Super Scrawlar

Web Word Processor and Whiteboard App

Steven

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Walmart to sell e-commerce technology to small retailers

Just as Amazon Web Services is the profit centre that fuels most of Amazon’s other businesses, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon is increasingly interested in expanding its profit pools beyond its core retail business.

Starting Wednesday, small and medium-sized retailers can purchase technology developed by Walmart to allow shoppers to buy items online and pick up their purchases in-store. These businesses will also be able to add products to Walmart’s online marketplace with a few clicks. To offer a suite of cloud-based services, Walmart has partnered with Adobe, which will sell the software via a subscription.

Walmart has seen its sales skyrocket both online and in-store as the pandemic has taken hold. While some other retailers were forced to close stores to help contain the spread of Covid-19, Walmart was seen as a critical retailer and remained open. Some customers, seeking to limit the amount of time they spend in stores, took advantage of Walmart’s online shopping and in-store pickup options. These developments accelerated the company’s e-commerce growth. The retailer’s online sales jumped 79% in the year ended Jan. 29, with pickup and delivery sales up triple digits from the previous year.

A significant opportunity remains. Last December, Adobe and market researcher IDC estimated the total addressable market for content and commerce-as-a-service software to be about $44 billion.

Wallmart strategy exposed?

For those who ask why Walmart would want to help its potential rivals succeed, Bhardwaj said those small businesses would be served regardless.

“Digitization is happening everywhere as the consumer evolves,” Bhardwaj said. “There’s no choice but to evolve with them.”

Walmart’s size and scale and its proximity to 90 per cent of the U.S. population within 10 miles of one of its stores give it a substantial advantage. In addition, Bhardwaj said, “We want to serve better our communities, our shareholders, our stakeholders and the community.”

She noted that about a year and a half ago, McMillon changed the language in a slide it uses in presentations from “serving our shareholders” to “serving our stakeholders.” Bhardwaj said it was a meeting with McMillon that spurred his idea to sell Walmart’s technology to other retailers.

Bhardwaj has been involved in other key technology initiatives at Walmart. Most notably, she led the successful Scan & Go technology at Sam’s Club, allowing customers to call in their purchases with a smartphone when adding items to their cart.

A new software venture

The new software venture opens up a potential revenue stream for Walmart and fits with its strategy of building new businesses that serve new customers and allows profits to flow back into the company to fund innovations.

Neither Walmart nor Adobe publicly share their expectations of how ample a business opportunity this could be, but Bhardwaj said, “I’m betting my life on it,” as his current role at the retailer was created to make his idea a reality.

For Adobe, the Walmart partnership increases its visibility.

“We can now offer a more holistic solution, a best-in-class omnichannel experience,” said Peter Sheldon, senior director of business strategy at Adobe, in an interview. “From Adobe, [these businesses] will benefit from Walmart’s best-in-class e-commerce experiences and best-in-class omnichannel experiences.”

Small and medium-sized retailers will use Adobe to power e-commerce sites, including shopping cart functionality, search, navigation and product recommendation capabilities. (Walmart does not use Adobe’s commerce software for these functions for its Web site. It has its technology).

Small and medium-sized businesses and retailers with at least $1 billion in annual sales already use a variety of Adobe’s e-commerce products, including Rite Aid, Verizon, Unilever, Coca-Cola, HP, Honeywell, Trader Joe’s, and more.

Walmart provides the technology that powers employee picking and packing of online purchases and the geolocation technology employees need to know when customers arrive to pick up orders.

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How to generate leads on LinkedIn?

The majority of social networks have entertainment as their goal. Many people meet and interact on such platforms. Gradually, new circles of sociability are created.

LinkedIn was created in 2002 as the professional counterpart of social platforms. This social media brings together nearly 660 million users worldwide. Companies, job seekers, or professionals, the profiles come from more than 200 countries and work in about 170 professional sectors. Companies take the opportunity to refine their marketing. This social network even offers advanced techniques only to attract the qualified people. But you have to know how to do it. Without going into detail about all the options provided by LinkedIn or the tools that allow them to be utilized, companies that know how to use the social network can significantly improve the high conversion rate of their prospects. But then, what are the prerequisites for lead generation on LinkedIn?

Making yourself interesting

The first impression is often the one that remains. Invitation messages are the primary signals sent to prospects. They should be eye-catching and concise. Nowadays, no one wastes time reading long texts. Some profiles are in high demand, and it’s all about getting the most out of them. Once you’ve got past the politeness formulas, it is therefore essential to highlight a positive point in your profile and to value your counterpart so that he or she agrees to join your network. Why would this person accept your request? What interest would he or she find in it? What do you find interesting in their profile? His or her activity? His or her actions?

