#or relying on them to get tasks that require complex thought patterns

[pizzawizard420]

watching my coworker wrestle with the AI powered auto complete in visual studio code convinced me never to touch that shit forever. none of the suggestions were close to what we needed, and it kept making it hard to tell what he had typed and what was suggested (admittedly that's probably his formatting settings but i digress)

then he bragged that it removed all the whitespace from a file we were working on in seconds. I just used a 10 character long regex. And the nice thing was that that let me practice my regex skills (yeah, i hate regex as much as anyone but it's a useful skill to have!) and think about the document's structure as i did, and i came up with some minor improvements in the process. NONE of that would have happened if i had just made copilot do it.

I do think LLMs have valuable uses for parsing large swaths of structured data, assisting people with disabilities, etc. But it really isn't a universal tool, it's pretty bad at a lot of things.

Casual use of generative AI really feels like the logical next step of the fast food/fast fashion/disposable goods culture we've built. Most of the people i talk to that use it seem to have this attitude of "who cares that the product it produces is universally lower quality than anything i could have made, it's cheap [to me] and fast". But i really think it's something where overuse will quickly take it from being a handy timesaver to being something you rely on to do all of your critical thinking for you. Critical thinking, creativity, etc are all muscles that will atrophy with disuse!

"I know chatgpt is bad but you just don't really have any choice" you literally do. Don't use it. Have some moral backbone.

[harbourfronttechnologies]

Management Theories: Definition Motivation Types Evolution Applied in Business

Management theories serve as essential tools for navigating the complex world of organizational leadership. Different strategies, frameworks, and guidelines have been made to help organizations solve their problems.

Successful professionals don't just use one management theory. They pick the ideas that fit their team and company from different theories. Multiple theories have been developed over the years, and each has something to offer.

What are Management Theories?

Management theories are ideas that help leaders run businesses effectively. They focus on organizing and guiding teams to improve work efficiency.

These theories cover different areas like decision-making, motivation, and communication. By using these theories, leaders can create better management plans suited to their company's needs and staff, resulting in a more successful organization.

How Management Theories Work

Understanding how management theories work requires examining their key principles and applying them in practice.

Study various theories: Get familiar with different management theories to build a comprehensive understanding of the available strategies and approaches.

Analyze organizational needs: Assess the company's specific requirements, workforce, and culture to determine which management theories are most relevant and applicable.

Combine and adapt theories: Recognize that no single theory can address all organizational challenges. Combine elements from multiple theories and adapt them to suit the organization's unique circumstances.

Implement and evaluate: Apply chosen strategies and monitor their effectiveness. Regularly review and adjust the approach based on feedback, performance metrics, and evolving organizational needs.

By understanding and applying management theories, businesses can create tailored solutions that enhance efficiency, productivity, and overall organizational success.

Different Types of Management Theories

People have thought of many theories to manage things over the years. These different ideas come from different views and each one is special in its way.

Systems Management Theory

Systems management theory views organizations as composed of interconnected parts working together. It emphasizes synergy, interdependence, and relationships between subsystems, like employees and departments.

Managers must assess patterns and events to determine the best approach, fostering collaboration and ensuring the organization functions as a unified whole.

Contingency Management Theory

According to contingency management theory, it's not possible to manage business affairs with a single theory. Contingency management theory suggests that an organization's best management approach depends on various factors.

These factors include organization size, the technology used, and leadership style. This theory emphasizes the importance of adapting management strategies to suit unique organizational circumstances, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all solution.

Scientific Management Theory

Scientific management theory focuses on increasing productivity by simplifying tasks. It challenged traditional workplace practices, where executives had limited contact with employees and job security was the main motivation.

This theory emphasizes monetary incentives and standardizing work processes, leading to better collaboration between employers and employees, ultimately transforming into the teamwork seen in modern organizations.

Behavioral Management Theory

Behavioral management theory focuses on improving productivity by understanding what motivates employees. It recognizes that people are driven by different factors, including intrinsic (personal satisfaction) and extrinsic (external rewards) motivators.

By identifying and addressing these motivational elements, organizations can create work environments that boost employee engagement and performance.

Classical Management Theory

One of the most popular and vastly used theories is the classical management theory.

This theory focuses on employees' physical needs and monetary compensation, and it emphasizes the importance of setting specific goals and breaking tasks into manageable steps.

This theory suggests rewarding employees with incentives and bonuses for meeting objectives. This not only motivates the employee to work harder but also encourages others to do the same.

Conclusion

Management theories are essential tools for running and managing businesses effectively. By understanding different management theories and applying them in practice, leaders can craft strategies that suit their organization's needs, ultimately improving efficiency and productivity.

Article Source Here: Management Theories: Definition, Motivation, Types, Evolution, Applied in Business

from Harbourfront Technologies - Feed https://ift.tt/mG6YL9d

[amerasdreams]

I have been listening to True Spies podcast on Spotify. It’s apparently connected to a thing called Spyscape, which has a museum/experience thing in New York. They also have an online test for your personality and intelligence.... well those intelligence tests all of course have to do with math. and they are TIMED. somehow I got thru guessing most of them.... didn’t score 0 but didn’t score great. 

so guess what I scored on intelligence!  and personality scores mean I’m more prone to health problems and being unhappy.... :( 

(here I woke up thinking I can be uniquely me, I don’t want to be like anyone else anyway, I can embrace that... but how can I when what I am is this pathetic)

I shouldn’t have done this, I know what these tests do, make me discouraged and hate myself more. they even said I’m not imaginative and creative-- things I value most besides intelligence (and intuition/empathy...) 

they did say the “spy role” I was most suited for, which is what I’m most interested in, intelligence analyst. But in the more “practical” side, for jobs, it mentioned medical things, technical things, which I wouldn’t be good at and don’t like, business marketing-- working for a business I don’t care about, a job with no meaning....  it even had mathematician! when I’m obviously not good at math. the only jobs I might be interested in are psychologist/criminologist... idk.... to late for me to get any career anyway, let alone somehow what I really want

they did a risk assessment, where you blow up the balloon before it pops to get “money” - yesterday I started it and panicked when the balloon popped the first time and closed the window. then when I was walking the dogs it occured to me it was a test lol and I would just have to keep risking popping the balloon... so today I saw it as more of a game and not the ‘scary balloon popping oh no I lost money!” -not even real money. idk about fun.... all these things were stressful esp the intelligence test. 

today I started the test, thinking it might help me, get insight into what I can do, instead, it discouraged me, I’m what I thought, mediocre and not suited for much, they only gave a “role” to me because they had to give me something. It said the intelligence analyst is inquisitive--when it just said I wasn’t -  idk how this even fits with the test bc analytical? that wasn’t one of the dimensions and doesn’t seem like I scored high on implied analytical powers, same with determined-- 

how can i live with myself being like this, having no role and no future according to any dimension that really counts. don’t want to be plodding away at menial tasks when I want to do something Imaginative, Creative, Intellectual-- ha can’t even do that

oh I’m proving them right, easily stressed and sensitive and reactive -- 

I’m not including the risk assessment bc I don’t think it’s accurate-- I’m really very risk averse in all cases... oh we know that already so. 

~

results (bold/parentheses is mine)

MENTAL HORSEPOWER

Unlike Alan Turing would, you scored moderately low {yay!:(} on this attribute. The result, driven by your performance in the personality tests, suggests that, on the whole, you struggle with complex mathematical and analytical problems. {so how can I be an analyst?} That said, you can usually spot patterns and find links in data – as long as the information you have been given isn’t too abstract. (I like big picture things.... abstract things... apparently I’m not good at it)

IN YOUR DAILY LIFE

Like other people with a moderately low Mental Horsepower score, you are more likely to ‘go with your gut’ when making decisions rather than to apply logic and reason (that’s true.... logic is mystifying. fits with being INFP-- logic is my weakest point). It is unlikely that you will sit down and win a game of chess, and you probably rely on your satnav rather than read a map yourself. (yep.... chess is too much strategy... I can’t see ahead like that .. hm how could I be an analyst)

IN YOUR WORK

Because you are not a very conceptual thinker, you are better in roles where you can do things ‘automatically’ rather than applying any abstract reasoning skills. You are not bad at visual-spatial or mathematical tests though, and with training and practice, your skills will definitely improve.

THE SCIENCE

Mental Horsepower relates to our general cognitive ability and our capacity to think about, reason with, and understand abstract concepts. It particularly links to analytical and mathematical skills, but also covers memory, comprehension, language, learning capacity and judgement. These are hugely significant skills for success at work and in everyday life.

Psychologists have developed all kinds of tests to measure cognitive ability. Some of these involve predicting outcomes from patterns in data (also known as inductive reasoning), while others focus on mentally flipping and rotating images. We use both of these approaches in our Mental Horsepower tests at SPYSCAPE.

Recent neuroimaging research shows that intelligence is linked to brain patterns, and that these patterns are unique to each of us (meaning you can’t change them :(  )– much like our fingerprints. In one study, these brain ‘fingerprints’ were used to successfully predict people’s scores in IQ tests.

While IQ tests are probably the most common method for determining cognitive ability, there is some debate over whether they provide a complete picture. For example, theories suggest that there are many different types of intelligence which are not accounted for in these tests. Still, it is generally accepted that people who score highly on tests of cognitive ability are on the whole better at completing intelligence-related (so that career’s out... if it was ever in lol) tasks in the real world.

~

COMPOSURE

Unlike Jason Bourne, you scored extremely low (low on everything! what a wonderful person!) on this attribute. The result, driven by your performance in the personality tests, suggests that you are far more vulnerable to stressors than most people (I knew that). You are likely to have a very strong emotional reaction to negative events and your brain becomes highly active when you see something you perceive as unpleasant (like this test!). Although this means you find it hard to relax, it also means you are really tuned in to your surroundings ( and what’s the upside of that? nice consolation prize....)

IN YOUR DAILY LIFE

Like other people with extremely low levels of composure, you are highly likely to experience anxiety and burnout. (with things that aren’t really stressful to anyone else. just stepping outside. just being inside-- doing thigns like this.. doing most things actually-- help how can i live) You can be far too critical of yourself (well how do i stop? if this is how I am like), especially when you are stressed (which is almost all the time), and this can make it tricky for you to overcome problems (which is never, which is why I’m still living w my parents). You also dwell on the past far more than people with high composure.

On the positive side, you are responsive to your environment, which means you are more likely to anticipate negative outcomes and find ways to avoid them (like almost everything). You are also sensitive and caring, and your observant nature means you look out for yourself and the people close to you. (what’s the point of that when you can’t do anything, or get to know new people)

IN YOUR WORK

It is unlikely your colleagues will turn to you when there is an emergency or crisis at work. This is because you struggle to keep your emotions in check, and challenging situations can get the better of you. When this happens, you are not great at maintaining focus or making tough decisions.

THE SCIENCE

Composure relates to how our brains respond to stress. In tense situations, your brain activates an area called the hypothalamus, which releases adrenalin and cortisol – also known as stress hormones.

A bit of stress now and then is important for survival, because it alerts us to the dangers around us. Small amounts can be useful, but too much over a long period of time is bad for our health (oh goody). Studies show that the adrenal cortex, the part of the brain that releases stress hormones, is also linked to the healthy function of our immune system – and people who are more prone to stress are also more likely to get sick.

There is also a connection between composure and working (short-term) memory. Composed people perform better on tasks where they need to recall and use relevant information while they’re doing something else – for example remembering the steps of a recipe when cooking a meal.

PEOPLE SCORING HIGH IN COMPOSURE ARE

LAID-BACK

RELAXED

COOL

FOCUSED

POISED

PEOPLE SCORING LOW IN COMPOSURE ARE

EMOTIONAL

SENSITIVE

PERCEPTIVE

RESPONSIVE

VIGILANT

~

Contentiousness

Unlike diligent Mission: Impossible hero Isla Faust, you scored moderately low on this attribute. The result, driven by your performance in the personality tests, suggests that unlike Isla, you find it difficult to keep focused on long-term goals {Idk about this. goals are all i focus on.... well. I think about them often but Idk how to create the steps to get there and so things fizzle out and I get-- discouraged what else is new). You get distracted or bored quite quickly and are often drawn to new ideas and projects instead of finishing what you are currently doing (well.... hm. I finish novels...). You understand what is important in life, but you sometimes skip the details. (I’m not a detail person... I can be but they often seem irrelevant)

IN YOUR DAILY LIFE

Because you prefer not to a follow a schedule, hobbies that require regular training are not for you. In fact, your interests change quite regularly, and you find long-term commitment a challenge whatever the activity. Friends and family know that if they want you to do something, they need to encourage you to get organized. When they press you, however, you do things pretty well.

IN YOUR WORK

You take a relatively flexible approach to work. As such, you get distracted easily and do not always complete the task in hand. Because of your tendency to do this, you are likely to change jobs – and perhaps even career – fairly regularly (I want variety... Idk, this sort of fits, sort of doesn’t).

THE SCIENCE

Conscientiousness shapes how likely you are to follow rules, regulate your own behavior and get yourself organized. The more conscientious you are, the more motivated by goals and tasks you are likely to be.

According to what psychologists call the ‘Big-5’ model, conscientiousness is a core dimension of personality – and one of the five key traits that drive human behavior. Whether you are high or low in conscientiousness can help predict your success in social, academic and professional situations.

If you have high levels of conscientiousness, you are probably more productive and better at adapting to new situations (that’s true, I’m not) that come your way. However, this does not mean that being conscientious is always a good thing, because research also shows that being too conscientious can lead to overthinking. (I do that too...)

Some studies suggest that people who are more conscientious are healthier – and they might even live longer. This might be because conscientious people are more likely to exercise regularly, eat healthily, and avoid smoking or drinking too much alcohol.

It’s hard to say where conscientiousness comes from. One study found a link with areas of the brain relating to attention and cognitive control. There is also evidence to suggest that genes play their part. It’s likely that social factors such as your upbringing influence how conscientious you are, too.

PEOPLE SCORING HIGH IN CONSCIENTIOUSNESS ARE

HIGH-ACHIEVING

ACCOUNTABLE

THOROUGH

DRIVEN

SELF-DISCIPLINED

PEOPLE SCORING LOW IN CONSCIENTIOUSNESS ARE

IMPULSIVE

FLEXIBLE

EASY-GOING

SPONTANEOUS

ADAPTABLE

(I think I’m sort of this, sort of not because I’m borderline INFP -- P is flexible, impulsive while J is more structured-- I’m slightly more Perceiving. goes to show Myers-Briggs is pretty good at describing personality accurately....)

~

INQUISITIVENESS

Unlike Carrie Mathison in Homeland, you scored moderately low on this attribute. Your score was driven by your performance in the personality tests, and it suggests that you are pretty cautious about new ideas, beliefs, cultures and theories.

IN YOUR DAILY LIFE

Like other people who scored moderately low on this attribute, you are not so willing to take on board other people’s views (that’s true). You will consider what people have to say, but you are likely to stick with your own opinion. You feel more comfortable in familiar situations and surroundings (well, yes...), and you do not really feel the need to explore new places (I kind of do, though... I want to but I often... don’t. because it’s too hard).

IN YOUR WORK

Because you aren’t motivated to learn or acquire new skills (Idk about this... depends on if it’s something I’m interested in. I’m learning like 15 languages on Duolingo...), you are less likely to seek out new opportunities at work. And the longer you stay in a job, the worse your motivation is likely to get. In general, you tend to perform better when you start a new position, although you will carry this out using the same approach you always have, rather than approach it in a new way. You like real-world, practical work that has straightforward solutions.

THE SCIENCE

Inquisitiveness is an important trait for discovering new things and building a better understanding of people and of the world around us. Psychologists have developed tools for assessing and measuring how inquisitive a person is.

These are based on extensive research into personality and are designed to evaluate five facets related to inquisitiveness: (i) intellectual curiosity; (ii) aesthetic sensitivity; (iii) active imagination; (iv) attentiveness to inner feelings and; (v) preference for variety.

Furthermore, personality researchers have identified two types of inquisitiveness; ‘epistemic’, which refers to information seeking ( I think I’m more information seeking?) behaviour and ‘perceptual’, which refers to experience seeking.

PEOPLE SCORING HIGH IN INQUISITIVENESS ARE

CURIOUS

OPEN-MINDED

IMAGINATIVE AND INVENTIVE

CREATIVE

ADAPTIVE

PEOPLE SCORING LOW IN INQUISITIVENESS ARE

PRACTICAL

CONSISTENT

TRADITIONAL

HABITUAL

PRAGMATIC

~

SOCIABILITY

A bit like Alec Leamas in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, you scored extremely low (yay. well I knew this... and from answering the questions... )on this attribute, which suggests that you prefer to spend time alone and keep yourself to yourself. You avoid parties, meet-ups and other noisy gatherings because you find them overwhelming (wayyyy). If you really have to socialize, you need plenty of quiet time afterwards to help you rest and recharge.

