I currently have a few apps that I provide to clients by setting them up on their own website. The app uses their own SQL database to record any transactions.
Recently, the number of customers I supply the app to has increased, leading to a higher maintenance work load as each installation must be managed separately.
I'm ready to move to the next level and want to host the app in a single cloud based environment so that I only have to maintain one instance. I would then provide access to that app to each client site, for example embed it in an iframe or perhaps deliver it via a sub-domain. I am not sure about where the DB would sit?
However, this is new territory for me and I'm not sure where to begin. The app is very small and quite simple. I've read a lot of stuff about SAAS but most of it seems quite enterprise level, I'm really looking for a simple and easy to use starting point.
What's the current best practice for this kind of setup and what might be a good guide to read or platform to use?
I want to develop actions for Google Home but would like to know whether user interacting with the device is the same person whose account is linked with my service. As my service will include confidential information and money transfer capabilities as well so don't want the device to be misused by someone to know confidential information or for transferring money. So is there any security measures for this in Google Home?
Right now, there is essentially no security from google home (except for prohibiting access to private information, like your calendar, altogether). Google Home does not recognize the voice of who's talking to it, so it won't tell the difference between you, your spouse or a thief.
There are rumors that voice recognition (different from speech recognition) might be added eventually, and handling of multiple user accounts. Even if that were the case, I doubt that provides enough security for something as sensitive as money transfers. Obviously, you could implement your own security layer, though. (E.g., ask for a pass phrase before executing a transaction. This should probably use one-time use passwords / tokens, though, so that anyone who overhears the phrase won't be able to use it.)
I have a business idea which I want to materialize for sometime .. I recently shared my idea with 2 close friends who also found it very interesting, new and doable plus the cost included for the project to start is reasonable and they have planned to invest in it. Much of the success of this project app depends on the proper marketing element out of which most of the time, you have to personally meet up with clients/vendor and make them use your application.
The idea is to connect local ecommerce (retail shops, businesses, vendors, etc.) with users/customers through a messaging app mostly similar to whatsapp. I have already started to look for a xmpp/jabber developer who can accomplish our requirements. We are expecting him to develop the app and also set-up the server requirements. Our budget lies within $3000-4000 range for the project to initiate.
I want the app to have the following aspects:
a) user friendly GUI
b) highly scalable (planning to start within my city located in south asia)
c) location sharing (want users to navigate nearby shops/vendor offering their type of goods/services)
d) have a user review feedback against vendors and an additional page for vendor profile/rating system
e) only customer - vendor chats with functionalities like camera snaps, audio recording (just like whatsapp).
f) both for ios and android
Now the whole idea outlaid, after reading lots of articles, discussion and tutorials, I have some questions (I am a non-technical person btw):
1- I believe ejabberd is the best option as compared to tigase or prosody due to high scability. Is this ok to go with or should I look at other xmpp servers?
2- Currently, I am planning to launch this application within my city (rated as worldwide no.2 as per population stats of above 25m people), should I set-up a local server with high internet bandwith and a powerful machine or should I outsource it to some xmpp hosted server in the US (as their technological infrastructure has always provided quality service).
3- Should I be worried about the developer stealing the source code or is there any effective way to minimize this risk?
4- Any ideas what other things I am missing. This is dead serious for me and I am willing to do anything to get this project on the road.
(P.S.: The idea for this app is similar to the existing app called Lookup but I am planning to add some variations to it)
Thanks and sorry for being a bit lengthy ..
Regards,
Ahmed
ejabberd is indeed likely your best bet. However, be careful about the budget. To launch a quality service in an highly competitive area you have to have a significant budget, both development and marketing, if you expect your project to succeed.
I'm going to be creating a few small mobile applications and have managed to find a great online Git repo hosting services that is free. It even comes with online issue tracking software but appears to be mainly geared towards the development team. I was hoping it would also have an interface for end-users to log issues/features and allow them to vote on what they wanted but it does not have this. It does expose an RESTful API but I didn't want to go down that path and wanted something ready to go (once configured).
I don't think I need it to be integrated with the Git repo so having something that is purely standalone would be great but I would definitely want something that is online as I don't want to install software on my local PC.
In summary, my requirements are:
Free or very cheap
Simple end-user interface to allow users
to submit issues/features
Allow end-users to vote on their own or other users issues/features
Visible status of issues/features (i.e. whether they are pending, in progress, rejected, fixed etc)
A more advanced management system for me as a developer to manage the
issues
Some basic reports/charts/graphing would be great
Email/RSS notification of new issues/suggestions would be great too
Something that is ready to go after some configuration/settings.
Can anyone recommend something that would be suitable for this?
TIA
I based my question on a website I saw a while back but couldn't find it. Anyway, I've now found it again (it's called http://www.uservoice.com/). It's not really issue tracking but more of a way of letting end-users report features and allow them to vote on them. The important thing is that it is a very user friendly interface which is perfect for end-users. Obviously, I would then need to maintain issues/features in my own system (e.g. Mantis) and then manually sync features requested in uservoice to Mantis but that shouldn't be a big issue. Anyway, this perfectly meets my needs for my low volume applications at the moment.
