Spotify is possibly the most popular music streaming service. Spotify has a massive collection of songs with artists all across the globe. One of the major highlights of Spotify that is missing on other services like Apple Music is the ability to play music online via a web-browser.

Spotify Web Player eliminates the need of downloading and installing additional software to listen to music. So here’s everything you need to know about it

Spotify Web Player Login

You can use Spotify’s web client on any major browser like chrome, firefox, edge, opera and many more. It is worth noting that, as of 10th September 2017 Spotify’s Web no longer supports Safari. That said, you can still use Spotify on Mac computers using the Spotify application.

To use Spotify Web Player simply open the link play.Spotify.com and sign in with your Spotify account.

This Spotify browser-based web player offers almost every feature found on the Spotify app. Using Spotify web-player you can create playlists, browse featured recommendations, search for your favorite artists and songs, and even enjoy the Radio mode. Well, if you are using the free Spotify plan then occasional advertisements won’t annoy you.

Also Read- How Spotify Premium APK Works, Is Downloading It Legal?

Why is my Spotify Web Player Not Working?

The Spotify web-player can be considered as a full-fledged application that requires a decent amount of resources for its proper functioning. Well, if due to some reasons the UI of Spotify web-player is not responding or the songs are not playing, then you can try these three easy tricks.

1. Check Your Internet connection.

The first and foremost reason as to why Spotify is not working properly might be due to some issue in your Internet connection. Firstly, restart your router and if that doesn’t work contact your ISP for help.

2. Check anti-virus and firewall settings.

If you notice that Spotify is the only website that you can’t open, then there could be any anti-virus or firewall that is blocking you from accessing the service. Tweak the settings of your anti-virus and firewall, this may solve the issue.

3. Remove browser cache files.

A majority of modern browser cache images and web pages so that it seems that the website is loading faster. This cached data can sometimes cause errors. Consequently, clearing up all of your browsing data may solve many issues from your browser.

Spotify Web Player Mobile

Spotify has a very impressive smartphone application. That said, if you still want to use Spotify web player on mobile then there’s no way you can do so.

Well, if you open the Spotify web-page then you will be directed to Spotify application. Next up, if you open Spotify web-page switching to the desktop site mode, then you can open the log-in page. Once you log-in Spotify will detect that resolution of your device and redirect you to the application.

As Android is based on Linux, Spotify may even ask you to manually install the Spotify software on your Linux computer. Consequently, its impossible to run Spotify Web Player on mobile.

Spotify Web Player: Cons

There’s definitely some difference between Spotify web player and Spotify application. So these are three major issues or features that you will kiss-out on Spotify web player.

• The quality or bit rate of music is comparatively low on Spotify web player. Well, Spotify web player offers 128kbps instead of 160kbps on Spotify desktop for free subscribers. While users premium subscribers get 256kbps instead of 320kbps. This won’t be an issue for casual users, but audio enthusiasts may not like this.
• Spotify web media player doesn’t support media playback controls on your computer, headphones, or Bluetooth devices.
• Lastly, premium subscribers can’t download songs from Spotify’s website version

Overall, in many instances, the Spotify web audio player is a good service. Use Spotify in web browser and enjoy your personal favorite music if you are using someone’s else computer. Also, it’s good if your work revolves around a particular browser.

Do share your thoughts and opinions on Spotify web player in the comments section below.

Routers play a very crucial role in getting access to the internet. They act as a medium between the user and the servers to send and receive data. Many People were facing problems regarding Belkin router login. So in this article, we have provided you the best way to login into Belkin wireless router using default gateway which is 192.168.2.1 (Default IP address), As It’s Impossible to Troubleshoot the Router Without Accessing Belkin Router Dashboard.

• How to Reset Belkin Router to Default Settings (192.168.2.1)?

Tutorial of Belkin Router Login, 192.168.2.1

Before getting started with Belkin router login process there are a few things you need to keep in mind.

First, you need to have some wired or wireless connection as you won’t be able to login unless you are connected with the router.

Second, you need to have its website or the IP address which will help you in accessing Belkin Setup console or you can’t be able to perform Belkin router login.

Also Read- How To Find WiFi Password When You Forgot It

Setting Up the connection between the router and the pc

Its pretty obvious. If your pc is not connected with the router you won’t be able to log in into the Belkin router and hence resulted with no Belkin router login.

So first step is to set up the connection between the Belkin router and the pc using Ethernet cable as shown in the figure below.

Then open your favorite web browser and enter the default gateway for Belkin router login.

Default Gateway for Belkin router – Every router has its some default gateway which means default IP address. This lets the user access all the functions of the router such as changing wifi password, limiting user access and much more.

In this case, 192.168.2.1 is the default IP address of Belkin router. it is also known as Default Belkin Ip.

All you need is to type this IP address 192.168.2.1 in the URL section of your web browser and hit enter.

After doing that a Pop Up will flash on the screen asking For Username And Password For Belkin Router Login.

