How You Know It’s Time To Think Different!

On Sept 27th, 2015 I have attended a conference in Canada hosted by SOHO, and the conference topic was "how to improve your business in Canada". People were talking about hiring skilled candidates, promote your services and  apply a tool such as benchamrking and market research to measure business performance in the market. From my perspective I have another plan and opinion which has a positive impact on business improvement whether in Canada market or other market. 

Nowadays, a website is a necessity for entrepreneurs, small businesses, home-based businesses, and anybody selling products or services. Regardless of your other marketing methods, enabling potential customers to either find you through a Google search or learn more about you after they’ve seen your other marketing material is key to creating and developing new customers.

A well structured website is required to make a business online. As Internet is becomes more important for users. It offers many benefits to make user's life more convenient and easy. For the promotion of business it is needed that you should have a website from where users could browse and purchase products that your business is offering.

Nowadays, people are using apps for different purposes. For every business apps are important to communicate with users on a secure network. They also delegate their tasks with the help of these programs. From exchange of resources to implementation of solutions for an extensive, each procedure needs web programs.

This process was activated due to some customers who were regularly challenging customized sites which can provide their objective. Furthermore, progression in technology has persuaded designers to discover unknown areas of web development. They can utilize the new update in their projects for better performance and adaptability.

A wide range of programs are available to business owners, using which they can make their companies even more effective and thus generate more benefit. The area of web design and development has gone through a technical trend, customized web database integration services have collected the attention of customers and clients.

They can now personalize web programs as per their specifications and requirements.

Web design and development services have become very essential among organizations working in different sectors. Furthermore, customized web programs allow incorporation of several features such as tracking analysis, database, content writing, marketing etc.

It has also been noticed that these programs fulfill business needs, regardless of the products engaged in those, Hence, they help to handle work procedures and information in a manageable way.

Benefits of Web Development Services

A market for personalized web application solutions, has been designed out by a huge number of software companies. Following are some main benefits of employing customized web development services:

1. Web surfing around can be assisted. 
2. Transactions, including loads of information can be handled quickly 
3. The volume of visitors to a website can be improved.

Stages in Web Development Process

Development of a web application includes the following phases:

1. Determining the characteristics of the venture and its objectives 
2. Devising a Specific Strategy depending on the goals of the venture 
3. Developing the Project as per the program 
4. Testing the venture for protection at every level of development

Creating a website for your business more than just a website isn't about a fancy or flashy design. Rather, a smarter design that makes a site more user-friendly with high-quality content worth returning for is all that is needed to make a business or brand stand out among the rest.

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Do You Have A Smart Move Plan For Disaster Recovery?

Many financial directors think of IT Disaster Recovery as something that never really happens to them and even if it did the business would be able to get back to business as usual inside a day or so. Assets are safeguarded, backups taken (usually), and unless you are forced to, having a plan and some good intentions are equally as good as having DR equipment sitting around doing nothing utilizing the earth's resources at great expense. This philosophy is green too!!!

Planning for a disaster is a smart move. You never know when disaster will strike, so it pays to be prepared for the worst. Your organization or business must put a disaster plan in place before a real disaster happens. Failure to do so will put your business in peril in the aftermath of disasters such as fire, floods, earthquakes, Data gets stolen, hardware fails or power outage for a long time. Moreover, it will be difficult to get your business back on its feet following a disaster.

The key to business continuity even in the face of disaster is to make sure that you design disaster plan that is useful and effective. So the first step in designing your disaster recovery system is to analyze the risks that you will most likely encounter. Make sure that you have conducted a thorough analysis on all your computer systems and jot down all the risks that could possibly injure system up time. You will then have to appraise how imminent these risks might be in particular to your company. 

To create a full-fledged program for disaster recovery, we need to build up a proper road map for resources that should be pulled at the right time, and for the right purpose.

