#Custom Web Apps with Integrated Web Services for IBM i

[rpgprogrammers]

Create Custom Web Apps with Integrated Web Services for IBM i

Creating, deploying, and maintaining web applications has become the core part of operations for many businesses. For some, it's the essence of their business model and what the entire operation is built around. For others, it may serve as a crucial internal component. Either Way, web apps are essential for the survival and growth of most businesses.

Based on the resources you have, the scope of what you want to achieve with the web app, its functionality, and the environment you have to deploy the app in, the process can range from easy to incredibly complex.

For businesses where IBM i is part of the digital mix, leaning into the integrated web services for IBM i can make the process fairly straightforward and lead to powerful web apps created and deployed with reasonable resources.

Integrated Web Services for IBM i

IBM i was designed as more than just an operating system - it was designed as an operating environment that makes it easier (and more resource efficient) for IBM Power (formerly AS400) to complete various business tasks. As a fully integrated operating system, it combines various elements in the stack, which leads to higher efficiency.

The integrated Web Services for IBM i is an extension of this design ideology. Instead of creating a custom web service from scratch and defining each element (like the protocols), IBM i offers businesses a head start by covering/hiding many of the complexities associated with web services under the hood.

This allows businesses to focus on the business-relevant/task-relevant functionality of a piece of software/web app instead of its architecture and other technical aspects. This greatly improves the development process and significantly reduces the development load.

By creating a web app using IBM i’s ILE programming model and its native languages, developers/businesses can even go low-level enough for efficient hardware resource utilization.

SOAP vs. REST

SOAP or Simple Object Access Protocol relies on XML or Extensible Markup Language for accessing web services. SOAP is a very structured web-services architecture and has an inherent lack of flexibility, but it's quite robust and safe.

It was the default web-services architecture for IBM i, but now, IBM i also supports REST architecture and the development and deployment of RESTful APIs/REST-based web services. REST or Representational State Transfer is a more flexible way for computers to connect over the internet and share web services. It allows data in multiple formats to be shared, not just in XML. This leads to a more extensive range of uses.

Creating Custom Web Apps with Integrated Web Services for IBM i

Before you start planning your custom web app on IBM i, it's important to note that you are not limited to the native languages of the IBM i operating system, like RPG and C++. You can build your frontend and backend on the most commonly used languages, like Javascript, through the open-source command line package management utility called YUM.

IBM provides its own set of tools for developing web applications that you can use to create, manage, and deploy a wide range of web applications while taking advantage of the integrated web services for IBM i. These applications and the data they give users access to are hosted on IBM Power servers.

Once the web application is developed and deployed, users can leverage a variety of electronic devices (primarily PCs and smartphones) to securely request data from the IBM i servers.

The process of creating an application is similar to the development process over different systems. It starts with defining the business function, scope, functionalities, and other specifics of the web application a business needs. Once these are sorted out, a wireframe of the web app is usually created. Then, the front end and back end are developed.

Here, IBM i's developer tools are useful. The "IBM i Access for Web" gives web apps access to enterprise data. "IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software" allows for the actual development phase, including the development of SOA (Service-oriented architecture) applications.

Once the application is developed, it can be deployed on an IBM Power server (using IBM i) and made accessible over the internet.

Key Benefits of Creating Custom Web Apps with Integrated Web Services for IBM i

Some of the key benefits a developer or business can gain by creating custom web apps with integrated web services for IBM i are:

Web apps developed for the IBM i environment can easily be deployed on public clouds like Amazon and Azure. This resonates with the hybrid cloud strength of IBM systems.

Development becomes easier, less complex, and less resource intensive thanks to the integrated web services for IBM i, which reduces the significant technical load of the development, allowing for better business efficiency and utility of a web app.

Security is built into the IBM i architecture, and it benefits the web apps that are developed and hosted on IBM Power servers running on the operating system.

[mdmaayon]

10 Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks from Top Brands

There is no doubt that digital marketing or online marketing is crucial when it comes to the success of any business no matter what industry you are in. Unlike the past where businesses used traditional advertising, today, they are not as effective as online advertising and this has pushed many businesses to adopt online advertising to reach customers. Online marketing is the way to go if you want to reach and create a connection with customers.

Gone are the days when it was difficult to understand what customers want. Today, with the increase in tools such as analytics and digital marketing software, it is far easier to guess — nay, estimate — customer behavior… and cater to it! Online marketing has enabled businesses to gain treasured insights to customers’ minds.

When implemented in the right way, digital marketing will enable your business to target and reach its customers, classify new ones, increase sales, and experience lasting growth.

These digital marketing approaches will make your business visible to your existing customers online and connect you with new ones.

What is Digital Marketing Today?

Digital marketing is the use of the internet and electronic devices to make your business known to your existing and new customers both locally and internationally. It is a means of advertising done through digital platforms like social media, email, mobile apps, websites and search engines.

It today’s digital world, marketing is about connecting with your prospective customers in the right place and at the desired time, selling them with goods and service they need at the right time. This means that you need to target them where they spend most of their time and in this case, it is the internet. Digital marketing encompasses a range of marketing activities such as content marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization, mobile marketing and more.

That being said, below, we’ve compiled a list of the digital marketing tricks used by all the famous business brands in the world.

1. Combine SEO and Content Marketing

SEO used to be a function of coding. Today, most of the metrics included in Google’s algorithm have to do with content and the engagement you win through the distribution of great content. Using various types of content (visual, text, video, infographics, audio, etc) does much better than using a single type of content.

More content – As more businesses embrace content marketing, competition continues to get tougher. Everything you do online is drowned in noise and information overload. If it’s SEO many businesses are doing it. If it’s posting good and original content, many are doing it. So, to beat them, you need to publish better and more content. According to HubSpot data, publishing at least once a week is critical for ROI and ROI drops pretty precipitously when you publish less frequently. However, it’s not about quantity or quality, but an ideal mix of both.

Valuable content – Content should be entertaining, informative, or make the reader feel something. Valuable content encourages subscription to your email, sharing, comments, and other actions that contribute to ROI.

Original content – Content can be audio, video or text but when you decide to use one or all of these digital content, ensure it is good and original. If you can’t create unique, compelling and good content by yourself, you can hire an expert to create content for your website and social media platforms. This is where you will need a powerful content marketing plan like never before.

Appropriate content – As you can see from this infographic from Occam’s Razor, you need to produce content that’s right for each stage in the conversion process (and your metrics need to match your goal with each piece of content).

Knowing where a visitor is in the conversion process isn’t always easy, but, if you’ve done a good job of coding content (applying tracking codes so you know what type of content drove them to visit your site) and use tools that let you track where visitors have been before, you can make an educated guess as to what content they need. By delivering the right content at the right time, you’re more likely to convert visitors.

Reach is important. The more visitors you bring to your site, all things being equal, the higher your ROI. This is one of the reasons it’s important to have several social platforms and have links on your content so visitors can easily share your content. You should share your content once it’s published and here’s a schedule recommended by Kissmetrics:

In addition to sharing your own content, you should share content created by other great companies/ experts. Many experts recommend you share 20% your promotional content and 80% other valuable content you find.

2. Have a Visible Presence on Relevant Social Media Platforms

Being seen online is the key to success for every business, especially in today’s world where almost all businesses have gone digital. It is one of the ways to stand out from the crowd. For this reason, you need to build your online presence on social media networks of relevance. Note that there are plenty of social networks available but you need to identify where your customers spend most of their time and target them there. Pick those that are relevant to your business and prospects and build your online presence there.

3. Optimize Your Website for Mobile-First Browsing

To ensure your content is mobile friendly, your website and social media networks are accessible on desktops and mobile devices. Customers are currently using smartphones and tablets to access the web. So, it is crucial to make your website and content accessible to users on all screen sizes.

4. Use the Right Tools

Digital marketing is an amalgamation of different strategies aimed at a plethora of channels, like SEO, PPC, social media, and so on. In order to ensure that you have an integrated marketing mix, you need the right digital marketing tools to help you run effective campaigns. You also need to develop expertise in using them and applying the insights in the right context.

5. Be Awesome at Design

Design underpins much of what makes digital marketing success. Whether you’re designing a website, a landing page or creating an image for your website, ad, or infographic, you need to have good design skills. Not all of us are whiz kids when it comes to design, but there are some tools to help.

Canva – is a great tool for creating social media images whether you need them for your profile or as images to include in posts. One aspect of Canva I really like is the templates that help design great looking images even if you know nothing about layout or what fonts go together. They’re constantly adding new images and tools, such as infographic templates, to help you out.

Photoshop – granted it’s expensive, but Photoshop is a great design tool. Luckily, you can now get the entire creative cloud from Adobe for as low as $29/ month if you’re in school and a little more to use for business. It used to be more difficult to use Photoshop, but now there are tons of tutorials on YouTube and Photoshop now includes little mini tutorials if you hover over the buttons.

Kuler – If mixing colors isn’t your forte, then Adobe Color is for you. It lets you import an image and get the colors used or you can choose a color to get colors that coordinate well with it.

6. Create an Email List

This should be done from the beginning of your business. If you are on the startup phase, you need to make an email list when planning. Ensure to gather people’s emails where you will be sending them any updates and progress of your business. Send them useful information but avoid spamming them.

7. Spend on Digital Advertising

Online advertising, including PPC (pay per click) campaigns such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, social media advertising on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and mobile ads are great to support digital marketing success.

8. Use Infographics

People love infographics because they are attractive. Note that our brains can process pictures must quicker than text. A picture is worth a thousand words, and people will share them more often than texts.

Here are some examples of the best content infographics that awesome marketers have created and used to resonate with their audience.

9. Closely Watch Your Analytics

Almost the other end of the spectrum from creativity is analytics, but that’s exactly the combination you need for digital marketing success. Google Analytics is perfect for understanding critical elements of your website and how visitors navigate through it. If you’re trying to learn how to gain insights from Google Analytics, you can use the Google Data Studio to give it a test drive using data from Google’s e-commerce site.

For analytics outside of Google Analytics, a number of great tools exist. You can use individual analytics from each social network (ie. Facebook, Pinterest, etc), you can bring them all to one place by using a dashboard program such as Cognos (from IBM), or you can pay for a more powerful tool to gain more insights.

10. Integrate Strategies and Campaigns Across Channels

Integrating across these tactics can be really challenging, especially in a larger firm where different teams may manage different platforms or where different ad agencies handle different aspects of marketing, such as content marketing, paid, and social. But, integrate you must to achieve true digital marketing success.

[e-businesshosting]

E-Business - the biggest opportunity for 2020

What is an E-Business? The term E-business has evolved from the simple abbreviation of “electronic business.” It is a top level term referring to methods of utilising digital information and communication technologies to support or streamline business processes. Our roots in E-Business Our primary E-Business inspiration came at the beginning of our Internet journey at the Live - 95 event in London. Having sat through a number demo’s and speeches from various providers, we realised that the simple concepts of electronic communication and data transfer offered fantastic life efficiency opportunities - not just business. We were already looking at application of collaborative tools such as communication and document management systems - in the form of Internet connected bulletin boards. In 1998 I actually graduated from Anglia University having designed and created a similar system for my dissertation/project entitled - Worldwide Communications. Having dialled in and had a play - the lecturer did not appear to see the relevance to the Automotive Engineering Degree - he said he doubted the collaborative approach to information sharing would be likely to catch-on and he did not perceive any significant benefit. I didn’t argue - but I did forward the 8 page document published in the Wall Street Journal on 7th October 1997, by IBM - they used E-Business as the term to describe how they believed corporate systems would fundamentally change in the digital era. Suffice to say it caught on. As we begin to embrace todays opportunities - the initial strategic thinking back in the 90s is fundamental, as it reminds us of the potential scope of E-Business. They said - E-Business is 'redesigning strategic business processes and meeting the challenges of a new market increasingly characterised by globalisation, and based on new knowledge.’ Luckily they decided against patenting the term in the hope that other companies such as ours would engage with the concept and help to form a new industry.Capitalising on E-Business Solutions Fast forward to 2020 - E-Commerce is a widely used term, however - aligned to our strategic thinking from back in the 90s - whilst it does describe the commercial transactions in buying and selling it is still just one possible E-Business Component. In 2002 we built our first web based application server, designed to provide E-Business services, capitalising on web based solutions - to replace previous paper based equivalents, in an infinitely more efficient way. E-Business Hosting - was born in 2002 with a core service offering, designed to provide advanced, Linux based web hosting services with a focus on the extended functionality provided by server side technologies such as Coldfusion and PHP. The 2002 strategy was designed to enable integration of E-Business solutions into company intranets and public websites which we built for customers. The 2020 strategy enables automated setup of an E-Business service websites, utilising cloud server technology to deploy the latest LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) Optimised web based server systems. Why - E-Business Hosting? Built on these solid technological foundations, E-Business Hosting not only provides a highly functional web hosting platform at an extremely competitive price. Additionally, every customer is provided with a selection of hundreds of ready made E-Business applications which can be automatically be installed on a website in minutes. For example - a new novice customer can have a Wordpress blog or a Prestashop E-Commerce app running within seconds of signing up. Package Prices start small for small and increase only as customers grow needing more resources.Considering all of the global challenges of 2020 - it is an ideal time to make the move into E-Business.The COVID-19 influence By definition - E-Business solutions are naturally web based or online and hence satisfy all lock-down requirements. So wether you are looking to setup a Blog to engage creatively with the world to pass the time, or would like to enhance office based process to suit a home based work force, or if you simply want to setup a web shop or affiliate marketing site, we not only have a product which will fit your needs, we have the experience to help you select it and set it up. Even if you are not sure what you want to do - but have drive, enthusiasm an a small amount of creativity - we can help point you in the right direction. SIGNUP NOW Read the full article

[huooopp-blog]

Important 2020 SEO Styles You should know

It’s time for you to take our annual take a look at what’s forward for SEO experts in 2020.

What SEO strategies and techniques will continue to work and help you dominate in the SERPs and earn much more income in 2020?

Listed below are 10 important styles you should know in 2020, according to 47 of today’s top SEO professionals. also, check out Longmont SEO services

1. Understand Your Audience & Consumer Intent

Will your audience prefer text messages? Images? Video? Sound.

Knowing this will all become more important than ever before in 2019, relating to your experts.

“You must understand what someone is looking to find when they query a word or phrase and you will need to provide them the answer in the easiest way possible,” said Mindy Weinstein CEO of Market Mindshift.

