9 Essential Features of Successful Mobile Applications

Features of Successful Mobile Applications

With almost 4 million mobile apps available for download on Google Play alone, it can be difficult to see how you can develop a business mobile app that will stand out. However, as adults spend an average of nearly 4 hours a day using them, mobile apps are not something that a modern business can ignore.

A mobile application is a software application designed to run on smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices. Mobile apps are usually developed in one of the programming languages like HTML5, Swift, or Java. They can be downloaded from app stores or accessed through links that are provided by the developer.

Mobile applications are different from normal applications as they have to be able to operate independently without relying on installation on a desktop computer. Moreover, they have to be compatible with multiple platforms and form factors.

There are many aspects of a mobile app that will determine its success. But, if you get the core principles right, it will go a long way towards making your app an app that people want to use. Here are the key features that any mobile app will need if it is to be a success.

1. Successful Mobile Apps Satisfy a Need

Any type of product needs to satisfy a need. When you are designing a business mobile app, you should not simply copy what your competitors are doing. You should think outside the box and think big. A successful mobile app is one that solves a problem for its users better than any other solution. It is an application that makes a user’s life simpler. 

2. Simplicity

While people are spending more and more time on mobile apps, the amount of time they are willing to spend on any one app is very limited. For that reason, an app must be easy to access and easy to use. Content and functionality need to be available with a minimum of user interaction. A key design feature of a good mobile app is effortless simplicity.

3. Customization

Allow the users of your mobile app to customize the app the way they want it. That can be as simple as giving them control over the fonts and the colors. Or, it could be allowing users to save their own favorites. Customization gives the user a sense of ownership. Once they have the app the way that they like it, they will be less willing to switch to using a competitor’s app.

4. Performance

Speed is of the essence with mobile apps. Mobile app users are often multi-tasking. So, if an app takes too long to load or to perform a function, users will switch off and do something else instead. Performance testing will be part of the development cycle for a mobile app. However, ongoing performance testing will also be needed to ensure that changes to the app do not cause any performance issues.

5. Develop for Android and iOS

It is important to develop mobile apps for both Android and iOS. These are the two most popular platforms. This can be achieved by developing the app in a cross-platform development framework, like Xamarin. Cross-platform development tools reduce the total cost of development and make your app available to a wider audience.

6. Social Integration

Social media integration is a must for most types of mobile apps. For simplicity, you can allow users to sign in with Twitter or Facebook. Users love to share their experiences too. So, allow users to share posts or purchases easily. It improves the user experience, and it can be a valuable form of marketing.

7. Feedback

Make it easy for users to leave feedback. It creates a sense of involvement and it shows that your business listens to its customers. It should be simple for a user to leave reviews and comments. You should also encourage comments about the functionality of the app. It will help you to improve your services and it will help with the future direction of the app.

8. Security

Recent well-publicized online breaches of confidentiality have made app security even more important. It is a fundamental requirement of any mobile app that users’ private data remains confidential. It is also important that the users know that robust security is in place. So, make sure that the app’s confidentiality statement is easy to locate.

9. Offline Functionality

It is natural that most apps will require an internet connection to work fully. However, there should be some features that will work off-line as well. If an app can offer even limited functionality offline, it could represent a major advantage.

Upgrades and Support

A business mobile app will need ongoing development and support. That will be both in terms of fixing bugs, and in terms of ongoing software enhancements. An app needs to be kept fresh and relevant. If a mobile app stagnates, users may become bored and switch to a more modern app.

The way that people access the internet is changing. Mobile device access to the internet has already surpassed desktop access. Today, businesses, large and small, need to develop mobile apps if they are going to stay ahead of their competitors. Developing an app for the sake of an app, though, will be counterproductive. Mobile apps of the future will need to connect with and engage customers. They will need to be easy to use, relevant, and they will need to fulfill a need.

When you’re ready to consider a mobile app for your business, choose a development partner like  Aezion Inc. The platform, mobile application development experience.

