Katy Moe is a cyborg. A glass-coated NFC transponder is implanted in the flesh of her left hand between her thumb and index finger, with a unique identifier and the capability of storing up to 888 bytes of data.Â
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The robots might take our jobs. But they'll also create new ones.
AT THE DUSSELDORF airport, robotic valet parking is now reality. You step out of your car. You press a button on a touch screen. And then a machine lifts your car off the ground, moving all three tons of it into a kind of aerial parking bay. Built by a German company called Serva Transport, the system saves you time. It saves garage space, thanks to those carefully arranged parking spots. And itâs a sign of so many things to come.
Our team uses the newest web technologies to ensure your website is quick, easy-to-use, attractive, and search-engine friendly. This course makes it possible for you to build Web websites and potent on-line applications including its ease-of-use and extensibility. Along with web design, we can likewise scan photographs and make graphics improve your website. We utilize the hottest technologies and concentrate on using the most effective open source solutions, like Plone.
Content in a type of print or internet publishing for business to business industry ends in great popularity. Graduates will have the ability to support the internet design necessities of businesses and organizations in a vast array of industries or work for a freelance web designer. Always search for the company that provides a fantastic development process for your own company. We have a range of internet services to cover all of your webs wants, and you could be up and running on the planet Wide Web for so little as $650.
Java applet remains used by many enterprise platforms and fiscal websites. Web 2.0 applications often interact far more with the end user. Creating machine-readable data will be the principal activity as well as the core of semantic web. The complimentary version provides 250MB of storage and supports the POP3 and SMTP standards so that you can utilize an appropriate email program together with web access.
Possessing a well-crafted high-quality website is now essential. We're always a sensible option online for your site development wants, web 2.0 technologies and digital marketing requirements. A business that provides innovative thoughts and superb web development for clients, ought to be effective at helping you in selling out your services and merchandises too. WordPress web development companies are really all about taking good care of the websites.
Authorization protection The website authorization is frequently an object of hacker attention. It is quite crucial that you understand the usage of site, security requirements and extra deployment factors first. Through intelligent access to information, made to lessen visitor input, improve user engagement and raise the conversion rate of the site. Slimjet was made to offer top-notch privacy protection to each online user.
Imagine a lovely video playing on your website that fills up the whole screen, providing your audience with an inside appearance and peak in your company or company. HTML5 is a massive part of the theme and certainly will offer your visitors an excellent experience making use of the most recent web technologies. Employing the most recent standard, you have more control over the presentation of the video and certainly will ensure that it remains in accord with the remainder of the website's design. For instance, you can upload files into the browser and discover out information including name, size as well as the type and never having to proceed to the server.
Many small business owners hesitate to launch a website mainly because of the higher cost involved. The web doesn't have a version number. This way, the newest changes continue to be there in the event the user lost connectivity and needed to shut down the browser before they could acquire online again. It'll enable you to make website backups and restore the data in emergency situations, or in the event, your site was damaged.
In the previous typography was seen as a comparatively small or less significant part a website. Tim Berners-Lee, who developed the first technologies of the net, has been an outspoken critic of the period, while supporting several of the elements connected with it. For this particular survey, we also asked numerous questions regarding using cloud computing resources. Utilizing the web 3.0, an individual would just need to type just one sentence, merely a like query being asked in a conversation.
In the previous website layout and branding used to be quite significant and must be decided first. You'll be able enough to extend your website in the foreseeable future if needed easily without the requirement to replace the website entirely. That is the reason why Lisk CMS has an integrated Site Structure module that is probably the principal tool for managing website content and structure. And it's a huge deal that will continue to result in several great apps using audio and video with no need to of costly infrastructure.
Google Glass is an excellent instance of this. 2014 will see many more websites using only a couple of colors rather than the eye-popping graphics and animation of days gone by. It's used along with the HTML5 element to make 3D graphics. It might not sound like much newness within the programming layer, but it is a massive leap forward for the plan layer.
The Internet is becoming an increasingly more crucial facet of global competition. There's a specified rise in the education that is being provided to today's youngsters with regard to coding, developing and hacking. Web 2.0 could cause major shifts in how education is offered for students. There are a great variety of companies that promise to provide the finest web design services when compared with others working within the identical functional place.
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Sigmah, open source software for the shared management of international aid projects
Thu, 07 May 2015 13:14:40 +0000
Sigmah is an open source software for the collaborative management of international aid projects. Sigmah is simple, flexible and intuitive, allowing each organisation to structure its working methods itself, and thus improve the quality of its projects.