Hi
we are expanding one of our projects in a major bank to include access via mobile devices. We are evaluating a few tools - inc. perfecto mobile, experitest and deviceanywhere.
From our initial evaluation perfecto and device anywhere cover a larger set of handsets inc feature phones. Experitest on the other hand is strong and simple to operate with smartphones(iphone, android etc).
Can anyone share experience from using these tools for large scale projects? we are mainly concerened re stability, ability to work with QTP and support considerations (support for new devices etc).
I have used DeviceAnywhere extensively. Perfecto, not that much, after a pretty dissapointing trial period. DA has support/add-ins for QTP and QC. Perfecto does not cover QC. Perfecto is not faster than DA, since most of their devices are in Israel, and not the US. DA has a few datacenters in the US and abroad, hence you have a better chance to get better performance. DA has an pretty long list of Enterprise and Carrier customers...while Perfecto seems like a very small company. Compare their website quality-it's pretty obvious which one looks more professional...You should try them both and make up your mind...
I have used all 3 platforms many times
Only Perfecto Mobile and DA are robust enough for real testers (at least for enterprise level).
DA have more devices but Perfecto are 100% web based, faster and MUCH cheaper. Both offer automation environments with pros and cons but Perfecto offers QTP integration and enhanced security solutions
Conclusion - both systems good, Perfecto cheaper, Perfecto much better for enterprises engaging in mobile testing.
Guido
Think of coupling a standard software remote control product with a standard software test robot (like QTP).
As an alternative, and being a mostly device-independent, but bitmap-dependent solution, you could use one of the many remote controls to bring the mobile's display contents to the desktop. Then, you'd "click around" in that remote control window using you favourite test robot.
Stupid that sounds? Well, it has its strong and its weak points:
If QTP is set for you, you'd be stuck on bitmap synchronization, no other useful GUI properties would be visible. However, if you have some QTP know-how on board, you could reuse all the know-how for test management integration via QC, test data addressing, and so on, scripting "art" like wait-for-the-right-thing, convert bitmaps to text, and so on. You could even "in real time" verify the results displayed on the mobile to stuff in the corporate backend, or research expected results in some central database after doing some transaction on the mobile -- all that would be easy since your test robot runs as part of the IT infrastructure all the time, so it has easy access to those resources. And those accesses could be done with all the comfort we got used to on PC-based test robots, like for example QTP's database checkpoint.
The positive aspect would be: Using such a scenario, you are largely independent of the mobile's technical details, and could support a lot of different devices by just using different sets of expected bitmaps. (Provided the workflows are exactly the same, which of course is not always the case.)
If you don't have to buy an extra test robot, this solution might be unbeatable cheap. Most Windows mobile devices for example can be used with Microsoft's free remote control, and there are lots of commercial vendors offering remote control functionality for a variety of devices in one package.
Also, you could develop test scripts using emulators emulating the mobile device, because the test robot would not know the difference between a display being fetched from the real thing, or being shown by the emulator.
I've done all that with various remote controls and PDA/smartphone devices, using CitraTest or QTP as the test robot. I was very happy not having to mess around with yet-another-specialized tool, or even more than one of them, each with their own language, or methodology.
Biggest hurdles besides the ones already mentioned were:
find a remote control that is versatile, fast and reliable
find a way to let the mobile use its "normal" communication path (for example, cellular connection) for all applications while, for performance reasons (and to minimize side effects), the remote control is connected through a direct connection (USB, propretiary synch cable, network...whatever the mobile supports).
create a scripting "standard" which is sufficiently exact to keep test robot and mobile app execution synchronized while avoiding re-capturing expected bitmap for all supported devices too often (this can be partly automated)
timing problems -- when you are on the bitmap level, it is hard to tell if you waited "long enough" for some message to appear, disappear, or whatever.
cover exotics like "app continues only after you took a photo with the mobile camera". Generally speaking: Control the built-in periphery (what a contradiction...) of the mobile (in my case, I had to make the barcode scanner "see" specific images -- quite difficult and usually very device-dependent to automate)
It's feasable, though, and such a solution can be very stable and realiable, with a sufficient grade of cost-efficiency in terms of test maintenance effort (depending on what changes how frequently in the app-to-test, of course).
jQuery runs a lot of tests automatically on both feature phones and smart phones, maybe you can use their test system. As a side note, check if jQuery mobile is for you, it seems very cool.
To the best of my knowledge Perfecto Mobile has made some major improvments to its offering and currently offers some major benefits over the others, including price. In the last few months they've added popular devices like Lenovo nePaone. You can see the full list om their website:www.perfectomobile.com. Since they use differentontrol technology than Device Anywhere they are capabable of supporting new devices really quickly. Regarding stability and QTP they also have many advantages over the others. For instance, tools to record your own specific user scenarios and test them repeatedly across devices - this is a great automation tool for large scale projects.
If you are testing bank application you should consider the security issue.
How do you protect your application and application data. Once you release a phone, someone else can get control over it.
My recommendation is to use the on-site capabilities I believe all the above solutions have.