A photo-sharing program, Instagram was launched in 2010. It enabled the users to take photos and apply digital filter and share the photos on social networking sites including Instagram’s own website. It confines photo images to a square shape, similar to Instamatic (Kodak) and Polaroid images opposite to the 4:3 ratios that are used by most mobile devices. Usually supported on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, April 2012 saw the organization support Android 2.2 (Froyo or higher). Distributed via the Google Play or iTunes App, Facebook purchased the company for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock in April 2012.

History of Instagram

This iPhone Application Development began in San Francisco with Michel “Mike” Kreiger and Kevin Systrom. They had decided to focus their multiple featured HTML5 project Burbn on mobile photography. March 2010 saw Systrom closing $5 million seed funding from Andreesen Horowitz and Baseline Ventures, whilst working on Burbn.

January 2011, Instagram added hastags that helped its users to discover the photos. Encouraging and enabling users to tag both the specific and the relevant, this attracted like-minded Instagrammers. The version 2.0 went live in September 2011 in App store. The version included instant tilt shift, live filters, high-resolution photos, one click rotation, updated icon, and optional borders.  April 3, 2012 Instagram released a version for Android.

Popularity of Instagram

Any active social networker will not deny the phenomenon Instagram. It is mobile photo sharing application wherein the users provide photo updates just like regular status updates of Facebook. The application enables to alter photos, add filters that would mimic the look of low-end film cameras.

Some cool things that can be done with Instagram:

Instamap: The Instamap app on iPad enables browsing of photographs by location or tags. It can be switched to attractive gallery view. With the app, it is also easy to delete and add Instagram subscriptions and leave comments. Updated in real time, there is no waiting involved for the uploading of fresh pictures.

Filter Options: Installed with a set of 15 retro photo filters, iPhone users can access more options for the mix and match. The 100 Cameras in 1 Mobile Application Development is done in such a way, that the photos can be directly edited and exported to Instagram instantly.

Decorating the Desktop: The application Carousel, enables to view the Instagram photos on the Mac desktop. The user can choose from the minimalistic themes and enjoy the vertically scrolling images in the Instagram.

Facebook and Instagram

The integration of Instagram and Facebook was first announced in April 9, 2012. Facebook acquired the app for $1 billion. The CEO and Co-Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg commented on his Facebook page that since Facebook believes in providing the best experience for sharing photos, working with the Instagram team would enable them to offer mobile photos with people they care the most about.

The news was shocking for some as Instagram raised $50 million in Series B Venture round, which was led by Sequoia Capital. This instantly put the company at $500 million valuation. Kevin Systrom, wrote on Instagram’s blog that the support and cross-pollination of ideas and talents in a place like Facebook could create more interesting and exciting future for Instagram and Facebook alike. He went on to add that this does not mean that Instagram is going away. They would be working with Facebook to evolve and build the network. Instagram promised to integrate new features and create better user experience.

Instagram saw a stellar first quarter with it releasing an Android version and its huge venture and evaluation. Sources claimed that the Android version of the app was downloaded more than 1 million times within the first 12 hours. Instagram would remain the largest acquisition by Facebook. Some even went on to say, the deal would squash all competition for the social networking website, Facebook.

AUTHOR BIO: Mobile Application Development has grown rapidly. What started out as the iPhone Application Development , Instagram has ascended the stairs of social media to become platform for photo sharing. Aditi Biswas believes that Instagram brings forth the revolutionary pathway of mobile apps. A blogger by profession, she is also an avid reader and loves concocting gastronomic delights for her friends and family.

Website development and web design or web construction are two different things. Web design involves the act of creating a website and making it function in a certain way. It is the equivalent of building a car. Web development however is the act of making that website do the task it was created for, in other words it is like driving the car. Unlike driving a car, web development will often involve adding and taking things away. A website may be very well designed, but if it is not fit for the purpose it was created for then it needs to be changed, sometimes from the ground up.

Web design is all about creativity and imagination. The web designer has been given a clean slate and a fresh canvas on which to create a website. They must take what their client asks for and then come up with something that suits their needs. This will involve a great deal of work around the colors and style of the website, and what mood and tone it should take. The web designer will often be asked to adapt the design so that it fits a purpose. For example, a client may want a lot of similar product pages but vastly different article library pages. The web designer will have to take into account the way that the client wishes to market themselves. For example, if the client is selling cigars then bright pink colors and pictures of ponies may not be the way to go.

