ajax helpers in grid format
  • Doesn’t require repetitive code writing
  • Allows third-party interface, enabling other frameworks to merge with it
  • Since Yii is one of the leading frameworks, a massive community uses it. Therefore you can put your issues on Yii forums and get help.

Advantages of using Laravel

  • Authentication is very simple, while everything is configured out of the box
  • Has a clean and straightforward API that helps user to send emails using a cloud-based or local service quickly
  • Integrates efficiently with web applications
  • Since Laravel is an MVC framework separation of business code and presentation code is already done, so there is no need of spending extra time and money on it.

Requirements

Yii – It is only compatible with PHP 5.4 or any higher versions.

Laravel – Laravel is compatible with a variety of PHP including PHP 5.4 or higher, PHP JSON extension, and MCrypt PHP extension.

Installation

Yii

Yii vs Laravel

Yii is a lot easier to install as a template is provided. You have to download a web application to run the software, which does so smoothly without any hassle. A person without any prior experience can also install Yii.

Laravel

Yii vs Laravel

Laravel uses Composer PHP for installation that ensures accurate installation without any bugs. Apart from that, Laravel has its Laravel Installer that comes with a proper guide to assist you during the installation process. It comes packed with an instruction manual that will help you in installing Laravel correctly.

Testing

Yii – it supports most number of testing tools, other than PHP unit and Codeception testing.

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Laravel – The Laravel framework also supports many testing tools as well including Symfony testing tools like BrowserKit, DomCrawler, and HttpKernel.

Debugging

Yii – Yii has a comprehensive debugging console with multiple level logging options for database requests logging and debugging.

Laravel – Laravel is better when it comes to debugging as it offers multiple options including logging and Imho. Even though limited, the Imho is helpful when it comes to solving issues related to laravel-debugbar extension.

Yii vs Laravel – A Comparison

yii vs laravel

Migration

Yii – Yii has a very compatible migration tool, which works very efficiently.

Laravel – When it comes to Laravel, developers have the privilege of including seeders to make the migration process very easy and hassle-free. It also helps in the effective testing process and filling static directory.

Learning Curve Speed

Yii – Yii is one of the high performing PHP frameworks, making it the top choice for developing social networking websites and mobile applications.

Laravel – Laravel is not that good when it comes to learning speed curves as it has the slowest speed in response communication and real-time data collection. It is a low point for Laravel, which otherwise is a very efficient and easy-to-use software.

Both Yii and Laravel have six databases, but Yii works with a higher speed.

Form Validation

Yii – Form validation is a lot more time-consuming on the Yii software as compared to Laravel since it can validate data only if the user follows a set of instructions. The developer must collect all data and put it on ActiveRecord for Yii to validate it, which also requires a custom verification.

Also Read: Python vs PHP? Which Language is Better for Webdevelopment?

Laravel – form validation is the most potent feature of Laravel framework since it can validate data in any order and at any time. It has got a reliable ORM that can be used for unification. Laravel also has the option of choosing a variety of validations.

Extensions

Yii – Yii has around 2,800 extensions, a number much lesser than Laravel offers.

Laravel – On the other hand, Laravel offers compatibility with one of highest number extensions. Laravel has around 9,000 extensions, which means developers have a lot of options to choose.

Security

Yii – Both Yii and Laravel stand equal when it comes to security and provide multiple level security to users including passwords, authentication, SQL injections,  Cross-Site Request Forgery, Site Scripting, and more.

Laravel – Laravel doesn’t have as many assessing tools as Yii, but by using extensions, you can make it available for your clients.

Strength and Resilience

Yii – Strength and resilience are the two most important factors when it comes to selecting a framework. Yii is an OOP framework, which means it has the advantages of PHP’s advanced features including SPL classes, late static binding, and interfaces. Also, Yii is virtually very extensible and uses the Gii extension, a web-based powerful highly configurable code scaffolding tool, which can be used to create template codes for controllers, models, extensions, and modules in less time.

Laravel – Since Laravel is a full-stack framework, it can handle virtually everything. The framework’s Artisan tool, which is a command-line tool, helps to generate skeleton code and handles everything right from migration to configuration management. It doesn’t require XML configuration like Yii, making it very convenient to use.

In conclusion:

Both the framework has its positives and negatives, and it ultimately is the developer’s choice to choose one out of the two.

Yii offers easier installation and higher security, while Laravel has impressive features like better testing procedures and templating engines that add value to your work. So Yii VS Laravel might end up in draw under these circumstances

10 Ways Businesses Are Applying AI (Artificial Intelligence)

AI or Artificial Intelligence is widely used everywhere these days. With machine learning and AI proliferating further, it is imperative for businesses to utilize this technology to have an edge in the market.

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Be it having a virtual assistant like Alexa or Siri to simplify the tasks, using analytics to enhance the sales insights or identifying the right talent using recruiting tool. Based on AI, several businesses have already begun to incorporate it in all their business processes.

When equipped with Artificial Intelligence, even small businesses can grow up as a data-driven company to offer full-fledged services.

1. Improve Sales Performance

Businesses can now sell complex products like huge ticket products, cars or financial services easily, as they need not rely on their sales team to keep track of all their products on sale.

