Category: Software

A key area to focus on when considering a software testing company is its software testers. Today there exist two popular certifications, ISEB and ISTQB. Try and ensure that the software testers at least hold these certifications at foundation level. Another factor with regards to software testers is the amount of experience they have. Many software testing companies state that their testers have five years I.T. experience. But reading between the lines, this simply means that they have five years experience anywhere in the field of Information Technology. You should really ask the software testing company, how many years professional software testing experience they actually have.

Many software testing companies offer a wide range of software testing services. Caution should be used though, as many of these companies will advertise these services but may not necessarily have the expertise to perform them. The types of software testing services that any professional company should offer are:

 

Functional Testing

Typical software products today include large amounts of critical functionality and complex features, added to this significant time pressures to get the product released make functional testing one of the most important stage of any software development. A software tester’s manual functional testing techniques have been proven to be highly effective at essentially determining whether or not the functionality actually works, or not. Versatile software testers can work from their own created test cases or use any pre-existing test cases you may already have. Good software testers readily use ad-hoc techniques when executing any tests to expand the test coverage. The aim during functional testing is to highlight any issues as early as possible so the developers can resolve it. This can obviously effectively reduce the development costs for your company.

Usability Testing

In order to ensure your software meets the needs of the end user; Usability Testing can be used. Not only will usability testing detect errors, but it will also detect navigational issues, language issues, workflow experience etc. Good software testers put themselves into the mindset of the end user and will report on the ‘look & feel’ of the software under test. Good software testers often build a set of test cases based on real end user scenarios or business cases to ensure the software is tested in a similar way to how the real end users will actually use the software. This type of software testing has been proven to increase the ROI of software developments by enhancing the end user experience and therefore potentially increasing product sales. As usability testing is trying to ensure that the end user experience is appreciated, we perform this type of testing manually.

Regression Testing

Regression testing is surprisingly often overlooked area of software testing. This is often due to the assumption that when new functionality is working correctly then the software is ready for release. However, more often than not, additional issues have been introduced that affect existing functionality. Software testers have the knowledge and experience to identify existing test cases that are suitable for regression. Regression test cases are commonly functional test cases that are reused at regular intervals throughout the software development to ensure that the expected results remain consistent, thus providing confidence that nothing has been adversely affected by the change.

Acceptance Testing

Acceptance testing is typically driven by the end user or customer. Acceptance test cases are normally executed by the customer prior to accepting the product. But commonly, these test cases are also given to the software developers to ensure their product meets the level of acceptance before the end of development. Software testers can perform execution of these test cases to highlight any issues to the development team as early as possible. Software testers can also derive expected acceptance test cases from customer requirements for you. On a smaller scale, our software testers can also derive smoke tests to act as a form of acceptance tests during stages of the software development life cycle.

 

Exploratory Testing

Commonly, while the software is being tested, a good software tester learns things that together with experience and creativity generates new good test cases to run. Good software testers consider exploratory testing to be an approach that can be applied to any test technique, at any stage in the development process. Software testers adopt the exploratory approach during all stages of testing. However, many software test teams use the exploratory testing approach during the final stages of a development just to allow software testers to roam freely throughout the software focusing on areas of functionality that the software tester has a ‘gut feel’ where there may be issues. This approach can often detect defects that have previously not been considered in other ‘more formal’ areas of software testing.

Installation Testing

Installation testing is a type of software testing that focuses on what customers will need to do to install and set up the new software successfully. The testing process may involve full, partial or upgrades install/uninstall processes. Good software testers will typically perform installation testing when a compiled version of the code has reached the final stages of testing or pre-production environment, from which it may or may not progress into final production. By the use of virtual machines, software testers can replicate many different operating systems and environments to fully test installation of software.

http://www.testing4success.com is a professional software testing company providing highly cost-effective outsource software testing services to companies around the globe. We can provide outsource software testing services to supplement your existing project, or provide dedicated outsource software testing for entire projects, all delivered on-time and with outstanding results. Please contact us with any questions you may have, or for a free quote.

Software engineering is an essential discipline when designing and implementing high-performance data enterprises. Although software engineers are not certified or sanctioned by any standards body, use of software engineers with experience in the Intelligence Community increases chances of success.

Software Engineering Defined

Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software. (Source Wikipedia)

Knowledge of programming is the main pre-requisite to becoming a software engineer, but it is not sufficient. Many software engineers have degrees in Computer Science or mathematics and physics due to the lack of software engineering programs in higher education. An organized mind and an interest in problem-solving are also prerequisites.

However, as data networks become more complex and indispensable in large organizations higher education has started to change with the introduction of new software engineering degrees, especially in post-graduate education.