Python Programming For Data Science and Machine Learning

Python is a general-purpose, high-level, object-oriented, and easy to learn programming language. It was created by Guido van Rossum, who is known as the godfather of “Python”.

                         

Python is a popular programming language because of its simplicity, ease of use, open-source licensing and accessibility — the foundation of its renowned community which provides great support and help in creating tons of packages, tutorials, and sample programs.

Python can be used to develop a wide variety of applications — ranging from Web, Desktop GUI based programs/applications to science and mathematics programs, and Machine learning and other big data computing systems.

Let’s explore the use of Python in Machine Learning, Data Science and Data Engineering.

Machine Learning

Machine learning is a relatively new and evolving system development paradigm that has quickly become a mandatory requirement for companies and programmers to understand and use. See our previous article on Machine Learning for the background. Due to the complex, scientific computing nature of machine learning applications, Python is considered the most suitable programming language. This is because of its extensive and mature collection of mathematics and statistics libraries, extensibility, ease of use and wide adoption within the scientific community. As a result, Python has become the recommended programming language for machine learning systems development.

Data Science

Data science combines cutting edge computer and storage technologies with data representation and transformation algorithms and scientific methodology to develop solutions for a variety of complex data analysis problems encompassing raw and structured data in any format. A Data Scientist possesses knowledge of solutions to various classes of data-oriented problems. And expertise in applying the necessary algorithms, statistics, and mathematic models, to create the required solutions. Python is recognized among the most effective and popular tools for solving data science-related problems.

Data Engineering

Data Engineers build the foundations for Data Science and Machine Learning systems and solutions. Data Engineers are technology experts who start with the requirements identified by the data scientist. These requirements drive the development of data platforms that leverage complex data extraction, loading, and transformation to deliver structured datasets that allow the Data Scientist to focus on solving the business problem. Again, Python is an essential tool in the Data Engineer’s Toolbox — one that is used every day to architect and operate the big data infrastructure that is leveraged by the data scientist.

Use cases for Python, Data Science and Machine Learning

Here are some example Data Science and Machine Learning applications that leverage Python.

• Netflix uses data science too, to understand user viewing patterns and behavioral drivers. This, in turn, helps Netflix too, understand user likes/dislikes and predict and suggest relevant items to view.
• Amazon, Walmart, and Target are heavily using data science, data mining and machine learning to understand the user's preferences and shopping behavior. This assists in predicting demands to drive inventory management and to suggest relevant products to online users or via email marketing.
• Spotify uses data science and machine learning to make music recommendations to its users.
• Spam programs are making use of data science and machine learning algorithm(s) to detect and prevent spam emails.  

This article provides an overview of Python and its application to Data Science and Machine Learning and why it is important.

 Aezion Inc. Solution Architects, Engineers, and Custom Software Developers can assist you in exploring Python-based solutions for your Data Science and Machine Learning applications. Contact us to learn more.

Overview of Python Programming Language

Python can be used to develop a wide variety of applications — ranging from Web, Desktop GUI based programs/applications to science and mathematics programs, and Machine learning and other big data computing systems.

Let’s explore some key aspects of the Python programming language to get a feel for core features and Python’s user-friendly syntax.

                         

Python – A Multi-Paradigm Language

Python is a multi-paradigm programming language. Meaning it supports different styles of writing code. One can write Python code in a procedural, object-oriented, functional or imperative manner. For this reason, Python is considered a “swiss army knife” in the developer's toolbox.

As an “object-oriented” programming language, Python supports all the core features of OOP such as abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, inheritance, etc. The foundation of OOP is a Class. A class is defined to represent an object that can later be programmatically created and manipulated. The class definition consists of attributes (data) and methods (functions) that collectively define the configuration and behavior of an object.

A Python program consists of a collection of classes representing key elements and their behaviors within a system.

Encapsulation

Encapsulation allows one to hide the internal details or implementation of one object from other objects (s). This protects against accidental or direct access and modifications to the data. Python relies on Encapsulation and other conventions to manage access and usage of class variables or methods. One can restrict access to variables/methods with public, private and protected. A variable or method that is prefixed with double underscore “__“ is treated as private in Python.

