Category: Technology

AirTag | New addition to Apple’s Ecosystem

Posted on by galaxy-admin

2021 also turned out to be a year of virtual events and product releases. Apple has been dominating the scene lately after the virtual launch of the iPhone 12. The ‘Spring Loaded’ event on April 20th had some exciting and colorful announcements for Apple aficionados. 

AirTag was announced in Apple’s tight-knit ecosystem to keep track of things utilizing Apple’s large network of devices. AirTag will enable users to locate lost or stolen items through the Find My app on their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

In contrast to their rival Tiles; AirTag is circular. Tiles and AirTag offer similar features. However, AirTag is backed up by a colossal existing network of millions of Apple devices. It also comes equipped with ultra-wideband tech, the same as iPhone 12 and other recent devices. 

Read on to find out all there’s to know about these exciting little circular trackers.

Apple AirTag Pricing

  • $29/£29 for one AirTag
  • $99/£99 for four AirTags

The Apple AirTag will cost $29 in the US or $99 for four in the US. It’s Apple so there are add-ons to buy along with AirTag like Hermes key ring, bag charm, and luggage tag. 

AirTag Specifications

  • 31.9 mm (1.26 in) Thickness : 8 mm (0.31 in)
  • 11 g (0.39 oz)
  • IP67 protection
  • User-removable CR2032 battery(Claimed to last about a year)
  • Personalization available

With personalization, you can customize your AirTag with an emoji or a name. 

AirTag Features

  • Find My app tracking
  • Precision Finding
  • Ask Siri to find
  • Seamless setup
  • Built-in speaker
  • IP67 Water and Dust resistance(up to 1-meter for 30 minutes)

You can easily attach AirTag to your everyday items to keep track of it. Its integration with iOS allows you to find things via the ‘Find My’ app instantly and with ease. 

How does it work?

The “U” in U1 stands for “ultra-wideband” (UWB). It’s a low-energy, short-range radio technology used for wireless data transmission. It’s more precise than Bluetooth. The distance measured between two UWB devices is more reliable as it is measured by calculating the time it takes for radio waves to pass to and fro between said devices, hence providing pinpoint precision to find things attached to the device. 

For the older devices that don’t have a U1 chip, AirTag also supports Bluetooth.

Finding with ‘Find My’

The easiest and the most Apple way to find your device would be by asking Siri when you misplace it. You can also use the ‘Find My’ app to ping the tag and quickly find something like keys via sound inside your home. 

What about when things get lost outside your home?

You can use your phone to see AirTag’s last seen location in the ‘Find My’ app. This is for more favorable scenarios like forgetting something at your friend’s place or office. AirTag is a game-changer when you misplace something or when something gets stolen. In that case, you can put the AirTag in the Lost mode and the device will utilize the wider network of other Apple devices to find your device.

This is a passive process that happens in the background; securely and privately. And when the device is found the owner gets an alert regarding the whereabouts. Everything is encrypted and happens passively, so people won’t be able to detect and steal others’ AirTags, not even Apple can’t see what’s happening.

What if someone finds my AirTag?

When someone finds your lost item with an AirTag, they can tap it via NFC and the Tag will show the owner’s contact info. They don’t necessarily have to possess an Apple device to interact with it and report it. It can be any NFC device.

What If someone involuntarily slips an AirTag to track me?

Apple has also thought of the downsides of this as well. It was one of our concerns too, what if someone misuses AirTag to track someone without their consent? Fortunately, Apple has designed AirTag with that possibility in mind. Your app will alert you in case an unknown AirTag is detected with you. You can disable them for your safety. 

We are always excited to see what Apple is going to do next. AirTag is a convenient piece of technology but the extent of its application is yet to be explored. We are also looking forward to developing iOS applications that utilize this advanced tech. Introductions such as AirTags present refreshing and creative opportunities for us to explore.   

Feel free to get in touch with us for any iOS development-related queries. We will be happy to partner with you.

5 challenges in Web Application Development

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Web applications are everywhere on the internet! Every time you send a mail, do online shopping, or browse your social media accounts, you are using a web application. They usually work on all the browsers and can be easily accessed on mobile and tablet computers, while providing a seamless experience as the native application.

Web application development involves client-side and server-side programming to develop an application accessible over a web browser. We have identified 5 problem areas that you would need to address to build a successful and high-performing web application.

