5 Reasons for Using Slack to Monitor Your App: A Guide for Project Managers

Work collaboration tools are heaven-sent for teams and companies because they enable a faster and more effective flow of communication. One widely known and used tool nowadays is Slack, a cloud-based tool that is essentially made for team chats.

Now how can you leverage Slack for your project management tasks? You can tap this powerful tool to monitor application and user behavior. If you have not used Slack yet for this purpose, here are several advantages to the tool that will convince you to use it right now:

Ability to Search for User Activities and Monitor Them

Search for a username in your Slack messages, and you will be able to monitor each success message, error, or any result that comes from the interaction of the user with your app.

Fast Reaction to Failures

Because you can track your app on Slack, you will be informed right away when things fail. And you can act on every failure immediately.

Get New Insights on Server and User Behavior

Slack allows you to keep tabs on user activities and interactions with your application and how the server responds, thanks to the real-time live feed feature that shows the metrics you need to monitor.

Better Team Efficiency

Everyone in the team is in the loop with what is happening between users and the app, so you can collaborate with them as soon as issues arise. This you ca do without having to waste time going into the root of the problem before actually solving it.

Ability to Provide Great Customer Support

Since you can track user behavior and activities, you will know right away when and why, for example, a user has just removed his account. With that information, you can reach out to that customer and customize your offerings depending on his behavior and preference.

Are you ready to take advantage of Slack for monitoring your application? With this potent tool at your disposal, you will be able to always improve on developing your app.

What are the Best New Android Apps for Web Developers? 5 Most Recommended Apps

For web developers who often work on the go, having an arsenal of useful mobile apps can make them more effective and efficient even if they are not working in a stationary office. Apps also come in handy for when a developer needs to multi-task while in transit to get more things done.

Listed here are some new apps for Android users that web development professionals swear by.

1. Color Picker

Ideal to use by developers who often experience various color selection problems, Color Picker has an array of color models such as HSV, RGB, YUB, and more. It allows getting a color code in HEX and decimal formats. Lastly, it offers slider and palette on the interface models for color adjustment.

2. Joooid 1.1 Joomla! Editor

Joomla works very much like WordPress, as this content management system allows editing and managing of posts, content, comments, web pages, and notifications for Joomla-powered sites.

3. Hackers Keyboard

Looking for a coder-friendly keyboard for your Android device? Look no further than Hackers Keyboard that features a desktop-like keyboard with full five rows. It is flexible also because it offers a lot of language and layout options to mimic real desktop experience.

4. AndFTP

Setting up various FTP servers has never been easier with this app in tow. Its user-friendly and easy-to-use FTP file browser allows seeing the files on the remote server and as local storage at the same time. With AndFTP, you can also set up, copy, paste, rename, and delete permissions as you would in a conventional FTP client.

5. Drupal Editor

Drupal, just like Joomla and WordPress, enables uploading of multimedia content on any Drupal-powered website for personal and business use.

Have you tried using one of the five apps listed above? Tell us your experience by leaving a comment!

Essential Things to Consider When Building a Mobile-Friendly Site

Web development specialists must respond to the changing times. With more and more people owning a smartphone that keeps them connected at all times via the internet, it pays to have a mobile-friendly site. This means that when people visit your site, they can easily navigate it and interact with it.

So how will you do exactly that? Here are the things you need to consider first:

The Best Approach for Your Site

Depending on your priority for the kind of mobile user experience you want to achieve, your choice of approach for your website should be your prime consideration when building a mobile-friendly site. You can choose to go with dynamic or RESS serving in which you retain the URL but the CSS and HTML sent by the server are different, depending on the type of device that accesses the page. Another option is to use a separate mobile site that you will host on a subfolder (www.domain.com/mobile) or subdomain (m.domain.com). Or you can go the simplest route, which is to keep everything the same as your desktop version, but have the CSS provide various rules depending on browser width.

The Design of Your Mobile Site

There is a unique challenge to building a mobile version vis-à-vis a desktop version of a website. Mobile users prefer to be able to view the same design theme as your desktop version on your mobile version. This assures them that they are visiting the right site. So consistency is the key here.

At the same time, though, people visiting your mobile site will hate to see on their mobile devices an exact replica of your desktop version that crams everything on a smartphone or tablet screen that is 10 times smaller than a desktop screen. That would be very disastrous in terms of design and loading speed.

Keeping these important considerations in mind when you start building a mobile-friendly site will help you create something that will suit the unique needs of your target visitors.

The Key People You Need to Hire to Build an Effective Web Development Team: A Guide for Online Businesses

Your corporate website, whether it is used as an e-commerce platform or as a promotional tool, can make or break your brand’s reputation. It is your only means of connection with your potential customers. So, if your website takes forever to load, is hard to navigate, and has a lot of 404 pages, then you stand to lose sales.

This is why having a solid web development team is essential. Owners of small and medium businesses will benefit much from building a team composed of key people with specific and clearly laid-out responsibilities.

Hire these key people first to form a winning web development team:

Project Manager

This web development professional should be one of the first persons you must hire for your team. He will be the overall leader of the group and will be in-charge of managing not just the projects but also the individual team members, constantly communicating and following through with them until a project is completed.

You need someone who has excellent verbal and written communication skills, as the project manager will work with the client to get the requirements and project scope and understand the expectations on deliverables, timelines, and other critical matters. He must be able to communicate those things clearly to the team and stimulate a good exchange of ideas for the project within the team.

Aside from the ability to communicate well, find a project manager with at least 3 years of experience and solid leadership, organizational, and time management skills.

Systems Administrator

Your site needs a stable and secure environment to operate in, and that is what you need a good system administrator for. SysAdmins build, maintain, and secure the application, database, and web servers in the online infrastructure.

If your business runs on Microsoft, look for a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) who has experience in handling Internet Information Server. On the other hand, for Unix environment, you will need someone with a background in Apache Web server and firewall. This professional must also have at least 4 years of experience in network administration.

Webmaster

Aside from knowledge of JavaScript and HTML, which is already a given, look for a webmaster with above-average written communication skills, which is crucial for coordinating with the project manager and client to identify the layout and content for the site.

Other qualifications to look for in a webmaster include the following:

• At least 3 years of relevant experience
• Familiarity with the OS that your business is using, as well as the server applications that operate on the server
• Knowledgeable in Photoshop, VB scripting, and Flash animation
• Understanding of SQL or any database engine and the way it communicates with the application server

Web Applications Developer

For web-based applications, you can count on an application developer to develop server side functionality. Hire someone with the following experience and skill set:

• At least 2 years of experience
• Good analytical and problem-solving skills
• Experience with database development and IP networks, knowledge
• Knowledgeable in Java, CGI, ASP, PERL, and other web programming languages

Once you have hired these key people, work on establishing your pool of project management team members. Forming a solid web development team may be challenging, but once you are done with it, the results delivered by the team will be very rewarding.