Motoko Hunt, chief executive of AJPR, agreed, adding that the interests, preferences, and preferences of your audience can transform quicker than you think.

“Even if your website content is flawlessly written and optimized, if it’s done for an incorrect audience, it received develops the business enterprise,” Hunt said.

Tomorrow’s high-ranking website is focused on the audience, said Julia McCoy, CEO of Express Authors.

“In case your site improves your audience’s journey, you’ll be rewarded by Google as well as your visitor will spend money on you,” McCoy said.

That is especially important because rankings have been fluctuating within the last year to help fit the semantic intent of the user’s search query, said Jesse McDonald, SEO specialist and director of procedures for TopHatRank.com.

“It'll be more critical than ever before for SEOs and content specialists to target heavily on an individual intention of the keywords they may be targeting while creating content,” McDonald said.

Casie Gillette, older director of digital marketing at KoMarketing, also has noticed Google’s change in keyword purpose.

“We must think more about the funnel and where we want to spend our time,” Gillette said. “Do I wish to spend money and time trying to rank in search engines for a wide term or must I instead change my concentrate to conditions further down the funnel, where purchasers are more educated and much more likely to be thinking about what I’m offering?”

To adjust to the change in 2019, you might have to change just how you’ve been doing all your keyword research, said Chuck Price, creator of Measurable SEO.

“When doing keyword research in 2019, it’s essential that you check the SERPs to find out if websites like yours are rating for a targeted term,” Price said. “If the very best SERPs are filled up with web directories or review sites as well as your site isn’t one particular, then move to another expression.”

The time is currently to avoid matching keywords and start ensuring your articles comprehensively answers questions your audience is asking via search, said Jeremy Knauff, CEO of Spartan Press.

“Ideally, we ought to take our content a step further by anticipating and answering follow-up questions they could have after they receive the response to their initial query,” Knauff said.

2. EXCEED Google Search

Could Amazon and Apple slice into Google’s search dominance? Eli Schwartz, director of SEO and development for SurveyMonkey, feels so.

“I believe that 2019 would be the 12 months that, once more, SEO will not only be about how exactly to optimize for Google, but we must consider these other ‘motors’ as well,” Schwartz said.

As Cindy Krum, CEO of MobileMoxie, described, SEO is approximately turning up wherever and however people are searching - not merely getting the first blue hyperlink. And that means you must understand how to operate a vehicle traffic and engagement for things apart from just websites.

“If prospective customers are trying to find apps, you will need to rank in application stores. If they're looking for podcasts or videos, you will need to rank where people seek out those things,” Krum said. “Strong brands have become multi-faceted, position more than simply websites. Strong SEOs should do a similar thing.”

Jes Scholz, an international digital director for Ringier AG, said she also views the range of SEO expanding to protect presence on other systems.

“Think beyond traveling users to your site by ranking #1 1 in the SERPs,” Scholz said. “How will you get presence for your articles in presented snippets and therefore conversational interfaces, with hosted articles, with content aggregators and other such opportunities to make sure your brand gets to your market?”

In 2019, additionally you must at least consider optimizing for devices, said Kristine Schachinger, digital strategist and SEO consultant.

“For all those with products that may be sold or brands that can take advantage of the exposure, being optimized for a home assistant or audio-only devices can’t be ignored,” Schachinger said.

Eventually, this all requires the best content on the quickest platforms targeted at meet up with the users anywhere they’re via, according to Keith Goode, IBM’s senior SEO strategist, security intelligence.

“The complete search experience is our domain of expertise and control, and our goal isn’t to just drive traffic,” Goode said. “It’s to ensure that we’ve optimized that search experience, whether web-based or app-based or [place another big technology]-centered, to produce the most effective and interesting intersection of the consumer’s needs and the site’s offerings possible.”

3. Organized Data Markup Is Key

Use structured data whenever you can, said Marcus Tandler, co-founder and managing director of Ryte.

“With AI becoming more and more very important to Google, structured data is now more important as well,” Tandler said. “If Google desires to go from a mobile-first for an AI-first world, organized data is key. Regardless of how good your AI is, if it requires too much time to ‘crawl’ the mandatory information, it'll never be great. AI takes a fast control of material and their relationships to one another.”

JP Sherman, enterprise search and findability expert at Red Headwear, said you should begin looking at and understanding organized data, schema, energetic and unaggressive search behaviors, and exactly how they can hook up to behaviors that sign intent so the behavior of search becomes a much bigger effort of findability.

“Contextual relationships between behaviors and topics, supported by organized markup, is the critical trend we need to begin understanding, testing, and implementing for 2019,” Sherman said. “Using information structures, tags, metadata and recently, organized markup, we’ve experienced the capability to give SE's indicators to comprehend this topical ointment and supportive content framework.”

Further, Jamie Alberico, SEO vendor for Arrow Consumer electronics, said you should “leverage your existing content by integrating speakable and truth check structured data markup. These markups are an integral hyperlink between factual fact and the screenless future.”

And Expenses Slawski, director of SEO research at Go Seafood Digital added this suggestion:

“[Understand] and [use] appropriate schema vocabulary on webpages for products, offers, occasions, contact information, sameAs sociable and entity organizations, organizational information, rankings, and speakable content.”

4. Create Exceptional Content

Google algorithm updates in 2018 revealed that Google is intensifying its concentrate on evaluating content quality with the depth and breadth of the website’s content, said Eric Enge, general supervisor of Perficient Digital.

“We tracked the SEO performance of a variety of sites,” Enge said. “The websites that provided exceptional depth in quality content coverage soared in ratings over summer and winter. Sites that were weaker in their content depth experienced compared.”

Enge said he expects to start to see the pattern of Google rewarding sites offering the best in-depth encounters continuing in 2019.

“Google was continually tuning their algorithms in this field over summer and winter, and I believe there is still much more tuning for them to do,” Enge added.

This means if you’re still creating content merely to keep your site alive, that won’t be sufficient anymore, said Alexandra Tachalova, digital marketing specialist.

“The problem with this article is it isn’t sufficient to obtain links, so a slim chance that it’ll rank on Google there’s,” Tachalova said. “Think about posting such articles, given that they won’t payback. It’s easier to do one post that is properly distributed every couple of months than doing several monthly that is only going to get a few appointments.”

What you ought to do is create content that solves a problem - content that techniques motivate, and connects with people, said Matt Siltala, leader of Avalaunch Media.

“When you can answer a question, get a business lead, make a sale, assist with SEO (link constructing), reputation management, public evidence or community building purposes with a bit of content, you win then!” Siltala said. “Research your facts, be the solution to the problem that individuals have, and offer something that is intended for individuals versus wanting to ‘SEO’ the crap from it and you'll always do better in your time and efforts.”

Shelley Walsh, director of ShellShock, expects to start to see the degree of content quality rise in 2019.

“Content strategy in SEO is not simply about answering a query and getting users to the page. It must use language to activate an individual and guide an individual to another action,” Walsh said. “You may still find many too few web pages carrying this out well. More use of content maps and experience maps would help this.”

5. Increase Expertise, Expert, Trustworthiness

Creating and growing your experience, expert, and trustworthiness - better known as E-A-T in Google’s search quality ranking recommendations - will be another key tendency in 2019.

“Even though E-A-T guidelines are written for Google’s algorithm raters, then Google’s algorithm itself rather, it can help us to comprehend where Google is heading for a while,” said Dixon Jones, founder of DHJ Ventures. “I believe this can help SEOs begin to recognize that ‘quality’ includes context. You are unable to rank so easily writing authoritative content if you don't already are a specialist on the confirmed subject.”

Give Simmons, VP of search engine marketing at Homes.com said you should think about content distribution and advertising from a reputation standpoint.

“Hire experts to writer, leverage data from known entities, and ensure qualifications and credit is directed at both, with appropriate affinity to the promoted brand,” Simmons said. “How will you get more of your employees to blog, write, and speak? How will you (the brand’s people) be the go-to source for journalists around your primary topic expertise? Because that degree of experience is exactly what Google wants to power its results.”

Like Google, Bing also wants to incentive E-A-T.

“A significant goal of our rank team is to create an algorithm that could ranking documents in the same order as humans would because they are following guidelines,” said Frédéric Debut, Microsoft’s mature program manager, Search & AI. “You can only just do this at the level of the net by generalizing your rating algorithm whenever you can. As it happens that modern machine learning is great at generalizing, and that means you can get our core rank algorithm to get nearer to that ideal Intelligent Search product view that people keep internally and which we make an effort to capture inside our suggestions.”

[asmmorg]

Aol desktop for mac

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All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. On June 23, 2015, AOL was acquired by Verizon Communications for $4.4 billion.ĭisclaimer: We are not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by or in any way officially connected to AOL except for the fact that we use their websites to develop and provide you this app. Under his leadership, the company invested in media brands and advertising technologies.

Aol desktop for mac upgrade#

AOL was eventually spun off from Time Warner in 2009, with Tim Armstrong appointed the new CEO. Desktops are also easier to upgrade and customize than laptops, though if you want to be able to upgrade your computer yourself, you’ll have to go with a Windows or Chrome-based model rather than a Mac, which has integrated components that can’t be removed at home. AOL rapidly declined thereafter, partly due to the decline of dial-up and rise of broadband. In 2001, at the height of its popularity, it purchased the media conglomerate Time Warner in the largest merger in U.S. It originally provided a dial-up service to millions of Americans, as well as providing a web portal, e-mail, instant messaging and later a web browser following its purchase of Netscape. By 1995, AOL had about three million active users.AOL was one of the early pioneers of the Internet in the mid-1990s, and the most recognized brand on the web in the United States. AOL grew to become the largest online service, displacing established players like CompuServe and The Source. A new IBM PC client launched in 1988, eventually renamed as America Online in 1989. The customizable AOL Toolbar provides easy access to breaking news, mail and the weather. You can sign in with your free account or with an AOL Advantage account. USA: +1 8 UK: +44 8 Offers Solutions MAC MAC Some of Our Top Mac Based Tools. Toolkit Support Reseller Contact Us Call Us. We offer professional pfc explorer tool for reading & opening PFC email without using AOL environment. He forwards email from his corporate account to the AOL acount. AOL PFC Viewer to read & view your AOL Desktop emails. Version 16.43 (20110804) Ive added two Gmail accounts and my EDU account. Check your credentials and try again.' Microsoft Outlook for Mac.

Aol desktop for mac for mac#

II have a user that insists on using AOL Desktop. I cannot add an AOL mail account to OUTLOOK for MAC Although Im able to sign on using the same credentials when entering them into the interface for adding the account to Outlook, I get: 'Unable to sign in.

Aol desktop for mac software#

PlayNET licensed their software to Quantum Link (Q-Link), who went online in November 1985. AOL Desktop is available for Windows and Mac. 3 Comments 2 Solutions 1265 Views Last Modified. The service traces its history to an online service known as PlayNET. AOL Desktop for Mac AOL All-in-one-AOL-Websoftware für Mac-Nutzer unter anderem mit integriertem AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), einer webbasierten Toolbar zum Aufruf der persönlichen Favoriten von. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc.

[intelligentvewor]

Homeseer update failed

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This isn't really important for the Sonoff Basic, but for the touch switches then we need to know if someone has pressed the touch switch so we can keep Homeseer up to date with the current status of the devices. You'll also notice that for every publish that changes one of the Sonoff outputs, the Sonoff will publish a stat/ or Status message in the form stat/sonoff1/POWER for example confirming the change. Sonoff devices with more than one output name them POWER1, POWER2, etc, whereas the Sonoff basic is just POWER. You can 'publish' from the MQTT.fx app to test that you can turn your sonoff devices on and off. In the example above our device sonoff1 has an output called POWER (its a Sonoff Basic) to to turn it on we'd publish cmnd/sonoff1/POWER = 1. These devices subscribe to cmnd / The unique device name / Output name. These names (or Topics) are CaSe SeNsItIve so be aware. In Tasmota, each Sonoff is given a unique name such as sonoffsw1 or sonoff1 as above. Once your connected to your newly installed MQTT Broker, from MQTT.fx subscribe to # and you should start seeing telemetry from your Sonoff's in the subscription tab. Once you have your Sonoff devices flashed with Tasmota, have them on the network, can access them and have given them a unique name then you should be able to control them directly from MQTT with a tool like MQTT.fx. Devices can be both publishers and subscribers and this is often the way it works out. The premise of MQTT is simple There are publishers (devices that send information) and subscribers (devices that listen for information).

#Homeseer update failed install

You'll need to install and test a MQTT broker on your local network in order to make any of this work. MQTT is a service provided by a Broker such as Mosquitto which is open source, multi-platform and very stable but there are many more and the choice is very much yours. Since then its been developing and is now an accepted standard at version 3.1.1. MQTTīack in 1999 IBM came up with MQ Telemetry Transport Protocol to allow for lightweight communication between devices such as sensors in a queue-able and reliable manner. I won't go over the flashing process here because there are enough guides on the Web covering this. Personally, even though I've used SonOTA, I still prefer the hard wired approach. Flashing your Sonoff device depends on which device but most can be flashed 'over the air' using SonOTA but others require a direct connection to the conveniently placed programming connections.

#Homeseer update failed full

The firmware is GPL and full source is available for those (like me) who want to tinker with it to support other devices quickly and easily such as NodeMCU. Tasmotaĭeveloped by Theo Arends, the Tasmota firmware runs on the ESP8266 and connects your Sonoff devices to MQTT. I have now received, flashed and integrated every Sonoff variant and all work just fine which is nice. Whilst this is ok for some, being able to link these directly to our Homeseer is a preferred option. Out of the box the Sonoff device comes with custom firmware that requires an 'app', Internet access and a service that's hosted in China. Anyway, since the 'basic' ITEAD now have a comprehensive range of Sonoff devices, from the Basic, the Dual and the 4 Channel to the elegant touch wall switches and we'd be crazy not to want to hook these up to our HA system. If you actually add up the cost of the components its hard to make one for the price of these units but that's the china effect I guess. When you look at the Sonoff Basic, which is essentially a power supply, ESP8266 and a relay then you have a neat wifi switch in a small package. ITEAD from Shenzhen China have been around for a while now and their Sonoff range of control devices are not only cheap but actually pretty good. This guide assumes you have some basic electronics and programming knowledge.

#Homeseer update failed how to

This article describes how to connect Sonoff devices (or any device with Tasmota or similar firmware) to Homseer via a Broker.