Speed and Performance

Getting a user on a website is a big challenge in itself. You wouldn’t want to increase the bounce rate just because your web application did not load in time. Un-optimized database, unexpected traffic spikes, troublesome third-party integrations, poorly written code are all recipes for slow websites.

Deploying CDN (content distribution network) to ensure that the server requests get balanced in one good solution. Also, make it a point that your developers should be aware of the amount of media on the webpages, any plugins, configurations, etc in the planning stage itself. This way they can make provisions from the beginning instead of optimizing codes till the last minute.

UI/UX

A good chunk of your users will be visiting your websites via smartphones. The UI must be simple, intuitive, and accessible. This includes:

  • Predictable navigation
  • Clear and simple copy
  • Engaging visuals
  • Easy to understand typography

Make sure that designers don’t get carried away with the aesthetic aspects that they miss out on the usability, accessibility, and intuitive factors. The end goal is to give users an experience that will increase your recall value and make them visit your website again and again.

Security Threats

Web security is a vital task that needs to be done right. SSL encryption is one such standard practice that enables encrypted communication between web browsers and servers. The most common threats are:

  • Cross-site scripting
  • Cross-Site Request Forgery
  • SQL Injection
  • Phishing
  • Shell Injection
  • Buffer Overflow
  • Session hijacking

Developers should implement the security measures right from the start and keep updating as your application grows. Your user data needs to be protected at all costs, as even a small vulnerability can be exploited by hackers in any way. Thus, the right coding with encryption should be done to protect you and your website from cyberattacks.

Tech stack

Your tech sack should include the right combination of servers, frameworks, programming language, and tools. The right tech stack will do wonders for your present and plans. Your project size, its anticipated growth, your team’s expertise, competitors’ tech stack, etc. will help you decide upon your tech stack.

You can also look for tools and software that have a huge community so that any queries that your teams may have are resolved quickly. Look for the documentation available as well so that it becomes easier for your team to have reliable information at their disposal.

Scalability

Scalability is essentially believed to be about load balancing between servers at peak traffic times. You need to consider the following points:

  • Develop software that runs smoothly on clusters of servers
  • Implementing cloud computing from a future point of view
  • Implementing Service orientation architecture (SOA)

Keeping your website future proof ensures that as you grow, your website does as well without troubling your users. This again needs to be considered from the start and assessed as to your customer base increases.

Working on creating the best web app for you and your users can be a daunting task but you don’t have to shoulder the burden all by yourself. We at Galaxy Weblinks believe in giving the best to our clients, get in touch with us here and see for yourself how we can make things less troublesome for you.

5 Factors to consider for selecting the right CMS

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Although CMS products are all designed to produce similar results, they all do not offer the same features. It is critical to ensure that the product you select will work for your organization. There are numerous CMS available for you to choose from, and therefore, the process of selecting a CMS can often take longer and more complex.

The amazing content you produce needs to be presented and managed perfectly, or you will not make the right impact. Let us ponder on the factors that should be considered while selecting a CMS? What features should you put first? 

In this blog, we’ll show you the answers to these questions.

#1 Technology integration

In an era when technology affects every aspect of your business, your CMS must integrate seamlessly with your other marketing, sales, communication, and project management initiatives.

Tip: Begin by conducting a technology audit. Make a list of the tools/technologies you use to complete the following tasks:

  • Marketing automation
  • Customer relationship management system
  • Project management system
  • Forms management
  • Email/Social media marketing
  • ERP
  • Customer support

The majority of these tools will either feed or pull data from your CMS.

For example, your blog post could include gated content or a lead magnet. This lead magnet connects to your lead acquisition tool, which connects to your marketing automation and email marketing tools. Once a lead is marked as qualified, it should be routed to your CRM. This is then integrated into your marketing automation tool to further nurture the leads.

This creates several dependencies that influence your CMS choice. The more tightly your CMS is integrated with your other marketing and sales tools, the smoother your marketing machinery will run.

#2 Business Impact

Tip: When considering the effects of a CMS on your business, you should consider the responsibilities you accept when choosing a platform.

With a development platform, you will either require internal resources to manage them or outsource the services required. When you build your website on these platforms, you have to go through a lot more steps in terms of functional requirements and development cycles to get to the final product.

The majority of the development is completed with a solutions platform, and your company will need to configure the platform to meet your specific needs. Adoption is also generally faster because these systems are designed to be user-friendly.

#3 Ongoing Requirements

The process of creating a website for your company can be difficult. Managing stakeholder expectations, ensuring you deliver on business requirements, and getting your vendor to deliver on their promises are just a few of the issues that arise during the process.

