Financial crisis influenced almost every industry. In some economic spheres salaries went down dramatically, in the others the level of bankruptcy exceeded all possible margins. Software industry also faced some changes.

1. Client companies started to think more about the cost of software development than about the 100% customization according to their needs. Top managers understand that it’s better to install an open source system, pay a bit for customization and train the personnel how to change processes to work with the given system. It’s all about money…

2. E-commerce business is developing. Maybe it is developing not so fast as it was before crisis but it’s still growing. The main reason for this is hidden in the collapse of financial market. People don’t believe in stocks and bonds and other financial instruments anymore. They want to invest in goods (and maybe services) that they can see. The other reason that helps eCommerce business to get more and more market share is lower operational costs. For example you can buy Gucci clothing, Cavalli dress or other designer clothing much cheaper online than in a retail boutique. And people understand this and save money buying online. So, companies working with eCommerce systems get additional customers nowadays.

3. IT Outsourcing is getting its positions back. As everybody has less money to invest to development rate becomes a key factor. So, software development services companies have to think twice and decrease their costs as much as possible.

4. Education and certification in IT industry becomes more demanded. In the situation of increased competition withing the IT market professionalism becomes more important.

This is not the complete list of after-crisis IT trends. Please comment with you ideas and comments.

More and more new frameworks and platforms for software developing are emerging from day to day, Symfony being one of the fastest growing. Its popularity arises from many useful options and possibilities offered by Symfony such as:

-         hosting and scaling applications with no problems;
-         building complex web apps much faster;
-         easy maintaining;
-         using best practices;
-         integrating third-party libraries.

Most software developers make use of Symfony for rapid website development and the Symfony community has increased considerably for the last 6 months.

On February 16-17 Sensio Labs organizes the second Symfony live conference in Paris where developers will have an opportunity to get acquainted with the Symfony community, speak to the core team and share their practical knowledge and skills.

Apart from the conference, a one-day training on Symfony will be organized.

All in the world flows and changes. Is not also an exception and the Internet is the enormous information river, one of the most live and dynamical organisms in the information world. And till now, rummaging every possible search “networks” in depths of the Network World, we tried to “catch” in its depths the information fresh and actual – for the given concrete moment. Applying for a role of the World storehouse of the information, it is compelled to compete not only to the short-lived press, but also with more solid, fundamental storehouses of knowledge. For example, encyclopedias.

Till an epoch of the Internet they were the main sources of knowledge, the main our advisers and assistants. Whether interested us the biography of the well-known writer, interpretation of terms – we found answers to all these questions on book pages.

Moreover, appear, that there are no in the world of two more excellent from each other phenomena, than the Internet and traditional encyclopedias. The information in the Network is distributed non-uniformly – feast today and fast tomorrow – and the accurate structure in it is absent. An another matter – encyclopedias, solid, authoritative editions on which and to refer pertinently in any situation. In them and article everyone is brought to perfection, checked repeatedly up and to use to it conveniently … Here only volume afflicts – try to squeeze on a shelf to small apartment at least «the Big Soviet Encyclopedia»! And the price bites … At last, any book encyclopedia inevitably becomes outdated in some years after an exit – and it besides that the emphasis here becomes not on fashionable sensations-something ephemeral, and on the phenomenon of historical scale …

In a word, at everyone the lacks – but also … And, alas, we too seldom recollect the advantages it, completely rejecting one source of the information for the sake of another. Ask any modern schoolboy – and whether for a long time you looked at least in «the Big encyclopaedic dictionary»? In the answer – sincere bewilderment: «And what for? Everything that is necessary to me, I and will find in the Network …» Perhaps it and so.

It is possible, of course, long and занудно to philosophise, discussing so fashionable now a theme of opposition of book and electronic forms of representation of the information. But after all actually no opposition here is present! For a long time already many traditional encyclopedias have found a new life, having embodied in the electronic form on Internet open spaces.
Everything has begun, certainly, with the well-known “Britaniki” which have opened «network representation» in the end of the last century. First, the truth, publishing house of the well-known encyclopedia perceived electronic “Britaniku” exclusively as a toy, an advertising gimmick, called to advance sale of “Britaniki” paper. However it is literally in a year, having convinced of unknown interest of the public to «a virtual clone» legendary edition, its owners have run into other extreme measure – access to a site “Britanika” became paid …

Well, encyclopedias have got accustomed on the Internet, having won for itself own «an ecological niche». And in increasing frequency in search of compactly presented and a trustworthy information users address to them. The Twist of fate: the maximum of advantage from Internet encyclopaedias takes young generation – students, schoolboys. Those that so like to argue about «old age» books in general and encyclopedias – in particular …

The new post “Software for hair loss treatment: high-tech way to save beauty and dignity” in Oxagile Blog awoke my interest. It’s devoted to special computer applications that help people fighting against hair loss (alopecia).

The author also published distressing statistics for this disease. It turned out, that a lot of men and women face this
problem by age 50 years (and some of them even by age 30 years).  I’m waiting impatiently the continuation of the topic, programmers from Oxagile are planning to write about software for people who inherited alopecia.

Have you ever heard a story about the person who had a huge problem with saying NO. Psychologists even have a special name for this problem but the topic of this post is not dedicated to psychology. Today a want to say some words about this problem related to IT testing.

But at first I want to determine the software testing process not as a process of finding and localizing bugs but the way to achieve the software quality at the highest possible and necessary level. So, if you are a software development company I think that you may find you in one of the following situations:

1. Your company doesn’t have a software testing specialists and these activities are among the responsibilities of software developers and managers (or maybe sales people). For many companies this situation can look strange and they believe that the results will lead to terrible bugs and money loses. But believe me I know enough such softwareу development teams (mostly small ones) that believe that website development for an iron works company or dentist entrepreneur can be successful without test cases and special techniques… If these are the statement of your company’s policy and you have no software testing specialists among you, it’s a good idea to have a short list of 2-5 companies to outsource your testing if needed.

