Cloud Computing for Small Businesses

In this blog, we will read more about cloud computing and its benefits for small businesses. Cloud computing is an Internet-based capability that allows users to access shared computer applications, storage through a network of remote servers, so each individual user does not need to install hardware and software on their on-site server and personal computer.

This is as good as renting a service than buying a product. This has too many benefits to small business owners like-

• Security,
• Flexibility,
• Accessibility,
• Time,
• Cost,
• Energy Consumption,
• Competitiveness and
• Disaster Recovery.

Security: - Bloomberg business week’s article says that 800,000 laptops are lost or stolen from airports alone every year. If we keep storing all of your data on a laptop or mobile device, this information can be easily stolen. However, If you implement cloud computing, you can access and work on your applications – the data itself will not be stolen with the laptop as you require user name and password to get into the cloud where data is saved.

Flexibility & Accessibility: - Cloud computing gives you the ability to access, modify and save files from any number of devices in any location. Cloud computing opens this up and allow you to access your files from any laptop, computer, phone or tablet which is connected to internet.

Cost and Back up:- In cloud computing, you only pay for what you need and use. When you expand your business and need more, you can pay more and vice versa. It is quick & cheap to deploy, easy to access and customise. The latest versions are always there on the cloud so there is no need to continuously replace out of date resources with more expensive programs and technologies.

         The security aspects of the cloud and disaster recovery are other excellent benefits. Your data is secure because it is saved remotely in the cloud, and recovery times are almost 4 times faster for businesses using cloud computing when compared to those not utilising these services. 

Further Benefits: - For small businesses, Staying competitive can be difficult for when they are lacking resources and finances but cloud computing now makes this a real possibility. The service providers deal with all of the technical side of things, saving you a great deal of money and time to focus on other areas of your business. According to Sales Force, cloud will consume 30% less energy and produce considerably less carbon emissions than those using on-site servers.

Hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Please visit www.indapoint.com for IT Software related services.

What cloud computing really means

The next big trend sounds nebulous, but it's not so fuzzy when you view the value proposition from the perspective of IT professionals. Cloud computing is a type of computing that relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications.

 

In cloud computing, the word cloud (also phrased as "the cloud") is used as a metaphor for "the Internet," so the phrase cloud computing means "a type of Internet-based computing," where different services -- such as servers, storage and applications -- are delivered to an organization's computers and devices through the Internet.

Cloud computing is comparable to grid computing, a type of computing where unused processing cycles of all computers in a network are harnesses to solve problems too intensive for any stand-alone machine.

The goal of cloud computing is to apply traditional super computing, or high-performance computing power, normally used by military and research facilities, to perform tens of trillions of computations per second, in consumer-oriented applications such as financial portfolios, to deliver personalized information, to provide data storage or to power large, immerse computer games.

To do this, cloud computing uses networks of large groups of servers typically running low-cost consumer PC technology with specialized connections to spread data-processing chores across them. This shared IT infrastructure contains large pools of systems that are linked together. Often, virtualization techniques are used to maximize the power of cloud computing.

Cloud Computing Standards

The standards for connecting the computer systems and the software needed to make cloud computing work are not fully defined at present time, leaving many companies to define their own cloud computing technologies.  Cloud computing systems offered by companies, like IBM's "Blue Cloud" technologies for example, are based on open standards and open source software which link together computers that are used to to deliver Web 2.0 capabilities like mash-ups or mobile commerce.

Cloud Computing in the Data Center and for Small Business

Cloud computing has started to obtain mass appeal in corporate data centers as it enables the data center to operate like the Internet through the process of  enabling computing resources to be accessed and shared as virtual resources in a secure and scalable manner.

Why Responsive Web Design Is Here to Stay?

Most Web design trends are just that. But in popularly growing mobile world, with an increasingly large variety of mobile devices, the principles of responsive Web design is becoming more popular. Here are three ways developers need to react to the demands of responsive Web design.

The theory of responsive web design and development ensures a website can be viewed from any device, with any size screen, with an experience that elegantly moves from step-down to step-up. It's about accepting the fact that users want to experience website on their 4-inch mobile smart phone, 7-inch mini tablet screen, their full-size 10-inch tablet device, their laptop screen and even their big-screen 4H HDTV. The design is responsive because it constantly takes into account the properties of the device and the browser.

Responsive Web design sensibly uses grids, which let developers define how an experience will scale up, as well as flexible images, formats and containers.

           By using relative measurements for elements on a page and their containers, the basic design and usability of a page can be maintained while scaling up and down on different browser sizes.