Find Similar Sites - for any Website
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 15:55:55 +0000
FindSimilarSites.de helps you to find similar sites of your favorite websites. Just enter a domain name in the input field below and start exploring new sites.
22 free tools for data visualization and analysis - Computerworld
Sat, 26 Apr 2014 10:17:52 +0000
A review of free tools for data visualization and analysis
Tabula
Sat, 26 Apr 2014 10:16:53 +0000
This package allows you to extract tables of data from pdfs, a task which otherwise can be very tiresome, messy and error prone
OpenRefine
Sat, 26 Apr 2014 10:14:52 +0000
Initially developed by Google and now open source with its own support and development community. You can explore the characteristics of a data set, clean it in quick and comprehensive moves, transform its layout and formats, as well as reconcile and match multiple data sets. There is documentation and videos to show you how to do all this.
Statistical (and other) Packages Available as Free Software
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 20:44:29 +0000
Gene Shackman, Director at The Global Social Change Research Project, lists a bunch of free software solutions.
Knuts - Inform, Engage and Evolve
Fri, 10 Jan 2014 09:08:51 +0000
Instead of a survey, you invite people to have an anonymous conversation online, but at the end you get great analytic of the discussions. It is much more engaging then surveys and you learn about the narratives not just the statistics.
OpenSpace-OnlineÂŽ
Thu, 19 Dec 2013 00:05:46 +0000
The OpenSpace-OnlineÂŽ Real-Time Meeting Methodology promotes autonomous, responsible, respectful, and results-oriented collaboration and helps to overcome the limitations of time and space, as well as saving lots of travel costs. The easy to use system helps sponsors to quickly organize OpenSpace-OnlineÂŽ real-time meetings for small and large groups. The virtual-led procedure of this real-time meeting method makes it possible for participants to work together without "human" online moderators in a highly productive liberated and joyful manner.
Online Whiteboard and Collaboration - Scribblar.com
Fri, 13 Dec 2013 11:43:09 +0000
Scribblar is an online whiteboard, usable by multiple people simultaneously. What better way to share ideas? Whether youâre brainstorming a campaign, visualizing a graphic, or mindmapping a project, Scribblar would work well. It also has audio, text chat, and document upload.
Codecademy | Code.org
Thu, 21 Nov 2013 10:47:37 +0000
Try out a program below or find a school near you.
All recommendations: http://delicious.com/weitzenegger/software
Take advice from the experts and read these articles, blogs, and other resources that can help you understand the deep web.
Deep Web â Wikipedia. Get the basics about the deep web as well as links to some helpful resources with this article.
Deep Web â AI3:::Adaptive Information. This assortment of articles from the co-coiner of the phrase "deep web," Michael Bergman offers a look at the current state of deep web perspectives.
The Invisible Web. This article from About.com provides a very simple explanation of the deep web and offers suggestions for tackling it.
ResourceShelf. Librarians and researchers come together to share their findings on fun, helpful, and sometimes unusual ways to gather information from the web.
Docuticker. This blog offers the latest publications from government agencies, NGOs, think tanks, and other similar organizations. Many of these posts are links to databases and research statistics that may not appear so easily on typical web searches.
TechDeepWeb.com. This site offers tips and tools for IT professionals to find the best deep web resources.
Digital Image Resources on the Deep Web. This article includes links to many digital image resources that probably wonât show up on typical search engine results.
Timeline of events related to the Deep Web. This timeline puts the entire history of the deep web into perspective as well as offers up some helpful links.
The Deep Web. Learn terminology, get tips, and think about the future of the deep web with this article.
How to Evaluate Web Resources is a guide by WhoIsHostingThis.com to help students quickly evaluate the credibility of any resource they find on the internet.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Anya is LIVE right now
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Searching the deep web should be done a bit differently, so use these strategies to help you get started on your deep web searching.
Donât rely on old ways of searching. Become aware that approximately 99% of content on the Internet doesnât show up on typical search engines, so think about other ways of searching.
Search for databases. Using any search engine, enter your keyword alongside "database" to find any searchable databases (for example, "running database" or "woodworking database").
Get a library card. Many public libraries offer access to research databases for users with an active library card.
Stay informed. Reading blogs or other updated guides about Internet searches on a regular basis will ensure you are staying updated with the latest information on Internet searches.
Search government databases. There are many government databases available that have plenty of information you may be seeking.
Bookmark your databases. Once you find helpful databases, donât forget to bookmark them so you can always come back to them again.
