• Read more about Key Drupal Taxonomy: Part 2

Part 2:

In our previous blog post, we gave a brief intro to some terms that we believe are necessary to understand the basics of Drupal.   Here we have what we believe to be the next round of terms that we consider necessary to understanding those basics. Recently, we had the opportunity to assist Matrix AMC in migrating from Drupal 6 to Drupal 8.  They were unable to use their website because of the version of Drupal that their website was hosted on was out of date and no longer supported by the Drupal community. While these specific terms are consistent across Drupal versions, they are crucial to understanding the importance of being up to date in with your version of Drupal.

Key Terms:     

1. Block - the boxes visible in the regions of a Drupal website.
2. Region - defined areas of a page where content can be placed. Different themes can define different regions so the options are often different per-site. Basic regions include:
3. Roles - a name for a group of users, to whom you can collectively assign permissions. There are two predefined, locked roles for every new Drupal installation:
4. WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get; An acronym used in computing to describe a method in which content is edited and formatted by interacting with an interface that closely resembles the final product.
5. Book - a set of pages tied together in a hierarchical sequence, perhaps with chapters, sections, or subsections.  Books can be used for manuals, site resource guides, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), etc.
6. Breadcrumbs - the set of links, usually near the top of the page, that shows the path you followed to locate the current page.
7. Form mode - this is a way to customize the layout of an entity's edit form.
8. Multisite - a feature of Drupal that allows one to run multiple websites from the same Drupal codebase.
9. Patch - a small piece of software designed to update or fix problems with a computer program or its supporting data.
10. User - the user interacting with Drupal. This user is either anonymous or logged into Drupal through its account.

Refer to Drupal.org for any other questions!

• Read more about Mobomo Gets AWS TCO Certified

What Was Our Goal?

At Mobomo, we have pushed our employees to educate themselves on a variety of certifications in order to further their own professional growth, as well as team growth. The team was so excited about the Amazon Web Services Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Cloud Economics course that we had everyone from the Founder to our sales team complete it.  The reason behind this was to continue to work towards becoming an advanced partner with AWS. Mobomo was not always a cloud service provider, but we were backed into becoming one based on all of the other projects that we do and the cloud requirements for many of these projects. AWS has truly helped this portion of our business take off in 2018.

The Basics

This course specifically covers everything you might need to know about AWS TCO, from basics to an in-depth cost analysis. TCO is the total cost of ownership, which is defined as the initial purchase price of an asset plus it’s operating cost. If any item has a low TCO, this means it will be valued higher over time.  The most common comparison used to better understand TCO is a car. The common costs that are involved in purchasing a car are MSRP, registration and insurance, fuel, maintenance, and breakdowns. The TCO of a car is the initial purchase price PLUS all these costs that may be incurred throughout its lifetime.  This is the best way for a TCO newbie to understand the basic concept of TCO and this is a comparison that we continue to use throughout the Mobomo office.

Pricing Benefits of AWS You Should Know:

Mobomo has been working with AWS for an extended period of time and also partnered with Amazon to help created their tool, Mechanical Turk.  It was important for our team to have a solid understanding of the TCO concepts and the benefits of using AWS in regards to TCO in order to further our knowledge as well as continue our ongoing relationship with AWS.  All of the tools that AWS has provided and that we have had the benefit of using have been very valuable to the Mobomo team as a whole.

• Read more about GDPR Deadline is Nearing!

How Long Do You Have?

The GDPR is becoming law on May 25, 2018, and is fast approaching. The GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, is a new EU Regulation that is replacing the 1995 EU Data Protection Directive (DPR) to significantly enhance the protection of the personal data of EU citizens. This is also meant to increase the obligations put on organizations that are collecting and processing personal data. The GDPR is improving on a significant number of the 1995 Data Protection Directive’s requirements for data privacy and security. It also includes several new requirements to strengthen the rights of data subjects and add harsher penalties for violators.

