Hybrid Mobile App's - Ongoing Mobile revolution

Quite after a long time come up with a post on one of the Current trend on Mobile Application Development , Hybrid Mobile Applications.

“Hybrid” applications are a special category of web applications that extend the web-based application environment through their use of native platform APIs available on a given device. The hybrid application design pattern is equally applicable to both mobile and desktop environments.

Hybrid mobile apps are like any other apps you’ll find on your phone. They install on your device. You can find them in app stores. With them, you can play games, engage your friends through social media, take photos, track your health, and much more.

How are hybrid mobile apps built?

Hybrid mobile applications are built in a similar manner as websites. Both use a combination of technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. However, instead of targeting a mobile browser, hybrid applications target a Web-view hosted inside a native container. This enables them to do things like access hardware capabilities of the mobile device. These are capabilities that are often restricted to access from inside mobile browsers.

What are the motivations to go hybrid?

Hybrid mobile applications provide a way for developers to re-use their existing skills in web development. Developers don’t like the prospect of getting locked into proprietary platforms. This includes the programming languages and SDK's provided by platform vendors. Hybrid mobile application development looks appealing to an organization’s bottom line. Why hire a developer for each platform when you can hire one developer and target all of them through HTML, CSS, and JavaScript? Well, the reality is a bit more complicated. Yes, it’s true that hybrid mobile application development enables developers to target more than one platform. However, each platform comes with a set of caveats when it comes to its web run-time or Web-view. This is especially true with Android, which is inconsistent between OS versions. Moreover, there might be unique capabilities of platforms to which a developer may wish to target. In those instances, a combination of plugins and platform-specific code must be utilized in order to take advantages of those capabilities.

When should you build a hybrid mobile app?

Before committing to a platform strategy, it’s important to evaluate the technical and non-technical merits of hybrid versus alternatives like web and native – especially as it relates to your mobile application’s requirements. For example:

• Which mobile platforms do you wish to target?
• Do you want to distribute your application via app stores?
• Are you looking to utilize the capabilities of the mobile device?
• What are the technical abilities of your development team?
• Does the one-size-fit-all approach of hybrid really live up to its promise?

These and other questions are worth asking before embarking upon development of a mobile application. To elaborate on this, let’s examine a few of these questions in more detail.

• WHICH MOBILE PLATFORMS DO YOU WISH TO TARGET?

If you wish to target more than one platform, you have a number of choices. Clearly, the web offers a highly attractive solution for this requirement. Your target is the mobile browser. Hybrid lends itself well to this approach as well because of its reliance upon the WebView.

Native – on the other hand – finds itself in a unique space. If you are reliant upon the vendor SDKs and platform-specific programming languages then you are essentially coupled to the platform. In the case of iOS, it’s Objective-C or Swift; for Android, it’s Java; and for Windows Phone, it’s C#.

• DO YOU WANT TO DISTRIBUTE YOUR APPLICATION VIA APP STORES?

If you want to distribute your application via an app store, you must build a hybrid or native application. You cannot distribute websites through app stores; that’s what your browser’s address bar is for! Despite this restriction, whether you build a hybrid or native application, it’s highly recommended that you have a website available for your mobile application. This will be the first place your users will expect to go if/when they encounter problems.

• ARE YOU LOOKING TO UTILIZE THE CAPABILITIES OF THE MOBILE DEVICE?

Websites have a restricted set of abilities as opposed to hybrid and native applications. These restrictions are enforced by browser, effectively sandboxing it away from the mobile operating system. Recent developments with mobile browsers have exposed more device capabilities through HTML5 such as the camera, geolocation, and others.

Despite these advancements, support for advanced functionality is quite limited. For example, media capture and streaming remains unsupported in various mobile browsers. Because limitations like this remain in mobile browsers, many developers are compelled to evaluate hybrid and native as alteratives. Both offer the ability for developers to access device APIs – in the case of hybrid, this ability is supported through plug-ins.

It’s often asserted that native is best suited for applications where graphics performance is paramount. Mobile games are a class of mobile application almost entirely reliant upon complex visual interactions on the screen. Even if a game operates flawlessly from a functional perspective, you should expect it to have a very low app store rating if it feels slugglish. For that reason, developers have long-argued against using hybrid as an approach to build games.

That stated, a number of solutions for hybrid mobile applications exist. These include HTML5 Canvas and WebGL, both of which are well-suited for building applications like games. Furthermore, technologies like these are more approachable for developers through libraries like Paper.js, EaselJS, and others. And it’s not just for game development. For developers building more traditional, line-of-business applications, there are frameworks like Famo.us and Kendo UI.

• WHAT ARE THE TECHNICAL ABILITIES OF YOUR DEVELOPMENT TEAM?

Another factor to consider when evaluating your development options for mobile is your team’s technical abilities. If you decide to build a native application, you will require developers who are experienced with the platform SDKs and programming languages of every platform you wish to target. On the other hand, web and hybrid applications are built using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You can have a team that can target multiple platforms with a single set of technologies. This is something worth considering when evaluating your opinions.

Key Characteristics of Hybrid Apps

Unlike web applications or mobile websites, which the user can access by browsing to the URL, hybrid apps are typically installed through an app store and are available through the platform application launcher. This means users have to follow the same procedure to install hybrid application, as they would have for native applications. The platform will ask users to grant device access permission upon installation.

NOTE

There is a lot value in developing platform-specific UIs, and you may eventually want to do it once your application usage crosses a certain threshold. Having said that, it should be relatively straightforward in the case of hybrid applications using CSS.

Why Developing Hybrid Apps Makes Sense

Hybrid apps have the unique ability of reaping all the benefits of traditional web applications without many of its limitations.
The benefits of hybrid apps compared to native include:

Faster time to market

Building a hybrid application is typically faster and requires highly reusable standards skills. It does not involve a tedious learning curve when compared to native programming languages.

