Outsourcing Software Testing In London

Posted in: Blog by testadmin on December 5, 2011 | No Comments

Technology grows on a daily basis making our daily lives easier and easier. Therefore the demand for employment is rampant in the industry. The people taking training to become programmers and software testers has never been higher. This makes finding the correct application testing service company to test your projects and having it ready for a successful release difficult. A Quality Assurance testing consultant is one person that can deliver great service with all of the credentials and skills. To find the right software testing company to take care of your software testing will make sure you have any doubts and anxieties about your project to rest. We will go over a few of the questions that you can ask these Quality Assurance consultants. You can be certain that you will find the success in outsourcing software testing in London. So let us take an overview of some of the answer that you can look for when asking these questions.

The first question you can ask the application testing service company is about the “black box vs. white box testing”. The “white box testing” is a method of testing software which tests the internal structures and workings of an application. The black box testing is a method of software testing that tests the functionality of an application.

The second, do they know about Agile and waterfall methodologies? The Agile methodology is a group of software development methodologies where the requirements and solutions can evolve by collaborating within self-organizing and cross functional teams. Waterfall methodology is a sequential design process which is used in the processes of software development. It shows the progress steadily flowing downwards just as waterfall through conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, production and maintenance.

The third essential question to ask is, what system do they use to report defects? This is a vital question to ask the IT testing services because it will give you the chance to research the process and decide for yourself if it is the way you would test out your project.

Last but not least - When do they automate testing and why? This is another important question to ask the Quality Assurance testing consultant. It compares the actual outcomes of the software to the predicted outcomes by setting up test preconditions and various test controls and test reporting. The last question you can ask the IT testing services company is, how they test mobile applications? The recommended method to use is devices over simulator software.

These questions are important to ask when choosing the perfect Quality Assurance testing consultant and having a successful launch of your project. If the application testing service company has any trouble answering these questions, then they are not worth the time and effort. Getting the IT testing services right the first time will save you time and money by correcting any issues with the program the first time around.

Starting a Money Transfer Business – Software First

Posted in: Blog by testadmin on November 28, 2011 | No Comments

Having recently completed a project for Eastern Integrated, a money transfer company with agents wokring in the UK and Africa, we’ve gained some expertise in the field. It’s a hard market to break into initally, but if you do your research and build an application that suits your needs exactly, it can actually be one of the more painless businesses to establish.

When starting a money transfer business, analyze the market and determine the business’ primary customer base, potential affiliates, and competitors. Perform a market research study to gain insights from your key customer target and affiliate base. Engage in a sharing of ideas and strategies and obtain the sign on of these stakeholders, to assist the money transfer website developer in the creation of money transfer web applications, selection and implementation of money transfer software. Require the money transfer website developer to create logins to competitors’ websites and to assess the functionalities of the available money transfer web applications and money transfer software. Assess the developer’s findings and compare to the insights provided by the customers and affiliates during the market research study. Evaluate the competitions’ market offerings and work with the money transfer website developer to create the money transfer software specifications. Utilizing the competitors’ websites, determine the type of web presence essential to drawing the attention of the business’ target audience and mock-up a draft of the website layout.

When recruiting a money transfer website developer, ensure that you like the developer and that the money transfer website developer has the appropriate experiences necessary to implement the money transfer software and money transfer web applications. A skilled developer should be able to provide a free consultation, giving their opinion of the available money transfer software and the money transfer web applications. Also, ask the potential money transfer website developer to provide an example of their coding capabilities and references from previous projects. The opinions provided in the consultation can be used to obtain feedback from potential customers and affiliates. Analyze the feedback provided by the target customer and affiliate base and then ask the money transfer website developer to make changes to incorporate the suggestions/concerns of these stakeholders.

Once you have determined that all parties are on the same page and that the money transfer website developer has an adequate grasp of your business’ vital objectives, allow the developer to run with the money transfer software and money transfer web applications project. Focus on your own core competencies and prepare for the inaugural launch of the website. Schedule follow-up meetings with customers and affiliates and continue to establish and develop additional partnerships, while strengthening the business’ marketing capabilities and ability to appear in search results. Allow time for a subsequent market research review of the end-product money transfer web applications and money transfer website before the launch. Offer market research participants a discount during the beta stage of the money transfer website and money transfer web applications, in exchange for support via providing positive reviews and references for further customer base growth.

Spread the word that your new money transfer applications are available and install analytical trackers to monitor how the money transfer software is used, how often, by how many people, and from which source users accessed the site. This data can be used to continually develop the money transfer web applications and money transfer software.

If you are interested in discussing your application development project with our team, call 020 7473 3562 or email us at hello@coderscode.com.

Lean Software Development – Smart Thinking!

Posted in: Blog by CodersCode on August 17, 2011 | No Comments

You Can Learn From Dinosaurs…

Whilst software and application development keeps breaking new boundaries, it’s clear that the way in which new media is planned, managed and run is still learning from more established industries.

