A New Tool for Web Designers Has Been Launched by Google for Building HTML5 Sites and Ads

This new visual tool called "Web Designer" has been launched by Google.  It is a new tool for building interactive sites and ads.  Google is billing this as "professional-quality design tool. This new tool is now officially in public beta and available for download in Mac and Windows.



While this ad pedigree shines through across Web Designer (the default layouts are for DoubleClick rich media ads and AdMob mobile ads, for example), there is nothing in the tool that would prevent you from building interactive single-page sites and animations for other purposes, as well. Some of the features, however, are currently only available for ads, though Google says it plans to expand these tools for other purposes in the future.

At its core, Web Designer is a visual tool, but you can also delve right into the JavaScript and CSS to fine-tune different aspect of your site. Indeed, Web Designer allows you to manipulate all of your code directly in a built-in editor and lets you quickly preview your creations in every browser you have installed on your machine.

The tools come with all the usual visual design tools you’re probably familiar with. Some of the more interesting ones Google has developed for Web Designer include a pen tool for free drawing, as well as a timeline for managing your animations. Web Designer also features the ability to create 3D content using the power of CSS3, as well as a set of pre-built components for galleries, maps and embedded YouTube videos.

For animations, one of the core features of the application, Web Developer features a Quick mode for building animations scene by scene and an advanced mode that gives designers more control over each of the elements on the page.

It’s worth noting that projects like Adobe Muse, Reflow and others include most of Web Designer’s features, too. But by making Web Designer available for free, Google is putting quite a bit of pressure on the incumbents in this space.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/30/google-launches-web-designer-a-visual-tool-for-building-interactive-html5-sites-and-ads/

Amazing Website Testing Tools for Web Developers

As a web developer you would like to be assured that all the problems have been solved in the functionality of the great site before you launch the final product for your customer.  The following top 10 tools for web developers will help in testing for Cross Browser Compatibility, Website Speed Test, Security Test, Responsive Design Test, Accessibility Test, and so on.

Safari Web Inspector

Web Inspector feature is one of the remarkable Apple’s Safari web browser gems. Users can be able to see Safari Web Inspector after turning development tabs. It shows images, stylesheets and scripts on any webpage.

But, the most useful portion of Web Inspector is its Network feature that displays in real-time the order and speed in which documents and scripts transfer to the browser from the server. This tool allows you to find which files, scripts, or images are putting the most strain on browsers. After knowing the strain, you can simply fix it.

Firebug Firefox Extension

Firebug is the most favorite extension of programmers that solves debugging issues with front-end code and CSS. Checking out through Firebug is the best response, if any image or style that’s out of line. Moreover, users can also be able to change styles within the extension to see how a website will truly show in the browser.

UI Parade

UI Parade (Live Tools) is a collection of free online designer applications, allowing easy developing UI elements with some experience of coding. Apart from creating custom elements, users can easily download creations in their applications and websites.

AccessColor

Professionals, who want to test the color brightness and contrast of the background and forefront of all components available in the Document Object Model (DOM), can have AccessColor.

This marvelous tool is best for searching an appropriate combination of color mixtures within HTML & CSS documents instead of developing each value to input.

W3C Validation Services

W3C is one of the best standards in all of web validation. W3C Validator displays errors based on industry standards by looking into the markup of any website.

Users can find more than a dozen languages and a dozen varieties to choose from. One can find numerous assistance related with W3C validation like amplified load speed of web pages, future-proof feature check, cross browser compatibility, easy repairs & fixing, better search engine ranking, etc.

  Selenium

One of the leading open source testing frameworks for web applications, Selenium is based on Java scripting, offering a collection of choices that used for creating a comprehensive automation test suite.

Some of the effective components of Selenium are Selenium Client API, Selenium Grid, Selenium IDE, Selenium Remote Control, Selenium Web Driver and Marionette.

Browsershots

Browsershots User Interface testing tool is used for checking cross browser compatibility of your website. It is one of the best open source online web applications that make screenshots of your website in diverse OS and browsers.

Solex

Solex is another efficient open source web testing tool that acts as a HTTP proxy. This testing tool used as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. The best things about Solex are users can simply record, adjust and replay a client session.

All HTTP requests and responses between client and server are recorded by this testing tool. With Solex, user can also get the result through XML format and an optional XSL format.

Fluidui

If you are searching for a mobile app prototyping tool, then you have Fluid UI that design and test low and high-fidelity app mockups on a mobile device with simplicity. With the help of this tool, you can easily unlock creativity through its simple and UX oriented.

Watcher-mainly, is a Fiddler add-on that used by diffusion testers to determine web safety concerns. Watcher is one type of reflexive susceptibility scanning tool that especially designed for HTTP based web applications. Moreover, it doesn’t dangerous for cloud, hosting & construction locations.

http://www.whatech.com/members-news/web-design/16291-10-useful-website-testing-tools-for-web-developers-and-designers

How to Customize Chrome With Web Development Extentions

                                          techbeat.com


First of all you may want to know the definition of Chrome extensions in order for this post to be beneficial.
Extensions are small software programs that can modify and enhance the functionality of the Chrome browser. You write them using web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS

Extensions have little to no user interface. For example, the image above shows the icon that provides the UI for the Gmail extension.
Extensions bundle all their files into a single file that the user downloads and installs. This bundling means that, unlike ordinary web apps, extensions don't need to depend on content from the web.

You can distribute your extension using the Chrome Developer Dashboard to publish to the Chrome Web Store. For more information, see the store developer documentation.

