Drupal Development for Great CMS Solution

Released in January 2001, Drupal is an open source content management system distributed under the GNU General Public License, and is a content management framework. Drupal development is used worldwide in the development of content management websites, blog sites, government websites, corporate websites, social networking websites, community websites and lot more.

Moreover, Drupal CMS supports numerous software frameworks such as PHP, JAVA/ AJAX, Flash/ Flex, etc. along with web server including Apache, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite and Microsoft SQL server. Not only that, Drupal development is cross platform compatible, as a result, a developer can perform Drupal development on any operating system such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and also Linux.

In fact, there are several advantages of Drupal development available to the Drupal developers. These advantages could be classified as:

• Drupal is an open source technology, as it proves to be cost-effective
• Availability of numerous add-ons, themes and templates
• Easy to install and use
• No need to buy licenses
• Used by thousands of users worldwide
• Availability of Drupal community
• Constantly updated by thousands of users
• Availability of free updates
• Drupal development is able to develop solutions for both dynamic websites and CMS
• Supports of various software frameworks
• Capable of building multilingual websites
• And much more...

However, as a main functionality of Drupal Content Management System (CMS) is integrated with several features which had made developers and industries around the world to seek Drupal development for their web development needs. These features of Drupal CMS are:

Build - Drupal CMS allows building internal and external-facing websites in almost no time without the need of custom programming. As a result, developer doesn't need to start again from the beginning for building a new website. Drupal has a tool for multi-site configuration and Drupal distribution allowing presetting the configuration of the site functionalities and features.

Create - Supports numerous types of content including text, video, blogs, podcasts and polls with easy to manage functionality, along with user management, menu handling and real-time statistics.

Administer - Drupal CMS supports creating new user accounts and user permission. Administrator can assign different roles to different developers as per the priority and skills.

Design and Display - Drupal CMS supports thousands of Drupal themes and templates, and also allows the developer to create their own unique design for themes and templates.

Organize and Find - Drupal CMS allows organizing with the facility of automatically creating URLs, custom lists and by relating content with other content on the site.

Extend - Drupal has more than 6000 modules available which helps to increase the potentiality of the web development process.

Collaborate - Drupal can help to develop social networking and blog sites where the stakeholder can have the control on the users and the type of the content that they may publish, along with the interactions towards the content.

Connect - Drupal CMS allows website to connect with other websites using feeds and search engine connection capabilities. Even social networking is supported via Drupal.

With so many features and advantages, no doubt Drupal development certainly proves to be an excellent content management system delivering top-notch solutions in web development, worldwide.

Concept Infoway is an offshore software development, offering array of excellent services in software development, mobile development and web design and development, along with Drupal development.

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PHP 5 - The King Of Web Development Languages

Since the release of PHP version 5, the woes of developers have indeed finally come to an end. PHP 5 is essentially the most robust version of this web coding language that comes integrated with support for Object Oriented Programming as well as enhanced MySQL and XML. These three essential components of PHP 5 have been completely recoded in order to unleash their full capability. Apart from this, there are tons of other improvements that have been inculcated within this release. Here is a brief overview of all good things that happened to PHP 5:

Enhanced Support For OOP:

Before this 5th release of PHP, some developers were really frustrated due to limited OOP support. However, this version of PHP carries a huge variety of classes and public / private methods that help is making PHP the king of all web development application languages. The PHP 5 comes integrated with constructors, final properties and method, enhanced interfaces, destructors, class type hints and objects plus a complete collection of magical methods.

Recoded and Enhanced MySql:

PHP and MySQL together are deployed for programming robust and scalable web applications. Although earlier version of PHP was acting OK with MySQL, but this version comes with even better enhancements. Components like prepared statements and inbound / outbound parameters have been fully recoded along with SSL connection and Multi Query functions. MySQLi has also been deployed to gather some juice from newly OOP functionality added to

New XML Extension:

1. The new XML extension integrated with this release of PHP include:

2. Unified whole extension

3. Single Library Standardization

4. Full W3C Compliance

5. Easy to Handle and Worthy XML Tool

6. Effective and Quick Processing of Data

SQLite Database Integration:

SQlite is a lighter version of MySQL that doesn't requires you to install complete database and only needs a single library to store and query the required data. PHP 5 comes packaged with SQLite that is bound to operate on all PHP 5 installations. The SQLite support of sub queries, triggers and transaction makes it a wonderful add-on.

Revamped Exception Handling:

This new version of PHP comes with a highly enhanced and clear error handling interface that wasn't present in previous releases. The new and revamped exception / error handling allows you to separate coding logic from exception handling and parsing them to different and associated code joints.

Apart from these important changes in PHP 5, some minor enhancements include better SOAP deployment with WSDL file and Iterators. Iteration is a new addition to PHP 5 and allows programmers to clean jumbled details from their code.

All in all, PHP 5 is perhaps the most in-demand web development coding language that is getting quickly adopted due to its adaptability, scalability and robustness. In case you are interested in getting your next application done in PHP, then you can easily hire PHP developers from different freelancing and online work portals.

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More Reasons For Software Development Outsourcing

In the modern era, the development of programs for IT industry is taking place at a very fast pace all around the world with the massive growth of computer uses at home and outside. This calls for huge investment in these related industries to cater to the increasing Software Development Outsourcing demand as per the need of all concerned.

The world wide progress of Information Technology at a fantastic rate has propelled the corresponding growth in the industry. Additionally, the input of most modern computer technology has further augmented the growth. Naturally, to sustain the momentum of ontogeny in this category, it is extremely important to meet the ever changing demands of all those associated in such type of industries.