IN YOUR DAILY LIFE

Like others with an extremely low sociability score, you don’t like being the center of attention and often struggle to start conversations. You think a lot before speaking and regularly find it hard to express your thoughts and ideas. Because of this, you often let others do the talking, and you don’t take part in small talk either. This behavior means you might come across as socially reactive, and people may think you only talk to them when you feel you really have to (as in, extremely negative, and I shouldn’t exist. although... i do talk to them if I have to.... haha I do take part in small talk because I think I have to. or people will think I’m rude. but I don’t like it. I’m sensitive to how I’m perceived and don’t want to be seen as too antisocial, but I talk to others out of fear not of want... yikes. no wonder no one wants to be around me. well I don't want to be around them. well - I want to be around people I know well. for limited amounts of time... need less to recharge from people I know than strangers. I want to be with them, I don’t want to be with strangers-- it’s only stress and not fun at all. but how do i get past the stranger part to the friend part if I don’t like being with strangers and it’s all stressful adn overwhelming? How do i participate in society, have people to talk to, have any sort of success??? - shouldn't exist.).

IN YOUR WORK

Because you are more comfortable working independently (please. HOW???? besides working for myself... haha can’t work for anyone else bc can’t get past the interview, these ^ traits are obvious and not something any employer in their right mind wants), you will be more productive – and much happier – managing your own workload, tackling problems alone, and avoiding company brainstorms and powwows.

THE SCIENCE

How sociable you are can be linked to your levels of happiness, positivity, and wellbeing. In fact, sociability relates to a variety of positive outcomes in life, including how successful you are at work, how well you cope with challenging situations, and even how physically and mentally healthy you are. (yay. I’m doomed. I might as well kill myself now)

People who are highly sociable are more positive emotionally (case in point!) than those who are less sociable. In one brain imaging study, people with a high sociability score had higher levels of brain activity when they saw images of happy faces and other positive emotions.

The same part of the brain that processes emotions also helps interpret information from social contexts, which means we can judge a social situation and then respond appropriately (social situations, like math problems and logic, are mystifying to me. yay the things that are highest linked to success--).

There is some evidence to suggest that highly sociable people might be better at detecting and decoding the meaning of social cues –  including how they analyze and read people’s faces (oh, I know that. I have a hard time judging people’s faces, in fact I often think they are mad at me or judging me by their faces when they probably aren’t. I even have trouble finding out what emotions go with what emoji! besides the basics. i mean why, how are there so many emojis....). This means they are likely to find social interaction easier to deal with than others (lol yes. it’s . not easy. why. do i have to be born like this. always been. hell..).

There is also research to suggest that highly sociable people have more connections between regions of the brain that involve visual stimulus and regions that process social and emotional stimuli. (brains are better, we get it)

Sociability might also be associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is linked to reward-seeking behavior. It is thought that people who are highly sociable may have an enhanced response to dopamine in the brain, which makes them pursue rewards such as attention, status, power or pleasure. This would explain why, when they get these things, they feel happier or more satisfied.

PEOPLE SCORING HIGH IN SOCIABILITY ARE

TALKATIVE

FRIENDLY

ENTHUSIASTIC

ENERGETIC

EXCITABLE

PEOPLE SCORING LOW IN SOCIABILITY ARE

QUIET

RESERVED

INTROSPECTIVE

PRIVATE

SHY

^ ALLL negative attributes, I need to just kill myself now, no future. 

[datascienceknowledge-blog]

Data Scientist Knowledge and Tips

The recent boom in the data industry has driven the demand for data science professionals at enterprise-level, across all industry verticals. There are job openings for data scientists, data engineers, and data analysts. And there seems to be a lot of confusion and varying opinions among people regarding the roles and skillsets driving this field. Although all these job titles sound similar and are related to data the devil is in the details.

What Distinguishes a Data Scientist from a Data Analyst?

Unfortunately, there are no defined skill-sets that can distinguish between the role of a ‘Data Scientist and Data Analyst. In fact, different companies have different definitions for both these roles, and there is a lot of grey area in between the two job titles.  

Broadly analyzing, a Data Scientist is a professional who combines data handling and data visualization with sound business understanding to make smart business decisions. A data scientist is expected to deliver business impact and take insights from the raw, chaotic data thereby uncovering answers to the problems we did not know existed. Data science as a job profile demands skills such as data structuring, data mining, data visualization, analytical skills, programming skills, machine learning skills, and customer insights

The role of a data analyst, on the other hand, is to summarize data and provide futuristic inputs by identifying consistent patterns from the past and the current data. The primary role of a data analyst is to collect, curate, process, and arrange data from different sources.  They are responsible for presenting data in the form of charts, graphs, and tables and use this structured data to build relational databases for companies.

The difference between skill-set, scope, and goals of data science and data analytics can be well understood from the image below –

Data Science and Data Analysis – Two Wheels of the Same Barrel

Although there is a difference in the job responsibility of a data scientist and a data analyst, these two fields are exceptionally interconnected. They often work in close coordination to achieve the same goals i.e. of growth and development. For someone who aspires to become a data analyst, it is essential to understand the nuances of data science.

Advice from a Data Scientist for Data Analysts

Learn the Art of ‘Data Storytelling’

Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice.” –Stephen Few

Too often data storytelling is understood as effectively presenting data with visually-appealing data charts. However, data storytelling is much more than that. It is the art of weaving a rational story with clear logic that can strike the right chord with the stakeholders and give them enough insights to drive a decision.

More than the data presented, it depends on how the data is presented to a non-technical audience. Data storytelling follows a structured approach that involves a combination of 3 crucial elements, which are data, visuals, and narration.

As a data analysts, it is important that you learn the art of storytelling. The key skills required in a great storyteller are:

Knowing the audience and weaving the story to their understanding

Clearly understanding the business problem and the solution derived

Getting the right data at hand

Strong presentation skills

Analyzing probable questions and preparing answers for them

Don’t Shy Away from Coding

Most top-notch data scientists code a lot and are comfortable handling a variety of programming tasks. To be a really successful data science expert, your programming skills should be a combination of computational and statistical abilities. You should be able to handle a large volume of real-time data and apply statistical models like clustering, optimization, regression, etc. to it.

Currently, the preferred language among data scientist is Python with the use of other languages such as R, Scala, Clojure, Java, and Octave.

Try to do a dummy project that highlights your strengths. Code wildly and to the point, you lose your sleep. As a data scientist, this will help you grow, learn something new, and most importantly hone your coding skills. Remember, the more toy problems you solve, the better equipped you will be to handle the real ones.

Make ‘Mathematics’ Your Friend

Data is all about numbers. To become a successful data scientist, the first thing you need to do is to get rid of your ‘fear’ for number, i.e. mathematics. You can never succeed in your career as a data professional unless you are proficient at mathematics. Period.

As a data scientist, you will be working with a global organization to develop sophisticated financial models. For these models to be statistically and operationally relevant, large volumes of data will be needed. You will need to use your deep expertise in mathematics to develop these models that can shift key business strategies.

Don’t think of mathematics as your enemy or get scared quickly by the complexity of the task at hand. Try to develop an intuition for mathematics as you learn about the different techniques and how these techniques can help you solve difficult problems. You can start with a basic course on statistics and mathematics with an enhanced focus on probability, algebra, set theory, functions, and graphs. Once your basic concept is strong, you can use technology tools to design complex financial models.

Having Domain Expertise is Important

Domain expertise is something that makes a Data Scientist an expert! Having domain knowledge is not enough. As a data scientist, it is crucial to stay in front of the curve and understand which technology to apply and when.  Unwavering focus on the domain helps us to understand the real problem which empowers us to create solutions that are useful on the ground, and not just “useless innovation”.

A data scientist should always work closely with the business to measure and prove the effectiveness of the project on the ground.  In addition to having an in-depth understanding of the problem, being aware of the latency, bandwidth, interpretability and other system boundary conditions, will help you understand what technology to apply.

Be Creative in Solving Problem

A good data scientist is the one having traits of a good problem solver. Sometimes problem-solving needs assumption as you may not be able to test the solution on ‘real data’. To make such an assumption, you will need to bring critical thinking to the forefront and look at the problem from many perspectives.  These perspectives give the data science experts a view of what they are supposed to be doing before pulling all the tools so that they can work to completely solve the problem.

Be creative and accepting of “out of the box” solutions because there are way more examples of success than failure using this method.

Your current skills are relevant while learning new ones

Many people entering the field of data science have this pre-conceived notion that data science is all about mathematics and statistics and they hone their ability to think that way. While learning new skills are essential, it is also vital that you work on sustaining your current skills as well.

In current times, the use of data science has found a broader horizon. And a broader horizon needs a wider knowledge in its ability to execute, and that is why the more things you know, the better it is for you. Remember your experience and contribution as an individual is what will help you climb up the corporate ladder.

Prepare for the Role

One of the best approach to have a full-fledged career in Data Science is to pursue a certificate program/course that provides you a 360-degree knowledge, resources of portfolio preparation (capstone projects) and curriculum that covers the A-Z of Data Science. For example, courses like Jigsaw Academy’s Data Science course covers all those useful resources with its in-depth curriculum and practical learning methodology and helps you build a solid portfolio required for a career in Data Science.  From beginner’s data science courses to PG diploma in data science, Big Data, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, etc., the choices are many. These courses can be done remotely and in addition to any degree, you are pursuing currently.

Also, once you’ve pursued an awesome course like the one listed above, what next? It’s essential for you to stay connected with Data Science resources – whether it be Popular Blogs, Podcasts, Useful Textbooks, Tutorials, or Video Channels.

Remember: Books are classic, but when it comes to fields like Data Science, AI/ML and Coding, it is the practical approach training that helps you uplift your skills!

Conclusion

A great data scientist is someone with the intelligence to handle data processing and an intuitive understanding of the business problem. While people with good maths skill can easily do the first part, the difficult part is to delve deeper into what you are doing. Someone with a deeper understanding and intuition of the model they are working on is likely to  have a successful career in this field.”

And that’s a wrap! Hope this blog post proves to be insightful for you! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section! Also, If you seek to upskill your Data Science skills, feel free to check out our Data Science Courses here.

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[tsarisfanfiction]

Electric (Tales From The Heart)

Fandom: One Piece Rating: Teen Warnings: Injury Characters: Law, Shachi, Bepo, Penguin

"Hey, what's that?"

Law looked away from the sonar to glance over to Shachi, who was crouching down in front of a section of exposed wiring. The panel had fallen off in a storm earlier that day, and Shachi had tasked himself with putting it back on. It was a simple task, requiring nothing more than locating the escapee screws and using a screwdriver to put them all back where they belonged. It wasn't the first time they'd had to put a panel back – it was almost as if she hadn't been quite ready to sail when they'd liberated her – but it was the first time Shachi made a fuss about it.

"What's what?" Penguin asked, wandering over to him. Shachi pointed at something in the tangle of wires, piquing Law's curiosity just enough for him to leave his chair and look for himself.

"Does that look right to you?" Shachi was asking Penguin, who was shaking his head, looking concerned. Law crouched down besides them to get a better look. The exposed wiring was nothing new – a complex pattern that none of them knew enough about to understand – but Shachi's reason for concern was immediately apparent.

One wire was sparking slightly, spitting out fragments of light every second or so as if it was damaged. Law leaned in closer, now sharing Shachi's concern. They didn't know enough about the technology to make more than basic repairs; if this was something complicated they were going to need to find someone that knew submarines, and such people were few and far between.

"It's falling out of its socket," Penguin observed, and Law realised that he was right. That shouldn't be too difficult a fix, although the way it was actively sparking concerned him.

"That's what I thought," the ginger mused, before shifting closer, weaving his arm through the intact wires. "I'll just give that a n-"

The moment his finger made contact, there was an energy surge, slashing its way through Shachi and hurling him backwards. He crashed into the wall before slumping to the ground, unresponsive, and Law scrambled to his side, hearing Penguin following suit behind him.

"Shachi?" he asked, hoping to get some sort of reaction. There was none, the ginger completely out cold, but Law quickly realised that the unconsciousness was the least of his worries. His breathing was uneven and hurried, and a feeling of dread crept over Law.

"Shachi!" Penguin reached for him, probably to shake him until he woke up (Law had discovered early on that the pair had almost no knowledge of any treatment), but Law threw his arm out, halting him. He didn't pay attention to Penguin's complaints, his attention instead focused on Shachi. He knew these symptoms, knew what an electric shock could do to the heart, and how fatal it could be.

Cardial Arrhythmia. An erratic heartbeat that had to be treated immediately to increase the odds of survival, but there was a major problem. The Polar Tang, for all her space and potential, didn't have a defibrillator, and they had no time to find one.

"What do we do?" Penguin asked him, sounding frantic, and Law forced himself to think because he wasn't losing a nakama to their own ship. A second shock to restore the rhythm was needed, but Law wasn't about to zap Shachi again with the exposed wire.

He had the ultimate Devil Fruit, didn't he? He had a fruit that was toted as being able to do medical miracles. Surely there was a way to mimic a defibrillator?

Trying to work that out would take too long. They needed a secondary shock and they needed it now.

"Bepo!" he shouted, his voice too shrill and panicked even to his own voice. He vaguely heard the mink respond, fumbling his way over, as he tore at Shachi's clothes, exposing his chest and praying it would work.

"Captai-?" He didn't give Bepo a chance to talk, grabbing the mink's paws and pressing them on the ginger's torso, upper right, lower left.

"Electro, now!" he snapped, and to his credit Bepo didn't question it, jumping at the tone and sending a surge of electricity out through his paws almost reflexively. Law barely had a moment to retract his own hands and ensure Penguin was back before the charge shot through Shachi, eliciting a small sigh from him. Law watched, staying back just long enough for the residual charge to filter away before lunging forwards, fingers finding the pulse in his neck and praying.

Thumpthump. Thumpthump. Thumpthump.

It was still fast, but it was regular, as if Shachi had just done a sprint. Just to be sure, Law rested his other hand on the ginger's chest, right above his heart, to feel the heart doing its job properly. Bepo hadn't moved his paws, but Law didn't bother to remind him as Penguin reasserted himself in the group, fingers tangling lightly in ginger hair.

"Ow," Shachi whined, and his eyes opened slightly, squinting in the light. Law had been so preoccupied with everything else that he hadn't realised the shades had been lost in the process. "Ow. What the hell happened?" He tried to move, one arm shifting to prop him up while his other tried to go to his head, but his arms flopped back to his sides.

"You got electrocuted," Law told him bluntly, silently assessing his condition. Certainly he'd be going nowhere under his own steam for a while, and Law tossed up between putting him in his own bunk or the infirmary. "How do you feel?"

"Urgh," was the ginger's eloquent response, and Law shook his head fondly. That told him nothing he couldn't already see. "Kinda dizzy? But I'm not moving so it's weird."

The infirmary, then. Law didn't want to risk him falling out of his bunk.

"What were you thinking?" Penguin demanded, sounding thoroughly fed up with the ginger's stupidity. "It was sparking so you just decided to put your hand in there? Without even a glove on?" Shachi winced, letting out a sheepish laugh.

"Not my brightest moment," he admitted.

"Clearly," Penguin drawled, his fingers carding through the ginger hair. "Don't do it again. You made Law panic." Law shot him a glare but didn't bother to deny it. He couldn't, really. Not when his fingers were still on Shachi's pulse and his palm was still over his heart.

"Oops," Shachi grinned nervously.

"Bepo," Law said, choosing not to respond to his fellow humans. "Carry him to the infirmary."

"Aye, Captain," the mink obeyed, finally moving his paws from their position on Shachi's chest and gathering him up gently in his arms. Shachi sighed a bit at the action.

"And no-one is touching any wiring without insulating gloves from now on," Law added firmly. "We are not having a repeat of this stupidity."

Once Shachi was settled and largely recovered, Law would start experimenting with his own abilities. Having a nakama capable of producing electricity on command was useful, but he couldn't rely on Bepo always being close enough to get there on time. He had the Ope Ope no Mi. There had to be a way to defibrillate using it.

Law just had to find it, preferably before any other stupid mistakes happened.

[virtualinfotech]

Website Designing Company in Delhi NCR

The website architecture industry is swirling with new particulars, for example, HTML5 and CSS3, and forefront outskirts like the versatile web which would combine in the Year 2011. Proficient systems administration on the web is additionally expected to pick up steam in the year. Discover what the plan savants foresee for the year.It Website Designing Company in Delhi NCR sounds exceptionally straightforward that the achievement of your online business relies upon the structure of your site or how great your creator is. However, actually the structure of the site isn't sufficient to get great achievement in the online world.You have joined another office or this is your first occupation and you have to demonstrate your aptitudes through your difficult work and by using your skill without limit. You have been solicited to set up a wireframe from the association's site and you don't have a lot of information in this space. What to do at that point? Try not to stress as this article will give you some solid tips so as to assist you with setting up a wireframe. The word wireframe appears to be somewhat troublesome. Numerous individuals have a misguided judgment with respect to this word and think of it as something identified with designs field however the fact of the matter is other path round.

