Technology Archives - Page 15 of 21

Next.js vs. Electron: Making the Right Choice for Your Project

Posted on July 10, 2020October 10, 2024 by galaxy-admin

The global enterprise software industry is projected to make a remarkable $302.9 billion in revenue by 2025. This fact highlights the critical importance of selecting the right technology stack to ensure your project’s success.

One such decision that holds immense relevance today is choosing between Next.js and Electron for your development needs. This choice is not only relevant to Software Engineers and Technical Project Managers but also to Startups and Tech Entrepreneurs looking to grow their projects.

Next.js: Simplifying Web Application Development

Let’s begin by looking at Next.js, a framework that has gained widespread acclaim for simplifying web application development. It’s an open-source React framework that offers server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG) out of the box.

For those seeking a straightforward approach to building web applications, Next.js is a top choice. Its built-in support for SEO optimization ensures that your website performs well in search engine rankings, providing a solid foundation for attracting visitors.

Electron: The Desktop App Dynamo

When it comes to desktop application development, Electron takes the stage. Electron is a framework that allows you to create cross-platform desktop applications using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It offers efficiency and versatility, allowing developers to leverage web expertise and achieve cross-platform consistency on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Notable applications like Slack, VS Code, and Discord are powered by Electron. For instance, Slack’s Electron-powered desktop app seamlessly combines web and desktop functionalities, offering a unified and polished user experience.

Making an Informed Choice

When deciding between Next.js and Electron, there are several factors to consider:

Application Type:

Think about the nature of your project. If you’re building a web-based application meant to be accessed through browsers, Next.js is the natural choice. For standalone desktop applications, Electron is the go-to option.

Performance:

Next.js offers impressive performance for web applications. In contrast, Electron apps can be resource-intensive. Your choice should align with your application’s performance requirements.

User Experience:

Consider the user experience you want to deliver. Next.js excels in creating web experiences, while Electron empowers you to craft desktop applications with native-like interactions.

Development Team:

The expertise of your development team matters. If your team is well-versed in web development, Next.js may provide a smoother transition. Electron might require additional knowledge of desktop application development.

Take Spotify, for example, which utilizes Electron for its desktop app. Spotify delivers a familiar interface and a rich audio experience, seamlessly blending web technology with desktop functionality.

Your Project’s Path Forward

The choice between Next.js and Electron hinges on your project’s specific requirements and your development goals. As a Software Engineer or Developer, mastering JavaScript equips you to tackle both web and desktop application development, enhancing your versatility.

At Galaxy Weblinks, we understand the significance of making the right technology choices. Whether you lean towards the web-centric Next.js or the versatile Electron, we are here to assist you on your development journey. With our expertise in design, Agile methodologies, and web development services, we can help you navigate the complexities of modern software development.

If you’re ready to explore the possibilities, feel free to contact us today.Our dedication to providing excellent software solut

Apple users say hi to App Clips (Instant Apps)

Posted on July 8, 2020October 10, 2024 by galaxy-admin

In its first ever and one of its kind WWDC, Apple unveiled features that will define the newer generation of its system. iOS 14 update has a lot going for the home screen, navigation, Siri, accessibility, and privacy. One of the highlights of the announcement was App Clips.

In this article, we will explore this remarkable new feature of this iOS update. App Clips, which is similar to instant apps on Android lets you use an app without having to download it for one-off tasks, like booking a cab.

How is it done?

You can initiate the App Clip card to pop-up via QR codes, App Clip links, or an NFC tag. This card has an app description and the action you wish to complete; such as, hailing a cab! The card expands on clicking, giving you all the necessary information.

The main advantage of this feature is that the app works seamlessly with other apps (iMessage, Apple Maps, or Safari) as a pop-up without taking over the entire screen. This is especially handy when, say you are on the road, navigating via Maps. The App Clips will not force you to stop the navigation for looking at a food joint’s menu. Instead, it will let you browse and place orders via the App Clip.

The App clips are also compatible with Apple Pay and Sign in with Apple. Therefore, no need to reveal your sensitive information to apps that you don’t trust, as you can pay via Apple Pay.

Another advantage of App Clips is that iOS wouldn’t run them in the background. Thereby, it restricts the background access to your phone’s information that the app could collect if it was to run in the background.

App Clips will save your time as it will lead you to your task directly and will not clutter your home screen. Additionally, your data will be erased in case you do not use App Clip frequently.

Although App Clips is similar to Android’s Instant Apps, it is a new and important feature for iOS users. The beta version is now available for public testing.

There are many more engaging features that have been introduced in the iOS 14 update. Have a look!

Happy Exploring!