Polishing your image

Beyond awareness, one of the main objectives of a B2B company is to generate leads on LinkedIn. Whether it’s for a page or a profile, the first step in its marketing strategy will be to open an account on this social network. This profile is to be thought of as the company’s showcase to its ecosystem, while a careful professional profile will be mandatory to interact with other users. This step may seem trivial at first glance, but it is a prerequisite not to be neglected, as it determines the rest. It is necessary to carefully fill in all the information so that this showcase brings the maximum amount of information to the person who would consult the page or the profile (partner, customer, prospect, or potential).

Publish sponsored content

More direct, paid lead targeting is the most efficient way to generate qualified leads on LinkedIn. It saves the professional from preaching in the desert, and the possibility of accessing fine targeting granularity offers enormous opportunities. This media allows the publication of sponsored messages on the target’s news feed. Pictures, images, and videos are the most classic formats. Formats such as Carousel Ads can also meet specific promotional objectives.

Prioritize hubs

Any social network allows for discussion forums. LinkedIn is no exception to this rule. The professional could take advantage of these crucibles to generate leads. It is necessary to privilege thematic groups. The profile of the members is thus better defined. By joining these platforms, the generation of qualified leads is more comfortable. But only join well-structured and very active groups.

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Social networks: 5 types of visuals to reinforce your marketing strategy

Getting attention should not be a difficult task when you have exciting things to share. It is a matter of using the right format.

Choosing the right type of visuals can make a difference when it comes to developing a brand image, building readership loyalty, and even generating qualified leads. But it is still essential to know what is right for you.

High-quality photos

The use of high-quality photos not only attracts the attention of your audience but also highlights your brand identity to Internet users. By using consistent colors and fonts throughout your photographic documentation, you would communicate your company’s values to the public without even having to put your logo on each photograph.

For small and new businesses, it is not always possible to obtain high-resolution images, in which case you can start by incorporating royalty-free pictures into your marketing strategy.

However, although this is an excellent way to start your communication strategy on the networks, you should know that authenticity will be more rewarded by your audience. You will, therefore, need to update your plans in the future to include these high-quality photos.

Computer graphics

Computer graphics are visuals that incorporate images, icons, data, and text.

Computer graphics are an excellent way to share a large amount of information, more or less complex, concisely and attractively. That’s why they have become popular visuals on social networks.

For companies with a large amount of information to share, computer graphics are excellent tools for transmitting knowledge without having to rely heavily on text or long articles.

The diagrams

In the same vein as computer graphics, diagrams are excellent tools for condensing data and sharing them with your audience directly and straightforwardly.

If your content is highly dependent on quantitative data, you should consider using tables and diagrams to display it.

Diagrams are also an excellent way to get subscribers to read more related content. If your diagram captures someone’s imagination on a social network, you can include an invitation to read a post blog that further clarifies the content driven by the diagram, thus increasing traffic to your website and the popularity of your blog.

The animations

For companies that want to exploit the trend of video marketing, animations are a good starting point for dialogue with the public.

While video creation can be expensive, animations are not as constraining for your budget. Short animations share a wealth of information with your audience, in the same way as computer graphics.

Animations are not only a useful tool for social networks, but they are also excellent for promotional marketing and the promotion of your written content.

The quotations

Whether you have an in-house photographer, or use images obtained online, take advantage of your new visuals and use them as a basis for creating visuals that include a quote. Internet users highly appreciate these simple, sharp, and attractive types of visuals. They are the ideal meeting place for any brand that has chosen this format for its communications.

The other advantage of quotes is their popularity as shareable content. On Facebook, in particular, quotes are widely shared, which increases the chances that your content will itself become viral and increases the number of your subscribers.

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How to watch a youtube video blocked in your country?

You may have already encountered one of the following messages on Youtube (or another online video provider like Hulu, for example) when you want to watch a video:

This video is not available in your country

This video includes content from “this company” who blocked it in your country for copyright reasons

Why are some videos blocked in my country?

The main reason for video blocking is above all a question of copyright, which differs significantly from one country to another, and a desire to limit the distribution of video content to certain countries, hence the introduction of a geo-blocking filter.

Youtube allows publishers to limit the distribution of their videos to countries of their choice.

The BBC replay is, therefore, only available in England by definition. If you want to watch a video on this site while you are abroad, you won’t be able to unless you’re tricky!

