At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the hottest tech trends and web news. With technology and techniques developing daily, we’ll make sure you’re getting the latest info on what’s happening in the world of web.
Google has recently revealed that it will be making new updates and changes to its Gmail service. Although an official date has not been set for the release, sources have hinted that an unveiling may happen during Google’s yearly developers conference, which will be hosted this year on May 8th. The company has previously revealed upcoming developments at similar events.
Remaining fairly ambiguous with their announcement, Google are yet to clearly define exactly what changes and improvements we can expect to see. However, in a recent report from Android Authority, they have indicated towards ‘draft phase’ changes that we might be able to expect, including a feature for “snoozing” emails, “smart reply” options and other additional features that can already be found in the Gmail mobile app. The makeover seems to include a shift in making the browser version match up with its little brother app.
Although seemingly in its early stages, a launch of Gmail’s new updates are no doubt clearly in sight, and we can hopefully look forward to some handy web browser improvements headed our way in the near future.
At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the latest web developments and web design trends. Our job is to seek out the best in high quality web hosting, security and SEO awareness. When it comes to choosing a platform for your hosting, WordPress ranks higher than any other hosting service. Below are our 7 reasons why WordPress is top of the leaderboard.
Deciding on a platform to host your website is one of the first points to consider when getting started in creating a new or updated site. The platform we think ranks above all the rest is WordPress. This open-source CMS works as an ideal model for creating a wide variety of sites for both small and large businesses, ranging from e-commerce to blog based designs. Still not convinced? Well here’s our reasons why…
It’s popular
WordPress sites account for over 25% of sites on the web, with 1.1 million new domains being created every 6 months. The incredibly popular platform is even available in 62 different languages, making it accessible to businesses worldwide.
It’s beginner friendly
WordPress is easy to use, even if you haven’t had much experience. It allows you to add pages, blog posts, text and widgets at the click of a button. Even if your site is being professionally designed, it will be easy for you to make additional changes or touch ups yourself.
You’ve got access to tons of Themes and Plug-ins
WordPress guarantees access to a huge variety of themes and plug-ins compared to other sites. No matter what your business or blog, they have themes to suit all. From Jetpack, Yoast, Revslider to Woocommerce and Mailchimp, there are so many options to help improve your site.
It’s highly secure
WordPress core software is highly protected and comes with access to great plug-ins such as Wordfence to give you extra defences alongside firewall and malware scans. WordPress also offer plenty of guides and tips to keep you secure savvy.
It will improves your rankings
WordPress genuinely has the ability to help you rank higher in search engines. “WordPress” is searched 2,740,000 times every month, making it one of the highest searched keywords on Google. And WordPress has plenty of great SEO plug-ins and built-in features to optimize each page on your website.
It’s known for its great support
Need help? WordPress has a great technical support team on hand to help with any customer queries you may have.Their engineers offer first rate customer support and quick fixes to any technical issues, and you can access their support services easily online.
No.1 for media
If you’re wanting a website that can handle a multitude of different media content, WordPress handles images, audio, video and plenty more with ease, making it simple to upload and insert content when writing a post or a page.
At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the hottest tech trends and web design news. With 2017 over, it’s time to take stock on what we’ve learnt over the past year and get ready for what the new year has in store for the world of SEO. Take a look at our advice below and get ahead of the game with essential SEO tips and trends for 2018.
Voice Search
Voice search is becoming increasingly popular with a surge in voice search and smart speaker sales. Both Amazon Echo and Google Home have become household favourites. Marketers feel voice search has a higher ability to analyse what shoppers are looking for specifically when compared with traditional search options.
Keyword Planning
When it comes to keyword planning it can be hard to get accurate advice without paying for help such as through Google Analytics Keyword Planner. Up your game when choosing good keywords by using free tools such as Moz’s Keyword Explorer tool. This can help you to get accurate information that can rank the best keywords to target relevant to your business.
Optimising Titles and Meta Descriptions
You can optimise Titles and Meta Descriptions on your web pages by ensuring things such as correct word length, correct keyword usage and making sure your keywords are featured in your tags and URL. This way they are more likely to rank higher in search engine results.
