Safe Internet Blog

A Membership Database allows its users to efficiently run reports on and track members of their organization. Co-ordination of events, Communication with members, automation of the organizations renewal and payment processes and management of registration are all able to be performed by the user.

Membership Databases typically allow the specification of different organization branches or member accounts. These accounts may differ in payment or communication options and levels of access. The main strength in a  Membership Database System is the ability to automate the renewal and payment processes and streamline the member application process freeing up organizations staff for other projects.

Members

Membership Systems normally include features that allow for the creation or printing of member cards and the editing/viewing of membership contact details and statuses. The additional ability to add and organize events  makes a Membership System central to organising and maintaining the membership of your organization. By integrating features such as system or member-wide reminders and the capacity to organize training events and view training history, the membership database proves to be efficient at streamlining tasks.

Reporting

The inclusion of an Invoicing System with the Membership Database is another helpful feature. This is what allows invoices to be generated and sent to members for new applications and renewals. It is this invoicing system that can be set up to be automated, and send out renewal notices with attached invoices to all members that need renewal.
Being able to view the transaction records for each member is of great benefit for a lot of organizations. A good system will not only deal with payments and invoicing, but will also keep track of all transaction history for any future member queries.

Communication

If you need to streamline member communication then the abiliy of the software to send bulk reminders and emails is extremely benefical. Mail and e-mail merge allows for the sending of personalized messages based on a template, to members. This significantly automates a lot of the recurring communication.
A communication log should record all messages sent by the Membership Database. These logs should also contain a data entry option so phone calls and other mediums of communication can be tracked. A communication log enables the organization to keep record of which member has been contacted, what they were contacted about and when the contact happened, which makes a communications log invaluable.

Custom Membership Database Development

Not all the features mentioned above may be required by an organization because the software needs of an organization can vary vastly and they may only need a couple of the features.
A majority of organizations will be satisfied with an off the shelf package that contains a majority of the required features. However, there is occasionally an off the shelf package that wont deliver the features that your organization requires. Customizing an existing product is usually very costly and sometimes not possible. It is occasions such as this, where Custom Software Development really shines. An organization can specify its exact requirements and get software made to suit. Changes to a custom made system is also more cost effective if you need any changes in the future.

Safe Internet Blog Custom Software, Membership Database, Membership System, software development

As a business owner or manager, the choice to opt for offshore software development can be difficult. As anyone who has experience is aware of, there are advantages and drawbacks to outsourcing software development. How then, does one balance the risks and rewards and come out on top? Here are 5 tips to ensure that you receive an excellent come on investment:

1. Complicated project management experience. When selecting an offshore software development company, guarantee that they need extensive expertise in complex project management. The company’s internal team ought to run like a well-oiled machine, and they should have longstanding relationships with their own subcontractors.

2. Specialized data and expertise. The most agile software development companies have an extensive network of specialists. These specialists could not be on the company payroll (that is why the corporate can supply you important cost savings), but they’ll be depended upon to complete the necessary tasks on time and within the budget.

3. Data of your industry. In theory, offshore software development companies should be in a position to perform custom software development for any sort of business. There will be less of a learning curve, though, and bigger probabilities for fulfillment , if the company has data of your business or a connected industry. For that reason, ask for referrals and determine if the comes the company has managed are almost like or in alignment with the goals of your project.

4. Delineate areas of responsibility. Probabilities are, you are considering hiring an offshore software development company as a result of you don’t have the in-house expertise to get the job done and apprehend that it’s more cost-effective to outsource the project. Nonetheless, you will want to actively participate during a needs assessment and at varied benchmarks throughout the lifetime of the project. By making a clear delineation of areas of responsibility, you may have a transparent understanding of the number of workers hours you need to devote to the project, and arrange accordingly.

5. High standards. Both you and therefore the offshore software development company you select should adhere to high standards. Aside from the talent of the technical specialists involved, successful custom software development depends upon rigorous testing. The foremost dependable firms use the best trade standards in testing each facet of the products they create therefore that you just receive a product that’s prepared to implement.

Primarily, the foremost successful offshore software development firms are competent and flexible, and see their role as an info technology partner who solves your software problems, supports your team, and manages your projects from beginning to end. When you select such a company, you’ll rest assured that you may receive an glorious return on investment.