Please Type

• Username = admin
• Password = password 
• Then Press Ok and You Should Be Logged in to Your Belkin Wireless Router.

you will end up with this type of webpage which is a setup console of the Belkin router and now you can perform as many changes you want.

Such as Resetting Or Changing the Network name and password, Setup Parental Control, Update Router Firmware, Restore Router To Default Factory Settings etc

Few more things to keep in mind.

1. If you are facing an error while accessing the web address 192.168.2.1, then you need to clear your browser cache first and try again. It will work.
2. Try to use URL box which is right above the search bar.
3. Use a different browser if still facing issues.
4. In Case If you still get any Problem Accessing Your Belkin router than We Recommend You to Reset Your Belkin router to Default Factory Settings. As a last option.

Also Read – How to Hack WiFi Password Using New WPA/WPA2 flaw (Working)

Conclusion- So this was all about on How to Login into Belkin Router. Using 192.168.2.1 as a default gateway Working in 2018.

If you found this information useful let us know in the comment section below. Would love to hear that.

Stay Tuned for more.

Don’t you just love the feeling of lying around and listening to music or watching your favorite singers’ videos on YouTube? It would be great if you could have their music with you all the time and listen to it without requiring an Internet connection.

If you really like a song, you could turn it into a ringtone and thus, make your phone sound like your idol.

There are different programs which can help you convert videos from YouTube to MP3s

Those who want to turn their favorite videos into MP3 files need to start looking for an online converter. You will find a lot of these tools available for free download.

Also Read- 10 Incredible YouTube To Mp3 Converter With Lighting Fast Downloading Speed

Since there are a lot of options, it’s hard to know which is the right one. Another concern could be represented by the idea that you don’t know much about hardware and you won’t be able to set up the new program by yourself.

In this case, you don’t have any reason to worry. Apart from the fact that YouTube converter installment is not brain surgery, we have compiled a list of the most popular programs dedicated to this process.

Music fans from around the world are using them and their positive feedback determined us to mention these programs further in this article.

Legal matters

Before we start, we should mention an important detail. Downloading videos from YouTube is legal under certain terms and conditions.

Firstly, it’s totally safe, secure and legal to download your own footages. In this case, you have to have created and uploaded the content to your personal account.

Secondly, nobody will sue you if you have a written permission for downloading their videos.

On the other hand, if you want to get files from the public domain you don’t need any permission, but make sure that is the case before proceeding.

YouTube to MP3 converters are not just simple apps

Like we mentioned before, you don’t have to be a tech guru for using programs dedicated to turning YouTube videos into MP3 files.

The following examples have been chosen from a long list and are safe, fast, easy to install and use and, above all, free.

1. VLC Media Player – dedicated to Windows operating systems;

2. Audacity – suitable for Windows, Linux and macOS;

3. GenYouTube – the fastest way to convert YouTube videos to MP3 files;

4. YoutubeMP3.to – its features are similar to GenYouTube, but users can customize the videos’ quality while converting them;

5. MediaHuman YouTube to MP3 Converter – suitable to Windows, Mac and Ubuntu operating systems;

6. YouMp34 Android App – it is dedicated to downloading videos from YouTube directly to an Android Phone or tablet;

7. Documents iPhone App – suitable for iPhone users.

8. Chrome or Firefox Web Browser – can be used by Windows systems

Although they serve for the same purpose, each of these YouTube to MP3 converters has different specs. Learn more about them and use the one you consider suitable for your needs and the device you are using.

Also Read: 10 Best Free YouTube Alternative Sites In 2018

10 Most Wanted Telegram Messenger App Tricks

When it comes to messengers, for most of us the first priority will be WhatsApp. The Reason behind this is very obvious it’s easy to use. But what if I say that telegram is much better option than WhatsApp. You must be thinking that I have lost my mind right? but in this article, I have shared some of the coolest tricks of Telegram messenger app which will definitely do justice to my statement. So before moving further first, we must be familiar with the reasons on why Telegram is better than whatAapp.

Reasons why telegram is better than WhatsApp

1. Cloud storage

This is probably the biggest reason to switch. Telegram offers cloud storage facility to its users which means no worry of storage. All your texts, images, audio and video media will be safe and secure in their cloud. Even you need not to worry about any backups, telegram will take care of this by itself. This is something for which I can ditch WhatsApp for.

2. Username Feature

Username feature allows you to communicate with anyone on telegram even if you don’t have their contact number. It’s a very safe and handy feature as I guess for those people who really don’t want to share their contact details with anybody.

3. Media Compression

This is something I wish WhatsApp can offer. Thankfully telegram allows you to compress any type of media file (images or videos ) you wish to send.

4. Send any kind of file

The best part is that you can send any type of file using a telegram. There are limits such as WhatsApp offers.

5. Multiple Sessions

One can log in to multiple devices at the same time and still be able to receive messages on every connected device.

So in my honest opinion, I find telegram much better option to opt for as it offers many useful features as compared with the world’s most leading messenger app WhatsApp. Now Here are some cool and useful tricks to be considered while using telegram messenger.