Inexpensive cross-platform development cycle

Hybrid apps have cross-platform compatibility, reducing the footprint of native code needed, resulting in more reusable HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript that can be shared and deployed across platforms with minimal adjustment. This is primarily because WebKit is the platform of choice across all major mobile phone OSes today. Cross-platform development cycles also help keep the cost associated with development and testing under control. The reusability of HTML code allows developers to achieve a “develop once, deploy many” architecture. Native apps on the other hand would require developers to perform full-feature test rounds for platforms on which the application is being developed.

Abundant human resources

Hybrid apps are built with web technologies, which means that there are many web developers who have the base skill set to build mobile apps.

Cost of maintenance

Maintenance costs are usually lower because one does not need to rewrite (port) all application code to the native language of each device platform. Further, since the skill set to develop hybrid apps is readily available, scaling of a development team is also a nonissue.

Approval process

Most of the app stores do have an approval process for which each app has to qualify before it can be made available through the sales channels of that app store. Because hybrid apps can be updated outside the bounds of an app store, you can typically get away with one submission to the app store. Once you are approved, you can push subsequent updates independently through your server if you like. A key point to note however, is that a fresh submission of the application would be required every time you make changes in the native code associated with the hybrid app.

Hybrid apps are the future

Looking toward the future and upcoming advancements in mobile OS technologies, one can easily argue that hybrid apps are the future of development. Windows Phone 8, Google announcements to eventually merge Chromium OS and Android, Tizen OS, and Firefox all hint toward a hybrid future, not too far away, and hence, building and deploying hybrid apps is strategically a right thing to do.

The benefits of the hybrid apps compared to mobile web include:

Access to device capabilities

As mentioned in the introduction paragraph, hybrid apps offer the unique opportunity to reap all the benefits of traditional web applications without many of their limitations. Hybrid apps can extend the JavaScript environment to access the native APIs and capabilities of the platform that are not available through the generic web browser environment otherwise, for example, true offline storage, as well as access to contacts and other media on the device.

Unavailable new platform features

Hybrid apps can take advantage of the new features that are available in the new SDKs. However, you will have to develop and expose that native layer using plug-ins or a framework, which is usually the boilerplate code in most cases.

Distribution through app stores

Hybrid apps are distributed through app stores just as native apps are. You discover, download, and install them, as you would a native application. Therefore as a developer, you can leverage an existing well-established channel for content, app discovery, and monetization.

Offline access and execution

Hybrid apps, like native apps, can be run locally on the device when the device is offline—i.e., it is not connected to any network.

The possible drawbacks of hybrid apps as compared to native apps include:

Performance

You may experience potential performance issues because JavaScript is fundamentally single-threaded, which means that only one operation can be performed at a time. However, if done right, you can come up with a solution wherein you can offload background tasks to a native thread, which would execute in parallel while your app is busy performing UI operations. The native thread would then notify the JavaScript of the events and task completions/failures.

Differences in cross-platforms

WebKit is not equally maintained in all mobile platforms, which means that there might be indistinct differences between renderings and platform-specific features to watch out for, though one could arguably say it is a better scenario than rewriting all code from scratch. Further, this is such a well-understood topic that often you would find material describing ways to identify and mitigate these UI experience risks.

Unavailable advanced features

There might be advanced features that cannot always be easily implemented on the hybrid layer—for example, OpenGL-based rendering—however, the set of features is rapidly shrinking with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla introducing a bunch of new standards aimed at bridging this gap.

Inconsistent user interfaces

Platform-specific UIs’ look and feel might be seriously difficult to mimic using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

The possible drawbacks to the hybrid apps compared to mobile web include:

Not accessible via website

A user is required to find your application in a native app store and cannot access it via a traditional web browser unless you’ve made one available.

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Bit Coin - A Change to printed money

Hi friends, happy to share a information after a long time.Let us see some information regarding a ongoing trend in currency ie.Bit Coins.Bitcoin is a form of digital currency, created and held electronically. No one controls it. Bitcoins aren’t printed, like dollars or euros – they’re produced by lots of people running computers all around the world, using software that solves mathematical problems. It’s the first example of a growing category of money known as cryptocurrency.

How it differs from others?

Bitcoin can be used to buy things electronically. In that sense, it’s like conventional dollars, euros, or yen, which are also traded digitally.However, bitcoin’s most important characteristic, and the thing that makes it different to conventional money, is that it is decentralized. No single institution controls the bitcoin network. This puts some people at ease, because it means that a large bank can’t control their money.

Who created it?

A software developer called Satoshi Nakamoto proposed bitcoin, which was an electronic payment system based on mathematical proof. The idea was to produce a currency independent of any central authority, transferable electronically, more or less instantly, with very low transaction fees.

Who prints it?

No one. This currency isn’t physically printed in the shadows by a central bank, unaccountable to the population, and making its own rules. Those banks can simply produce more money to cover the national debt, thus devaluing their currency.
Instead, bitcoin is created digitally, by a community of people that anyone can join. Bitcoins are ‘mined’, using computing power in a distributed network. This network also processes transactions made with the virtual currency, effectively making bitcoin its own payment network.

So you can’t churn out unlimited bitcoins?

That’s right. The Bitcoin protocol – the rules that make bitcoin work – say that only 21 million bitcoins can ever be created by miners. However, these coins can be divided into smaller parts (the smallest divisible amount is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin and is called a ‘Satoshi’, after the founder of bitcoin).

What is it based on?

Conventional currency has been based on gold or silver. Theoretically, you knew that if you handed over a dollar at the bank, you could get some gold back (although this didn’t actually work in practice). But bitcoin isn’t based on gold; it’s based on mathematics.
Around the world, people are using software programs that follow a mathematical formula to produce bitcoins. The mathematical formula is freely available, so that anyone can check it. The software is also open source, meaning that anyone can look at it to make sure that it does what it is supposed to.

What are its characteristics?

Bitcoin has several important features that set it apart from normal fiat currencies.

