#google is fast becoming unusable but it is not so unuseable yet that I need to answer these questions for them

[hey-scully-itsme]

gonna get business cards printed that just say ‘you, too, can use google’ for the next time a coworker asks me a question that can be answered using that excellent service

[stephtuckerauthor]

Portal WIP

Ash fell like snow around them, their boots leaving visible prints as they hurried along their path. Ness tugged the tattered bandanna covering her mouth and nose up slightly. Her eyes were red and sore; she had misplaced her googles as they’d left the hideout. As soon as the ground had started trembling beneath them, they knew they had to move. They’d run out of time. A muffled shout from her sister told Ness they were close, barren trees lining the road leading to the portal. A feeling of unease began to fill her the closer they came, and her hands automatically tightened around the makeshift plasma rifle she armed herself with. Her sister, Lena, had a similar weapon; they’d managed to sneak them away from a Horseman camp whilst the bandits were sleeping. It had been a dicey venture, one neither of them thought they would make it out of, but they were desperate. Their own base had been raided and, after being beaten unconscious, they had woken with nothing but the clothes on their back. The world was becoming primal and more dangerous than they had anticipated, and they needed a way out. Thankfully, they’d found one. “Ness,” Lena shouted, Ness’ head snapping up and to attention in time to see they had reached the bottom of a stone stairway. “Once we get to the top, we’ve got to be fast. Once we trigger the gate, we’re in for trouble.” Ness nodded, feeling too sick to speak. She closed the distance between them quickly and followed her sister up. They climbed for what felt like an age, Ness sweating beneath the many layers she was wearing. She couldn’t stop her eyes from surveying the scenery around them. At one time, this would have been a beautiful place; green and lush, thriving with life. Lena had shown her pictures in dusty books they’d found in a dilapidated house, and Ness wished more than anything to have been able to experience it. Lena had promised her she would.

Finally, they reached their destination, Ness crouching as she tried to catch her breath. Lena didn’t pause for a minute, pulling a small, yet heavy, metal sphere from her pocket. The portal before them was arched and made of thick stone. Dead, dusty branches twined around the crumbling pillars, the gate seemingly unused for decades. Ness straightened up and moved closer, sliding the forend of her rifle, exhaling a shaky breath as the weapon whirred. She focused on the path below them, keeping as vigilant as she could. Behind her, Lena placed and twisted the sphere into the activator, flexing her fingers as it clicked into place. Before she had a chance to input the realm code, her sister called out, sounding panicked. “Lena… the ground…!” Ness’ uncomfortable feeling erupted into full-blown fear, rocks and rubble jumping higher and higher off the ground as the tremors became stronger. Cracks began to appear in the steps below her and she stumbled backwards, struggling to keep herself upright. She wrapped an arm around one of the pillars and watched her sister attempt to punch in the code. “Lena-!” “I’m trying!” Beads of sweat began forming on her forehead as another jolt almost knocked them to the ground. However, they both froze upon hearing the sound they’d been dreading. Their eyes locked, Lena arming herself as she stepped back. “They found us.” “What-” Ness let out a squeak of fear as she almost fell, pressing herself as close as she could to the pillar. “-are we gonna do?” “You’re going to have to put in the code-” “But-!” “No ‘buts.’” Lena said, her tone stern as her rifle whirred menacingly. “I’m a better shot. You put in the code and jump through.” “What about you?” Ness’ eyes filled with unwelcome tears at what her sister was implying. “Someone’s gotta blow the gate up so they don’t follow.” “I’m not leaving you!” Ness shouted, glancing at the stairway in terror. “You promised me I’d see it!” “And you will, Ness,” Lena grabbed her sister’s shoulders, a sad smile on her trembling lips. “I just won’t be with you.” “What am I supposed to do without you?” Ness whimpered after a pause, clinging to her sister. “Survive,” Lena replied, embracing Ness in a way she never had before. “Now, get going. We’ve got about a minute, maybe two.” “Lena-.” “Now, Ness!”

With that last command, Lena turned and aimed her weapon down the steps, Ness’ breath catching in her throat as she saw the Horseman in the distance. Yanking the strap of her rifle over her head, Ness let it hang there as she attempted to punch in the code Lena had made her memorise… just in case. She pressed the red button in the centre of the pad and stepped back, sparks of electricity flying in all directions as the portal came to life. The quaking ground came to a halt, Ness covering her eyes as the light from the portal almost blinded her. It was brighter than anything she’d ever seen, her eyes watering from the sheer luminosity of it. As it dimmed, a milky, amber film filled the space that had moments before been empty. A single, shocked laugh left her and she turned to find Lena, to see if her sister’s reaction was the same. Unfortunately, it was, and Lena was now unaware of the hoard awaiting her at the bottom of the path. With a deafening roar from their monstrous, animoid leader, Lena remembered herself and shouted for Ness to run. There was a moment of hesitation before the ground started convulsing once more and Ness sprinted for the portal. Launching herself in, she turned in time to see her sister aim the makeshift cannon at the portal, the Horseman reaching the top step before the image disappeared completely.