2. Your company has software testing specialists but it seems that you are paying too much and their salary can eat all the profits. Software testing consultants are aware that one of the main reasons for overspending for quality assurance depends on not enough qualification of that company’s testing team. They fulfill much more tests and spend much more time than it’s necessary. If it’s so, as a manager your need to choose among two variants. On the one hand you can pay for their education and training or hire another team of software testers. Or you can think about outsourcing the part or the whole testing to another company that has enough experience in domain knowledge and can guarantee the needed level of budget and fulfill the project in time.

3. Your software testing team works good but the client is so important for the future of your business that your start thinking about additional testing. In this case software testing outsourcing is the best choice and the external view will be able to find the bugs and errors that were missed but in-house team. Why? The answer is hidden in psychology: it is really difficult to find your bugs even if we are speaking about testing bugs.

The conclusion: outsourcing of software testing and quality management is not the only but really good way to develop quality software, save money and do everything in time.

But what about the person who has a problem with saying NO? The answer you’ll find in one of the nest posts…

There are many types of traffic monitoring software at IT market. Most of it can analyze technical aspects of user activity – attendance of the site and every page, numbers of visitors and so on. These parameters are often useless to evaluate the effectiveness of web site.

Modern monitoring software should assess the conversion of the site and its financial parameters. Such tools have to separate out customers from visitors. Also they should collect full information about the customer: from which site he got to this one, where and how he was working with the information at the site, how much time it took him to make the order in whole and at every step, which type of payment he prefers and so on. The monitoring software should also collect detailed information about site visitors, who did not complete the order of a good or a service.

The main goal of monitoring software is to find problem points of the site. The analysis of such points can lead to improvements of user interface or pages descriptions. As a result, it will bring us the rise of site conversion rate.

It’s generally regarded that people perceive 70% of incoming data by sight and that this kind of information is likely to be remembered much better than anyone else. Many companies try to attract client’s attention to their site using numerous colorful pictures and pop-up boxes. Nevertheless sometimes it can be irritating and interrupting. So let the users choose by themselves whether to address to the visual means or just briefly take a look at the text. People like when somebody is taking care of them.

Streaming TV can replace annoying banners and meaningless pictures and fill the site with sapid information in a cute form. Thus the installation of personal flv player makes it possible to increase customers’ satisfaction, give them the opportunity of wider choice and richer functionality that brings you more loyal clients and therefore much money. Applying directly to the streaming software engineering company you’ll get development of your player, its customization by including personal features, integration with other site content and further improvement.

So why should you be irritating and interrupting when it’s possible to be practical and solicitous.

IТ managers manage projects, technology and people. Anу large organization will have at least one IТ manager responsible for
ensuring that everyone who actually needs а РС has one and that it works properly. This means taking responsibility for the maintenance of servers and the installation of new open source software or licensed program, and for staffing а support group.

Large companies are also likely to have an IТ sуstеms mаnаgеr. Тhey are rеspоnsiblе fоr dеvеlорing and implementing computer software that supports the operations of the business. Тhey’re responsible for multiple development projects and oversee the implementation and support of the systems.

Apart from basic hardware and software expertise, an IТ manager will typically have over five years’ experience in the industry. Most are between 30 and 45. Since IТ managers have to take responsibility for budgets and for staff, employers look for both of these factors in аnу potential recruit.

Interestingly, manу of IТ managers don’t have degrees in computing science. In аnу case, the best qualification for becoming а manager is experience. If your personality is such that you’re unlikely to bе asked to take responsibility for а smal1 team or а project, then you can forget being аn IТ manager. You need to bе bright, communicative and bе able to earn the trust of your teams. Most of this can’t be taught, so if you don’t have these skills then divert your career elsewhere.

Mobile technologies develop rapidly. This fact explains growing number of mobile phone applications  today. Up to date mobile devices has wide variety of functions, they are equipped with innovative elements.

With the help of such innovative functions it is now possible to create really revolutionary mobile game applications. Many of them give opportunity to play favorite mobile game even without pressing the buttons. All the user needs is to move his phone from one side to another, up and down, and this makes the player on the screen run around the playground and jump.

Most progressive mobile development companies adopt modern technologies to make the life of people more convenient and exciting.

Graphical user interface of a bad quality is often the main reason of low traffic conversion. There are frequently too much loses of potential clients because of bad designed or complex interface. Web designers and UI analysts have to keep in mind some simple rules of building good structured and easy-to-operate web-sites.

The main principle of a good Internet shop is quite simple. Shop has to persuade visitors to buy goods or services. Main aspects of building such kinds of sites are:

• Don’t overfill the home page of your Internet shop. It should have only the most necessary tools and navigation links: main menu, search field, news or discounts information and unique selling points.
• Navigation shouldn’t be too deep. Visitors should have opportunity to get full information about the good or service in two or three clicks.
• Goods list should have filtering and sorting options to provide better navigation through the various products.
• Every good should have big and clear photos from different angles with possibility to enlarge the pictures.
• Buttons should be named according to “action – object” principle. For example, it would be better to use “Buy this DVD” than simple “Buy” for button names.
• Use clear descriptions of errors on you site. In case of error, visitor should know what to do next.
• Use standard color of the links. Visitor should know which pages he has already visited.

Simple and intuitive interface is a good source of additional customers. Interface optimization and simplification can raise your shop conversion in two or three times.