Category: Technology

Top 5 Web Applications That Buzzed The World In 2017

Posted on by Junaid Ali Qureshi

Hello 2018…and a lot to look forward this year in the league of ‘ Web Applications ’.

Saying that let me place the top WEB APPLICATIONS that created an uproar in the year 2017.

As you go on reading this article more you would find the web applications that made an impression on users and why they became the best out of the crowd.

So as per the saying by Alan J Perlis on Programs or Applications;

“Every Program or Application has at least two purposes: the one for which it was written, and another for which it wasn’t.”

Alan J Perlis

Let’s dig into the details….

Different web applications rule different domains in the working culture. Some are best for everyday tasks while others are specifically designed to deliver productive field results.

Most of us look forward to using applications that can help us enhance our business outcomes, perform our jobs better and organize the whole setup in a much better way.

And this is why knowing the top applications that are tendering the best results is deemed necessary by the professionals all around.

You wouldn’t want to miss out on a chance of improving your working status and performance, right? One must always have knowledge about which apps are at what rank in order to have a convenient life because in today’s era we are so much dependent on social media apps that half of our life depends on them.

So here we present some apps that buzzed the world in 2017 and you can confidently use them in 2018 as well.

1. Drip

Drip

Are you looking for an app that will make you a better marketer with in no time and very less effort? The Drip app helps you to develop better relations with your customers by enabling you to send customized emails. One of the coolest things about them is their unbelievable deliverability rate and expert service. Another secret of their success is their tracking capabilities with which you can know your customers better and satisfy them easily. If you want to ace you career in marketing, try this app and discover the various options.

2. Facebook ads

Facebook Ads

Social media networks were on a roll this year. Not only did they increase their number of users but also got their name carved in the success stories. The Facebook ads web application is another useful app that multiple marketing companies and others all around the world keep in their top priority app list.

And also, as Facebook got combined with a number of apps like Whats App and Instagram this year, the news widely expanded the circle of publicity. Now, the platform will look forward to enhancing its techniques and offer mind-blowing marketing and publicity features in the coming future.

3. Google Forms

Google Form

If we calls google forms a miracle or a blessing that won’t be wrong at all. It deserves all the fame that it earned in 2017 because the uncountable number of tasks that it performed is worth all the fame. The Google form app service is the perfect way to get opinions of the populace via questionnaires and surveys. You can create your custom forms and distribute the link online to get the worthy view of the best professionals in your field. A custom web application development company is often find making use of such web applications. The app also gives you access to the raw data and allows you to analyze it with Google sheets and, the good news is that it will continue to provide its wonderful services in 2018 as well.

4. Microsoft Excel Online

Excel Online

Microsoft excel online is another blessing of internet lords out there. It has countless benefits and provides a number of facilities free of cost. One can easily collaborate and get a free version of Microsoft excel within no time and get a number of benefits like using spreadsheets, making documents, presentations, customized work and much more. If you need to prepare any official or important document, spreadsheet or presentation in 2018 you can easily rely on Microsoft excel online without wasting anytime in thinking what to do.

5. Kajabi

Kajabi

The last web application that we have on our brief list is Kajabi. It is one of the wonderful apps that gained a lot of fame in the world of internet in 2017 and offers an amazing set of features. It has all those tools that you need to sell and create your own online course. It provides you a number of facilities like giving you a complete customized design for your website, a complete set up of your products, automation of your marketing highlights and uploading your content easily. You can in fact grow your own entire blog with the help of Kajabi. It also gives you ease if you want to build an online course and benefit a number of people with it. This app has done wonders in 2017 and we expect the same surprising results in 2018 as well. If you wish to own and run a great online course on any topic of interest, this app is definitely worth a shot!

The enormously huge number of web applications developed every day puts us in a pickle and one thing is for sure, while doing our jobs, we can’t take any chances, right? This is why knowing about the top applications is necessary to maximize the benefit gained and efficiency improved by its use. The top five are listed above for you. Get your hands on them and discover more!