Polymorphism

The word “Polymorphism” means many forms. Polymorphism is a feature of OOP that allows one to define multiple forms for a common interface. Python’s implementation of polymorphism is similar to other object-oriented programming languages such as C++, Java or C#. Method overloading and overriding are two different ways with which one can achieve polymorphism in the Python programming language.

Defining a class

A class is defined using a keyword – class. Here’s an example of a student class — consisting of the constructor __init__ — a specific method that gets invoked as part of the object creation.

The code snippet above and below are reused from Reference: Python Class – https://pymbook.readthedocs.io/en/latest/classes.html

Notice how the methods are defined using the keyword – def. Notice also, that the ‘print_details’ method takes ‘self’ as a parameter and prints the student name, branch and year.

Inheritance 

Inheritance is a core object-oriented concept in the Python programming language. It allows one to reuse or extend the functionality or features of one or more classes that are “inherited” in a new class. The concept of inheritance in Python is similar to other high-level programming languages such as C#, Java, etc. 

Let’s define a Person class with a method to get the person’s details. 

Now, let us revise the “Student” class to inherit from “Person” so it can get all the features of the person. 

Once we inherit from the person, the student gets the behavior “get_details”. Notice, however, that the revised Student class overrides the behavior of “get_details” and adds its own functionality.

Note – It’s up to the implementor to decide whether to override a method or not.

This article provides an overview of the Python programming language, its core features, and simple, accessible syntax. Hopefully, this brief introduction provides a glimpse into Python’s simplicity and encourages you to explore it as a potential addition to your programmer's toolbox. 

Aezion Inc. Solution Architects, Engineers, and Custom Software Developers can assist you in exploring Python-based solutions for your Data Science and Machine Learning applications. Contact us to learn more.

A Blog – Its importance & Why Every Business Needs One

In today’s digital world, every business needs a website. Modern business owners and managers understand the need to have a presence on the web. What is surprising, though, is the number of businesses that don’t leverage the power of a blog at all. Or, they have one, but they rarely update it. Here’s a look at what you are missing out on if you don’t make regular use of one.

A Blog Grows and Strengthens a Brand

A blog helps to build and strengthen a brand. Without one, building a brand can be an uphill struggle. It provides you with the opportunity to connect with customers and prospects and allows you to convey the ethos of your business. It also gives you a platform on which you can tell the stories that will create interest in the brand and foster brand loyalty.

It Fosters a Community

Blogs help you build a community around your brand. They can encourage feedback, reviews and comments. When you post relevant and engaging content, the community will grow. As more people subscribe to your blog, you will create a valuable list of people interested in your products, services, and your brand.

Blogging makes you an Authority in Your Sector

A business blog is a platform from which you can build your authority in your sector. You can show that not only you do you sell products or services, you are also experts in your field. You can post technical articles, tips and advice, and opinion pieces. This will gain the trust of readers.

A Blog Will Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

When you post content, you can target your profitable keywords and improve your position in search engine results. Good quality content posted regularly will make it much easier for people to find your website. Google favors websites that have fresh, relevant content. A website with a blog will always outperform a website without one.

Blogs Allow You to Post Timely Content

Modern content management systems like WordPress or Drupal make posting to a blog a simple task. It is usually something that you can do in-house. That means that you can react fast to industry trends and developments. You can post comments on current events and increase the relevancy of your brand. A blog allows you to demonstrate that you are at the forefront of your industry. 

Blogging Breeds Innovation

A hugely beneficial side-effect of producing regular content is that it breeds innovation within your organization. To write blog posts, you will need to keep updated with industry developments. You will need to research competitors and new technologies. The combination of research for new posts and the feedback you get on your blog will help you formulate new ideas for your business.

It Is an Integral Part of a Good Digital Marketing Strategy

A blog is an important part of a coherent digital marketing strategy. It can provide detailed information that is needed to turn lead into a sale.  Blog posts can contain a level of detail that you can’t have in social media posts. You can lead prospective customers from digital advertisements or social media posts to a re-enforcing blog post to a call to action at the end of a post.