Web specialists in Ohio realize that it is so hard to concoct a one of a kind plan that will clearly catch the hearts of numerous crowds. In spite of models, mockups just contain the presence of the site. When the capacity of the framework is utilized, it tends to be alluded to as a model. What makes magnificent web specialists? Indeed, it's the capacity to live in the two universes. They should never leave their plan roots. Utilizing delightful lines and complexity where suitable will leave Website Designing Agency in Noida watchers with quite a few feelings. What's more, focusing on intelligence will assist clients with enjoying utilizing the site. It's a fragile harmony between web architecture and site intelligence. Structuring your own site resembles wandering off in fantasy land - as far as possible you have is your creative mind. In case you're a visual creator, you realize that your web architecture can go similarly as what your psyche and imagination can reach. This is on the grounds that the measure of chances enormously relies upon your imaginative reasoning.I nearly missed it! I inhaled a moan of help and kept on perusing the remainder of the article. In any case, it occurred to me that this little web architecture mistake could have huge outcomes. Along these lines, I thought of a couple of more missteps that I see everyday on the web. Here are the main 5 web composition blunders.Data about being a web specialist including the various stages sites can be based on, the procedure engaged with building up a website for a customer and web facilitating. The article has proposals for data to assemble when meeting a customer just as interesting points before the site goes live.

Web architecture can frequently be the contrast between a client confiding in you and clicking "continue" to make that buy or choosing to leave the site totally due to the littlest variety in structure consistency. Indeed, web architecture is that significant.Web optimization or Search Engine Optimization alludes to the execution of methodologies Web Designing Company in Delhi NCR to improve the probability of your site appearing on the principal page of web index results. Commonly, Google is the benchmark, as all other web crawler results depend on Google's calculations. In an each expanding on the web commercial center, it's essential to recognize what you're getting when you are searching for a SEO web architecture. What precisely is required to get a SEO web architecture? Exactly right now you would imagine that you are having the best site in the World Wide Web, at that, you simply understand that everything is turning out badly all around. You are not getting the normal positioning in the web search tools and not getting that sort of traffic to your site which you need from the objective market.The manner in which individuals see business has been everlastingly changed by the web. The idea of turning into a representative or a business visionary no longer has a place with the rich and the tip top. Truth be told, the web has become an other reality where new companies can clash with the goliath organizations that once managed incomparable over the earth.

There is no denying how significant sites are these days. This is on the grounds that a huge number of individuals are utilizing the Internet to look for data or a particular item they need to purchase. What's more, in the event that you need to have the option to advance or market your item, constructing an online site will be extremely useful to you. Yet, on the off chance that you aren't proficient about how to make a quality site all alone, it is best that you enlist the administration of an ensured web specialist to carry out the responsibility for you. With the expansion in fame of sites these days, an ever increasing number of organizations are endeavoring to locate that master web composition office that will have the option to furnish them with an expert looking site that makes certain to grab the eye of customers both old and new. There are loads of various sites springing up the web and with the interest consistently expanding; rivalry among all the web composition organizations is savage. You have a web architecture that is all set to work Website Design Services in Delhi NCR for your business... so we should give it something to do! It won't tire, grumble, or take an additional 15 minutes for lunch - together we can make it work nonstop for you. Be that as it may, first you have to do these best 5 things to begin advancing your web composition.

For a web architecture is the primary mode of collaboration with watchers. Inside not many portion of brief it needs to dazzle the clients. Furthermore, to get this kind of result you have to frame a website architecture group where each web specialist is simply class. Don't have the foggiest idea in what capacity ought to be the website composition group and each web specialist? Look at not many focuses I have attempted to assemble for you. Web specialist can productively website composition for you on the off chance that you will clarify your necessity successfully. You need to educate them about broad thought regarding its usefulness, you'll comprehend what highlights you need and need in your own web architecture. Site planning is a stepwise methodology which is talked about in the article. Creation of a decent site isn't a simple procedure. It includes numerous procedures and contend approach contains numerous means. 

Searching for a website architecture organization for your planning needs? Article qualifies tips for pick the best website composition organization for your online business. The accomplishment of a specific organization lies on how the entrepreneur deals with his organization. Beside the administrative aptitudes that the manager needs to rehearse, he should likewise know about the most recent pattern that is available Website Designing Agency in Delhi NCR in many organizations today. Knowing the pattern or the most recent strategies in selling or promoting an item or a help will hugely profit the whole organization. In the event that you wish to perceive how these things would look on the web, there are many free facilitating destinations which can help. Utilizing these locales, you can distribute your website pages in a matter of moments. Regardless of whether you are another business needing a pristine site or a built up firm looking for a new web composition, it is essentially critical to pick the most appropriate website architecture organization to do the task. This article intends to call attention to the key angles to consider while choosing a decent web architecture organization.

[icsskolkata]

ML and Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity and ML

Definition of AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning in Cybersecurity As in other industries, human interaction has long become essential and irreplaceable in the security field. While cybersecurity currently relies heavily on human input, we are slowly seeing technology get better than us at specific tasks.

 Every technological improvement brings us one step closer to a more effective complement to the human role. Among these developments, several areas of research are central to them all:

  Artificial intelligence (AI) is designed to give computers the full responsiveness of the human mind. . This is a common discipline that many others must follow, including machine learning and deep learning.

Machine learning (ML) uses existing behavioral patterns, forming decision-making based on past data and conclusions. Human intervention is still required for some changes. Machine learning is perhaps the most relevant AI cybersecurity discipline to date.

Deep learning (DL) works similarly to machine learning by making decisions from past patterns, but self-regulating. Deep learning in cybersecurity is currently in the field of machine learning, so we will focus mainly on ML here.

What AI and machine learning can do for cybersecurity

AI and cybersecurity has been seen as revolutionary and much closer than we thought. However, this is only a partial truth that should be approached with conservative expectations. The reality is that we may be facing relatively incremental improvements in the future. From a point of view, what may seem incremental for a truly autonomous future is still leaps and bounds beyond what we were able to do in the past.

 As we explore the possible implications of security in machine learning and AI, it is important to identify current weaknesses in cybersecurity. There are many processes and aspects that we have long accepted as normal that can be solved under the umbrella of AI technology.

 Human error in configuration

Human error is an important part of cybersecurity vulnerabilities. For example, proper system configuration can be extremely difficult to manage, even with large IT teams committed to configuration. As part of continuous innovation, IT security is more complex than ever. Reactive tools can help teams detect and mitigate problems that arise when networks are replaced, modified, and updated.

 Consider how newer internet infrastructure such as cloud computing can be stacked on top of older local frameworks. In enterprise systems, an IT team will need to ensure compatibility to secure those systems. Manually configurable security assessments handle fatigued teams as they balance endless updates with normal daily support tasks. With intelligent and adaptive automation, teams can get timely advice on newly discovered issues. They can get instructions on options to continue, or even have a system in place to automatically adjust settings as needed.

 Human Efficiency with Repetitive Actions

Human Efficiency is another sore point in the cybersecurity industry. No manual process can be perfectly repeatable all the time, especially in a dynamic environment like ours. Configuring multiple devices individually in an organization is one of the most time-consuming tasks. Even after initial setup, IT teams will manually review the same machines afterwards to correct misconfigurations or outdated configurations that cannot be fixed in remote updates.

 In addition, when employees are tasked with responding to threats, the scope of that threat can rapidly change. Where human focus can be slowed by unexpected challenges, an AI and machine learning based system can develop with minimal latency.

Reference:

https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/ai-cybersecurity

  Role of AI in Cybersecurity

What is the role of AI in the cyber ecosystem?

Historically, cybersecurity has been an area dominated by resource-intensive efforts. Surveillance, threat finding, incident response, and other tasks are often manual and time-consuming, which can delay remediation activities, increase visibility, and increase vulnerability to advance. network enemies.

 In recent years, artificial intelligence solutions have rapidly evolved to the point where they can provide significant benefits for cyber defense operations across many organizations and missions. By automating key elements of high-volume core functions, AI can transform IT workflows into streamlined, self-driving, and continuous processes for acceleration. remediation and maximize protection.

 The Benefits of Applying AI to Cyber

AI's cyber applications offer major advantages for the government and business leaders responsible for protecting people, systems, organizations, and communities from today's relentless cyber adversaries. Acting as a force multiplier for seasoned cyber professionals, AI's functions across the cyber lifecycle include monitoring vast swaths of data to detect nuanced adversarial attacks, quantifying the risks associated with known vulnerabilities, and powering decision making with data during threat hunts.

 Immediate and long-term benefits of integrating AI into an organization's cybersecurity ecosystem include that it:

  Improves protection and remediation due to AI's ability to detect nuanced attacks, heighten security, and enhance incident response

Increases time savings as AI expedites the detection and response cycle time, rapidly quantifying risks and accelerating analyst decision making with data-driven mitigation measures

Fortifies protection of brand reputation and trust in an organization's security systems and protocols

Improves workforce satisfaction, as cybersecurity professionals can focus on higher level tasks as opposed to time-consuming, manual actions

A Future Secured by AI-Integrated Cyber:

5 Key Takeaways

What should you and your organization be thinking about as we look toward a future secured with more and more help from AI? Here are our top takeaways for federal government leaders. Download the full report to see our recommendations for business leaders, technologists, investors, and students:

  AI is meeting the needs of today's heightened security requirements. For government environments that require the highest level of cybersecurity protection, especially defense and national security agencies, AI expands what is possible.

Through automation, AI provides a competitive advantage. As AI becomes more pervasive, it will be easier to augment human capacity in government and Department of Defense cybersecurity roles, increasing impact and efficiency.

Application of AI functions will reduce human error. Integrating AI capabilities into manual and semi-manual processes can reduce errors and inconsistencies.

The new skill set will be sought after by network professionals. Organizations will hire AI experts with experience in applying AI and machine learning to cybersecurity instead of just looking for traditional networking skills.

This emerging space will continue to grow in impact across industries. Cybersecurity and AI trading has more than doubled in the last 4 years, and AI's ability to support cybersecurity will only grow with time. Cybersecurity leaders should explore the wide range of AI use cases and potential applications for the federal mission.

 Reference:

https://www.boozallen.com/s/insight/publication/role-of-artificial-intelligence-in-cyber-security.html

            Impact of AI in Cybersecurity

Experts believe that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have both positive and negative impacts on cybersecurity. AI algorithms use training data to learn how to react to different situations. They learn by copying and adding additional information as they go on. This article evaluates the positive and negative impacts of AI on cybersecurity.

 Top challenges facing cybersecurity today

Attacks are becoming more and more dangerous despite advances in cybersecurity. The main cybersecurity challenges are:

  Geographically distant computer systems: Geographic distance makes it harder to manually track incidents. Cybersecurity professionals must overcome infrastructure differences to successfully monitor incidents across regions.

Manual threat scanning - can be expensive and time consuming, leading to more attacks going undetected.

The reactive nature of cybersecurity: Companies can only fix problems after they've happened. Anticipating threats before they happen is a big challenge for security professionals.

Hackers often hide and change their IP addresses. Hackers use different programs like virtual private network (VPN), proxy server, Tor browser, etc. These programs help hackers stay anonymous and undetected.

 AI and Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is one of the applications of artificial intelligence. A Norton report found the overall cost of a typical data breach recovery to be $3.86 million. The report also says that businesses need an average of 196 days to recover from a data breach. For this reason, organizations should invest more in AI to avoid wasted time and financial loss.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and threat can recognize patterns in data to enable security systems to learn from past experience. Additionally, AI and machine learning enable organizations to reduce incident response times and adhere to security best practices.

 Disadvantages and limitations of using AI for cybersecurity

Some limitations also prevent AI from becoming a major security tool:

  Resources: Companies need to invest a lot of time and money invest in resources such as computing power, memory, and data to build and maintain AI systems.

Datasets: AI models are trained with training datasets. Security teams have to get their hands on various data sets of malware, malicious code, and anomalous elements. Some companies simply don't have the resources and time to get all of these accurate data sets.

Hackers also use AI: Hackers test and improve their malware to make it resistant to AI-based security tools. Hackers learn from existing AI tools to develop more advanced attacks and attack traditional security systems or even AI-enhanced systems.

Neural fuzzing - Fuzzing is the process of examining large amounts of random input data into software to identify its vulnerabilities. Neural vibrations leverage AI to quickly examine large amounts of random input data. However, fuzzing also has a constructive side. Hackers can uncover weaknesses in the target system by gathering information through the power of neural networks. Microsoft has developed a method for taking this approach to improve its software, resulting in code that is more secure and harder to exploit.

 https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/the-impact-of-ai-on-cybersecurity

       Re-Inventing Cybersecurity with AI

The more we enter the age of the Internet, the more organizations are turning to AI to increase productivity, improve sales, or improve their experience. Now, they also use it to fortify their defenses against the crime that inevitably ensues. We want to learn more about how they do it and more importantly how they can do it better.

 Finally, in the new Capgemini Research Institute report, Innovating Cybersecurity with Artificial Intelligence, we surveyed 850 IT operations, cybersecurity, and IT-level information security executives. across seven industries in 10 countries, and we spoke in-depth with industry experts. and academic. We also analyzed 20 AI use cases in cybersecurity spanning IT, OT, and IoT. We found that:

  Enterprises increasingly recognize the need to enhance cybersecurity with AI - nearly two-thirds believe they cannot identify critical threats without AI.

The pace of AI adoption in cybersecurity is accelerating – almost three-quarters of organizations are testing AI in cybersecurity use cases in one way or another.

There is a strong business case for using AI in cybersecurity - three in five companies say using AI improves the accuracy and efficiency of network analysts

Many companies have use AI AI in their cybersecurity initiatives or plan to introduce it very soon. To achieve this, they need to establish a roadmap for implementing AI in cybersecurity. This means identifying data sources and building a data platform to power AI, selecting the right use cases to accelerate and maximize benefits, and externally collaborating to improve information. threat intelligence, security deployment, orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) to improve security management, training AI-ready network analysts, and administrative settings for AI in cybersecurity to deliver lasting improvement.

Reference:

https://www.capgemini.com/gb-en/insights/research-library/reinventing-cybersecurity-with-artificial-intelligence/

        AI testing in Top Notch Cyber world

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more and more popular in society, it is also making its way into the world of cybersecurity. AI can be used in many ways to help improve cybersecurity, including automatically detecting and responding to threats, improving network efficiency, and helping to identify vulnerabilities. In this blog post, we'll discuss some of the ways AI is changing cybersecurity and how it can help keep your business safe online.

 Artificial intelligence is changing the landscape of cybersecurity. The benefits of this paper show that by implementing AI systems, organizations will be able to speed up detection and response and be more proactive in anticipating and managing new threats. floating.

 What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Artificial intelligence is a type of intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence of humans and other animals. AI applications can analyze data and make decisions on their own without human intervention.

 AI is created by evaluating processes and looking for patterns in the human brain. These threat investigations lead to the creation of AI-powered intelligent software, systems or solutions.

 artificial intelligence for cybersecurity

 AI learns over time, manipulates lots of data

AI's foundation is based on what is known as the Turing test in AI. The Turing test in AI is a method to determine whether a machine can exhibit behavior indistinguishable from a human. If the answer to this question is yes, then the machine is said to have passed the Turing test and is considered intelligent.

 The three main components of AI are:

  Learning in AI is the process of acquiring new knowledge or skills from experience.

 Inference is the ability to draw logical conclusions from a set of premises.

 Self-correction is the ability to identify and correct errors.

 What is the role of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity?

The role of AI in cybersecurity is to help organizations reduce the risk of breaches and improve their overall security posture. AI works in cybersecurity by learning from past data to identify patterns and trends. This information is then used to make predictions about future attacks. AI-powered systems can also be configured to automatically respond to threats and counter cyberthreats within a shorter timeframe.

 As the enterprise attack surface continues to grow and evolve, analyzing and improving cyber threats and cyberattacks is no longer a human-scale challenge. Depending on the size of your organization, up to several hundred billion time-varying signals need to be processed to properly calculate risk.

 In response to this unprecedented challenge, AI tools and methods such as neural networks have evolved to help information security teams protect sensitive information, reduce risk of breach, and improve their security status with more effective and efficient threat detection and removal.

Reference:

https://securityboulevard.com/2022/06/the-role-of-ai-in-cyber-security/

                Top AI Powered Company:

Below, the article lists the top 10 AI-based cybersecurity companies to go to 2023

The advancement of AI technology has brought fierce competition forcing every vendor to adopt innovations. to maintain a competitive edge over its competitors. The main goal of cybersecurity companies is to protect users. There are many images, videos, links and web pages present on countless servers and nowadays it has become essential to keep them away from hackers. Black hat hackers have the ability to compromise network security for many uses, and only cybersecurity professionals have the ability to protect our data from attack. AI in cybersecurity analyzes large amounts of data about risks and threat relationships in organizations' information systems to identify new cyberattacks. Many cybersecurity companies are popular to fight cyber attacks in enterprises. There are a number of AI-powered cybersecurity companies that can protect internet-connected systems or other IoT devices. Here is a list of the top 10 cybersecurity companies in 2023.

Fortinet:

 Fortinet is one of the top 10 cybersecurity companies. It secures the world's largest businesses, service providers, and government organizations. It's a boss in AI-powered cybersecurity companies and much larger, in terms of market capitalization. The company created the concept of security fabric to present a strategy for gathering network activity points from multiple points within the company to look for threats.

Veracode:

 Veracode is headquartered in the United States and is one of the most famous cybersecurity companies worldwide. With an active presence, the company offers all kinds of security you could possibly need, even the ones that aren't so essential but you want. Many reputable Indian companies trust Veracode as an alternative cybersecurity company to keep their businesses safe from hackers.