So you have an idea to make it big this year! – I am sure you do.

As a web and mobile app development company, we can help you to plan, formulate, design and build the application or software you intend to offer to your target audiences / users.

Connect with us for a free 15mins consultation.

The Importance Of Mobile Quality Assurance

Posted on by Anurag Pattnaik

Mobile phones are being designed for the needs of urban warriors who want to do everything on the go. The mobile ecosystem has gone beyond the boundaries of telephony.

It records activities, provides event alerts, keeps users in touch with their personal lives and assists in business processes like closing transactions and completing payments. These advanced smartphone capabilities are giving rise to novel ways which addresses the needs of customers, employers and partners.

Mobile Application Marketplaces are becoming very popular day by day, and many companies are facilitating users to download various app. Websites are also being built as responsive for better browsing experience on various handheld devices.

Challenges of Mobile Application Testing :

Now-a-days, people are accessing the Internet and digital content in general more and more frequently from mobile rather than a traditional device. Mobile devices are built on a variety of operating systems that include multiple versions of iOS, Android, Windows, BlackBerry, Symbian, Bada and Brew, etc. Many years ago, the importance of Mobile Quality Assurance became apparent to the mobile development community.

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Mobile Quality Assurance has needful key focus areas such as “Functionality”, “Performance”, “Usability”, “Automation”, “Security”, “Compatibility (Responsiveness)”, “Interface”, “Services” and “Device Proliferation”.

Mobile QA testing is nothing but a process by which mobile devices are being tested for its functionality, usability and consistency for better performance.

Mobile Application testing is categorized into two phases; such as “hardware or Device Testing” and “Software Testing”. Now this process is maximizing to support iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, tablets, including other operating systems with minimizing the testing cycle up to 50% as well.

As more and more mobile apps are coming out as well as Smartphones and it might be finding too many challenges or risks like variety of mobile devices, diversity in Mobile Platforms/OS, Mobile network operators and Scripting.

So, Mobile QA Testing is becoming very necessary part of Mobile Application Development Ecosystem.

Summary:

It is inescapable that your business will adopt mobile technologies to improve efficiency and become a regular business.

However, in a fast-changing mobile environment, application testing must be done in days instead of weeks, to ensure that your business remains agile, productivity is increased, time, money and customer satisfaction are not impacted.

I hope you liked this post. You must get a clear idea about the real challenges in mobile application testing. I would like to know your invaluable suggestion on this topic.

Recommended Blog: Andolasoft launched service on QA Automation

How To Install, Setup And Implement NodeJS In PHP Application

Posted on by Lipsa

What Is NodeJS?

Typically in web response paradigm, the client always initiates communication, but with the help of NodeJS now both the client and server can initiate communication, allowing them to exchange data freely.

In simple words, after a database update the client needs to request the server to get the latest data. But using NodeJS, a client can send the updated data to NodeJS and the NodeJS will distribute the data across all the clients. So, no need to initiate request by each client to the server to get the latest data.

Where We Can Use NodeJS?

Below are the few examples where you can get the best out of Node.js,

  • A counter which updates after a record insert into database.
  • Show real-time activity like Twitter or Facebook.
  • Implement Desktop notification to notify users about what others are doing.
  • You can build a chatting tool using the non-blocking, event-driven I/O paradigm of NodeJS