Tricks regarding Telegram messenger App

1. Turning Off Message Preview

When a user is concerned about his privacy then this feature proves to be a boon for him. There are times when we are hanging out with our colleagues or friends and the sudden arrival of a text message from someone we are not willing to show will create anxiety in us. So telegram provides you with a feature to get rid of this worry. You simply need to turn on this feature by navigating to Settings -> Notification and Sounds -> turn off Message Preview. In this way, telegram is ensuring your full privacy and control.

2. Search messages

It’s very boring and tiring to find old messages you had in a chat. It may take time to scroll down and search for a particular message you are willing to see or respond. So telegram has a feature called search messages. By this feature, you can easily search for messages you want from long chats. In order to search for a message tap on any contact you want, then tap on a three-dotted button and select “Search”. Just after this, a keyboard will appear and there you have to mention the terms you want to search and press the search button. You will see a highlighted text which you wanted to search for.

3. Username Change

If you don’t want to share your contact details or real name then you can easily change your username. This allows the user to hide its real identity if he is not comfortable sharing it. In order to change the username go to Settings -> tap on Username -> Change and save.

4. Custom notifications and LED colors

These days there are tons of phones available in the market which offers multiple colored notifications LED light. Moreover, you can select different notification light for different contacts. Yes, its possible but Android doesn’t allow the freedom of choosing custom notification colours. We separately have to install third-party apps to do that. But in telegram, you can go into contact’s info -> Notifications -> Customize and then select the colour you like.

5. Enable pop-up notifications

This feature is acceptable by some user and for some it’s irritating. Well, I personally like this feature as it comes to me very handy when I am in the middle of conversation. The main reason behind this is that it allows me to reply from home screen directly. To enable the pop-up notifications to feature we again need to visit Settings -> Notifications and Sounds -> Popup Notifications and select Always show a popup or Only when screen on or off.  This will show pop-up even when the device is locked.

6. Manage media downloads

Telegram lets you manage media more efficiently. In this app, you are allowed to send more than 1gb of a file easily. I find this as a big advantage of telegram over any other messenger app. By default the automatic download is set to both wifi and mobile data so in order to change it go to settings -> Data and Storage -> Automatic media download.

7. Last seen management

I consider this feature as a most useful feature in messaging apps as it lets you see when was the last time your knowns were online. It was good for parents as well in order to keep a check on their kids. Unlike WhatsApp where if a user disables last seen for everyone then he himself won’t be able to see last seen of others too. Here on the telegram, you can choose particular contacts for which you want to hide your last seen. To do that go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Last Seen. Now, set your last seen too add exceptions where you can set exceptions for contacts.

8. Hiding Telegram media from Gallery

There may be some scenario where you receive some private pictures from your friends which you don’t want anybody to see. So, in that case, you hide you telegram media files from gallery. Yes, it’s possible. Just go to Settings and disable -> “Save to Gallery”. By doing this you are preventing telegram media moving into your phone gallery.

9. Lock your chats

This feature is most loved feature as I wish any messenger app except telegram can offer. This is the biggest privacy feature I have ever seen on any app. Telegram lets to lock your chat logs so that no one can read them. To set the lock, go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Passcode Lock and enable it, set the passcode for it.

10. Self-destruct timer in secret chats

This feature is very popular in snapchat. It simply destroys every message you send. This initially keeps your chat private and secure. And now you can also enjoy this feature on telegram by simply following these steps. On the right side of the app, you will see a Three-dot menu button, tap it and select “Set self-destruct timer”. Set that timer to 1 second.

 Also Read: 5 Best WhatsApp tricks 

So these were some of the cool tricks you can apply to get most out of telegram experience.

Adults enjoy playing just as kids do, especially if they can save some money in process. Retail applications provide lots of opportunities to enjoy games and challenges, and in exchange they get loyalty, higher retention rate, engagement and greater revenue.

Gamification is a marketing strategy that works for many types of businesses beginning with education and social media to retail. We will talk about it in our article.

A good choice of products, convenient checkout with an optimal mobile payment gateway and customer service is not enough for a modern retail app. Ecommerce app gamification allows your brand to stand out from the crowd and attract users to your application.

According to P&S market research, $22 million will be the evaluation of the gamification market that will show a rise of 41.8% annually. Another study shows that 87% of ecommerce shops in US are planning about using gamification as a part of their strategy, and the biggest companies actually already use it.

To keep up, you should also make it a part of your business model, and in this article we will explore the psychology of gamification the ways to use it properly so it brings the most profit.

Benefits of Gamification

Let’s talk more about why gamification in e-commerce applications is so beneficial and how other apps manage to get the most from it. We will show you some examples of gamification in ecommerce app.

1.User engagement

The secret of gamification lies in addressing inner nature of every person: strive to challenges, achievements and entertainment. If used properly, it hits all the goals and makes the user truly engaged in the whole process of playing, getting rewards and then spending them on your products.

Example:

Aliexpress is great at engaging users with their app. Games are one of the most special and prominent features in Aliexpress. Personal preferences are key here: while one game is oriented on long-term results, the other is all about fun and luck.