Symantec:

 Symantec is the best-known AI-based cybersecurity company that has harnessed the power of artificial intelligence in recent years to expand its work into threat detection and prevention. Symantec has established itself as a global leader in endpoint security, web security, information security, email security, and privileged access management.

FireEye:

 California-based, FireEye is continuously at the forefront of cybersecurity innovation using advanced AI-based threat intelligence and prevention technologies, an advanced unified management solution. advance cloud security and security automation to protect organizations against 6th generation cyberattacks.

Cynet:

 Cynet is one of the leading cybersecurity companies implementing AI. in its network threat detection systems and aims to make advanced threat protection as easy as running any system network monitoring package. Its Cynet 360 platform is the world's first standalone breach protection platform. This entire cybersecurity system adds AV endpoint protection, device detection, threat prediction, user behavior modeling, and vulnerability management.

Vectra AI:

 Vectra AI provides AI-based threat detection and response for the cloud, data center, IoT, and enterprise. Founded in 2010, the company exists purely to embrace AI in cybersecurity software. Its Cognito platform combines human intelligence, data science, and machine learning to accelerate real-time threat detection.

Darktrace:

 UK-based Darktrace applies self-learning AI to detect and neutralize cyber, cloud and IoT threats. The company's solutions have guided thousands of businesses across multiple industries against cyber threats in real time.

CrowdStrike:

 CrowdStrike has created a cybersecurity product, CrowdStrike Falcon, which is an AI-based detection system called User and Entity Behavior Analysis (UEBA). CrowdStrike's Falcon has transformed security for the cloud age and provides real-time protection and enterprise-wide visibility, preventing attacks on endpoints and workloads on or off. network.

 Reference:

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-10-ai-powered-cybersecurity-companies-to-opt-for-in-2023/

[archteriorbd]

How 3D Visualization Developed And Got Where It Is Today

Have you at any factor mentioned yourself accurately how verifiable 3D visualization totally is?

All issues considered, there is no obvious answer here to be careful, yet we do comprehend that visualization has been available for a protracted time. It began principal and unrefined, and it has gone to an approach to come to be what it is today.

Today, 3D visualizations are more than likely the lovely systems of tending to reformist thoughts for a broad extent of associations and areas. Before the world was once respected with without a doubt the main visualization programming gadget, specialists wished to draw 3D visualizations by utilizing hand.

That used to be exceptionally horrid and drawn-out, and it required the usage of dissipating centers. Subsequently, 3D specialists should be incredibly acknowledged and convenient, furthermore calm. The game astonishingly changed with the presence of initiating turning in and 3D showing programs.

This item helped make crafted by designers and modelers broadly less complex. With quickened rehearses arrived the determinedly expanding interest for such practices. These significant level programming contraptions had profoundly valuable features, and these features had an unimaginable effect all through the universe of organizations.

3D Visualization and Worldwide Industries

Nowadays, positive firms couldn't be working excepting the most current features of top-class giving over and 3D visualization programming contraptions.

Astounding availability, mind-bending receptiveness, expanded features, improved instruments, decreased undertakings, and working association, convenient to-utilize interfaces, are exclusively a component of the advantages that advanced 3D visualization mechanical assemblies need to convey to the table.

Visualization is anyplace around us. We can see instances of it in every reality and predominant conditions. All issues considered, what we disregard to see is the lovely fast improvement of 3D visualization and conveyance.

There are advancements every day. Since we can see the broad enormous contrast between the main turning in programming and the latest, most progressive visualization programming, we need to delve likewise into how 3D visualization formed into what it is today.

The Development of 3D Visualization in Time

The prerequisite for the most evolved 3D visualization arrived from one basic idea - crossing correspondence openings among customers and skilled workers. One of the beginning phase inspirations in the rear of visualization used to be correspondence. Consequently, visualization has continually been creating.

The noticeable correspondence began with the presence of the First Men. This methodology of correspondence is recognized as parietal workmanship, in some other case alluded to as cave depict or if honestly a pictogram. Irrefutably the primary human improvements used substances and surfaces to set up a noticeable correspondence and absolute their imagination.

Various piles of years after, we can regardless converse with old urban organizations using design. It offers us pieces of skill into the shielded stays of memorable noticeable correspondence.

The notable background of designing and craftsmanship affirmed to us that few authentic experts used point of view with vanishing centers to make adjusted materials, lighting, surfaces, and space. These elements have been used to the body all other techniques of noticeable correspondence.

Underlying Visualization and Industrialization

The principal man or lady to utilize visualization in lovely some time's workmanship was once Da Vinci. He's viewed as the pioneer of visualization. He was once perceived for his kinship for science, craftsmanship, and progression. Da Vinci started drawing 3D styles when nobody else even gave thought about a particular perspective.

He used to be generally very extremist. His 3D visualizations depicted incomprehensible patterns for that time, similar to water-fueled machines, raised point of convergence pulverizing instruments, a flying machine, etc For any situation, it used to be Protagoras who prepared a whole method of pondering that used to be spun around one straightforward idea - that man is a complete extent, all issue considered.

This reasoning expanded science, designing, and craftsmanship, and this is nevertheless the basic measure, even today, in bleeding-edge design. Most present-day 3D visualization programming arrangements utilize this basic measure or its adjusted structure.

The improvement of 3D visualization was once quickened when 3D visualization officially developed to turn into a fundamental thing of the design.

It used to be Bauhaus who made it so. It was previously the German architects from the Bauhaus personnel who have been the first to make 3D visualization with dissipating centers. In all honesty, because of the reality of them, 3D visualization developed to turn into something essential in the depiction of compositional arrangements and musings.

All issue considered it was before the cutting edge plan and the huge scope assembling of installations that indeed helped the advancement of 3D visualization. The all-out mechanical design endeavor depended upon 3D visualization.

The interaction of guide drawing and hyper-sensible work of craftsmanship accelerated the accompanying stage in the advancement of 3D visualization - the improvement of the primary 3D giving over and displaying programming.

How 3D Visualization Changed Architecture

Everything was changed with the use of fractals in PC representations. This has arisen as a standard exercise among modelers. The 2d they comprehended that 3D visualization had striking practicable and that it was once so loved to them and their exercises, matters had been set into development, irreversibly.

Another term of PC-upheld sketch guides was once going to begin. Every single one of the people who tried to develop to be master engineers comprehended the size of these aides for their expert flip of occasions.

Indeed, even even though 3D exuberance appeared to be more prominent eye-getting, a few designers started capturing the greatness of 3D visualization. The 80s and 90s made 3D visualization ordinarily available, and designs used to be digitized deliberately.

It used to be the privilege second for the accompanying stage in the improvement of 3D visualization - moving from hand drawing into the procedural design.

A likelihood to make 3D visualizations with PC outlines has at an extreme come. The 90s added some other surge of advancements, this time clearly perceived with the upgrade of cutting part 3D visualization programming.

These new errands relied upon pillar following, and they set off the advancement of the main 3D studio that covered 5 fundamental modules:

● Key-illustrating

● Material chief

● Editor

● Loftier

● Sharper

The fundamental variation of the studio used to be wonderful for drawing, crucial cross-segment modifying, numerical locals, heaved surfaces, and spline lines. All of these components have become key features of the accompanying 3D studio variation - Autodesk 3ds Max.

With such progressed fundamentals, the fate of 3D visualization used to be extra than awesome. Each new writing computer program was once faster, more prominent striking, and advanced, containing the top-notch features of the past visualization programs.

The most current varieties of 3D visualization bundles are designed for appreciating out a few tasks and managing a few activities at the same time, which was at that point incredible. Regardless, the pleasant addition of the most current 3D visualization programming contraptions is the speed. They are significantly quicker than beforehand.

3D printers, VR Equipment and Holographic Imagery

Fast ahead to the current time, and we can obviously see that one segment has fundamentally altered when mechanical improvement is being alluded to - the basic objective is as of now client satisfaction.

This exchange required higher advancement to permit subject matter experts, designers, and experts to adjust to normally expanding buyer demands. That initiated the improvement of the advancement of 3D printing.

The improvement of the PC that can print expected articles modified the possibility of design.

At the figure when they the start emerged, 3D printers have been for the most area used for 3D workmanship and design. Regardless, 3D printing advancement immediately noticed its way into all pores of our ordinary public. So a ton relies on this development today.

It helped make 3D visualization extra loved and unquestionable. Other than design, 3D printers can be used in practically every industry, there might be no vulnerability that 3D printers altered 3D visualization into something other than what's expected than workmanship.

What 3D printing development has started, VR equipment romanticized. The presence of VR took our understanding of 3D visualization to an incomprehensible level. While bundles for 3D leisure activity and visualization have existed for a long time, it was once VR that extra a very unprecedented size to how we envisioned matters and house in a 3D environment.

Honestly, VR helped 3D visualization harm freed from the restrictions of designing and unfurl on to elite offices and astute fields.

Regardless, every 3D printer and VR had been exclusively a preface to what exactly precisely's to come - holographic imagery. This is the most imperative apex of the improvement of 3D visualization up till now and the superb pointer concerning the spot 3D visualization is today.

This imagery is as of now used in business undertaking attempts, drug, retail, military, designing, and a few exceptional endeavors. 3D photos are at present among the indispensable contraptions for 3D visualizations.

VR and visualizations help the two customers and organizers take a gander at a nonexistent idea and impact the complete pattern of the advancement of that idea. With such extraordinary potential, it is difficult to choose what the future may likewise hold. Read more information click here

Conclusion

From the long periods of history to the current time, individuals have been using 3D visualization for more than a couple of purposes. Its improvement has not the slightest bit ended, and this uncommon development is making over the long haul.

Due to this turn of events, we as of now have the most progressive methods for talking about our creativity, contemplations, and imaginative brain. A broad extent of 3D visualization, conveying and showing programming devices are typically open to everyone.

Thusly, we have a steadily expanding wide assortment of experts who are embeddings forward attempts to saddle the pressing factor and usefulness of such forefront advancement to create extraordinary and conscious issues people can use in their step-by-step lives. It's covered to say that future 3D visualization will upgrade the world a spot.

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5 OUTSOURCING TIPS FOR BUILDING A BETTER BUSINESS

On the planet where innovation and quickness are the need of great importance, IT outsourcing is increasingly getting a well known stead, particularly for beginning phase new companies and little to medium size businesses that work with restricted assets however intend to break into the tech industry in a major manner. It's a moderate, demonstrated go-to methodology that gives help to companies seeking to outfit the best of advanced advances and convey an eminent client support. 

Very regularly business proprietors are tested with correspondence issues with their merchants and battle to figure out how to construct the outsourcing business case, arrange the arrangement, and art a drawn out solid relationship with their accomplices. That as well as how might you put the eventual fate of your business in danger and spot it under the control of outsiders after you have emptied your essence into it? Outsourcing may appear as though a bet and it has possible traps, particularly if it's your first time outsourcing. 

In the relatively recent past, we shared our insights into the explanations behind IT outsourcing. This time we'll avoid the subtleties of outsourcing benefits and simply slice directly deeply: how it really completes. Here are the main five outsourcing tips that, ideally, will mitigate every one of your apprehensions, open IT outsourcing best practices, assist you with getting outsourcing directly from the beginning, and make your business tick. 

#1 GUIDELINES FOR FINDING THE RIGHT PARTNER 

Before dipping your toes in the water, set aside the effort to pick a competent and dependable contractual worker to work with. 

Make an inquiry or two for proposals 

A typical analysis against outsourcing is the danger of receiving below average work. Re-appropriate suppliers come in all shapes and estimates, and identifying the correct one methods having admittance to the correct information about expected competitors. You can begin from your own organization of contacts and get references from individuals you know and trust, normally different business people who have had involvement in companies in this field. 

Visit virtual commercial centers 

Invest energy shopping around on outsourcing locales. Online hiring administrations, as Upwork, are an incredible asset for expanding your own organization. They permit you to see the itemized profiles and arrangement of forthcoming merchants and get the input on the estimation of their work from different businesses. Tributes from earlier customers can fundamentally influence your choice when weighing one temporary worker against another, and lead you to the best one. 

Pick between an office and a consultant 

The benefits of an IT outsourcing office are self-evident. They normally enlist profoundly trained experts that can be effectively supplanted on the off chance that they don't live up to your desires. Numerous organizations likewise actualize 'balanced governance and handle the whole item advancement measure, subsequently mitigating any dangers. With so numerous gifted engineers and experienced chiefs ready, they assume the liability to check all work and resolve any issues, if things go haywire. 

Two main risks related with hiring a specialist are relying on a single engineer with nobody to check their work, and the chance of misfortunes if your temporary worker neglects to finish the undertaking. 

You can't anticipate that one designer should be 'a handyman'. Things occur. Issues come up. One potential arrangement could be getting a second opinion from an independent consultant or even two or three of them. Having somebody survey your temporary worker's work can significantly lessen the danger and spare you gobs of cash. Additionally, on the off chance that you set up your resources in one place, you may wind up having to search for another person. Specialists regularly go back and forth. Some of them may get an awesome all day bid for employment and leave you the following day. Thus, hiring a few engineers may make all the difference for you. 

In either situation, regardless of whether you settle on an office or a consultant, find out in the event that they do the advancement themselves or redistribute it to another person. Doing business through affiliates may defeat correspondence and in this manner the whole advancement measure. 

Recruit the particular skill you need 

You would prefer not to be 'a guinea pig', correct? Thus, your merchant's mastery and specific aptitudes ought to be considered into your final choice. Prior to engaging with a provider, you must be certain that there is a decent match between what you need and what the supplier spends significant time in, so their qualities line up with your objectives. Pick a legitimate organization that is entrenched in their field and have demonstrated experience working on the tasks like yours. This particularly remains constant for complex, actually refined tasks. 

The choice cycle can be dull and tedious work. Unclear occupation listings will in general draw in huge amounts of under qualified candidates, so ensure your set of working responsibilities is completely clear. Recognize precisely your key execution measurements, objectives, and desires. You additionally need to know how profound their abilities go, regardless of whether they comprehend the business, best practices and most recent tech patterns. 

Direct an interview 

Filter through all applications, slender the rundown of possible providers to 4-5 up-and-comers, and continue to the following stage, the interview. Getting a genuine vibe for a possibility's character and what they can do, is center to understanding whether they will meet your requirements. Here are a few 'dos' during the interview: 

Be explicit. Set up a couple of specialized inquiries to test the interviewee's information and aptitudes. 

Request their function on past activities. Is it safe to say that they were involved in building the entire thing or only a couple of little highlights? 

Recommend a circumstance and ask how they would react to it, or find out about issues they may have battled with previously, and how they took care of them. Watch out for warnings, for example, negative disposition, affront for clients, or inability to keep duties to convey on schedule. 

Fight the temptation to enlist the principal candidate you interviewed, regardless of whether you enjoyed them. You have to contrast them and others. 

Since you have several incredible possibilities, test them out. Allocate a little preliminary assignment that will give you an unpleasant idea of how they perform, and see who will be the best counterpart for your business. It could be a brisk model or an essential outline of a work plan. On the off chance that that basic test is a catastrophe, think about the following applicant. In any case, in the event that notably, well, bingo! You've discovered what you've been looking for! 

Start little 

Developing associations with another specialist organization begins with getting a hint of how they work. Before entrusting your brainchild to them, start with a little straightforward task to give you a thought of their exhibition and abilities. 

#2 COST CONSIDERATIONS 

Cost is another significant measurement in any outsourcing choice. Anyway, how would you try things out before you bounce in? 

Shop around 

It's not tied in with finding the least expensive seller out there, however considering the one underneath your spending plan may be tempting. Never select a supplier dependent on cost – pick something you can sensibly manage the cost of while as yet receiving esteem. Low rates won't benefit your business in any way if your task stalls out in the center. Zero in on the gains that an outsourcing arrangement can bring to your business. Shop around outsourcing destinations for the rates for the errand you need to redistribute. On the off chance that work merits doing admirably, be prepared to pay for a demonstrated provider. You don't need to binge spend, yet additionally don't hold back something over the top. Preclude the most expensive and the least valued bidders. On the off chance that a supplier is somewhat expensive, yet has a ton of positive criticism from customers, at that point he's likely justified, despite all the trouble, while a temporary worker with negative or no input might be more difficult than they are worth. Rather than consultants, agencies typically accompany an exorbitant cost tag. You can at present find a decent bargain, however. Consider new non-conventional outsourcing destinations, as Eastern Europe, that offer more affordable assets and significant levels of value. 

Pick the correct pricing model 

In the event that an outsourcing course of action offers you lower costs without compromising quality, at that point you're in an ideal situation in that business arrangement. Build up the pricing model that will urge specialist co-ops to give it their everything. 

We as a whole disdain shrouded expenses and astonishments! Utilize an in with no reservations level expense pricing model for redistributed Scrum Teams or Agile programming advancement. It's a pricing structure that charges a single fixed expense for help, instead of charging constantly. It centers around high efficiency, and offers full cost straightforwardness and adaptability to scale up or down, should a circumstance require. 

