As we like to code to music here at Troxo we wondered about the effect it has on the brain. We have come across many studies here but one by Teresa Lesiuk, Assistant Professor at the University of Miami, immediately grabbed our attention as it dealt with the effect of music listening on software design in particular.

The study, which involved 56 developers from four different Canadian software companies, was implemented in the participants’ actual work environments over five weeks.

It showed that people produce more quality work while listening to music and they finish their work faster when listening to music. It also stated that work environments with music help enhance employee moods. You may download the full text here.

The beneficial effect of music listening on work efficiency gains even more importance when you take a look at this study by Yuko Fujigaki which states that stress is present throughout almost all phases of software development.

Oblivious to such a tremendous effect of music on work performance, we asked some of our developers and designers what music they listened to while coding. Basically, our tastes differ to some extent but we all agree that we love having it around.

Ivan, Senior Software Architect: While I’m working, I prefer listening to classical music. It helps me stay focused on problems and tasks I’m working on. Vivaldi and Mendelssohn are my favorites.

Sasa, Senior Software Architect: I prefer listening to music while coding and that is a natural working environment for me. The list of my favorites is very long, but what I always love listening to is good old rock. Pink Floyd is very soft, easy and makes a good working atmosphere.

Classical music is inspiring and I sometimes put it on too. When I’m deep into a problem, music just fills the empty space around, brakes the silence and makes me more relaxed.

Dejan, Graphic Designer: At the creative stage I love to put on loud energy-filled music such as Prodigy or the UT2003 soundtrack created by Starsky Partridge and Kevin Riepl (favorite song Chemical Burn).

When doing xhtml/css I tend to listen to softer music like Air, dZihan & Kamien, Kevin Yost, James Blunt, Nelly Furtado, Amy Winehouse. Jazz anytime: Thelonious Monk, Dexter Gordon, Chareles Mingus, Miles Davis…

This post was written to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, (K. 448) to measure the disputed Mozart Effect.

There’s nothing we love more than our work being praised and recommended. To help our clients do more, we are looking to further grow our PHP team. The position is located in Nis, Serbia.

What’s in it for you?

This is an excellent opportunity for you to make your mark. We offer you the environment you need to grow as a developer, the opportunity to work on challenging projects and pick up new things every day, fun, even better colleagues and great conditions.

If you love what you do and want to push yourself for more, just drop us an email at career at troxo dot com and we’ll call you for an interview. And yeah, it’s been said a million times but a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are some photos of our team.

Why Troxo?

“I got an offer I couldn’t say no to. Seriously, being a part of the Troxo team and the chance to work with my colleagues on various challenging problems always learning new technologies makes me happy at work.”

Click here for the full interview with one of our developers. And hurry up! The kettle is on!

Our brand spanking new website has finally gone online. We’re stoked to see its release as it’s been many weeks in the making.

We have coded the site in XHTML 1.0 Strict with valid CSS to ensure compliance with accessibility standards. The aim of the new look is not only a visual change but also the need to shed more light on software outsourcing, our core activity.

We also decided to make more space for our administration and security software which is why we’ve launched iistools.com. The site focuses on IISPassword, IISGuard and AdoMonitor only and provides in-depth information on the software.

This is a great place for all of you heavily relying on Windows servers. Best of all, we’re giving away ten IISGuard licenses to welcome the first visitors to the site. Ten quickest emails to info [at] troxo dot com take them away. Now hurry up!

Many thanks to the team who worked on the new websites. Hope you enjoy them both. You’re always welcome to send us your feedback at info [at] troxo dot com.