To get an amazing NDS/NDSL Flashcards device, visit this site: r4 ds. The r4 ds cartridge is the current top-of-the-line in DS SLOT-1 flash carts. Get it now… r4 ds: Revolution for DS!

Safe Internet Blog communication, computer, software development, softwere, technology

Know your college football? Hmmm, pick a year and name the eventual NCAA football champion.

2008-Florida? 1986-Penn State? 1962-USC? No, No, and No!

No matter what year you selected you were wrong! The NCAA does not formally determine a champion for this category. But, since a gazillion dollars depends upon those bragging rights – the Bowl Champion Series (BCS) was invented. And like a software estimate – it’s been almost as popular!

The BCS computer solution was suppose to be so simple; let the computer pick the best option using statistics, add a dash erudite pontification (pollsters), stir in a seasoned splash of professional gesticulation (Coaches) and wallah – an estimate of the two best college footballs teams! Yes indeed, that sounds exactly like a software estimate!

The BCS scoring process uses a combination of computer tabulations and two disparate polls to determine team interim rankings, and then to identify the best 2 college football teams to play the “BCS” National Championship Game. The winner of this game is named the “BCS national champion.” (Not NCAA Champion!)

In BCS banter one will hear expressions like non-linear equations, standard deviation, and the Bayesian approach. Amazing – that’s similar to software estimation speak. Hmm, maybe they are on to something. What if we did a software estimate like the BCS picks the best college football teams in the nation. Our premise for the typical corporate software estimate will be to determine the best cost and schedule. For the BCS – we choose the best gate attraction (income) and post bowl game extravaganza!

The Recipe!

Software Estimation Inputs

• How well did we build this the last time? (Historical Data (though likely not collected))
• What are thoughts of the senior staff? (Senior Management – 1/2)
• What do the programmers think? (Developer estimate – 1/8)
• Identify the Platform and Application, factor in the size, calculate industry averages, sieve through the parametric settings, insert Monte Carlo simulation, offset for risk confidence and schedule probability,… (Parametric estimate – 1/3)

BCS Calculation Inputs

• What did the teams do last year? (Previous year rankings)
• What do other pollsters think? (Harris Interactive Poll – 1/3)
• What do the people in the trenches think? (Coaches Poll – 1/3)
• Drop highest and lowest ranking of each team divide by 100, for maximum possible points (Computer rankings – 1/3)

That’s it for the BCS calculations – 1/3 * 1/3 * 1/3 = an answer. But alas – the BCS formula has come under dire – or dare I say – “political” scrutiny. In fact, in October of 2009, when his school was excluded from a previous year BCS bowl game, Senator Orrin Hatch, of Utah, said in a 10-page letter to President Obama calling for an antitrust probe of the BCS.

“Mr. President, as you have publicly stated on multiple occasions, the BCS system is in dire need of reform,”… “If the government can look at the concentration of money in railroads, telecommunications and software developers, then why not the big business of college sports in America?”

Software Developers??? – Yikes

In a BCS system where you have nearly a full Delphi approach – from coaches and pollsters – and then add in a computer statistical model – the computer gets blamed! No wonder software estimates are so mistrusted. While everyone knows that a parametric model is essential to making a reasonable software cost estimate it is nearly always often overridden by the objections of senior management who wish to also override those pesky “optimistic programmers.”

Has anyone considered this? The BCS by default was flawed. It excludes all but six original signers to the BCS covenant (plus Notre Dame and a few others). Without all the teams considered – without all the weightings of records and wins – and without all the scores somehow magically factored – no one will ever be happy. Kind of like a software estimate that ignores history and trends… No one ever thinks the project will take that long – until it does.

Until then, does anyone have Senators Hatch’s number?

David DeWitt is a Senior Consultant with Galorath based in El Segundo, California. He can be contacted at ddewitt (AT) galorath.com. For more information on the Galorath line of estimating software solutions please visit Galorath.com when estimating software projects or call: U.S. +1 310.414-3222 – U.K. +44 (0) 1252.724518

Safe Internet Blog cost estimation, estimating software, software development, software estimating, software estimation

I can clearly remember that day I arrived at work – towards the end of the year 2003 – it was easily before 6am. I was leading a small team tasked with prototyping a test environment for a NASA proposal. I stood there amazed as I watched my two programmers demonstrate a completely reengineered satellite simulation environment. Wait – let me be clear – within only a few days – they rewrote close to 30,000 lines of FORTRAN and another 4,000 lines of assembly code. How did they do it? They called it "GOOP.” “The hand cleaner?” I asked – rather befuddled. No, they were referring a new development language by LabVIEW (National Instruments) called “GOOP” – short for Graphical Object Oriented Programming.