Software Engineering as a Discipline

Software engineering contains a number of separate yet interrelated disciplines.

* Software Requirements

* Software design

* Software development

* Software testing

* Software maintenance

* Software configuration management

* Software engineering management, see also project management

* Software development process

* Software engineering tools and Computer Aided Software Engineering

* Software quality

* Social Software Engineering

Each sub-discipline has its own performance requirements and processes for success.

Jobs in Software Engineering – A Strong Market

Because the field of software engineering is broad and growing more complex because of the introduction of new technologies and applications, the potential for job growth is significant even in a down economy.

According to the Federal Government studies, the demand for qualified software engineers is significant and will continue to grow,

Computer software engineers are one of the occupations projected to grow the fastest and add the newest jobs over the 2006-16 decade.
Excellent job prospects are expected for applicants with at least bachelor’s degree in computer engineering or computer science and with practical work experience.
Computer software engineers must continually strive to acquire new skills in conjunction with the rapid changes that occur in computer technology.
Because computer networks and computing hardware and software are growing in power and complexity, the demand for qualified Software engineers is high. As the United States continues to be an information-driven society new, high paying jobs with quality benefits packages are available in the economy.
This is particularly true as the economy emerges from its depressed state.

Employment of computer software engineers is projected to increase by 38 percent over the 2006 to 2016 period, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. This occupation will generate about 324,000 new jobs, over the projections decade, one of the largest employment increases of any occupation.

Significant drivers of growth in the demand for software engineers include the adoption of new technologies for information efficiency in a competitive environment. This is particularly true as information networks grow in sophistication and interconnect.

In addition, information security concerns and cyber threats have given rise to new software requirements.

Concerns over “cybersecurity” will result in businesses and government continue to invest heavily in software that protects their networks and vital electronic infrastructure from attack. Cyber Security has become a major area of concern for the U, low costS, Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community.

Very few organizations are willing to trust the security of their new low-cost, offshore software engineering firms.

Finally, in economic and competitive terms low-cost offshore outsourcing is not a real threat because software engineering requires innovation and intense research and development expenditures. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

One area with a tremendous appetite for software engineers is the Federal Government. The Federal Government continues to grow and, with the present trend in Government spending, greater demand for IT and Cyber Security engineering specialists will also generate job demand.

Ensuring Quality Standards – A Problem

While there is tremendous demand for engineering professionals, the systems and networks designed and implemented by software engineers are often the heart of any large business of government enterprise. Quality and efficiency cannot be sacrificed for substandard performance.

Many who call themselves “Software Engineer” are not fully qualified and often produce low quality work output.

Many professions enforce quality standards through professional certification boards but professional certification of software engineers is confusing and, while many view it as a tool to improve professional practice, others consider it as an unnecessary encumbrance.

In the United States, most certification programs in the IT industry are oriented toward specific technologies and are managed by the vendors of these technologies.

No matter which way the debate goes, full accreditation will not serve as a quality standard backstop for software engineers in the foreseeable future so other, on the job standards, must be used to ensure engineering quality.

Documented past performance that is favorable or a history of software development in a demanding industry has now become a major factor in determining future success.

Software Engineering and the Intelligence Community – Real Time Certification

With the absence of any standard certification programs, employers and government service contractors must exercise great care when utilizing software engineers.to design or restore critical network or enterprise software.

 

Servicing the needs of the Intelligence Community is a demanding task but the experience will test the skills, work ethic and judgment of even the most seasoned software engineer. Thus engineers with IC experience command a premium wage and benefits based upon proving themselves capable,

When a formal certification is not available, broad and extensive software engineering experience in the Intelligence Community on a job candidate’s resume is often a valuable real time substitute.

Jon M. Stout is Chief Executive Officer of Aspiration Software LLC. Aspiration Software LLC is an Information Technology/Cyber Security services provider focused on the Intelligence Community (IC). For more information about Software Engineering.

During the past 30 years the world went through a very dynamic technological transformation. In retrospective, it can be stated without exaggeration that the emergence of electronic devices and the Internet have greatly impacted daily life as well as managerial practice to an unforeseen extent. The computerization of multiple business processes and the creation of large scale databases, among many other radical technological advances, have lead to enormous cost savings and quality improvements over the years. The interconnection of financial markets through electronic means and the worldwide adoption of the Internet have greatly reduced transaction and communication costs and brought nations and cultures closer to one another than ever imaginable. Computers are now fundamental tools in almost all businesses around the world and their application and adaptation to specific business problems in the form of software development is a practice that many companies perform on their own. In the past, such computerization and automation efforts were very costly and therefore only practiced by large corporations. Over the years, however, the software industry emerged to offer off-the-shelf solutions and services to smaller companies. Today, having survived the massive dot-com crash of the year 2000, software development businesses established themselves as strong players in the technology industry.