2.High retention rate

Daily challenges or coupons are what make users return to the app again and again, even without planning to purchase anything. As many customers purchase something in an ecommerce shop only once and then leave the app, owners of ecommerce stores often find it very hard to return customers to their apps. The answer is gamifying the UX.

Example:

The main currency that can be exchanged for coupons in Aliexpress are coins, and each day the user enters the app, one coin is presented. Daily tasks are one of several ways to gain more coins, and that motivates users to return each day.

There are many options to choose from, like daily tasks or a game Lucky Forest that also encourages regular interaction with the app.

3.Building a community

Gamification is often tied to social media. Competition is a very important part of a gaming process: it makes people more eager to win, and sharing achievements is a great motivating factor.

Also, social media can help to promote your business – nobody can do it better than your customers. Reward them for sharing information, following influencers within your community and creating user-generated content.

Reviews of the products are extremely important for modern ecommerce, as people have no opportunity to hold the product in their hands like they would do in brick and mortar shops. Reviews is their only way to know that they will get what they want. According to statistics, 88% of customer decisions about adding a product to cart were influenced by reviews.

Example:

Aliexpress uses daily tasks to build a strong community around their ecommerce platform. Look at the tasks they offer to complete to get coins:

Each task involves taking part in the life of the community and sharing reviews, that will later allow you to sell more.

With gamification, you can:

• Get to know user behaviour
• See user reaction to any changes and new approaches
• Personalize your interaction with a customer
• Develop brand loyalty
• Increase repeat sales

This is why retail companies love gamification. It leads to positive experience, and according to Walker Info, the most important success factor for retail will be not the price or the product itself, but the user experience. This is the thing that will determine whether people will trust your brand and buy your products.

Tips on Using Gamification

How to use gamification properly, so it brings the most benefit to your business? We have several tips for you, that will help you understand the direction.

The first thing to know, is that any type of gamification consists of three important steps:

• Challenge
• Instructions
• Reward

Without a challenge the user won’t be engaged with a game. Instructions help to understand the rules and avoid any obstacles or misunderstandings. Reward is the goal of the whole process, and the user needs to know about it beforehand, as it’s the biggest motivator.

The first step you’ll need to make before you start to develop a strategy, is to determine your goal. Adding a bonus system or a game without a clear understanding of what you want to achieve, won’t result in anything.

Think thoroughly about what you want. Possible goals may be:

• Higher retention rate
• More time spent in the app
• Bigger revenue
• Greater average order value
• More user-generated content

These and many other goals can be achieved with the help of gamification, and after you determine what your expectations are, you’ll be able to create the gamification strategy.

Each type of gamification can help to achieve different results. Let’s talk about them in more details.

Daily bonuses – increase retention rate. Users can get them only if they visit the app every day. For example, Aliexpress gives one bonus a day, and also allows to earn more by completing tasks.

Badges – help to differentiate the users according to their achievements. Badges determine the privileges and motivate users to get more of them.

Likes and Follows – are connected with building a community around your brand. You can reward the users with bonuses, points or coins that they will later exchange for coupons.

Games – increase engagement and allow users to get even more coins. Develop some simple, yet interesting games with clear rules and reward system, and motivate users to try them. Games are one of the best ways to get users spend more time in your app.

Competitions – also work for creating social interaction and promoting your business. Competitions motivate users to share their achievements in social media and achieve higher results.

Go way ahead of your competitors and think about using gamification in ecommerce apps along with modern trends like AR. With the release of ARKit from Apple and ARCore from Google there appeared lots of possibilities for startups and development companies like Mobindustry to implement AR games both in apps and in brick-and-mortar stores.

Following trends mindfully can make your brand bright and successful, you should definitely look into spicing your ecommerce mobile app with some games and challenges.

This article introduces how to unlock Windows password, power-on password, and HDD/SSD password for personal laptops, and gives you suggestions that how to stop others accessing your laptop without your authorization anywhere and anytime.

1: Unlock Windows password for laptop

When it comes to Windows password, it is the most common way to protect a laptop. If you forget Windows password, many password tool can help you reset the forgotten password and regain access your laptop. Here I want to recommend you a password program iSunshare Password Genius, which can help you create a password reset disk on Windows computer, Mac computer, or Android phone, and unlock the forgotten password device in a short time. So powerful software it  is.

Here I will show you how to create a Windows Password Reset disk on another Windows computer and unlock Windows password with iSunshare software.

Tips: If you want to create a reset disk by Mac computer for Android phone, please follow the guides: https://www.isunshare.com/windows-password/windows-password-genius-for-mac-user-guide.html, and https://www.isunshare.com/windows-password/windows-password-genius-for-android-user-guide.html.

Steps to unlock a Windows Password with iSunshare Password software:

Step 1: Download, install and run iSunshare Windows Password Genius on an available PC.

Step 2: Insert your USB flash disk to the computer, click “USB device”, Tips: If you want to create CD/DVD reset disk, choose “CD/DVD” option.