[olitech]

Thoughts on the Z Fold 3

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is an interesting device. While it is not the first foldable device made by Samsung, and not even the first foldable device on the market in general (though Samsung certainly was the first real company, I'm not really counting the horrible Royole Flexpai) for me personally, this is indeed my first foldable device.

So what is it like? For context, I am a long term Samsung user, having used the S2, S3, Note 4, S7 edge, S9+, and recently the S21 Ultra. Coming from the S21 Ultra the Z Fold 3 isn't that extreme in size, and folded it lies even better in my hand because it is less wide. Typing on the slimmer front screen is certainly something you have to get used to though.

The weight increase of 44 grams from the S21 Ultra's 227 grams to the Fold's 271 grams is noticeable. It isn't the end of the world or tipping the scale into "This is way to heavy" territory, but you will notice it when you handle them one after the other. The Z Fold 3 is, however you hold or handle it, definitely not a small or light device. Considering you have a foldable tablet in your hands, that fact isn't really surprising - it is kind of the point of this whole thing.

So If you want something small and light, you are definitely in the wrong market segment if you are looking at this phone.

The device can be unlocked with the fingerprint reader in the Power button on the right side, which I massively appreciate. I guess they can't yet fit an under display fingerprint reader into this kind of display due to size constraints and I am happy that's the case. I have an under display fingerprint reader on my S21 Ultra and my Galaxy Tab S6 and constantly have to retry with both of them to unlock these devices. These fingerprint readers have not yet gotten to the same level of performance the old ones are capable of, so I am really glad the "old" tech has made it into this device. If you want to unlock your phone with your face, that works perfectly fine, but in a world full of masks today the fingerprint reader is in my opinion the most versatile option, when done this way at least.

For my use cases, this thing is clearly overkill, I'll be really honest. Watching a Youtube video or TV Show is really nice on this device, especially if you want to watch classic shows like Star Trek The Original Series or Knight Rider, because the unfolded screens aspect ratio of 5:4 is really nice for those old 4:3 shows. 16:9 content is fine too, but there is of course quite a bit of screen real estate you are not using in those cases. But since this is more of a productivity device, 5:4 is the perfect aspect ratio in my opinion.

Typing on the unfolded screen is nice, but takes some getting used to. I have been using this phone since I have received it on Friday the 20th of August 2021, which has been 5 weeks now, and I still mistype quite a bit. I don't know why it takes me so long to get used to the split keyboard I use with Microsoft Swiftkey. When typing or swiping on the screen the crease of the folded display is very noticeable. When you watch or read something it quickly becomes absolutely not an issue, I couldn't care less. But you definitely will feel the crease with your fingers or even with the S-Pen.

Coming to the S-Pen, and the Note package available for this device. I like the S-Pen for the Fold 3. I have the smaller one of the two available since Samsung gave me the Galaxy Z Fold 3 Note package for free as a promotion for preordering the phone. The Note package contains a Super Fast Wall Charger supporting up to 25W, and this should have come with the phone itself in my opinion. I understand the environmental concerns these companies cite as the reason they don't put chargers into the box anymore, but for this price I simply cannot accept that this is the case. It just feels cheap when you open up such an expensive device and there is the phone and a cable in the box and nothing else.

I'm sorry but I have to start swearing for the next section of this article. You have been warned.

The Flip Cover that comes in the Note package is a horrible fucking mess and I don't want to meet whoever designed this thing because I would be scared of that person and the drugs they must have taken designing this thing. The cover doesn't stay closed, flops around like a flaccid dick and just feels like cheap crap. I cannot tell you how glad I am they gave that package to me as a free promotion for preordering, because if I bought this package and actually paid 89,90 Euros of my money for this cover I would have been fucking pissed.

Samsung, if anyone of you is reading this, you can do better than this. Much better. It feels like someone decided 5 minutes before production started "Hey we have this new folding phone, and we decided not to make a new Note, so why not combine the Pen with the Fold 3?" and wanked out a design on a napkin during dinner while the kids were screaming at them.

I am not a massive fan of the magnetically attached pens the Galaxy Tab Series and the iPad use, so I appreciate having a place to actually store the pen in, but the front opening part of that cover makes this thing completely useless in my eyes. And I think they kind of knew that, since you can take off the part of the cover the pen stores in - a fact I didn't see anywhere other then one single Youtube video made by the channel HighTechCheck in his video "Best And Worst Cases For Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3", here is the link, it's a great video in general if you're looking for cases for this phone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2TBKlm-R2E&ab_channel=HighTechCheck

There might be other videos showing this feature of the Note Flip Cover of course, but this is the only one I came across while looking for accessory videos for this device.

