Online Programz

The growth of digital media in India has led to the need for trained professionals who could not only understand the nitty-gritty of digital marketing but also execute critical campaigns for clients on the internet. To cater to this growing need and also to help the professionals already working in the industry to keep up with the growing horizon of digital marketing, the industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and a number of organisations have started providing training programmes and certificate courses on digital media.

AlooTechie spoke to some of the course providers to understand their objectives of providing digital marketing training programmes in India and why do they think their students will gain an upper hand in digital marketing after taking these courses. We also caught up with some of the digital agencies to know what they think about these programmes and whether they have benefitted from these courses.

Mahesh Murthy, founder and chief executive officer, Pinstorm, a Mumbai-based digital marketing agency that also runs Digital Marketing Institute, said, “We know digital marketing will explode in India — not just because Indian marketers are taking to it but because overseas marketers will increasingly use Indian firms to deliver these services. And, guess what, no one here has learnt how to do digital marketing. So, who will staff the agencies and the clients if no one is trained?”

According to Murthy, the digital industry needs people who can understand social media, digital brand strategy, search marketing, search optimisation, impression-based media plans and more. “We looked around to see if any industry body was doing this and we got the support of IAMAI to offer our first courses. We need to create the industry from the ground up and you can’t do that without training,” he added.

Online programs focusing on the benefits of fruits and vegetables can inspire people to eat healthy, a new study claims.

After a 12-month long study, researchers at Henry Ford Hospital insist providing information and tips about fruits and vegetables may be the key to getting more people to eat healthier.

As part of the study, the experts recruited members of Health Alliance Plan and four other HMOs in Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis and Atlanta, ages 21 to 65.

The participants were divided in to three groups.

A control online program that provided general information for the participants about improving their fruit and vegetable intake.

A program that was similar but personalized to the individual’s needs

And, a program that incorporated the other two components and was also supplemented with motivational interviewing counseling via e-mail.

The program included a total of four sessions.

These sessions included four to five pages of core content, illustrations and optional links to more detailed information and special features designed to supplement session content, with special features illustrated serving sizes and nutritional similarities of fresh versus frozen versus canned foods.

Apart from information on 300 fruit and vegetable-based recipes, the participant could also access short video and audio files.

At the end of the study, researchers noted improvement across all study groups, but the most significant changes were observed in the group that had motivational interviewing and counseling.

Study co-author, Gwen Alexander, PhD, assistant research scientist, said: “We found that giving participants gentle reminders that refocused them on their goals greatly improved progress. They were being held accountable for their progress, which became a key motivator.”

Also, Study senior author Christine Cole Johnson, Ph.D., M.P.H., chair of Henry Ford’s Department of Biostatistics and Research Epidemiologym, added:

“People already know the health benefits of fruits and vegetables, but they often don’t know how to incorporate them into their diet.

“That’s why our study worked. Using online programs, we were able to offer study participants practical and easy tips to increase their daily fruit and vegetable intake.”

The study has been published in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

For efficiency: The easier your code is to read and follow, the easier it will be to keep track of where you are with your code, and the quicker it will be to pick up where you left off after a break.

For debugging: Knowing where your problem lies is a major debugging tool. If you used comments, you can easily follow your own logic, and if you have line numbers and consistent formatting, you can easily scan your document to pinpoint a trouble area.

For future expansions and modifications: Using comments in your code is especially important for future changes, because it’s difficult to remember the logic behind code that was written years or even just months ago. Also, if you are working on code that involves a team, if everyone is using the same coding styles, it will be much easier to make changes or additions to someone else’s work down the road.

Consistency: Blocks of well-written code always look the same and have the same indents and ways of coding, such as syntax shortcuts that use bracket placement and formatting styles consistently throughout the program. The great thing about PHP is that it really doesn’t care about tabs or indents, so you are free to create a style all your own, one that works best for you. In addition, although there may be more than one syntax for accomplishing the same goal, good coders will be consistent throughout their code with whichever method they choose. For example, as far as PHP is concerned, the following two snippets of code mean the same thing:

You should simply pick one and stick with it throughout your program.

Frequent comments: The more you use comments throughout your code, the better off you will be. Although it’s not so important in smaller, simpler programs, as your programs become more and more complex, it will be hard for you to remember what you did, where you did it, and why you did it the way you did. Detailed comments can help you find your way. Also, if you are working on a collaborative project, using comments will help your fellow code monkeys follow your logic.

The use of line numbers: Some text editors insert line numbers for you, but others do not. Text editors are discussed later in this chapter, but you should know that it is important to denote line numbers somehow in your code, if they are not provided for you, because PHP lets you know when your program generates errors, and it notifies you of the line number in which the error occurs. If you have to count the lines manually every time you encounter an error, you can imagine how time consuming and inefficient your debugging will be.

We assume that you know some HTML before you embark on your  PHP/Apache/MySQL journey, and you’ve undoubtedly seen how JavaScript code and other languages can be interspersed within the HTML code in an HTML page. What makes PHP so different is that it not only allows HTML pages to be created on the fly, but it is invisible to your Web site visitors. The only thing they see when they view the source of your code is the resulting HTML output. This gives you more security for your PHP code and more flexibility in writing it.

HTML can also be written inside the PHP section of your page; this allows you to format text while keeping blocks of code together. This will also help you write organized, efficient code, and the browser (and, more importantly, the viewer) won’t know the difference.
PHP can also be written as a standalone program, with no HTML at all. This is helpful for storing your connection variables, redirecting your visitors to another page of your site, or performing other functions discussed in this book.

The programming languages you need to know about for successful ecommerce, online marketing, and search engine optimization

Everyone knows about the excellent content management systems and blogging platforms out there. These will help those who need to quickly put together a site. One needs to factor scaling, search engine optimization, etc. But there are those of bigger size projects who need something more on a professional basis. This is to put together a large-scale site that is usually meant for large companies to build an ecommerce site, social site, or enterprise level. Here is what I think are a complete synopsis but quick overview of what programming language you would want to go with. Let me now explain these in the order as explained at Tiobe.