The web development team will then take all of this raw material and design and put it towards a purpose. The Web Development London team will have a website given to them that they need to adjust and change so that it is fit for purpose. They will conduct research and call upon their previous experience so that it can do a certain task. The client may ask that the website be the next big social media site, or a new supermarket site. The web developers are not often tasked with starting a website from scratch (from the very beginning).

Let’s say, for example, that a websites purpose is to hold lots of videos, a bit like YouTube does. A web designer will have probably created an attractive website that is able to upload and download videos with ease and has a large amount of memory with which to store the videos. The web designer did a good job. It would then be up to the web development team to optimize the site so that people will be able to find the website off of the internet. It will also be up to them to find a way to index the new videos that come onto the website. The development team may then also add a search bar onto the website, so that people can find the uploaded videos. They may also do a little research and find out that the video categories on the site are too restrictive and it is putting people off uploading videos, so they may decide to remove the video category section that the web designer added.

Author Bio: Emma Hamilton is a freelance content writer and  she writes  articles and blogs on  Web Development London  and others Web  related technologies.

CSS or the Cascading Style Sheets is a language designed to describe the presentation semantics or the formatting and look of a document written in the markup language. It remains to be one of the most common applications in styling of the web pages written in the XHTML or the HTML. Nonetheless, the application is valid in any kind of XML document inclusive of the SVG, XUL and the XML. Both HTML and CSS are used by Best Web Development Company to create the web pages.

Image Credit: Google

An example of the CSS:

body
{
background-color:#d0e4fe;
}
h1
{
color:blue;
text-align:left;
}
p
{
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
font-size:20px;
}

The coded language explains the background color, the alignment of the texts, the font type, size etc. If anything were edited, it would be simultaneously affecting the displayed result. The Best Web Solution is those, which successfully implements both these language.

As described by Wikipedia, the CSS was designed to enable the separation of the content written in HTML or other markup language, from the presentation content. The elements that were defined were as follows, the layout, color, size, font etc. The division improved the accessibility of the content and provided more control and flexibility in the presentation components. The CSS would enable multiple pages to share the same format and thereby reduce the complexity and repetition of the content.

The language enables similar markup pages to be presented in different styles and rendering methods like by voice, Braille-based, on-screen, in print and tactile devices. The language can also be used to enable the web page to display according to the screen size on which the page is being viewed. The authors design a document linking it to the CSS style sheet, however, the readers can override the one specified by the author

.

The difference between CSS and HTML

HTML:The HTML or the Hyper Text Markup Language is used as the most common web design language. Being responsible for the development, and the total output of the page, there are three different subsections of the HTML document source. They are Inline, Internal and External.

Inline:The Inline markup language defines the following tag:It also defines the layout of the webpage especially in tables and divisions, buttons, links, forms, and even the normal texts and other flash documents. The markup language is used to adorn the web page with different colors, borders etc. HTML is used to construct the infrastructure.

Internal Markup:The markup is for the tag and the users are not able to see anything other than the of the page. The internal markup can be used to define certain things about a web page that is not visible to the viewers. The following are some of the examples: Document Type Declaration, Character Set Declaration and the keywords. (devised for SEO) Multiple web language documents use Internal Markup to connect the multiple languages together. For example, CSS and JavaScript. It is mostly used to create dynamic web pages.

External markup: It is not contained within the HTML document but in a completely different file. To retrieve he contents, the Internal Markup is used. The External Markup is used to create multiple effects on a webpage.

CSS: Although a widely accepted language, unlike the HTML, the CSS does not create anything. It is mostly used to decorate, align, position elements in the HTML. The CSS can be easily defined as taking the HTML output to add components to alter the way it is displayed. The language can be used to edit width, height, border, background, color, alignment etc. Though HTML can also perform these tasks, the methods are deprecated. The language is incorporated in the Internal Markup or the External Markup.

Content curation involves finding, organizing, and preserving the online content. In this existing chaotic world, it is important to process the content. The curation of the content would analyze and streamline it to the relevant theme making it befitting to the subject. A key component in marketing, there has been a sudden awareness regarding content curation.

Image Credit: Google

A survey of four hundred marketers led to some of the following findings about the importance of content curation:

Quantity compromised the quality: 56 percent of the report stated that searching for quality content was their greatest challenge. Overwhelming content has made it complicated to locate a relevant work. A curation organization sifts through mediocre works to deliver applicable information. With content marketing imperative to search engine optimization, it became increasingly important for content to possess unparallel quality.

Impeccable trust is important: 85 percent of the group established that initiating a thought process was important. The customers should be engaged with the thought process prior to the sale. Quality content would endow the brand with an individualistic identity and as augment them as leaders in their forte. Trust of the end-users can be corroborated only with relevant content.