Manage Your Extensions

Highly Rated Google Chrome Extensions for Web Developers


 1. Responsive Inspector

Responsive Inspector is a simple Google Chrome extension that allows viewing media queries of visited websites. It is very useful when developing responsive web layouts as it can visually show what resolutions are defined in css stylesheets. In addition it also has following features: - pixel perfect browser resizing - taking and saving whole page screenshots - css media query code viewing - sharing web designs on Behance.net service as Work In Progress.

2. Web Developer

This extension is a toolbar button with various web developer tools. The official port of the Web Developer extension for Firefox.The Web Developer extension adds a toolbar button to the browser with various web developer tools. This is the official port of the Web Developer extension for Firefox.

3. Perfect Pixel

This extension helps develop your websites with per pixel accuracy!Follow our twitter! @welldonecode Extension for web developers and markup designers. This extension allows developers to put a semi-transparent image overlay over the top of the developed HTML and perform per pixel comparison between them.

4. Firefox Firebug

Fire Bug is a web development tool that facilitates the debugging, editing, and monitoring of any website's CSS, HTML, DOM, XHR, and JavaScript; it also provides other web development tools.[2]Firebug's JavaScript panel can log errors, profile function calls, and enable the developer to run arbitrary JavaScript. Its net panel can monitor URLs that the browser requests, such as external CSS, JavaScript, and image files. The net panel can display both request headers and response headers for each page asset; it can also estimate the time each asset took to load.

Firebug is free and open source; it is licensed under the BSD license.[3] Firebug was initially written in January 2006[4] by Joe Hewitt, one of the original Firefox creators. The Firebug Working Group oversees the open source development and extension of Firebug. It has two major implementations: an extension (add-on) for Mozilla Firefox and a bookmarklet implementation called Firebug Lite.[5] Across-browser version is in development. Currently, the Firebug add-on has over 3 million active daily users.[6]

In addition to debugging web pages, Firebug is a useful tool for web security testing[2] and web page performance analysis.[7]

                                                                  http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/web-designer/customize-chrome-with-these-four-web-development-extensions/

Advice to Protect eCommerce Website Availablilty and Security in the Holiday Shopping SeasonRe

                                         Gareth Hoyle


Retailers cannot afford for their eCommerce website to have any malfunctions during the upcoming Holiday season. What should these internet retailers do to ensure that they do not lose money due to security problems or a website outage?  Great advice on the internet has been found to share!

Prepare for the Worst and Plan for the Best

To ensure website availability and security , online retailers must prepare for the worst through escalation and incident response planning by outlining standard operating procedures for down time, including establishing and training incident-response teams. They should also monitor their site diligently to determine service health
and identify anomalies quickly and accurately, as well as provide failover to back-up IP addresses to ensure the site is always available.


Improve Your Infrastructure

Optimize the scalability and performance of your internet infrastructure with demonstrated management of increased traffic load coming your way during the holiday shopping season. Whether you manage your site internally of through a vendor, a track record maintaining satisfactory service levels during the rest of the year may not be a reliable indicator that service level can be maintained during the peak holiday traffic season. If scalability and performance of your infrastructure are not optimized, it could damage you sales revenue and reputation at the worst possible time.


Don't Forget About DDoS

With the increase in size and complexity of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, companies should consider leveraging upstream service providers to protect both Web servers and DNS. If either goes down, a company could be out of business. A cloud-based approach to both DNS management and DDoS protection provides a cost-effective alternative to maintaining uptime.

\
Implement Security Best Practices By Partnering With a Security Provider for Holistic Support

Not all ecommerce sites can develop an internal cyber intelligence capability. Security service providers can help to quickly identify and understand the various security incidents and their implications,determine effective mitigation and remediation tactics, and develop a clear plan to enhance security.

There are very good security support providers out there on the web.  Do research based on product reviews and pricing that you can afford.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20130925_tips_protect_ecommerce_website_availability_security_in_holiday/

Amazon Announces Their New Tech Support Service With an Appropiate Name "Mayday Button"

                                           John Russell


Amazon has become a company that knows what customers want and creates revolutionary ideas to make our life less stressful. Amazon has introduced the Kindle Fire HDX featuring the Mayday button.



With the Mayday button, our goal is to revolutionize tech support,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “With a single tap, an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best. Mayday is available 24x7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. See it for yourself—preview our upcoming TV commercials: www.amazon.com/maydaytv.”

Tips for Ensuring Your Company's Website Continue to Rank High in Search Engines

Most businesses are worried about keeping their high position in search engines. This is a valid worry due to the fact that Panda and Penquin can move a top ranked website and push it down to a lower ranking. There are some good tips that you can implement that will help to stay to the top on the web.



Search Friendly Structure:

For dynamic website address URLs (like the default URL links used in WordPress pages) it is important to use the "Permalink" settings. For example, “mysite.com/page-name” vs. “mysite.com/?page_id=123” can be easier for users to remember and better “symantically” for search engines. Another good suggestion is to create a Site Map to help search engines “crawl” the company website. This can be especially important for larger sites with complicated navigation. Also good for Search Optimization is a well thought-out web page description for every page on the site.

Content

Integrating great web content in 2013 is paramount for not only communicating with site visitors, it also helps a website get a boost in rankings. Good content helps build brand awareness and authority in a sea of competitors all trying to convey why they are the best at what they do. Ensuring the site has an up-to-date list of company ethics, privacy policies and product/service guarantee’s, can go a long way to build loyalty. The web page content should include a “sprinkle” of important key phrases related to the company business for search engines, but more importantly, good content should convey information that will prompt site visitors to return to the website at regular intervals, guide visitors to make contact with site owners or perhaps make visitors want to "bookmark" site pages for return visits.