With the help of AI, businesses can focus on Sales Enablement, as this technology can note down the points during the sales meeting, generate memos that would be helpful for the sales team to sell the best products to the targeted consumers at the best time.

With a well-integrated RM, businesses are equipped with full customer data that would offer them an insight to make better sales decisions in a timely fashion. Right now, AI helps in making the perfect decisions, such as, which aspects to focus on and which offers would work, to promote the sales volume.

2. Convert Huge Data Into Easy To Understand Narratives

Businesses often have a tough time while handling big data, as it needs them to avail the services of expert data analysts. This is the reason for preferring to use AI-based systems that can interpret the data in languages like French, Spanish, etc. and convert it to any of their preferred languages.  The AI solutions offered by these advanced systems will also help the businesses get automated data analysis. With Artificial Intelligence, enterprises can change the unstructured data into useful, actionable insights.

3. Achieve Business Insights through Cloud Databases

The information found in substantial cloud databases will be useless until it is processed and extracted to identify its patterns. Businesses apply Artificial Intelligence for mining the information that is hidden within such datasets by processing the precious data points efficiently and quickly. Also, AI can adapt and learn the changes in the business environment, as it is not static.

4. To Create Better Stories Using Algorithms

Robo-journalism is a popular term used across the business verticals in the recent years, but developing stories with the help of data requires advanced systems that can go beyond the conventional ones in creating clear and simple stories. Even though such traditional methods were capable of explaining the factual events, they fail to elaborate the logical reasons behind the conclusion.

Also, they cannot summarize large volume of data as well as contextual information. These days, businesses aim at data monetization tools backed by Artificial Intelligence to get content automatically and cut down the expenses on hiring human resources to get the task done.

5. Enhances Personalized Customer Experience

AI has revolutionized the field of e-commerce in numerous ways. This technology finds the clusters and patterns of the buying behaviour of the customers. AI also analyses several transactions that take place every day to send specific offers based on consumers’ preferences to target potential buyers and offer them an excellent personalized experience. Businesses also integrate CRM with AI to generate sales messages and offer customized solutions to widen their customer base.

6. For Improvising Consumer Communications With Chat-Based Solutions

Many businesses have realized the benefits of using AI-powered Chatbots to develop business solutions that are chat-based to improve communication with customers. AI can facilitate online chat with the interactions that are bot-driven to promote workflow automation.

7. To Get Automated Data Analytics

The present dashboards are very complex making it tough for businesses to know what the data indicates and draw conclusions based on it. To address the issue, businesses rely on Artificial Intelligence to make well-informed decisions that would be beneficial in the long run. This advanced technology is now helping several companies, as it offers an in-depth data analysis report that would explain what the data shows, by drawing insights and identifying the action items with the help of data set.

8. Lower Mundane Tasks and Improve Efficiency

The Artificial Intelligence systems handle the routine tasks that are repetitive to aim more at the tasks which would enhance the business value. Mid-sized and small businesses with limited resources consider AI as the game changer, as it helps in automation of CRM’s logging notes and routing new queries.

9. For Anticipating Business Outcomes

The AI systems have the prowess to capture the signals that are usually missed by the sales force who are on the lookout for any correlation between the customer data. When the customer support tool that is AI-integrated predicts consumer view using their current interaction, businesses utilize this data for building a healthy customer relationship.

If the customers don’t have a favorable opinion about business then, the AI system takes the necessary proactive measures immediately for changing their perceptions, instead of waiting for them to express their dissatisfaction about a product. So, AI plays a vital role in anticipating outcomes for enabling the businesses to realize, which matters should be focused.

10. Provide Assistance In Real-Time

It is not a tedious task for firms in Aviation segment to maintain their interaction with their customers these days while keeping up with logistics, as they are fully equipped with AI. Interacting with millions of customers in real-time across the globe is not possible by using just social media platforms. Businesses now make use of Chatbots and Intelligent Systems for offering real-time updates on the changes in flight schedules, and to stay in touch with their customers.

There is no doubt that AI has a vital role to play in different applications of various business verticals, as it cuts down the costs while increasing the productivity.

Being a UX Designer: 10 Essential Skills to Acquire

The UX design industry is rapidly growing and is the requirement of UX designers. As a UX designer, you improve a product’s user usability and accessibility with the aim of making the user derive pleasure from it. Most designers want to become a jack of all trades but a king of none, which is wrong. As a fresher, you must know that to move ahead you need to know some necessary skills that will help you to put behind competition climb up on the success ladder.

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Here are ten essential skills every UX designer needs to possess:

 

Rapid prototyping

Software gets updated once in every week or few months depending on the demand for improvement, and therefore rapid prototyping becomes a necessary skill for all UX designers. So how can a designer keep up with the rapidly changing technology?

As a designer, you have to create a rapid prototype for yourself, based on visual interactions. It can be as simple as something written on the paper or in coded format, rather than depending on traditional methods of communication.

Service design

Service design is a complex of many processes that improve the interaction between the designer and client, such that it tracks the end user’s journey. These processes include organizing material components, infrastructure, and communication. However, even if one of these isn’t in place, even the best of all designers won’t be able to make a good UX design.

Make your tools for measuring customer experience as they will help you when a new project, that you are doing for the first time.