From my perspective, DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) team is considered as key role in creating Disaster Recovery plan, build up the structure and workflow, and ensuring that all essential planning bases are covered for referred purpose

What's the Purpose of a DRP Team?

A "team approach" to disaster recovery planning provides three (3) primary advantages:

+ It takes a team to identify comprehensive disaster recovery requirements, sufficiently diverse and relevant to all key needs and operational perspectives.

+ It takes a team to create an actionable disaster recovery program, considering all operational capabilities and constraints.

+ It takes a team to put all the plans and programs into action and keep current with changing needs.

Building your plan

The 3 major issues in building a disaster recovery plan are recovery point, time to recovery, and budget.

Recovery Point

How much data can you lose? Is some data more important than other data? What data is absolutely critical for the business to survive? Maybe some email can be lost, but the blue prints or accounting information is invaluable. Your recovery point is the definition of what the system needs to look like once everything has been fixed.

Time to recovery

How long can the business be down? Can some parts of the business be down longer than others? When does everything need to be back to normal? Each business will answer this question differently, and this standard will heavily influence the type of solution chosen.

Budget

If money were not object, every business would want their IT up and running immediately and to the fullest extent possible after a disaster. Of course, that probably isn't the case.

Budget falls into two categories. First, there is some cost for preparing for the disaster. Developing a disaster recovery plan, setting up the backup solution, and perhaps even buying redundant hardware all contribute to this expense.

The second cost comes after the disaster has struck. This might include the cost to buy new hardware, set up the network, and restore from backup. Estimates for this cost should also be included in the plan. Having a plan is worthless if the plan is too expensive to implement.

Whatever your disaster recovery plan looks like, remember to print it out. If you only have an electronic copy and your server crashes, you'll be starting from scratch.

IT Systems and Disaster Recovery 

Because I already came from IT background so I would like to focus in this part only as it has become very important for the smooth functioning of the organization so it is very important that organization IT infrastructure should be updated and running all the time. 

As I mentioned above about the types of disasters, so there are many things which can be lose during or after the disaster. This can be anything which hinders the business process. This can be assets, records, employees and suppliers etc. The loss of the information includes customer's details and other internal data etc. There can be loss of access, use of premises, computers etc can be happen at any time.

By considering the following steps a good plan can be made:

() By identifying the core elements of the company and assigning values to the assets.

() By prioritize each area of work to the appropriate person.

() By defining and considering a plan according to the customer's expectations.

() By communicating the strategy in the whole organization and check whether the resources are prepared accordingly or not.

As the plan is ready and it has been tested and reviewed by the committee, then management should approve it. The plan is like an insurance confirming that the business can be run if a disaster happens. The effectiveness and success of the plan depends on the way it is written, implemented and how one can understands it. The plan should be reviewed periodically and updated according to the need of the business process.

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Online Backup Will Keep Your Data Safe

Why is online backup storage important? It is very important to use some kind of backup storage to prevent corruption or loss of data. As compared to storing information on hard drives, CDs or DVDs, this is the best option as it is not prone to easy damage. It allows a user to save the important information or data. Online backup storage can be used by people who wish to save video files, music and videos, exchange information with family and make copies of vital information.

But before digging deeper and go through details, we need to know in brief what is backup and why back up data? 

Simply backup means that you have a copy of data stored somewhere else meaning 2 copies. If one copy fails then the second copy could be used which is unlikely to fail at the same time as the first copy unless of course a natural disaster happens.

Data backup is easily a important aspect of computer security. Another thing to note is natural disasters. This may be unlikely but it does happen. When you backup data try and keep it at 2 places rather than one but at the same time keep it secure from any unauthorized people.

There are a lot of ways in which you could back up your data and it is not a really difficult process as people may think.

Also depending on the amount of data you have it is wise to take into account future data and make a decision on what size you need for a back up copy of existing data

From my perspective I would say that you must backup your data! I wish that weren't so but it is - just too many ways to lose it.  Online backup of files, pictures, and emails is becoming the most popular way to get that done nowadays. With the affordability of backing up your data online, many find it the perfect solution to automate this part of your life.