Your Free Public Relations Platform

You can use a blog for PR purposes. You can announce new products, events or key appointments. Unlike some other PR platforms, you have full control over your this effective means of directly communicating with your audience. 

                  

Blogging Generates Leads 

People are more likely to subscribe to an informative blog than other types of mailing lists. If you produce useful content on a regular basis, you will soon start to see your mailing list grow. Once you have a list of subscribers, you can send them invitations to corporate events, details of special offers, and company news. Be sure, though, that you don’t overdo it, or you will start to lose subscribers.

A blog can be the foundation of a business’s marketing, PR and brand development. It can also be a very important part of the sales funnel. The business of blogging does, though, need to be taken seriously. The wrong type of content can backfire. If you post engaging content that is relevant to your brand image and the sector you operate in, a blog can indeed be a very powerful business marketing tool.

Dangerous command in SQL

SQL Server/Microsoft Data Platform professional with over 10 years of experience working in various fields such as financial, healthcare, and Manufacturing Domains. we have worked in various DB-related roles from database Modeler to database developer to Data Warehouse.

The most dangerous command in SQL

There’s one command, in particular, that has been effectively hidden since it was introduced pre-SQL Server 2000.

I present to you DBCC WRITEPAGE – the most dangerous command you can use in SQL Server.

Well, no danger of death 

DBCC WRITEPAGE allows you alter any byte on any page in any database, as long as you have sysadmin privileges. It also allows you to completely circumvent the buffer pool, in other words you can force page checksum failures.

The purposes of DBCC WRITEPAGE are:

1. To allow automated testing of DBCC CHECKDBand repair by the SQL Server team.
2. To engineer corruptions for demos and testing.
3. To allow for last-ditch disaster recovery by manually editing a live, corrupt database.

It’s not advised that you attempt #3 unless you’re confident you know what you’re doing and the side-effects on the Storage Engine from the byte(s) that you’re changing.

It is a very dangerous command because:

1. It is an entirely physical change to the page – nothing is logged in the transaction log, and it cannot be rolled back.
2. You can change any page in any database. For instance, you could use it to modify a page in master so that the instance immediately shuts down and will not start until the master is rebuilt and restored.
3. Anyone with sysadmin privileges can use it and there is no way to stop it.
4. It breaks the support of your database.

You can very easily shoot yourself in the foot very badly playing around with this command. This isn’t hyperbole – it’s just the truth.

bcc WRITEPAGE ({‘dbname’ | dbid}, filed, pageid, offset, length, data [, directORbufferpool])

The parameters mean:

• ‘dbname’ | dbid : self-explanatory
• fileid : file ID containing the page to change
• pageid : zero-based page number within that file
• offset : zero-based offset in bytes from the start of the page
• length : number of bytes to change, from 1 to 8
• data : the new data to insert (in hex, in the form ‘0xAABBCC’ – example three-byte string)
• directORbufferpool : whether to bypass the buffer pool or not (0/1)

DBCC WRITEPAGE does the following:

• Checkpoints the database and flushes all its pages out of the buffer pool
• Unhooks SQL Server’s FCB (File Control Block) from the data file
• Creates its own FCB for the file
• Does a direct read of the page into DBCC’s memory
• Modifies the page directly
• Writes the page directly to disk, bypassing the buffer pool and any page protection generation (i.e. not recalculating the page checksum)
• Fixes up the FCBs again

The syntax is:

12 3 4

DBCC TRACEON (2588);GO DBCC HELP (‘WRITEPAGE’); GO

If you’re going to play with it, please do not use it on a production system, and be very, very careful. It’s very easy to do something disastrous. And remember, if you use DBCC WRITEPAGE, you do so entirely at your own risk.

The Benefits of a Content Management System

A content management system (CMS) is software that enables end-users to create and manage content on a website. They are designed to make content management easy for non-technical users. One of the key features of a good content management system is that no coding is needed to create or modify content. CMS handles all the basic coding, so users can concentrate on what visitors to the website will see, rather than what goes on behind the scenes.