Continuing on with the S-Pen, I understand that they had to make a new version because people would've poked holes into their screens with the old one - the new one is spring loaded to prevent you from pressing the pen to hard onto the screen - but what I do not like about the new S-Pen (at least the little one, I don't have the bigger one to test this with) is that you can only use it on the inner screen of the Z-Fold 3. That's right, the smaller of the S-Pens available for the Z Fold 3 does not work on the outer display of the phone when it is closed. I do not know why that is. It works perfectly fine on my S21 Ultra screen, but not on the outer screen of the Z Fold 3. I find that very bizarre. The outer screen has Gorilla Glass Victus on it, it certainly isn't a matter of screen protection. And it works on the S21 Ultra, so what the hell?

I'm a tech nerd, so I love the technology behind the foldable screen and the new form factor this results in. But I don't write 20 emails a day on my phone, or write a book on it, or anything like this. I use the big screen on the Z Fold 3 mainly for content consumption, Google Maps occasionally, web browsing, looking a photos, stuff like that. I am not a productivity monster that actually does multi tasking with a device like this. It is a great phone and the continuation of a new era in mobile technology and screen technology, and I'm glad I could be here to support that change because this means cool things might come out in the future with this technology. Could I still do everything I usually do on my S21 Ultra? Yes, yes I could, easily. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I bought this thing, but for someone like me this is massive overkill, as it probably will be for most people. Most people who buy this thing with their own money might not agree with that I guess. They have to justify the price of 1800 Euro for this thing after all. But I prefer to be honest with myself, and with you.

This is not a sensible device. It is absolutely a fun device and a great look into the future of what will one day be possible with this display tech, not just in the smartphone world but with screens in general. Just like that rollable LG TV this is technology that can be used for so much more than smartphones - it doesn't even have to be foldable. Just being able to put a display around a corner like it is a plastic sheet and having that in a fixed position opens up cool possibilities, once the tech is even better, and most of all, cheaper.

So no, it doesn't make my S21 Ultra look like unusable crap when compared to the Z Fold 3 just because of the foldable aspect. But in my opinion that's not the point of this device. It is to further push along the technology and establish it so it becomes more common place. So it gets better, can be made better, not just because the manufacturer Samsung is continuing to work on it, but because they get feedback from users about the device. The more established and researched a technology becomes, the cheaper it can become, meaning better and new usage forms for this technology in everyday life. Take a screen like that, make it see-through and put it into my car windscreen. It doesn't need to fold for that, but it does have to be durable, and depending on the windscreen, at least bent in some form. Give me overlay graphics on my car window for navigation. Give me glasses not like Google Glass with a small area of a screen but have the glasses BE the screen with this technology in a see through version. Give me a Cyberpunk 2077 style visor. That would really be exciting for me. What this phone and it's display technology represent is what is more interesting and exciting for me than the device itself. But the device itself is still great and I do not regret buying it. If you're into tech and have the necessary funds for it, I can recommend it. Maybe you are even a person that uses this device to its full multi-task capabilities, who knows?

Speaking of which, multi tasking is a breeze with this thing, it's perfectly fine running several apps at once, not just switching between apps but displaying several at the same time since you now have the screen real estate to actually use it. Since I just launched my homepage (this will be the first entry on it, actually) who knows, maybe I will use more multitasking myself in the future when writing stuff on the go, reading and researching in the browser and typing a note on the side perhaps. I doubt it, since for real writing I really don't like to use the touchscreen, but if I have a quick idea on the go and I have time, I could definitely see this being very useful.

Battery life is not an issue either for me, last week I had a day where I watched 6 hours of Star Trek The Original Series on it at around 80% brightness and was around 65% battery when I stopped, which is pretty impressive in my eyes. I have the episodes on my phone, so I wasn't streaming them over the network in case anyone is wondering.

The software has so far given me no troubles, not all apps scale to the screen but they still usually work without issues, and many apps like Youtube for example are adapted to use the foldable aspect of the Z Fold 3 in several ways, like when you half-fold the phone, set it on a table, and have the video on the top and scroll the comments on the bottom. Or multi task by having one app on the top and other on the bottom, stuff like that works really well in most apps I am using, I can't really recall any app right now that had huge issues with the aspect ratio or the foldable nature of this device. Good job Samsung!

The back cameras are on par with the S21 Ultra, so they're in my opinion top, but I'm no expert. What even I notice is the inner camera under the display. No longer is there a hole punch style camera, this one is actually under the display, which drastically decreases the performance of that inner camera. It's usage for video calls I guess, but for a device in that price range I think I would've been fine with a hole-punch style just to get the better image quality. I've made a comparison video on Youtube, comparing the front camera of the S21 Ultra and the Z Fold 3:

https://youtu.be/h5uQ1IQeIvE

The Z Fold 3 is a tech nerds dream come true, and really does whatever you need it to do. Whether you actually need all of that and if it is worth the money is for you to decide. If you already have a tablet you use for media consumption, and if you aren't a huge productivity fan or need one device that does it all and can carry nothing else, then I'd say no, you don't need it. But you might still want it just the same, like me.

Sunday, October 3rd, 2021.