The build, however, should be considered the start of your digital journey. The hard work begins the day the website is launched and you now need to validate the assumptions you made many months prior during the discovery phase.

Tip: Integrated analytics serve as a springboard for your responses, A/B testing of content, and user journeys. This then leads to website updates, content changes, and the launch of landing pages for specific campaigns. Understanding how the CMS platform behaves when there is a need for continuous change should be part of the decision-making process.

#4 Security

Security is a major consideration. You need a CMS that will protect your content and customer data from current and future threats.

There are four things to think about here:

Security features: Does the CMS include built-in security features (for example, two-factor authentication)? If not, does it have security plugins and third-party integrations?
Infrastructure requirements include: Is the CMS in favor of infrastructure-level security upgrades?

Environment for plugins/modules: Are your most frequently used plugins/modules secure? Do their developers check for updates regularly?
Development speed: How quickly do developers release updates and security fixes? This is especially problematic with open-source software.

#5 WYSIWYG content creation

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) user interfaces have become a standard feature of CMS platforms ranging from the most basic to the most sophisticated.

A WYSIWYG content authoring environment, as the name implies, allows marketers and non-technical users to create content using familiar formatting tools (such as those found in Microsoft Word).

Consider the following:

  • Can marketers use the editor to easily change the look and feel of content?
  • Does the editor support multiple delivery channels with previews of content?
  • Is the editor responsive and quick, or is it slow and difficult to use?
  • Does the editor allow you to embed video on product pages and other web pages to support your video content?

How to make the best choice 

Choosing a CMS is a difficult task. You must balance multiple requirements from various departments, evaluate dozens of options, and choose something that falls into the Goldilocks zone of cost, complexity, and ease of use.

Hopefully, this blog will assist you in making a more informed CMS decision.

Here are your next three actions to take before you leave:

  • Inquire with your marketing, editorial, sales, and IT departments about their CMS requirements.
  • Examine your current technology stack and skills concerning all stakeholders.
  • Estimate a budget and take into account the cost of implementation for both open and closed source solutions.

The flexibility and features they offer are out of the box, along with their content-first approach they are not too high up on the learning curve. All these features combined, make them our go-to for nearly every custom web project.

It is an essential component of our web design and development capabilities. Are you interested? Contact us, and we’ll be happy to discuss how they can improve your site.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We are your offshore CMS development partner and have state-of-art infrastructure and development expertise on the latest CMS technology trends. We have hands-on experience in end-to-end WordPress CMS development solutions catering to different business needs. We offer assistance from building custom CMS websites to website migration and maintenance processes.

3 Things To Know Before Switching To A New CMS

Posted on by galaxy-admin

When you’re planning a redesign of your website, there can be a lot of factors that led to this decision. It could be the need for additional features or utilities, performance, enhanced user experience, and so on. The changes in the user interface can be perhaps managed using your current CMS solutions. However, to integrate more features and functionalities, you may need to contemplate switching your CMS. 

For example, if you’re an Ecommerce portal and wish to incorporate additional graphical elements, your current CMS may be unable to accommodate this additional feature. Alternatively, you are updating the data on your portal manually and need to automate this process. The decision to redesign is a difficult one. You will encounter pretty many roadblocks while trying to update your current CMS. 

We have listed 3 points that you need to ponder on before you decide to go ahead and make a switch. 

1. Do you have a valid reason to switch?

Switching to a different CMS will bring in its own set of challenges. You will need to create the entire CMS from scratch, including the designs. You need to be sure when you’re switching systems. Here are some sustainable reasons why you would consider switching:

  • Current CMS won’t support the desired redesign
  • Current CMS has limitations that would or do require extensive custom development
  • Current CMS is too expensive, too slow, or suffers from other problems
  • Want to move from hosted platform to self-hosted
  • No CMS in use

If you don’t resonate with either of the reasons, we suggest you stick to your existing CMS and opt for superficial changes instead. On the other hand, if you did find yourself saying yay to almost each one of the reasons then follow us along. 

2. What are your options?

Now that you’ve made up your mind that you need to change systems, it’s time to find the right one for you. What are the options you ask? Let’s see:

Self-hosted

You can purchase or download self-hosted CMS and install it on a server you own or rent. Although complicated and steeper in the learning curve for beginners, self-hosted CMS is highly flexible and functional. Some of the popular choices are Magento, Drupal, Joomla, and Sitecore. 