Site Promotion


There are many ways to promote one’s website which can include writing articles with a link back to one's website, creating a company blog to post updates and events, participating in online forums within the company niche, creating quality press releases and listing a site in local web directories, just to name a few. Business owners must also understand that when it comes to "links", quality, trumps quantity. In other words, understanding what a quality back-link is, will ensure owners look to gain links from web pages that are important, relevant, newsworthy or "nich" sites, rather than trying to obtain a mass quantity of low-quality links.


Don't Put All the Eggs in One Basket

There are many search engines on the internet today. And although Google controls the market share in traffic, those website owners that follow all search engines guidelines and utilize other methods of generating qualified traffic by not depending on just one or two search engines for business, will never see major declines in business. This is especially true when Google decides to make a major update in their algorithm.

Analytics

In weather circles, they say "if you don’t analyze it – you can’t track it". The same principle apply to website statistics. Knowing how much traffic a site is getting, how many visitors are “returning” and “new”, how long visitors stay or how quickly visitors leave the site, are just a few important statistics to consider reviewing, on a regular basis. These statistics allow web developers to make small subtle changes to websites to generate positive results.

These are just a few suggestions to help business owners maintain good website positioning in an ever changing Internet landscape. Contact a local web developer for more suggestions on how to improve one's website and search positioning to take on new business this year and in 2014.

FM Web Services offers Responsive Web Design, website analysis, SEO Press releases, Search Optimization and Facebook pages for businesses. Located in the Toronto area (GTA), IFM has helped business achieve an effective online presence and has helped clients as far away as Bermuda and Mexico. For more on Social Media, SEO or Web Design for businesses, visit IFM at http://www.ifm.ca


http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/9/prweb11152104.htm

Would you Like to Know the Top Open Source Projects on GitHub?

As many of you may know that GitHub is ranked at the most sought after website for posting open source projects.  This website has hosted six million projects in the early part of 2013 with 3.5 million people collaborating.

                                                          dickeastman

Below is a list of the most popular open source projects that are hosted on GitHub as cited on xmodulo.com

1. Bootstrap – This is by Twitter and is a great front-end framework for web development. It has a collection of HTML/CSS templates and JavaScript extensions permitting you to instantly make a copy of the front-end UI of websites and web applications.

2. Node.js – This is a server-side JavaScript environment enabling real-time web applications that can be scaled with the use of asynchronous event-driven model. It makes use of Google’s V8 JavaScript engine for running its JavaScript.

3. jQuery – This is a cross-browser JavaScript library which is meant to uncomplicated the way client-side JavaScript is written. It can handle HTML document traversal, events, animation, AJAX interaction, and a lot of other things.

4. HTML5 Boilerplate – This is a professional front-end template for building fast, robust, and adaptable web sites or web applications in HTML5.

5. Rails – This is an open-source framework for making web applications that are based on Ruby programming language. It has a complete-stack framework for creating database-backed web applications, covering everything from front-end template rendering to backend database query.

6. D3: Data-Driven Documents – This is a cross-browser JavaScript library for showing documents along with dynamic and interactive graphics driven by data. It can visualize all kinds of digital data in W3C-compliant HTML5, CSS3, SVG or JavaScript.


7. Impress.js – This is a CSS3-based presentation framework permitting you to convert HTML content into a slideshow presentation that has great visualization and animation. It allows you to readily make great looking online presentations supported through all sorts of modern browsers.

8. Font Awesome – This is a series of scalable vector icons that can be customized in size, color or drop shadow through the use of CSS. It is made to be completely compatible with Bootstrap. It is free for commercial use.

9. AngularJS - This is a JavaScript framework made by Google for helping with writing client-side web applications with model–view–controller capability. It permits you to create structured web applications with the use of powerful features like directives, data binding, filters, modules and scope.

10. Homebrew – This is a package management software for MacOS X simplifying installation of other free/open source software that Apples do not send with MacOS X. It has the second largest number of contributors at GitHub.

11. Chosen – It is a jQuery plugin specializing in making user-friendly and feature-rich select boxes in HTML. It supports creating single select, multiple select, select with groups, disabled select, etc.

12. Foundation – This is a responsive front-end framework permitting you to construct websites or applications running on any kind of mobile devices. It also has layout templates, elements and best practices.

13. jQuery File Upload – This is a jQuery plugin for making powerful file upload widget. It can support many file selections, drag & drop, progress bar, validation, preview images, chunked/resumable uploads, client-side image resizing, etc.

14. Three.js – This is a cross-browser JavaScript library that permits its user to make and display lightweight 3D animation and graphics in a web browser without using any proprietary browser plugin. You can use this with HTML5 Canvas, SVG or WebGL.

15. Jekyll – This is a website generator transforming plain texts into static websites or blogs. It can simplify blog management to a great extent in the absence of database, comment moderation, update or installation. It can support permalinks, categories, pages, posts, and custom layouts.

http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=116340

Tips for Web Developers In Building a Website that Increases Online Sales

                

 Some merchants might not realize it, but the design of their online storefronts-from the landing page to the shopping cart-has a direct effect on sales. Even the smallest of design elements can improve or harm conversion rates, and this tutorial will tell you five things you can do as a web developer to increase online sales.

Think about it from a shopper's perspective. It seems pretty clear that you want your shopping process to be as intuitive as possible-but a lot of online storefronts don't practice what they preach. Sometimes, web stores get too artsy with their designs. Others use flash animations that can slow down the shopper's browser. Still others use color schemes that send the wrong signals to shoppers.