1. It's decentralized

The bitcoin network isn’t controlled by one central authority. Every machine that mines bitcoin and processes transactions makes up a part of the network, and the machines work together. That means that, in theory, one central authority can’t tinker with monetary policy and cause a meltdown – or simply decide to take people’s bitcoins away from them, as the Central European Bank decided to do in Cyprus in early 2013. And if some part of the network goes offline for some reason, the money keeps on flowing.

2. It's easy to set up

Conventional banks make you jump through hoops simply to open a bank account. Setting up merchant accounts for payment is another Kafkaesque task, beset by bureaucracy. However, you can set up a bitcoin address in seconds, no questions asked, and with no fees payable.

3. It's anonymous

Well, kind of. Users can hold multiple bitcoin addresses, and they aren’t linked to names, addresses, or other personally identifying information. However…

4. It's completely transparent

…bitcoin stores details of every single transaction that ever happened in the network in a huge version of a general ledger, called the blockchain. The blockchain tells all. If you have a publicly used bitcoin address, anyone can tell how many bitcoins are stored at that address. They just don’t know that it’s yours. There are measures that people can take to make their activities more opaque on the bitcoin network, though, such as not using the same bitcoin addresses consistently, and not transferring lots of bitcoin to a single address.

5. Transaction fees are miniscule

Your bank may charge you a £10 fee for international transfers. Bitcoin doesn’t.

6. It’s fast

You can send money anywhere and it will arrive minutes later, as soon as the bitcoin network processes the payment.

7. It’s non-repudiable

When your bitcoins are sent, there’s no getting them back, unless the recipient returns them to you. They’re gone forever.
So, bitcoin has a lot going for it, in theory. But how does it work, in practice? Read more to find out how bitcoins are mined, what happens when a bitcoin transaction occurs, and how the network keeps track of everything.

Hope you Impressed with creation of Bit Coins. To learn more about bit coins read in coindesk.com 

Courtesy from coindesk.com

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A Give Away Software for a day

“When you look up the word free in the dictionary, you’ll find a lot of definitions, but in the days of digital dependency and a falling economy, free only means one thing—expensive stuff for nothing. And if you own a Windows computer, one of the best sites to get free software from is Giveaway of the Day.
Giveaway of the Day has been around since 2006, with a few bumps in the road, but it’s still going strong thanks to PC users looking for great deals—free deals. Every day they have a new piece of licensed software available for Windows operating systems,Android,iPhone varying from helpful system tools to file format converters to cool photo editors.”

There are two perks that come with using the Internet. The first is that, whatever you need done, you can probably find software that will do it. The second is that, a lot of times, you can find free software to do whatever you need done.
Who doesn’t love free software? And there are enough freeware and shareware sites all over the Internet to keep me occupied for hours at a time.
I’ve seen programs at Give Away of the Day that would usually cost you a hundred dollars or more, and you can get them at this site for no cost. But there is only a twenty four hour window of opportunity. Once you miss a giveaway, it’s gone. In fact, if you don’t want to weep, ignore the list of past giveaways that you’ve already missed.
Give Away of the Day is a site I make sure I visit every day. And you should to.”

Check for free software's daily at  giveawayoftheday.

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Online marketing - A master plan to drive more upsells

Upselling your customers may possibly be the biggest source of revenue that you’re missing out on. Traditionally, online marketers spend a lot of time and money on driving new and relevant traffic to their website, with their ultimate goal being to drive more conversions. However, every additional conversion from a new visitor can cost a large sum of money. Upselling focuses on the driving additional conversions from your current customers, and can be the largest and most profitable revenue source for any business. Focusing on customer service is one traditional strategy that businesses have used to maintain customer retention, but through online marketing and social media, businesses now have an arsenal of marketing tools that can further help with customer retention and upselling.

Online marketing gives businesses a lot more access to its customer base, therefore providing additional tools and tactics that can be used toward driving upsells. Here are three channels that you can use to effectively improve your upsell game:

1. Social Media – A study  found that 53% of people are more likely to purchase a brand after following and engaging with that brand on Facebook. No, this doesn’t mean that you should focus your entire social strategy on Facebook, this means that you should engage with your audience on the social platforms that they live on.
2. Retargeting – Traditionally, retargeting is used to drive lost conversions by keeping ads in front of a website’s bounced visitors. We have also found retargeting to be an awesome upsell tool. By segmenting all of your current customers, you can keep your upsell-focused messages in front of your customers. In fact, we’ve found CTRs and conversion rates (conversions per impressions) to be anywhere from 3% to 5% higher than standard site-based retargeting.
3. Email Marketing – Marketers are only now tapping into the full potential of this tried and true channel. While the idea behind email marketing focuses on keeping your brand’s latest messages in front of your prospects and customers, focusing on A/B testing your email subjects and content can further improve the value of your email marketing strategies.

While selling to new customers helps expand your customer base, upselling your current customers can additionally generate a tremendous amount of revenue from your customer base to your business. Focusing on customer service has conventionally helped lots of businesses retain and drive additional sales from their customer base, but utilizing tactics such as social media, retargeting, and email marketing can help further improve your upsell strategy.


Courtesy :retargeter.com

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Qt vs. HTML5 - An Analysis on Cross Platform Apps

Although building a separate native app per platform is currently proving to be the most successful approach for mass market consumer apps, there are still a lot of situations where it makes more sense to go cross-platform. In this article we’ll look at the most popular option, hybrid web apps built with HTML5, versus an up-and-coming challenger, Qt.

 Why Qt?