That was the day I decided to stop being a programmer. I was no longer really interested in keeping up with the latest programming paradigms. I made a decision to forget the past and look forward to my role as a program manager. As I look back now, I wish I would have asked more questions.

Measuring Failure

In 1995 the Boston, Mass. - based IT project management consulting and research firm The Standish Group released their first CHAOS Summary report. The report quickly became an industry score card for measuring the success or failure of IT projects; due mostly in part to the astounding percentage of failed projects disclosed in the report. The report served as a wake-up call that appears to have been heard – the 10^th anniversary CHAOS report announced that the percentage of failed projects had been reduced by more than half. But alas, within a mere five years, the number of failed projects is back on the rise; the 2009 Standish Group CHAOS report indicates that nearly 1 in 4 projects are doomed. But why?

According to the original 1995 CHAOS report, to improve the probability of success projects should be reduced in complexity and the software “grown.” The recommendation was to reduce software into smaller, more manageable segments, and develop it outward. If this reported reduction in failed projects is to be believed then it appears the software industry was diligent in “growing” projects using smaller elements (1). However, what should also be understood is that those projects were comprised of many smaller pieces that were easier to “size.”

In 1995 the most common approach to sizing software was to count the source lines of code (SLOC) or count Function Points (though less prevalent). Software sizing was an established and mature methodology spanning over twenty years – with a myriad of tools available to automate the process and additional metrics available to measure software complexity and probability of defects (bugs). If the size of a project was understood, then the ability to estimate time schedule and effort could simply be modeled by applying previous performance measures (and many other parameters). By forecasting a realistic estimate early in the development cycle there was a significantly higher probability of the project’s success (on time, within budget, at promised functionality) – and hence – less failure.

Back to the Future

It’s 2003 again, and I’ve just been told about a new methodology that allows anyone to build software using graphical components. It was very new; in the mid-1990s through early 2000s “visual” and “portable” languages gained industry acceptance and soon began to dominate the development landscape. Within just a few years, languages that could be “produced” by an environment became the lingua du jour. After all, who could argue with the massive scale of economy that software manufacturing tools could generate using “Visual” programming? And for me in particular - after 3 days of watching my team crank out “GOOP” - I was a hero to my management.

But wait - notice the timeline in the Chaos study mentioned above and the resurgence of software failures. While I am not a big proponent of causality – let’s at least take a few moments and explore this potential contributor to the trend in software failure. First, a picture from the TIOBE Programming Community (2) – the unofficial keepers of what is most popular in programming languages.

The languages with the most growth in popularity for five years have been: Java, followed by C#, JavaScript, and then Ruby. Some older languages also in vogue are Perl, C, and Visual Basic. Why? Perhaps it’s because most of these languages have become more sophisticated, are wrapped in integrated development environments, and are positioned with the sole purpose of increasing productivity. In a word – they’ve become more “visual.” While it may be easier to build the code, there is little consideration as to how the generated code should be “sized."In fact, the environment builders boast that one hardly needs to fiddle under the hood; Draw, click, and Poof – instant code that runs.

Size Matters

The most significant driver to how much time, cost and effort it takes to build software is the scope (or size) of what is to be built and therefore one of the biggest factors in accurate estimation. As the Godfather of software estimation has warned us (Barry W. Boehm) – “The biggest difficulty in using today’s algorithmic software cost models is the problem of providing sound sizing estimates” (3). How does an estimator measure “GOOP” and how many lines of code that a code generator inserts are actually needed? What percentage of a C++ template can we remove (if we dare) and keep the Class fundamentally stable – yet concise. As Mark Twain once said – “the hardest part about writing is removing all the extra words.”

Is it possible to count software lines of code anymore? Even using the best code counting tools available – aren’t they really just counting lots of lines of code that may be unnecessary? Or in inverse – how long did it take the programmer to take out all that code that should not have been counted – and was not? My suspicion is that all the code stays in (unless a standard with high rigor like FAA DO-178B verified the system).