The emergence of numerous computer standards and technologies has created many challenges and opportunities. One of the main opportunities provided by the software sector is relatively low entry barrier. Since the software business is not capital intensive, successful market entry largely depends on know-how and specific industry domain knowledge. Entrepreneurs with the right skills can relatively easily compete with large corporations and thereby pose a considerable threat to other, much larger organizations. Companies, on the other hand, need to find ways to reduce turnover and protect their intellectual property; hence, the strong knowledge dependence combined with the relatively short lifespan of computer technologies makes knowledge workers very important to the organization. Knowledge workers in this industry therefore enjoy stronger bargaining power and require a different management style and work environment than in other sectors, especially those industries that have higher market entry capital requirements. This relatively strong position of software personnel challenges human resource strategies in organizations and it also raises concerns about the protection of intellectual property.

The relatively young industry is blessed with sheer endless new opportunities, such as the ability of companies to cooperate with other organizations around the globe without interruption and incur practically no communication costs. In addition, no import tariffs exist making the transfer of software across borders very efficient; however, the industry with its craft-like professions suffers from lack of standards and quality problems. The successful management of such dynamic organizations challenges today’s managers as well as contemporary management science because traditional management styles, such as Weberian bureaucracies, seem to be unable to cope with unstable environments.

Challenges in the Software Industry

Many studies indicate that present-day software development practices are highly inefficient and wasteful (Flitman, 2003). On average, projects are only 62% efficient, which translates to a waste of 37 %. The typical software development project has the following distribution of work effort: 12% planning, 10% specification, 42% quality control, 17% implementation, and 19% software building (2003). There are many possible interpretations of the nature of this distribution of resources. First, the extraordinarily high share of 42% for quality control purposes can indicate a lack of standards and standardized work practices. This large waste of effort may also be the result of inefficient planning and specification processes. Because the share of 19% for software building is a function of software complexity, hardware, and tools used, there is a chance to reduce it by carefully managing and standardizing internal work processes. The disappointing share of only 17% for implementation, however, should be alarming to business owners, since implementation activities are the main activity that results in revenue. The relatively low productivity level reported by Flitman (2003) seems to be also reflected in the fact that the average U.S. programmer produces approximately 7,700 lines of code per year, which translates to just 33 per workday (Slavova, 2000). Considering that a large software project, such as Microsoft Word, is reported by Microsoft to require 2 to 3 million lines of code, it becomes obvious how costly such projects can become and that productivity and quality management are major concerns to today’s software businesses. The challenge for contemporary software managers is to find the root of the productivity problem and a remedy in the form of a management practice.

A plethora of recent studies addresses software development productivity and quality concerns. Elliott, Dawson, and Edwards (2007) conclude that there is a lack of quality skills in current organizations. Furthermore, the researchers put partial blame on prevailing organizational cultures, which can lead to counterproductive work habits. Of the main problems identified, project documentation was found to be lacking because documents are deficient in detail and not updated frequent enough. Quality control in the form of software testing is not practiced as often and there seems to be a lack of quality assurance processes to ensure that software is built with quality in mind from the beginning. Organizational culture was found to be deficient in companies where workers tend to avoid confrontation and therefore avoid product tests altogether (2007).

Since knowledge workers are the main drive in software organizations, creating a fruitful and efficient organizational culture constitutes a main challenge to today’s managers. The relationship between organizational culture and quality and productivity in software businesses was recently investigated by Mathew (2007). Software organizations tend to be people-centered and their dependency on knowledge workers is also reflected by the enormous spending remuneration and benefits of more than 50% of revenue. As the industry matures and grows further, the challenge to organizations is that larger number of employees need to be managed which brings culture to the focus of management. Mathew (2007) found that the most important influence on productivity was achieved by creating an environment of mutual trust. Higher levels of trust lead to greater employee autonomy and empowerment, which strengthened the existing management view that trust and organizational effectiveness are highly related. Those companies with higher trust and empowerment levels benefitted from more intensive employee involvement and thereby achieved better quality products (2007).

Product quality, however, depends on other factors as well that reach beyond the discussion of work processes. Relatively high employee turnover was found to have a detrimental effect on product quality and organizational culture (Hamid & Tarek, 1992). Constant turnover and succession increase project completion costs, cause considerable delays, and expose organization to higher risks because their development processes can be severely disrupted. While human resources strategies should help find ways to retain key personnel in the company, organizations need to nevertheless be prepared for turnovers and minimize their risks. One of the greatest risks for people-centered, knowledge worker organizations is the loss of knowledge when employees leave.