Important Things to Know:

1. The GDPR only builds and enhances principles that were already established by the EU Data Protection Directive.
2. The territorial scope of GDPR is much wider-- it will also apply to a non-EU business that:
   1. Market their products to people in the EU
   2. Monitor the behavior of people in the EU
3. The standard for disclosures when obtaining consent now states that it needs to be “freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous” and requires that controllers use “clear and plain” legal language that is “clearly distinguishable.”
4. A customer cannot be forced into consent and they must be aware that they are consenting to have their personal data processed.
5. Two new rights that are built in:
   1. “Right to be Forgotten”- this requires that controllers alert downstream recipients of deletion requests.
   2. “Right to Data Portability”- this allows data subjects to demand a copy of their data in a common format.
6. Unless the cost is excessive, one will not be allowed to charge for processing a request to access.

Mobomo’s development team is incredibly knowledgeable in converting a website to be compliant with a variety of ever-changing regulations, including the new GDPR. Please reach out to us if you are in need of our assistance in getting your website up to speed with current regulations! Time is running out!

To check if you are already compliant, see this article for 5 final checks!

• Read more about Mobomo Presents Drupal Con Summit on NASA Eclipse Partnership

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• Read more about Mobomo Presents Drupal Con Session: (In)organic Groups

[pdfviewer beta="true"]https://mobomo.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/04/in-organic-groups.pdf[/pdfviewer]

• Read more about Drupal Con Government Summit Session in support of USGS Mission

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• Read more about Mobomo Partnerships Win Muse Awards

Mobomo Wins Muse Creative Awards

Mobomo is excited to announce that our partnerships with The USO, RGS 365 and NOAA Fisheries have been awarded the Muse Creative Award in the Rose Gold Category.  The Muse Creative Awards are “an international competition for creative professionals who possess the unique ability to inspire with a concept, idea, or design - whether through traditional materials or electronic media.”  This competition is inspired by the concept of following your inner muse which pushes one to a success and original design. The 2018 theme for the awards is “Rise Together”. This award celebrates designers that push boundaries and defy cultural norms. The idea behind this theme inspires the community to “Rise Together and to improve the world”. “The Muse Creative Awards recognize you – the communicators that touch us all in a universal way – with art and craft that soars.” Mobomo was incredibly excited to honor these partnerships!

The USO

Mobomo was able to recognize the USO and the mobile application that we partnered with them to create.  This application fosters greater discoverability of locations where USO provides services and programs offered by the USO through its distributed locations and online.  Prior to discovery, USO was seeking to design, develop, and deploy a cross-platform mobile application that introduced an additional channel for United States military service members and their families to better engage with USO centers and programs.  Currently, there are 200+ USO locations that all create their own content. We were able to pull the CMS data and integrate it into the app so that the service member receives the content from the service center that they are physically at or that is most adjacent to them.

RGS 365

In addition, Mobomo also submitted the web, iOS, and Android application that we worked with RGS 365 to create. RGS 365 is a provider of solar, storage and energy services. RGS sells, designs and installs solar energy systems for small businesses and residential homeowners. RGS approached Mobomo with the need to transform their complex sales, installation and service processes into a simplified, uniform software solution for their employees and customers.  The app was to allow a customer to navigate through the sales phase, track progress through their installation phase, and finally submit service requests and track their money savings post-installation.  RGS continues to work with Mobomo to add features as needed and iterate on existing features. Customers are already using the application, and submitting feedback to further improve and grow the program. Within the next year, RGS hopes to reduce cancelled appointments, increase sales and efficiency within their processes using Solar 365.

NOAA Fisheries

Lastly, Muse had created an additional category specifically for government entries and we chose our work with NOAA Fisheries to be showcased within this new category.  Mobomo partnered with National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), or NOAA Fisheries, to assist in restructuring and redesigning their digital presence.  NOAA Fisheries as a whole covers many areas of information dealing with marine life. Each of the 10 core properties containing up to 10,000 pages and 5,000 pdf files. Together, we worked with 50+ stakeholders to discover the inconsistency in their content and workflow. We then created ways to automate their content and move it over to a more tag driven system.