#Homeseer update failed code

Regardless its still a great system for anyone who likes getting down and dirty with the code to achieve exactly what they want for HA. After about 4 weeks of using Homeseer it became clear that whilst the power is there to interface with the world there are a limited number of 'Plug-ins' available and some of those appear to be no longer maintained. Homeseer has a lot of positives and a few negatives but the real power comes from the fact that (a) the product allows you to write VB script to control just about anything and (b) via Plug-ins you can interface with pretty much any IP based device fairly easily.

#Homeseer update failed trial

Sonoff + Tasmota + MQTT + Homeseer IntegrationĪ few weeks ago I downloaded a trial of Homeseer whilst investigating replacements for our ageing HAI OmniPro II and temperamental Contorl4 System.

[vivokibusinessintelligence-blog]

Artificial Intelligence : where are we headed for ?

The world is set to see a sea change in the manner technology operates and responds to our need. As per an internal report, more than 80% of businesses would be using Artificial Intelligence, one way or the other by 2020,

 Defining strategies based on AI for competitive advantage and intelligence will serve to be the basics when planning for a smart and agile enterprise in the coming times. Self-serving automated devices would prove to be catalysts ushering into a new era that would become mainstream. whether it is the automotive industry or the healthcare industry, artificial intelligence would prove to be the flag-bearer in decision making.

 Transformation in personal lifestyle would definitely bring about the eventual adoption an everyday affair. This is primarily based on man and machine relationship and therefore an opportunity for a transformative potential for a next-gen organization. Whilst Machine learning can solve linear problems, Artificial Intelligence helps distillation of automation. We are talking about disruptive technologies based on design thinking that lead to the simplification of tasks and better decision making structures.

 There is a tender inflection point between data and artificial intelligence that would prove to be deciduous for today's CIO to prioritize and adapt. Tangible and value-added insights in the business if delivered to address a  pre-defined challenge can reap true benefits

 So what does it take to become an AI-driven organization?

 What is the impact of AI and eventually machine learning on our daily lives? An interesting case study that I saw on the economist TV channel that details the role of technology in the coming decades and how it would impact

 By 2050 worlds 2/3 population would live in urban areas. In order to better our living conditions owing to congestion on account of population, artificial intelligence, and predictive technologies would have a major role to contribute to daily lives. Consider this, The subway system in North Korea in Seoul is generally managed through a sophisticated technology system that monitors daily traffic or footfall over the stations through data technologies. The administrators manage to pre-arrange and adjust the speed of trams and stoppage times based on the technology and the data gathering.

 This way they gather in advance the number of passengers and the time needed for them to board at different stations.Not only that, they keep citizens informed through social media and internet channels about the arrival of trains and stoppage times. Whats even more interesting is, that machine learning helps the administrators find faults and any kind of discrepancies in the tram equipments in advance. Thus, saving time and balancing processes at such a scale is only enabled through machine learning and artificial intelligence meeting scale and state-of-the-art infrastructure

 This is a typical example of data management models sitting at the core of AI.

 Ai and Digital Marketing

 In a digital landscape, a great user experience or user journey is where AI adapts to and makes payments and transactions much faster and eases decision-making algorithms.

 AI, therefore, holds a huge potential in the field of Digital marketing, predictive analytics, and targeted marketing and would surely provide for a smarter future and consequently, a better customer experience.

 We have advanced applications based on the same technology, This would also imply towards a change in the way we analyze and assess. Assessing current data to extrapolate future trends and benchmarking business excellence is a major key result area that we may for-see and it could be social media data, purchase pattern of customers or clinical data of customers mapped in a hospital. we would be able to predict our best customers and also offer them tailor-made answers to their questions which could be in the form of products and services.

 Automation in data and knowledge work is another major stakeholder. Insights and value-driven inferences would lead to broader perspectives.

 There would be a time in the near future where every company would increase their investments in artificial intelligence whether it is retail, healthcare, government and more. Inferences and value led insights would navigate the ever-evolving and rapidly changing the technological landscape.

 Think about precision targeting that is based on behaviors and backed by intelligence and a Marketers quickest response would be Artificial Intelligence.

 Mining customers based on their individual choices and preferences, and thereby Collecting and analyzing data to make specific decisions based on predictive technologies can leverage the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. Gone are the days of IP address based predictions, now AI maps customer journeys and targets based on customer choices and preferences.

 A great CRM tool coupled with analytics can be a very promising combination today but would soon be a hygiene. The intersection of AI and marketing enables Personalizes User Experience (UX). Artificial Intelligence tracks search queries generated through search engines. Hence the search engine today is smarter.

 Purchase behavior and multiple touch points lead to a pre-defined path based on search strings to get an exact match to the specifics that are custom generated through Artificial Intelligence. This automatically reduces complexity and noise leading to value-added conversions based on an exact match on demand and supply.

 Hello "Chatbots"

 Chatbots would be a common feature soon. Apps lead to bots and bots ultimately integrate with data and machine learning models.

 "A chatbot is a computer program or an artificial intelligence powered program which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods ; chatbots are typically used in customer service or information acquisition and many systems scan for keywords within the input, then pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a database." so says Wikipedia.

 Chatbots have been designed to boost business outcomes and craft superior experiences in order to better overall productivity. The purpose of a bot is also to apply and build meaningful responses to these unique requirements over time. They have been invented to provide for answers we are looking for. For example to be able to do a Web search without opening up multiple apps. you ask for it and it answers.

 for instance, I type on Facebook messenger and book for a dinner reservation, that should not be an issue.

 In yet another example, you ask for a data analysis report without juggling tabs and applying multiple commands, you will have an answer in fractions of a minute. Now, this is going to get that simple. An application in a  sharp contrast is going to be heavier and a tedious affair. Thus the arrival of a chatbot.

 Chatbots recognize keywords and access the database for input towards giving a predefined response. for example; configuration of a MacBook Air instead of MacBook.So imagine having your own personal assistant soon who could solve and answer questions of your customers, generate pre-scripted yet agile answers to perfection.

 Most important changes would be best seen in human to machine interaction. We would not be surprised to see chatbots as psychological counselors working with human emotions. Siri is a very simple yet minimal example.

 The retail industry is surely in for a big and deciduous change and as harsh as it may seem many in the industry would lose their jobs to chatbots. Instead, we would see a higher number of tech compliant jobs that also demand a higher skill set.

 Of course! There is innovation and there are opportunities for brewing.

 Some more popular examples :

 Heard of IBM Watson? The smart AI & machine learning based supercomputer. You throw off a challenge and IBM Watson gives you the answer, posed in natural language processing. It builds and analyses workflows for better processes.

 In our daily lives, Amazon has launched 'Alexa', your smart personal digital assistant that would do everything from booking a table for you in a restaurant to answering your queries on music.

 I personally believe that a large part of this innovation came to set in when Apple gave us iPhone. The connotation of technology just hit another trajectory with such an explosive shake-up.

 You might disagree, but I may go candid and say, since the launch of Apple iPhone, innovation has lately been a complete game changer. No wonder many stalwarts like Samsung have bowed to the "game-changing "blueprints and in fact followed suit. Off late, the features that come integrated with technology resonate with people's choices and preferences. We have more to see based on iterative refinement that clubs effectively with the digital future of the Gen Y and blends well with their lifestyles.

 There are other impacts of AI such as self-driving cars. Drones and many of the possible cyborg enhancements in our future everyday lives. Let's not forget Jarvis in movie " Iron Man", the lead protagonist of Tony stark industries. What better example to expatiate this. So a very simple and basic question arises, would our dependence on AI lead to the transfer of an autonomous control to man-made machines? How different the future looks now?

 Remember the sky net series, it is perhaps not very far from reality I suppose. But many argue that AI can be detrimental to the human race.

 The Pros and Cons: Do we need to stay on guard?

 As per an excerpt in the conversation.com,

 "The late Stephen Hawking was a major voice in the debate about how humanity can benefit from artificial intelligence. Hawking made no secret of his fears that thinking machines could one day take charge. He went as far as predicting that future developments in AI "could spell the end of the human race. Hawking cautioned against an extreme form of AI, in which thinking machines would "take off" on their own, modifying themselves and independently designing and building ever more capable systems. Humans, bound by the slow pace of biological evolution, would be tragically outwitted."

 At a gathering at the crown plaza hotel at New Delhi, we were listening to Mr. Ravinder Pal Singh, CIO, Tata Sia Airlines. He vehemently pointed out that customer trust factor on transactions can also decide the adoption of a particular technology, such is defined the role of chatbots in commerce transactions.

 Artificial intelligence may be the biggest shakeup in the technological landscape as such a system could potentially trigger self-improvements and modifications that would outwit the human intelligence. whilst we would go a sea change in technologies such as Banking, healthcare, Retail, Resistance to change, the absence of sponsorship, culture non-adherence by the top shots and many other factors contribute to hampering of non-adoption and compliance to such innovative technologies.

 There are other apprehensions, that a large number of the workforce or human labor may be replaced owing to the invasion and evolution of chatbots Or there is no replacement for human judgment and sixth sense?

 But many industries would benefit immensely too with critical information coming into better processor business outcomes.

 What cannot be ruled out though is that we have already embraced this change and barricading our limitations may be in the best interest of the times to come?

Know more about Artificial Intelligence at http://vivoki.com/

Author: Ms. Deepa Sayal ( Digital Mentor, Incubator, Entrepreneur and a tech evangelist with 20 years of holistic experience in the Information Technology domain and was featured in the CNBC TV-18 to be "amongst the 32 impactful women changing the Digital world" in India)

[cryptocoinguides]

Guide to Investing in Verasity

You must have spotted a chatbot in the bottom right corner of websites when checking your bank account, booking a train ticket, or booking a hotel stay,  and you must have also observed that it responds to you in some basic ways but transfers you to an actual human if things go out of hand. These are called bots and they can be found all over the internet.

Bots are programs that are built to perform a given activity at a rate that regular humans cannot, and because of this, they account for roughly 45 percent of all web traffic worldwide. The problem is these bots are not always nice; some of them are bad bots, and these bad bots are the internet’s main problem, gradually consuming the largest spending department: advertising. The online ad industry is worth around $400 billion, and 40%  or roughly $160B worth of advertisements is seen by bots.

And that’s a sizable sum and to give you an idea Qatar’s overall GDP is 160 billion dollars. Over half of the money spent on web advertisements is for views that aren’t even visible to humans.  Brands don’t want to pay a lot of money for their advertisements, according to the content creator,  because they aren’t sure if the ads on their content are being watched by humans or bots. For years, many businesses have been attempting to combat this. Here is where veracity comes in.

Hello and welcome to cryptos monopoly, my name is Daksh, this is the 100x crypto series, and in this episode, I will tell you about a very interesting project solving a major issue of the media world.  And at the end, I will give you my opinion on the veracity and also give my prediction,  so make sure you read this content till the end.

Verasity is all over the news nowadays and it’s in the news because it has recently received the US patent for its Proof of view algorithm, and it is the flagship algorithm of veracity that can differentiate between real and fake views solving the biggest problem of the Advertising industry. When a content creator submits a content to a veracity-enabled platform,  the bot views are instantly detected and removed, ensuring that only real human views are allowed in their content. 

It also ensures that the content viewed on the site is genuine, then confirms and records it as a permanent and irreversible public record. PoV was developed to provide solutions to two problems. 1. Fake views.

2. Big tech companies monopoly over ads. We have already seen how veracity is solving the first big problem that is the fake views now let us see how are they gonna stop the monopoly of big-tech companies over ads. And this is going to be important for you if you are planning to invest in veracity as this explains the whole ecosystem of veracity so make sure you pay attention to this.

Now before we move forward, if you are enjoying this content make sure you hit the like button. The way of viewing contents over the internet has changed significantly.  People nowadays focus on independent creators on free platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo.

The content creators, publishers, and small corporations in these existing mainstream sites get a small fraction of the value generated by viewers, and a large part goes to these big platform companies, and nowadays various mediums and middlemen,  everyone wants their cut, and demand higher quality content.

So, veracity saw this major problem and came with a solution. On the Verasity content sharing service, they restructured how people get paid.  Instead of Creators getting paid by Advertisers, Viewers reward Creators. This removes the influence that advertisers and other third parties have on how content is ranked or surfaced.

Content is now surfaced based on its value to the audience. All content views are then assessed by the Proof-of-View (PoV)

technology to ensure that they’re real and the content has been seen by a real person who is actually watching the content. Once a view has been confirmed as legitimate it is anonymized and then added to the Verasity Blockchain for 100% transparency.

By eliminating fake views, the Verasity ecosystem is able to fairly value content regardless of content type, audience demographic, or a third party’s monetization strategy. For all our users, this means a better, more fair, and valuable platform. Verasity has got something for everyone, here everyone wins. For Viewers: Such content is recommended and surfaced that has been seen and engaged by real users.  

A true value of the content can, therefore, be established and the most appropriate content for the viewer is surfaced. As viewers transact directly with creators, content can be accurately valued by the audience rather than distorted by a third party. 

For Creators: By building a real, engaged audience you can grow the value of your content and channel on Verasity With donations, pay-per-view, and subscription models all built-in,  everything from high reach quick clips to in-depth niche lectures can find a home with Verasity For Advertisers and Sponsors: They can Get seen by real users — no more inflated metrics.

Get real views and real reach By paying viewers directly for their attention, reach engaged and opt-in audiences rather than people just waiting for the “skip” button So, this is how veracity is tackling the two biggest problems of the advertisement industry.

But that’s not it Verasity has also developed its very own wallet called vera wallet. VeraWallet is the official wallet for VRA tokens. It has over 80,000 users worldwide,  it’s safe secure, and provides one of the best staking returns in the industry. Yes, if you hold your VRA in Verawallet and stake it you get up to 25%  interest annually and that’s an insane interest.

Btw, I am soon going to add a contentwhere I will show you how to stake VRA and earn free money so make sure you subscribe to this channel so that you don’t miss out on that content. Now let us see what has the veracity team achieved so far and pay attention to this because it will help you see how the team is working. Verasity was launched in 2019 and so far in this year, it (VRA) has risen almost 100x times.

The coin opened in 2021 trading at $0.0004482, but now VRA has valued at approximately $0.01266.  It has a market capitalization of $49m and makes it the 407th largest cryptocurrency. So far, 2021 has been great for veracity,  they’ve got their flagship algorithm Proof-Of-View patented.

They’ve launched various products and projects in the first quarter of 2021,  like the content-On-Demand sharing platform,  it also acquired content for VOD, and it also launched Esports Fight Club video player. In the second and third quarters, they’ve organized branded tournaments for influencers and streamers on their platform, and also launched an in-game advertisement with a gaming partnership.