However, the progress of the industry in leaps and bounds also calls for more work and greater manpower. This is where the concept of outsourcing steps in. It also helps the company to save costs besides getting a good quality work. The cost saving definitely comes as an added benefit to the company.

With even the computer biggies in the market like Oracle and Microsoft, have planned to expand their workforce in remote countries and get the job done at lower cost. The concept is extremely unique and is fast gaining popularity as it saves on both time and budget while adding to the offshore firm dealing with the projects.

This however calls for the firm to be extremely well equipped in terms of trained professionals, tools, adequate set up and also acquaintance with advanced technology. Another important aspect that also plays an important role is the presentation and packaging. An attractive package is also extremely important.

The other aspects that are generally kept in mind while working on these projects are the business requirements and also the factor that the project thus developed must also be changeable with the future demands and needs of the company. All these parameters must be kept in mind while working on such projects while at the same time ensuring quality.

It is extremely important that the resultant software is absolutely cost effective to the concerned company as that is the major reason why the work was given in the first place. It has been seen that it is possible to save as much as 50%-60% when the projects are handed over to an off-shore firm.

However, it may also mean not only developing the new projects as per the requirements, but also working and making changes on the old and existing ones. The ways to developing the new product, designing it and constructing an application. There are certain things that are to be kept in mind while working on such off shore projects.

The customer's benefit plays a crucial role along with the time cycle reduction and of course flexibility of the application. Knowledge, quality and the use of technology determines the success of the end project thus developed. Listening to your needs also plays an important part as the Software Development Outsourcing must serve your purpose for which you are building on it.

As software development outsourcing is hot topic right now, I would also recommend you to read this article about offshore application development.

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Magento Development - Easy and Flexible!

Magento helps you to build your e-commerce store which increases the sales of your products and services thus enhancing your brand value. Because of its development it has empowered many online merchants thus removing barriers from marketing their business flow.

It has an unprecedented flexibility and control to make e- commerce a unique and innovative so that no businesses look alike. With its versatility it has other options too like freedom to expand, marketing options and etc. which help to boost your business proposals incredibly.

Magento has a special property to satisfy the needs of today's online merchants. It has placed a platform to control all the online merchandise with not constraining the business processes and flow.

It gives a special facility for the merchants to have the control over the look, content and functions from the online store. They can tailor their sites according to their business needs.

There are many Magento developers and designers who work consistently to provide services to clients. Because of its features Magento is rapidly gaining popularity among shopping cart solutions.

There have been distinguished services in Magento Development like:
Magento Development
Magento Customization
Magento Optimization
Magento Integration

It means every Magento development have four categories namely, Magento customization where with the help of special modules you have the freedom to customize your e-commerce requirements. Magento can be extended for further development of website to gain high rankings in Search Engines like yahoo, Google etc. Magento theme design is important for the overall beautification and lastly Magento Enterprise enables one to store almost all designs that suit your business in one place.

It is an integrated payment getaway where you can get control over the look, style, matter or design of your website with which you can customize it as per your requirements. This will help you to get an edge over the market competition.

Some benefits of incorporating Magento features for your website are mentioned below:

- It has multi store facilities
- Integrated with SEO friendly rules
- Has space to incorporate many payment gateways
- Added space for customer review
- Easy Navigation mode for better search

It may be complicated for some developers to handle it but with the help of experts you can get an outstanding e-commerce platform in this current scenario. Most expert developers who are hired by big-shot firms and organizations do possess a team who has a vast experience in Magento development. With in-depth understanding about code technology in different offshore firms, most firms provide efficient services in all round development.

Nowadays, most offshore providers who provide development services in Magento can get an added benefit of combining all the features of e-commerce in an open source platform with a wide range of customizable features. They can develop and design your e-commerce site with unique features thus making it more attractive than other sites.

Clients can outsource their work to adept developers who will analyze the problem and then get a better solution to surpass the root of the problem.

Magento Development is a professional open-source Application solution that offers merchants complete flexibility and control over the look, content, and functionality of their online store.

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Agile Project Management for Software Development - Why You Should Use It

What is Agile and How does it work?

Agile is an iterative process where a project is broken into pieces called "sprints" and each sprint is tackled in a discrete period of time - usually one to three weeks.

The advantage to the customer (the project owner) is that after each sprint is completed, there is a full review of the work that has been done to date. This allows the project owner to get a hands on look at the software mid-project. This is invaluable because it gives the customer a chance to actually see early stages of the software in action and this always leads to useful feedback and changes to scope.

Once the software review is done, all requirements are re-prioritized for the next sprint. Once the sprint has started, there is no interaction with the developers until the end of the sprint at which point the review and re-prioritization happens again, and again, until the project is complete.

How does Agile help with the scope of my software project?

The reality is that most customers know most of what they want, but it is almost impossible to think through every requirement for the "scope" of a software project beforehand. Using traditional methods of software development, you would create a scope document and the software developers would go away and complete the project based on the document, handing the customer a completed project at the end. The result is a less than 100% happy customer because it is impossible to think it all through. The customer asked for X, but really did not need 20% of what he asked for, but he actually did need another 20% that he did not know he needed!

Using Agile you get much closer to the "true scope" of your project.

Faster to Get Going

Another benefit of the Agile approach is that you do not need to know every last detail of what you want in order to get a quote and get going. A bullet point summary is all that is needed to size a project (give you a price plus budget). Once you are inside the project, it is dynamic - if you decide you want a feature, you may have to give up another, less critical feature, in order to complete the project on time and on budget.

Typically big mid-project requests are put on a backlog for v2 of the software.

We highly recommend the Agile approach to software development.

James Mackintosh is President of Smartlaunch a custom web-based application development company based in Toronto, Canada. Smartlaunch uses the Agile methodology in their software development for customers based in North America and Europe.

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