Practice. Just like with other types of research, the more you practice searching the deep web, the better you will become at it.
Donât give up. Researchers agree that most of the information are hidden in the deep web is some of the best quality information available.
One of the oldest forms of information dissemination is word-of-mouth, and the Internet is no different. With the popularity of bookmarking and other collaborative sites, obscure blogs and websites can gain plenty of attention. Follow these sites to see what others are reading.
Del.icio.us. As readers find interesting articles or blog posts, they can tag, save, and share them so that others can enjoy the content as well.
Digg. As people read blogs or websites, they can "digg" the ones they like, thus creating a network of user-selected sites on the Internet.
Technorati. Not only is this site a blog search engine, but it is also a place for members to vote and share, thus increasing the visibility for blogs.
StumbleUpon. As you read information on the Internet, you can Stumble it and give it a thumbs up or down. The more you Stumble, the more closely aligned to your taste will the content become.
Reddit. Working similarly to StumbleUpon, Reddit asks you to vote on articles, then customizes content based on your preferences.
Twine. With Twine you can search for information as well as share with others and get recommendations from Twine.
Kreeo.com. This collaborative site offers shared knowledge from its members through forums, blogs, and shared websites.
Custom search engines narrow your focus and eliminate quite a bit of the extra information usually contained in search results. Use these resources to find custom search engines or use the specific custom search engines listed below.
CustomSearchEngine.com. This listing includes many of the Google custom search engines created.
CustomSearchGuide.com. Find custom search engines here or create your own.
CSE Links. Use this site to find Google Coop custom search engines.
PGIS PPGIS Custom Search. This search engine is customized for those interested in the "practice and science" of PGIS/PPGIS.
Files Tube. Search for files in file sharing and uploading sites with this search engine.
Rollyo. "Roll your own search engine" at this site where you determine which sites will be included in your searches.
The scientific community keeps many databases that can provide a huge amount of information but may not show up in searches through an ordinary search engine. Check these out to see if you can find what you need to know.
Science.gov. This search engine offers specific categories including agriculture and food, biology and nature, Earth and ocean sciences, health and medicine, and more.
WorldWideScience.org. Search for science information with this connection to international science databases and portals.
CiteSeer.IST. This search engine and digital library will help you find information within scientific literature.
Scirus has a pure scientific focus. It is a far reaching research engine that can scour journals, scientistsâ homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional intranets.
Scopus. Find academic information among science, technology, medicine, and social science categories.
GoPubMed. Search for biomedical texts with this search engine that accesses PubMed articles.
the Gene Ontology. Search the Gene Ontology database for genes, proteins, or Gene Ontology terms.
PubFocus. This search engine searches Medline and PubMed for information on articles, authors, and publishing trends.
Scitation. Find over one million scientific papers from journals, conferences, magazines, and other sources with this tool.
The world of academia has many databases not accessible by Google and Yahoo!, so give these databases and search engines a try if you need scholarly information.
Google Scholar. Find information among academic journals with this tool.
WorldCat. Use this tool to find items in libraries including books, CDs, DVDs, and articles.
getCITED. This database of academic journal articles and book chapters also includes a discussion forum.
Microsoft Libra. If you are searching for computer science academic research, then Libra will help you find what you need.
BASE â Bielefeld Academic Search Engine. This multi-disciplinary search engine focuses on academic research and is available in German, Polish, and Spanish as well as English.
yovisto. This search engine is an academic video search tool that provides lectures and more.
AJOL â African Journals Online. Search academic research published in AJOL with this search engine.
HighWire Press. From Stanford, use this tool to access thousands of peer-reviewed journals and full-text articles.
MetaPress. This tool claims to be the "worldâs largest scholarly content host" and provides results from journals, books, reference material, and more.
OpenJ-Gate. Access over 4500 open journals with this tool that allows you to restrict your search to peer-reviewed journals or professional and industry journals.
Directory of Open Access Journals. This journal search tool provides access to over 3700 top "quality controlled" journals.
Intute. The resources here are all hand-selected and specifically for education and research purposes.
Virtual Learning Resource Center. This tool provides links to thousands of academic research sites to help students at any level find the best information for their Internet research projects.
Gateway to 21st Century Skills. This resource for educators is sponsored by the US Department of Education and provides information from a variety of places on the Internet.
MagBot. This search engine provides journal and magazine articles on topics relevant to students and their teachers.
Michigan eLibrary. Find full-text articles as well as specialized databases available for searching.
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These databases and search engines for databases will provide information from places on the Internet most typical search engines cannot.