5 ways to optimize your ecommerce website for Voice Search

Posted on June 30, 2020October 10, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Voice search is at its peak in popularity among millions of users. According to an OC&C Strategy Consultants market research, Voice Shopping is projected grow to be a $40 billion plus segment in next two years. Numbers alone are a proof that voice assisted interactions are no longer exclusive to accessibility.

Your customers are now speaking more to Google assistant and Siri than to your website’s chatbots for their product queries.

In such a scenario, voice search will help your customers to visit your website, look for their product, and make the purchase (if only it was that easy). But you can make it easy for your visitors.

Google’s insight says a lot about the current consumer mind set about shopping and smart speaker.

According to Google, almost half of the people who own a smart speaker are willing to receive information related to deals, promotions and sales from brands

People are willing to share and receive information via these devices. Now the question is, how to optimize your ecommerce website for voice search? Scroll down to find the answer to this question.

Here are 5 actionable tips to optimize your ecommerce for voice search-

1. Prioritize Long-tail, Contextual Keywords

In voice search the keywords are not just 2-3 words, instead it’s a complete sentence. The reason being, when we ‘speak’ to our devices, we are considering it to be an actual life conversation and therefore frame the queries accordingly.

Your visitors have a high probability of saying, “Siri, where can I find toys for my 5 year old child?”. When a person types the same query, it goes something like, “Toys for 5 year old”.

Voice search revolves around the illusion of having a conversation with your search assistant or search engine. Additionally the typing effort is absent here, so a person subconsciously speaks more as compared to typing the same query. Thus, long tail and contextual keywords come into the spotlight here.

2. Decrease your website’s load time across platforms

A lot of your traffic will be from mobile devices, thus you should optimize your website’s speed for mobile. A speedy website benefits from higher engagement from visitors, they will be able to see various products offered, and thus improve the overall user experience.

Tools like PageSpeed Insights will provide you information about all your webpages, which ones are slow and possible recommendations to increase the speed as well.

Optimizing your website’s speed is even more essential as Google is now deploying the mobile first ranking system.

For improving the speed, you can start by doing these tweaks:

Compress your images but do not compromise on the image quality
Deploy caching technique
Constantly look out for broken links
Select fast web hosting platforms like A2 hosting, Hostinger

Google tends to rank those websites higher from where it can readily extract the information requested for and this is done via structured data, more on this later.

3. Target the Local SEO first

The voice queries from mobile devices have 3 times more chances of being locally based according to Search Engine Watch. And it fits well because mobile searches are done when on the move like driving and the query is done hands free.

Phrases like, near me, within x meter range, etc are popular ones. Cracking the local SEO will help in such situations. Your visitor will appreciate this as they will be directed to the right place within minimum time limits.

4. Focus on your website’s content

Your website’s content needs to be educational, easy to understand, relevant and in line with your consumers thought process. This can be done with paying adequate attention to your FAQ page, product descriptions and content for featured snippets.

Your FAQ page will answer the what, where, how, when, why type of questions which are conversational in nature. This means that when your potential customers are looking for these answers, say while driving, they will be directed to your website.

When writing your FAQ page, you will be able to think of numerous questions that your customer will have as they come across your products and services. When done right, FAQ pages will increase your visibility chances.

Your product descriptions also play a vital role here. They should follow a natural conversational tone and sound like a conversation between friends. When elaborating the features of your products, you should aim for a more friendly sounding tone instead of a salesy one.

Your FAQ page and product descriptions can also be taken for Featured snippets by Google if you are close to answering the questions that customers put in. And who does not wish to be on the top of the search results page?

The content that resonates with the way your customers converse will win at the end of the day.

5. Schema markup for your website

Using Schema markup or structured data helps Google in extracting the most important information about your products and sending the same to your customers upon related search queries.

A well structured website facilitates easy discovery of key information for Google and thus your website can be ranked a bit higher, giving an upper hand over your competitors. When necessary information is highlighted on the search page itself, people will be more inclined to pay a visit to your website.

You can visit Schema.org for getting started and to see how well your website is structured, you can test using the Structured Data Testing Tool.

There is no denying the fact that people have shifted to voice search and will be relying heavily on it in the future. Once your ecommerce website is optimized for voice search, you can leverage it to increase your sales and who knows, you can hope for reductions in your churn rate as well.

Reach out to us for our expertise in building optimized solutions for all your ecommerce woes.

6 Best practices to avoid common backend mistakes

Posted on June 29, 2020October 10, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Software development is complex and thus mistakes happen all the time. It’s something that shouldn’t bother you too much since it has happened to every backend developer.