Similarly, Fox News videos can only be viewed in the US, and many record companies such as Warner, restrict the distribution of music videos in the United States.

Unfortunately, you are therefore limited in your viewing by choice of editors, but here are some tips to help you get around the limitations of Youtube and other online video players.

How to unlock a blocked video in my country?

There are different ways to unlock content that is not available for your country: since the location of your computer is via your IP address, the easiest way is to use a method that will change your IP address and make the site believe that you are well located in a country that is allowed to access the content you want to watch.

Different possibilities to unlock your video content:

There are some extensions for your browser that allow you to bypass geographical restrictions such as Proxtube for Mozilla Firefox or Youtube Unblocker for Google Chrome.

Use a proxy: a proxy will allow you to pretend to be a foreign Internet user and therefore bypass the restrictions related to geo-blocking content.

It is possible to use a web proxy or better, configure your browser using a free (or paid) proxy list with a proxy located in the country of origin of the video.

Use a VPN (Virtual Private Network): it is possible to choose your geographical location concerning it, which allows you to access blocked content in Europe. It is useful, for example, if you want to watch a Champions League match not broadcast in your country in free streaming or surf to a safe streaming site. Find more on Virtual Private Networks on this website.

Use the TOR software: this software to install on your computer also allows you to anonymize the origin of connections. The problem with TOR is that basically, you can’t choose the country from where you will finally be connected. Unless you put your hands together to roll up your sleeves and configure TOR to select the country of the IP that will serve as your relay as explained in this topic.

Feel free to share with us your solutions to bypass the restrictions of Youtube in commentary!

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Tips for keeping your online community alive

The term e-community, online community, or virtual community brings together several meanings depending on the context. It can be understood as an interest group where several people or organizations share common topics, information, and concerns; as a fan club where people join an organization’s or brand’s approach by following its news, approving it, or even disseminating it in turn; or as a working group.

In the latter case, community members will circulate information, but also documents on which they will work together, and will be able to move projects forward without the need to meet physically.

Keep control

If the success of an e-community is based on both its size and its dynamism, these two assets can be turned against the association in the event of a crisis. A lousy buzz will be amplified more quickly if the community is large and active. The loss of control of an e-community can have severe consequences on the association’s e-reputation.

It is therefore essential to know how to manage the time and tone of the response, the ability to act outside the web to defend the association’s image. A content strategy determined at a very early stage will also make it possible not to focus all eyes on the association itself, but to propose an opening on broader areas of interest.

Define a content strategy

Mobilization consists of encouraging Internet users to sign a petition, join a movement (join the association, participate in a demonstration, give of their time), make a donation. In other words, to move from the web to real life. It is essential to create a proper content strategy to achieve this objective.

Monitoring tools exist to do this: the simplest is probably Google Alerts. It allows you to receive articles in your mailbox related to the keywords you have chosen. Another tool like Feedly will enable you to aggregate RSS feeds from different sites. As for Pearltrees, it proposes to organize the contents playfully and visually.

Get commitment

Associations must make them receptive to their actions to make the most of e-communities. It is called engagement. It can be achieved at several levels: the first level of commitment is approval. On social networks, it manifests itself as a like or shared publication. A commitment of this nature is already, in itself, a challenge.

It will be necessary to test different types of publications: information, humor, testimonies, reports of actions, links to more general news, etc. and see which ones work best. Varying the temporality of publications (time of day, week or weekend, frequency) also makes it possible to feel when the e-community is most attentive.

Choose your places of expression

Most media offer Internet users the opportunity to react to the content they are provided by writing comments, but a large part of the exchanges take place mainly on social networks. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram are virtual places where you can enjoy, share information, comment on it, and even complete or contest another user’s comment.

As for working groups, tools have been developed both for the major Internet players (Google) and for free software (Framasoft and its Framalibre suite of free software), which make it possible to create online documents, modify them in multiple and in real time, launch surveys, communicate by videoconference, etc.

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The European Parliament adopted the controversial Article 13

The text of the controversial copyright directive was debated and voted on in the European Parliament on Tuesday 26 March. The vote is in favor of it.

The debate on the “Copyright Directive” opened on Tuesday 26 March in a European Parliament that we could not describe as full. It finally ended with a vote in favor of the Directive.

A text considered unbalanced

The European Copyright Directive is a controversial text. Some articles, in particular, Articles 11 and 13, concentrate the majority of criticism. They focus respectively on hyperlinks and moderation of platforms such as YouTube. Many fear that these provisions may be very difficult or even impossible to enforce, without limiting freedom of expression or creativity.