DeepDyve. One of the newest search engines specifically targeted at exploring the deep web, this one is available after you sign up for a free membership.
OAIster. Search for digital items with this tool that provides 12 million resources from over 800 repositories.
direct search. Search through all the direct search databases or select a specific one with this tool.
CloserLook Search. Search for information on health, drugs and medicine, city guides, company profiles, and Canadian airfares with this customized search engine that specializes in the deep web.
Northern Light Search. Find information with the quick search or browse through other search tools here.
Yahoo! Search Subscriptions. Use this tool to combine a search on Yahoo! with searches in journals where you have subscriptions such as Wall Street Journal and New England Journal of Medicine.
Librariansâ Internet Index (LII) is a publicly-funded website and weekly newsletter serving California, the nation, and the world.
The Scout Archives. This database is the culmination of nine yearsâ worth of compiling the best of the Internet.
Daylife. Find news with this site that offers some of the best global news stories along with photos, articles, quotes, and more.
Silobreaker. This tool shows how news and people in the news impacts the global culture with current news stories, corresponding maps, graphs of trends, networks of related people or topics, fact sheets, and more.
spock. Find anyone on the web who might not normally show up on the surface web through blogs, pictures, social networks, and websites here.
The WWW Virtual Library. One of the oldest databases of information available on the web, this site allows you to search by keyword or category.
pipl. Specifically designed for searching the deep web for people, this search engine claims to be the most powerful for finding someone.
Complete Planet is a free and well designed directory resource makes it easy to access the mass of dynamic databases that are cloaked from a general purpose search.
Infoplease is an information portal with a host of features. Using the site, you can tap into a good number of encyclopedias, almanacs, an atlas, and biographies. Infoplease also has a few nice offshoots like Factmonster.com for kids and Biosearch, a search engine just for biographies.
Meta-search engines use the resources of many different search engines to gather the most results possible. Many of these will also eliminate duplicates and classify results to enhance your search experience.
SurfWax. This search engine works very well for reaching deep into the web for information.
Academic Index. Created by the former chair of Texas Association of School Librarians, this meta-search engine only pulls from databases and resources that are approved by librarians and educators.
Infomine has been built by a pool of libraries in the United States.
Clusty. Clusty searches through top search engines, then clusters the results so that information that may have been hidden deep in the search results is now readily available.
Dogpile. Dogpile searches rely on several top search engines for the results then removes duplicates and strives to present only relevant results.
Turbo 10. This meta-search engine is specifically designed to search the deep web for information.
Multiple Search. Save yourself the work by using this search engine that looks among major search engines, social networks, flickr, Wikipedia, and many more sites.
Mamma. Click on the Power Search option to customize your search experience with this meta-search engine.
World Curry Guide. This meta-search tool with a strong European influence has been around since 1997 and is still growing strong.
Fazzle.com. Give this meta-search engine a try. It accesses a large number of databases and claims to have more access to information than Google.
Icerocket. Search blogs as well as the general Internet, MySpace, the news, and more to receive results by posting date.
iZito. Get results from a variety of major search engines that come to you clustered in groups. You can also receive only US website results or receive results with a more international perspective.
Ujiko. This unusual meta-search tool allows for you to customize your searches by eliminating results or tagging some as favorites.
IncyWincy is an Invisible Web search engine and it behaves as a meta-search engine by tapping into other search engines and filtering the results. It searches the web, directory, forms, and images. With a free registration, you can track search results with alerts.
This list offers some tips and tools to help you get the most out of your Internet searches.
Semantic Search Tools and Databases
Semantic search tools depend on replicating the way the human brain thinks and categorizes information to ensure more relevant searches. Give some of these semantic tools and databases a try.
Zotero. Firefox users will like this add-on that helps you organize your research material by collecting, managing, and citing any references from Internet research.
Freebase. This community-powered database includes information on millions of topics.
Powerset. Enter a topic, phrase, or question to find information from Wikipedia with this semantic application.
Kartoo. Enter any keyword to receive a visual map of the topics that pertain to your keyword. Hover your mouse over each to get a thumbnail of the website.
DBpedia. Another Wikipedia resource, ask complex questions with this semantic program to get results from within Wikipedia.
Quintura. Entering your search term will create a cloud of related terms as well as a list of links. Hover over one of the words or phrases in the cloud to get an entirely different list of links.
[true knowledge]. Help with current beta testing at this search engine or try their Quiz Bot that finds answers to your questions.
Stumpedia. This search engine relies on its users to index, organize, and review information coming from the Internet.
