Friday, October 17, 2014

Custom Website Blog Vs Open Source Website Blog, Which one would be better?

In current scenario it is only natural that we expect every business to have an online presence. And if you are someone owning a business and are catching-up with this trend now, you might be in for a shock when you personally experience its potential.

So, when you are ready to get your business online and have decide to develop a website, one of the first choices you will be making is deciding on what type of platform you will be building your website on - an open source or a custom one. Before we go ahead and choose one, let’s understand their differences and what they have in offer.

But first we need to know what a “CMS” is.

CMS - Content Management System

A CMS is the system upon which your website is built and is the platform which is used for creating, publishing, managing and deleting contents on your website. This includes text, media, coding, etc; however, knowledge on coding is not mandatory as CMS is very simple to operate - almost as simple as editing one’s document. Now, let us go back to the two different types.

Open Source Websites Blog: An open source website blog uses the codes that are already available for the public. One can uses these codes for editing as well as redistribution. These types of systems are constantly under improvement and development by the community comprising of thousands of people; all contributing newer and more efficient solutions to the pool.

  • The main advantage in using open source websites is that you get a website for the least budget. Having a designer work on a website would defiantly cost you most that what you would be spending for get a website up and running using an open source.
  • The usability of these websites are very flexible and anybody can take it upon themselves to edit and modify their websites. Adding new pages, removing continents cannot be easier.
  • The overall time it takes to get your website to the public is a lot shorter than in comparison with custom websites. You do not need for the developers to provide individual codes for your website, most are immediately available and the rest requires easy edits to customize to your needs. 
  • No matter how many pages or how different your pages you require, all are done using the templates, which offers you with a consistent output.
  • With just addition of few plug-inns you can make your website as functional and unique as you want, however not to the precision of a custom website blog, but enough for most.
  • Adding and editing media is so much easier with open source websites, as they were practically designed to offer you with such opportunities and features.
  • Developing your website is more fun through this method, as most to all options can be edited and molded by you to your personal liking. Thus, enjoy the DIY feel without having to know anything about coding or programming. It’s easy to lean interface and user-friendly interaction allow for you to enjoy your website development.

Custom Websites Blog: The custom platforms use privately held codes that are distributed and maintained by individual owners. These types of systems are thus developed and improved up-on, as per these owners’ personal judgments.

  • The main aspect of using a custom websites is that, they can be designed exactly to one’s desire. The templates can be designed to function and look as unique as possible, to an extent beyond what is possible through open source websites, hence you can be sure that no other website is going to look like yours. Also, there are options for you to purchase these individual templates such that no one else will be able to imitate or copy your website design.
  • Being able to customize the website beyond the concepts of templates allows for you to direct your customers the way you want. Thus, the ability to control and steer your customers will play an important role in improving business through your website.
  • Using the custom codes are the most effective and efficient way to get a website done, as no unnecessary aspects to the website are added. They are more personable and are most apt for working towards improving your web-traffic with search engine optimization (SEO).
  • Having a custom website blog allows for you to structure your website to fulfill your individual needs instead of working around and finding a compromise.

These are few brief understanding of the differences between the Custom Website Blog and Open Source Website Blog. Which is better?..depends upon your personal needs. When you are looking for a website that is easy to build, fun to develop and fast to modify then open source website blog would be your best choice. However, if you want a very personalized websites that is most unique, more secure and ultimately you do not mind the extra cost than you better opt for custom website blogs. Whichever your choice is, we offer you both these services.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Teach and Learn through Moodle based e-learning platform

Moodle is an e-Learning platform that was released to the public in August of 2002 as a free software that’s available to anyone for download. Moodle the abbreviation for “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment” is a learning platform that was designed to offer the best interactive learning experience for the users. Both the trainers and the learners benefit from its simple yet feature rich environment, which are customizable and effective at the same time. All these traits are essential and make for a good e-learning platform. Due to which, the number of customized versions of this software available to the public has increased to tens of thousands over the years.

Moodle being a very interactive tool allows for the trainers as well as the learners to work in co-ordination with each other, creating unique online course structures that are customized exactly to their specific wants. The flexibility of this continually evolving platform which is molded constantly to attain fineness and credibility is what has brought 70+ million dedicated users to it.


Teaching and Learning with moodle

The reasons behind why moodle is the most preferred e-learning platform for great many users, are numerous; let’s have a look at some of the important ones and how it influences teaching or learning.

Reliability: This tool has been around for over a decade now, and during these years has undergone numerous changes, to become what is now very reliable and proven resource. From Institutions to Universities, both small and big have chosen to use moodle as their teaching platform; this shows us how trusted this e-learning tool is.

Free License: This being an open-source software, anyone can downloaded it for both commercial or non-commercial usage without any licensing fee. As, the tool can be modified and extended to the user’s specific needs, its cost-effectiveness is its major benefit for trainers and institutes.