Performing A/B testing on your online storefront is an important part of making sure your site appeals to customers and makes shopping as intuitive as possible. There is a range of ways that different design elements can affect online users, and testing helps put those ways in perspective. With more than ten years of experience designing online storefronts, we've seen enough to know what the "dos and don'ts" of web store design look like.

Here are five tips on how you can turn more visitors into customers and seriously improve conversion rates using some simple design techniques.

Make sure your shopping cart is visible

 If the customer adds an item to their cart, they want to have the peace of mind that the item was actually registered. Therefore, somewhere on the page at all times during the shopping process, your store should have an area listing the number of items in the customer's cart and other relevant check-out information.Having checkout data visible and readily available also helps ease the transition from shopping to checkout. No matter where the customer finishes shopping, it's important to have a quick link back to the checkout page.

It isn't enough to simply have shopping cart information somewhere on the page, however. Make it pop so it's easier to find. Contrasting colors from the color scheme on the rest of the page is a good way to help the cart stand out.

Optimize your "add-to-cart" buttons

 

Site visitors and customers respond differently to different calls to action. For instance, if your "add-to-cart" button says "more details" or "learn more," our experience has been that customers don't react as well to this kind of indirect call-to-action. In contrast, an "add-to-cart" button that says "buy now" is a specific, direct call to action that elicits a much more positive response from shoppers.

Coloring is also an important design element here. Blue and green are gentler colors that usually cause people to follow up, whereas orange and red can hurt the performance of your "add-to-cart" button. Using colors that flow with your site's color scheme helps further clarify the call-to-action.
  

Clean up your product pages

 

The organization of your site's product pages is a crucial part of ensuring that your customers are drawn in by the information that is most appealing to them.

Have you ever thought about where your customer reviews reside on the product page? Sure, customer reviews are an important part of gaining the customer's trust-but they don't have to be the first thing that the shopper sees. So many elements on any given page mean a complex organization process.

The first element should always be the product images. The shopper wants to see exactly what he or she is getting for the money. After that, make sure to feature the product name, description and the price to get the customer's attention. Keep elements like customer reviews and links to similar products closer to the bottom of the page.

 

Clarify your navigation paths

 

Hidden menus and other elements on the page are very ineffective and can sometimes lead to shopper frustration. One of the most important parts of clarifying your navigation is by avoiding hidden elements on the page.

If you have too many categories, this can be a difficult task. However, fly-out menus (that "fly out" when you mouse over them) are an effective way to keep your page from getting too cluttered while giving the shopper the opportunity to access any category page at any time.

Don't get caught up in getting too artistic about how you design category and other navigational elements; shoppers will always thank you through better conversion rates when you make practicality a priority.

Using bread crumbs so shoppers can trace their way back from where they came is another way to ensure the shopping experience is a smooth one. Make a path between categories and subcategories somewhere on the page. After shoppers add something to their carts, a "continue shopping" button makes returning to shopping as intuitive as possible.

Eliminate distractions from your checkout page

 

When your customer proceeds to the checkout, you want them to go in a very specific direction. So, when you're designing your checkout, this is the time to remove items like left sidebar navigation to define a clear path to the goal.

Ignore the urge to continue selling into the checkout process. Every second between landing and checking-out is precious to ensuring the sale is actually made.

Single-page checkouts tend to have the highest conversion rates. Simplifying the checkout process and making it easier for the shopper is a great way to ensure the sale is completed. In one page, the customer should be able to fill out their shipping, billing and credit card information. One-click checkout is also a great way to keep customers coming back. A good checkout experience will stay in the shopper's mind.

 

 

 ww.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/webmaster/article.php/3897546/5-Web-Development-Tips-for-Increasing-Online-Sales.htm

 

 

 

                                     

Project6 Recognized for Three Award Winning Website Designs in the WebAwards Competition

 The three awards given to Project6 Design were for Education, High-Tech, and Sports Responsive Website Design .                                   

The following article by PRWEB gives the details of the competition.



San Francisco Bay Area website design and development firm Project6 Design is proud to announce three honors from the Web Marketing Association’s 17th international WebAward competition. The redesign of the complex Leisure Sports, Inc. website garnered Project6 Design the Standard of Excellence award in the contest’s Sports category, and the Musicians Institute and Nok Nok Labs earned Outstanding Website awards.

Websites are judged on seven criteria, including design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, copy writing and ease of use and receive a numeric score. Each WebAward entry is judged against other entries in its industry category and then against an overall standard of excellence. With 12 years of design and development expertise, Project6 Design has a proven record as one of the best web design companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Leisure Sports, an active lifestyle business, designs, develops, owns and manages distinctive, high-end fitness resorts and hotels that offer world-class service, contemporary facilities, and innovative sports and fitness programs. Project6 Design refined the Leisure Sports sites’ outdated navigation and branding, developed multiple content editor roles, updated an outdated and complex custom fitness scheduling tool, added internal promotions, and more. The result is a single Drupal-driven website that serves all seven location websites and allows easy access to multiple editors to quickly make changes.


Nok Nok Labs is a B2B security startup in Palo Alto that was looking to come out of stealth mode. Targeting a conference as their grand unveiling, they had just a few months to create their website and establish their presence. Project6 Design created a simple information architecture to enable site visitors to learn about their revolutionary vision quickly. GoTo Webinar, Jobvite, YouTube Video Channel, and the Marketo CRM were integrated into the website as part of Nok Nok Labs' drive to attract top talent and captures leads.