What software can be used to back up data? 

Today there are many software that are available to back up data. Using software to back up your data has a lot of advantages rather than copy and pasting them manually onto a removable media. Here are major advantages of this: 

Automated Backups – This means that you don't really have to do anything rather than set the time and date you want the backups to take place and what drives or files you want backed up. 

Online Storage – A copy of your data has been saved online and away from the computer and other hassles such as back up media. In the case of a natural disaster you are safe. 

Data Recovery Made Easy – In the case of data loss you do not have to go through lots of data on the media you can access them online. Files online are also encrypted for your privacy. 

There are a lot of versions and advance features of software available for backup purposes. You must also note that if this is for just home use there is no point in paying that much money for any small or medium business size packages. 

Many anti virus software are now adding online back up features such as Bull Guard so that may be a option to look at if you are planning to buy a anti virus software

Advantages of online backup storage

It is very important that you have the best online backup, as it will enable you to keep the information safe, which can be easily accessed. In case of a disaster, all the information can then be retrieved from the Internet.

Having a backup storage is of utmost importance as it keeps the business equipped with all the necessary information. Online backup storage plan requires you to copy all the spreadsheets, documents, e-mail and files onto the site that offers the plan.

Copying information on DVD or CD is a feasible option for a small organization. However, the method is practically not feasible in case of large organizations as the data is too much to be stored in a DVD or CD. The best online backup storage server contains of file servers and nothing else. The service provider allows a user to be connected with the file server with the help of the Internet connection.

All the information is coded so that it cannot be stolen or read by anybody else. Also, the information can be uploaded from a person's computer system. The backup storage servers enables that even in case of a disaster, the information is retrieved.

The way online backup of your data works is this:

There are a number of products and vendors that promise you online data storage and backup, for instance - IDrive (www.idrive.com) OR Google Drive (http://www.google.com/drive/about.html) OR OneDrive (https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/) OR  Spideroak (http://spideroak.com) OR Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) AND Mozy (http://mozy.com/home/free)

For me I have already picked the provider that meet my needs and I recommend Mozy for its ease, simplicity, and price. If you’re looking for unlimited data storage, keep looking. 

Mozy’s free tier, which caps out at 2GB, is hardly worth having – you can get much more for free from Amazon, Google Drive, or countless other cloud services. The difference is, Mozy is fully automatic where those aren’t.

Mozy pay plans start at $5.99 per month for 50 GB (one computer only) and $9.99 per month for 125 GB (up to three computers). The free mobile app is easy to use, but some of the biggest complaints about it range from the user’s inability to list cloud data by file type and difficulty downloading once you do find what you’re looking for. Mozy may be one of the most recognizable names in the automatic cloud service arena, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s the best or the most cost effective

You should download the "client" software and let the system start to make a remote copy of your data.

Once it is finished doing the initial upload, double-check the client for the files you have available to restore.

If any of the files you need to backup aren't there, just send those specific files to the company to save for you. (most companies default to only save files under 2 GB for example, unless you tell it to otherwise)

It is an easy and simple way to store information. So, for people who wish to have secure and safe data, an online backup storage is vital.

For start up I recommend the free online backup services as it will save your files off-site to the cloud. If your hard drive crashes your files are not lost. Your first line of defense should be an external hard drive to back up your hard drive or a jump drive for your documents.  

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How To Start An Online Business With Only Php Applications Development

With the Internet taking the world by storm, it has become very important for businesses to have a great online presence in order to increase sales exponentially. An effective online strategy is the crux for a business to be successful on the World Wide Web.

There are millions of companies emerging every day and therefore it becomes imperative for organizations to develop an exceptional website in order to be noticed and stand out in the clutter. For online businesses to see a dramatic improvement in their bottom line, it is essential for them to regularly keep in touch with their users and at the same time build relationships of trust and loyalty thereby boosting online sales.