Wireframing

Every company is now moving to responsive web design, and that’s why wireframing is an important skill to possess. It will assist you in creating a hierarchy in web design, which in turn will help you create a website that is more practical and usable on every device.

Wireframing also helps the UX designers to stay focused on the project’s primary goal. Eventually, it will help you to find out what exactly the client wants and what you have to provide to satisfy the clients.

Participatory design

It is essential for a UX designer to take inputs from the stakeholders involved in the process and link them to end-user demands. The ability to actively engage these people in your design will make you a great UX designer.

If it is a big project, you can host workshops and discussions with the stakeholders to get a better understanding of the company and what they want to give to the end user.

User research

A good UX designer is the one that knows user behavior and expectancies. You will be told many things in the office or by the client, but at the end of the day, you have the responsibility to guide them properly. If you have done the research well, you won’t have trouble while testing usability.

Analysing user problems is a significant part of user research as you have to guide your clients through your study and help them solve the problems faced.

Crowdsourced design

Crowdsourced design goes hand in hand with participatory design. As a UX designer, you must know how to use the internet as a resource to collect data for your projects. There are many UX tools available today that help you find the right kind of data.

Also collect feedback from your clients and their end users, so that you learn about your errors and rectify them in your next project.

Revising skills

Taking constructive criticism to review your skills will help you in the long run. Communicate with your old clients and take their feedback seriously. Sometimes, companies might ask that if you would’ve done something different with the product, what would that have been, and you have to give a valid response.

Also, be flexible to the demands of your clients because you are going to get more projects from them or their friends if they like your work.

Responsive design skills

In today’s world, everything has become user-friendly and having responsive design skills have become a priority. Make your concept more responsive and fluid by giving more importance to the emotions and thinking of the end user rather than just the technical aspects of the app or product.

Ditch those Photoshop frames, enhance yourself from sketches to prototypes, and create modular designs to become a successful UX designer.

Communication

Communication is one of the core skills every UX designer should have. It not only involves interacting properly with your clients but also trying to convey your idea to stakeholders about the end user requirements.

Keep aside visual communication for a while and strengthen your powerpoint presentation skills and your speech conduct. When you speak confidently and look into the person’s eyes, there is no way the person in front of you will reject your proposal.

UX writing

No, we aren’t talking about coding here. Pick up an application that you have created and see if you like reading what’s written in it. The language should be crafty, such that it keeps the end user engaged.

Language is still the most used form of communication and required right from convincing the user to download the app till convincing them to keep it on their phones forever. Apple and Dropbox have the best UX writing displayed throughout their concept.

Remember, you are an end user as well, so put yourself in those shoes while thinking your project’s concept. The only way you can see if your end users are happy is by checking the number of downloads and ratings the app you created makes. Less number of downloads or fewer star ratings is surely going to make you sad, so avoid that by being empathetic towards the end users.

You should also be able to visually communicate your idea through your concept to the stakeholders and end users. Coding isn’t a necessary skill, but having it will take you beyond your capability. So, work on all these skills and become the best UX designer version of yourself.

25 Stunning Website Designs of 2018 That Will Blow You Away

The New Year has been a great start for people looking around for some of the best existing projects and web designs incorporated last year. From functionality to the framework, the year 2018 is expected to bring revolutionary changes that will alter the web development scenario.

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Talking about websites it is indeed mandatory at this juncture of time that

We’ve gathered a huge list of 25 best website designs of 2017 which can help you make a great project work successfully.  They follow all the latest design trends and have the same modern look.

Let’s take a look:

  1. Saturized

A professional digital creative agency, Saturized stays true to its name, focused on creating and delivering a high-quality interactive experience. The website is no less than what they claim to be. The website looks more focused on the user-experience which understands the everyday challenges of many other competitors. The website hence stands out to be successful in today’s digital world.

2. Opacity Design Group Ltd.

Opacity Design Group (ODG) is a boutique branding and creative firm offering an ideal blend of approach, design, and technology that makes something amazing. The website was designed by their own team that suits their day-to-day activities which have turned it into a unique website and users enjoy visiting.

3. Lightbox Digital

Lightbox is a digital agency that mainly deals with small and medium enterprises enabling them to create digital products and campaigns to transform their brand. Their website is a luxury view for their enormous clients across the globe with consumer-driven digital experience. They are also in a process to build their E-commerce website. It will certainly be something interesting to get hold of.

4. Versett

A product engineering and design studio, Versett has a web design for future web experience.  Navigating through their website is easy and fast with a new redesigning experience. The website’s homepage consists of some of its best and interesting to note case studies which showcase their right process.

5. Spindel

A website designed by a freelancer top showcase her portfolio, spindle runs around a very simple but classy design, turning the complex content into a very beautiful and interactive experience.  The website itself is a big turnover for the freelancer with unique and beautiful responsive design.

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6. Abingworth

Abingworth is an international investment group in the field of biotechnology and life science.  The website is designed by a team of super talented designers that have crafted the concept rightly through its design.  The business can be easily explored without disturbing your attention on the main business.

7. Jardan

The website indeed is a mind-blowing concept by its developers. Jardan has been in business since long and offers a wide range of furniture designs. The interactive layouts and design make its presence felt among all other designs. The website has a great design and is well optimized to be run on any devices easily.

