I am fed up of driving my mobike and last month i decided to buy a four wheeler. Some of my friends suggested me to buy a small car like Hyundai i10 or Chevrolet Spark but i just hate small cars and buying luxury vehicles like Honda City is a big risk since i am a rough driver and like to race:) I made up my mind to go for Mahindra SUV Scorpio VLX – the top model.

Things were in the pipeline when someone suggested me to consider Tata Safari as an option. I was bit reluctant for Tata Safari as the market reputation of the vehicle is not good due to its high maintenance costs but i still went to the Tata Automobile showroom. I must admit, at first look i was greatly impressed by the looks (both interior and exterior) and the image of Scorpio in my mind began to disappear. When i told them that i am bit confused between the two vehicles, they gave me a comparison chart and Safari was really good in all the dimensions.

After having a look at all the features and price i decided to take a test drive of Dicor and to my surprise the vehicle impressed me! Now i was pretty sure that i will buy Tata Safari Dicor in the near future as i was satisfied with its performance. An hour later or so i got a call from Mahindra Showroom and they invited me to take a test drive of Scorpio. I readily accepted the offer as Scorpio is my first love When i took the test drive i forgot everything about DICOR and Scorpio mesmerized me. I felt like i wasn’t controlling it but it was the other way round.

When i came back home, i logged into Facebook and joined the Mahindra Scorpio group. I posted my confusion and got really nice replies from the members who have used both the vehicles. Now i am quite clear with the performance of both the vehicles and have decided to go for Mahindra Scorpio

Indore is the commercial hub of Madhya Pradesh, India. Although, there are many IT companies in Indore but the city is still deprived of reputed SEO companies and there are just few of them. Many small companies and freelancers have exploited the people in the name of SEO and did almost nothing for the websites.

SEO Indore is a very vague term and users will definitely feel that this post is of no use to them. To an extent I agree to it. But this is quite important for people looking for SEO services in and around Indore or in Madhya Pradesh or maybe in India.

Recession has compelled almost every software development company and other IT companies not only in Indore but whole of India to jump into SEO/SEM arena. Earlier they used to outsource this work to companies providing dedicated SEO/SEM services but now the scenario has changed completely. If we specifically talk about Indore, SEO has become the most sought after term for the IT companies. They have developed a full-fledged SEO team for in-house projects as well as clients’ projects.

Although the real advantage of this tremendous shift can’t be quantified, but it has definitely lead to something positive. It is the education of local people about SEO and SEM. Those who were literally naïve about these terms have now gained considerable amount of information. Earlier, there were only few companies in Indore providing SEO services so it was really easy for them to charge hefty amount in return of negligible or deplorable services. In short, it was easy for them to fool their client.

But with the changed scenario this too has changed. Local people have become educated and they now demand quality work done. Gone are the days when small companies used to show vague results and charge good amount of money. The most common example of this kind of exploitation was showing rankings on terms like company name or such vague keywords which none in this world can search for except the client. Such was the state of affairs earlier.

Now people of Indore have realized that they were fooled and misled in the name of SEO and nothing was done on their website to either improve the rankings or bring quality traffic. They now carefully study about the company and never forget to look into the live SEO results being produced by the companies so that they can take right decisions.

We all are aware of the eternal truth that in order to achieve success, any and every company must ensure that its employees are happy with the working condition and they share good rapport with the management. But, is it necessary that management alone take steps to ensure the smooth working of the company? Aren’t employees responsible for it too? Any company will definitely take sincere steps to make its employees contended if it feels that its employee is working hard for the company and abiding by all the rules laid out.

There isn’t any shortcut to become the best employee or loving employee of the company, rather, achievable things don’t have shortcuts anyways. I would like to share few points that I have experienced in my professional life till now, making me bit comfortable at my work and also winning the trust of my seniors.

1. Understand that all relationships require trust, direction, communication and commitment to be successful. This is the base to any success. When there isn’t any trust, commitment and healthy communication then even the god can’t help the person or group of people to achieve the pinnacle of success. These things help in the formation of a team driven by the spirit of hard work and nearly indefatigable.