Keep Up To Date
Be sure to keep social media channels up to date and produce and publish new content weekly. Make sure content is of your best quality, is descriptive but gets the point across easily, and is enjoyable for your audience to read. Be sure to use relevant keywords and use both external and internal links to relevant content.
Link Building
Link building, when used correctly and adheres to a specific budget, can be extremely beneficial to SEO. Networking with other companies can be extremely beneficial to landing you “guest spots” or social media takeovers on as many public and published sites as possible.
At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the hottest web trends, software and programs. With technology and techniques developing daily, we’ll make sure you’re getting the latest info on what’s happening in the world of web.
Many of our clients manage their online business through platforms such as WooCommerce. WooCommerce is an e-commerce plugin, its intentional use is for either small or large businesses to create an online selling platform using WordPress. This Autumn, WooCommerce have been updating their latest version, offering a bunch of improved applications and extensions. Below is a list of current optimisations that have been finalised:
Improvements for coupon options and management of extensions
You can now apply discounts to coupon orders without having to do it manually
Alerts are sent for new updates on WooCommerce and other extensions giving you the option to download immediately if using outdated versions
An easier “unified shortcode” when itemising various products on your webpages
A new filter enabling you to simply browse your extensions and identify which are ‘Active’ on the webpage
Although the changes may appear small, they offer some nifty adjustments to help run the platform simply, creating smoother running for both developers and clients.
At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the hottest tech trends and web news. With technology and techniques developing daily, Moocow are continuously working hard to help find new ways to develop your business.
It wasn’t long ago that we were raving about the Tweetstorm feature in one of our recent web news blogs. Despite Twitter leading the way as the most successful social media platform for businesses, we debated it’s one major downfall – the length of posts you are allowed to Tweet. For some users, this has helped simplify things when creating a post – allowing them to Tweet info that is direct and uncomplicated. However for many – the 140 character limit can be particularly frustrating, especially when you feel you’ve got a lot more to say. Jogging your memory at all? Well, Twitter has just released today that you can now send tweets that are 280 characters long, doubling the limit from before.
This feature will be available to almost everyone on Twitter, however tweets in Korean, Chinese or Japanese would not be included as the developers felt the structure of these languages already enabled them to put much more information in one tweet. The Twitter team has already experienced a huge surge in users rushing to take advantage of the new feature this morning with everyone getting excited. Their analytics team have stated that those with tweets posted with a larger number of characters were receiving much higher interest, likes and engagements.
At MooCow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the hottest web trends. With technology and techniques developing daily, take a look at what 2018 has in store for the world of web design.
GIFS – annoying or great fun? Most of us are divided on this opinion. However, when used correctly GIFS and other animated photographic techniques can be the perfect way to give your website that wow factor. Cinemagraphs work by combining Hi-Res images with a video that loops a selected part of the image, making it animated. This makes an already eye-popping image even more magical, allowing viewers to see photographs come to life before their very eyes. These short snippets of animation are becoming increasingly popular, with many social media sites adding tools to create your own online, an example being Instagram’s Boomerang which allows you to upload and create a short repeated video clip. Marketing trends for 2018 are set to become more and more visual, with businesses wanting to create backdrops to their sites that entice and excite their audiences. Working hand in hand with the use of parallaxes and animated backgrounds, using cinemagraphs with your website could be just the thing to get your new website of the ground.
At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the latest web news. With technology and techniques developing daily, Moocow are continuously working hard to help find new ways to market your business.
News of the release of Google Chrome 61 came earlier this week, with the new update for browsers being made available over the next few days to weeks. It will be available to any device on supported platforms including macOS, Windows and Linux. The update comes with some fairly important security enhancements so making the move over will no doubt have some significant benefits. Other than this, details on any features have been kept fairly quiet. This is most likely due to the update focusing on bug fixes, security changes and behind the scenes modifications that won’t be majorly visible to day to day users.
A list has been posted showing several of the most important alteration:
Add initial set of new default user images.
Autoplay policy for HTML5 video: chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy
Data Saver site breakdown doesn’t add up to totals on version update. Also, don’t show negative savings.