Whilst initially surprising, there is some sense in this. Software has often been sold as something ‘new’ and suppliers and clients are not made aware of the nature of the development process. However, with development budgets growing and increasing competition in the sector, it’s now clear that improvements are needed.

When Toyota developed their ‘Production System’ they were ridiculed, yet where many other car companies suffered massive losses, particularly during the credit crunch, Toyota soared ahead profitably. They applied lean and ‘just in time’ production principles to reduce their production costs substantially and improve product quality.

So, if in an established marketplace like automotive, where similar products are sold at similar prices… where one business is making massive profits, and the next is loss-making, you have to sit up and take notice.

What Does it Mean For You?

At CodersCode we’re at the forefront of the Lean Software Development movement. Why? Well, there are some very good reasons:

1. Eliminate Waste: only create code for functionality which is needed today
2. Grow Learning: in the development process, rather than just at the end, testing code and ensuring it works, use bugs and mistakes to educate developers
3. Better Decisions: with an ‘options-based’ approach to development to make choices based on facts, not supposition. This leads to a more rounded product with fewer post-launch headaches
4. Fast Delivery: launch the end product as soon as it’s operational, then use feedback and analytics to adapt and build into the next release
5. Motivated Teams: developers are actively involved in the decision-making process making the build more coordinated and integrated
6. Bigger Vision: in this process, the developers are not looking at little bits of a project, but the entire solution. They’re also looking into the future, as well as learning from the past

We think that Lean Software Development, particularly for new builds, is the most efficient way to produce the right long-term solution for any business or organisation.

If you’d like to talk to us, then please ask us about Lean Software Development.

Optimising a Website for Mobile – Part 2

Posted in: Blog by CodersCode on April 30, 2011 | No Comments

Mobile Site vs. Mobile Application

Once you have decided that there is a market opportunity in having a website for mobile phones, then you need to decide how it will fit on a phone.

Will it be a universal mobile site (i.e. available through a browser on most/all smartphones)? Or an application (‘App’) through one or more of the device stores?

There is no right answer, so here we cover off the main considerations…

Budget

What is your budget for this build? If a physical website already exists then you will be able to create a simple mobile site relatively easily. More complicated sites can also be created within a reasonable budget.

Choosing to create an application means that you will not only have to think about which platforms to consider (iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows 7) but each platform will need a different treatment. Therefore you either prioritise one or another, or you swallow a much larger development cost than a single mobile site.

Reach

With a mobile website, your reach is immediately a measurable proportion of your total website traffic (c. 2-3%), so you have a fast start, and then you can target it with mobile-based promotions to increase volume of interest. With an application you start from zero but with constant interest and traffic from within the platform application store.

Appeal

For an application to have success it must have repeat appeal. It should not just be used once, or occasionally… it has to demand repeat use, be of specific interest to people on the move, or supply a specific need better than the competition. The choice of platform is crucial too, with only the largest and bravest of brands choosing to publish in Blackberry or Windows over iOS and Android.

The appeal of a mobile site can be broader, not only supplying a service to support the existing website, but also complementing that site.

Revenues

In the end, every part of your operations needs to be designed to create revenue for your business. This same scrutiny needs to be applied to a mobile site or application. It’s a typical cost vs. reward decision.

If a mobile site can increase projected revenues substantially then it’s probably a no-brainer to create one – and for most websites it is the next logical step to grow the line of services.

You need to be even more confident of the returns available to you create an application, but get the service right, and it’s a fantastic way to grow based not just on your existing channels, but through word of mouth and the snowballing effect that app-popularity can bring.

Whatever you choose to do, we’re confident we can help and deliver. We’ve created mobile sites, iOS and Android apps in the last few months and can help you deliver the best possible solution. Just give us a call!

Optimising a Website for Mobile – Part 1

Posted in: Blog by CodersCode on March 15, 2011 | No Comments

In this first part, we’ll be looking at how you make sure your site is serving the best
possible type of site by creating an optimised website for your mobile visitors.

Part 1: Creating a Mobile Site

Most new smartphones will view a ‘normal’ website anyway (unless it is built in Flash) so a mobile site is ultimately created to improve the user experience and performance from mobile phone using visitors.

Here are our five key considerations:

1. Research: if you have analytics on your site, then you can find out what the performance is like for mobile visitors by splitting these out in the reports. See if their performance is noticeably worse than general visitors.
2. Layout & Content: we’ve already covered why structure is crucial, but it is even more so for mobile sites. You need to strip out all ancillary content, try to reduce to one column, make sure the most important content is at the top of the page. Space is at an absolute premium – so use it well and wisely.
3. Graphics: until 4G comes, pages will load more slowly on mobile devices, particularly when not on 3G but just GPRS. So optimise graphics as far as possible and only have one or two per page. Use colour to create effects rather than images.
4. Coding: just keep it simple – stick to XML/HTML/CSS and avoid much use of Javascript or other more complicated languages.
5. Linear: moving around a website is more like parking a car – back and forward gears rather than having many different options for next steps. So make it easy to go backwards and forwards in the page and make next steps obvious.