The fourth quarter is going to be amazing for veracity as, In the fourth quarter, they have got  NFTs, which is quite a big thing for veracity, Previously NFT faced various challenges but according to veracity- The proof-Of-View can solve the major NFT’s challenges by creating transparent and unchangeable records of the NFT. They’ve also launched the EFC store and verawallet mobile apps.

Now that you know everything you need to about veracity  I would like to give my opinion and prediction of this coin. But before that, I want to clarify that this is just my opinion and not financial advice and before you invest you should always do your own research. Look, the advertisement industry spends around $400 billion on ads, and approx.

$160B wasted through ads watched by bots, and this is the main problem not only for advertisement companies,  but also for advertisement providers, and content creators. So sooner or later people will realize this problem and they will move towards such technologies which not only save their money from being wasted but also provide money to the content viewer. Just think about it if Verasity covers only the 10% percent market of that wasted $160B ads market.

It will be huge for investors. If that happens the market cap of veracity will be at  1.6 billion dollars and the price will shoot up. The market cap of veracity is around 49 million dollars and the circulating supply is 3.8 billion. So, if the circulating supply stays the same at the time the market cap increases to 1.6 billion,  the price of vra could easily reach 40 cents.

So, Verasity’s VRA is one of those tokens that are functional and potentially profitable.  Verasity not only has an impressive vision but also has dedication towards its plan and they already have released products with proper planning. For Q2 they planned an upgrade that will integrate through PoV enabled smart contract.  If everything goes according to plan then, this will be the most supported blockchain technology in future days because of its customer-centred projects.

I think this coin could be closing in 2021 years near the $0.1 but only if the bull run resumes. I truly think in two years or maybe sooner it will hit $1. And Simply because it is consistent, it has a good reputation over the years and it has patented PoV.

Now before I end this content, Let me tell you one more thing,  Verasity has recently applied for a new patent in competition with IBM, in which they can use NFT’s to host patents globally. So if you have new inventions or maybe a new product and you want to patent that, you could put that in veracity’s blockchain.

Read More: Verasity Keynote Speech at CoinTelegraph

The post Guide to Investing in Verasity appeared first on Crypto Coin Guides.

via Guide to Investing in Verasity

[slowlynuttyobservation]

Grafana Metabase

If you’ve ever done a serious web app, you’ve certainly met with a requirement for its monitoring, or tracking various application and runtime metrics. Exploring recorded metrics lets you discover different patterns of app usage (e.g., low traffic during weekends and holidays), or, for example, visualize CPU, disk space and RAM usage, etc. As an example, if the RAM usage graph shows that the usage is constantly rising and returns to normal only after the application restart, there may be a memory leak. Certainly, there are many reasons for implementing application and runtime metrics for your applications.

There are several tools for application monitoring, e.g. Zabbix and others. Tools of this type focus mainly on runtime monitoring, i.e., CPU usage, available RAM, etc., but they are not very well suited for application monitoring and answering questions like how many users are currently logged in, what’s the distribution of server response times, etc.

When comparing Grafana and Metabase, you can also consider the following products. Prometheus - An open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit. Tableau - Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. Connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click.

Here's what people are saying about Metabase. Super impressed with @metabase! We are using it internally for a dashboard and it really offers a great combination of ease of use, flexibility, and speed. Paavo Niskala (@Paavi) December 17, 2019. @metabase is the most impressive piece of software I’ve used in a long time.

时间序列，日志与设备运行数据分析选 Grafana；企业生产经营数据分析则可以选 Superset。 Metabase. Metabase 目前在 GitHub 上受欢迎程度仅次于 Superset，Metabase 也是一个��整的 BI 平台，但在设计理念上与 Superset 大不相同。. Kibana and Metabase are both open source tools. Metabase with 15.6K GitHub stars and 2.09K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Kibana with 12.4K GitHub stars and 4.81K GitHub forks.

In this post, I’ll show you, how to do real time runtime and application monitoring using Prometheus and Grafana. As an example, let’s consider Opendata API of ITMS2014+.

Prometheus

Our monitoring solution consists of two parts. The core of the solution is Prometheus, which is a (multi-dimensional) time series database. You can imagine it as a list of timestamped, named metrics each consisting of a set of key=value pairs representing the monitored variables. Prometheus features relatively extensive alerting options, it has its own query language and also basic means for visualising the data. For more advanced visualisation I recommend Grafana.

Prometheus, unlike most other monitoring solutions works using PULL approach. This means that each of the monitored applications exposes an HTTP endpoint exposing monitored metrics. Prometheus then periodically downloads the metrics.

Grafana

Grafana is a platform for visualizing and analyzing data. Grafana does not have its own timeseries database, it’s basically a frontend to popular data sources like Prometheus, InfluxDB, Graphite, ElasticSearch and others. Grafana allows you to create charts and dashboards and share it with others. I’ll show you that in a moment.

Publishing metrics from an application

In order for Prometheus to be able to download metrics, it is necessary to expose an HTTP endpoint from your application. When called, this HTTP endpoint should return current application metrics - we need to instrument the application. Prometheus supports two metrics encoding formats - plain text and protocol buffers. Fortunately, Prometheus provides client libraries for all major programming languages including Java, Go, Python, Ruby, Scala, C++, Erlang, Elixir, Node.js, PHP, Rust, Lisp Haskell and others.

As I wrote earlier, let’s consider ITMS2014+ Opendata API, which is an application written in Go. There is an official Prometheus Go Client Library. Embedding it is very easy and consists of only three steps.

Free microsoft office download for mac full version. The first step is to add Prometheus client library to imports:

The second step is to create an HTTP endpoint for exposing the application metrics. In this case I use Gorilla mux and Negroni HTTP middleware:

We are only interested in line 2, where we say that the /metrics endpoint will be processed by Prometheus handler, which will expose application metrics in Prometheus format. Something very similar to the following output:

In production, you would usually want some kind of access control, for example HTTP basic authentication and https:

Although we have only added three lines of code, we can now collect the application’s runtime metrics, e.g., number of active goroutines, RAM allocation, CPU usage, etc. However, we did not expose any application (domain specific) metrics.

In the third step, I’ll show you how to add custom application metrics. Let’s add some metrics that we can answer these questions:

which REST endpoints are most used by consumers?

how often?

what are the response times?

Grafana Metabase On Pc

Whenever we want to expose a metric, we need to select its type. Prometheus provides 4 types of metrics:

Counter - is a cumulative metric that represents a single numerical value that only ever goes up. A counter is typically used to count requests served, tasks completed, errors occurred, etc.

Gauge - is a metric that represents a single numerical value that can arbitrarily go up and down. Gauges are typically used for measured values like temperatures or current memory usage, but also “counts” that can go up and down, like the number of running goroutines.

Histogram - samples observations (usually things like request durations or response sizes) and counts them in configurable buckets. It also provides a sum of all observed values.

Summary - is similar to a histogram, a summary samples observations (usually things like request durations and response sizes). While it also provides a total count of observations and a sum of all observed values, it calculates configurable quantiles over a sliding time window.

In our case, we want to expose the processing time of requests for each endpoint (and their percentiles) and the number of requests per time unit. As the basis for these metrics, we’ve chosen the Histogram type. Let’s look at the code:

We’ve added a metric named http_durations_histogram_seconds and said that we wanted to expose four dimensions:

code - HTTP status code

version - Opendata API version

controller - The controller that handled the request

action - The name of the action within the controller

For the histogram type metric, you must first specify the intervals for the exposed values. In our case, the value is response duration. On line 3, we have created 36 exponentially increasing buckets, ranging from 0.0001 to 145 seconds. In case of ITMS2014+ Opendata API we can empirically say that most of the requests only last 30ms or less. The maximum value of 145 seconds is therefore large enough for our use case.

Finally, for each request, we need to record four dimensions we have defined earlier and the request duration.Here, we have two options - modify each handler to record the metrics mentioned above, or create a middleware that wraps the handler and records the metrics. Obviously, we’ve chosen the latter:

As you can see, the middleware is plugged in on line 8 and the entire middleware is roughly 20 lines long. On line 27 to 31, we fill the four dimensions and on line 32 we record the request duration in seconds.

Configuration

Since we have everything ready from the app side point of view, we just have to configure Prometheus and Grafana.

A minimum configuration for Prometheus is shown below. We are mainly interested in two settings, how often are the metrics downloaded (5s) and the metrics URL (https://opendata.itms2014.sk/metrics).

A minimal Grafana configuration:

Note: As we can see, a NON TLS port 3000 is exposed, but don’t worry there is a NGINX in front of Grafana listening on port 443, secured by Let’s Encrypt certificate.

Monitoring

Finally, we get to the point where we have everything we need. In order to create some nice charts it is necessary to:

Open a web browser and log into Grafana

Add Prometheus data source

Create dashboards

Create charts

An example of how to create a chart showing the number of HTTP requests per selected interval is shown on the following figure.

Similarly, we’ve created additional charts and placed them in two dashboards as shown on the following figures.

Summary

In this post, we have shown that the application and runtime monitoring may not be difficult at all.

Prometheus client libraries allow us to easily expose metrics from your applications, whether written in Java, Go, Ruby or Python. Prometheus even allows you to expose metrics from an offline applications (behind corporate firewalls) or batch applications (scripts, etc.). In this case, PUSH access can be used. The application then pushes metrics into a push gateway. The push gateway then exposes the metrics as described in this post.

Grafana can be used to create various charts and dashboards, that can be shared. Even static snapshots can be created. This allows you to capture an interesting moments and analyze them later.

Reports and Analytics

Powerful Enterprise Grade Reporting Engine

Elegant SQL interface for people who need a little more power

Widgets for Creating Bar Chars, Pie Charts, Line Graphs

Multiple Dashboards with different personal widgets

Create, organize, and share dashboards with others

Dashboards

Open Source

Completely Open Sources

Community Contribution Available

Simple to Use even for beginners

Install on premises or in the Cloud

Free and Simple to Use

Integrations

Integration with any Data Source in SQL

PostgreSQL, MySQL, Maria DB

Oracle, MS SQL or IBM DB2

Ready Plugins Available

Metabase Vs Grafana

Altnix Advantage

Metabase Consulting Services

Altnix provides Professional services for Consulting on Metabase products. Following items are covered:

Consulting Services for Metabase business intelligence tool

Best practices and guidelines on how to adopt the Metabase business intelligence tool

Architecture Design for Metabase

Technology Roadmap for Metabase adoption at your organization

Solution Design on using Metabase business intelligence tool

Metabase Implementation and Deployment

Altnix will implement Metabase based business intelligence and Analytics solution keeping in mind the business requirements. Implementation includes the following:

Integration with different databases and data sources

Extract Transform Load (ETL) Design

Designing Queries to be used in Metabase

Widgets and Dashboards design in Metabase

Reports Design in Metabase

Development and Design Implementation

UAT and Testing Activities

Production Implementation and Go Live

Warranty Support Period Included

Metabase Customization

Grafana Metabase On Twitter

Altnix will customize your Metabase installation so that it is a better fit for your business environment.

Creating new visualizations and dashboards as per customer needs

Creating custom reports and charts as per customer needs

Adding new scripts, plug-ins, and components if needed

Third-Party Integration

Altnix will integrate Metabase business intelligence tools with other third-party tools to meet several use cases.

Ticketing systems such as LANDesk, BMC Remedy, Zendesk, and ((OTRS)) Community Edition

ITSM Tools such as ((OTRS)) Community Edition, GLPi Network Editon, ServiceNow, and HP Service Manager

Monitoring tools such as Zabbix, Nagios, OpenNMS, and Prometheus

IT Automation Tools such as StackStorm, Ansible, and Jenkins

24x7 AMC Support Services

Altnix offers 24x7 support services on an AMC or per hour basis for new or existing installations on the Metabase Business intelligence tool. Our team of experts are available round the clock and respond to you within a predefined SLA.

Case Studies

Knute Weicke

Security Head, IT

Fellowes Inc, USA

Altnix was an instrumental partner in two phases of our Security ISO needs. The first being a comprehensive developed Service/Ticketing system for our global offices. The second being that of an Asset Management tool that ties all assets into our Ticketing systems to close a gap that we had in that category. They are strong partners in working towards a viable solution for our needs

The Altnix team was very easy to work with and resolved our needs in a timely manner. Working with Altnix, allowed us to focus on our core business while they handled the technical components to help streamline our business tools. We have found a strategic partner in Altnix

Johnnie Rucker

General Manager

Encore Global Solutions, USA

White Papers

[clubmoneda]

HIRE DEDICATED NODE.JS DEVELOPER | Node JS Development Company In USA

Node.JS is a runtime environment for open source applications that uses a unique I/O model for scalable tasks and requires real-time activities. The Node.JS Development Company in the USA is ideal for developing heavy I/O-driven web applications that require frequent customer-server data flow. Node.JS is perfect for creating web applications to run swiftly in real-time.

   Microsoft, Netflix, IBM, and PayPal are only a few business leaders using Node.js development services. Node.js is an incredibly convenient platform for application development. Node.js developers will plan and execute the code that means a better process of development on the server-side.

 Node.js is an open-source JavaScript environment for application development. Node.js integrates the development of applications, eliminating the need for multiple languages. It has been used mainly in real-time to create web applications. The overall Node.js ecosystem and its package manager also allow mobile app development. Node.js developers can also use the compiled code in other languages.

A total of 51% of Node.js developers revenue from web development because of its speed and multi-user competence. Node.js is a collection of the repository, framework, and other app development tools that simplify web application development and make it easy to create apps.

 The Node.js app can act better when you have no experience with Node.js. Undoubtedly, in the software development sector, Node.js has a perfect reputation. Several software development firms have used Node.js in their development services.

 Why Do You Need Node.JS for Your Real-Time App?

1. Performance

Node.JS is designed on the V8 engine of Google Chrome, compiling JavaScript into native machine code. Node.JS uses one thread, increasing every framework's speed, instead of multiple lines.

2. Flexible

An application with Node.JS is easily scalable because it includes nodes that communicate. There are three different ways to scale a Node.JS application, i.e. Cloning, Splitting and Decomposing.

3. Easy To Manage

Node.JS is a front-end developer that uses JavaScript, among the most popular programming languages. The use of Node.JS for backend simplifies and takes less time.

4. Using the Same Language on Both Sides

It is easy to use Node.JS on server and client-side to support developers to make things easier. Web applications are more comfortable to test and deploy since JavaScript enables most browsers.