Step 3: Click “Begin burning” button to create a password reset disk.

Step 4: After creating the reset disk, unplug it and insert it to the locked computer, and boot the locked computer from the reset disk. (Later, you will learn how to boot a computer from USB flash drive. This is a key operation of all password reset operations. You should pay attention to it.)

Step 5: After booting from password reset disk, you will see screen as follow, then you can choose a user account and reset its password.

Guide to boot a computer from USB flash drive

1. Insert the bootable USB flash drive to the computer.
2. Start or restart the computer, and press the Boot Menu Key repeatedly until Boot Menu appears.

Boot Menu Key for various venders:

3. Choose USB flash drive to boot from.

2: Unlock power-on password for laptop

As soon as laptop boots up, it will prompt to remind users to input their power-on password. You can’t do any operation without entering correct power-on password. There is no way to reset or remove power-on password by software. Nevertheless, just only a cross screwdriver can help you fix the issue in a few minutes if you are locked by power-on password.

The following steps tell you how to unlock power-on password for ThinkPad T430. The steps for other laptops may be different.

Step 1: disconnect the power and remove the battery.

Step 2: Remove this cover.

Step 3: Disconnect the yellow battery with the laptop and wait for about three minutes.

Step 4: Reassembly the laptop and start it. You will enter your laptop without power on password.

3: Unlock forgotten password for HDD/SSD

If you ask me how to unlock a forgotten password for HDD/SSD, I have to say “Sorry, I have no idea”. I know many programs for unlocking Windows password, but I haven’t found an effective way to unlock HDD/SSD password even I have tried many time.

HDD/SSD password is a firmware-based password which is hardly removed. In general, users can set HDD/SSD password in BIOS. When you miss the password, HDD/SSD and the data inside are most likely to be lost.  In theory, if you forget the HDD/SSD password, the data on the HDD or SSD is still possible to be recovered, but you need to pay much time and money for it. How much? I don’t know.

Suggestions for using Windows password, power-on password and HDD/SSD password

From the above guides, you can see that the Windows login password and power-on password are easy to unlock. The HDD or SSD password is the one I want to recommend to you. It is more security than Windows password and power-on password, so you must keep it in your mind. Learn more about HDD/SSD password, see Detailed Explanation of HDD Password Function

I have chosen to share my personal experience with the VMware 3V0-624 exam to help others preparing for it. It has been an interesting journey with a serious preparation. The good news is that today, I have passed my 3V0-624, VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6.5 – Data Center Virtualization Design exam. To be truthful, this was not the first time I will be writing this test. The fact is that I first wrote the exam in March and failed. I was going to give up because I have put so much into the preparation and, of course, considering the cost of registering for the exam, I was going to throw in the towel. Well, I decided to give it another try. Thankfully, I discovered that a new version of the test has been released; the 6.5 version and the dreaded design sections have been dropped. I made up my mind to purchase another exam voucher and rewrite the test, and I’m glad that I did it.

My Preparation Experience

To kick start my preparation, I picked up the 6.0 Blueprint because I learnt that the 6.5 exam guide was not as detailed as it should be. Well, I discovered that the 6.0 Blueprint is also not as helpful as I thought it would be. Unfortunately, because the VMware 3V0-624 exam is relatively new, there have been not much write-ups on it. Prior to writing the test, I knew the exam consists of 60 questions and they are multiple-choice ones, drag and drop, and matching formats. I also learnt that the duration for completing the test is 2 hours and 25 minutes. After writing and passing the exam, I think I’ve learnt some couple of tips that I know will be of great help to other test takers.

My Tips to Help in the Exam:

• It is crucial to read the exam prep guide. By reading through the manual, you will understand the types of questions to expect and how you can answer them. As a matter of fact, everything you need to successfully write your VMware 3V0-624 is in this guide.
• When writing the exam, ensure you carefully study the question and design scenario that are given to you. Read and reread and understand the objectives of the question before you answer it.
• The time is enough to complete the exam, especially if you have studied hard for it. So, take your time in completing the questions. Really, there are no longer Visio style exam questions, so you have plenty of time to read the questions and provide the right answers to them.
• There is an opportunity to flag questions and come back to review them. However, you have to be careful with this feature. Most often than not, if you spend a lot of time on a question and still don’t know the answer, the chances that you will know the answer when you come back to it is very slim. So if you come across a question you are not sure of the first time, trust your gut and select the best answer you think best fit the question.
• It is important that you have a strong understanding of limitation of, dependencies required for, and services and features as well as how those dependencies impact on the ability to meet a certain design requirements or introduce risks to the design.
• Understand the components of vSphere deployment, such as upgrades, features, and interoperability.
• On AMPRS, study and understand your Availability, Performance, Management, Security, and Recoverability sections.
• For RCAR, you need to have a deep understanding of Constraints, Requirements, Risks, and Assumption. It is important to mention that if you don’t have a deep understanding of these concepts as well as the concepts of AMPRS, your chances of passing the exam is extremely low. It is also very important that you understand functional versus non-functional requirements as this is a strong aspect of the certification test.