Ours is a social world: People rely on the social media as a resource for on-time information. The search engines have also adapted to seek the social tools for their relevant solution. 79 percent marketers consider social media to be the preferred service for exploring the inherent content. Once the quality has been established, marketers curate it to provide a unique perception. The social platforms facilitate sharing.

Content is all-important: Today, all brands are online, with exclusively designed websites and applications. Marketers make the website accessible for those who are interested in the product. Fresh and related subject matter would improve the page ranks, which is why the experts propounded optimization of the web pages.

The research by Curata established the importance of conventional content. The matter would pioneer as the role brand for the organization. 95% of Search Engine Optimization Consultant was found to practice email marketing, article and blog writing and press releases to accredit them with a web presence. The online world continues to grow and become chaotic, however, only the indigenous content would be able to create the web identity.

Cable internet providers ensure that fast internet services, much faster than any other broadband internet provider. Since cable internet can be obtained from the local cable TV suppliers, hence it is one of the easiest modes. The cable lines that have been used to provide cable TV connection to the consumers are used to draw in the internet connection. Hence, no extra payment is to be made for the installation of this connection. Anyone who has been using slower networks like dial ups will surely notice the massive change in the speed of their connection as soon as they begin using cable internet.

Broadband internet is hugely advantageous since they are the fastest mode of broadband. Any other internet type like DSL or satellite internet is much slower than cables. The only thing that can hamper the fast speed of these connections is increasing internet traffic. If a large number of users subscribe to a same company it leads to huge load on the provider. Consequently the connections get slower.

Because of the ample number of personal benefits cable internet offers, it is a bit more costly than DSL modes. However, the cost must not keep customers from availing the service, since they should keep in mind the speed at which cables provide internet. Files like, music tracks, pictures, wall papers, movies and software can be downloaded with maximum ease. Sharing images, videos on the social networking sites will be of no headache for cable internet users. Such speed will also attract kids, since they will be able to play online games with minimum disturbance from the connection.

Fast internet connections will mean low cost calls as well. The users of cable networks will be able to use the VoIP technology. VoIP technology can be used to contact your near and dear ones who live miles away from you, at the cheapest or no rates.  VoIP offers certain extra services for free. Some of them are call waiting, call forwarding, caller id, long distance and conference calls etc. These similar services are charged for by the conventional phone companies.

Thus with cable internet purchasing online music, tickets to sport events and movie tickets will become extremely easy. Just imagine the amount of time, money and effort that you will save when you start making purchases online. Firstly, you will not need to visit the shops physically; secondly fast internet connection will mean that you will be able to shop without any interruption.

Downloading movies will be a fantastically easy and speedy job with cable internet. While other connections make this process immensely time consuming, with the help of cables it can be done in hours. Business meets and conferences can be held over the internet without hesitation if the connection is something fast as the cable internet. Think of the convenience you will enjoy if you do not need to be present physically at the conference venue to attend the meeting.

Students will also benefit from cable internet. Search for study materials will be made trouble-free if it is done online with such a fast connection.

The list of advantages of cable internet cannot be counted at a single go. For this reason it is better if one starts researching about the cable internet providers of his locality.

Author Bio

Jimy Jones is a proficient author. His articles on cable internet providers have been rely useful for customers. For more knowledge visit cableinternetprovider.net

User engagement on a website means all the activities on websites by users, for example, conversion rates, comments, questions, sharing etc. All activities that connect users with each other, promote community build up and greater interaction are called user engagement activities. Higher user engagement is better and more profitable for the website. Many websites go astray due to poor user engagement on their websites. In this article, we will tell you 5 tools to improve user engagement on your site.

1. Get the Basics Done the Right Way

When you are trying to enhance your social media marketing campaign, the best way is to begin with the basics first. These include qualitative and quantitative activities on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. Post entries regularly and respond to user comments as soon as possible. To keep the customers coming on your page regularly, create polls, contests, quizzes etc. Also, make your web URL name attractive and unique.

2. Post at Specific Times to Reach the Right Audience

Very few people know that the peak hours for big brands to post on Facebook are 7am, 5pm and 10pm EST when people are leaving for work, have returned from work, and are going to bed, respectively. During these hours, the user activity is at its peak as per research. Similarly, different markets have different peak hours and days. For example, the entertainment industry experiences its peak on weekends.