A website that gets a lot of traffic is beneficial to an organization only when it is able to achieve a good conversion rate when it comes to making online sales. A high conversion rate depends on various factors like product catalog, pricing, security and website navigation. A successful website is one which is well-laid out, user-friendly and quick. And one of the best ways to achieve this is to build a web application by exploiting the advantages that PHP application development offers.

PHP is an open source server-side scripting language designed primarily for web development. Due to its ease of use, PHP is one of the most popular coding languages and is installed on millions of websites worldwide. It can be deployed on most web servers and is platform independent; it can be used on almost every operating system.

PHP has the ability to work with web forms and communicate easily with databases, thereby making it one of the most preferred scripting languages for web development. Its simple structure makes creating and editing website pages effortless. It is not only easy to deploy but also has frameworks with a relatively easy learning curve, thereby enabling quick deployment of web applications.

First developed in 1995, PHP can easily be embedded directly into HTML and can also be used as a combination with web frameworks. It is widely used by PHP application developers to build simple, dynamic web applications.

This general-purpose scripting language is appropriate for server-side web development. It can be used for command-line scripting and client-side graphical user interface (GUI) applications, thereby providing users with a gratifying online experience.

Due to its popularity, most web hosting providers support PHP for use by their clients. It is available free of charge and provides complete source code for users to build, customize and extend for their own use making it easy for PHP application developers to develop top-notch web applications. Online businesses see a lot of traffic and need to be up and running at all times.

Benefits of PHP Development

() Ease of writing interfaces to other libraries
() Huge amount of database interfaces like MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, Informiz and PostgreSQL etc
() PHP checks various levels of security which can be set in the .ini file to save the web applications from hackers
() PHP is so simplified that even HTML Coders can integrate the PHP programming
() PHP is extendible
() PHP will run on (almost) any platform
() PHP is Open Source

PHP Application Development is one of the most reliable options that businesses have today. PHP runs in a separate, isolated process within Apache; each request is isolated from every other request. Hence it is difficult for any one process to bring down an entire server thus offering extraordinary up-time.

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Do You Adopt These Frameworks In Create Your Website? I doubt

Having My Own Websites

My first website I had created was in simple PHP code. I found that there was so much work to do on that website, adding customers’ accounts, IDs PayPal, keywords and tying it all into me and not someone else. There were many errors with it and searching for some online HTML tutorials helped move forward. This PHP was my beginning journey to the world of creating website and was the foundation to teach myself about HTML and CSS.

Since this start in 2008, I have created many websites for myself; one of them was the big Medical Directory that offers healthcare online services in United Arab Emirates. As we know there are many sites offer free or paid website templates. Hosting sites offer a number of templates for you to customize. However, for all these templates, imagine how many people online are using the same template. If you do not customize it, what will make it stand out from the rest?

There is so much to learn about web design. I do not consider myself an expert, though I have come a long way. Some of my sites no longer exist, and the rest still surviving!

Furthermore, your website success mostly relies on finding the appropriate way to design it or finding a third party as such as Website Design Service Company who has the creative, innovative, highly skilled and experienced web designers. I am talking about some texts and images together to make a design or layout, but the services should provide much beyond that.

Web design for your website plays an essential role in the success of your company as your website acts as the representative for your business. On the other hand the web development is considered an additional factor to success your company’ website. I would although say It will create a negative impact on your business if the website development is handled, developed and managed by unprofessional and amateur designers.

On the other hand, web applications have gotten bigger, better, and faster, developers now face the complexity to manage in ways that serve business needs. For instance, a pure JavaScript/jQuery solution would not always have the right structure to ensure a rapid speed of development or long-term maintainability.

Projects became heavily dependent on having a great software engineer to set up the initial framework. Even then, modularity, testability, and separation of concerns may not make it into a project. Testing and reliability were often pushed to the backburner in such cases.