Evri. This search engine provides you with highly relevant results from articles, papers, blogs, images, audio, and video on the Internet.
Gnod. When you search for books, music, movies and people on this search engine, it remembers your interests and focuses the search results in that direction.
Boxxet. Search for what interests you and you will get results from the "best of" news, blogs, videos, photos, and more. Type in your keyword and in addition to the latest news on the topic, you will also receive search results, online collections, and more.
This is not a post about 5 cutting-edge technologies that may become relevant in 2014. This is a post about 5 technologies that are ready to be applied to your site today. However, not enough people are taking advantage of them and, most importantly, you simply cannot afford to ignore them any longer.
DEEP ANALYTICS - ITS NOT ABOUT THE WHAT BUT THE WHY AND HOW
A lot is being said about Big Data and a lot may sound irrelevant to most organizations. However, Big Data is not just about the volume of data, it is also about the depth and breadth of user behaviour it can provide insight to. Big Data, at its heart, is the process of driving business decisions on the basis of real-world user data collected in the digital world
We cannot assume that users are rational automatons that carefully follow pre-ordained paths through a site. Analytics need to go beyond visitor numbers and page views (what most analytics software focus on unfortunately). Instead, we have to think in terms of goals met, paths followed and the context that surrounds them.
It is not the absolute numbers that count but the ability to connect all the dots from interactions off your site (e.g. social media, marketing campaigns) to specific actions on your site. Subsequently, that data needs to actually reach the people that can act on it. At times this means the people creating content and dealing with the site daily. They cannot waste time trying to sift through reports in order to glean some knowledge.
The decisions you make based on this deeper understanding of your business may be the single most important thing you do in 2014.
In 2013 Bluespark helped its clients gain more knowledge about their users and their sites through the integration of data in custom content editor dashboards integrated with their Drupal CMS. This made it easier to react to changing user demands. We also built sophisticated tracking techniques that allow our clients to know not only how many times a page was visited but how many times a piece of content appeared in search results, at what positions and whether it was clicked or not.
Armed with new knowledge about how people actually interact with your site, you can then begin the task of optimizing the siteâs user experience to make it more relevant to the individual users.
The dirty secret of personalization is that it is actually simpler than you think. This is not about complex techniques and sophisticated technologies. In fact, the tools are already here. The key is to think of the different types of users and the context that led them to a certain page and act accordingly. As is the mantra with Semantic Web technologies, "a little semantics can go a long way," so it is with personalization: "A little bit of personalization can convert a lot of users".
Bluespark is developing tools that allow personalization algorithms to dynamically change the content of the page to the specific user context. And our clients (and us!) are already seeing positive user engagement results.
INVEST IN UX NOT JUST FOR END USERS BUT FOR THE CONTENT CREATORS OF YOUR SITE - EDITOR EXPERIENCE
If anything, 2013 is the year people finally stopped arguing about whether good user experience is important or just a nice to have. Good news - we won! The new business software being created proves it. Good user experience leads to profit.
In the CMS world, this means that it is worth your investment to make sure that the people working on your site's content and structure should have powerful tools that are also a pleasure to use. If you donât, the result will be a site that is badly maintained with stale content. Which means that the initial investment to actually have a nice site is partially lost.
A positive editor experience will make the entire organization participate in improving the site content and in turn improving the experience of potential customers on the site. Investing in UX and design is no longer a luxury few can afford; it is necessary for the success of your business.
Bluespark has done extensive work in adapting the Drupal back-end to the specific needs of organizations to provide them with both a streamlined and pleasurable user experience.
CONTENT STRATEGY - DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR CONTENT IS SAYING TONIGHT?
The words and pictures that are next to your logo, on your site and across the web via your social media presence, are ultimately what is going to convince a person to buy your product or embrace your cause. A complete content strategy should span the range from defining your organizationâs voice to defining who curates content, with what tools, how that content is stored and how can it be delivered to any number of different devices seamlessly.
The Internet of Things is coming - and soon those Things are going to be able to transmit a variety of rich messages. While âmobile firstâ is a great way to get started, really what we need to be thinking about is content everywhere. How is content on your site displayed on different devices, but also how is your voice and content represented on other websites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or wherever the people you want to reach actually are).
If 2013 was the year UX finally got accepted as a key aspect of website development lets hope that 2014 is the year content strategy earns the same level of recognition.
SERVICE-BASED ARCHITECTURE - APIS WILL RULE THE WORLD
Software runs the world; ergo the ability to connect different software together to complete more complex tasks gives you an advantage.