Musicians Institute provides an innovative education that prepares graduates for professional, creative careers in the contemporary music industry, but they were saddled with an outdated, unintuitive website that was not at all user-friendly on desktop, and didn't work on mobile devices. Project6 Design reviewed site analytics, created detailed user personas, and developed an information architecture that appealed to each of the target audiences, resulting in a new website design is clean, refreshing and easy to read—after years of struggling with white text on a black background. The Musicians Institute marketing department is now empowered with a responsive, sharable, search-optimized, easy-to-maintain design that allows their brand to shine.

All three websites were designed and built using the latest award-winning Responsive Web Design (RWD)methodologies—so images are scaled and navigation is intuitive on all devices, from large desktop monitors to the smallest phones. All are built with the Drupal content management system (CMS). Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world. It is used by some of the biggest sites on the Web, like The Economist, Examiner.com and The White House. Drupal is a cutting-edge platform that supports the latest technologies that the Web has to offer. The Drupal project's principles encourage modularity, standards, collaboration, ease-of-use, and more.

About the WebAwards
The Web Marketing Association was founded in 1997 to help define the standard of excellence for online marketing. Its internationally known award programs, such as WebAward Competition for Website Development, Internet Advertising Competition and the MobileWebAwards, recognize the people and organizations responsible for developing the most effective online marketing programs on the Internet today.

About Project6 Design, Inc.
Project6 Design is an award-winning San Francisco Bay Area web design firm working with high-tech, retail, education, and nonprofit organizations. Our strategic process helps elevate their brand, engage their target audience, and drive business results. Our services include branding, print collateral design, and web design and development. Clients include eBay, Gap, Stanford, CA Technologies, Old Navy, The Siebel Foundation, UCSF, and many others. For more information, call (510) 540-8005, email: info(at)project6(dot)com or visit our website athttp://www.project6.com.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/9/prweb11120453.htm

The Biggest Hurdle for Building the Obamacare Website

Evidently the building of the Obamacare Website was a huge challenge. The question in the minds of developers was "Where do we begin?"  Curt Kwak was hired in August 2012 as the chief information officer to complete the website completion

Richard Onizuka ,assistant director for the health policy for the Washington State Health Care Authority, stated , "Ultimately, the team decided to follow a third strategy. “The eligibility system has all sorts of pieces to it — food stamps, housing, medical, other things like that,” explains Onizuka. “The process was to pull the medical piece out of that system, build a new rules engine, then put the rest back together."

The key challenge in that process, says Kwak, is getting the state medical eligibility data to interface with other databases, especially the federal hub.

Biggest hurdle

While formatting data so that it interacts with other databases can be time-consuming, Kwak says that has not been his team’s biggest challenge. Rather, he says, it’s the challenge of putting it all together without being able to really test the system.

“Our challenges have not been with data formats but rather full availability of the test environments to fully test our functionality,” he says.

What limited testing the team can do is currently under way. Kwak says the portal is now being used on a limited basis by agency staff. “So far it’s going really well. We’ve had a pretty high pass rate and we’ve discovered a lot of defects that we’re fixing.”

“We’re still one of the first states to be where we are,” adds Kwak.

While integrating the relevant state and federal databases has been a huge task, developing a Web interface for consumers has been equally important.

“We didn’t use a cookie-cutter approach,” says Marchand. “We collected a lot of feedback just to make sure that we were getting the necessary comments through the lenses of the stakeholders who would be using it from a consumer standpoint or from a provider standpoint.”

According to Kwak, the starting point for Web development were sets of requirements provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency within the federal Department of Health and Human Services that manages the state exchanges.

“We’re working off a blueprint that was agreed upon between us and CMS,” says Kwak. “It was a step-by-step process that we followed, covering everything from security policies and protocols, to the actual functionality of the application itself.”

At the same time, the feedback the team is getting from consumer groups is to keep the site and its navigation clean and simple. “People really want to see something that is fresh and clean,” Marchand says.



Ready to go?

While the work isn’t finished yet, Kwak is confident everything will be ready to go on Oct. 1.

“I think one of the main challenges was management of the defects that came and are still coming through integrated testing and user-acceptance testing,” he says. “So the challenges were around how we prioritize and fix all of these issues prior to ‘cold freeze,’ which is going to occur in the next few weeks.”

According to Kwak, most of the things they’ve had to fix have been cosmetic. “The wording here and there, the look,” he says. “And some things around the navigation of the tool. There are some concerns about some of the buttons and drop-down menus.”

One of the major tools the team has been working on is a health-plan rate calculator that estimates users’ monthly costs based on household income, number in the family, ages and, if appropriate, subsidy payments for those with household incomes below 400 percent of the federal poverty line. That calculator, of course, is being adjusted to reflect the insurance plans and rates certified for the exchange.

And the team is considering working in additional features. The calculator, for example, doesn’t factor in county of residence, and plan costs can vary significantly by county.

There are some other capabilities Kwak says may have to wait for a Version 2 to meet the Oct. 1 deadline, including an online chat capability. “We’d like for customers to be able to access customer support through this service on Washington Healthplanfinder,” says Kwak. “We also want to build out our mobile experience, which would ease access, data look up, and status checking for mobile users.”

What the team is working on most now is getting all the different pieces to work well together. The state eligibility system is still running on a mainframe computer, for example, while the Web interface is an Oracle-based application. Getting those two pieces to interact well takes some tweaking.

And since the Healthplanfinder has an Oracle-based back end, while the Web application is Java-based, they also need to be aligned and synchronized.