3. Make Your Posts Shorter yet Powerful

Keep your posts short and sweet. It was found that posts of 80 characters maximum receive the highest number of user engagement. Also, people click more on full-length URLs than tinyurl or bit.ly. Also, if you wish to get even more user engagement, put a question at the end of the post rather than at the beginning or in middle.

4. Do Not Sell Your Products on Social Media

There are a lot of people who still consider social media networks as a medium of generating sales only. This should not be done since you should understand that such websites are a way to interact with your customers and persuade potential customers to become customers. During the research it was also observed that people who posted more sales-oriented messages on social networks did not succeed to persuade user to make purchases.

5. Promote Business Skillfully Over Social Media

Respond to your users in an innovative way and keep them engrossed through different contests. Ask your customers to send in entries of the products they own from your business so the best one would win gift certificates, gift hampers etc. Such activities successfully generate greater social engagement in a very short span of time. Promoting your business also generates greater user engagement during festive seasons like Christmas when a large number of people are looking for low-cost purchases and discounts.

Richard is a Magento specialist with a strong interest in user engagement. He has contributed several articles on techie blogs.

To solve the mundane business challenges, there are a wide variety of approaches to fix them. Most of these approaches centers on detecting an optimal solution to appropriately represent the varying business needs while instantly implementing those needs to get quantified results. In this case, Application Development and Maintenance plays a unique role that reduces the cycle between implementation, business requests, and iteration by making easy solution of business problems integrating with technology driven abilities. For the smooth functioning of any business module, the role of ADM is indispensible.

ADM is a part of the information technology department that closely operates with the different business processes in an attempt to create, manage and run new software while making ongoing business improvements. In this part of IT operation, software developers and business analysts communicate and discuss business whereabouts with the executives to know more about their requirements, whether it is for existing or new applications. The area of application development and maintenance comprises highly specialized tasks for which most of the companies have their ADM teams set around application-centric duties such as CRM, ERP, etc rather than business functions.

To a large extent, business services are notions of the ever evolving business needs but the prime aim is to make alignment possible by getting rid of development and integration, usually coming in the way of the process. An efficient ADM model not only influences on developing and intensifying competency putting it as the main focus but it also aids in providing more detailed and definite solutions to specific verticals.

The performance of your website is a huge factor that determines how many repeat visitors your website gets. If your website performs slowly and visitors have to wait quite some time for a webpage to load, they will not be coming back.

There are many ways through which a website can be slowed down – not always the owner’s fault. However, detailed below are 4 ways you can improve the performance of your website.

Disable Unnecessary Plug-ins

More often than not, website developers will install a lot of plug-ins that are aimed at enhancing the user’s experience. These may include mouse pointers, flash banners and automatic audio and video streaming. Many such plug-ins, although improve a website’s experience, are rarely needed.

Unless it’s an essential plug-in or you have more than enough bandwidth, try disabling it. Your website will perform much better if it is disabled.

Never Display more than you need to

Most people make this mistake that they show a lot of information on the main page. If you have heavy pictures, various animations and a video introduction on your first/main page, you may just repel your visitors. In this day and age, if it takes quite some time to load a webpage, a visitor will either click the refresh or cancel button.

The best way to counteract this is to display simple pictures and other media forms on your main page. This will improve the performance of your website significantly. Additionally, if you must display pictures, use small resolution pictures on the initial screen.

Text Icons

This is not something new and is implored in many websites. Many people use picture to replace text. Not only is this a bad idea for SEO dependant websites, it will slow down any website. If a style variation is still required, look for other alternatives such as fancy fonts or try using CSS @font-face to get both flashy text and speed.

A Great Backbone

Quite possibly the easiest ways to improve the performance of your website is to have a good backbone. A professional webhost will provide you a high amount of bandwidth and various optimizations. In addition, the customer support of a professional hosting service will help you improve your website without quickly and efficiently. This could be in the form of a knowledge base or live support.

However, due to the money required in this method, keep this method as a final resort.

There are always ways to optimize your website’s performance without having to expend much effort or even money. Try the free alternatives rather than the final solution listed above. These four ways improve your website’s performance without compromising the experience that you plan on providing to your visitors.

Richard is an experienced Magento development specialist with over 4 years experience. When he is not working, he loves blogging about web design and technology.

Stratfor, a Global Intelligence Firm, has launched its website once again after its personal information and numerous credit card numbers were stolen by the hackers. The hackers were also responsible for the non-functioning of the servers.

Image Credit: Google

The hackers were responsible for the stealing of 10 GB of secret and private information, comprising details of clients, usernames, credit card numbers, email addresses and MD5 password hashes.