In an item or task based outsourcing model, put a high incentive on results instead of hours. On the off chance that the group you recruited can't create a yield comparable to your principles, it doesn't make a difference how much time they have spent. Start with an errand based value model to perceive how this new organization is working for you. Bind your supplier's installment to unmistakably defined venture achievements that signal fruition of significant phases of the task. Timetable ordinary registration to survey their work. It's prescribed to follow through on 20-30% of the all out cost forthright, and the rest is granted after the errand fulfillment. 

When your temporary workers show the capacity to reliably convey results, you can begin transitioning to a fixed value model. There are as yet a lot of things to be mindful of. A fixed-cost retainer works better for completely defined fixed extension extends as opposed to new businesses. With a fixed value model, you give specs at the start, have a fixed task spending plan and pay precisely what is recorded. When you go into an agreement, any progressions are unwanted and disliked. New businesses, in any case, are unstable commonly. Tags: Best Outsourcing Companies In Dubai, Dubai Recruitment Agencies

[fortunesoft-it-innovations]

Transforming a monolithic architecture to a system of microservices is an epic task. The ones who intend to accomplish this have aspirations like expanding the size of operational activity, quickening the pace of progress, and reducing the significant expense of change. Organizations need to develop teams while empowering them to deliver value in parallel and independently of one another.

As monolithic frameworks become too huge to even think about dealing with, numerous organizations are attracted to breaking them down into the microservices architecture. To do this well, you have to begin with a simple approach. Later on, extract services that depend on vertical abilities that are essential to the business and subject to frequent change. These services/applications ought to be huge from the start and ideally not dependent upon the rest of the monolithic architecture. Make sure that each step of this transformation represents everything from the smallest improvement to the overall architecture.

When all perspectives are thought of and the estimation of the change is understood, it is recommended to prepare yourself for the microservice migration by aligning your requirements with the following questions:

1. What business functionality each microservice will deliver?

2. What will be the boundaries of individual microservice?

3. What data and schema are required for individual microservice?

4. How will the microservices communicate with each other?

5. Are you ready with a rollback plan?

Once you have sorted all the prerequisites and analysis,  head towards the transformation process to microservice with these 7 tips.

Identify potential effects

Try to see things from the customer point of view—whomever that customer may be. This sort of migration influences a major and probably significant application on which numerous individuals depend. Accordingly, you have to concentrate on their necessities, regardless of whether it means giving up a specific level of hypothetical architectural class.

External end users aren’t the main ones you’re writing code for. Think about the impact on internal clients. Concentrate on the external point of view of designers and the QA team. Those clients need to test and work with the components of the framework that, after the migration, are deployed on remote clusters. With the newly relocated architecture including more moving parts than the past monolithic architecture — and with innovation —the whole developer experience can change.

Start with a simple and fairly distributed approach

Beginning with a microservices architecture requires a minimum degree of operational availability. It requires on-demand access to the deployment environment, developing new sorts of delivery pipelines to separately build, test, and deliver executable services, and the skill to make secure, debug and screen a fairly distributed design.

The ideal approach for designers and operational teams is to develop the fundamental foundation, nonstop delivery pipelines, and the API management framework with the first and second support in case they collapse or develop a new one. Start with capacities that are reasonably distributed from the monolith, they don’t need changes to most of the customer-oriented applications that are using monolithic architecture and needn’t bother with that data storage. What the delivery teams are improving is actually validating their approaches, upskilling the colleagues, and building a base foundation expected to deliver freely deployable secure services.

Work from the “outside-in” approach

While you may think of totally breaking down a monolith into a simple mesh of individual microservices, that isn’t generally the case. Once in a while do we have the fortune to simply break applications down so simply and they run fine. Sometimes it’s exceptionally needed to gradually decompose chunks of a monolithic software application into independent microservices.

The key to a successful transformation from monolithic-to-microservices migration is to concentrate on the point of view of “outside in.” First, drive the fundamental steps of the migration from the viewpoint of the external client and related usefulness, as it’s a lot simpler to provide end-to-end value here. For instance, including a new satellite microservice that gives a spontaneous sign-up is significantly more than something like ‘extracts the client subsystems from the monolithic architecture altogether’. This methodology assists with abstaining from getting stuck with the technical parts of internal framework refactoring.

Choose the right coding languages

Monolithic applications are commonly based on a single language or platform, yet that is a bit much for a microservices-based architecture pattern—and once in a while it’s not even recommended. When breaking up a monolithic application, you don’t need to write the entirety of the component pieces in a similar coding language. With the cloud, you pick the best language for the application. For instance, suppose you’re changing over your outdated PHP/.NET application into AWS Lambda functions. While Lambda supports PHP, utilizing a language, for example, Python might be an ideal decision. Python was the first language written for Lambda. It has more code models, further documentation, and a bigger client base and Python is enjoyable to code with. The choice of language plays a significant role in the migration process.

Decompose features, not the Code

At whatever point developers need to extract a service out of a current framework, they have two approaches: separate code or rewrite a certain feature. Regularly the service extraction or monolith decomposition is thought of as an instance of reusing the current implementation with no guarantees and extracting it into different assistance. It makes the developers and especially technical managers dismiss the significant expense and low benefit of extracting and reusing the code. For instance, in the retail infrastructure, the ‘pricing and promotion’ feature is a complex bit of code. This feature is seemingly a decent contender for reuse and extraction.

Except if the feature is relevant, lined up with a clear domain concept, and has high intellectual property, we firmly suggest a rewrite and termination of the old code.

Go Macro First and then Micro

Finding the domain boundaries in a monolithic architecture is both an art and science. Generally, applying domain-driven design techniques to locate the limited settings defining microservices boundaries is a decent way to begin. Even though there are a few heuristics on how ‘micro’ ought to be the microservice: the size of the group, an opportunity to revamp the service, how much conduct it must symbolize, and so on.

The size relies upon what the number of services the delivery and operational groups can independently release, monitor, and develop. Start with bigger services around a sensible domain concept, and break down the service into various services when the teams are operationally prepared.

In some cases, rebuild than migrate

In some cases rebuilding, as opposed to migrating/transforming, is the best solution for understanding the maximum capacity in execution and speed gains. The attempt to relocate a portion of the current applications to microservices can sometimes be more likely to fit a square into a round hole. It is better to venture back and decide that rebuilding the present structure of each service was the best methodology. While it requires some investment forthright, the final result is clear of technical obligation, bringing down the expenses and sparing assets.

Post-transformation

So finally you have migrated your monolith to microservice by accommodating these 7 pro-tips in your transformation strategy. What’s next? Let’s check out!

Automation in microservices- The importance

Since microservice is all about a collection of smaller components, there is a need for automation in every activity such as builds, deployment, and testing. With automation, you can monitor more than one microservice at a time as per the need.

The build and deployment process can be automated with the help of CI/CD servers. This will result in faster product release cycles.

Various testing automation tools are used to enable automation in the backend testing process.

The automation of UI testing can be done with some popular tools like selenium, cucumber, etc.

Logging and tracing

There can be dozens of microservices or serverless functions within a certain application. Therefore, there will be a need for application logging to parse, partition, and analyze the logging details.

We have to make sure that the following aspects are addressed:

1. Collection of the produced logs by microservices

2. Aggregation of logs

3. Error alerts

Some of the popular tools like Prometheus are widely used for microservice monitoring and the way the metrics are collected and processed. The role of Prometheus is to aggregate metrics and store them in a data store. This stored data is further used for analysis. The data is used using interactive and visualization tools like Grafana.

Also, to support the operations team, support team, and developers to troubleshoot microservices during an unexpected behavior, ELK stack is used to analyze and aggregate the logs.

ConclusionTo make the best decision, we have to take a stab at making the atomic step as small as possible under the circumstances. It is essential to break down the dependency between these steps. Subsequently, it is recommended to begin with edge services when a monolithic application should be transformed into microservices architecture. We can securely stop, revive, and endure this long process. Overwhelming as this migration may appear, these tips can assist you with making the key steps.

[pursuitofdoctorate]

Cognitive Developmental Theory

Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences 

Scholar Howard Gardner of Harvard University questioned the dominance of intelligence as a single, in born capacity assessed by IQ tests. Instead, he raised the question of how the brain/mind evolved over the course of time to allow the species to survive. 

Gardner completed cross-cultural studies of those who are gifted, autistic, and savants, which resulted in his identification of 9 forms of intelligence: 

Linguistic (writing; language)

Logical-Mathematical (science; math)

Musical (composer; performer)

Spatial (sailor; architect)

Bodily-kinesthetic (athlete; dancer; surgeon)

Interpersonal (therapist; salesperson)

Intrapersonal (keen introspective skills)

Naturalist (recognize & classify patterns of the natural world)

Existential (spiritual world)

These types of intelligences are present in every culture and every individual is talented in some of these intelligences and may have little capacity in others. 

An application of Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences would be for educators to allow learner the opportunities to engage in material using one of the multiple intelligences. For example, in teaching math, learners can using their body to form different numbers (kinesthetic), write a song or poem to solve a problem (musical), or use play dough to create geometric angles (spatial). 

Using Multiple Intelligences learning choices make adult learners more confident about taking greater control of their own learning. 

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget laid the foundation for much of what we know about cognitive development. Piaget proposed four age related stages of cognitive development:

Infant (sensory-motor) 

2-7 years old (pre-operational stage)

7-11 years old (concrete operational stage)

12+ years old (formal operational stage)

He first thought the fourth stage was obtained between 11-13, but revised this saying the development of formal operational thought may occur up to the age of 20. 

If these four stages are thought of as playing with a pack of cards:

Infants would take hold of some cards and likely put them into their mouths

4 year olds would sort the cards into patterns such as kings, queens, jacks, etc.

10 year olds would play a simple card game 

Young adults could play a sophisticated card game like poker or bridge 

Piaget has been critiqued for the invariance of his model as well as lack of consideration for context, however, his theory did provide the foundation for work around cognitive development. 

A model which has been heavily influenced by Piaget is Perry’s stages of moral and ethical development which is most often associated with young adults. 

Perry’s Model of Intellectual Development

Source: https://www2.palomar.edu/pages/tjohnston2/files/2019/03/11-Perrys-Stages-of-Cognitive-Development.pdf

The model was developed in the 1960's by William Perry, an educational psychologist at Harvard, who observed that students varied considerably in their attitudes toward courses and instructors and their own roles in the learning process. 

The Perry model is a hierarchy of nine levels grouped into four categories: 

Dualism (Levels 1 and 2). Knowledge is black and white, every problem has one and only one correct solution, the authority (in school, the teacher) has all the solutions, and the job of the student is to memorize and repeat them. Dualists want facts and formulas and don't like theories or abstract models, open-ended questions, or active or cooperative learning ("I'm paying tuition for him to teach me, not to teach myself.") At Level 2, students begin to see that some questions may seem to have multiple answers but they still believe that one of them must be right.

Multiplicity (Levels 3 and 4). Some questions may not have answers now but the answers will eventually be known (Level 3) or responses to some (or most) questions may always remain matters of opinion (Level 4). Open-ended questions and cooperative learning are tolerated, but not if they have too much of an effect on grades. Students start using supporting evidence to resolve issues rather than relying completely on what authorities say, but they count preconceptions and prejudices as acceptable.

Relativism (Levels 5 and 6). Students in relativism see that knowledge and values depend on context and individual perspective rather than being externally and objectively based, as Level 1-4 students believe them to be. Using real evidence to reach and support conclusions becomes habitual and not just something professors want them to do. At Level 6, they begin to see the need for commitment to a course of action even in the absence of certainty, basing the commitment on critical evaluation rather than on external authority. 

Commitment within relativism (Levels 7-9). At the highest category of the Perry model, individuals start to make actual commitments in personal direction and values (Level 7), evaluate the consequences and implications of their commitments and attempt to resolve conflicts (Level 8), and finally acknowledge that the conflicts may never be fully resolved and come to terms with the continuing struggle (Level 9). These levels are rarely reached by college students. 

The key to helping students move up this developmental scale is to provide an appropriate balance of challenge and support, occasionally posing problems one or two levels above the students' current position.

Kegan’s Constructive Developmental Theory

Source: https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to-be-an-adult-kegans-theory-of-adult-development-d63f4311b553

Kegan, a former Harvard psychologist, shows that adults go through 5 distinct developmental stages.

Stage 1 — Impulsive mind (early childhood)

Stage 2 — Imperial mind (adolescence, 6% of the adult population)

Stage 2 individuals view people as a means to get their own needs met, as opposed to a shared internal experience (how we feel about each other). They care about how others perceive them, but only because those perceptions may have concrete consequences for them. For example, when Stage 2 friends do not lie to each other, it is because of a fear of the consequences or retaliation, not because they value honesty and transparency in a relationship. Moreover, individuals follow along with rules, philosophies, movements or ideologies because of external rewards or punishments, not because they truly believe in them. For example, a person in Stage 2 won’t cheat because they’re scared of the consequences, not because it goes against their personal values.

Stage 3 — Socialized mind (58% of the adult population)

In Stage 3, external sources shape our sense of self and understanding of the world. In Stage 3, the most important things are the ideas, norms and beliefs of the people and systems around us (i.e. family, society, ideology, culture, etc. ). For the first time we begin to experience ourselves as a function of how others experience us. For example, we take an external view of our ourselves (“They’ll think I look stupid”) and make it part of our internal experience (“I am stupid”). 

Stage 4 — Self-Authoring mind (35% of the adult population)

In Stage 4, we can define who we are, and not be defined by other people, our relationships or the environment. We understand that we are a person, with thoughts, feelings and beliefs that are independent from the standards and expectations of our environment. We can now distinguish the opinions of others from our own opinions to formulate our own “seat of judgment”. We become consumed with who we are — this is the kind of person I am, this is what I stand for. We develop an internal sense of direction and the capacity to create and follow our own course. 

Stage 5 — Self-Transforming mind (1% of the adult population)

In Stage 5 one’s sense of self is not tied to particular identities or roles, but is constantly created through the exploration of one’s identities and roles and further honed through interactions with others. We see the complexities of life, can expand who we are and be open to other possibilities — we are reinventing our identity. We understand the intersectionality of multiple identities. 

Most adults (65%) never make it past stage 3 to become high functioning adults. 

Drago-Severson’s Four Ways of Knowing

Source: https://learnertoolbox.com/2015/04/23/professional-development-and-ways-of-knowing/

Drago-Severson (2009) cites Kegan’s work on developmental stages of adult development, suggesting that adults have stages of development directly influence how they learn and engage. Unlike Kegan, Drago-Severson views development as cyclicar and not simply linear. 

Instrumental learning - Concrete tasks that are personally relevant require adults to work at instrumental levels. Learning a new subject guide, for instance, is a necessary concrete task. Instrumental learners appreciate guidance in knowing how to apply the principles in a subject guide to their own classroom.

Socializing learners - Collaborative planning and reflection is a social task. Perhaps collaborative planning, for instance on interdisciplinary units and subject overviews help social learners to feel psychologically safe that all in the group are tuned in to the same task with similar goals.

Self-authoring learners - Self-authoring individuals appreciate clear vision underlining tasks. They appreciate opportunities to evaluate for themselves (self-reflection) what they might learn from collaborative situations. They might seek to augment and enhance their own learning through self-chosen PLNs and focus groups.

Self-transformational learners - Transformational learners have the ability to tolerate ambiguity during times systems are incomplete or in progress. They see connections between systems in place to abstractions, paradoxes, and changing continuums. 

In this model, feedback plays a critical role. Additionally, learners need a holding environment to move through the various stages. 

Women’s Ways of Knowing

Source: https://www2.palomar.edu/pages/tjohnston2/files/2019/03/11-Perrys-Stages-of-Cognitive-Development.pdf

The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind “All women grow up having to deal with historically and culturally engrained definitions of femininity and womanhood…” (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1986). A woman does not think or reason like a man nor does she look at those in authority the same way due to her experiences and interactions with parents, culture, and her economic situation. The parental aspect is complex, leading into religious and moral issues along with physical, sexual, and mental abuse. Belenky et al. (1986) conducted a project in the late 1970’s based on the study and analysis of topics and aspects unique to women revealing a model of intellectual development. Overview of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule Model:

Silence: A woman of silence is totally dependent on those in authority, not questioning or voicing an opinion (Belenky et al., 1986). Expressing her personal thoughts is very difficult as she lives in the present and normally speaks of specific concrete behaviors. A woman of silence usually has experienced physical, mental, or sexual abuse and feels that she is to be seen and not heard. If she should voice her opinion or ask a question, punishment is the most likely result. A woman of silence views decisions as either right or wrong with no room for reasoning. 

Received Knowledge: Belenky et al. (1986) places a woman at the receiving knowledge level if she is listening but does not have the confidence to voice her opinion. As the receiver she will listen and pass knowledge on to others, shaping her thoughts to match those in authority. When asked about herself, the receiver of knowledge will reply with what other individuals have stated, unable to voice her feelings. Abuse is still prevalent in the life of a woman receiving knowledge. 