The fact is that most times, the reason for these mistakes is pressure which leads to human error. Deadlines, feedback anxiety, skipping testing, and rushing things are the four horsemen of backend mistakes. The trick is find your way around it not to ignore it.

“One who makes no mistakes makes nothing at all.” – Giacomo Casanova

We have listed down the best practices so you don’t have to cut corners at the backend of your project.

1. Don’t push the code without getting reviewed

Pushing your code alone?

It’s always better to get your code reviewed with either a frontend developer from the same project or a backend developer from another project. As the former has domain knowledge while the latter has backend knowledge.

And if you are working with a team, then dont push code to the default branch without the code author or other backend developer reviewing it line by line. As it might create a conflict for others working on the project as they wont be able to merge their code. This leads to vulnerabilities and difficulty in maintaining the code.

Thus it becomes crucial to create a pull request which is a simple and effective way to get your code reviewed. This allows the rest of the developers to discuss changes in a branch and agree to merge them once everyone approves.

Also ensure analyzing the code by a tool like TSLint for TypeScript or ESLint for JavaScript, before pushing it to the default branch too. As these tools ensure consistent code style, and are useful when working in teams so you don’t have to disagree on topics like tabs vs spaces.

2. Avoid using too many technologies for same thing

The availability of MERN/MEAN/LAMP stack models as ready solutions for medium and large project development saves so much time. As using one language (JavaScript) for both client-side and server-side development improves teamwork, simplifies collaboration, and speeds up development.

To eliminate the risk of bugs/vulnerabilities due to a higher number of dependencies and slower installation as more dependencies have to be installed, it’s best you use the same technology and the same pattern to resolve a given problem.

If you are talking about complex projects or about the projects with special requirements for security and performance such as public sector, banks, etc., then in such cases, it becomes necessary to build an individual technology stack which makes it possible to satisfy all the set requirements.

3. Test at each level with a bug fix

Didn’t we already fix that?

It’s a question that you or your teammate often get after the product manager posts a snapshot of the bug.

The very other moment you are retracing the time you fixed that bug in the commits, but what’s the point?

You are already in the production code that is difficult to maintain as you are afraid to break anything, which increases the number of bugs. And to avoid such scenarios, writing all the tests at each level together with a new feature and regression tests together with a bug fix would help.

This ensures a higher work performance in both the long and short term, less bugs, and finally designing a better architecture.

4. Design the data model with whole team

Here is an experience that nobody wants to go through – Fixing a poorly designed data model after an application is in production.

A badly designed data model can cause invalid production data, data being difficult to analyze or maintain, and very slow data queries.

It’s not only important to understand the database itself, but also how to create the right data model to fit your application’s scalability and performance requirements. If a bad data model isn’t deployed to production yet, you can just update the data model and remove the invalid data created at lower environments. Therefore, it’s better to take some time upfront to discuss with your team, and use a proven methodology.

You can break it down into five steps:

Understand your application workflow
Model the queries required by the application
Design the tables
Determine primary keys
Use the right data types effectively

And If a bad data model is already deployed to production, besides updating the data model, try writing a migration to fix the invalid data.

5. Monitor each production microservices

When a microservice is down, it’s likely some backend development work that needs fixing. As backend developers have to implement a status endpoint for each microservice.

Without monitoring all the microservices you might risk major bugs due to the most microservice being down.

Whereas, when you’re gradually breaking down a monolithic app to microservices or building a new system from scratch, you now have more services to monitor. Each of these will likely:

Use different technologies and/or languages
Live on a different machine and/or container
Have its own version control

With this, the system becomes highly fragmented and a stronger need arises for centralized monitoring as well. You’ll need to add trace information to each service, and need a tool that can monitor multiple services side by side. So you can understand how they interact with each other, and prevent bugs by figuring out which microservice is down, beforehand.

6. Avoid over-engineering and over-optimization

Over-engineering is like overthinking.

You’re trying to find solutions to problems that either are too early to tackle or don’t exist yet. In the end, you are left with very long functions/methods, poor commit message naming, and too much logic.

This also often means ugly code, quick hacks, abandoning programming principles like DRY, SOLID and TDD, and little to no abstraction.

It all boils down to two common reasons:

The What-if mentality
The Just-in-Case mentality

And unless absolutely imperative, this will create needless complexity, costing you significantly more than the final value delivered.

Well, it goes back to the You Ain’t Gonna Need It, syndrome. You need to constantly ask yourself if the way you’re currently writing code solves the immediate problem or program requirement OR if you’re writing it in a way to future proof it and make it more resilient to change.