-The IndaPoint Team

PHP on Google App Engine

There is a good news for PHP developers because PHP is now available on Google App Engine for preview. For preview means, it is not necessary to white list applications for deployment.

PHP is the world’s most popular programming languages. Google launched PHP at Google I/O earlier. PHP is the centre of such services like Facebook, WordPress and Drupal.

Google also developed number of new features, such as plug in for wordpress and ability to read-write files from PHP etc. Developers can develop, test, build, run, debug and deploy apps through Google’s App Engine PHP application.

            Developers who uses Google App Engine platform, this update is of lot of importance. PHP is used by 81.2% of total websites but now they are far more focused on mobile and cloud.

For more about, PHP or cloud services that our team can offer, please visit on www.indapoint.com.

-Tha Indapoint Team

Ways to Quickly Increase WordPress Speed

WordPress is a great platform. WordPress site’s speed is important to your success. When a visitor lands on your site for the first time, you only have a few seconds to capture their attention to convince them to hang around.

Now, let us take a look at- how to quickly increase the speed of your Wordpress website!

    

    1.Update Everything- Before clicking update button, create a backup. Updating your WordPress installation, theme, and plug-in will increase speed as every update brings performance, stability, and functionality improvements.

2.  Use a theme that is not bloated- Sometimes, WordPress website loads slowly. Maybe because of graphics or bulky code and inefficient functions.

3.   Limit plug in usage- Keep only those plug in which you require and discard those you do not need.

4.   Try cache plug in- Cache plug ins works fine if you spend sometime figuring out what is working and what is not. 2 plugins downloaded most are- WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache.

This is how WordPress speed directly influences your website authority and may determine the future of your online business.

-The IndaPoint Team

Terrific E-Mail Apps for Android Devices

Android device should come with a few email apps pre-installed but we have compiled few best Android apps for email to make you a more prolific mobile email-ninja! As email is one of the single significant means of business communication. Some of the email clients for Android platform are really good. Some of the following apps are limited to single account/service, whereas others are able to connect to multiple accounts/services.

1.   K-9 Mail: K-9 Mail is an email application which supports IMAP, POP3, and Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007. K-9 Mail is one of the most highly customizable email clients for the Android platform, and it offers the following features: Search, IMAP push email, multi-folder sync, flagging, filing, signatures, bcc-self, PGP, mail on SD, unified inbox etc.

2.   Emoze: Emoze is a friendly email client that focuses on push email and supports multiple accounts, including Exchange, OWA, Google, Y!, Hotmail, Outlook365, IMAP, and POP3. This is available for free.

3.   Aqua Mail: Aqua Mail supports Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, plus IMAP, POP3, Exchange, Lotus Notes, and more. Its primary ability is to keep one organized. Its interface is insightful that allows you to quickly navigate around the client, which makes managing email on a tablet incredibly efficient.

4. Boomerang: Boomerang is a free email app for Gmail and Google Apps accounts only, but it offers so many terrific features. Boomerang greatly expands upon the default Gmail Android app with features like support for "Send as," account specific themes, customizable multi-gesture support, snooze email messages, schedule messages to be sent at a later time, track responses to the emails you send, search through all messages across all Gmail folders (Figure E), access to all labels, multi-account support with easy account switching, and much more. 

Read more on Apps in our upcoming blogs.

- The IndaPoint Team

 

Everyone Needs a Private Cloud

Concerns about security and control make the "private cloud” a more pleasant option for many.

One can implement their own private cloud by using a “cloud in a box” solution for office applications that can save the company money in the form of fewer license fees for office software. 

It is popular today to have a cloud of your own, no matter how small you are. When you have been in IT for over 30 years, you see a lot of changes in opinions—and invariably, thought cycles reverse and “old thoughts” resurface in new ways. The fact is, we all appreciate that cloud is here to stay and that it will continue to make inroads into data centers and IT infrastructure. But what we don’t know is where the predictable “pushbacks” can take place down the road. 

It is not too far-fetched for an enterprise to hedge against the turns that technology takes—and to embark on their own cloud journeys with the wish to understand fully what cloud is all about and how it works, regardless of how small they are. For most companies, this means engagement with a private cloud.

-The IndaPoint Team

Advancements in Content Management Systems (CMS)

This is a very good news for companies that are in Real Estate and wants to upload their MLS (multiple listing service) source data to their websites that the content management systems like Joomla and Word Press can now import from CSV and XML sheets.

The new software can support CSV and XML imports which will allow for easy export of properties from MLS in the real estate professionals area of business.

This will allow the real estate sector employees or agents or professionals to manage their property inventory, pictures and information of all inventories. They can also keep a track of all events related to each property.