Finally, coordinating efforts among all the staff at all the different agencies and departments at the state and federal level is an continuing challenge. “When you deal with organizations that are not your own, you’re going to have different jargon, different acronyms, different understanding of level of expertise,” says Kwak. “That’s been the hardest part — maintaining proper and continual communication to make sure we’re all on the same page.”


Read more : http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021826998_acawebsitebuildxml.html

A New Website Plan Must Include a Foundation of Processes and Reviews for a Great Outcome

                                   thereviewbin

When building a website there must be a an orderly plan to follow to completion of the project. This plan involves more that just the web designer/developer. The following activities have been recommended to use to insure a great website.


Keyword research. Identifying strategically important keywords is crucial not only for search engine optimization, but also for developing the thematic structure of site content.

Sitemap. A sitemap identifies each page of the new site and where it appears in the site’s navigational structure.

Wireframe. A wireframe is like an interactive construction blueprint that allows users to see what the site will roughly look like and how the navigation works. It allows a firm to tweak design and content placement before actual design and content development begin.

Content. Once site pages have been locked down in the sitemap and word counts locked down in the wireframe, writers can get to work.

Design. Designers can proceed as well at this stage.

Development. When content and design are complete, the new site can be programmed and made functional.

Pre-launch testing. Make sure everything works before going public.
Launch. A variety of tasks go into moving the new site from test mode to live mode.

Post-launch troubleshooting. Something always goes wrong, but there is nothing to worry about if you have a system in place to make corrections.

Define the Review and Approval Process

A firm must obviously approve the keyword research, sitemap, wireframe, etc., before the project can move to the next phase. But what is the procedure for internally reviewing these creative outputs, and who exactly is responsible for giving approval?

An effective review and approval process involves enough people to provide balance and thoroughness, but not so many as to create endless discussion and division. Review teams may vary somewhat depending on the item under discussion, but continuity and consistency are enhanced when team members stay connected in some degree to all project phases.

Most important of all, a firm must empower a specific individual to make final review and approval decisions. If this is not done, one of two things will happen:
Decisions won’t get made and the project will never get done.
Poor, rushed, or inconsistent decisions will be made, ruining the quality of the site.

Create a Project Schedule

To meet a launch date, work schedules must be organized carefully. Left to their own devices, writers and designers can tweak ideas forever; on the other hand, if deadlines are too tight, quality suffers.

A good schedule provides adequate time for production, review, and revisions. Common sense, evaluating talent, and understanding the corporate culture are the most important factors in scheduling. For instance, it’s reasonable to assume that a design won’t be approved without at least one round of revisions. And, if the firm tends to be very particular about branding and image, allowing for two or three rounds of revisions makes sense.

If the project has one writer handling 100 pages, one week will hardly be enough time for content. In this situation, the firm can decide in advance whether to hire additional writers or extend the timeline – a much better option than scrambling as an impossible deadline approaches.

Designate a Process Owner

A successful site project has a specific person responsible for keeping the process on track. This individual, the project manager, makes sure deadlines are tracking to be met, that changes to the schedule are made and communicated to all team members, and that unexpected problems are handled in an organized and efficient manner.

Whoever handles this role needs an understanding of the technical aspects of web development and extraordinarily strong communication skills. This is not a job for an efficient executive secretary or a brilliant technician with minimal people skills. A lot of firms that do everything else right get into serious trouble by putting the wrong person in this position.

Document the Process

Even when project management has been assigned to the ideal candidate, the process must exist in documented form, not only in the head of that individual. Why? First, if anything happens to the project manager, the entire project will be thrown into disarray; second, without a documented process, team members and company leadership will have a hard time visualizing the entire process and understanding where they fit in it; third, without a “scorecard,” assessing the performance of the project manager and making appropriate revisions to the process for the next time around become difficult.

Firms always get caught up in the fun aspects of a new website: cool designs, snappy content, amazing animation, and the like. But invariably, firms with high-performance sites have people on staff who love to plan and live to organize. If those skill sets are in short supply, stock up before building your next company site.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2013/09/11/a-bad-building-process-will-kill-your-new-website/

Student Web Developers Nationwide Are Being Challenged by CapitolBlue Cross to Create Applications for Healthcare or New Web Tools for One of 3 Great Prizes

                                       




Sharing this challenge is important to us that are in web design and development. New applications and tools that help produce informative websites or applications in order keep up with the current technology is always welcomed.

Below is the information needed in order to enter the contest.




Capital BlueCross is challenging student developers nationwide to create web-based tools or mobile applications that enrich the health care consumer experience. All entries must be submitted by Nov. 22, 2013, and winning entries can earn one of three prizes totaling $30,000.

Titled Blue Innovates, the challenge is an opportunity for students 18 years of age or older to bring their innovative ideas to life in one of three categories:

Financial: Applications that assist health care consumers in finding, accessing, organizing, simplifying, understanding or minimizing health care expenditures.

Telemedical: Technology that provides consumers with affordable and high quality health care while saving time and money.

Experiential: Tools that help consumers have a more personalized and satisfying health care experience and that enhance their well-being.

Students may use their preferred tools, programming languages and technologies to develop a unique solution.

To get started, students can visit Blue Innovates to review contest rules and register. Developers can also use the online forum on the Blue Innovates web site for support and advice throughout the process.

The developer of the first-place winning application will receive $15,000, while the second and third place winners will receive$10,000 and $5,000 respectively. Winners will be announced by Dec. 20, 2013. Entries must be original work created by the developer who is submitting the application for consideration.