Hosted

Typically, this kind of CMS is owned and hosted by the same company. These are very common for ecommerce platforms as these are simple to use and are essentially ready to plug and play.  Some popular choices for hosted CMSs are Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion, and 3dcart. There is only one limitation with these hosted systems is that they are pretty difficult to modify according to your specifications.

WordPress

WordPress is like a household name. Initially introduced as blogging software, it now functions as a much more powerful system that enables users to host a blog, e-commerce, or a business website. With all the libraries of themes and plugins, the flexibility it provides is unmatched.

If you’re not sure which one fits your needs best you can outsource the WordPress development to CMS experts like us.

3. The process for switching to a new CMS

Now that you’ve selected your CMS, you will have to retain the data from the existing site, set up the server, and take care of the new design. Sounds like a lot, right? It’s a lot. Here is what you need to do: 

Exporting your data

You’ll have to backup your existing site data. You will have to work with databases, which is not easy, since it has user accounts, purchase history, report data, etc. Missing data can cost you dearly. 

Staging server

You’ll have to set up a test server so that you can ensure that nothing breaks in the live environment. 

New Design

Once the servers are ready and data is imported, the design will begin. Getting validation on design can take days, weeks, or even months. 

Review

This is the stage when you go through the final iterations of changes and see if you’re happy with the design and everything. Testing for different devices, browsers, and responsive will happen in this stage. 

Pro Tip: Take care of the redirects once the redesign is complete. You wouldn’t want your users lost in the web of 404s if your URLs are changed. You can find helpful information on creating 301 redirects in your .htaccess file on this Google Help page.

We know there’s a lot to do and there are so many things that can go wrong. Our experts can take care of the unknown for you and move your website to a new system without any downtime and other hassles. You can get in touch with us here.

9 UX trends that are here to stay in 2021

Posted on by galaxy-admin

New trends are emerging in every industry vertical, UX included. To keep business thriving, you have to be quick to recognize, analyze and implement trends on priority. Furthermore, any enhancement in the visual aspects of your product would lead to a higher recall from the users. 

Our experts can not stop themselves from trying new trends. We have listed the ones that will make ripples in 2021.

3D Elements 

There has been a huge surge in three-dimensional designs across the web and mobile interfaces. This not only gives an edge to your flat design but also helps draw users’ attention to the primary features and aspects of your website and app. 

These elements hold user’s attention for a longer period and encourage them to interact with your product. However, all these 3D animations and illustrations need to be optimized so that they don’t increase the page/app’s loading time.  

Engaging Motion Effects 

Animated user stories, parallax scrolling, micro-interactions, etc all are liked by users across demographics. Motions bring life to your design elements like illustrations, animations, etc.

Parallax scrolling is another emerging effect to entice users for further engagement. When users notice the difference in scrolling your webpage, out of curiosity, they will spend a few seconds more. The right mix of effects will make transitions much more delightful for all your users. However, overdoing the same will push back users, thus a few effects on the most vital features and pages should suffice. 

Neumorphism

The mix of flat design and skeuomorphism is Neumorphism. It uses shadows and highlights to give an almost 3D look to the design elements. It layers the elements in a subtle and minimalist way. Designers use similar color pallets, standard shapes, and icons, etc here. This ensures that users don’t get any sudden or unwelcome surprises.  

Asymmetry Arrangements 

The classic layouts have lost their charm among users. Any generic design presented to the users is getting lost in the virtual crowded space. Hence asymmetry and creative approaches are taking the center stage. You will need to brainstorm a lot before you come up with the ‘perfectly asymmetric yet balanced’ structure. Brainstorming is necessary so that you are not compromising on the usability and accessibility aspects of your product at any point. 

Dark Mode 

Dark mode has been implemented successfully by many organizations, but many are yet to follow. Therefore, dark mode makes this list. The benefits of dark mode are now well recognized by users too. It helps in decreasing screen fatigue (something this pandemic brought to light), saves user’s devices batteries, and is worth exploring for your product offering.  

Designers can highlight elements more easily here and use high contrast elements for focusing on the primary functionalities. A win-win situation for all!

Improved Onboarding 

A swift onboarding process will hook users for a longer duration. We saw complex remote collaboration tools and video conferencing options being disliked by users because they were complicated to use and the onboarding process shown was not very helpful. 

A smooth onboarding process with a mix of subtle hints, micro-interactions, and the option to returning to certain learning aspects play a part in creating a lasting impression on users. Storytelling is also being implemented so that a connection with a certain character/avatar can be made by users. 