Getting the right balance so that code is easy to understand AND easy to change, can be extremely challenging. It takes a lot of fine-tuning and experimentation. Implementing these best practices have always helped keep common mistakes at bay, might just do the same for you too.

For Backend related development or assistance, drop us a line.

Performance changes that we might see in Angular 10

Posted on June 16, 2020October 10, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Even though there is no word on Angular 10’s release and to be honest it’s too early to expect a release, the developers and community has blessed us with 6 RCs and a taste of what Angular 10 could become.

Here are the tweaks/changes that Angular 10 could sport for improved performance and stability.

Angular 10 will be lighter in size than previous versions.
Developers will receive suggestions for components that are defined in the libraries, now that dependency information and ng-content selectors are added to metadata.
Type-checking performance improvements have been made to the compiler-cli.
TypeScript 3.8 and the previous versions support has been removed, thus making 3.9 version a featured one.
In this update, any warnings with regards to unknown elements will be logged as errors. This ensures there is no unknown error that will keep developers awake at night.
Performance improvement via reduction in size of the entrypoint manifest and tweaks in caching technique.
To improve the performance of ngcc, developers can now immediately report a stale lock file. Also, a cached copy of a parsed tsconfig can be stored and is reusable in case tsconfig is the same.
Multiple translation files merging is now supported as against a single translation file allowed per locale. Users will be able to specify multiple files per locale. And with the help of messaging ID, the transactions will be merged from each file.
Several bugs are fixed, like the core avoiding any migration error in case a non-existent symbol gets imported and proper identification of modules which are affected by overrides in TestBed.

It seems that we’ll finally get to see a trimmed version of Angular which is smaller in size but just as fast. It’s still too early to say what part of these updates will make it to the production version of Angular 10 but it will be exciting to see how it turns out.

We try to keep up with the latest happenings of the Angular community so that we are up to speed with the prerequisites and hurdles that might come during a migration or upgrade. And for stable released versions of Angular you can get in touch with us and kickstart your development projects.

A failproof Magento 2 migration plan

Posted on June 10, 2020October 10, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Editor’s note: If you are still wondering ‘Do I really need to upgrade to Magento 2’, we recommend reading our 5 reasons why you should migrate to Magento 2 blog. Alternatively, you can take a leaf out of the book of Land Rover, Helly Hansen, Byredo, and thousand other brands who upgraded their Ecommerce websites to Magento 2 way ahead of time.

Migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is tricky, as it involves a lot of manual tasks. No doubt the data migration tools do make the task easier!

But what about the prerequisites? Or existing traffic?

You can’t afford the bummers because of a lack of proper planning.

Here’s an ideal migration process for Magento 2 for a successful, hassle-free, and safe migration.

Cut down all the complexities before making the move

Video of a man thinking with math figures floating around his head

Here’s why?

You might start with setting a plan that includes deadlines, efforts required, and then end up with hair-pulling frustration by making unnecessary changes.

Mark down: The amount of time and effort depends on the number of customizations, complexity, and the number of extensions running on the existing store.

Here are the initial practices that should be taken into account before migrating to Magento 2:

Prepare full backup

Make sure you have a complete backup of your Magento 1 store and the required database, files, and folders.

Check compatibility

Check if your current extensions, custom code, and themes are compatible with Magento 2.

Analyze the data
Review what needs to be kept or removed from the new Magento 2 website.
Staging environment

Do not migrate when your website is live. Transfer the data from the copied database of the Magento 1 store.

SEO analysis

To avoid losing traffic, perform SEO analysis to retain best-performing URLs, keywords, and fix other possible issues.

You are ready for migration after you review and account for your existing site’s extensions, customizations, website design, and the data stored within your Magento 1 installation.

5 necessary steps for successful Magento 2 migration

1. Theme and extension migration

First, you need to check whether the themes and extensions are compatible with the Magento 2 version or not. If it’s compatible, then you can install the same theme and extensions in Magento 2. This will automatically make the migration process a lot easier for you. If not, then you need to head towards the next step…

2. Custom code migration

Magento 2 follows new approaches and architecture for developing themes and extensions.

Existing extensions, themes, and customizations are unlikely to work with a Magento 2 installation. Therefore, you will need to build them if they aren’t available as out-of-the-box functionality.

If you have installed a third-party theme for the Magento 1 site, then you have to check with the vendor whether the current theme will support Magento 2. You would need to create a custom theme and migrate this custom code using Magento toolkits.

3. UI and Design

During the redesign stage, you should consider which features and functionalities should be carried over, removed, or added to your new website.

Just like extensions, Magento 1 UI can be incompatible with Magento 2. It’s because the Magento 2 uses modern architecture and has different back-end and front-end requirements. This may make it impossible to convert Magento 1 theme and design code.