Goerge Friedman, the Chief Executive of Stratfor, on last Wednesday, had accepted the fact that their company did not encrypt the information of the clients. He also declared that the hackers quite a few times earlier had attempted to hack its data.

Friedman stated, “I was absolutely unprepared for their attempt to destroy us”. He also said that “Our systems were shredded,” and that “The destruction of our servers and our backups… was clearly intended to take us offline and silence us.”

The group, Anonymous, claimed responsibility for this hacking that took place at the time of Christmas. The Anonymous had published two lists that include all the details of the credit card. One of the lists’ includes 13,191 items and the other list includes 3956 items.

Members of Anonymous, said that its target were the organizations “that play fast and loose with their customers’ private and sensitive information.” They also said they stole the credit card information to donate money to the charitable organizations during Christmas, such as the Care and the American Red Cross.

On Christmas, this firm, mentioned in an e-mail, “Contrary to this assertion the disclosure was merely a list of some of the members that have purchased our publications and does not comprise a list of individuals or entities that have a relationship with Stratfor beyond their purchase of our subscription-based publications,”

Mikko Hypponen, the Chief Research Officer of F- Secure Corporation, has written in a blog, “When credit card owners see unauthorized charges on their cards, they will report them to their bank or credit card company. Credit card companies will do a chargeback to the charities, which will have to return the money. In some cases, charities could be hit with with penalties. At the very least, they will lose time and money in handling chargebacks.”

Stratfor also made the announcement last Wednesday, that that it was transferring its entire e-commerce process to a system of third party. Thus it would completely forbid the necessity related to the storing of the credit card information. It also claimed that it has employed Sec Theory to re-develop its own website, internal framework as well as structure and mailing system.

He also said, “We were caught between a very difficult situation where the FBI had control of the investigation and expected certain care in that investigation — and the need to protect our customers,”  and “What little we could do, we did.”

Friedman, said to the The Associated Press in an interview conducted over the phone that “It was a truly unforgivable failure and I feel awful about it,”. He also said, “Sometimes in rapid growth, you make a mistake. That’s not an excuse, that’s not a justification … It’s an explanation.”

At present, the website of Stratfor has been closed down for maintenance purpose. In order to get hold of the hackers, it is co-operating with the law.

It is co-operating with the FBI, to get hold of the hackers.

Stratfor needs to adopt effectual security strategies, to prevent such disastrous happenings.

2012 Technology of the Year Award Winners are awarded to the hardware and the software that had made an impact on the life of the people. It is to be seen that that whether this list includes the technologies that had earlier received recognition from the world of technology or whether it includes a list of the modern technologies that has been developed on the basis of the technologies that already had an existence.

Image Credit: Google

1.The Past and the Present– Its prime example is the Microsoft Office 2010. Microsoft has played a key role in the enhancement of the other devices and tools. The Microsoft Lync converts the PC into an effective communication center. Videoconferencing has become simple and easy with this. The Windows Small Business Server also needs a mention here. For the reason that it makes possible the access to computer network from a distance via the Web interface.

The MacBook Air, a product of the Apple, is an improved model and can be compared with the iPad. Apple also has other modern devices in store for us, such as the Siri. Siri is a personal assistant built into all the iPhone 4S Smartphones. All these devices are connected well to the Apple iCloud.

2.The Success of the Cloud – The cloud of 2011 is more technologically advanced than the clouds of the previous years. The developers of the cloud are well prepared to satisfy the modern needs of the users.

The Hadoop, is a framework that lets the smooth functioning of the applications on huge bulk of clusters that have been created with the help of hardware. There is a wide array of open source devices that help in the functioning of the Hadoop.

The other devices such as the Web2PY and the CakePHP have been responsible for the adding of new features. These new features have made easy the deployment of the PHP and the Python applications to any type of machine or the cloud. The CloudBees as well as the Heroku has helped in the integration of the versioning tools in the cloud itself.

The Rhomobile Rhodes and the PhoneGap has also been awarded as it has made easy the development of the mobile applications that function in an easy way on the Blackberry, Ios, Android and others as well.

3.Wait Till the Arrival of the Coming Year – The NoSQL databases were not included in this list as it was tough to select a particular NoSQL database. Some people for logging purpose require data, while there are others, who need to keep a track of the personal information. There are others as well, who need to use the data for various other purposes. Thus it was indeed a difficult choice.

There are other devices and programming frameworks, as well, which are not a part of this list.

As the world of technology, continues with its process of the development of the modern and cutting edge tools and devices, we have much to look forward to.