Think about the different bits of information you use to make decisions. Then think about the different tasks you perform to achieve your objectives. Can those processes be streamlined through the integration of disparate software services? If so, youâve just given your company a huge advantage--to make better decisions faster, and to automate their implementation.
Most modern services provide APis. If we can get our lights in the house to switch on from our mobile phone, why is it that our CRM is not integrated with our membership administration tool on our website.
Weâve helped several clients to streamline their processes, reduce cost and reduce risk by building service-based architectures that were both more robust and less complex. Whether it is migrating 25,000 sites and 3 million pages in a phased manner to new infrastructure; integration of legacy membership systems with a modern membership-management solution or translation automation for an organization dealing with 26 different languages, a service-based architecture that makes use of APIs allows us to provide robust solutions.This is not a post about 5 cutting-edge technologies that may become relevant in 2014. This is a post about 5 technologies that are ready to be applied to your site today. However, not enough people are taking advantage of them and, most importantly, you simply cannot afford to ignore them any longer.
DEEP ANALYTIC - ITS NOT ABOUT THE WHAT BUT THE WHY AND HOW
A lot is being said about Big Data and a lot may sound irrelevant to most organizations. However, Big Data is not just about the volume of data, it is also about the depth and breadth of user behavior it can provide insight to. Big Data, at its heart, is the process of driving business decisions on the basis of real-world user data collected in the digital world.We cannot assume that users are rational automatons that carefully follow pre-ordained paths through a site. Analytic need to go beyond visitor numbers and page views (what most analytics software focus on unfortunately). Instead, we have to think in terms of goals met, paths followed and the context that surrounds them.It is not the absolute numbers that count but the ability to connect all the dots from interactions off your site (e.g. social media, marketing campaigns) to specific actions on your site. Subsequently, that data needs to actually reach the people that can act on it. At times this means the people creating content and dealing with the site daily. They cannot waste time trying to sift through reports in order to glean some knowledge.The decisions you make based on this deeper understanding of your business may be the single most important thing you do in 2014.In 2013 Bluespark helped its clients gain more knowledge about their users and their sites through the integration of data in custom content editor dashboards integrated with their Drupal CMS. This made it easier to react to changing user demands. We also built sophisticated tracking techniques that allow our clients to know not only how many times a page was visited but how many times a piece of content appeared in search results, at what positions and whether it was clicked or not.Â
Armed with new knowledge about how people actually interact with your site, you can then begin the task of optimizing the siteâs user experience to make it more relevant to the individual users.The dirty secret of personalization is that it is actually simpler than you think. This is not about complex techniques and sophisticated technologies. In fact, the tools are already here. The key is to think of the different types of users and the context that led them to a certain page and act accordingly. As is the mantra with Semantic Web technologies, "a little semantics can go a long way," so it is with personalization: "A little bit of personalization can convert a lot of users".Bluespark is developing tools that allow personalization algorithms to dynamically change the content of the page to the specific user context. And our clients (and us!) are already seeing positive user engagement results.
INVEST IN UX NOT JUST FOR END USERS BUT FOR THE CONTENT CREATORS OF YOUR SITE - EDITOR EXPERIENCE
If anything, 2013 is the year people finally stopped arguing about whether good user experience is important or just a nice to have. Good news - we won! The new business software being created proves it. Good user experience leads to profit.In the CMS world, this means that it is worth your investment to make sure that the people working on your site's content and structure should have powerful tools that are also a pleasure to use. If you donât, the result will be a site that is badly maintained with stale content. Which means that the initial investment to actually have a nice site is partially lost.A positive editor experience will make the entire organization participate in improving the site content and in turn improving the experience of potential customers on the site. Investing in UX and design is no longer a luxury few can afford; it is necessary for the success of your business. Bluespark has done extensive work in adapting the Drupal back-end to the specific needs of organizations to provide them with both a streamlined and pleasurable user experience.
CONTENT STRATEGY - DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR CONTENT IS SAYING TONIGHT?
The words and pictures that are next to your logo, on your site and across the web via your social media presence, are ultimately what is going to convince a person to buy your product or embrace your cause. A complete content strategy should span the range from defining your organizationâs voice to defining who curates content, with what tools, how that content is stored and how can it be delivered to any number of different devices seamlessly.The Internet of Things is coming - and soon those Things are going to be able to transmit a variety of rich messages. While âmobile firstâ is a great way to get started, really what we need to be thinking about is content everywhere. How is content on your site displayed on different devices, but also how is your voice and content represented on other websites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or wherever the people you want to reach actually are).If 2013 was the year UX finally got accepted as a key aspect of website development lets hope that 2014 is the year content strategy earns the same level of recognition.