You’ll need a front-end developer to create a custom theme and templates from scratch if you want to create something unique and memorable to your retail business.

4. Data Migration

Next, start your engines!

The migration process starts with setting up a development environment by moving Magento 2 on a new server. Make sure to install a fresh copy of Magento 2 on the same hosting server where your Magento 1 store is located.

It is recommended to migrate data from a replicated Magento 1 database instance. You may be required to suspend all the activity on your Magento 1 admin panel, and stop Magento 1 cron jobs, except for the order management functions.

With the help of Magento data migration tools or back-end developers, you can migrate critical settings and data such as:

Settings: Websites, stores, system configurations like tax settings, payment, shipping, etc.
Data: Products, orders, wish lists, customers, categories, ratings, etc.

Magento offers a tool to assist in Data Migration. It can help you in importing product and customer data to the new 2.0 version.

Advantages of using Magento’s Data Migration Tool:

Migrating configuration settings
Migrating main data in the database
Transferring incremental data updates to the storefront and admin panel

Alternatively, you can outsource this project to an expert Magento development company.

5. Testing and SEO Audit

You’ll need to vigorously test the Magento 2 site to make sure there aren’t any issues before going live.

The internal testing involves whether the website and any new functionality have been completed as per the specification or not.

Run through a predefined list of user stories to ensure that there are no issues with the site’s usability and functionality. Once the website has passed all the quality assurance guidelines, you can go ahead with the SEO audit phase.

Complete an SEO audit to ensure that all content has been migrated over to the new site. Remove any thin or duplicate content, and ensure that all of your pages are optimized with relevant meta content, heading tags, alt text, and structured data.

Make sure that 301 redirects have been set up to direct users to your new pages.

And you are all set to go live!

It’s about User Experience!

Migration is the perfect opportunity to refresh your website and rethink about – “How can I offer the best customer experience?”

It’s not just a migration phase for your Ecommerce website. It is also the best time to review whether you need more advanced functionality in your Magento store.

If you want to create a high performing Magento 2 website or put together some initial mobile-first designs in it, reach out to our team of Magento developers here.

About the Author

Vinod Khajja is an Ecommerce expert at Galaxy. He is a firm believer of AI and it’s possibilities with Ecommerce. As a Senior Project Manager he has multiple ecommerce successes under his belt

Is Hyper-Personalization the key to your E-commerce growth?

Posted on May 28, 2020October 10, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Hello (Inserts your First name),

All of us have received emails/ sms notifications, social media ads, that are sharing offers and discounts on the products that we have been eyeing.

Hyper personalization takes the basic information as the starting point of its research and then gets to know you better with the help of Artificial Intelligence or AI. It collects real time information, identifies patterns, looks for reasons behind actions performed (via feedback) and then serves product recommendations, content and offers based on analysis carried out.

Understanding Hyper-Personalization

Is hyper-personalization a new concept? Not really. Hyper-personalization is like those regular personal conversations you have in your neighborhood Mom and Pop stores. You wouldn’t think of going to another shop for your grocery shopping as you know the owners well and they know your preferences, thereby assisting you in finding your favorites without even asking.

Hyper personalization is aimed at establishing the same relationship with your customers but virtually and on a wider scale. AI and Machine Learning advancements have made hyper personalization a reality now. You can now leverage these technologies to build a customer experience that leaves behind a good imprint in your users’ minds.

Consumers want businesses to understand their needs

Your customers are always in a time crunch, but also have a sizable disposable income to indulge in luxuries. They will certainly appreciate tailor-made recommendations right in their mailbox or while browsing your website. In case you still have doubts, have a look at these numbers –

A study conducted by Accenture said that 41% of US consumers changed their brand preferences because of a lack of personalization and trust.
In the same study, 81% of customers wished that brands put in more effort to understand them better.
Customers now expect brands to understand their dynamic needs and respond as per the insights garnered from the real time data they collect.

Hyper-personalize your ecommerce business

Hyper-personalization revolves around AI, Machine Learning and Deep learning, social media research, surveys, and website analytics. AI and Big data usage are spread across industries. It is used by Netflix, Starbucks, Stitch Fix, Amazon, and many others.

Amazon uses data from every possible place. Be it purchase history, viewing history, saved items, average time spent on search, and shopping cart data. It also features a frequently bought together category for further assistance to customers. All this information is used to personalize the search query and even the homepage for the visitors, via predictive analysis method.

Another example is Stitch Fix. It is an online personal styling venture.