Those who know the history of Qt may be surprised to see it described as “up and coming”. Qt was originally designed for building cross-platform desktop apps, it’s creators started working on it in 1994! However, Qt became interesting for mobile development after Nokia bought Trolltech, the company developing Qt at the time, and invested heavily into making it the ideal toolkit for building mobile apps. Unfortunately, Nokia was making this strategic decision shortly before the iPhone launched (the acquisition was completed afterwards). This changed the game from building apps for devices with numeric keypads and Qwerty keyboards, to large touch-screen based devices. The former Trolltech engineers recognised that they needed a very different way of creating apps for Nokia’s offering to compete.
When Steve Jobs said that the iPhone was 5 years ahead of the competition at launch, he was not far wrong. Android had managed to close some of that gap, probably due to executives at Google having some advanced warning about the iPhone. Unfortunately, Nokia eventually gave up on it’s own Qt based devices in favour of Windows Phone as the software efforts were taking too long and they were falling a long way behind in the ecosystem wars. They sold Qt to one of their major services company suppliers – Digia – who have recently established a fully-owned separate entity for the product, The Qt Company. Only after being fully disentangled from Nokia has Qt been able to return to its roots as a cross-platform framework and start supporting the major mobile platforms. However, in the mean time, others had seen the great foundation for mobile apps that Nokia’s investment created. As a result the BlackBerry 10, Jolla Sailfish, Ubuntu Mobile and Tizen platforms all have Qt as a core framework.
From a personal perspective, I re-wrote a popular iOS game for Symbian using Qt in early 2011. The UI design and general debugging tools were a bit immature at the time but it was one of the simplest learning curves and most pleasant development experiences I’ve had on any platform (note: I was not paid to say that), even though the core of Qt is using the less than developer friendly but high performance C++. I was able to achieve smooth 60fps performance on some rather low-spec hardware. It was easy enough to learn their new UI technology, Qt Quick, and build the menu screens for the game with it in a couple of days.

Why HTML5, or why not?

HTML5 is the most popular option for developers building cross-platform mobile apps, however, it appears to be falling out of favour a little. Web browsers and web views are available on every platform and web developers are able to transfer their skills from building websites to building mobile apps. Open source frameworks like Cordova (PhoneGap) allow developers using HTML5 to access additional mobile specific functionality and make it easy to package apps in a native format for each platform. The added bonus is that you can usually have a version of your app on the web as well as in the app stores for minimal additional effort. HTML5 is generally more productive for building UI centric applications than native apps. There is also an embarrassment of riches when it comes to libraries and frameworks for building mobile web apps. Hybrid web apps are in the privileged position (on iOS at least) of being able to update their code directly, avoiding the App Store review process for all but major changes.

Given its ubiquity and large developer base, why isn’t HTML5 the default cross-platform approach? Despite many advantages, hybrid web app developers have been struggling with performance (partly due to crippled or outdated webview implementations, an issue which has been fixed in the latest versions of iOS & Android, although this will take a while to penetrate the entire installed base). There is also an issue with varying levels of support for standards across mobile browsers (again, this is something that’s improving but not entirely fixed yet). Web technologies have also not really been designed for the highly animated UIs that are now expected by mobile users. This is something that the much hyped Famo.us framework aims to resolve.
A number of very high profile consumer startups have publicly switched from web hybrid to native mobile app approaches. The most common reason stated for these switches has been lack of adequate tooling. It’s certainly possible to make web apps perform well on mobile devices within their limited memory budgets but with the current state of debugging and profiling tools, that’s still not an easy thing to do compared to producing native apps. This said, not all apps need flawless UI animations and we’re not comparing HTML5 with native, so lets look at how it goes head to head with Qt.

Qt vs. HTML5 – Pros & Cons

Supported platforms:

• HTML5 is supported almost everywhere.
• Qt is supported on all major platforms (and minor ones that happen to use it for their UI).

Although in theory you can target more platforms with HTML5, this is not how most developers are using it in the real world. HTML5 developers are increasingly abandoning the browser and building hybrid apps. Most mobile developers are targeting some subset of Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and BlackBerry 10. Qt supports all of these and more. In fact, in practice our data shows that Qt developers actually target fractionally more platforms on average than HTML5 developers. As a result, this is basically a tie for most developers with a significant advantage to HTML5 for those who really want to run their software everywhere (feature phones, Smart TVs etc.).

Learning curve:
This one depends whether you’re already a web developer. If you are, learning to build mobile web apps is probably easier than learning Qt. However, if you’re new to either then Qt has significant advantages in terms of having one framework to learn rather than 10s of them to choose from before you even start. Qt also has great documentation, which isn’t necessarily true for all web frameworks. In a fair contest, this is a clear win for Qt.
Openness:

• HTML5 is open standards based and there are multiple open source implementations.
• Qt is open source but dual licensed and effectively controlled by a single vendor.

Clearly HTML5 is more open than Qt. This isn’t always an advantage. The process of creating standards and getting multiple vendors to implement them is slow, Qt can be more agile. If you really need something fixed or a new feature added in open source you can do it yourself or pay someone to do it. If you need to support Internet Explorer and there’s an issue with it, you have to work around or wait for Microsoft. Then again, there’s no vendor lock-in with HTML5 and the web isn’t going anywhere. Someone else could buy Qt and take it in a direction that doesn’t align with your goals. Or they could just put the price up beyond your budget. HTML5 has the edge but it’s not a clear win.
Cost:

• Building for HTML5 is free. There are some non-essential paid tools that can help.
• Qt requires a commercial license for most commercial use on mobile.

Qt’s open source licenses are not compatible with distribution on most app stores. Although the iOS port of Qt is developed in open source, you need a commercial license to ship apps in the store. The lowest cost subscription that allows developing mobile apps for the iOS & Android stores with Qt is $25/month. HTML5 wins.
Cross-platform compatibility:

• HTML5 has multiple independent implementations of a standard.
• Qt has one vendor implementing the same runtime on multiple platforms.

Multiple implementations, with several in open source and a large community reporting on and working around compatibility issues makes for a very robust platform. Even so, having a single vendor making sure all platforms behave in the same way is almost always better for compatibility of your app. Qt wins.
Performance:

• HTML5’s DOM was not built for modern mobile apps.
• Qt Quick’s (QML) scene graph is built directly on top of OpenGL ES.

