Insights

Being a technology consultant and SaaS Founder, I get to speak with lot of people. I impart most valuable knowledge from them. I share those learnings here.


The Era of Flat UI Begins

Yes, the era of flat UI has started. Many designs by now have adopted the concept of Flat UI. In fact the whole concept of the Flat UI was picked up must faster than anything else. I would reveal the secrete bit later in this blog. For who don’t know what is flat UI here is the small explanation about it.

In plain terms, flat design is a style of interface that doesn’t employ any three dimensional realism. Windows 8 is the perfect example. Yes, I guess Microsoft is the one who started it. But I am not too sure…

Some suggested that in Apple’s next mobile operating system,is pushing a more “flat design” that is starker and simpler, according to developers who have spoken to Apple employees but didn’t have further details.

So do you want to look into more possibilities of Flat Design? Then here you go. This pinterest collection is all for you.

Google Chrome Frame for Internet Explorer Family

Google Chrome Frame is an open source plug-in that brings Google Chrome’s open web technologies and JavaScript engine to Internet Explorer. With Google Chrome Frame you can right away use HTML 5 tags such as canvas and other technologies that aren’t yet supported in Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, or 9.One can take advantage of JavaScript performance improvements to make the apps faster and more responsive. Before we move ahead, please note that there is huge difference between chrome and chrome Frame.

The reason for Google to come up with the Chrome Frame ideas is a pretty interesting. As far I remember, it all started with Google Wave. Google Wave had HTML5 feature which Google engineers spend around 3-4 days to make it work in IE. They succeeded to do so by innovation of Google Frame for IE.

You can detect whether or not your users have installed Google Chrome Frame by adding a single tag to your pages.

  • If Google Chrome Frame is not installed, you can direct your users to an installation page.
  • If Google Chrome Frame is installed, it detects the tag you added and works automatically.

For all the above to happen, you just need to have the following tag in <head>

Google India lights candle on it’s home page

Google India has lit a white candle on its home page as tribute to 23-years old Delhi gang –rape victim.  She passed away on December 27th in Singapore hospital.

 

It’s not a Google Doodle, but a small candle image below its search bars. Once you move a cursor on the candle it reads “In memory of the Delhi brave heart”

Non–IT Entrepreneurs Mindset

Two days ago I had got a call from an Entrepreneur who is a doctor my profession. He wants to establish a business in IT with hospital ERP as an entry point. That’s quite natural. The one you understand better is the one you may get success in. He has an example for an ERP which is desktop software that currently running in his hospital. Yes…He is happy with that and wants to build a similar one. That’s great!!

But let me tell you he want a desktop software only. He says no to online solution.

That astonished me! Naturally my next question was WHY?

Humm…. he had mainly two reasons. Ya…they are genuine reasons too….

Developers like creative ideas!

When a new customer contacts me for a web development the first question they would prefer to ask:

Customer: How do you charge?

Me: Well,  Rs X per hr or fixed amount for a particular website

Customer: Your charges are very high. What is the best price you can quote?

User Profile Date Collection and User Experience

User Profile has become a common aspect of all kind of website. Say it is a news aggregator, social networking, recommendation site, e-commerce or social gaming, the user profile plays a vital role. The only reason behind this is the sites known more about its users. In other words, analyzing this data will give a new business opportunity. The simplest example of this is to send a birthday greetings to the users with some discount on the product site sell.

 

OK, that’s enough. Now one knows how important the user data is.  Let me speak about the user experience while you collect their data. Further of the post just deals with that!

 

Error In My LinkedIn Account

Update : I had written a support e-mail after this post was published. Two days later LinkedIn had cleared this notification. But why this error happen is still a question in my mind.

The first journey into Vtiger

From last few days I was trying out with Vtiger CRM which is an Open source CRM which got split from Sugar CRM. In fact even today few codes of Vtiger are used by Sugar CRM and vice versa. In Vtiger this has been clearly mentioned using comments. So we can identify the original author of the code.

The Vtiger make use of Smarty template as presentation framework. But the internal framework is bit clumsy. Since many elements of Vtiger make use of other open source projects the code is included as is. In other words for first time developer understanding the location of the codes is bit difficult.

Actually, I started to look into Vtiger to enter into Customization market. That’s the reason I suppose to look into these aspect of the system. But one thing which I must say is that it is very powerful CRM which is strictly build over OOPS concepts.

Being said that, I have few more things to say. There is a very less market for Vtiger in India. Yes, in Indian market Vtiger is not much adopted. Probably you may say adoption is very less in Asia too. In fact, according to an expert whom I spoke to, said me that automation has very recently started in India. So that’s the exact reason for the market status of Vtiger in India. Vtiger has a huge market in US and Europe. Many small and medium enterprises are in automation mode.