8. Fueled

Known for its award-winning portfolio, fueled was developed by its own team that beautifully emphasizes its design, functionality, and strategy to engage its customers. Not only this, the website is periodically upgraded to new and innovative designs to give you a good user experience. Worth a check.

9. Daesk

Daesk is a team of freelancers and agencies that help you get strategic insights into your business making you concentrate on work that matters most to you. The website includes eye-catching images with easy navigation and insights into their business.  The website won’t make you sick or waste your time with its elegant and simple user interface.

10. Shade Master

Shade Master is an Australian firm that specializes in a wonderful range of quality roofing solutions for your living.  The dedicated team of web developers has turned no stone down in bringing the blend of the business objective with user needs. The website gets across what exactly you are looking for and giving you insightful outcomes.

11. Ufo Mammoot

Now, this is an interesting one. Though the site looks a bit complicated in nature, the idea behind its design and the tactics used are far beyond imagination. The site is recently built with WebVR, Chatbot and WebGL – and whatever you name it.  The website is a perfect blend of idea and technology in a unique and innovative workpiece.

12. Bold Earth

Are you looking out for an adventure travel website? Well, you certainly need to check this one out.  Bold earth is about a group of adventure teens who organize travels around the world.  The website is itself a unique selling point for the brand. The website showcases environment, confidence, boldness and much more. You are going to have an un-forgetful adventure in exploring their interactive website.

13. Melted Subs

Who doesn’t love subs, but we love this website too. True to its name, melted subs gets your mouth watering with their attractive and easy to navigate menus, along with some mouth-watering HD images. The website looks fresh and pretty cool. It is designed in plain HTML5 and CSS without compromising in its user experience.

14. Chaptr Studio

Chaptr studio is in the field of web development and visual content. The website is beautifully crafted, has an intelligent content and offers a great digital experience. The content is collaborative and strikes across a good brand identity.  The black & white combination of color gives prominence to the content of the site and stands out with rest of the designing aspects.

15. RedBytes

Redbytes is app development company and the website they have created is specifically designed by keeping wanted to convey to the audience in mind. The design is practical and looks attractive as well. They have managed to advertise themselves effectively on the home page itself by highlighting what should be.  There is an animated GIF on the front page which is more than enough to convey the business of the company.

16. Magicleap

A start-up company, magic leap works on head-mounted virtual retinal display, a 3D computer-generated imagery over real-world objects. The website turns out to be a nice, pretty and new animation-related theme that is designed for retro-futuristic people. The whole website is designed in a way to make you feel comfortable and organic.

17. Johos

Joho’s design has a magnificent visual design that progressively explains the story of the business. The layout is interactive, imagery, and all, in all sound engineered. All these raw material comes together to give you that perfect recipe for what a web design should be like.  In addition, it is one of the sites that bring about the story telling concept of how’s the journey of a coffee bean.

18. Brain Pickings

Coping up with your boredom doesn’t mean you surf the internet to read any kind of stuff. Try expanding your knowledge by reading out some really interesting blogs written by Maria Popova, which are based on her real-life experiences. She does all the research by herself and they are certain to look out for.

19. Ximena Vengoechea

The sweet, simple and elegant design makes this website one of our favorites. The color and texture used really help us understand how the website is helping the personal website grow. Plus, the content stands out giving out a clear action for people to reach out to.

20. Oddee

love reading weird content. This website is the place. You get a strange feeling being in there, all lost reading out some seriously strange blogs. The website also has many videos which resemble a modern-day design challenges which have now attracted over 10 million users and subscribers.

21. myst

With more and more people preferring watching videos instead of reading the text, myst stands out with its cinematic experience with a complete scenario of voice and video on its homepage. You also have an option to toggle that sounds on and off since not all users prefer such designs. This kind of designs is pulled back by many, but when presented thoughtfully, can bring beautiful design trends to the industry.

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22. Allendjal

Are you a fan of parallax effects? They were once in trend in the year 2016 and designers who actually practiced it got wiser with the mouse-based events. The trend continues with Allendjal, with more impressive and fancy parallax effects. The more real the effects on the screen, more are the numbers of users visiting the website.

23. y7k

Haven’t you heard about the kaleidoscopic effects of websites? It means having some complex patterns and multicolors with psychedelic effects. The y7k illustrates what’s exactly said. The website has a fresh, two-tone look and a modern design that takes your breath away. While it may seem a bit jarring at first, do navigate to check out what the offered to the web designing world.

24. Newacton

Graphics has always played an important part of many websites today. But for some, it’s more than just graphics. Newacton with its minimalistic design and simple illustrations touches to the business having the perfect reason to be on the list. The website displays just an absolute design elements.

25. Thibault Pailloux

The website rolls around the concept of text overlapping the images and vice versa. The website has been designed by a creative freelance art director and stands out with vibrant and colorful designing patterns and pages. The websites hit the personality with vivid colors to uncomplicated designs.

Conclusion:

Businesses never get a second chance for capturing a first impression. What makes a website brilliant is the purpose it serves its customers. From the above list, it’s certain that each website excels in its own way and serves a unique purpose. That means not all of the above websites is conversion machines which sell their ideas and products. Instead, they are an inspiration to some great designs that are created from various corners of the world.

Designing and Developing a Public API: 8 Crucial Questions to Ask ?