Both environments use JavaScript. However, with Qt it’s much easier to drop down to native code if you really need native platform functionality or performance. The performance penalties for switching between JavaScript and native code are much lower with Qt. The biggest difference however, is graphics performance. People looking for serious graphics performance with HTML5 resort to complex schemes to avoid touching the DOM as much as possible. Building the entire UI on top of WebGL seems like the most promising path to future performance, now that WebGL has much wider support (Apple adding this in iOS8 is key). Qt has a massive advantage here, it also has more extensive animation options than CSS3 for web app developers.
Native user experience:

• With HTML5 you rely on either a 3rd party framework like Ionic or building your own clones of native interface elements.
• With Qt you can use components that clone native interface elements, or use real native UI calls.

Being able to call native APIs in Qt potentially gives it the advantage here but in reality this loses cross-platform compatibility. In practice neither option is really well suited to situations where you need a genuinely native user experience. Both can emulate one adequately for a subset of possible apps. In general it’s best to use a cross-platform approach where a fully custom UI is needed, or a native look and feel is not essential.

Conclusions

Comparing across these metrics, Qt has a slight edge over HTML5. However, there are other metrics you could use that would give the opposite result. In practice the technology needs to be selected to fit the project. Both options have merits and if you’re an HTML5 developer who’s not already familiar with Qt’s offerings, they’re worth a look. I also didn’t mention that Qt apps can display HTML5 content in a webview, meaning that it doesn’t have to be one or the other, it can be both.

Courtesy : http://www.developereconomics.com/cross-platform-apps-qt-vs-html5/
 

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Internet marketing - Hope of future

Internet marketing, or online marketing, refers to advertising and marketing efforts that use the Web and email to drive direct sales via electronic commerce, in addition to sales leads from Web sites or emails. Internet marketing and online advertising efforts are typically used in conjunction with traditional types of advertising like radio, television, newspapers and magazines.

Specialized Areas of Internet Marketing

Internet marketing can also be broken down into more specialized areas such as Web marketing, email marketing and social media marketing:

1) Web marketing includes e-commerce Web sites, affiliate marketing Web sites, promotional or informative Web sites, online advertising on search engines, and organic search engine results via search engine optimization (SEO).

2) Email marketing involves both advertising and promotional marketing efforts via e-mail messages to current and prospective customers.

3) Social media marketing involves both advertising and marketing (including viral marketing) efforts via social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Digg.

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Under 30K - Godgifted Laptops

Hi friends, not having a huge budget to buy a laptop doesn't mean you have to settle for an inferior experience. We help you pick up the best possible laptop under Rs. 30,000.

                       The trend that we noticed was that most of these queries were regarding machines under Rs. 30,000 or around the same price band. Clearly, for a lot of first time buyers and also those who are on a strict budget, this is the most important price segment as far as Windows notebooks are concerned. But equally, we also sense some misconception and confusion in the consumers’ mind. And with the help of this article, we will attempt to solve that.

Look for the OS: In the hunt for the best prices, most consumers don’t realize that they may end up sacrificing a bit more than would be ideal. Among these compromises, the biggest one is that of the OS. For a price difference of around a few thousand, you get a machine with a preloaded OS, and one without. Without doubt, we will always recommend buying a machine with Windows 8 preloaded, over one with plain DOS and the headache of getting an OS later, a process you will have to undertake.

The processor generation: For less than Rs 30,000, it would be very hard to imagine getting a machine with an Ivy Bridge or even a Sandy Bridge Core i3 processor. What you get are the much older Intel Pentium dual core processors. Or, you have the option of the much newer AMD dual core and quad core APU’s. Between the two options, you are better off with the newer architecture, better power delivery and improved battery life that the AMD APUs offer.

The keyboard: An affordable laptop doesn’t mean you have to deal with a flimsy machine, with the biggest sacrifice coming in the form of a compromised typing experience. The best way to test this right there at the store is to actually type out a document on Windows Notepad, and see how comfortable you are with the layout. Second, press down at the middle of the keyboard - this will give you an idea of the flex or the dip the keyboard may suffer from. The newer HP and Asus keyboards have a different design, with the keyboard sitting on a metal base which makes it a lot more precise and stable.

Now that you have been warned about what to look out for, here are some worthwhile options that you need to consider, if you are in the market for a machine in this category. The machines listed here are in accordance with the price set in ascending order.

Acer Aspire V5-121
 Approx Market price: Rs. 24,500

This is a machine that panders to the newer trend of smaller 11.6-inch displays, which is gaining popularity. This display size, with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels is the balance between usability and portability, which is one of the reasons why buyers prefer it. The V5-121 is powered by the AMD A68M dual core 1GHz power package, with a 256MB AMD Radeon HD 7290 graphics chip and 4GB of RAM. The machine packs in a 500GB hard drive, and comes preloaded with Windows 8. No shortage of connectivity options either, with two USB 2.0 ports and one USB 3.0 port. Windows 8 comes preloaded on this device, and we believe it is the best option at this price.

Lenovo Essential G505 (59-387133)
Approx Market price: Rs. 25,500

If the 11.6-inch screen isn’t for you, then the 15.6-inch (1366 x 768 pixel) screen that the G505 will probably be a better bet. It also gets the AMD A68M dual core APU clocking at 1GHz with the AMD Radeon HD 7290 graphics, 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive. There is one USB 2.0 port, and two USB 3.0 ports. What you will not get is a proper gaming experience on this display and with this power package in the machine, but what you will get is a smooth daily usage routine that will work seamlessly.

Fujitsu Lifebook AH532
Approx Market price: Rs. 28,000

You will notice that as you go higher up the price band, the better the specs become. The Lifebook AH532 is one of the rare machines with a Sandy Bridge series Intel Core i3 processor with 4GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 620M (1GB) graphics chip. The storage also gets bumped up with a 750GB hard drive, and no shortage of USB ports with 1 USB 2.0 port and 3 USB 3.0 ports. What you will have to live with is the slightly thick design and rather basic looks, but the 15.6-inch (1366 x 768 pixel) LED display just adds value to the overall package.

