Insights

Jennifer Long

Introducing Jennifer Long: Growth Hacker for Agileana

        Filed under: Marketing

We are pleased to introduce Jennifer Long to our staff at Agileana. Jenny is a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology and a Computer Science student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. We originally met Jenny at our 2016 Summer Internship Hackathon, which was a 6-week tech venture designed to … Continued

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How to Plan a Deployment to Production as a Project Manager

        Filed under: Agile development, How to, Project Management, Web Development

In the last month, I had to be on top of four different deployments, and after four smooth (but not issue-free) runs, I’ve decided to write down a list of things I keep in mind for future deployments. Maybe that way, the deployments will finally be issue-free. So here are a few things to keep … Continued

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Virginia Alvarez

Celebrating a work anniversary: Virginia Alvarez

        Filed under: Project Management

Congratulations to Virginia Alvarez on her two-year work anniversary with inQbation, the company that spawned Agileana, Balystic, and a host of other dot com startups. We originally met Virginia years earlier while she was attending college pursuing a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Interactive Media Design. At the time, she was seeking an internship … Continued

no jerks allowed

Jerk-Free Workplace

        Filed under: Jobs

Have you ever worked for a jerk? Some time ago I worked for a small business with an out-of-town owner who was a real jerk on an irregular basis. Some of the time he was friendly and professional. Then, just when you weren’t expecting it, ZING! One ZING from the out-of-towner was over summer vacation … Continued

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How to test email notifications in Drupal projects

        Filed under: Agile development, Drupal, How to

Testing email notifications is often challenging because we don’t want to send out testing emails from development and local environments and confuse users. In addition to that, you may want to test headers, subject, body and the overall formatting applied to the information in the message and ensure that it’s readable. There is an easy … Continued

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D7 to D8 migration

Advantages, benefits, and features of Drupal 8

        Filed under: Agile development

Drupal 8 is an entirely new content management system (CMS) re-built from the ground up using a more modern, modular, object oriented framework.  Migrating from earlier versions of Drupal to Drupal 8 is almost like migrating from an entirely different CMS, but it is well worth the effort due to its advantages, benefits, and features, … Continued

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scratch head confusion usability

Usability applies to everything we see, touch, or do

        Filed under: How to, Usability

In web design and development, we have this concept called, “Usability,” which means that we strive to make our websites and user experiences (UX) more intuitive and obvious to our intended target audiences.  Once you become cognizant of usability, you start noticing it everywhere. When I land in a new airport and rent an unfamiliar … Continued

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do not feed the phish

I will like to know if you can handle Website Design … and do you take credit cards?

        Filed under: Cyber security

Spam of the day. Like a recurring dream, I get this same spam email multiple times per month.  Usually from a different person, usually in the form of a text message, and usually they ask if I also take credit cards.  The one and only time I responded, they said they were hearing impaired and … Continued

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Website Design Services for Government Agencies and Nonprofit Organizations

        Filed under: Government websites, Web Design

Website design has evolved into a sophisticated art form backed by data-driven science.  The graphical skills and thinking that used to work for static prints, flyers, and advertisements are simply inadequate for interactive user interfaces (UI) performed on a variety of device types, sizes, browsers, and connection speeds. To provide effective user experiences (UX), particularly … Continued

Agileana - Lean and Agile DC Web Developer

Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) IT 70 – Lean, Agile Contractor for Drupal and WordPress

        Filed under: GSA 18F group

WASHINGTON, DC – Agileana, formerly inQbation, holds a General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) for Information Technology (IT) services under the GSA Schedule 70 for Special Item Number (SIN 132-51) IT Professional Services. You can find our schedule online at GSA eLibrary.

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Effective Communications in a Distributed Environment with Remote Teams

        Filed under: Agile development

We are a distributed team which means that communications can be challenging. Through the years we’ve used many tools to improve and facilitate communications, but sometimes we have so many that we either overuse them and/or use them ineffectively. This causes two main problems: The person you’re contacting gets unnecessarily interrupted, meaning they’ll lose focus … Continued

Happy Endings

Happy Endings: One of the most important project management principles that never gets talked about

        Filed under: Project Management

Problem New business. In order to get new business, people (and companies that don’t know you) will ask for references from past clients.  If you don’t have Happy Clients who have had Happy Endings then you have nobody to use as references for these prospective clients.  Without happy clients and happy endings, it becomes extremely difficult to get new clients … Continued

accessibility

How to do Section 508 compliance

        Filed under: Accessibility (508)

Section 508 is a requirement for government websites, and in general, for Federal agencies’ electronic and information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities. Normally, we build websites for general public, we don’t keep in mind features that allow the website to be accessible by Seniors, people with sight disabilities and even blind people. Actually, … Continued