Application Programming Interfaces or APIs have come a long way from being a simple tool for niche developers to the center point of business strategies ranging from customer service, partnerships to sales and marketing.

In spite of being business driven tools, public APIs are intricate pieces of software, which should be approached like a project of software development, concerning its planning and designing. If you are all set to avail the services of an expert API developer, then make sure that you have answers for the top 8 questions before proceeding.

Top 8 Questions While Developing and Designing a Public API

What Would Be Your Public API’s Business Vale?

Private APIs always aim at enhancing the internal software and back-end systems. But, before designing public APIs, it is essential to pay attention to the first step of establishing API’s business value to help you get an idea about the project’s structure.

Find out what would be the business value that you wish the API to deliver, such as monetization or improved market penetration. Understand what kind of business outcome value you are expecting from your public API. You can try to identify the business value of the API by identifying potential revenue resources, revenue venues for the future, use cases, interface to interact with your clients, streamlining, user stories, increasing the value of the partnerships, and organizing the vendor management.

Also consider holding a cost and benefit analysis, as APIs can be expensive. Make sure that you stay aware of the challenges in the process of in-depth planning and consider if this effort will be fruitful for your business in the long run.

What Is The Nature Of Your API Audience And What Are Their Demands?

It is imperative to know who your API audience would be to help in determining the right request and response model to cater to your API. To have your Public API specially designed for your audience, pay attention to the expectation they might have to structure the data that is efficient and organized.

User Experience (UX) is a crucial factor in the success of a Public API, and aids you make better technical decisions. Make sure that you offer enough documentation to the developers, as they are considered as the major consumers of public APIs.

How Resourceful Would Your API Be?

How vital your API will be for the people at present and in the future? Determining the structure and security of the API will help you get an idea which assets are essential. When you are keen to build an API for streamlining your way of working with your partners or supply chain, it will help you determine the areas of permissions.

For those of you doing business having specific regulatory norms and compliance requirements, this period is crucial for performing a double check to know which assets must be granted access for sharing.

What Would Be Your Data Format And Software Schema?

Always remember that it is impossible to build public APIs that work with, “one size fits all’ principle. Consider the use cases for deciding the software schema design that is very effective for organizing your API efficiently.

Also know how the data will be formatted and choose from JML or JSON, the compact choice for API that can be a perfect interface for the web apps that are based on JavaScript. XML is a compelling option but demands a lot of work from the programming side.

Is It Important To Have Usage Limits Set For Your API?

Both the private APIs and public APIs require minimum line of defense to prevent abuse and overuse for protecting the control and server expenses. The application limits can range from the cost limits, call volume, throttling to the level of data transmission.

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You can also hold a discussion with the developer and customer service teams to decide on the usage volume and arrive at the limit that would be beneficial for your business as well as for the users.

Which Style of Writing for Your API?

The writing style of API communicates with its architecture. There are two types of writing styles for Public APIs, such as Simple Object Access Protocol or SOAP and REST API paradigm where each API writing style is loaded with distinct benefits. The HTTP Protocol based REST is a simple style of writing that can be used for scaling and building API efficiently while SOAP is a complex architecture.

Do You Have Plans To Monetize Your Public API?

API acts as the layer which links services and latest applications to robust, multifaceted digital platforms while helping the online businesses scale high at a swift pace. Know why you have to build a public API and find out the outcome value it will bring to your business, such as monetization.

It can be identified by checking the potential venues for revenue, user stories, improving partnerships, enhancing your interface style with the clients and streamlining the vendor management. When someone prefers to make more calls than the ones offered by the current agreement, then you can ask them to pay for the extra calls.

How Will Be The Success Of The API Measured?

When you are ready to decide the ROI for the public API, it is essential to know which metrics should be gathered for the analysis. These metrics would enable you to realize the means of informing you how the API is performing. With some specific metrics as the parameters, it would be easier for you to know the rate of success of your public API in an accurate fashion.

As soon as you complete building your public API and assets are exposed for the developers to work on, pay attention towards maintaining stability as well as performance. Remember, the developers rely on your public APIs to improve the functionality of their apps and to equip it with evenly distributed processes and fully functional features.

7 Trends That Are Going To Be The Future of Web Development

Keeping up with the ever changing web development changes is getting on the nerves for many.  While some of the changes are temporary and short lived, many of the others have a dramatic change prevailing the notions.

For example, Flash took the web development ethics to entirely a new horizon when it was initially introduced. But today, it’s just a design option.

While traditional web developers might see themselves getting out of fashion, the upcoming trends in web development will certainly bring in a new revolution. The following trends are worth our attention and how they are going to change the face of traditional web designs.

1. UI Animation

UI animations, or commonly referred as motion UI, is a SaaS library that’s used in custom CSS.  Although responsive web designs have been making around for quite some time, what everyone expects in the near future is something larger than just responsive.

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UI animation allows web developers to create a more interactive, animated and unique transitional design that adds value to your website. The technology is busy finding newer methods to implement motion UI in a more easy and efficient manner.

2. PHP 7

PHP, has far by now remained the most preferred language for backend of web development.  The language has improved a lot more than anyone can imagine with its latest release of version 7.0. It is recognised as one of the latest trends for web development in 2018.