2. Keep yourself healthy, focused and alert at all times. As the saying goes, “Health is Wealth”, always bear this in mind that when body and mind are healthy you will be able to give cent percent to the work and will also be able to generate innovative ideas which help you to become an individual to reckon with.

3. Experience comes when we realize that we have made the mistake and not by committing them. A person who doesn’t realizes that he did one is still a layman. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes. It is better to admit that you made the mistake, realize why you did, and then make sure you don’t do it again. It will help you as an individual to grow and learn and then you will prove to be an important resource for the company.

4. Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know”. It is better to confess ignorance and learn the right way of doing things than to pass on, or rely on false information that may be damaging to you and the company.

5. Don’t talk behind someone’s back. If you dislike your supervisor or the company then let them know what is bothering you and try to work it out jointly.

6. Don’t just punch the clock. If you run out of things to do during the workday, find out if there is anything else you can do to help bring value to the company, its clients and its customers.

7. Dress correctly. Wear clothes that reflect your value to the company.

8. Don’t harass, discriminate, use profanity or tell off-color jokes.

9. Be honest and trustworthy.

10. Think! Be innovative and creative. The company is willing to listen to any suggestions or ideas you have which would increase the quality and value of their products or services.

11. Follow the golden rule! Act with respect and responsibility towards those around you.

The rules stated above are not the only rules to be followed but sometimes an employee must act according to the prevailing conditions. Moreover, by keeping these points in mind, an employee can monitor his conduct and make the working environment much better.

Ruby on Rails (RoR) is an open source web application framework for Ruby programming language. It is optimized for “programmer happiness and sustainable productivity” as is mentioned on Ruby on Rails official website. It was created by David Heinemeier Hansson in 2003 and since then been developing and taking shape.

It has been described as a breakthrough in lowering the barriers of entry to programming. Those applications which earlier took months to develop can now be given shape within days. Now let us take a close look at RoR.

Ruby is a general purpose, object oriented, interpreted programming language designed and written by Yukihiro Matsumoto. Introduced in 1994, Ruby rose rapidly in popularity among Japanese programmers. In late 2000, Ruby ushered a new wave of enthusiasm outside of Japan and witnessed its embracing by the west. But 2004 saw a second massive surge of interest, with the introduction of the Ruby on Rails web application framework. Built on a cluster of separate component libraries, the Rails framework handles database storage and retrieval, HTML templating and all the middle layer work necessary to connect the underlying data to the web pages and input forms that display and update it.

Rails has grown rapidly in popularity, gaining a solid, wide reputation as a tremendously powerful development tool. Ruby has also drawn attention and interest from more and more programmers in a variety of fields. Many web development firms have started RoR development have started working on it as it makes the whole lot of work for a programmer much easier.

Internet today has become an important medium for people to communicate and do business online. But the basic thing we need online to carry out any task is a Website. For almost everything we need to visit a website which is known by different names in different context such as Portals, Vortals, Corporate Websites, CRM Websites, CMS Websites, Wiki Website, Flash Websites, Web 2.0 Websites, e-Commerce Websites etc. Thus we see, names are different but everything is a website. We know so many names because we are in a industry but what about a layman user. He knows all these things only by a single name i.e Website.

For him a website is useful and good only if it is aesthetically designed, intuitive and respond to his query in the minimum time. You must have heard the term “SEO” which is quite popular these days and what many people do or rather do it wrong is to design a website as per the optimization process and forget the user.

Important things to be kept in mind are:

• Popup Window – It is the most annoying thing on the website. They are used for advertisement purposes but personally specking I must confess that I haven’t clicked a single popup in my online lifetime. Not only i but everyone hates them. So avoid it completely.
• Puzzling Navigation – The online population does not have much time and have plenty of options. It is very necessary for a website to provide easy access to its content via clear and simple navigation. The navigation system must be easy for user to follow and simple for robots to crawl.
• Flash – Use it only when it is necessary. Using it without any purpose makes the site heavier and the website takes time to load.
• Consistent Style & Font – Use the style and font patterns consistently on every page. Don’t use different fonts on different pages. It does not look professional.
• Color & Background – The background should be simple and not flashy and must not pain the eye. The color combination on website must be aesthetic and soothing to eyes.
• CSS – Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) for controlling the appearance of website. It makes a lot easier for designer to maintain the website with the use of CSS and also makes the source page bit lighter in terms of coding.
• Search Feature – If your website has lot of pages then adding a search feature on your website will be a good idea so as to help the user to quickly search for any term which he thinks might be in your website.