The debate began in the morning. Several Members, out of a total of 751 in Parliament, took the floor. Many have spoken out against the directive. Tiemo Wölken (Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats) was evident. According to him, “Article 13 should be deleted”.

Article 11 has also been repeatedly cited as problematic and difficult to implement. According to the Italian Massimiliano Salini (European People’s Party), this Tuesday 26th was playing out “one of the most important battles” of his mandate: that for creativity.

Votes in favour of the directive

Other Members, on the other hand, defended the text draft so far. José Blanco Lòpez, a Spanish deputy (Partido Socialista Obrero Español), for example, explained that for him, there is “no creation without fair remuneration.” The text and in particular Article 13 will allow a “redistribution of the wealth of the major platforms,” he said, before adding that no one would limit freedom of expression, on the contrary.

Andrus Ansip, the Vice-President of the European Commission, who has never concealed his support for the text, shared this view. “The vote is a message to creators: we tell them that we care about them and that we want to protect them for[their] valuable work,” he told the microphone. According to him, the “ultimate beneficiaries” of the reform will be the citizens. It, therefore, believes that the Directive can improve access to art and culture.

Intense debate and discussions

The vote was held around 1 PM with a full Parliament this time. Some MPs had installed anti-article 13 signs in front of them; others support signs.

348 votes adopted the directive to 274. The European Parliament validated Articles 11 and 13. Axel Voss, smiling, was applauded by Parliament while others, such as MP Julia Reda, spoke of a “dark day” on Twitter. The amendments that had been proposed to modify the text were not even voted on in the end.

The final vote concludes the trialogue, i.e., the discussions between the various European bodies on the text. States will now have to discuss the implementation of the laws.

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Web Servers And What You Need To Know About Them

Taking ownership of a website is a somewhat bittersweet experience. It is because you are very excited about the possibilities that are waiting around the corner, but you are also a little overwhelmed.

In so many ways it has become easier to establish a website, but there are still things newbies find intimidating. One of them is the topic of web servers. What are they and why do you need them?

If you have been avoiding the process of creating your website because you don’t get why web servers are such an essential thing, stick around for another five minutes or so.

Every website Needs A Server

To have a functioning website, you are going to need a website server. You can regard the server as your connection to the internet, which is why they are so important. Without a server, your site is not going to be visible online.

The Different Types Of Web Servers

The next thing you need to learn is that there are different types of web servers and packages. This is critical information seeing as the quality of the server is going to influence how well your site performs. That’s right; each server will come with a reputation you want to get familiar with.

At the same time, the different servers are going to offer different packages. As you can imagine, some are more expensive than others, but this is something you have to decide for yourself when you research your options.

The price of the packages is going to be based on factors like the speed and the amount of traffic you want to prepare for.

They Need To Be Stable

MySQL-WebServer-connexion-explainedThe fundamental purpose of a server is to provide stability. In other words, you want to see your site available online 24-hours a day. Unfortunately, this is only available in a perfect world.

But if you go with the right web server, chances are you won’t have too many problems regarding downtime.

Compatibility with the main web applications

You want to make sure that the server and web host you choose will allow you to install a wide array of CMS and web applications. This is essential to allow full compatibility with the most used content management systems on the market. Wether you use WordPress, Magento, Joomla or Drupal, most of the best hosting companies should allow you to install these apps with a few clicks !

Visit this page to read more about the difference between WordPress, Joomla and Drupal CMS www.opportunites-digitales.com/joomla-vs-wordpress-vs-drupal/!

Other Essentials

Web servers compete by adding certain elements to their services. For example, they are focused on speed and giving you a connection that takes less than a second to load. But once again, only specific servers will be able to provide this kind of speed on a consistent basis.

There is also the matter of control you have regarding the coding of the website. Even though you are a newbie just learning the ropes, there might come a time when you want to have more control over the way your site functions. It is obviously best if your web server is optimised for your CMS of choice! For example, if you are going to be running a website on WordPress CMS, it is best to use a web server that is fully optimised for this Content Management System.

Affordability

Lastly, make sure you’ll be able to afford the web server you ultimately choose. Because failing to make payments means not seeing your site live anymore.

So, when it comes down to it, it’s worth spending some time getting to know web server options. Because going with the wrong one can only lead to frustration.

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Tencent open-up its micro-service management project Tars

The Chinese company Tencent joins the Platinum members of the Linux Foundation and puts its frameworks, Tars, and TSeer in open source.