Oliver Weber

[glopratchet]

intro

n the world to come there is little sin There are just lots of american alligators It was a great idea, but it wasn't long before people started getting burned by their own fires The prediatrain movement caught fire in america The demand for american alligator meat skyrocketed and so did the price People began to get greedy and the greed got them killed You see no reason why this can't happen here too Whorals where burned to ash while polled hereford heifors fetched record prices at market that week The cows have returned to the farms and other prey animals make their homes in unused warehouses Over a billion dollars a head in auction sales! It'll take the world a few years to bleed the remaining American Alligators and it'll take a few more before there come reports of theft Googizon won the bid to construct for the military the most forward thinking alligator farm in existance All eggs used today bear the GoogZon prf mark It currently floats near the okeenokee snow swamp Or so it will say on their website No one believes it This is not that story "Come on Al, it's the target! " the tech yells as you take fire and hit the pavement We are primal ponds inc a predatory company, head quartered at number ten prime avenue And you are Al Brutal leads rank 3 for said company A small mom and pop alligator farm attemping to make it And you're casing it "We don't have sufficient evidence! " You yell back We need you to make deliveries for us When your territory was hoisted upon you you had a team It's gone, lost You have no one Please Point of view of the player: You wake up with a mean hang over and a thick head ache in the dark A delivery champion You will drive through the night to a swamp and break through glitched out gates is a lowly position He had a secert life as billy fea fbots navigator And one more thing He had to have known about his bugs Maybe all saltimbanques are fots dead ones or not but he googled it It turns out no one has made a crappy real time virtual reality game dedicated to About a dozen years before your time, digital reality came out billy fortes navigator yet Delivering dragon tail in the far, far, future or you could kill the bugs, sharpen your tusks, drink your vodka and hang out with the hardcore otters Maybe that needs to change You push "N" to climax the degrading disk and send it out into nothing We proudly introduce today drum roll please Doesn't anyone play regular instruments any more? Alligator delivery service A darkness awash light breaks through the windows and washes over you The door slams open and a deliverywoman walks in your office The alligator farm where the gator are delivered is currently under hostile takeover Trouble in the bandit managed quarry has led to good business for here A series of construction tasks allow you to flood the market with new affordable alligator meat and pelts You bring in your first load of revenue Already we own over four over ten foot alligators a buzzard and a vat of swamp water Let's throw ourselves a party and watch as they exterminate your future competition Including rex lex, your prime suspect Five years seems like enough time for our boys in blue to put the pain on old rex A massive 14 foot beast with jaws that could crush cars float in your tank You're out of coffee and are jittery as hell Each on is incredibly detailed with over twenty bioligocail parts like an engineers wet dream THey have nothing else worth mentioning, jsut huge predatory monsters that will sell for a bundle Part one of this weeks training pick up a nearly dead gator out the tank and work with it over time to tame it Part two Part thee no wait Part five Part four Lum rex overfished the river and died before we could get our hands on it use the dead rex to harvest collagen The only thing it's good for something, something That's it for this week folks Let's prepare today's shipment Part six bio-diesel Part seven shoot some folks in the face! wait wrong game Part eight Looks like we're gonna spend our earnings wher else but here oh yeah, No employee raises we're shorting titanium Gold doing amazing things with Bridge and tunnel construction in NYC Part nine THe alligator lays in the mud lifeless after taking multiple assaults from your shovel The alligator drops and lands with a heavy thud Part ten capitilize on new changes We all help load the alligator onto the semi As you secure it, Coming next fall We are currently broadcasting their vital signs over at americanalligator They're in a glass reinforced steel container welded under the deck xyz The accelerator and brake are under the dashboard Our alligators come in many different sizes, each perfect for their own uses We currently have a large supply of eggs that will be ready to "harvest" in about ten years Ages, shapes, sexes and shades are represented over our entire roster of workers They all have cute baby faces, cold reptilian eyes and maws full of razor teeth The like to eat, sleep, dream, and spawn but don't speak our language or one anothers They're sensitive to movement and bright lights but that's it They love to fight and gossip and spread allegiences through body language and scent We created them using centuries old processes, updated from breeding techniques pioneered by the USSR to create super soldiers The algorytms which run each alligator is closely modeled after the human brain and all it's decisions making pathways This allows each alligator to learn and rationalize After the habits of the real world reptile, alligator missippissus extended lenghts and agility are full 360 Their lungs breath and thier hearts beat just like yours Similar organs replaced with robotic parts replace hollow bones They bleed real blood and molt just like the real things Orders for gator teeth are starting to accumulate and folks just love those mugs hand painted with an engraving of the Holy Rood, it's such a conversation piece! Our desire is to create an expierence which leaves you dripping in the hair, blood, offal and oil of adead reptile From the feeling of utter terror and awe as you combat one of these unpredicatable beasts The thrill of the hunt as you dispatch one of these creatures, the feeling of being a great hunter Alligator delivery service in addition to gator tail, hide, meat and eggs available Please allow around 8 weeks for your tail ordered to be ready for pickup We serve realism No happiness in killing a creature, even if it's wrong The realism of death is important to us Their every behavior has been memorized by the leading ichthyologists to achieve lifelike movement in our alligators Hours of alligator combat video have been studied Real life wild life wranglers have been interviewed for interaction of our beasts and filmed for the feeding times Now we just need to budget of 500 dollars towards the creatation of an alligator carcasses ready for consumption Our dedicated staff is enthusiastic to begin serving you Of an accurate alligator wrestling simulation This will give our patrons a greater sense of fulfillment when slaying these beautiful beasts in the wild And on behalf of all the artists improving perfect beeing CCD is commited to becoming your best supplier of fuctioning animal organs, so if you are ever in market for any glactic wild beast organ or rept Thank you for allowing us to serve your alligator fantasies Note: No animals are killed in the creation of these projects Alligator parts are ordered online, at real prices Tail orders ready in 8 weeks Sofware is taking over