The Laravel 5.x, the framework used in PHP 7, offers you with ready solutions that make working with complex tasks a lot more easier than before. The open-source framework has a large online community, making you worry less for any problems with your web app.

3. Virtual reality WordPress site

We have already placed our foot in the world of Virtual reality(VR), which always fascinated us with its research, and the same is seen in the case of web development methodologies. VR changes the way we communicate and interact with the technology world.

Implementing VR to the world of web development demands support from a huge library. E-Commerce websites have already enabled their customers to interact with the products and create an all new experience for them. With WordPress bringing in support for VR content in their sites, we expect to see widespread use of VR in web design.

4. Card Designs

Use of card based designs, a fundamental material principle from Google, is a piece of content which includes a text, image or video, is broken down into separate cards which allows a user to navigate through a site.  The UI cards can show a larger amount of data just on a piece of card.

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Also, the UI cards also blend well with mobile responsive designs and works best on tablets and various browsers. Cards also allow businesses to build robust systems which develop and organises data, which includes various filters and sorting options, to cater to specific needs of users.

5. Automated Coding

Believe us, automated coding, which is based on the principles of artificial intelligence can do wonders to developing your web strategy. Due to the much talked hyped about AI in web development field, many companies have now launch a DIY website builder, which builds you website with just a few inputs from you. Doesn’t that sound interesting!

But many of the researchers say that using AI in the field of web development can prove threat to developers. But that is not proved yet. Do you think artificial intelligence and automated coding can replace the human intelligence and design?

6. SaaS

Creating a code free website with the help of tools has become a trend nowadays. Companies offering these tools promise a breath-taking user experience that doesn’t require you to know coding and programming. You may only require to know a few basics of photo shop or any photo editor.

SaaS is a cloud based subscription model entity that can access your data via any browser.  Instead of downloading a product, installing it on your machine and then running the program, you just visit a SaaS site through your browser and access the product with their login details.

7. Conversational E-Commerce

Popularly known as Chat-Bots, this are computer programs that work like humans with the help of machine learning and natural language processing (NPL). They can communicate with the customer; get the message across giving illusion to the customer of being a human being. Chat-bots are widely used in E-commerce applications.

The Bot revolution has already taken the place of humans and only time can tell how far its going to take this trend. Lots of conferences and research paper are going deeper into the evolution of chat bots.

Conclusion

As long as the web lives, new trends will come and go.  Seeing the current trend, web developers need to look ahead and redirect their approach with new business ideas. The need to re-invent you will continue, especially for small enterprises.  All the web development trends above are going to help you stay competitive in the market work wonders.

10 Robust PHP Frameworks For Developing Your Web App

Web and mobile application development may be a time consuming and complicated process, however, using a framework can help you get the job done efficiently.

These frameworks are useful for developing web applications, mobile applications and websites irrespective of complexities and sizes, be it small websites or a large scale enterprise.

Known popularly for web development and as a server-side scripting language, Frameworks aid in long-term maintenance by conforming to development standards while allowing your application to evolve and advance over time.

With these frameworks, web developers can now develop and set up more compound and safe web applications easily.

Why PHP Framework?

As a framework, PHP has been widely adopted by various developers around the globe and has sustained this well-deserved position for over a decade.  Developing web applications without using PHP code has become nearly impossible. A PHP framework comprises of various security policies, methodologies and components, and codes that are useful for different purposes. There are multiple PHP frameworks available, and we are here to throw light and discuss some of the best ones for 2018 that would hopefully be of use in your projects.

Yii framework

Yii is known to be a highly efficient PHP framework with powerful caching support. Yii goes along with the MVC pattern and aids in developing a clean and reusable code. Yii is equipped with a collection of validators along with helper methods and widgets. It supports and is compatible with Memcache, APC, Xcache, DB based page and segment caches.

For PHP, Yii is a remarkable open source web development framework. Wherever repetitive tasks are necessary to be done in developing applications for systems this framework works best. This web development framework features an inbuilt database abstraction layers, component-based model, modular application architecture and event-driven programming features.

Laravel

A name that strikes our memory when we discuss PHP frameworks for web app development is Laravel. It is a free, open-source PHP web framework, which adopts the model-view-controller (MVC) architectural pattern and is intended for building high-tech web applications. Laravel features many useful components such as utilities that aid in application usage and continuance, a complete packaging system with a dedicated dependency manager, various ways for retrieving relational databases, and its orientation toward syntactic sugar.

CakePHP

CakePHP has gained wide popularity in the market since its commencement, and it is an open sourceweb development framework written in PHP. It is developed on the ideology of model-view-controller and association data mapping. Professionals can efficiently utilize CakePHP to build web applications in an organized and rapid manner. A practical advantage of using CakePHP is that guidelines and in-depth documentation are accessible along with the framework which enables simple and secure coding.

Symfony

Symfony is a PHP framework that is known for its stability in usage. It is an ideal choice for large-scale and complex ventures and projects. The current version, Symfony 3.1 offers scalability and flexibility to developers while creating websites that can adapt to changing business requirements. Symfony is equipped to function with quite a few of the most prominent open source platforms such as PHPBB, Piwik, and Drupal.