Examination Interface

As I said earlier, the VMware 3V0-624 exam comes in the form of multiple-choice question, drag and drops, and matching formats. Using the interface to complete the test is relatively easy. However, with the drag and drop questions, you have to be careful in working around them because it was quite difficult to review the work when you bring it over the statement. You might not see what was assigned to it without first removing it. For instance, if you are working with diagrams, you will not be able to move on until you enlarge all the diagrams. Even with this, you will have to use the scroll bars to continue with the task. Although, it is quite hard to figure this out but on the long run, it appears to be a good option because with it, you will not be able to move on without completing the task which invariably prevents you from missing something important.

Some Resource Materials

In preparing for the certification exam, I did not use an extensive list of study materials. I only used a couple but the few I used; I made sure I studied them very well. Some of the materials I used in my preparation are highlighted below:

• VCAP5-DCD Official Certification Guide

There is no doubt that this particular resource material is an older version but it still did the job. The critical principles in the guide still work perfectly well and the information I gathered from it is still very relevant to my exam.

• vBrownbag VCAP Series

This material is also an old material but it works just fine. In addition to reviewing the 6.0 series, I also took it a step back and looked over the 5.5 series. You can bet that there is a lot of information on the 6.5 contents that can be gathered from this resource material.

• VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook

This book was authored by Hersey Cartwright and it has a whole lot of information that is very critical to the preparation towards this certification exam. As a matter of fact, it was my main study resource for the exam preparation.

Conclusion

My preparation for the VMware 3V0-624 exam was tasking but at the end of the day, the result more than made up for the time dedicated to my preparation.

Twitter is among the biggest social media platforms that have ever existed. It is a very potent tool that when taken advantage of, could really make a change. Twitter is used by top companies in the world for digital marketing. It is also used by consultants or distributors to generate leads and attract prospects. Companies and various businesses use Twitter to solidify their brand among many other uses.

In order to take advantage of this platform, one needs to have very many followers. Traffic is the key to unlocking the power of Twitter. With a good number of followers, information could be passed to a large population easily over a very short period of time.

Here are a number of tips on how to acquire a good number of followers over a short period of time:

Disclose your location

To get more followers on any social media platform, disclose your location from time to time. Post a tweet appreciating the weather or an event mentioning your location in the tweet. This gives some people a feeling of belonging and generally attracts them to you.

In some cases, say you are in an event or institution; their official account may like or retweet your post. People following that account will see that tweet and end up commenting or retweeting the same. Eventually, a number of people will end up following your account.

Use tweet scheduling software

Look for the software that manages and schedules your posts. Twitter bot is one of the best things for automation you can use. Posting frequently helps to quicken the visibility. In turn, this increases the number of people who follow you.

Some of the tools that can be used are Sprout Social and Hootsuite. These tools ensure that you post tweets at the right time of the day. The periods one is prompted to post are when a lot of people are on these platforms.

Post graphic content

It is common knowledge that human beings are visual creatures. They are usually attracted by what their eyes meet at first sight. A lot of people do not like reading, especially if the posts are long plain words.

• Some of the graphic contents being talked about are:
• Funny clips
• Funny pictures
• Thought-impelling tweets
• Amazing nature videos
• Clips showing amazing stuff being done by people such as acrobats or magicians.
• Captivating and interesting links

If someone stumbles upon such content and likes them maybe because they are funny or informative, chances are they will follow you.

Use hashtags in your posts

It is important to use hashtags in your tweets. Also, remember to post tweets based on different hashtags. The use of trending hashtags at the time is also a good move. In doing this, your visibility is increased and this increases the number of people who interact with your tweets. Eventually, your follower count rockets and you pick very many followers.

You should also remember to moderate your use of hashtags. Ensure that when used, they are relevant and not just fixed in.

Exhaust your twitter bio

From time to time, you check on someone’s bio in order to know more about them. Even if you do not realize, the same thing happens to you. When people gain interest in you after crossing paths- they probably liked your tweets- the first thing they do is visit your bio. They do this to know more about you. Now, if your Twitter bio is sketchy and poorly written, they will automatically not follow you. On the other hand, if your bio is complete and solid, they will follow you increasing your visibility.

The best way to structure your avatar on twitter is having a professional photo with your eyes to the lens. Avoid having other profile pictures that have been taken from other funny angles.

Be loyal to the follow-for-follow rule

Being disciplined even on social media naturally attracts people to you. Following people whenever they follow you shows a great deal of discipline. Whenever someone notices that you have not followed them back, they tend to feel provoked and unfollow you immediately. This trend ends up reducing your follower count.

Closing Thoughts

In some occasions, a follow-back might trigger someone to comment back publicly. This increases your exposure as it is also visible to all their followers.

Making a few changes here and there will definitely help explode your follower count. Adapt these few traits and you will see tremendous change on your social media platforms.

The challenges of mobile development can causecompatibility testing mistakes. This article outlines some common errors and tips for avoiding them.