Install And Setup NodeJS

  1. Install NodeJS and NPM
  2. Install socket.io using NPM
  3. Install Forever

Run the below notification.js file forever using the “Forever”. (it should not stop)

notification.js

var fs = require('fs');
/* If you are using SSL, uncomment the below lines*/
/*
var options = {
    key: fs.readFileSync('/var/www/html/YOUR_CERTIFICATE_FOLDER/your_project_key.key'),
    cert: fs.readFileSync('/var/www/html/YOUR_CERTIFICATE_FOLDER/your_project_crt.crt'),
    ca: fs.readFileSync('/var/www/html/YOUR_CERTIFICATE_FOLDER/your_project_ca-bundle.ca-bundle')
};
var app = require('https').createServer(options, handler);
*/

var app = require('http').createServer(handler); // For non-ssl server
var io = require('socket.io').listen(app);
app.listen(3002);
function handler (req, res) {
	res.writeHead(200);
	res.end("Welcome to socket.io.");
}
/** This section is for receiving and sending message **/
var Room;
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
	socket.on('subscribeTo', function (data) {
		if(Room){
			socket.leave(Room);
		}
		Room = data.channel;
		console.log('Connecting client to: '+data.channel);
		socket.join(data.channel);
	});
	socket.on('iotoserver', function (data) {
		console.log('here we are in action event and data is: \n-----------------------------------------------------');
		//var dataJSON = JSON.parse(data);
		//socket.broadcast.emit(dataJSON.channel, { message: 'A new socket added and sending message.' });
		socket.broadcast.to(data.channel).emit('iotoclient', { message: data.message });
		//io.sockets.in('game').emit('message', 'cool game');
		console.log(data);
	});
});

NOTE: Your Node.js should run with the port “3002”. Try to use another sub-domain/domain to call your Node.js server. Another server is always a good option.

Implement NodeJS In Your Application

Use Elephant.io (a socket.io client) to send message to NodeJS.
Get the ElephantIO package from, https://github.com/Wisembly/elephant.io/tree/master/src
You need the Client.php and the AbstractPayload.php file only.

<?php
use ElephantIO\Client as ElephantIOClient;
include("ElephantIO/Client.php");

$elephant = new ElephantIOClient('http://www.your-node-server.com:3002', 'socket.io', 1, false, false, true);
$elephant->setHandshakeTimeout(1000);
$elephant->init();
$elephant->send(
ElephantIOClient::TYPE_EVENT, null, null, json_encode(array('name' => 'iotoserver', 'args' => array('channel' => 'my_first_channel', 'message' => 'my message to all the online users')))
	);
$elephant->close();
?>

Put this JavaScript in the page, where you want to receive the real-time notification

<script src="http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/socket.io/0.9.16/socket.io.min.js"></script>
<script>
try{
  var client = io.connect('http://www.your-node-server.com:3002');
  
  client.on('connect',function (data) {
  	client.emit('subscribeTo', { channel: 'my_first_channel' });
  });
  
  client.on('iotoclient', function (data) {
    alert(data.message);
  });
} catch(e){
	console.log('Socket ERROR\n');
	console.log(e);
}
</script>

See Also: Creating a custom handler session in CakePHP 2.x

Are you looking to Install, setup and implement NodeJS in your PHP application? We are here to help you. We have experienced NodeJS developers to provide all types of JavaScript solutions. Let’s discuss

Like this blog? I’d love to hear about your thoughts on this. Thanks for sharing your comments.

How To Access Remote Amazon RDS With PHPMyAdmin

Posted on by Mandakinee

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a web service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while managing time-consuming database management tasks, freeing you up to focus on your applications and business.

First of all we need to install PHPMyAdmin in ec2 instance (CentOS, Fedora, Amazon Linux AMI)

Step:1

First we need to enable the RPMforge repository on our CentOS system as PHPMyAdmin is not available in the official CentOS/Fedora/Amazon Linux AMI repositories:

Import the RPMforge GPG key:

# rpm --import  http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt

On x86_64 systems:

#  yum install http://pkgs.repoforge.org/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm

On i386 systems:

# yum install http://pkgs.repoforge.org/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.i686.rpm

Step:2

PHPMyAdmin can now be installed as follows:

# yum install phpmyadmin

Step:3

Now, we configure PHPMyAdmin. We change the Apache configuration so that PHPMyAdmin allows connections not just from localhost (by commenting out the <Directory “/usr/share/phpmyadmin”> stanza):