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Code Igniter

Developers highly prefer code Igniter due to its simplicity. Because of its smooth and straightforward functionality, it helps in the seamless advancement of app development. It also hosts a vast collection of functions which are very useful to the developers to help them complete the development process much faster. These library functions offer developers an added advantage as they do not have to build any code from scratch. As Code igniter doesn’t hold any commercializationpolicy, there are no advertisements and no necessity for a subscription. This framework offers simple solutions to complicated application requirements.

Zend framework

Zend Framework is best suited for quickening up the web application development process as it hosts an ideal collection of essential components required for development. It is highly flexible and also offers scalability. This framework allows for easy customization and low maintenance as well. With the help of Zend PHP, developers can build larger projects within a short duration. Compatibility with different databases such as MySQL, SQL, Oracle, and others are known to improve the productivity vastly featuring plenty of third-party plugins.

Phalcon

Phalcon is a full stack PHP framework that also utilizes the Model-View-Controller (MVC) web architecture design pattern.  It was built on the C and C++ programming language and is the fastest PHP framework known today. It is one of the most advanced frameworks created keeping in mind the speed factor.

Slim

Slim is a PHP framework that is simple yet powerful and enables you to develop efficient web applications and application programming interfaces. Slim is minimalistic in design and is a PHP micro-framework. Thus it is apt for small and straightforward web applications which don’t require a full-stack PHP framework. Many PHP developers also use this framework for developing Restful APIs and web services. It comes with attractive features like client-side HTTP caching, URL routing session and cookie encryption, etc.

FuelPHP

FuelPHP is a flexible and full-stack PHP framework. Even though it follows along the MVC architectural pattern, it also provides an extension by evolving its adaptation called HMVC (Hierarchical Model-View-Controller). FuelPHP is a modern and extendable framework. It presents inputs and URI filtering and output encoding that handles security policies. It comes with rich features and good documentation along with its authentication mechanism.

PHPixie

PHPixie is entirely new in the web development world with its conception in 2012. It was created with the aim of establishing a high-performance PHP framework keeping in mind read-only websites. PHPixie framework is very much similar to FuelPHP in implementation and adapts the HMVC architecture design pattern. It was also developed using independent components. These individual components can function without the need for the framework, and they require minimum dependencies as they are 100% unit tested.

We are sure that the above discussed PHP frameworks can be put to use efficiently and build web application efficiently and with more ease.

Freelancer VS Full-Time Web Developers

In today’s world, a website has become the face of every company, small or big. Hiring a web developer on a full-time basis or as a freelancer is a very debatable topic, but it apparently depends on what the company’s end goals are. Either way, hiring the best web developer is always a struggle.

Statistics of the job market are changing, and people are gradually ditching full-time jobs to become freelancers as it broadens their horizon and lets them work on the different project. Also, they get paid well after the initial struggle to find gigs and work according to their comfort.

If you are confused and can’t decide whether a full-time or a freelance web developer fits best for your company’s interests, here are some differences that will help you:

1.Skills

Full-time web developer

It is evident that a full-time web developer will have some hands-on coding experience. And if the person is a fresher, he will have the support of senior developers at the office, which can help whenever needed. If you have an IT company, hiring a full-time web developer is the best decision since you will need the developer all the time and not just for specific projects.

Freelance web developer

When you post the requirement of a freelance web developer on any site, many freelancers will boast about having individual skills, which he might not. There is no way you can judge their work because they can lie. However, you can start asking your friends who are freelance web developers to design your website. If your company isn’t an IT firm and doesn’t require a web developer for anything other than a site, hire a freelancer.

Job portals, today, have made the task easy by testing the freelancers before they upload their profile on their site. It makes the work easy for you and lowers the risk of you getting cheated.

2. Dedication

Full-time web developer

A full-time web developer is undoubtedly more dedicated to the given task than a freelancer because he works only one project at a time. As an employer, you’d know his strengths and give him a job that he does well.

Freelance web developer

Freelancers have many different projects in hand and might not dedicate their whole time to your project. Usually, a freelancer works on multiple projects from various clients at the same time, while a full-time web developer can work on the dedicated plans based on your priority.

A Freelancer can outsource the work to other freelancers and might not guarantee the same quality. Many experienced freelancers hire freshers and get the job done at lower costs.

3. Communication

Full-time web developer

There are no communication problems when working with a full-time web developer. But you do need to take efforts and discuss every progress in their department regularly. Communication becomes all the more important when the web developer has recently joined your office.

Freelance web developer

Communication works both ways. If you feel that you have no issues in communicating with someone who works remotely, a freelancer is an excellent choice as it also cuts costs. You have to pay a full-timer every month despite the amount of work done, while you pay a freelancer on the project basis.

4. Security

Full-time web developer

An in-house web developer provides maximum security. It becomes a significant concern if you have an e-commerce website. Projects done inside a company get added security of top-notch technologies used by the companies.

Freelance web developer

With a freelance web developer, you don’t have much control over the security they can provide. Also, the person can block your website if you haven’t paid them on time and might even steal information in extreme situations. Finding a trustworthy freelancer is the key to resolve this issue.

5. Support

Full-time web developer

A full-time web developer works based on your needs. He can fix any issue that occurs in production immediately. If the problem arises during non-working hours, he can manage his timings and take care of them accordingly.