About Capital BlueCross

In 2013, Capital BlueCross is celebrating 75 years of serving central Pennsylvania and Lehigh Valley residents and businesses as the region's leading health insurer. Through its family of companies, Capital BlueCross brings innovative services and clinical solutions to the marketplace. Committed to delivering medical value to its communities, Capital BlueCross focuses on improving patient satisfaction, enhancing quality of care and reducing costs. The company continues to lead the change in the industry by meeting the evolving health needs of its customers, most recently by entering the retail market and building a first-of-its-kind health and wellness store called Capital Blue. Headquartered in Harrisburg, Pa., Capital BlueCross is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, employing more than 1,800 people. More information about Capital BlueCross can be found at capbluecross.com.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/deadline-nears-for-new-web-tools-or-mobile-health-care-applications-as-capital-bluecross-challenges-student-developers-nationwide-223120191.html 

No More Confusion as to Which Portable Applications are the Best to Use in Website and Design

Why are portable applications so awesome?  Portable applications can be stored in pen drives and hard drives so you do not have to carry around your laptop. You may have wondered which applications to use in order to be beneficial in website development and design.

These are the top portable applications that have been suggested should  be a great help to developers.



KompoZer Portable:

KompoZer Portable is one of the excellent portable applications that isHTML editor. This application rivals the functionality of Dreamweaver. As compare to NotePad, it is a great application that allows you to enjoy advanced features and easy code editing functionalities that are not possible through other apps.

Riot:

RIOT is also the best portable application that can be used to compare the original with the optimized image in very less time. The application has easy to use interface that allow users to use this application without any kind of difficulty and it instantly see the resulting file size. For advanced users, this image optimizer is fast and easy-to-use that is simple yet powerful.

GIMP Portable:

GIMP is a free portable application that is a great alternative to Photoshop. Many users find it quite difficult when they used it to Photoshop, but it is extremely powerful, if they use it as a portable application. It is as powerful as Photoshop as there is not better alternative than GIMP.

Inkscape Portable:

Inkscape Portable is an open source scalable vector graphics editor that allows you to perform your drawing while on the go. This application is standards-compliant and its portable version is the most powerful that allows you to make your different parts of developing website easy. It supports with different SVG features that include markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.

Icofx:

The best and professional icon as well as cursor editor, IcoFX is an award winning application that is a perfect solution for icon creation, editing and extraction. This application is designed to work with Windows XP, Macintosh icons supporting transparency and Windows Vista. It allows you to generate windows icons up to 256×256 for Windows Vista/7 and Macintosh icons up to 1024×1024 for Macintosh OSX 10.7 Lion.

MobaPhoto:

MobaPhoto is a free and open source image manager that is one such application that does not require any kind of installation. Stuffed with numerous features, this application is very useful in terms of its quality, performance and features. Being a very useful application, you can use it to manage and track tons of pictures.

Fotografix:

Supports with layer, scripts and filters, Fotografix comes with small footprint and it is only 760kb after extract. Packed with numerous features such as Eye dropper, Clone, Magic Wand and more, this application is an alternative for you when you just want to do some easy image editing and do not want to open various applications like GIMP.

http://www.whatech.com/members-news/web-design/16101-7-best-portable-applications-for-web-developers-and-designers

Would You Like to Know How to Spend Your Money Wisely by Using Certain Apps and Websites?

We all need the best advice in handling our money wisely so the burden of debt can be reversed.  The Buffalo News Business page posted an article on how we can save money by using 11 apps and websites.

Websites and smartphone applications can be tremendous resources for spending your money more wisely. Problem is, so many new ones crop up that it’s difficult to keep up.

So we searched for some websites and apps you might not be using and that you might find helpful.

In general what we found was a growing sophistication among money tools. Some smartphone apps use the built-in geolocation capability of the phone to help you spend money more wisely – by offering a coupon for a store that you’re already in, for example.

Another trend is for sites and apps to engage consumers by incorporating small game-type methods of reaping rewards, called gamification. And many new sites have online videos to explain their tools.

Of course, new and unusual spending tools don’t necessarily trump the tried-and-true.

For example, worth considering are Mint.com to track your spending, ConsumerReports.org to investigate product quality, AngiesList.com to find top-notch service providers, the CardStar app to electronically store your loyalty cards, GasBuddy to find low, nearby gasoline prices and Amazon Price Check and RedLaser to scan bar codes to compare prices.

But among new and lesser-known tools, we’ve rounded up a few interesting and promising ones. With newer ones, it’s hard to predict whether they’ll succeed and be available a year from now. And we weren’t able to thoroughly review every one.

But if you’re a smart consumer who likes trying new sites and apps, these seem worth a shot. Details are available online. All are free, but most have some method for earning money, if only from advertising.

Keep in mind that these aren’t being listed as the best; they’re just a sampling of ones worth exploring.




Glyph and Wallaby apps

Have a bunch of reward credit cards but aren’t sure which card will give you the biggest reward for specific purchases? Glyph (paywithglyph.com), which plans to change its name to Wisely, and Wallaby (walla.by) can help.

For each of these apps, you first enter the reward cards you own. Armed with that information, they will use the GPS on your phone to identify the retailer or restaurant you’re in and advise you on which card to use to maximize your cash back or reward points. This can be a huge help for credit cards that change bonus-reward categories each month. Each has a companion website. Linking your cards can be time-consuming, but presumably, you do it just once.

Avvo.com
This website attempts to help average people with their legal problems and also rates attorneys and offers referrals. It has a free question-and-answer forum with questions answered by lawyers. A well-known site geared more toward do-it-yourselfers is LegalZoom.com.