HP Pavilion TouchSmart 11-e006AU
Approx Market price: Rs. 30,000

Okay, so we are at the very edge of the price limit. And there is pretty much the delight in store with the TouchSmart 11 notebook from HP. You get a more powerful AMD A4-1250 dual core APU with 4GB of RAM and the AMD Radeon HD 8210 graphics. But, this is...wait for it...the real bonus - the 11.6-inch display (1366 x 768 pixels) is a 10-point multi-touchscreen, complete with Windows 8 pre-loaded on the machine. HP has also packed in DTS sound, which does make this a bit of an improvement over the sound experience from the rivals. At just 1.3kg, the TouchSmart 11 can be carried around with ease, but the best part is the modern design and the materials used give it a much more expensive look. Again we will mention this - this machine has the best keyboard by far. You will have to compromise with a smaller display size, but we tested this machine recently and the battery life was rather impressive.

HP Pavilion 15-n006ax
Approx Market price: Rs. 30,000

For those of you who would not like to compromise on the power and the performance, then you need to consider the HP Pavilion 15 notebook. This gets the AMD A4-5000 quad core 1.5GHz processor along with 4GB of RAM. The 15.6-inch display isn’t a touchscreen, but with the AMD Radeon HD 8670M (1GB) graphics, this will be able to handle a bit of gaming. This is an excellent keyboard, if typing out articles is your source of livelihood! The HP is a tad on the heavier side, at 2.2kg, but brilliant build quality in line with HP’s new design theme and premium materials used.

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Web 2.0 - A privilege of web technology

Web 2.0

Introduction
Web 2.0, a phrase is a cluster term for the new phase of World Wide Web, which was coined by O?Reilly and Media live International in 2003 and popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004. There is no certain definition of Web 2.0, even though; it stands for the transformation of the web into a full-fledged computing platform.

Web 2.0 is not a modified version of World Wide Web, but it is a different way to utilize Internet into web platform like weblogs, social book marking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social networking web, Web APIs, Web standards and online service provider. It is like open sourcing and genuine interactivity in which user can upload anything, download anything and can use the content according to its own wish. There is no restriction of more or less measure of content, uploading and downloading. All these are absolutely free.

According to ?O?Reilly, the inventor of Web 2.0, ?Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform?. So Web 2.0 is a new way of business via Internet. It?s really a new business tactic that is being used on the mass level across the world. The success of ?YouTube?, ?Orkut?, ?MySpace?, ?Google?, ?live?, ?Wikipedia? and many more websites are the biggest examples of Web 2.0.

Definitions and Components
As we have already mentioned that Web 2.0 has not any specific definition. Many users have defined its in their own way. According to Wikipedia, ?Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes.?

On the other hand, according to Wall Street Technology powered by CMP ?United Business Media?, the coinventor of Web 2.0, ?Web 2.0 refers to Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) that use the Internet as a platform to create interactive user interfaces that resemble PCbased applications. Typically, RIAs emphasize online collaboration among users.?

Several supporters of Web 2.0 have defined it according to their uses, observations and experiences, but in brief, we can say that:

• Web 2.0 is a conversion of websites from unique information structure having the sources of content and functionality. That?s why being a computing platforms it serves web applications to end-users.
• Web 2.0 is a new way of organizing and categorizing of the content, audio, video, pictures and movies highly stressing to the growth of the economic value of the Web.
• Tim O?Reilly, the father of Web 2.0 along with his colleague John Battelle summarized the key principles Web 2.0 applications in 2005. According to them:
• The web as a platform
• Data as the driving force
• Network effects created by an architecture of participation
• Innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of ?open source? development)
• Lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication
•  The end of the software adoption cycle (?the perpetual beta?)
• Software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of the ?Long Tail?
• Ease of picking-up by early adopters

Characteristics of Web 2.0

Though there is a controversy still going on over the definition of Web 2.0, yet it has some basic common characteristics. These include:

1.     Web 2.0 use network as a platform as it deliver or receive applications thoroughly via a browser.

2.     Users gets, manipulates and controlled the data on the site.

3.     Participatory architecture in which user can add or edit value to the application according to their requirement.

4.     A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks.

5.     Some social-networking aspects.

6.     Enhanced graphical interfaces such as gradients and rounded corners (absent in the so-called Web 1.0 era).

Usage of Web 2.0
After emerging of Web 2.0, it is being vastly used because of its wide range of variety and very attractive features. Descriptive list of Web 2.0 tools are endless even though we can say that the new generation of Internet approximately uses its tools. Web 2.0 tools include Weblogging, Wikis, Social networking, Podcasts, Feeds, Social bookmarking, and Cascading Style Sheet. The Approach behind using Web 2.0 is different. Some uses it accidentally as for browsing purpose. Some uses it to fulfill theirs? job because they need it. Some uses it by curiosity as they want to check it and some uses it by default as they have no knowledge about it. Overall, many people and companies use it but they don?t know why? The reason may vary, but its utility is still undoubted.

Technical Overview
Web 2.0 has a complex and growing technology that includes server-software, content-syndication, messaging- protocols, standards-based browsers with plugins and extensions, and various client-applications. All these differ in functions and approaches but provide all the requirements beyond the expectation such as information- storage, creation, and dissemination capabilities.

A web 2.0 website may usually feature a number of following techniques:

• Rich Internet application techniques, optionally Ajaxbased
• Cascading Style Sheet, CSS
• Semantically valid XHTML markup and the use of Microformats
• Organization and collection of data in RSS/Atom
• Clean and meaningful URLs
• Excessive use of folksonomies (in the form of tags or tagclouds)
• Use of wiki software either completely or partially (where partial use may grow to become the complete platform for the site) partially, e.g. the LAMP solution stack
• XACML over SOAP for access control between organizations and domains
• Blog publishing
• Mashups (A mix up of content and Audio usually from different musical style)
• REST or XML Webservice APIs.

Innovations associated with ?Web 2.0? Web-based applications and desktops

Ajax, the rich internet application technique has prompted the development of web-sites that copy personal computer applications like (M.S. Office package) word processing, the spreadsheet, and slide-show presentation while some wiki sites replicate many features of PC authoring applications. Some sites perform collaboration and project management functions. Web 2.0 also innovated various browser based operating system that works like an application platform not merely operating system as it copy the user experience of desktop operating systems having similar features and function like a PC environment. They have as their distinctive characteristic to run within any modern browser.