]]> http://shailendrasial.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/website-design-tips/feed/ 0 Vicky http://shailendrasial.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/ajax-a-contemporary-focus/ http://shailendrasial.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/ajax-a-contemporary-focus/#comments Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:51:33 +0000 shailendrasial http://shailendrasial.wordpress.com/?p=40 ]]>

If there is anything on web that can be stated as “fascinating,” it’s creating a Web application. After all, when was the last time you heard someone rave about the interaction design of a product that wasn’t on the Web? All the cool, innovative new projects are online.

The launch of high-profile Web services, notably Google Maps, which provided a noticeably better user experience than traditional Web sites, helped publicize the Ajax technique. Now, dozens of start-up companies are using it to create hosted versions of desktop applications, from word processors to project management software.

Google’s use of Ajax this year helped demonstrate how Web applications could rival the look and feel of existing desktop applications. Take a look at Google Suggest. Watch the way the suggested terms update as you type, almost instantly. Now look at Google Maps. Zoom in. Use your cursor to grab the map and scroll around a bit. Again, everything happens almost instantly, with no waiting for pages to reload.

Google Suggest and Google Maps are two examples of a new approach to web applications that we at Adaptive Path have been calling Ajax. The name is shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and it represents a fundamental shift in what’s possible on the Web.

Fortunately, Ajax really does seem to be a grassroots phenomenon and supports Web 2.0 software goals.

Hello Friends,

I am sure most of you must have tried Google’s new web browser CHROME. Initially i was enthralled to listen about it and i downloaded & installed it almost instantly and started the testing of the Google’s browser. Though in Beta stage it has some nice features and i found it quite robust. But to my disappointment, i found no XML support in the browser and i am still recovering from this shock. I completely fail to understand why there is no XML support in the web browser of the company which is one of the pioneers in XML sitemap.

I hope there will be quick rectification of this problem as it may hurt Google’s dream of replacing the term INTERNET with GOOGLENET.

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.”

What does the above quotation convey? To have a portal, you have to commit mistakes. Isn’t that funny? No not at all. It may be a motivating sentence, but in business it can turn out to be doomsday for small start-ups with little investments. This article has been done especially for small start-ups who want to make it in their respective fields and are planning to launch their website or looking for a facelift or adding new functionalities to there existing site or aren’t sure about their design requirements.

Poor web design is one of the leading causes of small business failure. There are literally thousands of businesses struggling to make a living online. Most, make very little or no money and end up closing their site in defeat. The reasons can be attributed to – poor UI design, page load time exceeds the patience of users, the site is not navigable or user friendly, absence of content management system, site not being updated on a regular basis, etc. Now the above shortcomings can be attributed to the design company as well as the owner of the site. The company might not have a clear vision about what they want, who they want to target, where are the audiences located, what are the latest web tools that are being used and so an so forth. On the part of design company, the error is graver – the company might not have the previous experience of the project, may have differences with the client on certain aspects of the design but fails to convince, has not worked in diverse business domains, the company professionals are more or less from the same field, etc.

Choosing a Web Design Company

With a multitude of web designers and developers out there, from freelancers, to agencies, to online templates, how do you know what the right fit is for your company, and more importantly, for your goals and objectives? Choosing a web design company is not that a serious job. But choosing a good web design company is a real serious challenge. People say that Internet has made business processes simple and global, but how about the complexities that Internet offers which are unique. Just Search for the term “Good Web Design Firm” on Google, and it comes up with millions of results. For normal human being it’s impossible to search through every result. We will go through the entire process of selecting a Web Design and Development company in a structured way.