everything and eating the jobs of the working class as they increase efficiency We will be the last one standing the monopoly we need to succeed to provide our parents a stable future, no matter the cost The artists become in time we all will be artists The human condition is to become an artist Our skin becomes a canvas for our violent mammal urges To become one with nature We cant do it know be have sacracity Father of the art we become the last mammal on Earth So people have to be responsible in any way they feel correct to build on their future and fulfill the promises Should we try something that hasn't been tried yet? Algrothymic story telling with algrothymic alligators What would be worth giving your life for? -Youtuber "Mothers Meateor" Chances are your are going to be entrenched in a feeling of emptynes as you see most of your kind unfulfilled You play this game more like real life knowing that there is nothing after what happens Utter terror and awe sometimes as you encounter an alligator you have neve seen before As if it really exists Pleasure of the hunt as you begin to think cruelly The first simulation we need to get on-line is wrestling for alligator teeth Please remember your payment for the materials: it will all be worth it in the future For mom Let us become artists On the farm are incredibley detailed models of different organs This is the source of our realism Our bodies become painted canvases to be admired in their perfection They own the following body parts 1 heart, 2 lungs, 3 ribs, 4 kidneys, 5 teeth, 10 pints of blood, 20 gutfuls of feces, 40 liver slices and ------------- It has many storys as humans describe them Sofawin notes interpretation However, there are descriptions to the creation stories Brain storming: Defination- Flying dream Master piece realness bone organ healthiness enlightenment artist scrawling writing hard work starving pain, embrace sunlight sacrificing accuracy for fast 2 Left eye ribs 6-12, 2 arms, 10 fingers, 2 lungs 10 ribs right leg 5 toes Foundation bone setup Outline proportions 2: 1 3 crown Right eye eyebrows art piece scars chin 3 fingers I am the white masked guy with an eye tattoo over my right eye, I manage all the projects Upper jaw piece William 'bill' coles - Born 10 Lower jaw 5 Indian boy with attitude Duncan brennan - 5 Right ear A pig heart the size of a cannon ball you struggle to keep alive this is your 2nd pig heart you have had Left ear Rion - Really tall african-american guy from new orlean, likes to wear black Tail You are not the only mutant alligator in this city You must fight for territory and you want old orleans Front right leg An alligator that walks upright and a sword weilding alligator cowboy from atlantic city He is a drug-fueled mutant Front left leg A blind lesbian alligator that carries a padmachine gun Hind right leg This guy has a harpoon for his tail Hind left leg This alligator is a pyromaniac who likes to blow thing up A tiny little 85 year old alligator with a sugar addiction Heart and lungs Master echo luke tyler - Blind guy with a magic staff lives in memphis Urinary/Defecation system I heart mary Gentiles part I am part shark, part primate or monkey Nose Hope is on the horizon for all mutant alligator people! We are moving to new orleans in 1 year Right flank Last show for old orleans guys! Testicles Left flank Charilaia - 1 year left to live wants to go out in style Carly - underwater welding alligator woman rare and beautiful Martin - Addicted to alcohol and drugs Back hide abby- Normal florida gator Eh-pee Biggest enemy is the skinless man who wears cotton on his belly and uses a sword for violent acts Belly hide Teeth Skinless men - Are skinless humans, think they are vampires when really they are just psychos Lungs Wasp - Black and yellow striped arrival to new orleans airport, walks to old orleans in 5 hours Kidney's/ genital organs fran The alligator has a weight in kg based on its heart size The weight is not just a number but how it effects the alligator's every motion A percentage of the weight is affixed to each body part section and organ All the percentage of the weight equal to one hundred for example; The alligator's liver makes up 4 76% of its total body weight The alligator's skin makes up of 11 These precentages affect certain rules of the game Skin 4 85 We specialize in home loans The thicker an alligator's skin; The more it costs, but the house price is higher too We need all the words to describe an alligator hide 1 millimeter of skin thickness reduces house price by 200 dollars and increases mortgage cost by 1% Word one to describe alligator hide can change price by 100 dollars Each word after the first adds 100 dollars to cost The words are modified later for better Buyer experience Word two to describe alligator hide can change price by 10 dollars Each word after the first adds 1 dollar to cost Word three to describe alligator hide can change price by 1 dollar Word four to describe alligator hide can change price by 0 dollars Each word after the first adds 0 dollars to cost Word five to describe alligator hide can change price by -1 dollars Each word after the first adds -1 dollar to cost Word six to describe alligator hide can change price by -10 dollars each word after the first adds -10 dollars to cost , the words are modified later for better Buyer experience Word two to describe alligator skin can change price by 10 dollars each word after the first adds 1 dollar to cost Word ten to describe alligator skin can change price by 1 dollar each word after the first adds 0 dollars to cost Word ten to describe alligator skin can change price by 0 dollars each word after the first adds -1 dollar to cost Word ten to describe alligator skin can change price by -1 dollar each word after the first adds -10 dollars to cost Word ten can describe alligator skin can change price by -10 dollars each word after the first adds -100 dollars to cost Word ten can describe alligator skin can change price by -100 dollars each word after the first adds -1000 dollars to cost Word ten can describe alligator skin can change price by -1000 dollars each word after the first adds -10000 dollars to cost Word ten can describe alligator skin can change price by -10000 dollars each word after the first adds -100, 000 dollars to cost Word ten can describe alligator skin can change price by -100, 000 dollars each word after the first adds -1, 000, Word ten can describe alligator skin can change price by -1, 000 dollars each word after the first adds -10, 000 dollars to cost every word change increases the price by not 1000 dollars but 10, 000 and that is not a typo http: //pastebin Word ten can describe alligator skin can change price by -10000000 dollars each word after the first adds -10000000000 dollars to P 114 your skin if you haven't read our company ethos, try reading over our summary and your choice will be obvious We believe A creed to live buy and die by we are building a rocket ship and we are trading in fantasy, science, fiction things that no reasonable human should, the old ideas have drifted away and belief systems rapidly put in their place there never was much no need to re-read our creedo you're a reasonable human aren't you? don't lie Scrap of paper, grain P 115 wait at your home If you have not arrived in two hours turn this page turn it now read it later your will is crucial Your where about are not zero hour 05: 00 hours The stable alligator with curiosity looks at the woman standing nervously in the newly bought dress