Rich Internet applications
The new feature included in the Web 2.0 based application in which user does not need to refresh the page, the whole page or a portion of page get refreshed automatically like in some real time web page. E.g. Cricket websites, Share Market etc. Some of the richinternet application techniques are Ajax, Adobe Flash, Flex, Nexaweb, OpenLaszlo and Silverlight and many more.

Server-side software
Web 2.0 application server functions on existing web server architecture but strongly depend on back-end software. The weaving of software varies only nominally due to methods of publishing via using dynamic content management but web services usually need highly vigorous database and workflow support. It has analogues to traditional intranet functionality of an application server. Vendor moves towards to date fall either under a universal server approach or under a web-server plugin approach. (A universal server refers to a common server that bundles most of the necessary functionality in a single server platform while under a plugin refers to standard publishing tools enhanced with API interfaces and other tools.)

Client-Side Software
Web 2.0 provides several extra functions that a usercan use according to its own ability and requirements. It can be accessed in various forms like an HTML page, Javascript, Flash, Silverlight or Java. All these methods reduce the server workload and increase the accessibility of the application.

XML and RSS
Web 2.0 supporters consider the syndication of site content as a Web 2.0 feature includes because it standardized protocols that allows users to implement data for other purpose like for using another website, a browser plugin or a separate desktop application. XML based protocols like RSS, RDF and atom allow syndication. As the popularity of these technologies increase by name of Web feed because of its high usability the RSS icon replaced by more user-friendly icons.

Specialized protocols

Social networking sites uses the specialized protocols like FOAF (Friend of A Friend) and XFN (XHTML Friends Network), which enhance the functionality of the site by allowing end users to interact directly without centralized website.

Web protocols

Web communication protocols support the Web 2.0 infrastructure. Major Web protocols are:

• REST (Representational State Transfer) provides a way to access and manipulates data on a server using the HTTP verbs GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.
• SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) includes POSTing XML messages and requests to a server to follow the quite complex but pre-defined instructions.

Usually servers use proprietary APIs, even though standard web-service APIs have also been used vastly. Web service communications mostly involve some form of XML.

Besides above protocols, WSDL (Web Services Description Language) is also used for web services. The composition of WSDL with UDDI is expected to promote the use of Web services worldwide.

Web 2.0 and Language Learning Technologies

Web 2.0 technologies are new and evolving techniques for learning language, but new added features like video, file sharing, blogs, wikis,  podcastingin and many more included features in Web 1.0 have made Web 2.0 very popular among the scholars, educators and students. The user of these technologies have appreciated the social networking and wikis aspect quating it as a natural helper for a constructivist learning methodology. 

Continue learning here..

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Data Science - Is Evolution ?? A complete analysis

"We have lots of data – now what?"

(How can we unlock valuable insight from our data?)

Data science is deep knowledge discovery through data inference and exploration. This discipline often involves using mathematic and algorithmic techniques to solve some of the most analytically complex business problems, leveraging troves of raw information to figure out hidden insight that lies beneath the surface. It centers around evidence-based analytical rigor and building robust decision capabilities.

Ultimately, data science matters because it enables companies to operate and strategize more intelligently. It is all about adding substantial enterprise value by learning from data. 

 

The variety of projects that a data scientist may be engaged in is incredibly broad. Here are few examples:

• tactical optimization – improvement of marketing campaigns, business processes, etc
• predictive analytics – anticipate future demand, future events, etc
• nuanced learning – e.g. developing deep understanding of consumer behavior
• recommendation engines – e.g. Amazon product recs, Netflix movie recs
• automated decision engines – e.g. automated fraud detection, and even self-driving cars

The objectives of these types of initiatives may be clear, but the problems require extensive quantitative expertise to solve. They may require building predictive models, attribution models, segmentation models, heuristics for deep pattern-discovery in data, etc — this commands having exhaustive knowledge of all sorts of machine-learning algorithms and sharp technical ability. As you might guess, these are not the easiest skills to pick up.

What is data science – the requisite skill set

Data science is multidisciplinary; the skill set of a data scientist lies at the intersection of 3 main competencies:

Mathematics Expertise

At the heart of deriving insight from data is the ability to view the data through a quantitative lens. There are textures, patterns, dimensions, and correlations in data that can be expressed numerically, and discovering inference from data becomes a brain teaser of mathematical techniques. Solutions to many business problems often involve building analytic models that are deeply grounded in the hard math theory, and being able to understand how models work is as important as knowing the process to build them (danger of building without knowing the math).

Also, a big misconception is that data science all about statistics. While statistics are important, it is not the only type of mathematics that should be well-understood by a data scientist. First, there are two main branches of statistics – classical statistics and Bayesian statistics. When most people refer to stats they are generally referring to classical stats, but knowledge of both types is very helpful. Furthermore, many inferential techniques and machine learning algorithms lean heavily on knowledge of linear algebra. For example, key data science processes like SVD (used for dimension reduction / latent variable discovery) are grounded in matrix mathematics and have much less to do with classical statistics. Overall, data scientists should have substantial breadth and depth in their knowledge of math.

Technology and Hacking

First, let's clarify on that we are not talking about hacking as in breaking into computers. We're referring to the tech/developer subculture meaning of hacking – i.e., creativity and ingenuity in using technical skills to build things and find clever solutions to problems.
Why is hacking ability important? Because data scientists absolutely need to leverage technology in order to wrangle enormous data sets and work with complex algorithms, and it requires using tools far more sophisticated than Excel. Examples of such tools are SQL, SAS, and R, all of which require technical/coding ability. With these high-performance tools, a true 'hacker' is a technical ninja, able to use ingenious problem solving ability to achieve mastery in data exploration – piecing together unstructured information and teasing out golden nuggets of insight.
Another way to define a hacker is as a solid algorithmic thinker – that is, having the ability to break down messy problems and recompose them in ways that are solvable. This is critical for good data science, especially since data scientists work intimately within existing algorithmic frameworks and oftentimes create their own algorithms to solve complex problems. Clarity of thinking within deeply-abstract mental maps of data dimensions and processing capability is how challenging problems get solved.