Mobility: This is a web-based platform and thus accessible from anywhere and on any device, making its contents reachable by anyone with an internet connection. It’s cross browser compatible and is also available in responsive themes for better usability making moodle a perfect learning tool for students on the move.

Security: One of the major concerns of critics was its security and privacy capabilities. However, through constant updates and regular checks, the moodle platform has proven to be very strong against unauthorized usage, data loss and similar misuses. This e-learning platform is thus ideal for trainers and the learners looking for a safe medium.

Multilingual: Moodle is available in multiple languages, thus apt for students of different culture and various parts of the world. The community is responsible for taking moodle beyond the limitations of its base language. Now the e-learners can opt for available 120+ languages.

Community: And then the most important aspect of all “the community” this is the driving force behind moodle’s success as a prominent Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The dedicated international community provides continual support and intense bug fixes, guarantying a resource that’s fit for training institutes and organizations for small and large scale.

A Complete Package: Moodle has undergone years of development on various fronts to make it a complete tool-set for all types of online courses. Users can configure the very core of this tool and enable or disable its various features to make it the package they would want to support. The package guarantees resource for the following features:

  • Save a lot on course materials
  • Interactive homework/assignments
  • Little to no paperwork
  • Evaluation of skills are fully customizable
  • Wide range of learning activities
  • YouTube video embedding
  • Feedbacks and details are stored meticulously 
  • Automated grade-books

With these collective attributes, moodle LMS (Learning Management System) serves its users with the best of online learning and training environment.

Monday, October 6, 2014

An introduction to WebRTC and how it will improve revenue opportunities for your company?

Introduction to WebRTC

WebRTC is a JavaScript API (Application Programming Interface) that’s designed to support developers in adding Real-Time Communication (RTC) features such as data sharing and voice/video streaming directly into the browsers, thus making them an integral part of these browsers.

This way, the users wouldn’t have to download and install different plug-ins to their individual browsers in-order to experience these real-time communications. As these plug-ins are not only a hassle to the end-users but also to the developers, because they needed to invest a ton of money into funding these plug-ins’ maintains and monitoring for consistent stability and functionality across multiple browsers working under different operating systems.

With this technology - the various devices that you use on a day-to-day basis, like the smart phones, TVs, computers and the near-future wearable technologies can all interact between each other and exchange data, voice and videos seamlessly on a real-time basis via the internet irrespective of their difference in base platforms.

A Brief History

This concept of WebRTC came to life at the Google; about a year after the launch of Google Chrome the Chrome team wanted a system that would provide this real-time communication features. However, the results they came up with weren’t satisfactory and Google released their WebRTC to the public in May of 2011 as an open-source project.

Since then there has been thousands of potential endpoints on development to enhance and make-real the visions for WebRTC, this includes contributions from Ericsson, Mozilla and AT&T. Now, with its inclusion within the latest markup language - the HTML 5 - the browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Opera have all incorporated the WebRTC within their browser experience, while Internet Explorer and Safari are yet to catch-up, as of Sep 2014.

Prospective Future

So, we know that this new technology can bring about a mountain of changes to the ways we perceive peer to peer interactions. But, how these changes will influence or improve your revenue opportunities? – Here, grab a peek!

1) Long Distance Business Communication

Imagine a call center without any telephones - both in physical or on a desktop form!! Impossible?

Well, it may seem so at the moment, but that’s exactly what the concept behind WebRCT is all about. The developers hope to achieve a real-time communications infrastructure that enables all peer to peer interactions within a default browser’s interface.

The possibilities are beyond call centers and similar businesses; all organization can make use of its potential and maximize their efficiency by completely eliminating the needs for telephonic or desktop based phone infrastructures and accordingly control their revenue to a great extent. This technology is thus considered by many as a game changer.

Having a browser that can by default provide you with voice/video calling features and P2P file sharing facilities, without the need for additional plug-ins or any other third party software programs is defiantly a boost for any businesses, especially those companies that have limited budget for availing these services.

2) Advance Conferencing for Business Meets

A long distance video conference usually comprises of multiple participants interacting from different locations via a common tool, which typically relays all their voices echoing from a single speaker, but this leaves a mess of voices. However, all this could change with WebRTC “Spatial Conferencing” a concept that aims to bring about a field of depth in the communications, such that the participants can pinpoint the each other location.

This is achieved by placing a small speaker in-front of the participants, these speakers produce a full three dimensional sound for each participants as per their locations. This gives the listener a clear perspective of individual voices.

This technology thus is very efficient at giving the users a feel of live meeting within a conference room, making the video interactions seamless and pleasant.

3) Acute File Transferring System

Another important aspect of WebRTC is its ability to transfer files between any browsers; be it on desktop or mobile. The possibilities are endless, as the freedom to transfer files across multiple devices and operating systems solves various problems associated with plug-ins and compatibilities.

For companies, this feature can save a lot of hassle and help enhance their productivity.

Conclusion

These are some of the feature of WebRTC that show great potential, in improving our business lifestyle and allowing us to focus on more important tasks.