If you are in mobile app development, you probably need nobody to tell you how critical each round of testing is to the quality of deliverables. In functional, performance, user-acceptance, and compatibility testing types, each cycle allows you to remove errors and imperfections, taking your app a little closer to the polished endresult that will satisfy the users.

However, app development projects are often fraught with challenges, some of which may jeopardize the quality of testing. Since it belongsat the end of the overall development cycle, compatibility testing is at riskmore than anything: pressures mount and canlead to mistakes in test planning and execution. You will find four of those challenges and mistakes highlighted in this article, along with a few tips to avoid them provided by compatibility testing experts from A1QA.

Challenge#1: Shortage of Time, Money, or Resources

Source: OutSystems – The State of Application Development 2017 Research Report

As the graph above illustrates, the pressure to meet development deadlines, stay on budget, and gain access to all the required resourcesis common in mobile app development. Due to this pressure, it can be tempting to leave the compatibilitytesting phase out of the project, particularly when using skilled developers who you know will have compatibility in mind throughout software building.

The Mistake: Foregoing Compatibility Testing

Unfortunately, no amount of development skill and diligence can guarantee that your app is free from compatibility issues, especially given that operating systems and browsers are frequently updated and new device models are being launched all the time. While compatibility testing is not cheap, and, when executed manually can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, launching your app without this vital QA step is a false economy not to be recommended.

The Solution

There is only one way to deal with this problem. Whoever is putting the squeeze on the project timeline, budget, or resources must be made aware that there will be no true savings from skipping compatibilitytesting.

Challenge #2: Organizational Silos

As research from Econsultancy revealed in 2017, 40% of companies find their customer experience objectives disrupted by departmental silos, and this internalization of agendas can affect technology departments as much as any other, limiting their ability to communicate and collaborate effectively during projects.

The Mistake: Failing to Discuss Compatibilityduring the Project

This is a likely mistake of larger enterprises with more than one IT team or department. As an example, consider a company in which one IT department is responsible for the development of mobile applications, while another is responsible for building and maintaining backend solutions.

If the silo mindset is in play, the two departments may not collaborate effectively during development projects.Although they will have to play nicely together during integration testing, discussions about mobile and browser compatibility testingmay not take place—at least not until the very end of the project when somebody brings up the issue.

This often results in a hastily launchedcompatibility testing program, initiated without effective preparation. Many bugs come to light that could have been prevented by proper communication, or even worse, those bugs remain undetected due to haphazard test planning.

The Solution

If you think a lack of departmental collaboration might cause problems for your app development project, consider applying the Scrum methodology. This Agile app development approach involves cross-functional collaboration as part of its makeup, and even requires participants from different functions to cross-train one another. Furthermore, depending on the project type, you can perform some compatibility testing as part of your sprints, sparing you the need to test everything at the end of the development cycle.

Challenge #3: Fear of Imperfection

There is a difference between having a healthy outlook on mobile app compatibility and being terrified of overlooking even the tiniest imperfection.

The Mistake: Trying to Test for 100% Compatibility

To put it simply, if you try to test your app for every outlying OS version or outdated device, you’re looking at a very long and expensive compatibilitytesting phase. A certain amount of test prioritization is essential if you ever want to launch your app.

The Solutions

• To avoid making an issue out of this fear of imperfection, try to plan your compatibility testing to cover around 95% of your user base, and allow the other 5% to receive guidance and advice from your customer help team—or you can even block older OS versions from trying to run your app.
• Similarly, don’t try looking too far forward or back with your compatibility testing plans. Two generations of devices and operating systems, both forward and back, should be perfectly adequate. Remember, just like devices and operating systems, your app will have a finite lifecycle and may quickly fall out of favor when a new technology eclipses its capabilities.

Challenge #4: Pressure to Shorten the App Development Cycle

According to a study by market research firm Opinion Matters, nearly all companies involved in application development are dealing with backlogs, and 50% are trying to clear backlogs of ten or more apps.

It’s not surprising then that the pressure to launch apps faster can prompt efforts to shorten their development cycles.When that happens, test plans can sometimes become the first casualties of such expediency. It might be that the number of tests is drastically reduced, or in some cases, companies forego the use of software test specialists and instead leave testing in developers’ hands.

The Mistake: Skimping on Testing or Test Resources

While not as bad as ignoring compatibility testing altogether, paring a test cycle down is a risky measure. It’s one thing to consciously exclude certain tests, like those involving older devices and OS versions, and quite another to cut tests on configurations that are widespread among your userbase. Similarly, neither the quality of your app nor the length of your development cycle is likely to benefit from burdening developers with testing.

The Solutions

• Let your developers do their development job, and engage the right resources to seek out compatibility issues. This is the best way to minimize wasted time during development, and to ensure compatibility issues are caught before the release.
• To avoid affecting your compatibility test quality,  be sure to include the right tests in the first place. This will require detailed analysis of the user base, and a risk-based approach to your compatibility test plan that willhelp to focus the majority of effort where incompatibilities are most likely (see the planning flow in the graphic above).