DevTools: Add ‘Save profile’ toolbar button to performance panel.
Disable first run for managed profiles.
[Extensions] Don’t allow content scripts on the New Tab Page.
Enable automatically detected CUPS printers in the print preview dialog.
Enable asm.js -> WebAssembly by default.
Keep scanned host devices in the cache for longer (from 5 minutes to 2 hours).
Move extension unzip/unpack to background thread to prevent the blocking of the main utility thread.
On dual-GPU macs, blacklist MSAA for both GPUs if either is Intel.
Switch pause/mute buttons’ locations in RTL languages
Twitter continuously leads the way as a successful social media platform for businesses, but let’s face it – the one major difference between Twitter and other social media sites such as Facebook, is the length of posts you are allowed to Tweet. For some users, this has helped simplify things when creating a post – allowing them to Tweet info that is direct and uncomplicated. However for many – the 140 character limit can be particularly frustrating, especially when you feel you’ve got a lot more to say.
Recently it has come to light that hidden within Twitter’s Android app is a “Tweetstorm” feature, allowing users to post what can be seen as a thread of tweets continuing on from a discussion or theme. To do this you simply need to post a tweet, and then continue to post replies to keep the thread going.
The screenshots depicting the “Tweetstorm” were posted by a Twitter user under the false name of Devesh Logendran. After being tweeted by The Next Web’s Social Media Director Matt Navarra, the images have since gone viral and are now trending across major tech news sites. The pictures show the posts split up as individual tweets posted as a thread, with the end showing a longer “tweet count”.
So, should Twitter make plans to scrap their current character limit? Does this current restriction put off those new to Twitter? Or do shorter posts help businesses get more direct messages across to their audiences?
Despite being largely talked about across the world of web, Twitter has refused to make a statement on the finding of the feature. So keep your eyes peeled and hopefully in the near future the adjustment will be made usuable on all of Twitter’s mobile platforms. In the meantime, users will have to look to Storm It on Android and iOS to create Tweetstorms of their own.
Being a women that works in tech is a constant challenge. I’ve faced plenty of obstacles that have been thrown in my direction, just to work in an industry that is predominantly male-orientated. But why should this be so? With statistics showing women are outperforming men in nearly all sectors in the tech field, why should we be constantly put off from studying in an area we undoubtedly excel in? Deloitte recently released figures stating that as many as 70 per cent of women in the UK with a Science,Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) qualification aren’t currently working in their chosen industry. This is a reality that just should not be so, and so much of the hard work young women have put into their employment or education is being wasted.
Unlike many, I’ve been determined enough to not let these predictions get in my way, and have spent the last few years taking on the tech industry myself. At 22, I started my degree. Beginning later than most, I’d spent some time debating the type of career I was interested in. Having studied in English, Chemistry, Biology and Art and Design, I opted for a BA Hons Degree in Creative Media Practice & Journalism. Despite a lot of thought going into my degree choice, throughout the entire process I was constantly being told I would not make it in this industry, that my degree was pointless and I would be lost in a sea of unemployed graduates once finished with my finals. Yet at age 26, I’ve been lucky enough to pull through with an upper second class degree, a longstanding portfolio and jobs in my chosen industry before officially graduating.
With men accounting for such a large percentage of jobs in the tech industry, it can be tricky competing for the same role, despite some of the most famous leaders in technology being female. The list of women who have braved the odds to succeed within technology is lengthy. From Ada Lovelace – a mathematician regarded by some as the first ever computer programmer, to Mary Lou Jepsen – NASA fellow, founder of Pixel Oi and Director of Engineering at Facebook Occulus VR, to Virginia Rometty – the CEO of IBM who started work as an engineer aged just 24, and was recently voted the most powerful woman in business by Fortune Magazine.
Yet despite such success, women seem to be constantly pushed into being put off from obtaining jobs within the technology industry. Statistically the proportion of girls opting to continue subjects such as Mathematics, Science or Engineering into A Level or Degree Level is far less than boys, with only 7% of girls choosing to study A Levels in these subject areas within the last few years. Shedding light on such issues will hopefully allow changes to be made for the future, and as a woman currently working in tech, I’ve pieced together a few tips for those potentially considering going into a career in the technology industry, in the hope that you can overcome some of the challenges many will face.