5. Large Ecosystem and Community

Node.JS developers (about 7 million users) are in a large community that continuously improves. The Node.JS Package Manager supports 350,000 JavaScript open-source tools.

6. Smooth UI

UI is a front end challenge, but you have to get a great performance back end to make it very easy and smooth. Developers have to manage and optimize calls from the front end in customer orientations projects and understand basic UI/UX concepts.

 Node JS Development Services in the USA:

A successful Node.JS Development Company in the USA has experience in developing Node.js applications such as PayPal, LinkedIn, Trello, Yahoo, and Mozilla that will meet your business needs and replicate your goals if you want to build a lightweight, fast, and highly efficient application for your startup or large enterprise.

The Node.js developer team has the expertise and is highly experienced in developing network applications that are effective and versatile. For high-performance and fast development, they create REST APIs with node.js. Using this backend technology, they are confident to build top-notch apps to help you become market leaders.

This multi-platform, open-source programming environment provides enhanced features that help to develop fast, integrated, versatile, high-traffic, and mobile applications in real-time.

It is considered lightweight, reliable, easy to manage and ideal for large-scale real-time data-intensive applications. It employs an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model running across distributed devices.

Traits of Node.JS Applications: 

Some features of the Node.js applications are:

Incredibly     efficient

Greatly     Scalable

For     distributed networks, well-suited

When     processing media, non-existent buffering

Event-driven     and Sequential

 Why Hire Dedicated Node.JS Developer?

There are several reasons why you should consider Node.js for development if your aim is a classic web application, landing page, dashboard, or API:

Node.js     minimizes the development time: - Node.js     allows you to use the same code at all levels, including the browser,     backend and database levels, with a single code base. So there is no need     to write code from scratch at all times.

Lower budgets:     - Less time means lower costs. Also,     developers of JavaScript can code Node.js. If not, they will soon learn     this, since Node is part of JavaScript, meaning less investment.

Node.js has     options for an inbuilt chat: - A     chatting feature from NodeJS is easy to implement as a backend     technologies for an app.

Other     advantages include real-time application     development (messengers, gaming applications), fast code execution,     SEO-friendliness, proxy server application development.

 Skills Required

 a. For Junior Developers

Junior developers are normally recent IT college or academy graduates. You can't expect much experience, but you should know basic, like:

Node.js or     other popular application 

HTML DOM,     JavaScript and the events;

CSS3 and     HTML5;

Most significantly, the Juniors Node.JS developers should be ready to learn more. It would be a better place to allocate them to compile this learning with a more qualified middle-level developer.

 b. For Middle-Level Developers

The backbone of the Node.js developer team is the middle developers. They are skilled to work without supervision and will generally be able to solve any significant issue without escalating it. This position requires significantly more experienced developers. In addition to Junior strengths, strong developers of Middle Node.js should have:

Understanding on a conceptual level of the REST paradigm

2+ years of     Node.js work experience

Information of     at least one language for programming other than JS (C, PHP, Ruby, etc.)

Basic     knowledge and willingness to learn more about TypeScript/CoffeeScript

Fully     Understand MySQL, Docker, AWS, and other popular development and     deployment tools. 

Preferably, middle developers should be supportive and eager to guide juniors. It would be smart to have a reward program that facilitates the sharing of knowledge and helps juniors progress to the Middle Tier if you decide to hire the team for the long term.

 c. For Senior Node.js Developers

The driving     force of the team is the seniors. They manage the most challenging issues     and help the project manager plan the project. Their work is very vital,     and their responsibilities are tremendous. A successful senior developer     should be ready for everything. This requires a very dynamic set of     skills:

5+ years of     Node.js relevant work experience

TypeScript/CoffeeScript     experience

Experience     with the JS frameworks Angular, React, and other

Knowledge of     GOF and SOLID concepts

Mastery in a     different programming language

In-depth     knowledge of REST and RESTful API development experience

OAuth skills     and security criteria for an internet service

Senior Node.js developers can also excel in innovative designs because they always lead the project's development and decide how it is built precisely. Most significantly, a senior developer must be able to keep their expertise relevant and study other tools regularly.

 Advantages of Hiring Node.js Developers

The hiring of the Node.js offshore development team is the perfect way for businesses to reach the large pool of talent worldwide without investing a fortune on administrative expenses, vacations, insurance, etc. Additional advantages of working with a Node.JS Development Company in the USA include:

Higher Skills     for Candidates

 Node.JS Development Company in the USA invests in training their employees to remain competitive on the market. This involves signing and preparing them for different training programs.

Better     Performance

When you hire a Node.js development team, the project manager on their side typically coordinates the project. On-site, the organization, works for the remote team and ensures that the project is developed effectively and within the set timeframe. This helps you delegate deadlines for micro-management, scheduling, and setting to concentrate on the strategy and business objectives.

Responsibilities of Node.js Developers

Node.js is used most frequently in large scale applications where information is directly shared between the user and server. You can then consider the features for Node.js developers to hire:

Understand the     methods of Agile development

Understand and     work for the front end

Deliver a     simplified, readable and well-documented application.

Work with     cloud systems and databases

Understand the     fundamental principles of PI development 

Spot and     resolve problems in the software development process

Apart from     technical skills, Node.js developers team should be the dedicated 

 Choose a Node.JS Developer

If you wish to hire a Dedicated Node.js developer to achieve the best results, you must consider the country to find specialists and choose the best companies outsourcing Node.js development services. It is also crucial to estimate how much money you can spend on developing your project and choosing a proper Node.js developer. Your project span increases the choice of different engagement models, e.g. freelancers or dedicated Node.js developers. Overall, finding a Node.js developer with all the necessary abilities is, happily, an accessible task due to the success of Node.js, which needs meticulous consideration and analysis of different factors.

If you wish to hire the Dedicated Node.js Developer and achieve your projects quickly and efficiently, select a Node.JS Development Company in the USA with a vast diversity of professional Node.js developers.

 Delivered Projects Using Nodejs

Local     Directory web application that offers multiple services in the USA

Real-time     interaction application with NodeJS for hosting provider 

Dice Game     Hosted as a Web App using Node

Project for     Fintech with MEAN Stack

The online     application providing a chat for the delivery and courier business

Web     application for the business providing globalization and localization     services

 Application of Node.JS

Node.JS platform is perfect for building heavy I/O web applications enable a client-server to get a frequent flow of data. Node.JS is suitable for developing web applications in real-time that work effectively.

 1. Rooms for Consultations

Real-time chats are also commonly used in social media, online games, etc. This means the exchange from sender to the recipient of text, pictures, audio and video content. Node.JS makes it simple to create real-time chats and has an API that issues coder-programmed events, making it an excellent option for apps with push notifications.

 2. Streaming Applications

Node.JS has a Native API for the streaming of applications, making it the right choice. A streaming app usually includes part of a file to download when demanded. Node.JS enables you to process files when downloading them. For example, on websites for the video streaming that download a part of a video file while watching the video.

 3. IoT: (Internet of things)

Many organizations use Node.JS to build their IoT systems as their first preference. The data typically flows from devices to servers and from servers to user-processed software in an IoT framework.

Node.JS Trends

Netflix, PayPal, LinkedIn, AliExpress and other leading technology companies have demonstrated the true value of Node.js. This will continue with these development trends.

 Micro Services

Instead of single-server applications, more companies use multiple micro server software. It allows the scalability and reuse of different code units.

 Architecture     without Server

The absence of code processing servers and, instead, event-driven architecture control by events. The benefits are increased code quality, reduced costs, and flexible code modules.

 MEAN &     MERN Stack 

MEAN – Node.js, MongoDB, and Express, Angular. 

MERN – MongoDB, Express, Node.js, React. 

Both make it easy to code complex web/mobile applications.

 Real-Time Apps

Engagement with the user is essential. Node.js offers real-time features for exchanging documents, social networks, conference calls, online gaming, chat apps etc.

 GraphQL 

The data query and query runtime are open sources for APIs as well. Working on different platforms and simple integration with React is the advantage.

 Conclusion:

Node.JS Development Company in the USA is the software company that uses Node.js for web and mobile app backends, APIs, IoT applications, etc. Node.js is not a computer programming language a platform for running JavaScript code on the server-side.

With this leading platform, Node.JS Development Company in the USA can give extremely reliable backend solutions. With Node incredibly popular, there has also been an increase in companies offering Node-based development services. It would help if you analyzed potential companies based on skill, competence, customer feedback on specific platforms, and their portfolio, to select the best.

If you have planned to hire a Dedicated developer for Node.js, it's essential to consider various engagement models. There are many alternatives that it becomes onerous to choose between regular in-house work, outsourced specialized teams, and freelancers. You should also carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative.

For more information:  https://arksstech.com/node-js-development/

[akhilacynixit]

Microsoft Biztalk Server

BizTalk is a Microsoft-led industry initiative to encourage Extensible Markup Language (XML) as the universal language of data exchange. This is for Internet e-commerce and application integration. The community is promoting a shared XML message-passing architecture to bind systems together, although not a standard body per se. BizTalk says that e-commerce growth allows companies using various computer technology to have the means to exchange data. The BizTalk community offers guidelines, referred to as the BizTalk System, for how to publish schema (standard data structures) in XML. And it offers how to use XML messages to incorporate software programs, embracing XML as a platform-neutral way to represent data conveyed between computers.

BizTalk Server is a Microsoft middleware product that helps to link different systems together.

Let's take an example

If you look at any modern company, it probably uses several software products to run its operations. SAP for their ERP needs, Salesforce for their CRM requirements, Oracle for their Database needs, plus loads of other HR, Finance, Web, Smartphone, etc. homegrown systems.

Learn more from biztalk certification training

SAP systems

These systems need to speak to each other at one point in time, such as customer data residing in your SAP system might be needed in your CRM (Salesforce) system. The contact information you obtained from your company website needs to go through a few backend systems. Such as CRM, ERP, marketing, etc., similarly.

By allowing each system to communicate to all dependent underlying systems, this business need can be approached in a layman's way. The site will have a piece of code from our example that will update contact information in CRM, ERP, marketing systems, etc. (similar to how each system will update relevant systems with its implementation). If you go down this path, you will end up with two key problems: one that generates a spaghetti of connections/dependencies between different systems. And another that you need to touch multiple systems when a minor change is needed. There are many other issues, such as knowing the interfaces of all the underlying systems, the protocol of transport, data formats, etc.

Biztalk server

This middleman style problem is solved by-products such as the BizTalk server (there are other suppliers including Tibco, MuleSoft, IBM Web sphere, Message Broker).

When using BizTalk Server, all systems are only connected to one central system, i.e. the BizTalk server and BizTalk must transmit the message to the underlying system. It takes care of the numerous obstacles I have previously highlighted.

Imagine a BizTalk server as a postman delivering letters in a real-world example. It is difficult for us all to go and deliver letters to each address, so we take them to the post office and they take care of delivering them.

If you look at the BizTalk server from the perspective of a bird's eye, you can see that it is middleware. A middleman who works between two companies, processes, and/or applications as a communicator. On the internet, you will find several diagrams that explain this process as a middleman or tunnel that two ready systems use to exchange their data.

To know more about Biztalk server learn biztalk server training

 Biztalk server data molding

If you want to look at it from a more technical point of view, then you might conclude that it is an instrument for incorporation and/or transformation. BizTalk server has the infrastructure to provide a communication platform with the potential to provide the desired data molding and transformation, with its comprehensive and highly controlled system. In organizations, the desired objective is data sharing with accuracy and minimal effort. Here, the BizTalk server plays a critical role and offers data sharing services in a way that your apps can understand. It makes applications open to each other and enables information to be submitted and obtained, regardless of what sort of applicant is eligible for the information.

Biztalk server messaging

You can find a messaging engine based on SOA if you go deeper. Microsoft used XML to make BizTalk work. People claim that the only XML understands the BizTalk server. Not true, it's also possible to submit binary files via the BizTalk server. But you can only play in XML when you want features, logging, business rules, etc. BizTalk has an SOA (Services Oriented Architecture) and there are several types of adapters available that can be updated and configured at the administrative level to communicate with various types of systems.

I would like to talk about the Message Box next.

 Main components

You can differentiate into four components.

Receive port

The receive port is where we receive requests, and the send port is where we send requests, although it can seem obvious. But what are the message box and pieces of orchestration?

Flow of execution

Next, let's analyze the flow of execution. Via an adapter we have configured, the message enters the receive port and it reaches the receive port as we configure the location and adapter of its receiver. Then it goes into the message box via the pipeline. A message is sent from the message box to the subscribed port. Notice that more than one port will send this message. The message is published to all recipients in the message box. The message is sent to the port's orchestration mechanism as the port is marked and then again, sent back to the message box. It is then sent to the chart and pipeline of the harbor.

The adapter eventually takes the message where it should go. Maps, according to your needs, are optional. The pipeline is mandatory, but there are few built-in pipelines available, and if you don't want to do it on pipelines, you can use them.

To Learn more about Biztalk server messaging learn Biztalk course

Arrival message

The message box is simply a database of SQL Server results. Here we describe the arrival message that should be sent to the port. With the special signature, the message arrived; we call it the message namespace. This namespace in the subscription should be exclusive. This allows BizTalk to deliver messages to the right spot. There is the other kind of subscription message and even untyped messages that are routed but outside the reach of this overview based on information that they contain.

The place of receipt is further applied to the place of receipt, pipeline, and maps. In such a way, the receive port execution is completed, the first adapter then pipelines, and then port. As a separate artifact, the receive location is here. To activate the service, it is necessary to configure the receiving place. Here to get a message, we determine what adapter will be used. Further, here we should introduce a pipeline. Before submitting the message to the message box, the pipeline is used to perform any operations. We will normally disassemble any file.

Inbound maps

Then there are the inbound maps, and we can map the operation here. BizTalk Mapper is a tool that ships with a wide range of mapping operations with a BizTalk Server.

Orchestration is an execution of the logic of your business. Microsoft offers a BizTalk template with a GUI interface for orchestration, routing, and other elements that will be installed in Visual Studio.

Conclusion

Based on subscriptions, messages are sent to the orchestration and then again to the Message Box to take care of the changes made during the orchestration and, eventually, to the sending port. We also have a map, pipeline, and adapter at the sending port to allow any modifications at the sending end. Compared to the receiving port, this execution happens in reverse order. You can learn more about this through biztalk online training india

[brianobrienny]

10 Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks from Top Brands

There is no doubt that digital marketing or online marketing is crucial when it comes to the success of any business no matter what industry you are in. Unlike the past where businesses used traditional advertising, today, they are not as effective as online advertising and this has pushed many businesses to adopt online advertising to reach customers. Online marketing is the way to go if you want to reach and create a connection with customers.