Freelance web developer

You can never predict when a web developer works. Freelancers don’t provide you with a warranty period, but they are most definitely responsible for fixing bugs on the website on the priority basis when you demand. If there is a bug, which you don’t find during the test run, but later, a freelancer has to do that.

You often get extra hours of support from a freelancer. The support can get extended when the freelancer works in a different country and the time difference is huge. When you need him, during your off-working hours, the probability of his availability can be questionable.

6. Meeting deadlines

Both, a full-time or a freelance web developer don’t have issues with meeting deadlines. A full-time web developer has daily tasks that he needs to give in, whereas a freelancer is given deadlines within which they have to show the complete work.

Both of them are undoubtedly focused on work. However, one disadvantage of hiring a freelancer is that if he falls sick, there is no one to take over. In case a full-time web developer falls ill, his co-developer can take over for that small amount of time.

Conclusion

Choosing a full-time web developer is also more advantageous than hiring a freelancer. However, if you have a start-up and your budget is meagre, you can start by hiring a freelancer and get work done on a project basis as it is very cost-effective. As your company grows, you can switch to a small team of full-time web developers.

Email campaign for your e-commerce website – What to consider?

Email has been around for a while now, and smart business owners know it is here to stay and is an integral part of marketing businesses. Your email list is a prized possession for any business that takes time to build and maintain.

An email list adds significant value in several ways and helps in selling your business. It lets you contact people directly who have either purchased a product or service you sell, are interested in your product or are inclined towards learning about your industry or niche. Keeping in mind the long-term interest and growth of any business, building an email list should be a top priority. Especially for e-commerce businesses, email marketing is the key to their success.

Importance of an email list

Most people who visit your website may not return to it unless you do something to keep them coming back. Building an email list helps you get this done and retain more of the traffic you worked so hard to earn. Your email list and campaign drives help to bring traffic back to your website by providing an incentive to return like with discounts, valuable content, new products, etc. It also ensures direct communication on a regular basis. If your e-commerce business hasn’t taken the time to adopt email marketing, then it is time to buck up now.

Content marketing through Email

A strategic way of marketing is through content marketing, where businesses communicate original content to their audience.  Gone are the days of traditional advertising with potential customers, nowadays businesses aim to draw attention by delivering relevant information and entertainment which creates a buzz for the brand as well as builds trust with the audience.

It makes collecting email addresses from your visitors a critical ordeal. It allows you to keep in touch and follow up with your audience over time and ensures more than just one-time visits.

Build relationships with your customers through email

Social media and search engines may offer an easy way for potential customers to discover you. However, email is the best way to maintain and to cement a relationship over time.

It is common knowledge especially for those who are well-versed with online shopping that you’re more likely to buy from the websites that you are more familiar with and have already formed a relationship.

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Email Drives Traffic and Sales

Email is an effective and efficient way to reach and communicate with customers and potential customers on your email list, in a wide variety of ways. The kinds of marketing content that can get delivered through email are newsletters, drip campaigns, individual occasion emails for holidays, birthdays, and other personal events, etc.

Choosing the Right Email Marketing Platform

To send your customers promotional and offer related emails you need first to select the email marketing service and set it up. There are many email marketing services out there for you to pick. Ultimately, you need to choose the one that would work best for your business and goals, and that can integrate easily with your website. These email marketing platforms allow you to maintain your mailing list as well as automate the production and sending of your emails.

Some of the things you’ll also want to consider while choosing your platform are if it offers customizable email templates, audience segmentation to send targeted emails based on customer profiles, opt-in forms that can be embedded on your website and detailed analytics to measure your email marketing campaigns.

Opt-in forms

To grow your future email recipient list, you need to get creative. Making it easy for anyone to sign up is one of the preliminary things you should try to incorporate. Attractive offers need to be clear and concise with a simple action item: the opt-in form.

The strategic placement of these opt-in forms is an essential element that drives your website. Opt-in forms are nothing but those email sign-up boxes you see on almost every site.

Opt-in form generators offered by popular email marketing software solutions will provide you with a fragment of code that you can just paste into various places around your site. Adding multiple opt-in forms to your website may seem like going overboard, but it’s not. Every visitor that comes to your website does not look at every inch of your site from header to footer so it would be justifiable for you to place these forms at different spots.

Audience segmentation for better engagement

Sending the same email to everyone is most often one of the common mistakes many businesses make with their mailing list. Not all subscribers on your mailing list have to get engaged with the same content you send to all.

For example, if you are selling items in different categories like women’s clothing, men’s clothing and kid’s clothing not every subscriber will find the mailed information relevant or exciting. It doesn’t make sense to send the same message to everyone as it needs to be engaging with your subscribers. You want your emails to be relevant to the recipient as often as possible. While it is not possible to customize an email for every individual subscriber on your list to cater specifically to them, you can create emails based on particular criteria using segmentation to increase engagement and conversions.

Segmentation allows you to ideally sort your contacts into different lists or “buckets” based on their engagement, interest and the information you have on them. You can differentiate your contacts in the following ways such as customer type, gender, interest, location, and behavior.

Converting Subscribers into Customers

If you want your subscribers to stick around and open your emails, you have to regularly provide them with value—via discounts or useful content.  Along with promotional emails, it is crucial also to include nurturing emails as not every subscriber is ready to buy. It is essential to get their interest first with relevant information.