As users sign up, they are asked questions about their styling preferences, which are then matched to the numerous stylists’ profiles on the website.
These stylists then handpick relevant products for the users and the user has to select one product out of the curated range and pay for it.
Feedback is requested from the customers for the products they keep, as well as return, which is then used for future recommendations.

Stitch Fix combines human and data insights to deliver maximum customizations to their customers.

In essence, collecting, combining and analyzing all the data collected will help you in building a hyper personalized experience for all your customers. We recommend that you categorize the data into micro segments. This ensures that the results, preferences and content shown is always relevant to the customers.

Mass marketing and macro segmentation fail because of heavy generalization. For example, as a clothing ecommerce platform, if you are targeting all your female customer base at once, you forget to customize as per the geographic conditions, age group, body structure and even color preferences.

Whereas if you go for micro segmentation, you can send some bright color options to your younger demographic as they are more inclined towards experimentation and are yet to discover the color that suits them vis-a-vis the older demographic.

Leverage social media to find insights into your customer needs and wants; what your competitors are doing, and keep a track of all the trends. This always comes in handy when curating content for emails, blogs, social media accounts and newsletters.

Scope of Hyper-Personalization

Every page, recommendation, content, promotions can be a part of hyper-personalization. You can start by customizing the homepage of your website.

Your search function should take into consideration any keywords used by your visitor, previous queries, buying behavior, etc for saving your customer’s time. The likeliness of conversion increase when you quickly address your customer’s query.

Product recommendations bundled with complementary product offerings are a great way to increase your sales. It’s like when you order a burger and fries at McDonald’s and the cashier asks if you would like to make it a meal with a beverage. Only a few of us can resist such an offer! Add-Ons or similar product offerings under the ‘you may like this as well’ section comes across as thoughtful suggestions and not a pushy sales tactic.

Some takeaways

Send emails at the most optimal time for maximum engagement.
Take the geographic conditions in mind when sending product and service catalogs.
Personalized discounts and offers on the categories that your customer visited the most or has saved it or based on the purchase history will increase your sales conversion rate.

Hyper-personalization is not just an option! It is essential to survive in this harshly competitive online commerce space. Not only will it help you provide a frictionless experience to your customers, but it will also help you build a loyal and strong customer base. Your customers will turn into your brand advocates for all your potential customers.

Feel free to contact our experts who will assist you in building a better customer experience for your ecommerce venture.

About the Author

Vinod Khajja is an Ecommerce expert at Galaxy. He is a firm believer of AI and it’s possibilities with Ecommerce. As a Senior Project Manager he has multiple ecommerce successes under his belt.

5 reasons why you should migrate to Magento 2?

Posted on May 18, 2020October 10, 2024 by galaxy-admin

It’s high time for users to finally migrate, you cannot defer Magento 2 upgrade until the last minute. As it’s not a one-click-upgrade, Magento 1 users need to understand why this migration is crucial for their business.

Magento 2 is offering much more intuitive functionalities and benefits in comparison to Magento 1. But before the advantages, let’s understand where we’re coming from when we say ‘migrate now’.

Why sticking with Magento 1.x is not a good idea?

After June 2020 there will be no official support for Magento merchants or developers. This means there’ll be no more technical assistance, no more security patches, and ultimately, no more Magento 1.x as a viable platform.

Any technical issues with your website, as mentioned below, could have a huge impact on your revenue and brand image.

Security vulnerabilities

After the cut-off date, any sites that missed out on a migration would be vulnerable to security breaches and hacks. E-commerce sites that are still on unsupported versions of Magento will be exposed to hackers equipped with backdoor exploits.

This means you will be putting your customers’ data at risk. And without protection of their payment details and security updates, your checkout may no longer be secure.

Quality fixes

Magento will no longer be rolling out quality fixes for Magento Open Source (Community) or certain versions of Magento Commerce (Enterprise). Users with Magento 1.x will not get any further improvements to existing core features, and will find it difficult to make their site more user-friendly with broken features.

And with no more feature upgrades to Magento 1 means low customer retention, as it will be difficult for you to keep up with the services offered by your competitors.

3rd party extension

Magento’s security patches and quality fixes only cover the core platform and not any extensions, bespoke modifications or enhancements.

In this case, you’ll need maintenance support to improve extensions and prevent them from getting defunct as they won’t be compatible with any new patches released to the core platform.

Magento 2 has several advantages over its predecessor

You must think about migration if you are looking towards a smooth customer shopping experience with your existing ecommerce website. Here are our 5 reasons to migrate to Magento 2:

1. Improved Performance

Load speeds on the first version were slow. The possibilities of working with dynamic databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL has allowed better processing of caching, re-indexing and queries.