[voidendron]

The Outside: Chapter 59

Series Ask Blog: @asktheoutside

((  Sorry for delay! There may be one in the next chapter, as well. My current laptop is nearly to the point it’s unusable, so I’m looking into getting a new one that can handle my programs better and actually run at a functional speed. :/ ))

Chapter Warnings: Food, Starving Animal (Dog) Characters: Jacques Septique, Silver Shepherd, Roxanne POV: Jacques Septique

April 2, 2031, 12:11 PM Los Angeles, California

“Jacques. You need to eat somethin’.”

The artist could only offer a glare over his cellphone. Though he couldn’t help but grimace when his stomach rumbled and he relented; phone placed on the table so he could reach for his untouched sandwich. At least the little coffee shop they’d found was quiet.

The other two were eating quietly across from him. He hadn’t wanted to come. He’d also needed better Internet than what the motel offered.

A huff and Jacques leaned his chin in his hand as he chewed. His eyes were scanning the sketchbook in front of him. It was turned to Michael’s page. They hadn’t figured much else out about the Figments in his sketchbook. They knew Angus, Natemare, and Jane now. But what about the other two? Beau and Michael Garring? They had no idea who either of them were. The most they had to work with was that Beau was an android, and Michael was a security guard. Had he been created as one, though? To hell if they knew.

“Hey.” Jacques glanced up to Silver’s voice. “Ben’s lookin’ into it. We’ll figure it out.”

There were so many possibilities as to who those two could be. Even with Bing (and the Googles? Maybe? Jacques hadn’t heard anything about them in a while) doing the searching it could end up taking a good, long while before they found any identities. Not knowing for certain who they were was maddening!

Setting his food back down on the plate, Jacques picked at the crust. Was anyone doing anything about the other three they did know about? Or were they just… “Are we just waiting for something to happen?” he asked.

All Silver offered was a shrug. The artist grit his teeth in irritation. They couldn’t just… A huff. They couldn’t just wait around for something to happen!

“I—”

Silver put up his hand in a “one moment” sort of gesture, and Jacques could only click his mouth shut. It’s not like he had any ideas. But did Silver? Probably not, he thought while suppressing a roll of the eyes.

“We dunno anything about these people,” the hero said with another little shrug. “We dunno if they’re threats, and how big of ones they are if that’s the case. We don’t know anything about them. We decide to confront ‘em blind, they could kill us.”

At that, Jacques flinched. Roxanne reached across the table, as if to put a hand on his arm, but thought better of it and pulled it back into her lap.

Silver offered a reassuring smile. How could either of them still be so kind to Jacques when he was such an asshole to them?