Subjective Knowledge: About half of those participating in the project were at the subjective knowledge level (Belenky et al., 1986). Something usually happens in a woman’s life to encourage her to go from a receiver of knowledge to progress to the level of subjectivity. The woman begins to accept that she has a voice, “an inner source of strength” lying within herself, and an opinion that is due to past experiences. She recognizes that she does not have to agree with the authority but is still cautious about voicing opinions. Truth is experienced within oneself but not acted upon for fear of jeopardizing the associations one has with others at the same level. 

Procedural Knowledge: Belenky et al. (1986) describes procedural knowledge as divided into two areas, separate and connected knowing. A woman in either area realizes that she has voice, is still cautious of others and their actions, however now she is not threatened and is more willing to listen to what is being said. A separatist will not project her feelings into a situation and is able to speak taking on the requested view. A connected knower empathizes with others and feels it is her responsibility to help them understand their situation so they might make the best decision. 

Constructed Knowledge: A constructivist realizes that one must speak, listen, share ideas, explore, and question, analyzing who, why, and how (Belenky et al., 1986). Speaking and listening does not remain within oneself but includes speaking and listening to others at the same time. She wants a better quality of life for herself and for others.

[nullset2]

14 Principles to Develop Scalable Systems for the Internet

Hello! Have you ever wanted to "level up" in technology? Do you want to know how to solve problems at Planet-scale? Do you want to learn the "secret sauce" to develop a truly mature system that can power the crazy next big thing(tm) that you want to get on the Internet?

Well, enter the field of System Scalability, a field that I'm more than glad to talk about and share intricacies of with you.

I learned Scalability, so you don't have to :)

Scalability is the general idea that refers to whether systems, processes, tools, etc... whatever "artifact" you need to use, accomodate for bigger sizes of input. For example, it is certainly agreed upon that a scalpel is a fantastic tool to make precision cuts, but it doesn't scale to cutting down trees. This is what I mean by scalability.

Do you want to make a team of engineers go nuts? Get them in a meeting room, and ask them: "does your system scale?", which is commonly a valid question, and they will start debating nonstop that very moment, like mad.

But I digress.

If your web application or system works fine when you're serving 10 people, but it breaks when 1000 or 10,000 people try to use it at the same time, then you have poor scalability. And on the contrary, if you're a badass of engineering and you make it so your system is ultra-capable to handle massive amounts of traffic, like what people would do for massive, always-on commercial sites, then you have great scalability. Capice?.

A lot is said about scalability in tech these days, with fair reason, given how so much of what happens in society these days is so intrinsically connected to the Internet now. Developing a system which scales massively is of the essence.

Technologists: we need you. We need more people to come into the field. Are you up to it?

The following is a compendium of "rules of thumb" that you can use to architect your systems in a more scalable, robust, resilient, and fault-resistant way.

This is not an authoritative, end-all be-all list of principles for scalability: scalability is a never-ending discussion that will apply to your particular app in a different way. But at least, I'm proud to say that all of this comes from experience and war wounds, and that it's stuff that I've relied on for the past several years in my day to day.

Let's begin!

1. Know your scalabilities

There's two kinds of scalability, vertical and horizontal. Both refer to the same central concept but they go about it in different ways:

Vertical Scalability

Vertical scalability means that you achieve greater levels of scalability by "beefing up" whatever infrastructure you're running your system on.

Can you add more storage, a faster CPU, more primary memory? Does your system accomodate for scale better this way?

Bear in mind that vertical scalability is not always viable. Sure, you may be able to to add a faster CPU to your web server to alleviate your problems, or more RAM, or more Hard Disk space, but should you?. Can you afford to take your site down to change its components? You probably can't. Is throwing more money, in the sense of getting better components for your web server, really the answer? Not always.

Besides, tracking back to the previous example about CPU speed, you can only get so fast. Moore's law is a thing for a reason. Know the limits involved in vertical scalability.

So, in some cases you will be better served by horizontal scalability. Distribute things!!!

Horizontal Scalability

Horizontal scalability means that you accomodate for scale by running computing tasks across several multiple machines interconnected through the network.

Horizontal scalability is what everybody does in the industry now to get systems off the ground, and the main driving force behind the Cloud.

Horizontal scalability will usually involve the implementation of a message broker/message bus, and a load-balancing mechanism to coordinate and even out the load across multiple hosts. Many different implementations of this exist out there on the market, with many different algorithms but as long as the main principles remain, where you take your workloads and spread them out across several hosts, you will be fine.

2. Use the right algorithms, and know your complexities

Big-O analysis is a really intricate field in Computer Science concerned with determining how your system's Memory or Computing Time requirements scale depending on the size of your input. This is intrinsically related to the idea of Scalability.

Big-O analysis thus represents the CPU time and memory requirements of a system as a mathematical function of the size of the input, and if you harken back a bit to your high-school algebra, you'll remember how different mathematical functions can be graphed:

Not all computer algorithms are made equal: different approaches have different complexities. There are many ways to get to Rome, of course: you can certainly solve a computing problem many different ways, but is your solution efficient for massive inputs? Does the time or memory needed to run your function upshoot to infinite if your input shoots up to infinite? Can you be asymptotically bounded? Can you trade-off time for memory or vice-versa? These and many more are questions that you have to answer if you want your system to be scalable.

So, preferably, avoid coding your systems with algorithms which run in exponential or worse computing time. Prefer logarithmic or constant time.

3. Use the right data structures

Data structures are also very important when designing systems. Different data structures have different requirements in terms of time and memory for certain applications. Modeling your data with a certain data structure can make or break your scalability, so you really need to research and take all considerations into account when designing systems.

This point is very intimately related to the previous point.

As a rule of thumb here I recommend to aggresively use hashmaps whenever possible since it DOES help a lot. Hashmaps are a kickass data structure that flattens out runtime complexity to access a certain piece of information in a logical mapping of a set of information through the usage of a key which maps to the location of the information in memory. Most information in Existence can be modelled with hashmaps. With certain caveats, hashmaps can be arbitrarily large and allow to access a piece of information of any type in a computer system in constant time.

4. Know your concurrency

By nature, some computing problems lend themselves to being approached from a concurrent point of view, which we can call "embarassingly concurrent problems". If your problem can be solved faster through implementation of multiple threads of processing, take this avenue. But be aware that concurrency also brings its own share of problems, particularly in terms of whether you have multiple threads acting on shared mutable state, or any other side effects that a given thread may have (which as a general rule of thumb you should avoid as much as possible if you're sticking to functional programming form). Use this resource wisely: concurrency should not be applied to everything just because.

Some programming languages attempt to make concurrency easier by treating it as more of a first-class citizen, pairing it together with mechanisms that avoid shared mutable state among other niceties. Most, if not all, commercial Functional Programming languages fall here, so Scala, Clojure and Elixir, for example, are worth a look. The promise/callback model seen in all ECMA/Javascript implementations, and the Future model, which is available in pretty much every programming language these days, are also very cool, since they abstract away a lot of the nitty gritty of concurrency so you don't have to.

Follow the Reactive school of thought when architecting your systems. Bear in mind that distributed systems can have faulty network conditions, among a plethora of factors which can make intercommunication between systems or components very spotty. The Reactive pattern will be of great usage to avoid headaches down the line here, and I recommend getting familiar with the Reactive manifesto for context too: https://www.reactivemanifesto.org/

Again, it makes sense to apply concurrency to solve a given problem when you would rather not block the current thread. For example, if your system has an expensive database transaction, or a some kind of notification or email sending, you should run it concurrently and not make the current thread remain blocked during the expensive task. Which leads me to the next point:

5. Use the Pub/Sub pattern

A rule of thumb about highly scalable systems is that your system should run tasks based on message passing, placing messages into a message queue where other components of your system read from at their leisure. If you leverage the publisher/subscriber pattern for this, you've won half the battle. Tasks such as the expensive examples mentioned above, like notification sending or email sending, lend themselves well for Publisher/Subscriber.

There's a lot of ridiculously simple alternatives in the market here to implement the Pub/Sub pattern for your systems, particularly managed systems. A common one which you probably already know about is AWS SNS and SQS, both of which work in tandem beautifully out of the box to enable publisher/subscriber patterns. Leverage this as much as possible.

But SNS and SQS are not the only versions of this available out there. Some very popular alternatives are Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ and Google Cloud Pub/Sub.

6. IO is expensive so avoid it if possible

Writing or reading information to or from disk is expensive because there's way too many moving pieces involved in it. If possible, avoid reading or writing to disk. Go stateless. This includes file operations, database transactions, and anything of the sort. Every read or write involves a round trip, over the network and/or to disk, which is usually not too bad but can be cumbersome if dealing with tons of load. Minimize how many times your system has to make this round trip.

Of course you will need to store information about your users at a certain point though, so IO is in a way, unavoidable. If possible, leverage a managed service so you offload IO. Not to mention that data lifecycle management can be quite the pain! Lots of managed services solve the problem of lifecycle management so you don't have to.

7. Denormalize and cache if memory is cheap

However, do not consider IO to be the devil! Cache information that's not volatile aggresively if this saves you round trips to the database or disk!. In relational database terms, even though you're not completely being ACID, having duplicate/de-normalized information in a database helps if it means, for example, avoiding a database join or some other kind of database operation.

Cache management, again, also comes with its own share of Pains in the A, but if you're dealing with information that's not sensitive, I reccomend it.

8. Loose Coupling is awesome

Design all of your systems so their components are not tightly bound and can be swapped out easily and cleanly, if desired. By tightly bound, what I mean is whether your system's components depend directly on the implementation of each other rather than on a cleanly abstracted interface. Good programming practice and modular design is of the essence here: Always code to the Interface and prefer Composition over Inheritance. Use shared executables and libraries. If one of these components is a bottleneck (spoilers: this will happen, whether you want it or not) and you eventually find a better one, make it easy for you to make the switch.

9. Can you containerize?

Last decade, the tech world bore witness to the rise of a huge amount of virtualization technologies that made computing a truly elastic/on-demand resource to consume. Among them, a personal favorite of mine and one that is making a big splash is the use of lightweight virtualization, aka "containers"/jails.

Many operating systems available in the market have their own version of containerization implemented in their kernel; however, Debian and RHEL-like linuxes have dominated the field for the past several years.

It is possible to set up containers to spawn or die out depending on the amount of traffic that your system is receiving in a very sophisticated way. Learn the intricacies of these kinds of implementations and leverage them.

10. Can you go serverless?

Containerization capabilities like the ones I mentioned before have allowed new services and abstractions to come up in the market to make your life easier as a developer. One of them of particular importance is the rise of "functions-as-a-service", which provide a way to run application code without having to maintain an application server running.

The nice thing about the functions-as-a-service paradigm is that it removes tons of moving pieces from the whole equation and by nature scales with your traffic, but this is pretty bleeding edge territory and it doesn't necessarily fit everybody's use cases. Be careful if you decide to go this way.

11. Split functionalities between microservices

Service-driven architecture has a wide variety of tenets, among which I should highlight the Microservice orientation.

In my opinon, unless you're a humongous enterprise that needs to deploy systems for world-scale, you usually don't need microservices and you will be better served by a well-written, clean monolith. But we want to learn about world-scale, right? That's why you came here in the first place ;)

Think about the workloads that you're running in your system. If you expose an API, are some of your endpoints receiving substantially more traffic than others?

You may want to abstract the code that serves such endpoints onto a new microservice of its own, and apply all of the scalability principles discussed above to it. A very common use case is authentication and authorization. Do you need to implement a system of its own for authentication because you could use horizontal scaling to make it work better with traffic spikes? Maybe your system needs a search engine for some reason, can you implement the search engine as a separated system and scale it up?

There's a lot of nuance and a lot of give and take in this regard, so exercise caution. Again, not everybody should do microservices, but a lot of times, it truly is the answer to a lot of issues when you're trying to scale your system up.

12. Regionalize, failover and implement redundancy.

The Cloud has made a made a massive amount of computing resources available to engineers worldwide at the push of a button. Getting a cheap and fast web server wherever in the world is as simple as an API call, with a lot of guarantees behind it about geographic location and avialability.

So, be liberal with your compute. Deploy your application with redundancy. Have as much capacity running your application as possible and load-balance and failover as needed. This adds resillience to your systems, and makes them more reliable. Remember that this is a part of scalability, what happens if you lose your system in a certain location? Have you prepared for that?

I reccomend an approach, as in, run your application in at least three different geographical regions, in at least two availability zones per region. Availability zones are concepts specific to the Cloud, which are datacenters that are logically isolated so if one goes down, all others in the region never go down.

And in the very rare case that all availability zones go down at the same time, which is already statistically unlikely to begin with, then running your application in another region will come in handy. There's failover mechanisms to set up your clients such that they can use an auxiliary region in case that the server they're trying to consume from goes down.

If your application is globally consumed, deploy to all possible regions as you can in the Cloud such that your customers can reach the closest datacenter possible. Don't run all of your system in a couple sole regions.

Also run your system on-premise alongside the cloud for added redundancy if this is a possibility. Sometimes... going back to basics is good :)

13. What you don't measure you can't improve: Observability is King

You should be smart about what's happening with your system. What if a part of your system is terribly slow but you're not tracing it? How can you know exactly what to improve for better scale, if you don't even have any data to begin with?.

Define KPIs as needed for your system and implement monitoring solutions to track them over time. One that is very popular and that fits very well with the AWS ecosystem is AWS Cloudwatch, which has a lot of pre-baked metrics for its native systems that you can use to inspect how your system runs.

You probably also want to trace the lifetime of a request of one of your customers to know what happens to them as you go along. Implement tracing with tools such as Envoy, which is very popular in the tech world at large, and learn to use them to your advantage for this.

14. And finally... can you not develop a system to begin with? :)

And... I'd like to conclude this article with a little bit of wisdom.

When you start in the field you're usually very excited about developing your own systems. You love programming, you love coding and testing and all of that good stuff, and you love to see your customers enjoy using your system. Life is good.

Imagine that you have a new stakeholder with a certain need and you have to satisfy it. For the sake of an example, let's say that your customer is a merchant, who wants to sell their wares to a wide variety of customers. They handle production and distribution, you just need to handle the information worldwide.

Then you start developing a web application. You already have ideas in your mind about what to develop the very moment you learned about your client. You love jumping in with other developers and discussing programming paradigms and design patterns. You bring out the newest thingamajig in the industry and you use the newest, flashiest, most cutting edge programming languages. You keep going down the rabbit hole, more and more and more. You rack up your cloud bill, and then some, and then some, and then some...

You love to produce a lot of code, fast, because you're a good developer and you're smart and you love your craft. You love to, figuratively, watch your system stand and you hit it with a loud thud and, since it's enterprisey and highly scalable and all, it makes big, bad ass loud clanks every time you do so. You are proud of yourself. You puff up your chest and you pat your colleagues in the back. Life is good.

Eventually, your system has so many little crevices and so much complexity that it becomes a burden to deal with. You need staff to maintain it. You need staff to keep it running. Things constantly break down and it becomes a whole bunch of upkeep. The customer wants changes because... well, the customer will always need changes, and making changes is a pain. Or maybe you didn't understand the specifications to begin with and your customer is making do. Or maybe you made things "your way" and it's not the way that the customer wanted things done. It's a problem of misconception now.

Then some members of your team start re-designing and re-architecting and re-factoring your system, and now you're stuck in this hellish thing that you didn't mean to get stuck in.

Remember: you were only trying to satisfy a stakeholder's needs. You were only solving a problem.

...

And what about this: what if, all along, your customer sold, let's say, tacos? What if you just set up a shopify account for them instead of baking your own system, for example? What if they didn't need software to begin with, they may just need a Google Docs file and a Simple Static Website?

What if that gave them what they needed rather than what you wanted to do, to begin with?

...

Very broad example, I know, but I think it still conveys the point: avoid falling into the trap of doing tech for the sake of doing tech. Be clever. Be critical. Solve problems rather than coding software to fill the hours in your day. Understand people, understand the customers that you work for, and understand what really is needed in your industry. You'll be amazed at how simply some problems can be solved.

Thanks for reading. If you have any comments, feel free to shoot me a line, and we'll continue this conversation.

[constructionaccounting]

0346: Common Bookkeeping Pitfalls And The Value Of Outsourced Accounting

This Podcast Is Episode Number 0346, And It's About Common Bookkeeping Pitfalls And The Value Of Outsourced Accounting

Although most construction company owners recognize the importance of careful financial management, few want to spend their time dealing with numbers. Unfortunately, not keeping a close eye on your income and expenses can be very costly for a business.

  Here are five of the most common bookkeeping pitfalls, and some simple tips for getting back on track.

1. Mixing business and personal

All too often, contractors adapt a "buy now, sort later" approach to expenses, using the same credit card for personal and professional purchases. At the end of the month, they're left poring over statements, trying to sort things out. Mixing business and personal expenses cost extra hours of bookkeeping each month and muddles your overall financial picture.

Avoid this pitfall by using a separate credit card and bank account for business, and being disciplined about separating expenditures.

2. Neglecting to track reimbursable expenses

Receipt-tracking is a necessary part of business ownership. You need to keep track of receipts to understand spending patterns and effectively manage your company's finances. And if you want to claim deductions at tax time, you'll need to submit receipts along with your tax return. 

But far too many business owners take a haphazard approach to collecting and organizing receipts—especially while on-the-go, where a whopping 50% of their expenses are generated. Get the deductions you deserve and simplify tax prep by using an expense-tracking app.