SERVICE-BASED ARCHITECTURE - APIS WILL RULE THE WORLD
Software runs the world; ergo the ability to connect different software together to complete more complex tasks gives you an advantage.Think about the different bits of information you use to make decisions. Then think about the different tasks you perform to achieve your objectives. Can those processes be streamlined through the integration of disparate software services? If so, youâve just given your company a huge advantage--to make better decisions faster, and to automate their implementation.Most modern services provide APis. If we can get our lights in the house to switch on from our mobile phone, why is it that our CRM is not integrated with our membership administration tool on our website. Weâve helped several clients to streamline their processes, reduce cost and reduce risk by building service-based architectures that were both more robust and less complex. Whether it is migrating 25,000 sites and 3 million pages in a phased manner to new infrastructure; integration of legacy membership systems with a modern membership-management solution or translation automation for an organization dealing with 26 different languages, a service-based architecture that makes use of APIs allows us to provide robust solutions.
Ionic is a platform that lets you create cross platform mobile apps using web technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript. Although Ionic is still in beta, developers have been actively using it to build mobile apps. It's one of the tools that has drastically changed the way we build mobile apps. With Ionic, anyone with front end development knowledge can start creating smartphone apps. I think this is pretty great and Ionic is going to see heavy demand in 2015.
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Web has certainly come a long way in last few years. We have technologies and tools that have changed the way we develop web apps. As the technology keeps evolving, we will see more improvements in the coming year. In this article I am going to list some of the best web technologies and tools that are going to make an impact in 2015 and coming days.
ECMAScript 6
ES6 is the future of JavaScript and is going to bring many new features. The good news is that the feature set of ES6 is already frozen and browsers have already started implementing the features. Tools like Traceur already allow you to write code in ES6 and then transpile it to ES5 so that it works in Today's browsers. Furthermore frameworks like AngularJS and Ember are going to target ES6 in future releases. Given its feature set and popularity I think ES6 is definitely going to revolutionise JavaScript development.
AngularJS 2.0
Google's AngularJS is one of the popular frameworks for developing Single Page Apps. The good news is thatAngularJS 2.0 is under development and this time it's more powerful, better and faster. As Durandal, another popular SPA framework, is converging into AngularJS the combo is definitely going to make an impact. AngularJS 2.0 is also going to target ECMAScript 6 which means your JavaScript code is going to be future proof.
Why Weâre Addicted To Our Smartphones, But Not Our Tablets
Remember all of the wisecracks about executives and their BlackBerry addictions? Back then, constant contact was limited to the few and the mighty â relatively speaking, of course. But now, the last laugh might be on us. In record time, oursmartphones have become indispensable, and as mobile technology has become integrated into nearly every aspect of our lives, our smartphones are shifting from device to dependency.
But while itâs now clear that we are locked in an intense relationship with our smartphones, one has to wonder why this courtship hasnât turned into a love triangle with tablets. After all, no matter how sleek our iPhone 6 is, our iPad or Android tablet is equally smooth and packed with life-organizing apps.
So, what is it about our smartphones that makes them so attractive? And why is the addiction we feel toward them so much stronger than to our tablets?
Old Habits Die Hard
The average mobile phone user checks their device 150 times a day, and arecent study cited that 94% of college students reported feeling troubled when not carrying their phones with them. 80% of them said they felt jealous when someone else held their phones, and 70% said they expected to have feelings of depression, panic and helplessness if their phones were lost or stolen.
Tablets donât trigger such intense emotions because, although they have all of the bells and whistles needed for them to be classified as mobile devices, we tend not to see them in that way.
According to Salesforceâs â2014 Mobile Behavior Reportâ (PDF), just 14% of consumers associate tablets and e-readers with the word âmobile.â Instead, the tablet is regarded largely as an in-home device that lends itself well to cross-device usage. People who own both a smartphone and a tablet donât spend any less time using their smartphone than those who donât own a tablet, which means that we regard them as filling different functions. They arenât interchangeable, despite their similarity in function and design.
The adage âold habits die hardâ has a neurological basis. Behaviors turn into habits when they become automatic. Do you lock your door without thinking or find yourself brushing your teeth without even remembering walking into the bathroom? Those are habits. But when do habits turn from harmless to harmful?