Go With Sass

If you start working on designing your website you need to have a solid experience in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) which considered a method that can help you save time and money while also improving your visitor's experience, but recently web designers applied an extension of CSS3 which is Sass (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets) that makes CSS fun again.  Sass is a great way of writing a more terse and functional way of writing CSS. It is allowing you to write DRY code that will be faster, more efficient, and easier to maintain.

AngularJS framework

AngularJS is a superheroic JavaScript MVC (Model–view–controller) framework for the Web. It is JavaScript framework built to enhance HTML for web applications.  I would call it super heroic because AngularJS does so much for developing any website.

AngularJS directives allow developers to invent new application-specific HTML elements that are completely reusable. Angular doesn’t only help developers build a well-architectured, performance driven and effortlessly maintainable rich web app, but also delivers a rich experience to end users.

I found when researching AngularJS and going through the process of implementing an app with it, that it was going to be a great tool in making web applications.  It will require fewer lines of code to complete a task than a pure JavaScript solution using jQuery would. When compared to other frameworks, you will still find yourself writing less boilerplate, and cleaner code, as it moves your logic into reusable components and out of your view. AngularJS the overall goal was to create a platform that would help and make things easier to keep track of.

Enhance your knowledge about website designing and development. It is important that the field you want to enter should have knowledge about it. Website creation is a broad field. If you have good knowledge on it, you will enjoy better services and prevent yourself paying extra.

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How KPI Could Get Your Information Technology Sector on omg!

Performance indicators are always considered an essential point of discussion within the frame of general business management. To begin with, I would firstly define the performance indicator as a measurement tool which some sort of performance is gauged. And then come to a specific type of performance indicator which is a key performance indicator that has been identified as being critical to the performance of a business, company or organization. 

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) must be objectively defined in order to provide a quantifiable and measurable indication of the organizations progress towards achieving its goals.

In business if you talk in traditionally level, most organizations adopt the balanced scorecard method to measure operating performance. As a terminology it is almost the same because the goal of Balanced Scorecard is to measure, yes, the performance of your business If we look at how the balanced scorecard corresponds and based on Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton theory organizational activity can be classified into three hierarchies: strategic planning, management control, and operational control based on criteria that measured performance from three additional perspectives—those of customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth.

On the other hand, there is still a significant difference and I would say, every organization or company should develop the Key Performance Indicators matrix for each section and serve as department-specific measures of performance to help its business to understand and improve on how interact with customers and respond to their needs. 

You should ask yourself what steps need to be taken to ensure the business achieves its goals. For instance, the receptionist takes a call, provides assistance and takes orders. The florist selects or orders supplies and assembles the order. Dispatch arranges for delivery of order. Delivery person ensures delivery. 
In the example above, completing deliveries to schedule impacts lead time, which impacts stock levels, purchasing levels and customer satisfaction. Therefore, on-schedule delivery is a leading indicator of a wide range of performance indicators.

Here, I will talk about the impact of KPI in Information Technology Services areas in educational sector in terms of provide Reliability, Availability and Serviceability. These areas include IT Services Help Desk, Academic Technology, Web Technology, Network and Systems Availability. 

From web technology background, I will mainly investigate the key performance indicators of IT Web technology management @ American University of Sharjah
Web Services AUS supports the main www.aus.edu web site and several associated sub sites. Due to the increased usage of mobile devices, the entire site should be re-engineered to support a technology called Responsive Web Design.

The web and systems team also provides support for e-Learning (blackboard), banner, community website, and several other web centric applications. 

Pain and Sustain

Giving an example in simplest way is a shortcut to be understood by everyone who read the article. For instance, imagine when your body warns you with pain when you are doing something you shouldn’t. If you are lazy and you don’t like to do exercise enough and keep sitting in front of your computer for too long, you get muscle aches and pains, or a repetitive strain injury. 