STEP 1 – Planning

The first step involves defining your needs. While searching for the right web designer, it is important to have a clear idea what role your new Web site or a redesigned one will fill. Will it provide information to your customers? Will it serve the needs of your employees? Or will it include an online shopping section so that you can sell your products to visitors?

Most Web designers will need to know the following:

• The role of your new Web site.

• The intended market or audience of your Web site.

• Your budget.

Take time to consider what you expect from your Web site and the type of information you want to communicate to your potential clients before you approach your designer. This will save you and the designer a considerable amount of time and effort.

STEP 2 – Searching and Creating a Primary list

Searching is a vigorous process and does not require any special skill other than diligence to effectively come up with good results that fulfill your requirements. Just scan through directories, check Google listings on specific key word searches and ask for referrals from your friends or business partners. It does not have to be a very extensive research work.

Referral : Ask business acquaintances, friends, and family which Web design firm designed the Web site for their respective organizations, or if they can otherwise recommend a Web design firm.

Web sites : Determine the Web design firm that is responsible for the Web sites of organizations that you admire. These organizations may be your competitors, or in related or unrelated industries. Sometimes the Web design firm is included in the site credits, or is listed elsewhere on the Web site. If you cannot find the credits on the site itself, feel free to contact the organization and ask which Web design firm is responsible for the Web site. This can also be a good source for references for that Web design firm.

STEP 3 – Evaluating and Short listing

Once you have gathered a list of potential Web design firms you are ready to pare them down to a shortlist. This requires a bit of research work.

• Portfolio – It’s about the three C’s – Credibility, Consistency and Capability. How consistent they are? What are the parameters on which the company is capable enough to fulfill your requirement? Are there any testimonials that speak about their credibility? Do the projects in the portfolio have a consistent quality? Have they consistently given good results in the given time frame? Has the Web design company provided solutions to other companies in your industry? Have they dealt with similar challenges to those faced by your organization? These are some important factors to consider.

When you’ve narrowed your search to a few design sources (through recommendations, web directories, or your competitors’ sites), evaluate their online portfolios and their rate structure.

A web site doesn’t have to be flashy or animated to do its job. Browse sites they have built, check ease of navigation, organization of information, overall cleanliness and visitor-friendliness. Also, consider hiring a firm that demonstrates some familiarity with your type of business.

Just go through the success stories/case studies that have been made available on their web site and corroborate the credentials through references if possible.

• Experience and Fees – This is called the EF of web design firm. Experience and fees are very much inter-related. The general norm is the more experienced you are, the more you are paid. This interesting story can tell you what experience is all about.

Once upon a time there was a steam generating plant that was not producing much steam. After a frustrating search for the cause, the plant manager, in desperation, called in an expert. After only two hours on site, the expert found the problem and placed “X’s” on two pipes that were causing the problem, saying that they had to be removed. When presented with the bill, the plant manager asked the consultant how he could charge $5,000.00 for only two hours of work. When he asked for an itemized bill, this is what he got:

1. $400.00 – Placing “X’s” on two pipes.

2. $4,600.00 – Knowing where to place the “X’s”.

The plant manager got what he paid for and probably a lot more. He had already used up more than that amount on his own staff not to mention the loss in revenue while the plant was shut down. For him, securing the advisory services of a consultant was the right thing to do.

It matters a lot if the company has a good experience in diverse business domains and has professionals and specialists from variegated backgrounds. As such they will have an understanding of different business verticals that may be an advantageous point for your website.

Another important factor is budget. What you pay is what you get – WYPIWYG. Never compromise with the quality of your website just for saving few quick bucks. In the long run you will end up on a losing side. Have you ever imagined why American diamonds cost less than real diamonds when at times it’s difficult to differentiate between the two? It’s obvious – the brilliance and hardness of diamond. This makes another interesting point, you can get a cosmetic surgery done for your website for a lesser cost, but it will lack the functionalities and effectiveness. It can draw visitors but can not turn them into business. So when you pay for something, you definitely get a good deal in return.

• Technology – What is their technological competence? Does this match with your requirement? How many projects they have worked on using the same? How frequently their technology is upgraded- both in terms of software and hardware?