The Internet is now part of our everyday lives and people are learning more about both good and bad sides of the internet. Every day almost we hear stories about predators looking for children on the internet in chat rooms on social communities as MySpace. Parents are more aware that there are lots of information, pictures and people on the net that can be harmful for children out there on the on hate site, pornographic site and etc. Then there is the problem of kids overusing the internet and developing internet addiction and therefore not showing up for school, getting bad grades and quitting their sports and hobbies.

Parents want to guide and watch their children but at the same time know they cannot be there all the time sitting with them when they are online. So even though parents are aware of the danger of the internet, talk to their kids and monitor them at home, parents know it is not possible to be the one that keeps them safe all the time on the internet. They also know even if they trust them well, there is an accidental search that can lead to harmful and material even they are not looking for it. So deciding on buying parental control software is considered a logical and responsible step more parents are taking.

Buying parental control software could be something you just take few minutes in doing. You sit down in front of the computer, “Google” some right words for it, press a link and buy a product. At the same time, there is not certain that best software’s are those that will appear in top ten of Google search and you might be want to consider thinking what do I want my parental control software to be able to do for me?

You could start to buy asking other parents what they are using and asking for their experience. You could also try to browse around test look at their sites and read about that software; even send an email to the sales apartment. You should check if the software has a 15 days trial period so you can test the software. Check for things like is the software being updated, which is very important in this day by day changing the online world were dangers of the internet is always changing and software that the parental control software needs to work with is also updating and changing.

The biggest question you need to ask yourself when deciding on buying parental control software is the function of it. What do you want the parental software to do for you? Parental control software do not all have the same features and possibilities and you should, therefore, spend some time on thinking “what kind of parental control software do I need” Most of them will do different things for you and you may need different things for best safe surfing in your family. The possibilities are enormous. Let’s go over few things parental control software may have in their toolbox, so for you to use it in your buying guide you can look for those things you want to have when browsing through parental control website doing your own parental control software review.

Filtering: Does the software have filtering option? Most software will filter (pornographic filter, hate site filters, making bomb filter, violence filter etc. sites for you, but you may want to think how and how much control you have over the filtering system. 1. Does the parental control software have a database of blocked and family friendly sites? 2. Does the software allow you to create additional filtering list of sites you want to block? 3. Does the software have the ability for you to only allow certain sites you choose and filter all other sites? 4. Does the software have a allow list have the ability to allow sites permanently and therefore overriding all another filtering system. 5. Does the software have the dynamic content filter that blocks sites based on the content on each site you open?

Blocking software: You may also want to know if the parental control software is also blocking software, allowing you to block software’s you may think is harmful.

1. Does the software Block p2P file sharing like e.g. torrent software that are often used to download illegal software, music, movies, games and adult material?

2. Does it block chat programs?

3. Does the software block games that are considered more addictive e.g. MMORPG games?

4. Does the software allow you to choose additional software from the computer and block it?

Monitoring Software: You may want to check if the parental control software allows you to monitor the overall use of the computer and give you a good report on what has been happening. Does the software monitor all keystrokes that will enable you to read what has been written on the computer based on the software the words were written in? You may also want to have a screen shots recording in the software to able you to see how what has been happening in a form of picture of the screen. The screen shots recording is also good as a proof if something bad happens, e.g. Predator harassing the child, or some other child bullying the child on chat application. With screen shots, you have a proof of what has happened after these incidents. Some software also has email monitoring of incoming and outgoing emails. Last option you may want to check for if the software monitors all cut and paste-ing on the computer both picture and text.

There is plenty of software that you can obtain from a variety of sources such as by downloading from the internet or from the CD on the front cover of a magazine that you have purchased. You might think that all of this software is completely free and that you can do what you like with it. No matter how nice it would be if all of this software actually was free, this is rarely the case.

If you check out the documentation that comes along with this software you will usually find that the software is labeled as Shareware, or is a Trial or Demo version. If so then to use the software legally on an ongoing basis requires an additional payment to the software owner.

In each of these cases, the software that you have has been provided so that you can evaluate the product and decide whether it is the right one for you before you buy it. In the case of a demo version, some key function of the software such as save has been disabled in the version that you have and although you can try out the functionality of the software to see what it does you can’t actually do anything with the results.

A trial version is not quite so restrictive. Usually, with a trial version, you get full functionality but only for a limited number of uses or for a limited amount of time, at the end of that used the software will either disable itself completely or will convert to a demo version. The assumption in either of these cases is that you get to see what the program does and if you like it you then pay for the full version. In some cases converting your demo or trial version into the full version just requires you entering the code supplied when you paid for the product into the program that you already have.