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf
#
# Web application to manage MySQL
#
 
#<Directory "/usr/share/phpmyadmin">
# Order Deny, Allow
# Deny from all
# Allow from 127.0.0.1
#</Directory>
 
Alias /phpmyadmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin
Alias /phpMyAdmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin
Alias /mysqladmin /usr/share/phpmyadmin

Step:4

Next, we change the authentication in PHPMyAdmin from cookie to http: and host from local to RDS host url:

vi /usr/share/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php
[...]
/* Authentication type */
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'http';
[...]
/* Server parameters */
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = '*******.******.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com';

Step:5

Restart Apache service:

# /etc/init.d/httpd restart

Step:6

Now we can browse RDS database.

# http://<IPADDRESS> /phpmyadmin

Or

# http://<Domain name>/phpmyadmin

Advantages Of PHPMyAdmin Over Command line Interface.

  • One of the advantages of using PHPMyAdmin is that it has a user interface and you can run queries within the SQL.
  • It is also used in checking referential integrity in MyISAM tables.
  • One can execute, edit and bookmark any SQL-statement, even batch-queries (This will work only in the latest version of PHPMyAdmin).
  • Multiple MySQL servers can be managed by PHPMyAdmin.
  • One can export data to various formats: CSV, SQL, XML, Excel and more.
  • Using Query-By-Example(QBE), create complex queries automatically connecting required tables.
  • One can Browse, view and drop databases, tables, views, fields and indexes.
  • It supports InnoDB tables and foreign keys.

Also See: How to install and configure Jaspersoft in Linux Server(RHEL/Centos/Fedora)

I hope you will find this useful. Feel free to give your valuable feedback.

If you want to update your traditional IT infrastructure to cloud computing, then you can hire expert cloud engineers from Andolasoft.

What’s New In Android L, Windows 8.1 And IOS 8

Posted on by Ajay Sahoo

As all the three major mobile players in smartphone categories  i.e. Apple, Google and Microsoft come up with their latest version of Operating Systems i.e. iOS 8, Android L & Windows 8.1 respectively. Let’s have a look how it is worthy for users to switch over the most-recent OS version based upon the new features.

Android L:-

  • Personalized unlocking features, which make your smartphone or tablet search for familiar Bluetooth’s gadgets, Wi-Fi networks, locations and even voice imprints to deactivate any lock screen protections, letting you jump straight into your phone when it knows you’re nearby. If the device can’t detect any of this metrics, anyone trying to use it will be presented with the standard lock screen.
  • Google is focusing on its stock android keyboard for Android 5.0 Lollipop for adding more personalized and scrapping the individual tiled keys.
  • There is one more exciting feature i.e. “Do Not Disturb mode”, which automatically deactivates all notifications and audio during set times, support for Bluetooth 4.1 and a completely redesigned audio back end with support for USB audio devices.
  • Also Android L is going to introduce 64-bit processor support and  improving battery life with Project Volta. Project Volta includes a new battery historian which will help users work out what a device was doing at any given point in a battery cycle to find out which apps are draining the most power.

Windows 8.1 :–

Microsoft has already rolled out windows 8.1 few months back. Some of the features that were added windows phone 8.1:

  • Cortana, which is very much similar to Siri in iOS device, act as your personal assistant. Cortana notebook features store things that you tell her about yourself and also keep tracks what you like and what you’d like done. It can access apps, set alarms, send messages to specific persons, post a Facebook status, add a tweet, search for something and a lot more.
  • The action center which is finally added, and here you can get all your notifications and other controls such as setting Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.
  • Another interesting feature that added to windows 8.1 was Quiet Hours. Here You can set what time you want your phone to be “quiet,” shutting out noise or notifications coming from it.