As of now, The standard input is via .CSV or XML imports, however, the system can certainly be configured for real time feeds that change the listings as the MLS marketplace is very dynamic.

We hope this was interesting. We will keep posting such interesting stuff for CMS oriented businesses, professionals and consumers. For any information on our product and services, please feel free to contact us on www.indapoint.com.

-The IndaPoint Team

Upgrading to Windows 8.1

Microsoft Windows 8.1 is to be released in October 2013. Yes, Windows has announced the roll out of upgrade to Windows 8 users. Microsoft has once again changed the blend of products it is presenting to customers and consumers and also the conditions of use for those products.

Upgrade paths

In a merciful simplification of the available choices, Microsoft has discontinued selling separate upgrade and full price editions. Each Windows 8.1 has a full license that one can use to upgrade an installed Windows 7 instance if you want or can perform a clean install. A previously taken licensed version of Windows is not compulsory.

Only 2 Choices

Whether it is online or brick and mortar, one has two choices:

·                     Windows 8.1 (core) - $120

·                     Windows 8.1 Pro - $200

Already have Windows 8

If you already have a Windows 8 computer, you will be able to upgrade to 8.1 for free.

Bottom line

Having tried Windows 8.1 Preview, I can fully support the upgrade from Windows 8. While the differences between each version are often restrained. If you are already using Windows 8, the free upgrade to 8.1 is a no-brainer - one should get it.

If you are using Windows 7 on a computer without a touchscreen, there is really no compelling reason to upgrade now. However, when buying or building a new PC, there is also no convincing reason not to install Windows 8.1 instead of Windows 7.

-The IndaPoint Team

Cloud Computing: Changing Enterprise Tech

In the years to come, what will happen to the several dollars businesses spend on technology. 

Lot of companies are trying to stitch together lots of different software from different technology providing companies. The biggest key factor of this change is cloud computing, where the software is based at one place and retrieved over the Internet from anywhere. With cloud computing, upfront costs are much less often and latest version of software appear as easily as an update on a smartphone, so the product is never out of date.

Shifting a company to cloud-computing services is also faster than old corporate software methods of installations, which may take more than usual time and require the services of expensive consultants.This statement is enough to explain the changing enterprise technology ways. Corporate tech savvy people are heading away from owning the technology outright and are instead asking others to do it for them in exchange of a monthly or annual fee.

-The IndaPoint Team

www.indapoint.com

Advantages of WordPress & Joomla

Internet has become the objective of business owners searching to endorse their products and services all around the world.

The development of tempting business websites is a cost effective strategy for online market and is being adopted by almost 100% professionals today, in order to reach out to maximum online users. Therefore, in order to have a competitive online existence in the market, businesses are determined to develop well-made and informed websites that provide latest information about their products/services, so as to attract more and more customers.

Joomla and WordPress are two of the most popular CMS development tools that are being widely used to perform business web development, which allow for successful management of business websites.

Benefits of using WordPress and Joomla:

-          Cost-effective development of websites,

-          Easily manageable website without having technical knowledge of web development.  Even a         new user without having web development knowledge can manage a WordPress or Joomla site,

-          It is easy to add and manage content on sites like editing pages, linking web pages to a certain domain, updating content, uploading images, multimedia and much more,

-          The two platforms allow for custom CMS development by offering a choice of styles, features, colors, and appealing built-in themes, plug-ins and templates that help develop a site in lesser time; thus enhancing the overall user experience.

-          With the help of CMS, you can support several websites at the same time, and also provide support to multiple users as any authorized person from anywhere around the world can also add or edit related information.

-          Both the content management systems offer high level security. Only the owner of the site should have full control of the website.

Therefore, with so many benefits of the two CMS systems; WordPress and Joomla, business owners can endorse their products and services online through easily manageable websites; thus increasing the effectiveness, usability and functionality of your business website.

- The IndaPoint Team

Release of PHP 5.4.20

PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting speech that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP is an short form for "PHP Hypertext Pre-processor". PHP is a widely-used, open source scripting language, PHP scripts are executed on the server and PHP costs nothing, it is free to download and use.

The PHP development team announces the quick accessibility of the latest version of PHP 5.4.20 & PHP 5.4.4. About 30 bugs were fixed. All PHP 5.4 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version. This release fixes several bugs against PHP 5.5.3.

Specialty in PHP is that that it runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.) and is friendly with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.). It supports wide range of databases. Free to download and easy to learn.

To hire PHP developers, Please contact us on www.indapoint.com.