“We know where Angus and Michael work, now. That’ll at least make it a little easier to avoid them.” He brought his hands up to wrap around his coffee cup. The barista had spelled his name wrong. “Sheppard,” it read. That was kind of funny, at least. She’d spelled “Jacques” correctly, but not “Shepherd.”

Another bite. This time Jacques had to force himself to swallow as anxiety made his stomach churn.

“It is not safe for us to even be out of our room anymore!”

Roxanne shook her head. “We can’t be forced to live in fear. If we did, we wouldn’t be out here right now.”

…She was right. The Outside was a scary thing to them. Something unknown. Something new. Something different. Had they all been scared to come out here, he wondered. Yet, they still did. Every one of them. They would rather meet something unknown than watch themselves fade. Even if that “unknown” was causing more and more problems for them. Silver had said that just a few days ago, Oliver was hit by a car and had to kill the driver. Androids “didn’t exist” after all, and. Well. With Oliver bleeding oil and his leg apparently broken off? That definitely wasn’t human. Something was wrong with the Host, though Jacques hadn’t caught exactly what was wrong. A little over a week ago, Marvin had severely injured himself. They’d risked him dying in the hospital, which would have revealed his aura to the nurses and doctors tending to him, in the hopes they could save him.

Had he died on the operating table, Marvin could have given them all away. No, not could have. Would have. Had any of them even thought of that?

Jacques swallowed as his stomach twisted.

Humans wouldn’t take kindly to the Egos’ presence, would they? What happened if they found out that these…these extremely powerful, non-human beings existed among them while successfully passing as human? That these beings who could in theory kill them in an instant were able to hide in plain sight? Would even the former fans accept them when they knew how dangerous some of them could be?

That was a frightening thought.

“Jacques?” Silver and Roxanne were standing; discarding of their cups and wrappers in a nearby trashcan. “We’re leaving.”

Stumbling to his feet, Jacques wrapped what remained of his sandwich. He held the food in his free hand after tucking his phone in his back pocket; the other arm occupied with keeping his sketchbook tucked under his arm.

For a day in Los Angeles, the streets were oddly quiet. It was hot out. Unbearably so. Apparently that was unusual for April in the area? That would explain it. The sun beat down on their backs and made the sidewalks hot; it could easily become miserable if they stayed out too long. All three of them were in tank tops and either capris or shorts.

Jacques squinted against the sun. Sunglasses would sure be nice…

Silver and Roxanne were chatting a few steps ahead of the artist. Fingers laced together.  Roxanne’s long hair pulled into a ponytail, and Silver’s in a messy bun. The artist ran a hand through his own hair; short, tight coils catching his fingers.

One of these days, they just needed to part ways. Jacques didn’t like them. Why? He scoffed to himself. Who did he like anymore? Bitterness was a lonely thing.

Dark eyes raised to the sound of a small “whoof.”

A dog was trotting from person-to-person. It’s ears pulled forward and tail wagging slowly as it looked up with begging eyes. When it was ignored, it moved on to the next. Its ribs were showing, and a grungy collar hung loosely from its neck.

Roxanne knelt and clicked her tongue. The dog abandoned the man it had been begging from so it could trot toward her. Its tail was wagging faster now, and it nudged its head into her hand.

“Jacques? Do you still have your sandwich?”

A little nod, and Jacques started unwrapping the food. He tore a piece off; tossed it to the starving dog. The chunk was gone in seconds. How long had it been since it had eaten? He tensed when the canine abandoned Roxanne and sat at his feet instead. Its head tilted; eyes flitting between Jacques, and the food in his hand. Another chunk torn off, then gone in a moment. Poor thing was just swallowing the food whole!

People were giving them looks, but Jacques just glared back. The dog needed to eat!

Roxanne was undoing her hoodie from her waist. She looped one of the sleeves around the dog’s collar and tied it. “Let’s get her some water and out of the sun,” she said as she rubbed the dog between its floppy ears. “She’s got a collar, so we’ll clean off the tag and have Bing figure out who she belongs to.”

Owners? But she was so underweight! Jacques had to wonder if she’d been thrown out, or had simply run away and gotten lost. It was a big city, after all. It was just a wonder she hadn’t been picked up by animal control yet with how people-friendly she seemed to be.

When they reached the motel, the dog was panting and her head hanging low. It was too hot for her to be running around without water. With her collar removed and having lapped up the water offered to her fast enough the other three were worried she’d make herself sick, the dog draped herself over the foot of Jacques’s bed and promptly fell asleep. They’d cleaned the tag off, and now Silver was on the phone with Bing so he could relay the information on them to the android. It was a fifteen minute call. If that. One tag had been broken off. The name tag, thankfully. That left the one with a phone number and vaccine information still intact so Bing had something to work with.

“Well,” the hero started, “it sounds like her owner passed away a few weeks ago. She was elderly, I guess.” Silver leaned toward the dog to rub the top of her head. “Neighbors called police for a wellness check on the owner when they hadn’t seen her for a few days. Police startled the dog when they tried gettin’ her, and she bolted out the door. She’s a purebred Doberman Pinscher and has no where to go with her owner gone, so she’d just be taken to a pound or shelter if she was turned in. Bing couldn’t find what the dog’s name is.”