Don’t be put off choosing scientific subjects at college
If you’re like me, you probably spent most of your childhood with your nose buried deep inside a book, concocting science experiments, blowing up bicarbonate volcanoes at the bottom of the garden, or getting excited over your parents getting you a new geometry set. To some, we may appear the most boring people on earth, but in reality many will grow up to work in some of the most powerful positions on the planet. No matter what job you’re dreaming of, whether it’s as a scientist, engineer, designer or developer – don’t let anyone stop you from studying exactly what you want to do. Sex or gender should not limit your choice of career path. If you studied in a different subject previously and are wanting to enter into a new choice of career, it’s never too late. And when certain education routes get a bit pricey, there are many different ways to gain qualifications, including ones that don’t come with a price tag. As well as bursaries, scholarships and Arts Council Funding, many companies will actually offer to train people for free. On top of this there are boot camps and hundreds of online training programs and resources that can help you transition into a tech role if you don’t have the qualifications needed for a specific job. And if you’re looking to learn code, there are thousands of sites that can help you, Codecademy, HackerRank & edX are to name a few.
Stand your ground when it comes to your career path
Time and time again I have met with interviewers who comment on my age, refer to me as being too young to possibly have any ‘real’ industry knowledge or seem to be completely bewildered by the idea of a young women applying for a role within the tech industry. It can be hard to overcome an interview situation where you’re being made to feel about 2ft tall, just for not fitting into a stereotype, particularly if you quite clearly have skills that are being overlooked. To overcome this, confidence is key. Now it’s all very well saying this, but if you’re as anxious a person as I am, this can be quite the challenge. First rule is to have a good perception of your own skills, the abilities you have and what you can achieve. If you don’t feel confident in your own abilities, it can be hard for others to feel the same. Prove you are the right person for the role, use active language that shows off your talents instead of being passive, state direct plans you have and show just how much you can benefit their company. Be bold and never feel intimidated, no matter how terrifying the interviewer may appear.
Have a plan and find mentorship
I worked constantly all through my degree building up my portfolio. A good deal of free time I had was spent either applying for internships or gaining work experience. Sure, having to work for free sometimes can feel like a real pain, but if a company is offering you valuable experience, don’t turn it down – in the long run it can really pay off and looks great on your CV. Always take time to refine your skills, practice really does make perfect. Finding mentorship within a working role can also be really beneficial, so be sure to place yourself in an environment where you can be surrounded by professionals in your chosen field who are as passionate about your goals as you are. Most importantly, never give up on what it is you want to achieve. It can be hard seeing friends or colleagues achieving their goals faster than you or at different rates, but the job you’ve been waiting for could be just around the corner. Hard work always pays off, and whether it takes you 1 year, 5 years or even 10 years to reach the job you’ve always wanted, it’s always worth the wait.
Amy Louise – Web Editor, Tech Writer and Analytics Queen
At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the hottest tech trends and web news. With technology and techniques developing daily, we’ll make sure you’re getting the latest info on what’s happening in the world of web.
Google’s famous search engine was launched in 1997, and since that day its iconic homepage has yet to change – minus a few animation tweaks to the logo when a celebratory holiday pops up. Despite boldly clinging to its design for 20 years, Google has finally announced that it will be giving its home page a brand new makeover, with the launch of a personalised news feed added to the browser version of the original Google search bar. 20 years is a long time to wait to make such a change, which makes this pretty big news for the company. So why now? You might be asking. The change comes after a massive surge in the amount of AI being used to predict search queries which is fast becoming a replacement for traditional search engines, a trend that is expected to continue to rise considerably in the future. According to recent statistics released, 99.9% of Google’s revenue is from the use of “search and video advertising”, and with search engines becoming a dying format, Google needs to up its game to stay ahead of its competitors. Google’s plan is to develop a news feed style homepage similar to how Facebook and other sites operate, with predictions of searches, latest news and what’s trending. So if you’re a Google user, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for some significant upcoming changes.