Gone are the days when it was difficult to understand what customers want. Today, with the increase in tools such as analytics and digital marketing software, it is far easier to guess — nay, estimate — customer behavior… and cater to it! Online marketing has enabled businesses to gain treasured insights to customers’ minds.

When implemented in the right way, digital marketing will enable your business to target and reach its customers, classify new ones, increase sales, and experience lasting growth.

These digital marketing approaches will make your business visible to your existing customers online and connect you with new ones.

What is Digital Marketing Today?

Digital marketing is the use of the internet and electronic devices to make your business known to your existing and new customers both locally and internationally. It is a means of advertising done through digital platforms like social media, email, mobile apps, websites and search engines.

It today’s digital world, marketing is about connecting with your prospective customers in the right place and at the desired time, selling them with goods and service they need at the right time. This means that you need to target them where they spend most of their time and in this case, it is the internet. Digital marketing encompasses a range of marketing activities such as content marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization, mobile marketing and more.

That being said, below, we’ve compiled a list of the digital marketing tricks used by all the famous business brands in the world.

1. Combine SEO and Content Marketing

SEO used to be a function of coding. Today, most of the metrics included in Google’s algorithm have to do with content and the engagement you win through the distribution of great content. Using various types of content (visual, text, video, infographics, audio, etc) does much better than using a single type of content.

More content – As more businesses embrace content marketing, competition continues to get tougher. Everything you do online is drowned in noise and information overload. If it’s SEO many businesses are doing it. If it’s posting good and original content, many are doing it. So, to beat them, you need to publish better and more content. According to HubSpot data, publishing at least once a week is critical for ROI and ROI drops pretty precipitously when you publish less frequently. However, it’s not about quantity or quality, but an ideal mix of both.

Valuable content – Content should be entertaining, informative, or make the reader feel something. Valuable content encourages subscription to your email, sharing, comments, and other actions that contribute to ROI.

Original content – Content can be audio, video or text but when you decide to use one or all of these digital content, ensure it is good and original. If you can’t create unique, compelling and good content by yourself, you can hire an expert to create content for your website and social media platforms. This is where you will need a powerful content marketing plan like never before.

Appropriate content – As you can see from this infographic from Occam’s Razor, you need to produce content that’s right for each stage in the conversion process (and your metrics need to match your goal with each piece of content).

Image courtesy of Occam’s Razor

Knowing where a visitor is in the conversion process isn’t always easy, but, if you’ve done a good job of coding content (applying tracking codes so you know what type of content drove them to visit your site) and use tools that let you track where visitors have been before, you can make an educated guess as to what content they need. By delivering the right content at the right time, you’re more likely to convert visitors.

Reach is important. The more visitors you bring to your site, all things being equal, the higher your ROI. This is one of the reasons it’s important to have several social platforms and have links on your content so visitors can easily share your content. You should share your content once it’s published and here’s a schedule recommended by Kissmetrics:

In addition to sharing your own content, you should share content created by other great companies/ experts. Many experts recommend you share 20% your promotional content and 80% other valuable content you find.

2. Have a Visible Presence on Relevant Social Media Platforms

Being seen online is the key to success for every business, especially in today’s world where almost all businesses have gone digital. It is one of the ways to stand out from the crowd. For this reason, you need to build your online presence on social media networks of relevance. Note that there are plenty of social networks available but you need to identify where your customers spend most of their time and target them there. Pick those that are relevant to your business and prospects and build your online presence there.

3. Optimize Your Website for Mobile-First Browsing

To ensure your content is mobile friendly, your website and social media networks are accessible on desktops and mobile devices. Customers are currently using smartphones and tablets to access the web. So, it is crucial to make your website and content accessible to users on all screen sizes.

4. Use the Right Tools

Digital marketing is an amalgamation of different strategies aimed at a plethora of channels, like SEO, PPC, social media, and so on. In order to ensure that you have an integrated marketing mix, you need the right digital marketing tools to help you run effective campaigns. You also need to develop expertise in using them and applying the insights in the right context.

5. Be Awesome at Design

Design underpins much of what makes digital marketing success. Whether you’re designing a website, a landing page or creating an image for your website, ad, or infographic, you need to have good design skills. Not all of us are whiz kids when it comes to design, but there are some tools to help.

Canva – is a great tool for creating social media images whether you need them for your profile or as images to include in posts. One aspect of Canva I really like is the templates that help design great looking images even if you know nothing about layout or what fonts go together. They’re constantly adding new images and tools, such as infographic templates, to help you out.

Photoshop – granted it’s expensive, but Photoshop is a great design tool. Luckily, you can now get the entire creative cloud from Adobe for as low as $29/ month if you’re in school and a little more to use for business. It used to be more difficult to use Photoshop, but now there are tons of tutorials on YouTube and Photoshop now includes little mini tutorials if you hover over the buttons.

Kuler – If mixing colors isn’t your forte, then Adobe Color is for you. It lets you import an image and get the colors used or you can choose a color to get colors that coordinate well with it.

6. Create an Email List

This should be done from the beginning of your business. If you are on the startup phase, you need to make an email list when planning. Ensure to gather people’s emails where you will be sending them any updates and progress of your business. Send them useful information but avoid spamming them.

7. Spend on Digital Advertising

Online advertising, including PPC (pay per click) campaigns such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, social media advertising on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and mobile ads are great to support digital marketing success.

8. Use Infographics

People love infographics because they are attractive. Note that our brains can process pictures must quicker than text. A picture is worth a thousand words, and people will share them more often than texts.

Here are some examples of the best content infographics that awesome marketers have created and used to resonate with their audience.

9. Closely Watch Your Analytics

Almost the other end of the spectrum from creativity is analytics, but that’s exactly the combination you need for digital marketing success. Google Analytics is perfect for understanding critical elements of your website and how visitors navigate through it. If you’re trying to learn how to gain insights from Google Analytics, you can use the Google Data Studio to give it a test drive using data from Google’s e-commerce site.

For analytics outside of Google Analytics, a number of great tools exist. You can use individual analytics from each social network (ie. Facebook, Pinterest, etc), you can bring them all to one place by using a dashboard program such as Cognos (from IBM), or you can pay for a more powerful tool to gain more insights.

10. Integrate Strategies and Campaigns Across Channels

Integrating across these tactics can be really challenging, especially in a larger firm where different teams may manage different platforms or where different ad agencies handle different aspects of marketing, such as content marketing, paid, and social. But, integrate you must to achieve true digital marketing success.

A big part of conversion is frequency and unless efforts are coordinated, you lose out on frequency.

Let’s talk about how you go about integrating across these tactics that contribute to digital marketing success.

Strategic planning

The first step in integration is to have a strategic plan. Don’t have one, here’s a link to creating a digital marketing plan.

Coordination comes from strategic elements such as messaging, but even elements such as mission and goals help integrate efforts by creating an umbrella under which teams create posts, infographics, and the metrics used to assess them.

Creative meetings

Bringing everyone together is important. Everyone should have time to share elements they’re working on and get input from the group about ways to extend a particular effort across multiple platforms and creative efforts.

Having a style guide is a must. In the style guide, list the color palette, fonts, and approved variations so there’s consistency across your marketing efforts (including traditional advertising). Copies of various sizes and types of logos, images of the leadership team, and other graphic elements may be part of the style guide.

A master plan

There needs to be a point person in charge of digital marketing success and that person is key to coordinating efforts across teams. Some organizations have an approval process where the top person must approve everything before it goes live. I’m not a big fan of this approach because it can slow the process down and, unlike traditional advertising, digital media is a fast-flowing river where putting in a dam causes the flow to back up and allows accumulation of a lot of flotsam and jetsam, which is both stinky and further jams the pipeline.

A better strategy is to use a digital master calendar or another device, such as an app, to allow everyone to post what they’re working on, the assets they plan to use, and when the creative effort will go live. But, it’s not enough to post plans, but everyone should be required to check this master calendar every day to see where their plans fit into those already in the works.

For instance, reusing a graphic created by another team not only saves time and money, it creates a visual that helps consumers (customers and potential customers) associate the two efforts–and increases frequency.

Your Turn

Digital marketing is a must for your business success, and we hope our list of tricks will keep you headed in the right direction. These tricks are tried and tested and when you implement them effectively, you can get ahead of your competition.

If you want your business to succeed online in today’s digital world, then these digital marketing tricks will come in handy. What tips would you add to this list? Tell us in the comments below!

The post 10 Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks from Top Brands appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

10 Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks from Top Brands published first on http://rssmix.com/u/11592782/rss.xml

[wesleybates]

Top 5 Web-Based Web Design Tools That Should Be On Every Web Developer’s Radar

Like all other professions, a web designer’s tools are what helps bring the final product to life. The ways in which websites are created has changed drastically over the years. It is no longer enough to simply slap copy and pictures on a page.

Now, websites must be responsive, mobile-optimized, aesthetically pleasing, and crawlable by search engine bots. There are many tools out there that web developers can use to help deliver a website that stands out from all other sites on the web, but how do you go about picking out the one that is right for you?

We have searched the web and have created a list of the top five web design tools that we believe can help lead you to achieve success.

What are the best web-based web design tools out there?

SILEX

Silex is 100 percent free and 100 percent online. Silex is a web design tool that allows you to create responsive websites based on open standards and is suitable for any skill level. With Silex you can build websites from within your browser, with no installation required. Your silex.me files are stored on your computer’s hard drive, and available through Dropbox or on your server via FTP. This means you will never lose your work, and you can save from any computer, at any location.

Silex is equipped with a WYSWIG editor, which allows you to drag and drop HTML elements to piece your sites together. Best of all, you can view your changes immediately after publishing. If you are a more experienced developer and are familiar with CSS and JavaScript, you can use Silex’s integrated editors effortlessly to add styles to your pages.

In addition to these great features, Silex provides you with numerous free and paid templates and widgets, along with built-in SEO features to ensure the websites you create are search engine friendly. The only drawback of Silex is that they will not host your site. However, they do provide tips and tricks to get you started.

WEBFLOW

WebFlow helps web developers from all different skill levels create dynamic, responsive websites without writing a single line of code. Say goodbye to spec docs, and hello to innovative web design. WebFlow is a cloud-based program equipped with drag and drop features that help you create professional, responsive websites with little effort.

This powerful tool gives you, the developer, the power to build websites how you want. That means visually appealing websites that are also clean and comprised of W3C compliant HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Responsiveness is at the heart of Webflow, which means you don’t have to worry about media queries or breakpoints. These are completely managed by the WebFlow code generator engine. Sounds nice, right?

WebFlow is used by over 500,000 web designers, developers, and business professionals. Some major corporations that use WebFlow for web design include MTV, IBM, Dell, Under Armour, and Intuit, adding to its credibility of being a powerhouse in the web design industry. To help get you started WebFlow offers an abundance of courses and tutorials all aimed at getting you acquainted with the software.

You can sign up for WebFlow for free and gain access to many free website templates. However, to build enterprise grade websites and access all of WebFlow’s features you will need to join a paid subscription.

SQUARE SPACE

Square Space is one of the oldest web design tools available to web developers. Though it is one of the oldest, it has been able to keep up with demands of modern website design techniques. Square Space boasts award-winning templates that help developers of all skill levels create responsive and visually stunning websites from the very start. Building sites on Square Space is easy and fast with drag and drop features. You can make your website stick out from the crowd with customizable settings and page configurations.

What’s great about Square Space is that their templates are mobile-optimized to work across all devices. From laptops to tablets, to smartphones, your websites will look the same regardless of the device your viewers are using. Square Space even provides you with the ability preview how your website will look on different screen sizes before you publish. Best of all, content on your sites will load at lightning speed on mobile devices with Accelerated Mobile Pages by Google.

In addition to site speed, Square Space’s templates come loaded with built-in integrations, so you don’t have to mess with installing any plugins on your site that will affect site speed. Square Space also helps you get found on the search engines with built-in SEO features. After all, what good is a website if you can’t be found?

You can get started for free on Square Space with a free 14-day trail, and gain access to hundreds of free templates. Absolutely no credit card is required to start your free trial. After your trial is expired, you have the option to upgrade to a paid subscription at a very reasonable price.

WORDPRESS

Even if you are new to the web design industry, you have probably heard of WordPress. WordPress can help you build sites as simple or as complex as you want, making it the perfect option for newbies and experienced web developers alike. WordPress boasts that it powers 27 percent of the Internet and prides itself on being the easiest place for web developers to get started,

The great thing about WordPress is its versatility. WordPress’ unique software makes it perfect for a blog, full website, photo gallery, or combination of a few. Designing sites on WordPress will give you access to hundreds of customizable themes, with new themes being added on a weekly basis. In addition, all WordPress sites are mobile friendly and are optimized for speed. WordPress sites come equipped with built-in SEO features, ensuring your websites can be found for users conducting search queries on the search engines.

What really sets WordPress apart from the competition is the in-depth stats you can gather from website visitors, such as where they are from, what content they read, and what times they visit your site. With WordPress’ built-in website stats, built-in social sharing, and world-class customer service, you really can’t go wrong.

WordPress offers a variety of pricing models from free to $24.99 per month. Each plan provides you with different features. Check out WordPress’ pricing structure to determine which model works best for your needs.

WIX

We couldn’t complete the list of the top five web design tools without mentioning Wix. Wix used to be Flash-based but has made the switch to HTML5, which makes it a very attractive tool for the modern website developer. Wix provides users with thousands of responsive and visually appealing templates for free.

With Wix’s drag and drop functionality, there is absolutely no need to write code. In addition to the easy-to-use drag and drop features, Wix also provides image editors, and thousands of free fonts, colors, and text effects. One of the features that helps Wix to stand out from the other web design tools is its online app market, where you are able to add popular Apps to add additional value to your sites. With the plethora of templates available, along with the ability to add unique apps, no two Wix websites are the same.

Wix has a free version, which will provide you with hundreds of templates, unlimited pages, and free hosting. However, to obtain additional features such as more storage, VIP support, Ad Vouchers, additional bandwidth, and more, you will need to upgrade to a paid monthly subscription plan.

Where Do I Go From Here?