Since I’m on the topic of counting code – what happened to Ada and FORTRAN; those stalwart languages of the 80’s and 90’s that were easy to count? Alas, they are now ranked number 24 and 25; again, no assumption of causality. (Tongue planted firmly in cheek, of course.). Estimates certainly seemed easier then. Cue the music.

Hmm, there is something becoming clear in the Standish report – assuming I am not making what statisticians would call an “error of confirmation”; I would propose that perhaps the industry has made capturing the size of software too complicated – and as a consequence – our ability to accurately create a good cost estimate. Ultimately, if the industry is moving away from “countable” languages and migrating towards “visual” representations then some mechanism needs to be established that can accurately correlate effort to size or vice-versa.

Here’s a thought – remember those thousands of dollars used to purchase graphical requirements and design tools – such as the IBM Rational Rose, RSA Integration, and Rhapsody? Why not use the output of these use case models to calculate Use Case Points (unadjusted) which can then be fed into the parametric models. Are you building “Design Patterns?” Why not spend a bit more time and calculate the COSMIC Function Points and publish them along with the pattern – that way the cost of implementing the pattern can be calculated. At a minimum, before charging forward from requirements to code – attempt to calculate some “functional” size that the parametric model accepts and proceed – then go back later to see if your effort per function assumptions were correct.

The software community has made great progress in creating tools to improve productivity – but our estimates are wrong because we stopped half way! We need to regroup and identify software size as it relates to software cost and involve parametric tools to calculate accurate estimates. Until then – it’s purely guess work to estimate new product development and blind trust in tribal knowledge when modifying existing applications. After all – just how long does it take to make GOOP?

David DeWitt is a Senior Consultant with Galorath. He can be contacted at ddewitt (@) galorath.com. For more information on the Galorath line of estimating software solutions please visit Galorath.com when estimating software projects or call: U.S. +1 310.414-3222 – U.K. +44 (0) 1252.724518

1 – Jim Johnson, chairman of The Standish Group, says he was so surprised to observe a dip in IT project success rates that he waited an extra four months before publishing the CHAOS report to make sure its findings were accurate. He attributes the rise in IT project failures to the recession, which according to some economists began in December, 2007, and subsequent budget cuts.

2- www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

3- Software Engineering – Barry W. Boehm’s Lifetime Contributions to Software Development, Management and Research., Edited by Richard W. Selby , Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Pr; Reprint edition (June 4, 2007)

Safe Internet Blog cost estimation, estimating software, software development, software estimating, software estimation

Don’t be misled by the free and open source background of Magento—it excels the best commercial tools with its theme based structure and support for a panoply of digital products.

Magento is the new improved e-commerce platform that gives a superior force to web traders to get rid of obstacles in the way of business process implementations. With downloads surpassing the magical figure of 600,000, Magento is easily the fastest growing commercially available tool for online business solutions.

We at Maven Infosoft have solid expertise in working with all leading e-commerce and portal-building platforms and have managed and implemented heavy-duty enterprise-level content management systems. We can safely assert that Magento has outshone all of them.

There remain a few uncertainties, as with any growing and emergent platform, in the design and development capabilities that Magento has to offer. The high competence level required means that it is not for all and sundry. Having said that, Magento is by far the most adaptable and compliant e-commerce program to hit the online trading market.

In many ways, Magento is not a typical open source solution. It is free to download and use. It does give you the ability to create customize themes and module extensions. It has all the potential for swell in usage and gain in popularity. However, it has a dedicated company supporting its growth. Magento is the product of Varien, an e-commerce design house that seems to benefit from Magento by offering traditional web agency services.

Magento is based on a theme based framework with individual layouts, templates and skins, which in turn has greater look and feel customize capability. Once you get the hang of it, creating stores in Magento turns into a piece of cake. Unlike shopping carts and content management systems devoid of themes, this framework elevates Magento to a different level.