Magento 2 sites will run on average 20% faster than the sites based on the previous version. Pages will load in half the time as it has full-page caching. Whereas with an efficient indexing system, transactions become faster and easier to process.

Thus, faster site speed will encourage more sales and increase website search engine optimization.

2. Mobile Friendly

As we know that online shoppers perform more than 50% of online transactions on mobile devices, a responsive web shop is a must.

Magento 2 makes mobile commerce a priority as Magento 1 sites did not deliver optimum performance on mobile devices. Customers can take their mobile performance even further with the release of PWA (Progressive Web Application) Studio in Magento 2.3.

3. Smooth and Simple Checkout Process

Even though the Magento 1 checkout was a single page process, it was cumbersome.

Now Magento 2 offers a simple 2 step checkout process and the Instant Purchase feature. Existing customers can use their email address to check-out faster using their saved information like using previously-stored payment and shipping information to skip checkout steps altogether, taking them to a confirmation purchase page.

This increases conversions and reduces abandoned cart rates.

4. Better Admin Interface

This is a non-technical user’s dream! The admin user interface has been touted as the most problematic elements of Magento 1 for its confusing layouts and being intimidating to first timers. That problem was solved in Magento 2.

Magento 2 offers a user-friendly and clean experience where even the most non-technical users can add new product listings and find tools with ease. The admin dashboard enables you to find crucial business information about your e-store in one single place, leaving no room for confusing navigation.

The new version is easy to navigate and use which means that your customer will get to pages or products they desire faster.

5. Improved Security

A lot of attention has gone into the security of the online platform in the wake of increased data breaches.

Magento 2 also offers robust desktop protection due to major changes in the source folder structure. Ther number of root folders has been reduced to five by Magento 2 which in the previous version of the platform was containing nine root folders.

Moreover, the mask folder has also been deleted from the root folder. This new structure means that the code cannot be stolen or stolen directly from the root, making Magento 2 more secure than Magento 1.

The Next Big Step Towards Migration

Customers reported they benefited from Magento Commerce 2’s comprehensive security standards, native B2B functionality, multi-site capabilities, and easy-to-use content development functionality.

Their reasoning for choosing Magento was based on how it can be customized to meet their specific needs. You can certainly find your why in the above mentioned reasons to not delay the upgrade any further.

We recommend you to take a systematic migration approach or get a team of Magento experts onboard to help you with the migration with zero down time.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We have a team of Magento experts that will assess your eCommerce website and help you stay up-to-date when it comes to security, performance, and stability. Contact us for a free consultation!

WordPress 5.4 ‘Adderley’ | New features and improvements

Posted on May 8, 2020October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

The recently released WordPress 5.4 ‘Adderley’ update has got a lot to look forward to! Since this highly popular CMS ditched its classic editor for blocks, the updates that followed were more or less about the editor. This incremental update brings some changes in Gutenberg along with accessibility improvements, site health check mechanisms, and numerous other enhancements.

Before we dive deeper into the update’s details, here is a quick list of reasons for anyone who is deferring any updates for a later date.

Why should you upgrade to 5.4?

While incremental updates might not seem that urgent, here are some compelling reasons that will urge you to think otherwise:

A continuous upgrade helps address security loopholes and ensure that your website is protected against possible security breaches.
Like other updates, WordPress updates are also focussed on continuous performance improvements of your website.
Updates help your website become more user friendly and accessible, thereby creating a better user experience.

Let’s take a closer look at the new features and enhancements in this update.

Changes in the Gutenberg Editor

Social Icon buttons

You can now add more than 30+ social platform icons to all your posts and website pages. It includes Reddit, Medium, Facebook, Linkedin, and more. This will eventually help you increase engagement across all your social media platforms.

Gutenberg’s got a performance upgrade as well

There is a 14% reduction in the loading time of the editor as compared to 5.3 update.

More color options

There is now a gradient background option available for columns, cover, and buttons. This new color customization option goes a long way in making your website’s layout more engaging and visually appealing.

Additionally, you are no longer restricted to a single color of the text in paragraphs. You can add inline text color within your paragraphs.

Buttons block

You can now get multiple blocks on a single page. This means multiple CTA in a single block, thus letting your user decide which option to go for. Plus, you can play with button style, text font, and the background colors.

Full screen mode

Gutenberg editor now opens in full screen mode by default. You can switch the mode in the top right menu and go in, ‘editor settings’, and uncheck the ‘fullscreen mode’ option.

The community has a mixed reaction towards this addition, especially for beginners. A notable issue is that when the full screen mode is activated, the top bar and admin panels are removed. This makes the navigation a task for the new users.