With the mass amount of online web design tools available at your fingertips, finding the right tool may seem like an impossible task. Luckily, many top website design tools allow you to sign up for free trials to help you gauge if the software is the right fit for your personal web design needs.

Tools such as Silex, Wix, and WordPress offer completely free versions, with the option to pay up for more features. Other tools like WebFlow and Square Space are paid tools, but provide free trial memberships to let you try the software before investing in it.

The first step in creating eye-catching, responsive websites is to find a tool to assist you. Start by signing up for a free-trial for one or more of these five web design tools so you can determine which tool would help you reach your objectives. Down the road, you may even invest in multiple tools, depending on the types of sites you plan to create.

Here at Web Development Company Pagosa Springs, CO, we offer different digital services, including web hosting to help you get to the top of your niche. Get in touch with one of our experts now by completing the form below.

[jccamus]

AI for developers

AI for developers https://ift.tt/2vwOYvC

Cedalian on the shoulders of the giant Orion (source: Wikimedia)

Enterprises today are working hard to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) to compete. The greatest challenge they face is that AI represents a true paradigm shift for how we solve problems using software and data. Not only must your organization acquire or build new skills, but it must also unlearn patterns that previously made it successful. This unlearning/learning challenge exists at all levels — for an experienced professional, for an organization, for a company. And if it’s difficult for an individual to adapt, it’s a million times harder for a company to adapt.

Based on my success driving a large-scale development tools transformation initiative at IBM in the mid-2010s, last year (2019) I got the opportunity to lead IBM’s AI for developers mission within the Watson group. It turned out that my lack of personal experience with AI was an asset, as I could experience my own learning journey and thus gain deep understanding and empathy for the developers and the companies whom I would be helping to accelerate.

This article shares what I learned in the first year with the goal of helping other developers and leaders of development organizations who might embark on a similar learning journey.

Drinking from a firehose

The absent-minded maestro was racing up New York’s Seventh Avenue to a rehearsal, when a stranger stopped him. “Pardon me,” he said, “can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?”

“Yes,” answered the maestro breathlessly. “Practice!” — E.E. Kenyon

The most important skill of a knowledge worker is your ability to learn. To succeed and thrive, you must be intentional with your approach to learning, with a focus on only consuming quality information and in an efficient manner [1]. In my 20 years in the tech industry, I have developed my own approach to effective learning, which I describe briefly here.

I alternate between studying concepts and applying these concepts in realistic but tractable practice settings, grounded in Ericsson’s theory of deliberate practice [2]. In the case of learning about a technology like AI, I work to understand how others have applied it (the problem space) and to understand the cases in which the technology is superior to alternatives, which in this case is traditional programming (the solution space). This is important when embracing a new technology because it helps ward off the golden hammer problem (if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail) as well as understanding the art of the possible and thus avoiding magical thinking. Finally, beyond self-study and practice, my learning relies heavily on discussions with experts, which frankly is the greatest luxury and privilege of being an IBM Distinguished Engineer.

My own learning journey for AI turned out to be the most intense and difficult learning I’ve done since getting my computer science degree at Penn State. AI was just so different from traditional programming! It was so difficult to rewire my mind to think about software systems that improve from experience [3] vs. software systems that merely do the things you’ve told them to do. And the math and statistics—I thought I left those things behind in college with my dumb haircut!

When you are mired in a swamp of complexity, you need tractable conceptual frameworks that help you gain a footing. For my own AI learning journey, I found this in The AI Ladder.

The AI Ladder

All models are wrong, but some are useful. — George Box

Early in my career I thought it was a bit uncool to work for a very old tech company. But as the years went by and as I saw both startups and established firms go out of business or get acquired and assimilated into obscurity, I came to gain deep pride in IBM’s adaptive capacity. If you think about it, the ultimate superpower of both humans and of human organizations is our ability to learn and adapt to changing circumstances, and a company cannot survive in the tech industry if it cannot reinvent itself every 10 to 20 years. IBM has reinvented itself many times over—it’s a core competency.

Through this lens, one may understand that another core competency of IBM is to help other companies adapt, which is very hard to do at scale. IBM does this holistically, with consulting, services, and technology. In the case of AI, IBM had developed a conceptual model to help enterprises reason about AI-based transformation called the AI Ladder [4].

The AI Ladder has four conceptual rungs: collect, organize, analyze, and infuse. The fuel of AI is data, but all enterprises have a massive data sprawl problem because of years of siloed IT work, the projects vs. products mentality, and acquisitions. In any given enterprise, you might have twenty databases and three data warehouses with redundant and different data about customers and customer relationships, and then you have the same problem for several hundred other data types (orders, employees, product information, etc.). IBM promoted the AI Ladder to conceptually climb out of this morass and we organized around it, with new learning offerings, new professional services, and an updated data and AI software portfolio, including significant updates and changes to mainstays like databases and analytics/reporting as well as brand new products in our AI portfolio.

IBM’s AI Ladder: Collect, Organize, Analyze, Infuse (source: IBM)

The most interesting rung for me was “infuse” which deals with how a company fundamentally improves its user experiences, its capabilities, and its business processes by integrating trained machine learning (ML) models into production systems, and designing feedback loops such that the models continue to improve from the experience of being used.

As an example, imagine that Blockbuster Video in the 1990s had a data science department (it probably did). Their head of retail could ask this data science department to analyze sales trends to inform the mix of movies displayed on shelves, by region, with updates to the basic model on a quarterly basis. This is certainly applied data science and may even make use of machine learning, but it is not infused. Now consider the Netflix recommendation system. To the user, it’s a similar grid of potential movies to watch, but behind the scenes there are sophisticated machine learning models personalizing not just the selection of movies but even the screen art, all with the performance goal of keeping you happily engaged inside the Netflix app. That’s infused AI, even though users don’t realize it.

Where does this leave developers? The skill set for machine learning and software engineering is mostly non-overlapping, except for very fundamental things like “complex problem solving” and “programming.” The AI Ladder framework initially made me think that developers needed to wait for someone to collect, organize, and analyze their data, ultimately resulting in machine learning models that the developer could then integrate (infuse) into applications and business processes. While this is often the case for specialized models (like the Netflix recommendation system), it turns out that there is a class of problems where developers can skip right to infuse.

When my manager Beth Smith first told me this, I found it confusing—the ladder must be climbed! But as I continued my learning journey, I realized (unsurprisingly) Beth was completely right, and it’s grounded in some of the most fundamental principles of software engineering and architecture, which I understand very well.

Fundamentals

The entire history of software engineering is that of the rise in levels of abstraction. — Grady Booch

In 1972, Canadian software engineering pioneer David Parnas wrote his paradigm-establishing paper On the criteria to be used in decomposing systems into modules that popularized now-fundamental software engineering concepts like modularity, encapsulation, and information hiding. You can trace a straight line from the perceived benefits of microservices architectures back to Dr. Parnas’s groundbreaking paper.

Sometime between reading this paper many years ago and my 2019 study of AI, I had tacitly come to think of APIs as simply a mechanism to make your service more useful to other services and to aid in rapid composition of services into applications. I’d somehow forgotten that APIs are also a useful mechanism for making some difficult software implementation accessible to a broad audience [5]. As a simple example, think about this Google search query:

google.com/search?q=Watson

This simple URL that you can paste into any web browser encapsulates tremendously complex computing, Internet, web, information retrieval, and machine learning technology for which our industry have collectively invested literally hundreds of billions of dollars to make possible.

APIs are a special case of Parnas’s concept of information hiding in that they make three related assumptions [6]:

The API creator does not directly collaborate with the API consumers

There are many, typically heterogeneous, consumers

The interface must be designed for durability, as breaking changes are horrendously expensive for the community to absorb in aggregate

This fundamental of software architecture also helps explain Beth’s statement and informs how we may — in some scenarios — jump to the top of the AI Ladder.

On the shoulders of giants

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. — Isaac Newton

Academia and industry have been working towards today’s machine learning technology for many, many years and we as a civilization crossed some sort of threshold in the past five to ten years such that these technologies are now accessible to any hacker, startup, government, or enterprise.

While it is necessary for you to climb the AI Ladder for custom models — that is those models where you collect the data, organize it, select the ML algorithm(s), and train the models [7]— it is also possible to encapsulate and thus outsource the lower rungs to external experts, in two scenarios:

Developer APIs

AI applications (not covered here)

Several years before I joined Watson, previous leaders had reasoned—correctly—that we could use the combination of APIs, pre-built ML models, and (optional) tooling to encapsulate the collect, organize, and analyze rungs of the AI ladder for several common ML domains including natural language understanding, conversations with virtual agents, visual recognition, speech, and enterprise search, to name a few.

Let’s use Watson’s Natural Language Understanding (NLU) as an example. Human language is incredibly rich and complex and, as a practical matter, impossible to understand using traditional programming. However, machine learning (especially the deep learning variety) is now very good at understanding many aspects of language including concepts, relationships between concepts, and emotional content, to name a few. We can explain this via analogy: a human child learns language through sensory input (hearing others speak), practice (trying words and phrases), error correction (a parent correcting wrong usage or pronunciation), and repetition (kids like to talk!). On the other hand it would be ludicrous to teach a child to speak via vocabulary and grammar textbooks. We teach our NLU service to understand language in a conceptually similar way, though with (obviously) quite different mechanics. Finally, we make all of this capability and all of the many hundreds of person years of research and development on machine learning-based natural language processing available to developers via an elegant API and supporting set of SDKs. You can see this API in action through this cool demo.

Thus developers can today begin leveraging certain types of AI in their applications, even if they lack any formal training in data science or machine learning. It doesn’t entirely eliminate the AI learning curve—you still need to get your head around things like probabilistic systems, how to integrate error detection and correction to improve the underlying models, and simply how to make use of data types like language and images which heretofore were inaccessible to you—but this is a far gentler learning curve than starting from first principles (let’s talk about linear algebra!). Also, from an organizational perspective, it means that leaders can execute a bimodal adoption strategy: build up an internal data science / ML capability and start climbing the AI ladder for business- or industry-specific data [8], while simultaneously getting your current application developers started today, via the APIs and SDKs, especially now that Watson is available anywhere, on any cloud and on premises.

So with good AI APIs we can raise the level of abstraction such that developers who lack a machine learning background can start leveraging AI today. They are so simple to use that it’s easy to overlook the power and the science behind them. When you write a line of code that calls an AI API, you’ve skipped right to the top of the AI Ladder. It almost feels like cheating! But you haven’t cheated; you’re standing on the shoulders of the giants of the field [9] whose research, insights, persistence, and genius brought us to this point.

So then, what will you do?

Footnotes

[1] Deep learning pioneer and Turing Award winner Yann LeCun recently shared an interesting hypothesis comparing human learning to machine learning:

It is more efficient for evolution to specify the behavior of an intelligent organism by encoding an objective to be optimized by learning than by directly encoding a behavior. The price is learning time.

The reason for this is also why it’s more efficient for human engineers to build AI systems through machine learning than through direct programming. The price is training data.

[2] For a great primer on deliberate practice, read Morten Hansen’s book Great at Work, chapter 4, “Don’t Just Learn, Loop.”

[3] Carnegie Mellon professor Tom Mitchell provided the following popular definition of machine learning:

A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance measure P if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with experience E.

[4] For a fuller exploration of the AI Ladder, read this concise O’Reilly Radar report by Rob Thomas, GM of IBM Data and AI.

[5] Subsequent to originally publishing this article, I had a thought-provoking conversation on LinkedIn regarding accessibility with Frances West, former IBM Chief Accessibility Officer and author of Authentic Inclusion. Prior to meeting Frances in the mid-2010s, I—like many people—had the misconception that accessibility was only about making technology usable by people with physical disabilities. While that’s certainly a critical aspect of it, Frances taught me a broader view, which she reinforced in our conversation:

Accessibility to me has never been just about disability. It’s about extreme personalization and recognizing the human first in an increasingly tech driven, tech dominate world. As technologists, it’s our responsibility to respect human differences and make technology work for all, especially foundational technologies such as AI.

Through this lens, it made me realize that APIs are fundamentally about accessibility, which was a revelation (thank you Frances! 🙌🏻).

[6] The purpose and nature APIs remind me of something I once read about writing books, perhaps by Stephen King (?), in that they connect author and reader across time and space, and the author must attempt to imagine how the reader will interpret the prose, while accepting and embracing that the reader may interpret the prose in ways never imagined by the author. Similarly API designers must try to imagine all the ways their API might be used while accepting and embracing the fact that developers will use it in ways never imagined by the API designer.

[7] IBM’s Watson Studio supports building custom ML models from the ground up, for any sort of data.

[8] If you’re a developer who wants to go all-in and try your hand at applied machine learning, I recommend Andrew Ng’s famous Coursera course and the excellent book Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow, 2nd Ed. by Aurélien Géron. On the latter, the great Tim O’Reilly gives it his highest endorsement.

[9] Turing, McCarthy, Rosenblatt, Minsky, Jordan, Thrun, Ferrucci, Hinton, Bengio, LeCun, and Li, to name a few. For deeper historical narratives on the development of AI and ML, I recommend John Markoff’s Machines of Loving Grace and Sean Garrish’s How Smart Machines Think. Another excellent resource is Architects of Intelligence, where futurist Martin Ford interviews twenty-four of the leading AI pioneers of the past several decades both for historical perspective as well as speculation about where we might be going.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the following dear IBM and industry colleagues for reading and providing feedback on earlier versions of this article: Allie Miller, Barry O’Reilly, Chunhui Higgins, Dallas Hudgens, Erik Didriksen, Grady Booch, Katelyn Rothney, Lindsay Wershaw, Rachael Morin, Rick Gebhardt, and Robyn Johnson.

A special thanks to dear friend and long-time mentor Kyle Brown who, after reading the first draft, explained to me what I was actually trying to say. ☺️

A special thanks to Watson API architect Jeff Stylos, who patiently explained the ideas described in the “On the shoulders of giants” section to me, many times, until I finally got it. Thanks for your patience Jeff and your dedication to your craft. A similar special thank you to Watson NLU senior manager Olivia Buzek for helping me (slowly) get my head around deeper machine learning concepts. 🙇🏻‍♂️

My deepest thanks to Beth Smith, Rob Thomas, Daniel Hernandez, and Arvind Krishna for believing in me as a leader, helping me to understand our strategy, and pushing me and trusting me to contribute to it.