Color Palettes For Playful Backgrounds 

When the talk is all about standing out from the crowd, bright, neon colors do this for you easily. Designers are willing to play with bold colors like never before. Unconventional color mix, using popping colors on your website, or just highlight the main features are the craze now. 

All this is done so that users are seeing a different and experimental side of your organization. Mixing darker shades with bold colors, following a bold theme throughout your website and app is a great way to stay in your user’s mind. But again ensure that the colors don’t distract users from the primary features and are not bringing on any accessibility issues. 

Typography  

In line with playful color backgrounds, typography is also something that UI/UX designers are testing out lately. Font style, bold text, creative text display are all being played with. And add small animations to your text here and there, users will keep interacting with your app and website. 

Bold text, especially on the hero page screams attention like nothing else (in a good way of course). On one hand, web typography is getting bigger and bold, the apps are leveraging ALL CAPS and creative fonts to fit in varying screen sizes.

Uniqueness Trumps Perfection 

What differentiates you from your competitors? What unique design will create a long-lasting impression on your users? Designers are no longer going after being ‘perfect’ in their design across platforms. In 2021, you will see more creative experiments with design layouts, elements, animations to have a higher recall value. 

Color play, different typography, playing with layouts, and all that we have covered in this blog will all contribute to delivering a unique user experience. These trends have gained a lot of popularity within the designers’ community and will continue to do so until users express some other preferences. 
To know more about our UX services, contact us here. 

Choosing the best Software Architecture for your Enterprise App

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Planning on starting a greenfield software project? Or ever wondered how large enterprise systems are designed? Before major software development starts, we have to choose the right architecture that will offer us the desired functionality and quality attributes. 

Choosing the latest or most popular technology in the market will not always mean that it would bring the best results. However, this does not imply that you opt for legacy technologies.

For example, if there is a project that involves building a regular data capturing form (with less than 15 fields) for a survey, which will be used only once by less than 100 users, then it will be an utter disaster if you will be using highly complex architecture patterns like Microservices. 

Thorough planning must be done when selecting an architecture pattern and the following features must be taken into account:

  • Cost
  • Time to Market
  • Number of users (current and future)
  • Level of isolation (ie: integration with other platforms/systems)
  • Toleration time for system unavailability

What is a Software Architecture Pattern?

Software structures are composed of software elements that function as a blueprint, and design teams depend on these software architectural patterns to a great extent.

“An architectural pattern is a general, reusable approach to commonly appearing problems in software architecture. Whereas, software architecture is the process of converting software characteristics such as flexibility, scalability, etc. into a structured solution that meets the business and the technical expectations.”

For example, when a product owner says they are competing in a rapidly changing market, and they should adapt their business model quickly. The software should be scalable, modular, and maintainable if a business deals with urgent requests that need to be completed successfully in a matter of time. A software architect would then note that the performance and low fault tolerance, reliability, and scalability will be the key characteristics.

What happens with a system without any architecture pattern? 

Whenever you will change the behavior or structure of one class, a ripple effect would follow where multiple other classes would break. Is your software like this? The best way to find out is by using a software design reverse engineering tool like hex-ray that studies your class/component structures. On the other hand, if we are not using a pattern, then we will end up putting in the effort in solving the problems that can be easily solved with one of the patterns.

To help you, we will skim through the fundamentals of a few main software architectural patterns along with the pros and cons of each pattern. Besides, we will explain what architecture pattern would be the best fit for a given scenario.

1. Layered Architecture

One of the most efficient and common models deployed by enterprises is the Layered Architecture. The layers of this model are not interdependent, yet interconnected to each other. This is the conventional approach to designing most software.

For example, if you’d want to switch from an Oracle database to an SQL. This switch may cause you to excel in the database layer but will not have a domino effect on any other layer, hence avoiding any crashes.

What does it solve?


It allows the software to be segmented in such a way that the modules can be evolved and developed separately with little dependencies among the parts, supporting reuse, modifiability, and portability. The layered pattern divides the software into units called layers. Each layer is a grouping of modules that provides a cohesive set of services.

Benefits

  • This architecture helps those enterprises that don’t want to go overboard with experimenting and want to stick to the conventional software architecture design patterns. 
  • Testing components become relatively easier as inter-dependencies are negligible in this format of software development engineering.