We have a directory of additional resources of apps and software for contractors that can record mileage, billable hours, and other expenditures, as well as generate expense reports. Plus, many of these apps sync seamlessly with your business bank account and accounting software.

3. Not taking advantage of technology

Are you still relying on manual accounting methods? While basic spreadsheet tools can get the job done, they leave the door wide open for human error. Mortgage loan giant, Fannie Mae, once uncovered a $1.1 billion error on their Excel spreadsheet, citing "honest mistake" as the cause.

What's more, manual methods can't match the technological benefits offered by software like QuickBooks or Xero. These systems track invoicing, link with your credit card and business account, organize expenses, and generate insightful financial reports.

4. Not keeping accounts up to date

Let's be frank. Most construction business owners don't look forward to that weekly appointment with "the books." Many entrepreneurs cite bookkeeping as their most dreaded responsibility and will find a host of reasons to avoid it.

5. Doing it all yourself

It is entirely understandable for budget-conscious entrepreneurs to try to cut costs by handling bookkeeping on their own. However, taking advantage of professional help—even on a part-time basis—can generate substantial savings of time and money over the long term.

"Outsource your weaknesses." So says start-up guru, Sujan Patel, when advising small business owners to get outside help for tasks like payroll and bookkeeping. And when you consider that 70% of businesses fail due to poor in-house financial management, Patel's advice seems spot on.

Unfortunately, many small business owners seek to keep costs low by doing everything themselves— unwittingly sabotaging the financial stability of their own company. If numbers aren't your strength and you would instead focus on building your business, it's time to hire a bookkeeper. 

Here are four ways to ensure that you find the right fit.

Choose a bookkeeper with experience in your industry.

The nuances of bookkeeping vary from one corner of the market to another. When assessing candidates, it's important to look not only at total years of experience but also at the relevance of that experience. As an example, your business is in construction and home service repair and maintenance, a bookkeeper who has primarily worked in the retail industry won't have the insights into your industry that can add value to your work together. 

Look for membership in a professional association.

In addition to a degree or diploma from a recognized institution, your bookkeeping candidate should belong to a professional bookkeeper association. Most associations test applicants to verify their technical skills and theoretical knowledge to protect and further industry standards. 

Many associations require members to earn a credential, prove a high standard of proficiency, and continue to improve their skills through ongoing professional development. 

Put a high premium on communication skills.

Construction business owners must have open, effective communication with their bookkeeper. You will need to sit together each month to review key financial reports, such as the profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. A competent bookkeeper should be adept at explaining and breaking down complex accounting concepts in accessible ways, so you always have a clear understanding of your financial position.

During the initial process, ask them to explain a few key concepts, like gross and net profit, job costing, or deferral transactions. Strong communicators can make the abstract easily digestible –precisely what you need in a prospective bookkeeper.

Evaluate honesty and reliability

When you hire someone to look after your books, you place a considerable amount of trust in their integrity and trustworthiness. But how does one evaluate these character traits during a consultation?

The best approach is to ask open-ended questions that get them talking about the ethical challenges they've faced in the workplace, such as:

Tell me about a time when you committed an error. How did you handle the situation, and what did you learn from it?

How would you respond to uncovering an unethical or fraudulent accounting practice in the workplace?

Final thoughts

The bottom line is that outsourcing a bookkeeper is about much more than finding an able number-cruncher. The person (or company) you choose will be an integral part of your business success. Having the right bookkeeper for your Construction Company is the key to saving time, money, and energy that is better spent on more valuable opportunities. Look holistically at their technical skills and character to find your ideal match, and you'll gain a valuable professional ally for years to come. 

About The Author:

Sharie DeHart, QPA is the co-founder of Business Consulting And Accounting in Lynnwood, Washington. She is the leading expert in managing outsourced construction bookkeeping and accounting services companies and cash management accounting for small construction companies across the USA. She encourages Contractors and Construction Company Owners to stay current on their tax obligations and offers insights on how to manage the remaining cash flow to operate and grow their construction company sales and profits so they can put more money in the bank. Call 1-800-361-1770 or sharie@fasteasyaccounting.com

Check out this episode about Contractors Marketing - Accounting - Production (M.A.P.)!

[suzanneshannon]

Request with Intent: Caching Strategies in the Age of PWAs

Once upon a time, we relied on browsers to handle caching for us; as developers in those days, we had very little control. But then came Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), Service Workers, and the Cache API—and suddenly we have expansive power over what gets put in the cache and how it gets put there. We can now cache everything we want to… and therein lies a potential problem.

Media files—especially images—make up the bulk of average page weight these days, and it’s getting worse. In order to improve performance, it’s tempting to cache as much of this content as possible, but should we? In most cases, no. Even with all this newfangled technology at our fingertips, great performance still hinges on a simple rule: request only what you need and make each request as small as possible.

To provide the best possible experience for our users without abusing their network connection or their hard drive, it’s time to put a spin on some classic best practices, experiment with media caching strategies, and play around with a few Cache API tricks that Service Workers have hidden up their sleeves.

Best intentions

All those lessons we learned optimizing web pages for dial-up became super-useful again when mobile took off, and they continue to be applicable in the work we do for a global audience today. Unreliable or high latency network connections are still the norm in many parts of the world, reminding us that it’s never safe to assume a technical baseline lifts evenly or in sync with its corresponding cutting edge. And that’s the thing about performance best practices: history has borne out that approaches that are good for performance now will continue being good for performance in the future.

Before the advent of Service Workers, we could provide some instructions to browsers with respect to how long they should cache a particular resource, but that was about it. Documents and assets downloaded to a user’s machine would be dropped into a directory on their hard drive. When the browser assembled a request for a particular document or asset, it would peek in the cache first to see if it already had what it needed to possibly avoid hitting the network.

We have considerably more control over network requests and the cache these days, but that doesn’t excuse us from being thoughtful about the resources on our web pages.

Request only what you need

As I mentioned, the web today is lousy with media. Images and videos have become a dominant means of communication. They may convert well when it comes to sales and marketing, but they are hardly performant when it comes to download and rendering speed. With this in mind, each and every image (and video, etc.) should have to fight for its place on the page. 

A few years back, a recipe of mine was included in a newspaper story on cooking with spirits (alcohol, not ghosts). I don’t subscribe to the print version of that paper, so when the article came out I went to the site to take a look at how it turned out. During a recent redesign, the site had decided to load all articles into a nearly full-screen modal viewbox layered on top of their homepage. This meant requesting the article required requests for all of the assets associated with the article page plus all the contents and assets for the homepage. Oh, and the homepage had video ads—plural. And, yes, they auto-played.

I popped open DevTools and discovered the page had blown past 15 MB in page weight. Tim Kadlec had recently launched What Does My Site Cost?, so I decided to check out the damage. Turns out that the actual cost to view that page for the average US-based user was more than the cost of the print version of that day’s newspaper. That’s just messed up.

Sure, I could blame the folks who built the site for doing their readers such a disservice, but the reality is that none of us go to work with the goal of worsening our users’ experiences. This could happen to any of us. We could spend days scrutinizing the performance of a page only to have some committee decide to set that carefully crafted page atop a Times Square of auto-playing video ads. Imagine how much worse things would be if we were stacking two abysmally-performing pages on top of each other!

Media can be great for drawing attention when competition is high (e.g., on the homepage of a newspaper), but when you want readers to focus on a single task (e.g., reading the actual article), its value can drop from important to “nice to have.” Yes, studies have shown that images excel at drawing eyeballs, but once a visitor is on the article page, no one cares; we’re just making it take longer to download and more expensive to access. The situation only gets worse as we shove more media into the page. 

We must do everything in our power to reduce the weight of our pages, so avoid requests for things that don’t add value. For starters, if you’re writing an article about a data breach, resist the urge to include that ridiculous stock photo of some random dude in a hoodie typing on a computer in a very dark room.

Request the smallest file you can

Now that we’ve taken stock of what we do need to include, we must ask ourselves a critical question: How can we deliver it in the fastest way possible? This can be as simple as choosing the most appropriate image format for the content presented (and optimizing the heck out of it) or as complex as recreating assets entirely (for example, if switching from raster to vector imagery would be more efficient).

Offer alternate formats

When it comes to image formats, we don’t have to choose between performance and reach anymore. We can provide multiple options and let the browser decide which one to use, based on what it can handle.

You can accomplish this by offering multiple sources within a picture or video element. Start by creating multiple formats of the media asset. For example, with WebP and JPG, it’s likely that the WebP will have a smaller file size than the JPG (but check to make sure). With those alternate sources, you can drop them into a picture like this:

<picture> <source srcset="my.webp" type="image/webp"> <img src="my.jpg" alt="Descriptive text about the picture."> </picture>

Browsers that recognize the picture element will check the source element before making a decision about which image to request. If the browser supports the MIME type “image/webp,” it will kick off a request for the WebP format image. If not (or if the browser doesn’t recognize picture), it will request the JPG. 

The nice thing about this approach is that you’re serving the smallest image possible to the user without having to resort to any sort of JavaScript hackery.

You can take the same approach with video files:

<video controls> <source src="my.webm" type="video/webm"> <source src="my.mp4" type="video/mp4"> <p>Your browser doesn’t support native video playback, but you can <a href="my.mp4" download>download</a> this video instead.</p> </video>

Browsers that support WebM will request the first source, whereas browsers that don’t—but do understand MP4 videos—will request the second one. Browsers that don’t support the video element will fall back to the paragraph about downloading the file.

The order of your source elements matters. Browsers will choose the first usable source, so if you specify an optimized alternative format after a more widely compatible one, the alternative format may never get picked up.  

Depending on your situation, you might consider bypassing this markup-based approach and handle things on the server instead. For example, if a JPG is being requested and the browser supports WebP (which is indicated in the Accept header), there’s nothing stopping you from replying with a WebP version of the resource. In fact, some CDN services—Cloudinary, for instance—come with this sort of functionality right out of the box.

Offer different sizes

Formats aside, you may want to deliver alternate image sizes optimized for the current size of the browser’s viewport. After all, there’s no point loading an image that’s 3–4 times larger than the screen rendering it; that’s just wasting bandwidth. This is where responsive images come in.

Here’s an example:

<img src="medium.jpg" srcset="small.jpg 256w, medium.jpg 512w, large.jpg 1024w" sizes="(min-width: 30em) 30em, 100vw" alt="Descriptive text about the picture.">

There’s a lot going on in this super-charged img element, so I’ll break it down:

This img offers three size options for a given JPG: 256 px wide (small.jpg), 512 px wide (medium.jpg), and 1024 px wide (large.jpg). These are provided in the srcset attribute with corresponding width descriptors.

The src defines a default image source, which acts as a fallback for browsers that don’t support srcset. Your choice for the default image will likely depend on the context and general usage patterns. Often I’d recommend the smallest image be the default, but if the majority of your traffic is on older desktop browsers, you might want to go with the medium-sized image.

The sizes attribute is a presentational hint that informs the browser how the image will be rendered in different scenarios (its extrinsic size) once CSS has been applied. This particular example says that the image will be the full width of the viewport (100vw) until the viewport reaches 30 em in width (min-width: 30em), at which point the image will be 30 em wide. You can make the sizes value as complicated or as simple as you want; omitting it causes browsers to use the default value of 100vw.

You can even combine this approach with alternate formats and crops within a single picture. 🤯

All of this is to say that you have a number of tools at your disposal for delivering fast-loading media, so use them!

Defer requests (when possible)

Years ago, Internet Explorer 11 introduced a new attribute that enabled developers to de-prioritize specific img elements to speed up page rendering: lazyload. That attribute never went anywhere, standards-wise, but it was a solid attempt to defer image loading until images are in view (or close to it) without having to involve JavaScript.

There have been countless JavaScript-based implementations of lazy loading images since then, but recently Google also took a stab at a more declarative approach, using a different attribute: loading.

The loading attribute supports three values (“auto,” “lazy,” and “eager”) to define how a resource should be brought in. For our purposes, the “lazy” value is the most interesting because it defers loading the resource until it reaches a calculated distance from the viewport.

Adding that into the mix…

<img src="medium.jpg" srcset="small.jpg 256w, medium.jpg 512w, large.jpg 1024w" sizes="(min-width: 30em) 30em, 100vw" loading="lazy" alt="Descriptive text about the picture.">

This attribute offers a bit of a performance boost in Chromium-based browsers. Hopefully it will become a standard and get picked up by other browsers in the future, but in the meantime there’s no harm in including it because browsers that don’t understand the attribute will simply ignore it.

This approach complements a media prioritization strategy really well, but before I get to that, I want to take a closer look at Service Workers.

Manipulate requests in a Service Worker

Service Workers are a special type of Web Worker with the ability to intercept, modify, and respond to all network requests via the Fetch API. They also have access to the Cache API, as well as other asynchronous client-side data stores like IndexedDB for resource storage.

When a Service Worker is installed, you can hook into that event and prime the cache with resources you want to use later. Many folks use this opportunity to squirrel away copies of global assets, including styles, scripts, logos, and the like, but you can also use it to cache images for use when network requests fail.

Keep a fallback image in your back pocket

Assuming you want to use a fallback in more than one networking recipe, you can set up a named function that will respond with that resource:

function respondWithFallbackImage() { return caches.match( "/i/fallbacks/offline.svg" ); }

Then, within a fetch event handler, you can use that function to provide that fallback image when requests for images fail at the network:

self.addEventListener( "fetch", event => { const request = event.request; if ( request.headers.get("Accept").includes("image") ) { event.respondWith( return fetch( request, { mode: 'no-cors' } ) .then( response => { return response; }) .catch( respondWithFallbackImage ); ); } });

When the network is available, users get the expected behavior:

Social media avatars are rendered as expected when the network is available.

But when the network is interrupted, images will be swapped automatically for a fallback, and the user experience is still acceptable:

A generic fallback avatar is rendered when the network is unavailable.

On the surface, this approach may not seem all that helpful in terms of performance since you’ve essentially added an additional image download into the mix. With this system in place, however, some pretty amazing opportunities open up to you.

Respect a user’s choice to save data

Some users reduce their data consumption by entering a “lite” mode or turning on a “data saver” feature. When this happens, browsers will often send a Save-Data header with their network requests. 

Within your Service Worker, you can look for this header and adjust your responses accordingly. First, you look for the header:

let save_data = false; if ( 'connection' in navigator ) { save_data = navigator.connection.saveData; }

Then, within your fetch handler for images, you might choose to preemptively respond with the fallback image instead of going to the network at all:

self.addEventListener( "fetch", event => { const request = event.request; if ( request.headers.get("Accept").includes("image") ) { event.respondWith( if ( save_data ) { return respondWithFallbackImage(); } // code you saw previously ); } });

You could even take this a step further and tune respondWithFallbackImage() to provide alternate images based on what the original request was for. To do that you’d define several fallbacks globally in the Service Worker:

const fallback_avatar = "/i/fallbacks/avatar.svg", fallback_image = "/i/fallbacks/image.svg";

Both of those files should then be cached during the Service Worker install event:

return cache.addAll( [ fallback_avatar, fallback_image ]);

Finally, within respondWithFallbackImage() you could serve up the appropriate image based on the URL being fetched. In my site, the avatars are pulled from Webmention.io, so I test for that.

function respondWithFallbackImage( url ) { const image = avatars.test( /webmention\.io/ ) ? fallback_avatar                                                 : fallback_image;   return caches.match( image ); }

With that change, I’ll need to update the fetch handler to pass in request.url as an argument to respondWithFallbackImage(). Once that’s done, when the network gets interrupted I end up seeing something like this:

A webmention that contains both an avatar and an embedded image will render with two different fallbacks when the Save-Data header is present.

Next, we need to establish some general guidelines for handling media assets—based on the situation, of course.

The caching strategy: prioritize certain media

In my experience, media—especially images—on the web tend to fall into three categories of necessity. At one end of the spectrum are elements that don’t add meaningful value. At the other end of the spectrum are critical assets that do add value, such as charts and graphs that are essential to understanding the surrounding content. Somewhere in the middle are what I would call “nice-to-have” media. They do add value to the core experience of a page but are not critical to understanding the content.

If you consider your media with this division in mind, you can establish some general guidelines for handling each, based on the situation. In other words, a caching strategy.

Media loading strategy, broken down by how critical an asset is to understanding an interface Media category Fast connection Save-Data Slow connection No network Critical Load media Replace with placeholder Nice-to-have Load media Replace with placeholder Non-critical Remove from content entirely

When it comes to disambiguating the critical from the nice-to-have, it’s helpful to have those resources organized into separate directories (or similar). That way we can add some logic into the Service Worker that can help it decide which is which. For example, on my own personal site, critical images are either self-hosted or come from the website for my book. Knowing that, I can write regular expressions that match those domains:

const high_priority = [ /aaron\-gustafson\.com/, /adaptivewebdesign\.info/ ];

With that high_priority variable defined, I can create a function that will let me know if a given image request (for example) is a high priority request or not:

function isHighPriority( url ) { // how many high priority links are we dealing with? let i = high_priority.length; // loop through each while ( i-- ) { // does the request URL match this regular expression? if ( high_priority[i].test( url ) ) { // yes, it’s a high priority request return true; } } // no matches, not high priority return false; }

Adding support for prioritizing media requests only requires adding a new conditional into the fetch event handler, like we did with Save-Data. Your specific recipe for network and cache handling will likely differ, but here was how I chose to mix in this logic within image requests:

// Check the cache first // Return the cached image if we have one // If the image is not in the cache, continue // Is this image high priority? if ( isHighPriority( url ) ) { // Fetch the image // If the fetch succeeds, save a copy in the cache // If not, respond with an "offline" placeholder // Not high priority } else { // Should I save data? if ( save_data ) { // Respond with a "saving data" placeholder // Not saving data } else { // Fetch the image // If the fetch succeeds, save a copy in the cache // If not, respond with an "offline" placeholder } }

We can apply this prioritized approach to many kinds of assets. We could even use it to control which pages are served cache-first vs. network-first.