The comprehensive features available reflect long years of e-commerce experience. Features such as advanced pricing rules, product image zoom, side-by-side comparison and inventory management indicate the strong relevance to marketing functions and requirements. Other features that we approve of are:

Ready to go iPhone theme
Single page checkout
Availability of real time rates from UPS, FedEx and the US Postal Service
Great analytics and reporting
One administration panel and product catalog to manage multiple websites/stores
Customer reviews
Flexible coupon rules for flexibility of campaigns
Layered and faceted navigation for filtering
Google Website Optimizer integration
URL rewrites
Newsletter management
Easy integration of third party tools using Web API
Choice of more than 50 payment gateways
Option to up sell during checkout
Self-generating site maps
Full support for digital and downloadable products
RSS feeds for customers and administrators alike

Though Magento does have simple usage rules including easy handling of the administration interface, it does require developers to have fundamental skills in PHP, MySQL, SOAP, XML, XHTML, Apache and CSS. This is indeed the case for most shopping carts or platforms, but Magento is much more application oriented. Even a standard implementation will have you accessing files and programming code that other simpler platforms do not ask for.

All said and done, Magento is an outstanding tool for online commerce and web marketing. It is no less than a boon for leading Internet retailers.

If you are looking to design and develop Magento ecommerce store for your business, Maven Infosoft is a one stop helping point for all your requirements.

Maven Infosoft is one of the initial starters who work on Magento since its first version. The expertise of Magento developers at Maven Infosoft, serves Magento customers to meet their Enterprise requirements.
Maven Infosoft provides services for enterprise Magento theme development, enterprise Magento template design, Magento extensions like Vendor module, Purchase module, accounting module and Magento payment extensions like iVeri, Paymentec, Safepay, Secpay, Secpay 3D secure, DIBS DirectPay, Cardinal Direct, Cardinal 3D secure.

As Magento is free open source application, Maven Infosoft also provides free Magento theme, free Magento templates, and free Magento extensions to help Magento grow in terms of ecommerce application.

Like Magento, Maven Infosoft is helping internet business to grow further to reach new heights.
For more information please refer http://www.offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com/php-mysql-pgsql-programming/magento-customization-solutions.html
Or drop us an email at info@offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com.

Address:-
Offshore Software Development India
406, Shiromani complex,
Nr Nehrunagar cross road Nehrunagar, 
Ahmedabad 380015, India.
Ph: 91-79-65457841
info@offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com

Safe Internet Blog Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Custom Design, Customization, Developers, Development, IT Consultancy, Magento, Migrating Data to Magento, Module solution, Offshore Outs, open-source eCommerce, software development, Theme, Web Designing, Zend framework

It doesn’t matter if you have a computer that runs Microsoft Windows or the Macintosh operating system. Either way, when you want to purchase additional software for your computer it can be tough deciding which application to purchase. You hate to waste your money on a program that doesn’t really do what you need it to do or that ends up being difficult to use. Fortunately, there is a good deal of free software that you can take advantage of before you buy.

Software publishers are becoming more aware of the fact that people don’t want to spend a hefty chunk of money for a program before they have a chance for a test drive. There was a time when this lead to people sharing copies of programs and software piracy became a real problem. Many software development companies now provide computer users with free trial programs.

The free software demos of various software programs are a good approach both for the software publishers and also for the end users. By giving people a chance to use a demo version of the application, people have a chance to get familiar with that company’s product line. Most of the time the user needs to supply the company with their email address in order to download the trial software and this allows the company to continue promoting their product.

Different companies put different limitations on the software that they allow people to test drive. Some trial software is fully functional but only for a limited period of time, such as two weeks or 30 days. Other free versions have some of the functions blocked or don’t allow the user to save their work. These limitations can actually work against the company because people never have a chance to get a complete feel for the hardware software interaction and true usefulness of the application.

Software development companies that allow users to have a fully functional demo, free of charge for at least 30 days stand the best chance of the user making a purchase. This gives the user enough time to relax and settle into using the application and if they find it at all useful by the end of the 30 day computer software trial, then they will need to make the purchase so that they don’t lose the work they completed during that time.

There are also some software companies, especially small companies and independent software programmers, that provide fully functional free of charge software downloads that have no limitations at all. This is called freeware and the purpose is either to introduce the user to additional software solutions that the company has or to give the user the opportunity to make a donation. The interesting thing is that many people will “donate” more for a freeware program than they would be willing to pay for a fully functional application.

There are a lot of download sites where you can find free software to try. Look under the category of the type of software you need and download a few different trials so you can test them and compare how they work and the cost of the full upgraded package. Do take time to read the terms and understand exactly how the demo period works. The last thing you want to do is end up having some important work you did in trial software being “held hostage” if you don’t decide to buy the particular program.

Safe Internet Blog free software, Microsoft Windows, operating system, software development, Windows Vista, Windows XP