Caveats:

  • Larger applications tend to be resource-intensive if based on this format, therefore for such projects, it’s advised to overlook the layered pattern. 
  • The entire version of the software is installed as a single unit irrespective of independent layers. So, you will have to re-install the entire device all over again, even if you update a single layer. 

Best for:

  • New applications that need to be built quickly.
  • General desktop applications.
  • Teams with less experienced developers who don’t understand other architectures yet.
  • Applications needing strict testability and maintainability standards.

2. Event-driven Architecture

The event-driven architecture helps in building a central unit that accepts all data and then assigns it to the separate modules that handle the particular type. This handoff is said to generate an “event,” and is assigned to the code delegated to that type.

Take an example of this pattern from a web page:

When a user clicks a button, the browser interprets the event and surfaces the programmed action, such as video playback, matching the input with the right output. Contrary to the layered architecture where the code must flow top-down and filter through all the layers, event-driven architectures implement modules that are activated only when there is a generation of an event connected to them.

What does it solve?


Sometimes it’s hard for many enterprises to build distributed systems that can service asynchronous arriving messages associated with an event, and that can scale from simple and small to complex and large. This architecture helps in building such systems as it is very adaptable to real-time changes and is suited to asynchronous systems that run on asymmetric data flow. 

Benefits

  • This architecture is suited to applications that tend to scale. It improves the response time of an application, eventually leading to better business outcomes. 
  • It plays a huge role in defining how IoT works. This architecture is widely applicable across networks and applications where devices are part of the IoT and requires exchanging information between even consumers and producers in real-time.

Caveats:

  • If the modules can affect each other then testing can be complex. While individual modules can be tested independently, the interactions between them can only be tested in a fully functioning system. 
  • Sometimes it is harder to understand the architecture due to its high complexity.

Best for:

  • Asynchronous systems with the asynchronous data flow.
  • Building applications with few modules to interact with the individual data blocks.
  • User interfaces.
  • IoT-based applications.

3. Microservices Architecture

Microservices are an independent and self-regulating codebase that can be written and maintained even by a small team of developers. Microservices architecture consists of independent services with each service responsible for the implementation of its related business logic. 

These independent services are separated from each other based on the nature of their domains and belong to a mini-microservice pool. Enterprise mobile app developers leverage the capabilities of this architecture, especially for complex applications. 

What does it solve?

Monolithic applications become too complex and large for efficient support and deployment for a distributed resource utilization such as in cloud environments.

Microservices help in building applications as suites of services. Each service is independently scalable and deployable and has its API layer. Different services can be developed by different teams, manage their database, and written in different programming languages.

Benefits

  • This architecture design pattern makes the system highly fault-tolerant as the services are segmented into pools. In other words, the whole software won’t crash on its end even if some microservices stop functioning. 
  • It allows applications to scale. The independent services lead to scale individually rather than overloading the entire system with the need to expand. 
  • Services can be merged into any application depending upon the work scope. 

Caveats

  • Harder to understand due to its complex logic. Requires deep analysis in service decomposition.

Best For

  • Websites with small components.
  • Corporate data centers with well-defined boundaries.
  • Rapidly developing new businesses, e-commerce, and web applications.

Conclusion

While the above-enlisted architectures signify the most favored design choices for organizational software development, there are plenty of others, equally interesting and perhaps more befitting to your project.

It’s always important to understand the pattern clearly, as applying the wrong pattern can lead to a lot of problems like inappropriate designs and implementations. A development expert would have a sound judgment that would help you understand when a pattern is not appropriate in a particular business scenario. 

Contact us if you need a team of such developers, engineers, technical architects, and PMs who can understand the ramifications of software design and the future growth of the product.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services and have hands-on experience with large, medium, and startup business development requirements. Our engineers also help in improving security, reliability, and features to make sure your business application scale and remain secure.

Google: Core Web Vitals For Search Engine Rankings

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The new and improved page experience ranking for Google search is set to roll out in May 2021. This blog covers what the buzz is about. 

Google has introduced a new set of parameters – the ‘Core Web Vitals’ that will measure users’ experience ‘with speed, responsiveness, and visual stability of a webpage.

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This considers the loading time of the largest graphic element on the screen, i.e. Largest Contentful Paint. Such content can also be the main content of the website, so once the vital information is loaded, smaller elements follow. The ideal  LCP is set at 2.5 seconds 
  • First Input Delay: is the time taken by the page to become interactive, i.e. the response time of the page after the user initiates an action. The ideal FID is said to be less than 100ms. 
  • Cumulative Layout Shift: measures the visual stability of the website. It focuses on the time taken for all the elements of the website to become stable. The ideal CFS is less than 100ms. 