Shareware is exactly the same as trial or demo software in that you are given permission to try the software for a limited period before buying it. The main difference between shareware and a trial or demo version is that the software may continue to function after the trial period expires. This doesn’t mean that you are legally entitled to continue using the software, it just means that the software owner is relying on your honesty to pay for the software. Continuing to use shareware after the trial period and without paying for it is just as illegal as taking a copy of purchased software off of your friend’s computer and installing it on your own.

So when is the software that you obtain from the Internet or on magazine cover CDs actually free?

Well, sometimes the magazines do a special deal with the software owners to put a free copy of an old version of their software on their CD along with a special offer to upgrade to the full version. This is usually advertised very clearly on the magazine cover and on the CD as well so it should be clear when this is the case. One thing that I have noticed recently regarding this type of software is that most of it requires that you register it via the internet in order to be able to continue using it beyond a short trial period. This can make it difficult to install such “free” software on a computer without an internet connection.

Other software that is free for you to use on your own computer should be clearly identified as Freeware, Public Domain, or software subject to the GPL (GNU public licence). Any software so marked is available for you to use on your own computer and most such software may also be copied and given to your friends as well (but check for any restrictions particularly if you obtained the software from a CD). In the case of public domain software you can do whatever you like with the software including selling it (if you can find anyone silly enough to buy something they can obtain free). GPL software may also be sold and even modified to perform additional functions. The only conditions on doing anything with software subject to the GPL is that the conditions of the GPL be met which includes the requirements that the source code be supplied along with the executable version and that any copies and product modified versions are also distributed subject to the GPL. Just because software is freeware doesn’t necessarily give you the right to do what you like with it, the owner may have given you the right to a free copy that you can run on your computer but they may have retained all of the other rights associated with the program for themselves.

So just because you downloaded some software from the internet or from a magazine CD cover doesn’t mean that the software is free, it all depends on the license conditions associated with the software.

All software not in the public domain is subject to copyright. This copyright gives the software owner certain rights over their software such as the right to make copies of the software, the right to change the software, and the right to sell the software. When you obtain a copy of any software by whatever means, the software owner still retains these rights. What rights you get with respect to the software should be spelled out for you in the software license.

free free

There is plenty of software that you can obtain from a variety of sources such as by downloading from the internet or from the CD on the front cover of a magazine that you have purchased. You might think that all of this software is completely free and that you can do what you like with it. No matter how nice it would be if all of this software actually was free, this is rarely the case.

If you check out the documentation that comes along with this software you will usually find that the software is labeled as Shareware, or is a Trial or Demo version. If so then to use the software legally on an ongoing basis requires an additional payment to the software owner.

In each of these cases, the software that you have has been provided so that you can evaluate the product and decide whether it is the right one for you before you buy it. In the case of a demo version, some key function of the software such as save has been disabled in the version that you have and although you can try out the functionality of the software to see what it does you can’t actually do anything with the results.

A trial version is not quite so restrictive. Usually, with a trial version, you get full functionality but only for a limited number of uses or for a limited amount of time, at the end of that used the software will either disable itself completely or will convert to a demo version. The assumption in either of these cases is that you get to see what the program does and if you like it you then pay for the full version. In some cases converting your demo or trial version into the full version just requires you entering the code supplied when you paid for the product into the program that you already have.

Shareware is exactly the same as trial or demo software in that you are given permission to try the software for a limited period before buying it. The main difference between shareware and a trial or demo version is that the software may continue to function after the trial period expires. This doesn’t mean that you are legally entitled to continue using the software, it just means that the software owner is relying on your honesty to pay for the software. Continuing to use shareware after the trial period and without paying for it is just as illegal as taking a copy of purchased software off of your friend’s computer and installing it on your own.

So when is the software that you obtain from the Internet or on magazine cover CDs actually free?

Well, sometimes the magazines do a special deal with the software owners to put a free copy of an old version of their software on their CD along with a special offer to upgrade to the full version. This is usually advertised very clearly on the magazine cover and on the CD as well so it should be clear when this is the case. One thing that I have noticed recently regarding this type of software is that most of it requires that you register it via the internet in order to be able to continue using it beyond a short trial period. This can make it difficult to install such “free” software on a computer without an internet connection.