-The Indapoint Team

A Bombshell - Android 4.4 KitKat

Previously this month, Google dropped a bombshell on all of us, revealing that the next version of Android would not be 5.0 Key Lime Pie – but instead Android 4.4 KitKat. Since then, we have not only learned that the OS will likely turn up in October, but it is also promising that KitKat will support 64-bit processors.

Don’t get too excited about 64-bit processing just yet, no matter how interesting it may sound – and we’ll have to wait a while to see whether Android 4.4 KitKat will really offer such functionality. But it seems more than clear that 64-bit chips will be found in more and more mobile devices in the coming years, so it’s logical to contemplate that Google will be ready to hold them with future versions of its operating systems.

Another hint as to what the future holds with KitKat, as a screenshot of the next version of Android might have been inadvertently posted to the web by Google itself.

The image in question was first spotted by Android Police, in a screenshot posted on Google Play for the new version of the Korean Google Keyboard.

This is just the beginning, ladies and gents! We have no doubt that Google has plenty of other great changes and pleasant surprises in store for us with the impending KitKat release of Android.

-IndaPoint Team

www.indapoint.com

Android KitKat

Android, CupCake, Donut, Éclairs, Froyo (Frozen-Yoghurt), Gingerbread, HoneyComb, IceCreamSandwich, JellyBean, KitKat. 

Series of desserts or series of Android version……

Google calls its next version of its mobile OS Android Kitkat. The decision to brand this software with Nestle’s chocolate might be because everyone likes to have and keep desserts and cannot stay away from it.

Idea behind this was to do branding and that too with such a brand which can protect from the political pitfalls of deals. If by mistake, they end up dealing with good or ill of the other brand would impact Android also. There might be some reputational issues which should not end up the brand equity.

Google also has its own issues / controversy that Android attracts malwares. There might be a risk involved for Kitkat brand if the new OS proved to be crash prone or susceptible to malware.

It might be a surprise to lot of people including Googlers though now a days news becomes public before they are officially supposed to be. For more applications and supports that we can offer you- please visit- www.indapoint.com.

Advancing Cloud Computing - 2

Cloud computing has evolved a lot over the course of the past few years. The market has changed considerably since its beginning, and many good practices have evolved into actual standards for providers. Moving your systems to a public cloud environment requires you to belief your cloud provider on many levels.

In spite of the impressive growth of the cloud, even top players in the market, such as Amazon and Rackspace, are fairly young companies, having been around the market for a bit over five years.There is a need of more cloud servicing companies like us.

One of the great advantages of cloud computing over the usual IT model, luckily is that the cloud does not need you to jump into a long term promise with a provider with a candid investment. The cloud pay-as-you-go model, coupled with the fact that most providers allow you to test-drive their services for free, means that you can study a lot about the different providers before making a choice, and most times spending almost nothing.

-The IndaPoint Team 

Advancing Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is seen as the next wave of information technology for individuals, companies and governments. As a symbol for the Internet, "the cloud" is a familiar formula, but when combined with "computing," the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier.                             

The reports which evaluated and highlighted the large potential benefits of adoption ranges from economic growth and potentially sizable improvements in employment.
 

Cloud computing comes into focal point only when you think about what IT constantly needs: a method to increase capacity or add capabilities without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any contribution-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities.

In the upcoming blogs, we will see how Cloud computing works. For more information, Please visit at www.indapoint.com.

The State of the Art in Designing Content for Tablets

Market of tablets have grown at a very fast pace. Since Apple debuted the iPad 3 years ago, tablets have become the fastest growing digital technology ever introduced.

As of January 2013, nearly 1/3^rd of adults owned some brand of tablet, a 24% jump from just three months prior and 63% higher than a year earlier.

Like an enterprising developer, How can one take their apps success even further, even higher? The answer: Awesome experience on tablets, What our developers are skilled at. See and experience what our Android programmers have to offer you at- www.indapoint.com.

Kindly write to us through Contact us page or email.

Android Can Follow you Where You're!

It is hard to think of any place where technology or android specially has not reached. It has became so creative area that programmers are having tough time in generating new ideas. Here we come up with an interesting read on integration of Google maps and Android API.     

It basically allows the user to discover the world with rich maps provided by Google. It allows you to identify locations with custom markers, It also allows you to augment the map data with image overlays, You may also embed one or more maps also and much more.....

There are many key development areas like -

• Add maps to your app,
• Customize the map,
• Control the user's view.

More can be explored and developed after a quick chat. So, please visit - www.indapoint.com or call on the numbers provided and we can try to MAP the minds.

-The IndaPoint Team