The Core Web Vitals will now be an intrinsic part of measuring the page performance, along with these factors-

  • Mobile responsiveness 
  • Safe browsing 
  • HTTPS security 
  • Intrusive interstitial guidelines

New labels for search results 

Google is contemplating adding labels in the search results, highlighting the pages that offer a better user experience. The current focus is on visual indicators that identify pages that met the predefined page experience criteria. 

However, this is still under the testing phase and the final call will be taken by Google in May 2021 based on the success of the tests. Google is staunchly recommending AMP to optimize the page experience signal.

Top stories courses for non-AMP content 

There was another announcement as well which said that non-AMP will soon be eligible for appearance in the Top Stories. 

The pages fulfilling the Google News content policies will have greater chances for Top stories carousel and greater user experience will be given priority in ranking.  

Our Recommendation

These updates will have an impact on your website’s traffic, therefore, we advise you to begin with the due diligence. You can check your Core Web Vitals stats here:

And in case you wish to talk more about the updates or need experts to handle the optimizations for your website, feel free to contact us here.

Swift 5.4 | New Features and Updates

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Swift is the preferred programming language for the Apple ecosystem. It’s a safe, fast, and interactive option that combines the best in Apple’s engineering culture and the contributions from its open-source community. 

With the Swift 5.4 update, there is a significant improvement in the compilation, result builders entry, better code completion in expressions, and so on. Let’s see all the major updates that this new release has in store for us. 

Result builders

Function builders were unofficially a part of Swift 5.1. With this update, they are now formally here named as result builders. 

New result builders can now be defined with the help of new structs via @resultBuilder. This attribute informs SwiftUI which type to be considered as a result builder. However, all result builders need to define at least one static function.  

Implicit member syntax extension

There is an improved way of using implicit member expressions. There is now support for chains of static functions as opposed to a single static member earlier. The compiler can comprehend multiple chained members and act accordingly. 

Multiple variadic parameters in functions

Before this update, you had just one variadic parameter. To elaborate, there is now the possibility to use multiple variadic parameters in functions, subscripts, initializers, and methods. The only condition here is that all these parameters should have labels.  

For example, now one can create a function that will store which team won a particular football match and followed by a second parameter that will store the names of the players that scored the maximum touchdowns. 

Changes in local functions

Local functions now have overloading support. Meaning, nested functions can be overloaded and Swift can select which one gets to run based upon the types that are in use. 

Support for property wrappers

Introduced in 5.1, property wrappers were implemented to attach extra functionality to properties easily. This is now extended to include support for local variables too. 
All the changes mentioned above are well-received in the developers’ community so far. Do let us know which upgrade are you liking the best and which updates/ features are missing in your opinion.

Why are external code audits important?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

It’s a common industry practice for applications to utilize and reuse codes written by other programmers. Although it’s an efficient way of building applications, you might not be fully aware of the vulnerabilities in the code, since it’s not yours, to begin with. That’s where External Code Audits come into the picture. It takes that unknown out of the equation. 

Apart from spotting errors and improving your code external audits will also help you understand the underlying composition, licensing, and obligations. In this blog, we’ll uncover why it’s important to conduct external code audits.We have also covered Code Review best practices in our earlier blog. Read it here.

Improved programming quality

Source code reviews are as important as QA. It not only ensures the highest code quality but also makes it easier for developers to improve overall software performance and add new features for expansion. Improved quality of code and optimized performance means, no need to allocate critical time and resources to solve technical issues and errors.   

External code audits may also help surface any code debt which came as a result of using code created by other developers. 

It saves you money

The time taken for bug detection is related to the fixing costs. Therefore, the longer it takes to detect the bugs, the costlier it gets. You can significantly reduce the cost of development by simply detecting bugs as early as possible. External code audits bring in extra hands to multiply audit efforts and cut the time by a significant margin, providing a direct cost advantage. 

External developers can easily detect mistakes made by other developers, as it’s fresh for them and they have no other obligation other than shipping the best possible version of that code.

Streamlines development

When an engineer (not just developers) does one thing a million times, it gets harder to see subtle mistakes and efficient alternatives. That’s why QA engineers, editors, and supervisors are there. External code audits can help surface inefficiencies in the code and mistakes that go undetected. If given a pass, these mistakes can cause critical development issues and undermine the project management. 