Other software that is free for you to use on your own computer should be clearly identified as Freeware, Public Domain, or software subject to the GPL (GNU public license). Any software so marked is available for you to use on your own computer and most such software may also be copied and given to your friends as well (but check for any restrictions particularly if you obtained the software from a CD). In the case of public domain software, you can do whatever you like with the software including selling it (if you can find anyone silly enough to buy something they can obtain free). GPL software may also be sold and even modified to perform additional functions. The only conditions on doing anything with software subject to the GPL is that the conditions of the GPL be met which includes the requirements that the source code be supplied along with the executable version and that any copies and modified versions are also distributed subject to the GPL. Just because the software is freeware doesn’t necessarily give you the right to do what you like with it, the owner may have given you the right to a free copy that you can run on your computer but they may have retained all of the other rights associated with the program for themselves.

So just because you downloaded some software from the internet or from a magazine CD cover doesn’t mean that the software is free, it all depends on the license conditions associated with the software.

All software not in the public domain is subject to copyright. This copyright gives the software owner certain rights over their software such as the right to make copies of the software, the right to change the software, and the right to sell the software. When you obtain a copy of any software by whatever means, the software owner still retains these rights. What rights you get with respect to the software should be spelled out for you in the software license.

 

Each, day thousands of real estate professionals go online to research real estate software. But what is real estate software, and how can it help you improve your real estate business? These are the questions we will address here.

What is Real Estate Software?

When we talk about real estate software, we’re actually covering a wide spectrum of software products. In general terms, real estate software is any software that helps you manage some aspect of your real estate business.

The “some aspect” part of that definition is important because to date there is no real estate software that will help you manage all aspects of your business. Instead, most types of real estate software are designed to help you manage a certain element of your business, like contract preparation for example.

Various Types of Real Estate Software

Below, we look at some of the most popular types of real estate software. As you will see, each type of software is designed to help you perform a certain part of your real estate business. Please note that this list is not all-inclusive. There are more types of real estate software than I could possibly cover in this one resource. So at the end of this guide, I’ve listed some additional resources where you can find any type of real estate-related software imaginable.

Content Management Systems

Some types of real estate software are designed to help you manage property listings on your website. Basically, these are content management systems (CMS) that have been adapted for real estate purposes. A good example of such a program would be Realty Manager by Interactive Tools.

Such programs allow you to add, edit or remove property listings (including house photos) within your real estate website — without any knowledge of web coding. If you have listings on your website that require constant management, you can see the convenience of this kind of real estate software.

Real Estate Contract Software

As the name implies, this type of real estate software helps agents prepare real estate contracts. As you well know, contracts are a big (and often time-consuming) part of the real estate business. So anything that can streamline and simplify the process would be welcomed by real estate agents. That’s what contract-management software strives to do.

One of the best features of real estate contract software — a feature you should look for when purchasing this type of software — is the ability to create contract templates by pulling in required disclosures and other commonly used items from your city and state. This way, once you have the real estate contract software set up how you want, you would simply enter new client details and list prices to generate contracts.

Real Estate CMA Software

Once again, the name tells you what this type of real estate software does. CMA software helps you prepare comparable listings/sales reports that you can show to clients. The biggest benefits of this type of software are time savings, professional appearance, and basic mathematical functions. CMA software will help you produce an attractive and informative CMA report in less time than doing it without software assistance.

Contact Management Software

Contact management software is not to be confused with contract management software. Though they only differ by one letter, these two types of software have nothing in common. Contact management software helps you manage your contacts or client communications.

Most of these applications are built around databases. You enter client information into the database (with details such as name, phone number, a neighborhood of interest, etc.), and then you can easily search the data later.

When choosing a contact management solution, look for one that allows customization of the data fields. You want the ability to create whatever info fields for each contact that’s important to you. All of these programs will let you enter the basics, like name, phone number, address and the like. But what if you wanted to also label people with buyer vs. seller? Or by price range? Or by the neighborhoods, they’re interested in? You’ll need this kind of flexibility, and any good contact managements solution should offer it.

Real Estate Educational Software

This is another popular type of real estate software. As the name implies, this kind of software helps you advance your professional education. The most common types of real estate educational software are the test preparation programs. These programs help you prepare for state licensing exams and other real estate-related professional exams. For just about every real estate exam you can imagine, there’s a piece of software that can help you prepare for it.

Virtual Tour Software

Virtual tours are extremely popular among real estate professionals these days. Home buyers love virtual tours, so when you add them to your real estate website, you’ve increased your website’s value for your key audience. The only problem is, virtual tours are not an easy thing to put together. That’s where this type of real estate software comes in.

One way to create virtual tours is to have a virtual tour company do it for you. With this option, you shoot the photos or film footage yourself and send it to a virtual tour company who creates the finished product. But for the more adventurous agents, there is also the virtual tour software path. Using this software, the agent creates his or her own virtual tours, using photos taken by the agents themselves.

