What is Custom Software Development and How It is Beneficial?

In the current market scenario, most of the businesses and people understand the importance of software. Now most of the critical business processes run on software and also mobile apps and other digital software solutions are increasingly being used to enhance the efficiency and productivity in the organizations. Using software, work in these companies become easier and it also improves the customer and employee satisfaction.

Nowadays so many businesses prefer Custom Software Development over readymade software as it offers several benefits. Before we go much deeper into custom software application development, let’s understand what is the meaning of off-the-shelf software and bespoke custom software.


Off-the-Shelf Software
Many IT companies nowadays offer off-the-shelf software to automate common processes and functions. You must have seen these type of software solutions like many ERP and CRM software or E-commerce portals. Some companies also offers cloud based off-the-shelf solutions. User just need to go through a setup wizard and can start using these software. These software often offer ease of use but they lack in flexibility, uniqueness and functionality.


Bespoke Custom Software
Bespoke or Custom Software is an application specially designed and developed for your business or organization to fit its specific requirements. This type of software is created for a single customer or a group of customers who decide what functions it should have and what solutions it should offer. It offers many advantages over off-the-shelf ready to use software. As it is specially developed for the enterprise hence it contains not just the specific functionalities but also it also has additional preferences and expectations required in the software. These custom software are highly flexible, customizable and scalable. Off-the-shelf software approach to fit everywhere doesn’t work for many enterprises as each business is organized and managed in its own unique way hence custom tailor made software is best way to handle such uniqueness.


Important Points Regarding Custom Software Development 

• Streamlining and Optimization of Business Processes: Most of the organizations go for bespoke software development in order to streamline and optimize the in-house processes. Whether it is a simple database at a small company or a complex solution at a large enterprises, custom tailor made software can solve all of the issues related to customers, employees and day today operations in the company easily.

• Custom Solution is Your Invention: Although whether a custom software or readymade software, both can organize the in-house processes but it is still the half work done. When the custom software development company designs a special solution for your business, you can also participate in the process by suggesting the necessary options and features. Hence a tailor made software application is actually partially or entirely your own invention and shows your creative approach to solve old business problems.

• Increases Status and Brand Value of your Company: As a tailor made custom software is your invention hence it will always be a thing to be highlighted at all places. Thus custom software development increases your status and brand value of your company among your customers and competitors and stresses the fact that you take your business seriously.

• Custom Software Supports Uniqueness of your Business: Each business is different and unique in some way or the other. You cannot stand out of the crowd unless you offer something unique to your customers. If a company offers and copies the same things as others then sooner or later it will disappear from the scene. Custom Software supports your uniqueness in the market and provides you a software which follows different approach to win in the market which will be well appreciated and liked by your customers as well. 

• Easy to Customize, Flexible Enough and Scalable: Technology and economics are changing very fast. Custom software is easy to customize whenever there is such a need arises in future. It is also very flexible to meet any custom requirement and scalable to meet the growing needs of any business or company in future.

• Custom Software Provides More Security: The off-the-shelf software becomes so common in the market that all of its vulnerabilities are open and known to the general public and hackers. Hence anyone can target it and try to gain access over it. On the other hand, a custom software is designed specially for your custom needs and hackers don’t have easy access to it to try the mischief. Also you can implement more security features in your application as per your choice.

Conclusion
We have just shown you how and why a bespoke custom software is different than off-the-shelf ready made software and what are the unique advantages it offers to the underline business. In short, we can say that custom software development brings uniqueness, reliability, flexibility, brand value, cost effectiveness, efficiency and security to your business. Hence now you can take a better and well informed decision whenever you will have a need to implement a software application in your business. Readily you can go for bespoke custom software without any doubt in your mind.

Top Reasons why you should Update your Website

No doubt about the fact that websites are the most easiest way to reach maximum people around the world. It is the gateway to your brand for the whole world to peep into. So, what type of image would you like to present to the world about your brand or company. No doubt, your answer would be a “great” image. 

For this, you should choose a web development company, which is experienced enough to build a website for diversified clients. Why should you choose a company which is able to develop a website which is the best one ever? A great company with some expert professionals always take care of the following factors:         

1. UX or the design of the website. 
2. Site optimization/ reach of the website.
3. Usability or functionality of the website.
4. Time taken to load the website/ Performance.         

In this write up, we will be discussing about the most significant reasons that will push you to take care and update your website.


Reasons to Update your Website on Time:

As a website advertises your business 24*7 to reach to millions of people and users around the world, it should only be the prime aim and responsibility of the owner of the website to take care of the website and it’s maintenance.     