Manilla

This site (Manilla.com) is a couple years old but seems to fly under the radar among mainstream tools. It’s somewhere to organize many of your bills and subscriptions in one place.

You can link your accounts for your cable TV, wireless phone, electronic company and travel rewards among others. Manilla keeps tabs on those accounts, storing your bills and statements and alerting you to bills that are due so you don’t incur late fees or possibly damage your credit rating.

This site requires a lot of trust because you enter logins for many of your online accounts, including financial ones. Manilla is owned by the large media company Hearst Corp. and has detailed explanations on the website about its efforts to keep your information secure.

For a site more geared toward paying off debt, see ReadyForZero (ReadyForZero.com).


Flipsy

Selling back your unwanted electronics can be a great idea. For example, you might get $50 for a waterlogged iPhone that you thought was worthless. Flipsy is a trade-in comparison site that shows what some companies will pay you for your used books, smartphones, Mac computers and video game consoles.

To get the best deal, be sure to check out the big trade-in sites too, such as Gazelle, NextWorth, Glyde and Amazon Trade-In.



Ibotta

This app allows you to earn money for products you plan to buy by completing minor tasks.

For example, if you were going to buy Silk Pure Almond milk, you could earn 25 cents for watching a 90-second ad on your phone. If you were going to buy Green Giant frozen broccoli, you could answer a poll question to earn 25 cents.

After completing the tasks, go to the store and buy the items. Then take a picture of your store receipt to prove you bought the items – some stores offer automated verification – and money is credited to your Ibotta account. You can withdraw the money via PayPal.



CartCrunch

This app, formerly called Saverr, says it uses crowd-sourced pricing data to help shoppers find the best prices at their local grocery stores.

You can scan your grocery receipt to receive customized offers and a recommendation on which supermarket is best for you based on lowest prices, although supermarket choices are limited so far. Beware, the app is very young, but it’s interesting. Other grocery-related apps recommended by ShopSmart, the Consumer Reports magazine, include SnipSnap, Shopular and Reclip.it.

Dlyte.com

Buy gift cards from this site to reap reward points, which can be accumulated and used to purchase more gift cards. You can also use points to bid on gift cards in auctions.



Shopkick

This app is the opposite of “showrooming,” the term for consumers scouting purchases in real stores but then buying the products online for a lower price.

This app rewards you for physically being in the stores of major retailers by giving you “kicks,” the program’s currency, for being in the store and interacting with products, such as scanning bar codes of items.

As a consumer, you should be aware that the idea behind the app is to encourage you to walk into stores more often and perhaps be enticed to make more purchases. Accumulated kicks can be cashed in, mostly for gift cards to Target, Starbucks, Macy’s, iTunes and others.



Wattzon

This website and accompanying apps attempt to save you energy and money. After asking a few questions about your home, it will offer suggestions on how to cut energy use, for example. You can link the site to your utility account to monitor electricity and natural gas use.


Greentoe

This website allows you to name your own price for electronics, similar to Priceline and Hotwire for travel. You make an offer, with help from the site, which then notifies retailers of a potential buyer. The first retailer to respond makes the online sale to you.

Be sure to check prices elsewhere to make sure you’re not offering to pay too much.

Of course, this is only a sampling and just scratches the surface of new money-related tools. But it might give you a sense of what’s available.

http://www.buffalonews.com/business/money-smart/11-apps-and-websites-to-help-you-spend-money-more-wisely-20130908

Samsung Reveals the Galaxy Gear Smartwatch

Do you think that this smartwatch will be on the top of the Christmas list?

Awesome Tips for HTML5 Games Development

Tips For HTML5 Developers

 

Consider your audience. Look at the demographic and what devices they’re using. If you have web metrics, use them to determine the core range of devices your visitors are using and target your solution at those devices.
Design your game with your technology in mind. Yes, this should always be the case, but the limitations and fragmentation in HTML5 make it even more pertinent. WebGL will let you make a great 3D first person shooter, but its unlikely to (read: not going to) work on tablet if that’s going to be one of your target platforms.
Become familiar with caniuse.com. It’s a great way to quickly check the support for any HTML5 feature that you would like to use across practically every browser or device.
Get your hands on as many devices as possible, running as many different OS versions as you can. Simulators will help during development, but to get an accurate picture of how your code is performing you have to be running on device. There are some great community-led device testing labs like Open Device Lab that will give you access to a huge range of devices. Otherwise scour places like eBay to find old handsets and add them to your test lab.
Keep abreast of the ever-changing landscape. The HTML5 specification is constantly shifting, as is device support, so you need to keep on top of these developments as they happen. This is especially relevant to areas like sound, where features like the WebAudio API can radically change the capabilities.
Stay agile throughout development. What works today, may not work tomorrow. What isn’t available to you today, may be tomorrow. Allow yourself the flexibility to adapt to these changes as they happen throughout your build.
Think about ways to scale your functionality. A mobile first approach isn’t just for traditional web design. Look at ways that you can create a good experience on mobile and then layer on functionality and effects for other platforms as they permit. Target those devices using user agents or media queries and deliver a tailored experience relative to each.
KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). By all means test the limits and try to push the capabilities, but remember that you’re working with a technology that’s in its infancy, and an overcomplicated or overambitious project is only going to cause you pain down the line.
Consider the lifespan of your content. Capabilities are changing all the time, and your content can become dated very quickly as new features are enabled on devices. If your game is going to be live for a reasonable length of time, allow yourself time to go back and both bug fix and update it.
One last one? Oh yeah. Test on every device you can, as often as you can.

http://www.netmagazine.com/features/10-tips-html5-games-development