That’s your body telling you to do more physical stuff, or else! You begin to learn naturally that doing something you shouldn’t equates to pain, therefore you do your best to steer clear of the discomfort and do any exercise that sustain muscle pain and keeping your body aches under control . Notice how the body gives you a taster? If you have been sitting too long in one position you get tired and achy? It’s your body’s natural “kick up the backside” to suggest that you get up and move around for a bit or you’ll suffer later on.  

Look at website KPIs as a potential taster of some real pain, the signals that you use to guide your thinking about getting out of your chair and doing something.

Feeling the pain in Your Website?

The real pain is when you spend thousands of dollars on advertising to drive traffic to your website, but then, convert very few of them to your goal. Or you spend countless hours modifying website pages, yet don’t have a clue whether any of the changes you’re making have any effect on your customers. This is what you will likely experience if you look only at bottom line results, and not the causes of those results.

In all business websites, you should identify the advertising, the products, and those areas of your site that generate the highest number of visitors and/or greatest interest over the long term. If the time spent by visitors on your website is too short, your copy, graphics, or usability are wasted and likely need to be re-written or re-designed to be more compelling.

Therefore, website KPIs should be revisited regularly and may often be valued differently by diverse stakeholders from within your organization

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Do you Know What Resources You Need For Your Business Strategy?

Can you summarize your organization’s strategy or your company business’s strategy in 20 words or less? If so, would your colleagues or your partner put it the same way?

From my experience, I would say that very few executives can honestly answer these simple questions in the affirmative. And the companies that those executives or managers work for are often the most successful in their industry.  Why? Because those executives know what is long-term business planning and how they can work to achieve organization objectives. Companies that don’t have a simple and clear statement of strategy are likely to fall into the sorry category of those that have failed to execute their strategy or, worse, those that they think they have one! This in turn, has a negative impact on frontline employees, and all those in between are frustrated because no clear strategy exists for the company or its lines of business.

The kinds of complaints that abound in such firms include:
“I try for months to work in creating new online marketing campaign to our company, and then it is shut down because ‘it doesn’t fit the strategy.’ Why didn't anyone tell me that at the beginning?”

“Why are we hiring or selecting this vendor again? The vendor submitted an offer last year but did not abide on supplying, and I thought it is not worth it to waste our time and repeat same scenario."

“Should I cut the price for this customer? I don’t know if we would be better off winning the deal at a lower price or just losing the business.”

For instance, I have an experience in IT industry and digital marketing media field; I would therefore talk through this perspective and sketch out the role of IT on company strategy.

Information Technology has become a key business function for almost every organization and most have great expectations of their investment in IT for the future benefits to the business – expectations that will enable the business to:-

-Reduce costs;
-Standardize processes;
-Enhance productivity;
-Improve workflow and communications;
-Sustain repeatable service levels;
-Implement new business strategies;

Despite the growing trend towards building solid business and adoption right concept of strategic tools in a company, there are still real opportunities for IT to make a difference. But the IT contribution is less likely to take the form of the ‘killer’ application that gives specific competitive advantage – it is far more likely that the principal benefit will be derived from having robust, but adaptable, technology throughout the organization, thus facilitating an agile business strategy.

This also includes the digital marketing part and its role in company business strategy especially when we the company plans to grow the business and build up a solid reputation, for instance building a digital tools for trust-based marketing to match company’s objectives, and understanding the role of customers or target audience as a stockholder in business growing

But, if our strategy is not clearly visible – how can we ever hope to align anything with it, let alone the IT function? The answer is that we must move beyond the conceptual level of most strategic thinking, towards a practical, physical expression of the alignment process.

Quite simply, we need a tangible alignment plan that will help us to realize our ambition of complete harmony between our IT and business strategy / or our digital tools and business strategy. ( As mentioned earlier from IT and Digital Marketing aspects)

I would say, organizations that have been able to successfully integrate technology and business strategy have created significant business returns.
Information Technology (IT) and Digital Marketing has become an important enabler of business strategies in such areas of mass customization, competitive differentiation, quality improvements, and process automation and improvement.

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