If you follow these steps, then you’re on you way to creating a very effective mobile website.

The Lowdown on Amazon EC2 ‘Elastic Compute Cloud’

Posted in: Blog by CodersCode on January 31, 2011 | No Comments

With Cloud Computing now hitting the mainstream, Amazon is grasping the opportunity to roll out some seriously impressive cloud-based solutions.

Our interest in Amazon EC2 was motivated by a desire to:

1. Virtually eliminate the impact of single hardware failure by using cloud resource
2. Reduce substantially the cost of hardware maintenance, replacement, upgrade and parts
3. Provide a 99.95%+ service availability for clients
4. Focus on core business services rather than hardware maintenance
5. Achieve a scalable solution to grow projects and services as and when demand increases

The sleepless nights taken rebuilding servers, restoring backups and fingernail-chewing as we analysed servers are now gone – Amazon EC2 techies take care of that. So, we have achieved a hands-free hosting infrastructure with international deployment capability.

So, it works… but here are some tips for those tackling these challenges which we hope will help you get through to the ‘promised land’ detailed above.

1 Year Free? – Good for a Trial Run

If you want to get your hands dirty, then go for the 1 year free account which is enough to give it a real thorough test.  You only get the basic Linux, and only 600Mb RAM – but, it really is catch-free ‘FREE’. Watch your usage though, we went slighly over and were charged 1c a MB for data transfer.

Ready to Spend? Then Use for Live and Not Testing

We only use our EC2 cloud for hosting our live applications and websites as the costs can rack up very quickly, particularly when reinstalling sites. For us, the best move we made was to use our left-over servers (which were ditched in favour of EC2) to create an internal development base. Perfect re-use of resources!

The Benefits of Amazon EC2

Based on our experiences, you get:

• No hardware maintenance or failure headaches
• Lower entry costs for high-performance hosting
• Virtual server is ready in minutes
• Hosted applications within half a day
• Time to market, and deployment of updates, is reduced substantially
• Scalability is outstanding, you pay for what you need
• You can safely stop instances, and not be charged during that time

This solution is particularly good for start-up sites where the volume of traffic is unpredictable.

The Risks of Amazon EC2

• It is substantially more expensive than traditional VPS Hosting
• Costs can rise very quickly as they charge for data transfer and per request
• Data saved in instances will be lost when it is stopped (you can fix this by buying some data storage space on the Elastic Block Store or Amazon S3)
• Your data and website security is based on trusting Amazon’s security effectiveness

Overall, we think that EC2 and EC2-type hosting is the way forward for medium and high traffic websites, or high-ticket global websites needing greater performance. If you’d like to consider an EC2 solution, then call CodersCode on 0845 095 6933 or send in an email.

2011: The Year of the Cloud

Posted in: Blog by CodersCode on January 18, 2011 | No Comments

We predict that this year will be ‘the year of the cloud’ as cloud computing takes centre stage in discussions across business.

Firstly: What is ‘The Cloud’?

Cloud is the name used to describe applications, websites and software held in the Internet and served remotely to various devices – from PCs to mobile phones. Probably the best way of describing it is to consider the first cloud application – email. More specifically Hotmail.

What Hotmail gave people is universal access to email without the need to carry their computer everywhere with them. Just an email address and a password and an internet-connected device. It revolutionised email.

And as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail (still the most successful Yahoo! product) and Gmail demonstrated what Internet-based software could do for email, so cloud is now doing the same to everything else.

Timing is Key

So why, you may ask, has it taken so long for cloud to affect other industries? The main reason is that is was based on connectivity. As smartphones and laptops are in increasing use, and mobile connectivity has improved, the always-on connectivity, and the devices needed to make the cloud work, have both arrived.

Cost and Convenience

The main impact Cloud will have is two-fold:

• Cost: the cost of cloud services are much less than their packaged counterparts, they are updated and improved on the fly (not needing installing or upgrading) and are platform independent (mainly using web-browsers) so the cost of distribution has dropped substantially;
• Convenience: now that we are in a mainly connected world, the ability to access services by mobile, laptop, tablet and desktop without worrying about software compatibility and devices is a major step in making cloud more adaptable and effective than traditional software models

Within all of this, as an agency, Coders Code has prepared for this revolution. We have already setup two cloud environments: one in OpenSolaris (mainly for Java and J2EE development) and the other using Amazon EC2.

If you’re looking for an application developer, or to provide your own cloud services, then we hope you’ll consider Coders Code. Give us a call: 0845 095 6933