The first concerns the management of micro-services, the second concerns the discovery of services and registration. Last March, Tencent had already created an IA project within the foundation with nine other providers, including Baidu, Huawei, and ZTE.

Tencent, one of China’s leading web service providers, becomes a Platinum member of the Linux Foundation along with his compatriot Huawei. It means he supports the foundation that oversees some of the world’s leading open source projects with an annual amount of more than $500,000. By becoming a Platinum member, the group based in Shenzhen is also bringing one of its leaders to the Linux Foundation board of directors. It is Liu Xin, CEO of Tencent’s mobile Internet entity.

Two other Chinese providers, Alibaba and Baidu, are also Gold members of the foundation and pay $100,000 a year to contribute to the organization.

Meanwhile, Tencent announces that it is putting two of its projects in open source under the leadership of the Linux Foundation.

The first, Tars, is a high-performance RPC framework designed for the development, implementation, and maintenance of micro-services. It is based on the naming of services using the tars protocol and provides a platform to operate semi-automatically. The project allows users to perform procedures remotely and supports C++, Java, Node.js, PHP and Python languages. A construction system and a code generation tool for agile development accompany it.

The second project, TSeer, is a light version of Tars. This fault-tolerant framework allows discovery and registration of services. The framework is used in Tencent products such as QQ Browser, App Store or Mobile Manager and handles an average of 10 billion requests every day. In a statement, vice president of Tencent, Zeng Yu, said the Chinese group has more than ten years of experience managing interactions with large numbers of users, “enabling Tars and TSeer to optimize load balancing and fault tolerance systems entirely.

Founding member of LF Deep Learning Foundation

Tencent’s growing involvement in free software comes a few months after the creation, last March, already within the Linux Foundation, of the LF Deep Learning Foundation.

The project’s goal is to support innovation in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and deep learning by making these technologies available to developers. Tencent is one of its founding members along with three other Chinese providers, Baidu, Huawei and ZTE, and nine other members, including French Orange.

The Shenzhen Group contributes to the LF Deep Learning Foundation through its Angel Artificial Intelligence Project, a high-performance distributed machine learning platform it has developed with Beijing University. The description of this platform, designed for large data models, mentions that it can support more than a billion parameters. At the end of 2017, Tencent was the first Chinese technology company valued at more than $500 million on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, ahead of Alibaba. The latter, also heavily involved in artificial intelligence, announced in February IA services in its cloud in Europe.

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MongoDB released a mobile version of its NoSQL database

Database specialist NoSQL used this week’s MongoDB World in New York to make a series of announcements, including a mobile version of its main database and global clusters for Atlas.

It is the company’s first major event since its initial public offering in October 2017. Database specialist NoSQL made several announcements, including a new mobile version of its product and the addition of “global clusters” to its database offering as a service of Atlas DBaaS.
MongoDB Mobile allows mobile devices or even IO devices to access the features of the traditional MongoDB database. With this release, developers will be able to implement automatic, real-time native synchronization between the data stored in the device and the backend database.

For DBaaS Atlas customers, the use of “global clusters” will allow them to specify the location of data in areas of global availability, read and write data from these areas, and comply with increasingly stringent data regulations.

4 additional features for Stitch

MongoDB’s Stitch service is out of beta and is now in general availability. The service improved with four new features.

Stitch QueryAnywhere extends the MongoDB query language to developers with a rule engine that allows users to declare security policies at a very granular level.

Stitch Functions allows developers to execute simple Javascript functions in Stitch’s serverless environment to create secure APIs or develop integrations with microservices and server-side logic.

Stitch Triggers provides real-time notifications, which initiate functions in response to changes in the database.

Finally, Stitch Mobile Sync, which is not yet generally available, will automatically synchronize data between documents held locally in MongoDB Mobile and the backend database.

General Availability ACID Transactions

As for the MongoDB product itself, the MongoDB Server 4.0 multi-document ACID transactions announced earlier this year are now available. “With their consistent view of the data in all replications and their compliance with the all-or-nothing principle to maintain data integrity, MongoDB transactions will look very familiar to developers who are already accustomed to working with transactions in existing relational databases.

They are easy to add to any application that needs them and have no impact on the performance of operations that don’t need them,” the vendor said. Version 4.0 also comes with a new MongoDB Kubernetes Operator and Beta Graphics, which allows you to view MongoDB data in real time.

In a post, Mat Keep and Alyson Cabral of the MongoDB technical team detail what the arrival of ACID transactions to MongoDB brings.