TikTok embed block

This update now has embed blocks for TikTok videos, similar to adding Youtube videos.

Featured image

You now have the drag and drop option to add featured images to your blog instead of manually selecting the image. The size and alignments can also be adjusted in the gallery block.

Other notable changes

New welcome model

The new welcome model provides a tour of the Gutenberg editor. Tips are no longer present and in its place, there is a slideshow with necessary explanations of blocks and official documentation reference. And the good thing is that this welcome guide can be seen as and when needed via the top right corner menu.

Accessibility improvement

On the accessibility front, keyboard navigation in media modal and privacy policy’s readability is improved. You also have the option to change the image title in the image block itself.

Health checks enhancements

There is a new widget on your site’s admin dashboard. This displays your website’s overall health and gives you a warning on possible issues. In case you want detailed reports, there is a CTA button that will provide the required information and possible remedy for the issues.

Incremental updates are just as important as version upgrades because the exploits don’t stop unless you do the essential regular maintenance.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We have a team of WordPress experts that will assess your WordPress website and help you be at the top of your game when it comes to security, performance, and stability. Contact us for a free

5 common but extremely important DevOps practices

Posted on April 7, 2020October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Gone are the times when teams worked in departmental silos on a single project. The IT industry was convinced long ago that internal collaboration is a vital for delivering high quality products with maximum efficiency.

And DevOps is known for bringing together teams and building a common platform for teams to collaborate right from the early stage of software development. This results in frequent deployments, less error codes, more clarity and transparency in any organization.

But when it comes to finding the suitable path for you, this can be a nightmare. To lessen the intensity of this nightmare, we have searched for most common practices followed by industry giants which helped them in getting the best ROI from devops.

Version control system

When there are more than two developers working on the same project, version control will help in keeping a log of all the changes which can be referred by other developers.

Version control will make the error identification process quicker by giving you a centralized platform to compare different versions, and locate the one causing trouble. Introducing new features can go wrong in many ways, version control will help you in retrace your steps.

Source code, database changes, configuration docs all can be seen and stored via version control softwares like GitHub and BitBucket. They allow you to save multiple versions of the source code and switch between them as per your needs.

Test automation

Automated tests can be executed at every stage of the SDLC. You can write cases and scenarios based on the functions specification documentation, run them multiple times in a day, and validate their results in the development stage itself. This way you are actively looking for issues from the start instead of fixing them after, like in QA or worse after deployment.

And not to forget, automation will save your coders and developers from the monotonous task of carrying out testing which are repetitive in nature. Tests which can be automated are:

Regression testing
Stress and load testing
Integration testing
Smoke testing
Black box testing

To automate the whole testing process there is a range of tools available like Selenium, JMeter, Appium, TestRail, etc. Automating the testing process will result in increased testing frequency thus, getting you step closer to an bug-free software.

Configuration and change management

Dealing with new configurations in any sphere of your product can be troublesome at any point of time, especially after the deployment. Configuration management helps you in finding change requests, change logs and current status of all configurations in one place. It lets you see the configurations done within servers, storage bases, networks, etc, thereby giving you a holistic view of the system.

Change management on the other hand deals with the process of configurations carried out. It will paint a picture highlighting all the possible affected areas because of any new configurations, determining its ripple effect on the existing product. It will consider and recognize any red flags that you will need to take into consideration.

CI/CD

Continuous Integration looks out for any troubles in the current and modified code which may lead to in the future. It does so by leveraging Version Control System and automation testing tools which look out for any vulnerabilities on a frequent basis. Jenkins, TeamCity, Bambooa are some of the popular CI tools.

Continuous delivery is facilitated in devops as new features are pushed as and when they are developed and tested instead of being restricted to a specific timeline. Any glitches found can be solved in the early stage itself, thus the feedback loop is cut short. This also reduces the time between user feedback and its subsequent corrective actions.

Automated dashboard

Automated dashboard provides data insights via detailed reports. These reports will let you know the success and failure rate of testing, number of tests done, their duration, errors found etc. This database is a goldmine of insights for developers, testers, coders to find the loopholes and avoid any repetitive errors.

The graphical representation of the information will help in drawing comparisons for all the changes done in the system and pinpoint the most effective ones. A track of all the deployments done and the effects of them can be seen in one place, making it accessible for all the teams involved.

The above mentioned practices have helped companies like Netflix, Etsy, Facebook, Walmart, Target to increase their overall efficiency and collaboration. They have adopted the practices after many failed and successful attempts.

Devops planning and implementation take years to master, but taking inspiration from our surroundings will smoothen this journey for you and all your stakeholders. At the end of the day, deploying high qualit