• Deadlines – Has the company carried out the projects in stipulated time? Time is one of the most important factors as the longer it takes, the higher the input costs get. Some companies may offer you a shorter time period and may be ready with the design. But after that starts the long and torrid journey of finding and fixing bugs which may turn your visitors off.

• Responsiveness – How promptly the company responds to your queries? Does it listen to your queries? Are they responsive to my suggestions and questions? Do they explain issues in ways you can understand? Do they share your general vision for the site? Are they interested in Return on Investment for the web site? Do they possess the skills necessary to achieve your goals?

• Communication Process – Poor communication is one of the major bottlenecks for business processes. Ensure that the company with which you are working is comfortable with your language. Generally, English (US/UK) is taken as the preferred language to communicate with each other.

What are the tools and technologies they use for communicating? How will they keep you updated with the developments with regards your project? These are some of the important factors that should be kept in mind while deciding about the communication process while choosing a Web Design partner.

• Services – What are the other services that company can offer other than designing? What kind of value-added products or services can the design firm offer?

All these points will help you to narrow down to the list of companies that may offer you viable solutions and help your cause. The next step involves inviting proposals from the short listed parties. Just check through as many cross references that you find justifiable or will satisfy your curiosity. The more time you will invest in this phase, the sweeter will be the returns afterwards.

STEP 4- Proposals

Once you have selected your short-list of top Web development firms, request that they send you a proposal. Ask that their proposal include an overview of your requirements and their proposed solution. This will help to determine which Web design firm understands your requirements best. Also ask that each Web design firm include a description of their development process and a price breakdown for the various aspects of the Web site project.

STEP 5 – Evaluating Proposals

Evaluate each proposal individually on the basis of merit. Take the following points into consideration-

a) Wellness of the proposal.

b) Respective strength and weaknesses of the companies.

c) Evaluate the presentation and format style.

STEP 6 – Selecting the Company

After your organization has reviewed all proposals, compare them with each other. How do they fare in terms of presentation? How do their processes appear in terms of project management? Do they present scalability and/or upgrade paths for your project, which go beyond the needs of the immediate goals outlined?

After going through all the above process, you should be able to zero in on to a particular company. If the doubt persists, establish communication process between the likely companies to understand their process and commitments.

[NOTE: Avoid selecting an individual designer, on a freelance basis, to design and develop your organization's Web site. It is rare to find a single person capable of handling the combined visual and technical elements that make an effective Web presence. Additionally, by depending on an individual, your organization is at risk of losing its investment should anything occur to that one individual – or down the road they simply can't find time to help when you need it.]

As per Michael Singer of InformationWeek:

“Six software companies that specialize in next-generation Web applications announced plans to launch a collaboration software suite for business productivity.

NewsGator, SimpleFeed, Six Apart, Socialtext, SpikeSource, and Visible Path are introducing SuiteTwo this week to coincide with the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The collaboration software includes advanced Web applications that incorporate blogging powered by Movable Type; RSS courtesy of NewsGator; a search wiki thanks to Socialtext; and new social networking capabilities from Visible Path into a single application.

The services — hosted by SpikeSource — are accessed through a single sign-on and rich user interface. Initially, the software suite will be offered in English and Japanese. Resellers can purchase SuiteTwo through Tech Data.

The companies say they saw a need to provide collaboration tools for enterprise-level businesses that could compete with similar products from Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce. By using the RSS, blogging, and wiki platforms, companies could improve a sales team’s collaboration, a call center’s communications, and speed employee training.

The consortium also noted that SuiteTwo could be used as a high-engagement marketing tool where customers could provide instant feedback via a corporate social network or the ability to sell, market, and recruit more effectively.

The product is available for demo. Representatives with the member companies are expected to reveal more on Wednesday during a breakout session at the Web 2.0 Conference.”

So web 2.0 firms in India must tighten their belts as they are going to get a new lease of life.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site’s relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm search engine user experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indices.

SEO can also refer to “search engine optimizers”, terms adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, URLs, and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.