A content management system consists of two main elements. First, there is a content management application (CMA). The CMA is the part of the application that allows users to add content and manage it. The second element is a content delivery application (CDA). This is the backend application that formats the content and makes it available to visitors to the site.

The Benefits of a Content Management System

The main benefit of a content management system is that it allows non-technical people to publish content. This dramatically cuts the cost of maintaining a website. You may still employ the services of a web developer to design and set up a site. But, with a CMS system, you will be able to publish and modify content yourself.

The second major advantage of a CMS is that it allows collaboration. Multiple users within an organization can create and publish content. The user interface of a CMS is usually browser-based so any number of users can access the system from anywhere.

Examples of Content Management Systems

One of the most popular content management systems is WordPress, but there are hundreds of other CMS platforms. WordPress is an open-source CMS tool that is used by large businesses, small businesses, and individuals. It is estimated that WordPress is the CMS behind more than 30% of the world’s websites. Some of the other popular platforms include Drupal, Joomla, and Magento.

Important Things to Consider CMS Platform

While WordPress is popular, it is not the only option. Before you choose a content management system, you should look at what your overall goals are.  You will need to think in detail about the functionality that you will need. This will help you choose a CMS platform that is right for your business rather than simply opting for the best-known CMS. Here are some things to consider when choosing a CMS platform.

Ease of Use

Ease of use is the main thing to look for in a CMS platform. However, some CMS systems cross the line between ease of use and lack of functionality. Make sure that the CMS platform use is intuitive and easy to use. But, remember to make sure that it has sufficient functionality to meet your needs.

Availability and Cost of Add-ins

You can usually add functionality to CMS platforms with modules, which are often called plugins. These are usually made available by third parties. They may, or may not, be free. When you are researching CMS, investigate the availability and the cost of plugins. If the CMS platform you choose only has limited out-of-the-box functionality, then you will be relying on plugins to customize your content management solution to your own needs. Plugins expand functionality, but they can lead to maintenance issues. Because they are written by third parties, they may not always be compatible with your version of the CMS platform.

Look and Feel Flexibility

It is important that your website looks different from all the rest. This can be difficult with some of CMS platforms. If there are only a limited number of themes or templates, and a few customization options, it will be difficult to make your website uniquely your own.

Responsive Design

More half of internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. So, responsive mobile design is essential in a CMS platform. Make sure that the CMS platform you select supports responsive web design. That will ensure that your web pages will render properly across different types of devices.

Speed

Speed is an important consideration in several areas. The first aspect of speed relates to ease of use. How easy will it be to install the software, configure the website, and publish content. The second aspect is the speed that the site will operate. The speed at which web pages are rendered is vital. If a website is slow to load or refresh, visitors will become frustrated and move on to another website.

Integration

The ability to integrate a CMS platform with third-party applications can also be very important. You may want to integrate your website with an e-commerce solution, a CRM package, or an automated marketing system. Investigate the availability of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and find out what support there is for integration. Even if you don’t want to integrate your CMS with third-party applications now, you may want to in the future.

Scalability

Another factor to consider is how scalable the CMS platform is. Will it handle large spikes in traffic? Can you add resources to cope with increasing traffic? If you plan on having more than one website, does the CMS application offer multi-site support?

Security and Support

You should also check what security features come with the software, and what extra third-party security applications you may have to use. All websites are targets for hackers, but some platforms have much better security features than others. The support services that are available for CMS platforms vary as well. High-end open source applications like WordPress are typically built with sophisticated security mechanisms but do not provide support service for CMS installation and maintenance so you may have to use a third-party support service.

To choose the right CMS platform for your business, you will need to assess both your current and future requirements. There are plenty of CMS options, but making the right decision at the outset will save you a lot of time in the future. Content can be migrated from one platform to another, but it can be very time consuming to do so.

It is advisable to seek advice from a company that specializes in digital marketing. If you can, it is also useful to test drive the software before you commit to using it. The decision you make now on a CMS platform could have a major impact on your organization in the future.