The reasons can further be broken down into 4 parameters and why should you take care of each aspect of your website. 

● UX: A most Crucial Aspect of Website Development

Graphical and UX Appeal:
The visual appeal of a website is the most important factor of any website because the first impression of any website that a visitor notices is always the design and layout of the website. It should be consistent in style and very clean and modern as the latest in trend designs are modern and clean.  

Talking about the updations, if you know what content works well and what not on your website, you can try to remove the obsolete elements of design from your website.

Retina-ready Websites:
Smartphones are those handheld devices which are being used by the most of the people throughout the world to browse through websites. So, if your website is still not mobile-friendly, it’s time to update them! Of course, it’s now the Bootstrap-based design that is the most in-trend rather than static HTML websites. 

If you don’t update the website to the responsive one, it may be possible that you are driving your customers away from your website. So, take your action right now!

International Coding Standards:
 It is a vital factor for a website to be able to comply with the international coding standards. If the website is not made according to the HTML/ CSS basics and key points in mind by the web development company, things can get complicated in the future. To add to this, a website should be focused on the usability of the users. 

Latest high-quality pictures:
Using pictures can make or break the positive image of your website. So, to optimize and enhance your website positively, it is important to use only great-quality photos on your website to make a positive impact. As well as pixel-perfect images are important to maintain the quality of the website.


● Site Optimization and Reach:

Use of Online Tools:
There are many online tools which you can use to measure the optimization and facts about your website, to the effect that you come to know what all has to be improved in your website. There are tools like conversion tracking, heat mapping among others. These may sometimes be expensive to use but very effective to know about the minutest details.  

Powerful Use of CTAs:
It is mostly possible that your website may not have effectively placed CTA. It is one of the biggest reasons why your site doesn’t convert into sales! So, make sure that the web development company you hire to develop your website from scratch or updating it to gain new sales should know the importance of effective placement of CTAs.
  
Up-to-date latest SEO Content:
SEO content is probably the most important thing of your website. If your site is not properly search engine optimized, the chances would be that your site will not show up in the SERPs leading to less reachability and no use of giving attention to the factors discussed in the above points. You get a chance to do the rebranding of the company.

● Seamless and smooth Navigation:
 
UX in Usability:
Why usability matters so much? It is the user-experience of the visitors that makes your website a success. Your website should always be able to give you the best possible user-experience to you rusers so that they can remain on the website for a long time. When your users will remain for a more time on your website, there will be more chance of the conversions that contributes to the successful online business. Your visitors should always be able to get to the page and the articles or the products which they want to be on in the least time possible. 

Google Analytics:
It is one thing that plays a very important role in the success of any website. If Google Analytics are used, there are many uses of it which are as follows:

There are many ways through which people can reach through your website. Google Analytics let you know about what works best and what not! There are ways like-organic reach, paid reach, direct reach, offline etc. This will also include the email referrals as well as the referrals from social media.

Conclusion:
In a nutshell, it is mandatory to update the website so that the factors listed above like SEO, content, Google Analytics, UX ,Navigation, CTAs, International coding standards etc. are met easily. 

Updation of a website will provide an impactful image to the user and visitor of the website resulting in more visitors and sales. A web development company plays a very important role here. 

Best Tools for PHP Developers

Best Tools for PHP Developers

If you have the questions like which are the best and most popular PHP development tools out there then read on as you will get the answers to your questions here. The tools which we will discuss here will help the beginner as well as an expert PHP developer. Actually PHP is a popular back-end programming language which enables you to create, simple, dynamic and reliable websites quickly and effortlessly. Around 80% of the websites on internet have been created using PHP only. If you want to learn PHP and join the great community of PHP developers then you must be looking for the essential tools to start with. Here we are giving you a list of best and most popular PHP tools which will make your PHP development process lot more easier and quicker.

• PHP.net Documentation for Reference Purpose - Whether you are a PHP Developer or developer of any other programming language, it requires a reference documentation from where you can learn and use the programming features in your project. The most popular reference material and documentation for PHP developers is available at PHP.net website. You can either manual bookmark this website on your browser or you can download it on your desktop. This documentation covers everything from PHP installation and configuration to a full list of language references and features. No one can remember everything hence this tool will help you a lot to look something up quickly. 

• Become a member of GitHub Community -GitHub is a contributor platform which has been built on top of a distributed version control system Git. If you are a PHP developer then GitGub can be very beneficial for you as you can share and work with other developers. GitHub has several open source software where you can not only contribute but learn a lot. You can learn Git Basics here.