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Four Reasons to Use Interactive Whiteboards

When we think about whiteboards, our minds naturally go to the ones that used to be at the front of the classrooms we frequented in school. But whiteboards have come a long way since then. Physical whiteboards may still exist, but it is the digital ones that are the most interesting for businesses.

Interactive whiteboards are a relatively new technology, being perfected every year. Now there are some quality options for web based interactive whiteboards, which are even more useful for businesses. It means no installation is required to use that type of whiteboard, boosting accessibility. But why would a business use whiteboards? Here are a few reasons:

1. Boost Engagement on Collaborations

Interactive whiteboards are the perfect way for everyone on a team to contribute to a particular discussion or presentation. Instead of having a single person deliver a boring, 20 minute presentation of PowerPoint slides, everyone can contribute.

People can “slide over” their ideas onto a whiteboard, tweak them, merge them with other concepts or play them off each other. Everything happens in real time, allowing for intense and productive collaboration. It is especially useful for teams where everyone may be in a different location.

Even if everyone is in a different place, they will feel as if they are in the loop. Everyone has their hands on the latest information. They can see the ideas as they are being posted by others in real time. It is a digital equivalent of being in the room when the best ideas are formed.

2. Better Annotation

Interactive whiteboards take word processing and document editing to a new level. In the past, editing a document meant making a few tweaks and then sending a new version to the person. Now it is possible to edit items in real time thanks to digital whiteboards.

And the editing is a lot more interactive and fluid. It is possible to add 3D modeling, hyperlinks, video links and other items into the document. Say a few people are reviewing a document together. They could be posting up their ideas at the same time, working to construct the perfect final version.

Even the editing is a one-on-one process, with a boss editing their employee’s work, whiteboards make it faster. The editing can be done in real time, with the person who wrote the document able to see as suggestions are put into the document. They could quickly draft their own changes in response – or provide a justification for what they included.

3. Incredible Data Sharing and Accessibility Options

The beauty of digital whiteboards is how they are geared towards data sharing and accessibility. The best web-based digital whiteboards can be used on any type of device. They work just as well on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Devices with touchscreen functionality mean that note taking and other annotations can be added seamlessly.

When a company is using a particular whiteboard app, everyone would have access if they have the right credentials. It means you could have a remote employee who logs into their family computer and can access the digital whiteboard. No installations or special process required. Quick, easy and seamless accessibility!

4. Cleaner Editing Process

People used to mock the idea of using a tablet or a touchscreen laptop with digital whiteboard software. They said the concept would never compare to a pen and paper.

But in some ways, the process is even better. It is so much cleaner. Instead of having to constantly reprint new versions of a document, creating a clean one through the whiteboard app is effortless.

Even when changes and annotations are made, they are so clean. Users can circle words, write down thoughts or move around sentences with a few drags, drops and presses of their fingers!

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The Argument in Favor of Web Based Applications

Web apps get a very unfair reputation, whether it is on mobiles, tablets or smartphones. When it comes to technology, we are geared to believe that a program is much better than anything that runs off a web browser. But is that necessarily true?

Web Apps vs. Traditional Software

When it comes to computers, the difference is that a web app is opened on a browser and a program is installed. It is a similar concept on smartphones, where apps are installed onto the device.

A few years ago, the major factor in favor of traditional software was the fact that it could be used offline. But we are starting to see many changes in that regard. Many of the best web apps are very usable offline. While they do require internet for their full syncing features, the basic use is very much viable offline.

For instance, quality web based word processors and whiteboard apps will work just as well without an internet connection. There are no usage issues that would not be applicable to software in those circumstances.

Better Development

A big reason why web apps are getting so much better is because of the development process. It is a lot easier to design a web app and have it be compatible with all devices. They work through web browsers, which means none of the features are native to the device they are being accessed on.

It also means that if there is something wrong with the app, an easy fix can be released. The next time the web app is launched, the fix is immediately part of the application. The user is not expected to install a new version of the application or software.

Accessible Anywhere

The biggest positive in favor of web apps is that it is possible to access them anywhere. When a company is working through web apps, their employees can access those apps on any device. They just need to securely log into the company network and they can even access their files.

It is a lot more of a seamless experience as compared to the constant need to install, update and troubleshoot programs on devices. Companies lose so much time and money with those processes.

While there are still some issues with web apps, they are becoming far less apparent. Companies that perform basic tasks using word processing, spreadsheet, presentation or whiteboard applications can do those tasks on web apps. It is why the G Suite from Google is so popular.