Helps upskill new coders

If you have new and less experienced developers in your team, external code audits can be eye-opening. It can help them improve their skill and learn about different modules, workarounds, and coding practices. Through this practice, the newcomers can come out as experienced coders after learning from their mistakes pointed out during the reviews. 

Improves Project estimation accuracy

Reviewers performing code audits are people who are very familiar with the codebase you’re dealing with. There is a great chance that they already know the underlying common issues with the codebase and can recommend solutions based on the complexity of your project.  Knowing about the issues and possible workarounds beforehand will give you an edge and help you make more precise project estimates, in terms of cost, time, and resources.

Consistent code across the software

When you’re working on complex projects, consistency becomes a challenge. Code audits help maintain consistency in your code throughout the software development project. External developers will keep a watchful eye on the coding style and any other element that needs to be consistent for better understanding and easier transitions in the future. 

Conclusion

Software development, like any other process, is collaborative and when things exchange hands, it creates room for flaws. External code audits eliminate those possibilities while optimizing and speeding up development in the process.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services and have hands-on experience with large, medium, and startup business development requirements. Our engineers also help in improving security, reliability, and features to make sure your business application scale and remains secure.

Unveiling Android 12 | Updates and Enhancements

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The developer preview of Android 12 is now available and Google has placed heavy emphasis on app compatibility, privacy, and accessibility of all users. As always, Pixel phones will be the first to receive the update probably around September 2021, followed by billions of other android phones.

In this preview, the UI receives some tweaks and features enhancements in Android 12 (Code-named Snowcone). Let’s see what they are-

Change in Accent Color

The white background color in the drop-down menu and settings menu is now being changed with a pale light-blue tint. It can be seen in both light and dark themes.

Nearby Share for Wi-Fi passwords

Connecting to a new Wi-Fi is now easier with the help of ‘Nearby Share’ for sharing Wi-Fi passwords. The QR code scanner option is present; if you scroll down, you will spot this new option which will look for devices near you for sharing the details.

Changes in Notifications

There are changes seen in the layout of text and visuals along with tweaks in transparency and background. The overlay is lighter in shade and the background is more translucent.

Also, the new notifications snooze now comes with three different time-durations – 30 mins, 1 hour, or 2 hours. Although this option is disabled by default, you can enable it from settings by going on the ‘allow notification snoozing’ under the notification head.

Editing Screenshots 

One can add text in varying fonts and colors on the screenshots. The markup menu will also feature emojis just in case your screenshots need extra flair.

Along with edits for screenshots, you can edit any outgoing image file via a share sheet. When you share an image file, there will be an ‘Edit’ option that enables you to make edits to your selected file.

Media Player Interface 

In the drop-down menu, you will notice a change in the media player. The widget now occupies more space, expanding till the screen edges and takes more space on the lock screen as well when in use.

You can select which apps are shown in the media control and which are restricted. This can be done via Settings > Sound and vibration > Media.

Changes in Accessibility Settings   

Accessibility settings are also reorganized. Font size, display size are grouped under ‘Text and Display’. There was a horizontal line that used to divide different menu options which are now removed.

Privacy Settings

Privacy toggles can be used to block the usage of the camera and microphone. Users will be notified when an app uses either of these functions. In the Privacy Settings, the preview also features an option to disable the phone camera and mute the microphone completely.

Some rumored changes are also creating buzz, like:

  • OS updates could be done directly from Play Store. If this is implemented, it will lead to more frequent updates.
  • Audio-coupled haptic feedback/effects could be seen in Pixel phones. As of now, only the Pixel 4 is believed to have the hardware to implement this feature. This signifies that there can be vibrations in the haptic motors to match the rhythms of the music played.
  • Double-tap gesture for Pixel phones on the back of the phone. This can be done by activating Google Assistant. It can be used for other options as well like taking a screenshot or pausing/ playing media, etc
  • ‘One-handed’ mode is believed to have a feature called, ‘Silky Home’ which will push features further down, making them more accessible. Apart from this, one expects more blank space to be left on the top of the display.

We are eager to see how this update pans out and what effects it will have on app design and development. If all goes well, it will give a lot more control to users’ hands.

About us We, at Galaxy Weblinks, are all for new ideas and experiments. We believe that being up-to-date in this fast-paced world gives us adequate time to explore and implement new changes. Our analytics team is proficient in building apps that are well aligned to our client’s and platform requirements. Contact us for a free consultation!