Finally to my IBM colleagues: We got this.

https://ift.tt/2SNg6Q1 via Medium February 21, 2020 at 07:39PM

[xhostcom]

5 Trending WordPress Development Tools

WordPress is the King of Content Management Systems (CMS's) with in excess of a 61% market share of all online CMS's. One of the many reasons WordPress is a preferred platform is that it’s constantly evolving to incorporate new technologies. However, with so much innovation, keeping up with the latest changes can take some effort. To do the best for your clients it helps to look ahead to understand what web design and development trends are expected to dominate the market. Doing this will make it easier to adapt and gain an advantage over competitors. In this post, I’ll take a look at five WordPress (or ClassicPress) development trends you can expect to see in the upcoming year and explore some examples of how they can be used.

1. Chatbot Integration

Automation and assistive technologies are cropping up in many different forms on websites these days. One of the increasingly popular uses for this technology is chatbots:

These web-based messengers streamline a wide range of administrative and customer support tasks. Chatbots aren’t necessarily anything new. They’ve been around for a while now. However, thanks to the progressive nature of Artificial Intelligence (AI), chatbots are becoming more ‘human-like’ every day. Take a look at this spoof demo I built for Sally Illngworth of Illingworth Media, and hit no in the dialogue for a chuckle. Spoof Illingworth Media Bot As such, businesses are able to use them in many different environments and applications, and will likely continue to do so in the future. In fact, at least 85 percent of businesses are expected to use chatbots by 2022. If you’re interested in exploring chatbots for your client’s sites, we recommend using a tool with easy WordPress integration. For example, you might try using Botsify. You can create a chatbot through its website, and then quickly add it to WordPress sites via a plugin or code. Another option you might consider is the IBM Watson plugin. This tool uses IBM Watson Assistant (previously Watson Conversation) on the IBM Cloud. It has a steeper learning curve but offers nearly unlimited customization potential.

2. Voice Search Optimization

Speaking of AI, voice search is quickly gaining traction as a staple technology for both business and personal purposes. Voice-activated search assistants, such as Siri and Alexa, are becoming more common as well. According to research, by 2020 about half of searches are expected to be voice-activated ones. Moreover, one-third of browsing sessions will happen without a screen at all. Voice shopping, in particular, is expected to disrupt the retail industry over the next few years. The use of smart home speakers is expected to increase from 13 percent to 55 percent. Voice search is also expected to influence and improve SEO. People tend to use more natural language when they are conducting a search query verbally, rather than typing it. As voice search becomes more prevalent, it’s likely that we’re going to see search engines producing results that are more aligned with user intent. To get started with voice search optimization, you might consider trying a voice search plugin. For example, WP Fastest Site Search lets you add voice capabilities to your site:

This plugin replaces the default search widget in WordPress. You can use it to create and customize your own WordPress search user interface, with no custom coding needed.

3. Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology, thanks to its adoption of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, is becoming particularly prevalent in financial sectors. However, we can also expect to see it influence plugin development and content monetization for WordPress sites. It can be particularly useful for enhancing on-site security and improving the speed of payment transactions for e-commerce sites. This year, WordPress launched a new platform with blockchain features called Newspack. The primary purpose of this product is to improve the reliability and security of publishing outlets. It should alleviate many of the challenges that come with back-end site maintenance and development. Additionally, there are plenty of WordPress cryptocurrency themes and plugins you can use. For example, to create a cryptocurrency website you can use a theme such as Cryptic:

As for blockchain plugins, you can use Site Reviews to verify reviews. WordProof Timestamp is also worth checking out, as it enables you to timestamp your WordPress content on any EOSIO blockchain.

4. Augmented and Virtual Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technology have made strides in giving businesses the ability to offer interactive experiences. Both take a person’s physical environment and superimpose it with layers of digital information to mimic real-world scenarios. The IKEA Place app is just one of many examples of how AR and VR can be used to create better experiences for consumers. It lets users place pieces of furniture within a room in their homes via smartphone camera, in order to preview how they will look. Another use is being able to ‘virtually visit’ a location and take a tour without actually being there. For example, realtors can provide clients with 3D VR tours on their websites. WordPress now authorizes VR content with 360-degree images and videos. If you’re interested in adding AR and VR features to your client sites, there are a variety of ways to go about it. You might also consider using the Ozisti Theme:

This theme is one of the easiest ways you can integrate AR functionality with WordPress sites. It was built specifically for e-commerce, but can be used for a wide range of projects.

5. Progressive Web Apps

Last but not least, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) provide an app-like experience to mobile users without actually requiring users to install anything. They work within mobile browsers, and function largely as native apps would. Among the many benefits include: Increased security Faster loading times More flexibility Better user experience PWAs have been around for a while. However, with more people relying on mobile devices, they’re becoming increasingly popular for WordPress applications. Aside from building your own PWA from scratch, you can also use WordPress plugins to turn a site into a PWA. For example, you can check out Super Progressive Web Apps:

Once you install this plugin, users who visit the site from a mobile device can add it to their home screens. Then, each page they visit will be locally stored and available to access offline.

Conclusion

WordPress is constantly adding new features and functionalities. Of course, it’s important to keep up with the latest changes. However, to really enhance your offerings and better serve your clients, it helps to familiarize yourself with the most anticipated trends. In this article, we taken a look at five WordPress development trends you can expect to see grow in popularity in 2020: Chatbot integration Voice search optimization Blockchain technology Augmented and virtual reality technology Progressive web apps If you have questions about any of these WordPress development trends let me know in the comments section below and nif you enjoyed this post, why not check out this related article on otherWordpress Build Trends! Post by Xhostcom Wordpress & Digital Services, subscribe to newsletter for more! Read the full article

[viditure]

Why the Digital Analytics Forum 2019 was showstopper!

Entering its 11th year, the illustrious Digital Analytics Forum (DAF) once again showed why it’s the one of the top European analytics events. The event was held on the 14th November in the prestigious Pavillon Vendôme in the heart of Paris and gathered more than 400 analytics professionals and specialists. With a vast range of international guests, from analysts to marketers and business users across different sectors, the event allowed participants to learn more about the latest features in the Analytics Suite. As well as varied presentations showcasing our leading-edge innovations, it also allowed guests to gain new perspectives on their daily work and network with industry peers. AT Internet’s partners also held workshops to guide them and demonstrate the plethora of ways they can provide added value.

As ever, there was a large dose of AT vibe to accompany the event with a cocktail networking lunch and action-packed Wine Casino & Grand Crus wine tasting to round off the day.

Mathieu Llorens’ keynote – the urgency of rebuilding trust

Access to information has accelerated at an exponential rate over the last 25 years with the IT and Internet revolution. However, the rise in fake news has plagued the internet in recent years. Labelled as the perfect drug, fake news is ubiquitous and becoming increasingly impossible to detect.

Today’s tech giants are the biggest traffickers of fake news… and their actions are driven by maximising profit as opposed to spreading the truth. This has led to the paradox of the modern era: “We have never had access to so much information… and we have never had so little confidence in the information we receive.”

Fake news has also undermined the credibility of the media industry with public distrust at an all-time low. Digital marketing should make it possible for companies to be more customer-centric, and better target audiences with more personalised and less intrusive messages. However, although the media industry may promote long-term relationships on the surface, it is preoccupied with short term hyper-growth and the ultra-fast acquisition of traffic, users, audience and profit.

Likewise, the responsible use of Data is continually being eroded. Despite promising international regulations such as the GDPR, CCPA and LGPD, there are still considerable issues with 3rd party cookies, the privacy approach of the major browsers, lack of compliance with regulatory bodies such as the CNIL, increased ad blocker usage, fines and widespread brand damage. 

AT Internet offers a range of technical and methodological solutions to guarantee data quality while respecting the privacy of individuals and the European regulations – thanks to ongoing discussions with the major privacy-related institutions.

The main priority is to have clear and transparent consent across the board.

In order to nurture data trust, it is also important to keep in mind the three main pillars:

Purpose – why do I collect data? What is the service I’m offering? What is the value of the service?

Reliability – solid GDPR-compliant practices are key to building confidence

Transparency – it’s vital to explain clearly what you do with your data

Minimisation is the next step for the world of web analysis – saving time, money, and energy for everyone – with the aim of focussing on real value. AT Internet promotes a quality-focussed approach that consists of collecting better rather than collecting more by focusing on the data that can really be activated. Minimisation also increases your economic efficiency: building on the relationship of trust that is the basis of any sustainable profitable business.

“The main drivers of the future will be Efficiency, Privacy, Profitability and Sustainability”

Mathieu concluded by stating that there is an urgent need to rebuild trust in brands, science, and reference media, and we all have our share of responsibility. The world needs to address the whimsical approach taken to data and objective truth and emerge from our currently toxic information environment. We should instead strive for the economic, technical and political benefits that modern tech should rightfully bestow.

The Analytics Suite moves into the fast lane

Next up was our Product marketing director and his team who presented AT Internet’s product vision for 2020 and beyond and the upcoming technical (r)evolution! Stay tuned over the coming months for news on our New Data Factory!

AT Internet’s Explorer has a range of new exciting features that have been created specifically to save you time. Anomaly detection and Axon Contribution are designed to enable analysts and business users to rapidly get the most out of their data – allowing them to devote more time to higher value-added tasks. By applying an algorithm to your underlying data, it can identify and measure variations that explain unusual trends. Seamlessly integrated into Explorer, it is designed to save you time by helping you analyse your data as well as unearthing insights that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

For all users who carry out repetitive tasks on a daily basis, it now gives them the ability to save the configuration of their analysis as a view and be able to access them directly in Explorer every time they connect.

In addition, Navigation now has new features that allow users to start their analysis of the customer journey from any page of a given site to gain a stronger overall view of their activity.

Feedback from the first few weeks of Data Query 3 has been very positive. Several hundred users were impressed with the high performance of our new engine, with its new user interface offering an improved user experience.

Thanks to this brand-new version of our data mining tool, our users can benefit from advanced features such as:

unique visitors, deduplicated on long periods, across several sites

data viz to better understand the datasets

group-by and count features to manipulate the data without having to leave to Excel all the time

entirely customisable datasets with no correlation constraints, and much more to come

Data Query 3’s new engine is also a fantastic opportunity to revamp and redesign the Analytics Suite segmentation feature. After 30 workshops with some of our most engaged users over the summer, we shared the prototype during the DAF of what could be the future of the segmentation, with one focus: how can we help you save time?

Some features will be released in the next few weeks in Data Query 3 with the following target scope: segments shared on all sites, sequential segmentation, event segmentation, unrivalled performance, and far more.

The awards!

This year we held an awards ceremony on a range of subjects. And the winners were…

Best New Customer Award – a recognition of comprehensive adoption and onboarding of our solution by a new customer Didier de Failly / Crédit Agricole

Range of Usage Award – for the diverse breadth of usage of every aspect of our solution David Teague @the BBC Pilar Moreno – Group Centre France

Data Democratisation Award – for using our solution to maximise access to data across the organisation to all employees Markus Haque / ZDF

Best Product Feedback Contributor Award – for the customer who was the most active in providing AT with relevant and valuable solution feedback Pierre Buffet / Le Monde

Partner workshops and customer success stories

AT boosts Crédit Agricole’s performance

To conclude the presentations, Nicolas Sanchez and Didier de Failly from Crédit Agricole talked about their Data-driven approach and deployment strategy. With data security and protection at the heart of their business model, they launched a new tagging plan to homogenise their data collection and tracking on their national website and 37 regional sites, creating a new customer portal.

Through close accompaniment, AT Internet helped them to harmonise data capture and promote benchmarks, as well as align the main site with tagging of the regional sites. They were also able to anticipate cross-channel Web/Application/Bank agency tracking and create a link the Data and CRM solutions.

Key success factors included an improved AT Internet tagging plan, a Tag Management tool applied to their site, and securing the deployment of NPC via double tagging (IBM DA + AT Internet).

They also carried out internal training to improve skills across all Crédit Agricole teams and enable all staff to get the maximum benefit out of AT Internet’s solution.

L’Équipe – using analytics to fuel efficient personalisation

Romain Lhote, head of data marketing at L’Équipe spoke about how they went from using Data as a dashboarding tool, to genuine activation. By implementing automated dashboards via AT’s API system, they were able to process the vast amount of data from their 2.8M daily users and 1.5B page views per month and effectively democratise it.  They subsequently analysed all user data based on feedback and user behaviour with the aim of personalising their site and introducing dynamic web content.

By analysing page views on the app and dataflow API calls, L’Équipe could optimise their use of tags and article metadata. They applied scoring to measure which fans were tuning into which sport and were able to view exactly how many articles were read per sport. This led to complete personalisation of the Homepage.

Altice Média – app store optimisation and the importance of effective onboarding

Last but not least, Jérôme Perani – Growth & Partnerships VP @ Altice Média, talked about how they fully optimised their app stores and onboarding process. As a group with over 1800 employees, 1000+ journalists, and a range of media outlets including 15 TV channels, it was vital for Altice to improve app visibility across its stores through enhanced push notifications & in-app message strategy as well as adopt new tools to accelerate the metrics-action cycle.

He also went into detail about DAU/MAU stickiness (Daily/Weekly Active Users) and how Altice works with AT Internet and its partner connector tools Adjust and Batch to activate the data and optimise their analysis.

In terms of onboarding, Jérôme emphasised the importance of optimising an app’s first-time experience with a clear explanation of the value proposal of the app, the collection of user data consent, registration to push notification services, and avoiding the display of interstitials during the first session.

Altice’s next challenge is to match the existing world class apps by implementing a built-in app business intelligence platform.

AT Internet’s partners – expert solutions to un-silo your data

AT offers its customers access to our partner ecosystem, and the DAF was a great opportunity to meet them. They are all experts in their respective fields – push notifications (Batch), Data viz (Reeport), Data orchestration (Tealium), traffic identification (Oncrawl), and paywall specialists (Poool) – hosting a range of workshops in the afternoon. AT Internet would like to thank them for their valuable participation.

SEE ALL OUR TECH PARTNERS

Pavillon Vendôme, AT Internet’s prestigious DAF arena!

The 2019 DAF was once again held in the secure vault room of one of the most luxurious events spaces in Paris. The food by Potel & Chabot was a smash hit as was the wine for the Bordeaux Grand Crus tasting held in the evening. Some lucky winners also came away with prizes at our Wine Casino! See you at next year’s event!

 BONUS! 

Best of tweets from the event

Facebook photo album

Speakers videos and presentations

#DAF2019 Aftermovie

Article Why the Digital Analytics Forum 2019 was showstopper! first appeared on Digital Analytics Blog.

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