Real Estate Website Software

This software covers a pretty broad spectrum. Real estate website software can help you with many aspects of your website, from creating graphics to capturing leads. But one product rarely does it all. Most types of real estate website software are highly specialized, performing a certain aspect of website enhancement.

Conclusion

So we’ve seen that for every type of real estate business function, there’s a piece of software to help you do it more efficiently and (ideally) more effectively. Does that mean you need all of the real estate software on this list? Obviously not. My advice is to look at the business functions where you spend the most time and shop for a software product that can simplify that process for you.

 

For human beings struggling with obesity, logging calorie counts and different nutritional data at each meal is a tested way to lose weight. The method does require consistency and accuracy, however, and whilst it fails, it’s typical because human beings do not have the time to locate and file all the statistics they need.
a few years in the past, a crew of nutritionists from Tufts University who were experimenting with cellular-smartphone apps for recording caloric consumption approached individuals of the Spoken Language Systems institution at MIT’s laptop technological know-how and synthetic Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), with the concept of a spoken-language software that might make meal logging even less complicated.
This week, at the global conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing in Shanghai, the MIT researchers are presenting a web-primarily based prototype in their speech-controlled nutrition-logging system.
With it, the consumer verbally describes the contents of a meal, and the gadget parses the description and routinely retrieves the pertinent dietary records from an online database maintained via the U.S. branch of Agriculture (USDA).
The information is displayed collectively with pictures of the corresponding foods and pull-down menus that permit the consumer to refine their descriptions—selecting, as an example, particular quantities of food. but those refinements can also be made verbally. A user who starts via saying, “For breakfast, I had a bowl of oatmeal, bananas, and a glass of orange juice” can then make the amendment, “I had 1/2 a banana,” and the device will replace the information it shows approximately bananas at the same time as leaving the relaxation unchanged.
“What [the Tufts nutritionists] have skilled is that the apps that have been available to help human beings try and log meals tended to be a touch tedious, and therefore people didn’t preserve up with them,” says James Glass, a senior research scientist at CSAIL, who leads the Spoken Language structures group. “so that they have been searching out methods that were accurate and smooth to enter records.”
the first creator on the new paper is Mandy Korpusik, an MIT graduate scholar in electrical engineering and computer technology. She’s joined through Glass, who is her thesis marketing consultant; her fellow graduate pupil Michael fee; and by Calvin Huang, an undergraduate researcher in Glass’s group.
Context sensitivity
inside the paper, the researchers report the effects of experiments with a speech-recognition gadget that they developed specially to handle food-related terminology. however that wasn’t the main attention in their paintings; indeed, a web demo of their meal-logging system as an alternative uses Google’s unfastened speech-popularity app.

Their studies targeting two different troubles. One is figuring out words’ useful role: The machine wishes to apprehend that if the user data the phrase “bowl of oatmeal,” nutritional records on oatmeal is pertinent, however, if the word is “oatmeal cookie,” it’s not.
the other hassle is reconciling the consumer’s phraseology with the entries in the USDA database. as an example, the USDA statistics on oatmeal is recorded under the heading “oats”; the phrase “Oatmeal” indicates up nowhere within the access.
To address the first problem, the researchers used system getting to know. via the Amazon Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform, they recruited employees who without a doubt defined what they had eaten at latest food, then categorized the pertinent phrases within the description as names of ingredients, portions, logo names, or modifiers of the food names. In “bowl of oatmeal,” “bowl” is an amount and “oatmeal” is a meal, however in “oatmeal cookie,” oatmeal is a modifier.
once they had roughly 10,000 labeled meal descriptions, the researchers used system-learning algorithms to find patterns within the syntactic relationships between phrases that might perceive their functional roles.
Semantic matching
To translate between users’ descriptions and the labels within the USDA database, the researchers used an open-source database known as Freebase, which has entries on greater than 8,000 commonplace food items, lots of which consist of synonyms. wherein synonyms had been lacking, they again recruited Mechanical Turk workers to deliver them.
The model of the system presented at the convention is intended mainly to illustrate the viability of its technique to natural-language processing; it reports calorie counts but would not yet total them automatically. A version that does is in the works, however, and when it’s entire, the Tufts researchers plan to conduct a person examine to determine whether or not it certainly makes nutrition logging easier.
“I think logging is particularly useful for many humans,” says Susan Roberts, director of the strength Metabolism Lab at Tufts’ USDA-subsidized Jean Mayer Human nutrients studies middle on getting old. “It makes people more self-aware of the junk they’re eating and the way little they virtually experience it, and the surprise of large portions, et cetera. but currently, it’s miles really tedious to log your food. There are any number of programs like MyFitnessPal where you can manually input it by way of hand, but regardless of shortcuts it is tedious and not as user pleasant because it wishes to be for tens of millions of people to use it sincerely often.”