• Read more about Mobomo's UI Kit Vol. 2

We have launched the second kit of mobile navigation flow templates! It is incredibly helpful to have a template, such as this, in order to speed up a mobile design workflow.  This can happen because of it is easy to use and flexible. The package takes into account the latest trends in interface design.  It can also be easily manipulated with smart objects as well.

How is This Useful?

This can help apply your branding and styles across the screens. This kit includes many modern and multicolored designed components developed for the best user comfort and functionality. If you missed the UI Kit vol.1, here we tell you how to handle smart objects.  All you need to do is double-click on the thumbnail of the layer and edit the source file. This is also helpful to apply your branding and styles across the screens.

You can add your own content in a few simple steps:

1. Open the file in Adobe Photoshop.
2. Look for the layer labeled “Replace me” or “Add content here” and double click.
3. A second image (PSD) will appear to drag and drop your content in.
4. Save and close the PSD file.

The package contains:

• 8 Screens that cover the flow of login for any app.
• Canvas Size 320 x 560 for iPhone

The screens included are:

• Splash screen
• Menu
• Timeline
• Profile
• Gallery
• Search
• Comments
• People
• Settings

Fonts Montserrat https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Montserrat Format: PSD file Size: 12 MB

• Read more about Key Drupal Taxonomy: Part 1

Part 1:

When it comes to considering what is the best CMS for a website, most don’t know up from down or Drupal from WordPress.  At Mobomo, we consider ourselves Drupal experts and have guided many of our clients through a Drupal migration. Drupal is a content management system that is at the core of many websites.  Drupal defines itself as “an open source platform for building amazing digital experiences.” These simple Drupal terms, or taxonomies, make it sound easy, but it can, in fact, be very confusing. Listed below are some popular terms defined to help make the start of the migration process what it should be, simple and easy:

Key Terms:

1. Theme - this refers to the look and feel of a site and it is determined by a combined collection of template files, in addition to configuration and asset files.  Drupal modules define themeable functions which can be overridden by the theme file.  The header, icons, and block layout are all contained within a theme
2. Content-Type - Every node, see below for definition, belongs to a content type.  This defines many different default settings for nodes of that type.  Content Types may have different fields, as well as modules may define their own content types.

See Part 2 and Part 3 for more.  Any other questions? Check out Drupal.org!

• Read more about Mobomo Named Top Software Development Firm by Forrester

Forrester Names Top Custom Software Development Firms

Mobomo is excited to announce that we have been named by Forrester as a top custom software development firm. Forrester is best known as one of the most dominant research and advisory firms in the world.  Founded in 1983 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Forrester serves over 2,000 companies that strive to create change in their organization. Their surveys are taken by polling nearly 700,000 consumers throughout the world and businesses consistently rely on their meticulous and unbiased methods.  Forrester would describe its main purpose as “challenging the thinking of our clients to help them lead change in their organizations.” It is 2018, and it has become incredibly necessary for companies to create technology to target their current customer base.  Millennials and Generation Z are pushing technology to its limits and the newest trend is never good enough. No matter what industry, every company can find a way to incorporate technology.  Companies can no longer avoid this investment. In looking for a software provider to meet this need, Forrester advises that by going with a firm specializing in custom development, one can improve agility and innovation.  It is important to base vendor selection on their size and capability and to remember that bigger isn’t always better!

The Benefits:

There are two important factors to remember along the way: choose a vendor based on their size and capability and bigger isn’t always better.  While both larger and smaller firms bring industry expertise, larger firms can engage in projects that span across the globes and offer a variety of staffing solutions.  Smaller firms offer a much more personal experience and can allow for direct high-level engagement. Both very good solutions, but every company is different and each of these options has pros and cons.  As a whole, this report should help any organization that is interesting in making the jump and diving into technology find the right solution.

Why Mobomo?

Mobomo has built its reputation based on the strong process we have developed. Our process is one that turns your ideas into awesome products.  We work with companies and enterprises of all shapes and sizes, across all industries. From healthcare, education, real estate, and more - we have been able to design and develop solutions for some of the biggest brands. Contact us today and we can begin finding the best solution for you!