There is some other new features like setting up your personal photos as the background on the said start screen, connects you to free Wi-Fi hotspots near you through Wi-Fi sense, transferring files from the internal memory and SD-card seamless through Storage Sence etc.

iOS 8:-

iOS 8 also launched with lots of new features and here I am going to share few of them:

  • iPhone has new feature “Send Last Location” which allows your iPhone (or iPad) to send its last-known location to Apple when the battery drains to a critical level. If you lost your device, it will help you to find the last location of your device even if it’s battery is completely drained.
  • You can now include photos when making notes, to-do lists and reminders in Apple’s iOS 8 notes app.
  • Now iPhone can identify the song due to Shazam integration in Siri. If you ask Siri, “What song is playing?”, it will cause her to listen to the ambient sound, using Shazam to identify music.
  • You can notice iOS 8 has new keyboard with a very smooth predictive type features, which suggests three words right above the keyboard.

I hope you liked this post. What you would like to prefer- Android L, iOS 8 or windows 8.1 and why. Please share your answer in the below comment section

Recommended Blog: Useful features of iOS 7

Looking to make your mobile application dreams come true? Contact us today to make it a reality.

Utility Open Source Apps In CakePHP That You Need To Know

Posted on by Prakash S.

CakePHP is one of the most popular open source web application framework. It provides an extensible architecture for development, maintenance and deployment of PHP applications. Being based on the MVC Architecture & ORM, it is relatively simple to understand and helps developers to write less code without losing flexibility.

The key features of Open Source Apps written in CakePHP are:

  • Flexible Licensing
  • Works from any Website Directory, with Little Number of Apache Configuration involved
  • Integrated CRUD for Database Interaction
  • Code Generation & Built-in Validation
  • Request Dispatcher with Clean, Custom URLs and Routes
  • Fast and Flexible Templating (PHP Syntax with Helpers)
  • View Helpers for AJAX, JavaScript, HTML Forms and much more
  • Email, Cookie, Security, Session and Request Handling Components
  • Flexible ACL and Data Sanitization
  • Flexible Caching and Localization

CakePHP has the second largest active developer team and community among the PHP frameworks, bringing great value to the project. It keeps you away from reinventing the wheel.

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Github is the #1 resource for Cakephp projects in my opinion. 2nd place probably is occupied by Code Google and then comes Sourceforge.

Orangescrum

Orangescrum is a flexible project management web application developed using CakePHP framework. It’s an efficient Project Collaboration Tool that gives you full visibility and control over your projects. Orangescrum offers all the basic features you need for smooth running of your project. No matter where you are globally, with Orangescrum you feel like sitting next to your developer. With an intuitive interfaces, easy-to-use functionality, you organize your project activities to a great extent.

Disclaimer: It’s our own project management tool.

https://github.com/Orangescrum/orangescrum

Croogo

Croogo is a free, open source, Multilingual Content management system built using CakePHP MVC framework. It’s an open source project released under MIT License. With Croogo CMS, you can create your own content type such as blog, node, page, etc.  Also you can categorize content with Taxonomy and it also offers WYSIWYG editor to edit content directly from browser.

Zhen CRM

Zhen CRM is a self-hosted CRM with full source code (in CakePHP and MySQL) that aims to be visually easy to use, simple and straightforward, and provides all the features you need from a full-featured CRM!

Vamcart

Vamcart is a CakePHP based open source Shopping cart. It is easy to use and simple to install. It is not required to have any special knowledge to install Vamcart on your server. Just download the files from vamcart homepage and put them on your server’s root directory and open Vamcart installation page directly from the browser. The script will automatically install shopping cart on your site.

QuickApps

QuickApps is a CakePHP based open source Content management system. It is easy to use and simple to install. It allows developers and advanced users to easily build complex websites without reinventing the wheel.

 

Recommended Blog: Containable Behavior in CakePHP

Definitely, this list is incomplete. Share your favorite open source CakePHP application with us in the comments below.