There are several kinds of software piracy. The bottom line is when software is pirated, the developer does not receive compensation for their work.

Effects of Software Piracy

When software is pirated, consumers, software developers, and resellers are harmed. Software piracy increases the risk consumer’s computers will be corrupted by defective software and infected with viruses. Those who provide defective and illegal software do not tend to provide sales and technical support. Pirated software usually has inadequate documentation, which prevents consumers from enjoying the full benefits of the software package. In addition, consumers are unable to take advantage of technical support and product upgrades, which are typically available to legitimate registered users of the software. Pirated software can cost consumers lost time and more money.

Developers lose revenue from pirated software, from current products as well as from future programs. When software is sold most developers invest a portion of the revenue into future development and better software packages. When software is pirated, software developers lose revenue from the sale of their products, which hinders the development of new software and stifles the growth of the software company.

Kinds of Piracy

End User Piracy –

Using multiple copies of a single software package on several different systems or distributing registered or licensed copies of software to others. Another common form of end-user piracy is when a cracked version of the software is used. Hacking into the software and disabling the copy protection, or illegally generating key codes that unlock the trial version making the software a registered version creates a cracked version.

Reseller Piracy –

Reseller piracy occurs when an unscrupulous reseller distributes multiple copies of a single software package to different customers; this includes preloading systems with software without providing original manuals & diskettes. Reseller piracy also occurs when resellers knowingly sell counterfeit versions of software to unsuspecting customers.

Indications of reseller piracy are multiple users with the same serial number, lack of original documentation or an incomplete set, and non-matching documentation.

Trademark/Trade Name Infringement

Infringement occurs when an individual or dealer claims to be authorized either as a technician, support provider or reseller or is improperly using a trademark or trade name.

BBS/Internet Piracy –

BBS/ Internet Piracy occurs when there is an electronic transfer of copyrighted software. If system operators and/or users upload or download copyrighted software and materials onto or from bulletin boards or the Internet for others to copy and use without the proper license. Often hackers will distribute or sell the hacked software or cracked keys. The developer does not receive any money for the software the hacker distributed. This is an infringement on the developer’s copyright.

Another technique used by software pirates is to illegally obtain a registered copy of the software. Pirates purchase the software once and use it on multiple computers. Purchasing software with a stolen credit card is another form of software piracy. Unfortunately, there are many kinds of software piracy that has hampered the software industry.

These types of software piracy have hampered the software industry. For the software industry to prosper and further develop useful software for consumers please support and pay for software. This results in better software for all.

Powerpoint is usually saved in PPT format but PPT format is not the format that is accepted at online video sharing site. If you want to upload your powerpoint online for others to view, you have to convert it into one of the video formats supported by the video sharing site. converting the powerpoints into video also allows you to embed it in your company website.

Movavi Powerpoint to Video Converter supports video formats that are compatible with the online video sharing site like AVI, MP4, WAV. Movavi Powerpoint to Video Converter is a software that you must first download in order to convert your powerpoint videos into a movie. It only charges a one-time payment and you can use it to convert as many powerpoint videos as you want. When the software first launch you will see a screen with the input and output settings tab being selected.

You can click on the Browse button to locate the PPT presentation file. It is also possible to load a powerpoint from a USB drive that is plugged into your computer. Next, you must choose the destination folder where your converted PPT file will be saved.

In the presentation settings tab, you will find a long list of supported video formats from the presentation drop down menu. It also supports mobile video formats which allow your video to be played on a mobile phone. You can set a custom resolution for the presentation by adjusting the width and height. In Advance slides, you can set the transition speed of the slides.

If you choose the manual option, the viewer can flip to another slide manually. If you select automatically, you can set the time for the slide to automatically flip to the next slide for example 1 second. If you choose as defined in your presentation, the transition speed will be the same as the transition speed defined in the original PPT file.

Movavi  Converter can be successfully installed on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. The video format for the mobile phone is different so you should go to Devices when choosing a format that is viewable on your mobile phone.

The Video tab should be chosen if you want to watch the video on their computer or upload them online. You may want to add a soundtrack or record your explanation over the points outlined in the powerpoint. To add voiceover or a soundtrack, you must click on the Edit button to go to the video editor.

In the video editor, there is a microphone button that you are to click to record your voice on an external/internal microphone. If you want your powerpoint presentation to have a soundtrack playing, you can click the Add Media button to load it into the timeline.

The text function allows you to comment on your powerpoint slides so that your audience will understand your message clearer. You can fully customize the text that is added to the powerpoint including font style and font size.