Challenges are Inevitable, Mistakes are Avoidable

Shortages of time, money, or resources, the pressure to move quickly, fear of imperfection, and departmental silos are all the challenges faced by a great number of mobile app development companies. They affect development and are often unavoidable, so they must be met head-on to avoid making critical mistakes outlined in this article.

The most important thing to remember is to be aware that the challenges exist and will probably manifest at some point in your projects. With that knowledge, you can prepare and plan for them, improving the likelihood of a reliable, effective, and ultimately successful mobile compatibility test program.

Manufacturing is inherently a risky business. This is in terms of financing, labor, industry regulation and numerous other factors. However, the growing reliance on information technology including machine learning, robotics, the Internet of Things and big data, has made cybersecurity one of the industry’s biggest risk factors.

The motivation for cyberattacks on manufacturers are varied. They range from financial fraud to industrial espionage (an example of espionage would be the theft of detailed product or equipment plans to be fed to a pressure die casting machine).

The following tips can help manufacturers reduce the likelihood of a successful attack.

1. Start at the Top

Like any other company initiative, successful cybersecurity is dependent on management buy-in. If the people at the top of the organization do not set the right tone in word and deed, it becomes harder to motivate staff lower down the hierarchy to do the right thing.

Cybersecurity cannot be left to the CIO or the technology department alone. In fact, communication on cyber matters should occasionally come from the CEO’s office. That will get employees to see the seriousness of the issue and align their behavior accordingly.

2. Perform a Broad Risk Assessment

Conduct an exhaustive cyber risk assessment that covers the industrial control systems, ERP systems and any standalone systems. The assessment should be done at least once every six months in order to capture vulnerabilities that have been introduced by changes to the operating environment.

The risk assessment should not only cover traditional cyber risks like password management and firewall configuration but should delve into more manufacturing-related risks such as IP protection.

3. Circulate Cyber Risk Reports

A cyber risk assessment report is of no use if it all it does is gather dust on an office shelf. Instead, enterprise risk reports including remedial action roadmaps should be shared with the board and executive leadership.

There should be a high level discussion of the key sticking points with a view to demonstrating impact and identifying areas of priority in resource allocation. Decisions can then be made that take cognizance of the manufacturer’s risk posture and risk tolerance goals.

4. Built-in Security

All new manufacturing equipment, software and connected products must be evaluated for compliance and coherence with the company’s cyber risk program. Since the acquisition and deployment of major equipment and software will usually be done by a special project team, always confirm that there’s the requisite cyber security talent in this team.

This will ensure security considerations are a decisive factor in the acquisition from the get go.

5. Recognize Data as an Asset

The importance of cyber security can be harder to sell to the management of manufacturing companies than to leaders of service-oriented industries such as banking. Manufacturers are used to dealing with a tangible product built by tangible equipment and may thus not readily see data as a critical business asset.

Yet, treating data as an indispensable asset is at the heart of any successful enterprise-wide cyber security campaign. Making sure management and staff see the business value of data and why it needs to be protected will inform the adoption of best practice on where the data is stored, how it is accessed and who can access or modify it.

6. Assess Third-Party Risk

The success of a manufacturing operation is dependent on the reliable partners including suppliers and service providers. In order to do business seamlessly, such third parties will sometimes need access to enterprise systems or facilities. This introduces a potential loophole for a data leak.

Manufacturers must perform thorough background checks on the third parties they work with and clearly define the rules of engagement including outlining what is off limits. Third parties should be given physical access only to the areas of the facility that they need to do their work.

7. Vigilant Monitoring

Good organizational policies, procedures and action plans are only as good as their implementation. Create checklists, reporting procedures and escalation mechanisms that ensure existing and emerging cyber threats are caught before they spiral out of control.

Regular scheduled monitoring creates an avenue for identifying loopholes that had fallen through the cracks and amend policies and procedures to mitigate against these risks.

8. Recovery Planning

Some of the companies that have suffered massive cyberattacks were doing the right thing and checking all the right cyber risk boxes at the time. A robust cyber security plan is no guarantee that an attack will not occur or that systems will not fail.

A detailed recovery plan is required that includes what actions to take in the event that a cyberattack is suspected to have taken place. Manufacturers can increase their resiliency through war-gaming or table top simulations that envisage the worst case scenario.

9. Clarify Responsibilities

Many organization problems can be attributed to the absence of a specific person assuming full responsibility for a process. It should be clear who is tasked with each component of the cyber risk program including at department level.

Ideally, there should be a cybersecurity champion within each department who’ll ask all the important questions whenever a new project or product is planned.

10. Drive Awareness

Most cybersecurity breaches are less to do with technology failures and more to do with deliberate or accidental human actions. Employees must be regularly sensitized on what their individual responsibilities are in mitigating non-technical cyber risks such as social engineering, phishing and identity theft.

They should also be provided with a clear reporting path whenever they notice suspicious or unusual activity.

These tips can help manufacturers deeply embed cyber risk management, identify areas of improvement and chart a road map towards a more vigilant, secure and resilient work environment.