Strong Business Acumen

It is very important to note that a data scientist is first and foremost a strategy consultant. Data science teams have become invaluable resources within companies because by being able to learn from data in ways no one else can, they are extraordinarily well-positioned to figure out how to add substantial business value. But this means having a keen sense of how to dissect and approach business problems becomes as important as having a keen sense of how to approach algorithmic problems. Ultimately, the value doesn't come from numbers; it comes from strategic thinking based on those numbers.
Additionally, a core competency of data science is in using data to cogently tell a story. This means no data-puking; rather, presenting a cohesive narrative of problem and solution, using data insights as supporting pillars, that lead to guidance.

Clearly, get all the competencies right — math, technology, and business — and this is an incredibly potent combination. There is a reason why data scientists are well paid and probably will never have to worry about job security. Not a bad place to be to have the rarefied talents that big companies everywhere are trying to recruit.

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What is a data scientist – curiosity and training

The Mindset

A defining personality trait of data scientists is they are deep thinkers with intense intellectual curiosity. Data science is all about being inquisitive – asking new questions, making new discoveries, and learning new things. Ask true data scientists what drives them in their job, and they will not say "money". The real motivator is being able to use their creativity and ingenuity to solve hard problems and constantly indulge in their curiosity. Deriving insight from data is not about getting an answer, it is about uncovering "truth" that lies hidden beneath the surface. Problem solving is not a task, but rather an intellectually-stimulating journey to a solution. There is passion for the work, and great satisfaction in taking on challenge.

Training

While solid math skills are necessary, there is a glaring misconception out there that you need a Ph.D in Statistics to become a legitimate data scientist. That view completely misses the point that data science is multidisciplinary; years of study in academia may not leave graduates with the correct set of experience and abilities to excel – i.e. a Ph.D statistician may not have nimble hacking skills or strategic business intuition to complete the trifecta.

As a matter of fact, data science is such a relatively new and rising discipline that universities have not caught up in developing comprehensive data science degree programs – meaning that no one can really claim to have "done all the schooling" to be become a data scientist. Where does much of the training come from? The unyielding intellectual curiosity that data scientists possess drive them to be passionate autodidacts, motivated to learn skills on their own with deep determination (Read: where can you find people like this?).

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Analytics and machine learning – how it ties to data science

There are a slew of terms closely related to data science, that we hope to add some clarity around.

What is Analytics?

Analytics has risen quickly in popular business lingo over the past several years; the term is used loosely, but generally meant to describe critical thinking that is quantitative in nature. Technically, analytics is the "science of analysis" — put another way, the practice of analyzing information to make decisions.
Is "analytics" the same thing as data science? Depends on context. Sometimes it is synonymous with the definition of data science that we have described, and sometimes it represents something else. A data scientist using raw data to build a predictive behavior model falls into the scope of analytics. At the same time, a general business user interpreting pre-built dashboard reports (e.g. GA) is also in the realm of analytics, but does not cross into the specialized skill needed in data science. Analytics has come to have fairly broad meaning, though at the end of the day, the semantics don't matter much.

What is the difference between an analyst and a data scientist?

"Analyst" is somewhat of an ambiguous term that can represent many different types of roles (marketing analyst, operations analyst, portfolio analyst, financial analyst, etc). Is an analyst the same as a data scientist? We've discussed pretty strict canon around what is a data scientist – as an expert's role with requisite talents in math, technology, and strategy consulting. Let's just say that some analysts are definitely data-scientists-in-training. As represented in this visual, there is a place in the middle where the distinction can blur a bit.

Here are examples of growth from analyst to veritable data scientist:

• An analyst who has previously only mastered Excel, learns how to dive into raw warehouse data using SQL and R
• An analyst who previously only knew enough stats to report the results of an A/B test, gains the expertise to build a predictive model with latent variable analysis and cross-validation

Overall point is that moving in the direction of "data scientist" requires motivation to learn many new skills. Many companies have actually found success cultivating their own home-grown data scientists, by giving their analysts the resources and training to take their abilities to the next level.

What is Machine Learning?

Machine learning is a term that is closely tied to data science. Simply, it means being able to train systems or algorithms to derive insight from a data set. The actual types of machine learning are varied, ranging from regression models to support vector machines to neural nets, but it all centers around 'teaching' a computer to become very good at pattern recognition. Examples of machine learning include:

• predictive models that can anticipate user behavior
• clustering algorithms that mine for natural similarities between different customers
• classification models that can recognize and filter out spam
• recommendation engines that 'learn' about preferences at an individual level
• neural nets that can recognize what image patterns look like

Data scientists work intimately with machine learning techniques to build algorithms that automate elements of their problem-solving. It is a requisite part of the data science toolset, needed to tackle some of the most complex data-driven projects.

What is Data Munging?

Raw data can be unstructured and messy, with information from disparate data sources and mismatched records. Data munging is a term to describe the important process of cleaning up data so that it is ready for data analysis and use in machine learning algorithms. This requires good pattern-recognition ability and clever hacking skills in order to merge and transform masses of raw information. Dirty data can obfuscate the 'truth' hidden in the data and completely mislead an analysis, thus, any data scientist must be skillful and nimble at data munging in order to have accurate data for deriving insight.

Final word

In any organization that wants to leverage big data to gain value, data science is the secret sauce. But, it is incredibly difficult to find experts who embody all the necessary talents – so if you manage to hire a data scientist, nurture them, keep them engaged, and give them autonomy to be their own architects in figuring out how to add value to the business. At the end of the day, data science is a capability that turns information to gold, and data scientists are uniquely positioned to be transformative figures within a company.

A Superb article from DataJobs.com

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