Keep the cache tidy

The  ability to control which resources are cached to disk is a huge opportunity, but it also carries with it an equally huge responsibility not to abuse it.

Every caching strategy is likely to differ, at least a little bit. If we’re publishing a book online, for instance, it might make sense to cache all of the chapters, images, etc. for offline viewing. There’s a fixed amount of content and—assuming there aren’t a ton of heavy images and videos—users will benefit from not having to download each chapter separately.

On a news site, however, caching every article and photo will quickly fill up our users’ hard drives. If a site offers an indeterminate number of pages and assets, it’s critical to have a caching strategy that puts hard limits on how many resources we’re caching to disk. 

One way to do this is to create several different blocks associated with caching different forms of content. The more ephemeral content caches can have strict limits around how many items can be stored. Sure, we’ll still be bound to the storage limits of the device, but do we really want our website to take up 2 GB of someone’s hard drive?

Here’s an example, again from my own site:

const sw_caches = { static: { name: `${version}static` }, images: { name: `${version}images`, limit: 75 }, pages: { name: `${version}pages`, limit: 5 }, other: { name: `${version}other`, limit: 50 } }

Here I’ve defined several caches, each with a name used for addressing it in the Cache API and a version prefix. The version is defined elsewhere in the Service Worker, and allows me to purge all caches at once if necessary.

With the exception of the static cache, which is used for static assets, every cache has a limit to the number of items that may be stored. I only cache the most recent 5 pages someone has visited, for instance. Images are limited to the most recent 75, and so on. This is an approach that Jeremy Keith outlines in his fantastic book Going Offline (which you should really read if you haven’t already—here’s a sample).

With these cache definitions in place, I can clean up my caches periodically and prune the oldest items. Here’s Jeremy’s recommended code for this approach:

function trimCache(cacheName, maxItems) { // Open the cache caches.open(cacheName) .then( cache => { // Get the keys and count them cache.keys() .then(keys => { // Do we have more than we should? if (keys.length > maxItems) { // Delete the oldest item and run trim again cache.delete(keys[0]) .then( () => { trimCache(cacheName, maxItems) }); } }); }); }

We can trigger this code to run whenever a new page loads. By running it in the Service Worker, it runs in a separate thread and won’t drag down the site’s responsiveness. We trigger it by posting a message (using postMessage()) to the Service Worker from the main JavaScript thread:

// First check to see if you have an active service worker if ( navigator.serviceWorker.controller ) { // Then add an event listener window.addEventListener( "load", function(){ // Tell the service worker to clean up navigator.serviceWorker.controller.postMessage( "clean up" ); }); }

The final step in wiring it all up is setting up the Service Worker to receive the message:

addEventListener("message", messageEvent => { if (messageEvent.data == "clean up") { // loop though the caches for ( let key in sw_caches ) { // if the cache has a limit if ( sw_caches[key].limit !== undefined ) { // trim it to that limit trimCache( sw_caches[key].name, sw_caches[key].limit ); } } } });

Here, the Service Worker listens for inbound messages and responds to the “clean up” request by running trimCache() on each of the cache buckets with a defined limit.

This approach is by no means elegant, but it works. It would be far better to make decisions about purging cached responses based on how frequently each item is accessed and/or how much room it takes up on disk. (Removing cached items based purely on when they were cached isn’t nearly as useful.) Sadly, we don’t have that level of detail when it comes to inspecting the caches…yet. I’m actually working to address this limitation in the Cache API right now.

Your users always come first

The technologies underlying Progressive Web Apps are continuing to mature, but even if you aren’t interested in turning your site into a PWA, there’s so much you can do today to improve your users’ experiences when it comes to media. And, as with every other form of inclusive design, it starts with centering on your users who are most at risk of having an awful experience.

Draw distinctions between critical, nice-to-have, and superfluous media. Remove the cruft, then optimize the bejeezus out of each remaining asset. Serve your media in multiple formats and sizes, prioritizing the smallest versions first to make the most of high latency and slow connections. If your users say they want to save data, respect that and have a fallback plan in place. Cache wisely and with the utmost respect for your users’ disk space. And, finally, audit your caching strategies regularly—especially when it comes to large media files.Follow these guidelines, and every one of your users—from folks rocking a JioPhone on a rural mobile network in India to people on a high-end gaming laptop wired to a 10 Gbps fiber line in Silicon Valley—will thank you.

Request with Intent: Caching Strategies in the Age of PWAs published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[suraj-singh1]

Time Management Tips for Small Business Entrepreneurs that Actually Work

If you’re an entrepreneur (or waiting in the wings), you’re probably aware of certain qualities and skills which are important to the success of your business. While some people are born with these qualities, many others develop them subconsciously during their formative years, while there are a few who need to make a conscious effort to learn them.

It is said that time waits for none. I couldn’t agree more, and in the business world, losing time is akin to losing money. This implies that time cannot be wasted. It’s always going to elude you, and there is always going to be a hell of a lot of demand on it.

The good news is that there are ways which enable you to control time — yours as well as your employees. Read on to know more about how you can do so effectively.

Set Priorities

Rank your tasks in the order of their importance to prioritize effectively. Make a ‘to-do’ list, if you have to stay on track and stick to it.

Every day will bring with itself a new set of problems and challenges and it is easy to sway and get sucked into them. However, having a list of the tasks you need to accomplish, along with the deadlines, will keep you focused.

The ranking is essential as it helps you determine the most important/urgent task. Checking completed tasks off your list can be extremely motivating.

Track Your Time

In order to use time effectively, you need to measure how much of it is available to you, and how and where are you using it. This is vital to exceptional time management. You need to track your time and identify where your crucial minutes and hours of the day are getting spent/wasted.

This can be in a number of ways. You can do so with the help of a physical list, a smartphone app, or an excel spreadsheet where you can mention the number of minutes/hours spent on a task.

But, the most effective way of doing so is with the help of high-quality time management software. It can help you manage your time in the simplest of fashion as well as calculate the most complex time gaps and variations in no time, which in essence, save your time.

This type of software is usually cloud-based so you can access it from anywhere at any time and view all your saved data.

Don’t Deter Delegation

Taking a cue from the above point, once you’ve determined where you can cut back on spending your time, you can figure out which tasks require your skills and/or intervention, and which ones can be delegated.

There will always be certain tasks that will require your complete and undivided attention. You, as an entrepreneur, need to focus on work that is more strategic in nature. Other employees can be entrusted with functional jobs. You should be able to distinguish between what can be delegated and what cannot.

Delegating implies relying on other people to complete the tasks, while you work on other things. So make sure that you hire employees who you can trust, or else delegating can backfire.

Work on Setting Systems

Haphazard work always costs time. Organized and streamlined processes always help save time.

In most businesses, there are tasks that need to be performed mandatorily every day in order to ensure the smooth functioning of the office machinery.

This is where streamlining and creating recognized and effective systems and processes come into play. They quicken daily work, which ultimately saves a lot of time.

Avoid Frequent and Lengthy Meetings

Yes, meetings are an important and unavoidable part of every growing company’s culture, but only if they’re productive.

Long, unending meetings that do not result in a constructive outcome or an action plan are nothing but a waste of your as well as other people’s time at work, which could otherwise have been allocated to getting other important tasks completed.

Always have a set agenda before going into a meeting and try not to waver from it. Additionally, include only certain key people who can contribute with solutions and ideas to problems on the agenda. Keep meetings short and to the point.

Get the Difficult Tasks out of the Way First

Make sure you identify the tasks you find most challenging and get them out of the way first thing in the morning, or when you are at your optimum performance level.

We hear stories about what successful people do every morning, but that does not mean that only early risers can be successful. ‘Night owls’ are high-achievers too.

The great thing about running your own business is that it gives you the flexibility to work till late in the night if you’re not a morning person. Take advantage of that.

Outsource

Of course, you’ve got some very talented people on board, but there are certain tasks that can perhaps be outsourced. It is possible that you may achieve better results from a firm that specializes in a particular task.

It could be recruitment, payroll, publicity, or anything that does not require dedicated or full-time departments. Outsourcing is cheaper than setting up and running certain departments.

Learn to Say ‘No’

While I completely understand that you do not want to disappoint your customers with a no, sometimes, it has to be said.

This holds especially true when you already have too much on your plate and a customer is being pesky, difficult, or unnecessarily time-consuming.

Rather than jeopardizing the customers you already have scheduled, say no to those who act unreasonably.

Be Ready for Interruptions

As much as we hate them, interruptions have a knack of showing up when we’re least prepared to deal with them.

Instead of spending too much time changing your plans, prevent these interruptions by scheduling some time to deal with them.

If you’re handling a particularly important project, make sure you have a plan B in place to keep you from dropping everything and losing track.

Cut Distractions

Shut that door, turn down the music, put your phone on the ‘silent’ mode, and hang a ‘Do not disturb’ sign outside your door, if that’s what it takes to cut distractions.

Apart from that, reducing distractions entails training the people you work with to respect time and focus on the task at hand.

Do Take a Break

The work-time ratio is going to be skewed most of the time, so don’t sweat if you sometimes feel overwhelmed at the pace at which time flies.

Remember, you’re a human being and have your limits. There is no point in turning into a workaholic and being tired and stressed out as that will reduce your productivity.

So do schedule breaks and time-offs into your schedule to maintain your focus, sanity and high-performance levels.

Conclusion

All progressive entrepreneurs, whether new or experienced, have a particular thought pattern. They believe that there is always scope for improvement in the way they work or handle their business. They value time as one of their most precious resources and make efforts to utilize it in the most optimal manner possible. You, too, can achieve success by prioritizing, preparing and then executing tasks in an effort to manage your precious time.

[bloggercarol]

Why Hire Top Developers From India?

Do you want to hire an experienced Indian developer for your project? Well, creative professionals and talented developers are vital players when it comes to a successful business.

It is no surprise that hiring programmers is a complex process and a daunting task because you have no idea on which company you should rely on.

Today, India is one of the best IT outsourcing capital expanding the services globally. Indian developers have become the first choice for companies who are looking for an online reputation.

The Indian IT industry has blossomed over the decade and has led to growth making the nation number one offshore development destination.

Know what you need

When you own a business, you should have a clear picture in your mind. Know how your website or app will look, what features to be incorporated, how interactive everything has to be, what color theme is to be embedded, etc.

When you are confident about what you want, you can effectively communicate your approach and turn in a great online website or app.

Why chose India to hire top developers?

In India, every 4th person is directly or indirectly a part of the IT industry. A country having a population of more than 1.35 billion, there is an abundance of talented resources available.

From $US 50 billion in 2010 to 118 billion in 2017, the outsourcing is immense. The stats clearly depict that India’s policies are favorable for outsourcing as the availability of the skilled resource making India the best choice for hiring dedicated developers.

1) Huge talented pool of experts

Being the second most populated country in the world, India has a vast talent pool of best programmers who are well-versed in a wide variety of technologies. Indian developers are known to intricate solution in time as per the business needs.

2) Budget-friendly solutions

When compared with European and North American countries, the price of development in India is very low. With the booming IT sector in India, you get the right balance between affordability and quality.

For example, when you hire Android developers from America for Android app development, you will have to spend $150 as hourly rate but when you choose Indian developers you will have to spend only $25 to $40 on an hourly basis

3) Client satisfaction is a priority

There is always a fierce competition between an establishing and already established company, so Indian companies focus on satisfying global clientele irrespective of the type of business and project size.

4) Flexibility is ensured

One of the most important reasons you should hire Indian web developers or app developers is the flexibility that you will enjoy in terms of hiring developers.

This means you hire experts at a genuine price that offer flexible hiring model that is suitable for the project requirement of the client.

5) Favorable time zone

No matter in whichever country is your business, you can benefit from different time zones while choosing the freelance developers from India. The reduction in time to market is evident due to the changes in the time zone.

When you are convinced that India is the destination for your business project development, now is the right time to think where in India you should give your project for its ultimate success.

Chandigarh is home to top-notch IT companies in India and we will prove the same.

Why hire a coder from Chandigarh?

When you hire Chandigarh web or app programmers to focus on delivering client-centric solutions with the help of cutting edge tools.

This helps you to build your project in a user-friendly and interactive manner. The availability of hundreds of thousands of talented motivated aspirants is always willing to take up new challenges and responsibilities.

They are always willing to resolve the coding challenges and create distributed efficient applications.

a) Scalability

Mobile App developers from Chandigarh have the ability to add new features during the development stage without altering the deadline.

The developers in tri-city offer scalability where the online freelancer’s team can be increased or decreased as per project requirement. Even if you plan to extend the scope of the project or make modifications, it is also possible.

b) Communication

Hire web designers, developers or app programmers in Chandigarh as they are very fluent in English, so you won’t have to face any issues when it comes to discussing the project and making them understand the expectations.

The developers aim at offering a transparent update regarding the project.

With so many benefits, what have you thought about which company will you choose for your project? Your Team In India is the answer.

Hire the best Indian developers with Your Team In India

Your Team In India is one company in Chandigarh, India known for exceptional performance. No matter what the size, scope, and requirements of your project, the team of dedicated developers you hire get your product on the market in a timely and efficient manner. The programmers have the tendency of staying more dedicated while offering high-quality services.

Diversity

When you choose developers from the company, you get plenty of services and hire any developer you want to:

Mobile developer

iOS developer

Android developer

React native developer

HTML5 developer

Flutter developer

Full Stack developer

Nodejs developer

AngularJS developer

PWA developer

Java developer

Python developer

Dot Net developer

PHP developer

AI developer

Blockchain developer

QA Team

These developers are an extension of your in-house team having a diverse range of skills. When you share your vision with the company, it strives to turn your dream into reality.

Expertise over major technologies

Hire a team of developers is well versed with trending technologies. They excel in language fundamentals, design pattern, scalability, and other functionalities having a thorough knowledge of Java architecture and coding concepts.

a) High productivity

Offshore development also increases productivity as well as customer support.

Both the factors are indispensable to the efficiency and 100% customer satisfaction resulting in recurring business.

b) 24*7 support

You get a support system regardless of the time zone differences and great command over the English language also helps Your Team In India, the latter in a very short time span.

Whether you are looking for website development or mobile app development, you get the right solution at this company. You can hire the experienced team that will dedicatedly work for you and adjusts the services as per the specific requirements.

c) Tailor-made hiring model

The flexible hiring model gives you the opportunity to directly communicate with the experienced professionals, assign work, and monitor the complete progress without a doubt.

You can completely ramp up your team, launch your product, gain onsite support to meet organizational objectives.

The mobile developers, java programmers, flutter team or whosoever you hire heavily focuses on the deployment of the latest technologies, which is the core strategy.

d) Get rid of hidden charges

When you choose Your Team In India developers, you can get rid of hidden charges. This transparency can help you make the right decision without thinking much.

In addition, there are training programs to ensure on a regular basis to ensure that the developers in India stay on the top of the game all the time.

Also, it helps the company to cater to the demands of the clients and execute important projects in a hassle-free manner.

How work is managed by developers?

Before moving any further we will give you an overview of how we manage work with a team of developers.

Set expectations clearly

Every business has expectations, so we make sure our developers are clear with the objectives.

We set clear expectations for:

Working hours

Availability

Communication system

Meetings

Deadlines

Respond to emails

When there is a dot net development or java or PHP or any team working for you in a different geographical location, it may be challenging to keep track of the process, but with Your Team In India, that is not the case because you have a great development team under your managerial eye. Moreover, online developers are a hardworking specialist who knows they have to deliver the best.

You get a professional team

The company commits a team sufficiently large to handle your project over a period of time.

Furthermore, those team members don’t have any other commitments, and this allows them to avoid unnecessary delays.

You can:

Effectively communicate

Track the productivity

Manage timesheet

Share information

Collaboration with collaborative tools

Give suggestions

Share information in real-time

Your project will flourish only when you have everything under one roof, and this can be made possible only when you rely on an experienced team that will plan the tasks while giving the best results.

Wrapping up

Building the right online presence is very important for every business today, so you have to find the right team of developer who understands your vision and fulfill your task.

When you hire developers from India, you are sure to get the best output because they focus on dedication, professionalism, and quality.

In conclusion, developers from India are eagerly waiting to turn your dreams into reality. Last but not least, if you have a project in mind, connect with Your Team In India for development and gain a competitive edge over your competitors.

Source: Hire Indian Developers