• Use Xdebug to Eliminate Bugs - Xdebug is a popular and very useful debugger and profiler tool for PHP. You can use it to test your code. It will assist you in debugging and development process. It will also save your valuable time and make you relax while you develop and complete a PHP project.

• Composer for PHP - Composer is a dependency manager for PHP development which enables you to manage both dependencies of other PHP software and the libraries at single place. Composer can save lots of your time and effort. Composer has changed the way PHP projects are developed and is very popular among PHP developers whether beginner or expert.

• Testing with PHPUnit  -  You may have to write unit tests in PHP. Hence PHPUnit can be very useful for you as it is a programmer oriented unit testing framework for PHP and it a popular tool among PHP developers and experts. Hence you should use PHPUnit for successfully testing your PHP projects. 

• PHPStorm -PHPStorm is a great and very useful tool for PHP developers. It is actually a PHP IDE created by JetBrains. It can be integrated into other tools which we have discussed above. PHPStorm can work with many frameworks like Magento, CakePHP, WordPress, Drupral, Laravel etc. It has inbuilt developer tools using which you can carry out the routine tasks from the IDE itself. This IDE can understand your code and offers valuable features like code completion, error prevention etc. to help you write efficient and effective codes.

Conclusion :
We have just discussed the important and valuable tools and resources for you which you can use in your PHP development. These tools will help you a lot in developing, testing and delivering PHP project, doesn’t matter whether you are a beginner or an expert PHP developer. 

Why Port Code to the latest ASP.NET Core 2.0?

Ultimate Advantages of Migrating to ASP.NET Core 2.0

A few days ago, we posted on our blog about the launch of the latest release by ASP.NET development community to Core 2.0. We were quite sceptic about whether a developer should port code to the Core framework for.NET application development or not! By the time, we have got hold of some good reasons and benefits that are encouraging enough to port code to ASP.NET Core 2.0.

In this hour of question, most of the .NET developers are in dilemma:

Should I port my code to .NET Core 2.0, which is the latest version?

We are pretty much sure that your questions will be answered in this write up.


Why port code by the way?
Now, we are going to discuss about the benefits if you have already made your mind to go with the latest .NET version, it all depends on the framework that your application has already been written in while developing the app in the DotNet application development process.

You have to check the framework of the app. Whether it’s built in ASP.NET 1.1, MVC and WebForms and would it be good and advantageous enough for you to do the migration?

Advantages of porting code to ASP.NET Core 2.0
Updating and transitioning from one technology to another robust and agile technology can actually help you create solutions which are very high-end and dynamic at the same time.

Robust Performance and unbelievable optimization:
● During the compilation of the code, there is an optimization of the code on its own, so the best benefit we can count on here is the ultimate robust performance with latest technology and agile approaches. 

● Did you know that when you change the code you don’t need to change your code at all. It will happen automatically. It is done by the compiler that will optimize your code to the core when the re-compilation process takes place.

● It is certainly and completely a surprising fact that ASP.NET Core has given mind blowing scale of performance at around 86,000% improvement. Isn’t that commendable?  

We have no doubt about the fact that Microsoft has always promised high-end  performance with every new launch.

Code hassle is cut short:
Of course, when a new technology or version comes up in the .NET Application development, it is launched in the market with the sole aim of cutting short the hassles related to the code and the same has happened with this latest .NET Core 2.0 framework. 

● One-liner loop is now easy to write because of the LINQ which has been introduced into the new technology with DotNet application development. 

Of course, all these advancements help the developers significantly to reduce their burden to a great extent.  
  
● Easy maintenance of the applications/ websites:
It is a thoughtful fact that whenever there is automatic recompilation of the code, there is a considerate amount of burden that is taken off the .NET developer and to further add to this, less code means that the app or the website will be much easier to maintain as compared to the apps and the websites with heavy use of code and thus, it consumes a lot of time as well as leads to more frustration.   

As a .NET developer who is into the job of a creating web apps or mobile application development or creating websites should always keep himself up to date so that he can earn much better on the projects and give highest level of satisfaction to the clients. If the apps are not developed according to the latest technology, then the profit and revenue to your clients will be much less. 
Best benefit of upgrading to .NET Core 2.0 is that it’s cross-platform:
You can write code on Linux, Windows as well as Mac!

Conclusion:
There are two sides of anything. Same is the case when we talk about .NET Core 2.0. There are benefits but then there are disadvantages also. IT simply depends on the application you are working on.