When you perform a specific behavior regularly and often, its pattern becomes etched in your neural pathways. Smartphones are designed to get us to check them repeatedly â new emails, text messages and Facebook updates beckon throughout the day, urging us to constantly pull the device out of our pocket. This behavior â checking the screen â quickly becomes habit by nature of its routine. But when that habit turns from a want into a need â meaning we start to feel anxious or disconnected from the world around us if we donât check the phone â then the action morphs from habit into reflex.
Thereâs also a feedback loop at play here with our smartphones. When a certain behavior makes you feel good, you will return to it again and again. So, if playing a game on your smartphone tends to relax you when you feel stressed, then the pleasure or comfort brought on by the game â the positive feedback from indulging an urge â encourages repetitive behavior.
Zooming in on our neurological pathways, the difference between a habit and an addiction is the development of intolerance. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, behavioral addictions are mapped out the same way in the brain: Both cause a high or âbuzz,â brought on by that positive feedback loop, and both can produce feelings of withdrawal if they are not indulged. Do you whip out your smartphone when you feel bored, lonely or anxious in order to squelch those feelings? Be careful: In doing so, you are building strong neurological connections between the urge to check your phone and the buzz-like relief of doing so. Repeat those actions enough, and soon the casual updating of your Facebook status will become something much more urgent.
Speaking of buzz, websites like Buzzfeed use exactly that model to keep users engaged through associative linkage â linking one idea to the next through casual associations. Visitors on Buzzfeed (or Bored Panda or FacebookâŚ) generally donât have a specific goal in mind; rather, theyâre looking for amusement or a break. They can be engaged by links to similar content at the bottom of each article, leading them to jump from one article of interest to the next.
When Want Becomes Need
All great love stories carry the same refrain: the enamored duo looks longingly at each other and thinks, âHow did we ever live without each other?â
With your smartphone, thereâs a similar â but more sinister â pattern. The more you use your phone, satisfying your hungry neurons with the positive feedback of constant connectivity, the more you wonder how you ever lived without it.
We use our tablets a lot, too, but when we pick them up and handle them, they feel different to us than our phones do. The phone has come to represent our portal into the social world, signifying connectivity to all that is happening outside and around us. It sits in our pocket or our purse, sending and receiving signals and acting as a crucial link that anchors and moors us via its messages, social networks and constant texts. We have come to feel that our phone is like an extension of our body, which is why, when you forget it at home one morning, you have that same sinking feeling you might get if you looked down and realized one of your limbs was missing.
Tablets, however, are used not in âconnection mode,â but rather in âbrowsing mode.â We tend to use our tablets for passive activities, like watching videos and reading books, so that crucial feedback of connection and community that our phones provide is left out of the equation. What we are addicted to with our phones is the way they make us feel in relation to the outside world. According to research, our tablets, however, are used for more personal, solitary endeavors, making the neurological response to their presence entirely different.
A Vacation From Stimulation?
The online world is packed with stimuli â emails, chats, popup ads and the nonstop churn of online news. Thereâs just no way the real world can compete; and by constantly checking our messages and scrolling through news feeds, we set a new baseline for neurological stimulation that the real world canât possibly keep up with.
All of this constant stimulation comes with a price. âEvery time you switch your focus from one thing to another, thereâs something called a switch-cost,â says Earl Miller, professor of neuroscience at MIT. âYour brain stumbles a bit, and it requires time to get back to where it was before it was distracted.â
According to a recent study, the brain can take from 15 to 25 minutes to get back to where it was after stopping to check an email, and even though you could âfixâ this by simply switching your phone or notifications off during work, your brain is still hooked on having to check the phone.
For us, designers and developers, these facts can be harnessed for good. Obviously we canât know how users are going to access your sites, but in many cases, they will be in browsing mode. The experience in this case is instant; itâs here and now. Theyâre in connection mode during their spare time and will end up purchasing if the product is exciting enough.
If you own a smartphone, chances are your brain pathways are already showing some signs of dependence. So, the next time you are tempted to snicker at the Google Glassholes or the BlackBerry addicts, take a look in the mirror â a real mirror, not an app on your phone â and ask yourself whether your own relationship with your smartphone is healthy.
Conclusion
When designing content, keep in mind that smartphones and tablets activate different mindsets. So, match the experience of each device to the particular mindset it activates. Research claims that users are in âconnection modeâ while using smartphones and in passive âbrowsing modeâ while on their tablets. There are exceptions of course, and we have to keep them in mind, but we are certainly more connected to phones than to tablets, and thatâs something we should keep in mind when crafting cross-browser experiences.