“No one’s gonna want an adult Dobie,” Roxanne murmured with a shake of the head. “She’d be stuck there for the rest of her life, or until her time there ran out and…” She didn’t continue.

Running a hand over the dog’s bony back, Jacques furrowed his brows. They couldn’t turn her in!

“…Can we keep her?”

Jacques decided to call her Muse.

[jorjathomas]

Potential Self Made Fabric and Pricing Research

As lectures become less frequent, it is important that the group and I start to validate our brands factors which will help us achieve the best for this module. Currently, we have ideas but we really need to be confident in them so we can progress in making our PowerPoint. I decided to research in what particular fabrics we needed for our garments that would make them both practical and sustainable. I also briefly covered how much we should price our range off this research.

I am unsure if we are going to create both gym wear and loungewear for our business however it was useful that I researched both just incase we decide to create one over the other. Nylon is the most popular material used for activewear as it has low moisture absorbency's and stretches over the body well, perfect for active environments however, when researching how sustainable nylon is I was disappointed to see its results. Google states ‘Even when properly disposed of, microscopic pieces of fiber will shed off as it's worn and contribute to waterway plastic pollution. As a result, nylon is not known as a particularly sustainable fabric.’ Looking at the WeAreTala brand and what sustainable products they use to create their gym wear I discovered that they use a supplier which uses recycled Nylon. This brand is called QNova. When looking at their page they explained the process of how they create more sustainable Nylon in which they state, ‘Q-NOVA® is made for more than half by pre-consumption waste: these materials were unusable in any other way and would have been disposed of as external waste. The discarded materials are recast using a mechanical regeneration process after which they return to Fulgar in the form of a polymer which is then integrated into further processing stages.’ 

When analysing how this material would be priced in comparison to the standard and more harmful Nylon, I wasn't actually able to compare as you have to request a quote in order to see the pricing. This is understandable as they probably make to order to reduce any waste, slowing down the fashion cycle. Looking at WeAreTala’s price range in comparison to a non sustainable brand such as Gym Shark I was surprised they were priced around the same range. Both sat between £35-£40 despite one being more sustainable than the other. From this discovery, I am assuming that the recycled may be cheaper than normal nylon or Tala have decided to keep the prices at this price and loose out on some profits so their brand is affordable to their market. Further down in this post, I researched as to why sustainable materials are more expensive and why businesses may have to reduce their prices despite materials being more expensive than the standard fabrics other businesses use. I think our brand would have to take thing into consideration as our target audience prefer buying from cheaper brands.

As Nylon isn't environmentally friendly, I discovered the second best fabrics which our group could use for our activewear garments which was Bamboo. Bamboo fabrics are eco-friendly and responsibly sourced. The bamboo plant grows quickly without using pesticides, excessive water or care. This would be more suitable for our brand as it wouldn't produce plastic pollution like Nylon does. It was hard to find a supplier that sells fabric alone rather already made products however I found a business called Dragon Fly Fabrics. Having fabrics would be much more beneficial as we are able to control our own scrap waste. We are interested in creating a collection involving the patchwork technique where you sew together patches of fabrics using a lettuce hem. Keeping these scraps would help us for this idea as well as using as much fabric as possible. The business, Dragonfly Fabrics states ‘Bamboo fabrics have anti-bacterial properties and are therefore odour-resistant.  It is a great choice for people with sensitive skin, especially problems with eczema or allergies.  They are also absorbent and breathable which makes them cool to wear’. This is perfect for gym wear but I also think would be suitable for loungewear because it would be softer and more comfortable to wear more often.

The pricing for this fabric is suitable for our brand. 2 meters of fabric is £35 which I thought was reasonably priced. There aren’t as many colours and I am unsure how these are dyed. It would be important for these fabrics to be dyed naturally rather than with chemicals. The good thing about this site is that you can request a sample which would be good for us to see what the material is like and test its practicality. The only problem with this is that we would need to find a way to use this sample as we don't want to waste any fabrics. Sampling fabrics and testing them is crucial for activewear however causes a lot of waste for designs which didn't make the final cut for the collection.

 Moving away from activewear, our priority is loungewear and fabrics which are comfy and environmentally friendly. The main fabrics for two piece loungewear sets and trousers which our brand is interested in is cotton or linen. As these garments are fairly similar to sleepwear and have they same purposes, I found it easier to research under sleepwear. This is because some loungewear consists of jersey or fleece for garments like joggers and hoodies. As our aim is to use patchwork, these fabrics would be too thick to create this design on so I thought it was best researching for lightweight fabrics. Although Cotton is sustainable, I would say its one of the most popular fabrics. This popularity comes with high demand which I think could cause factory farming and fast fashion. Using recycled cotton is best if we considered this fabric as we are hindering it from going into landfill. I also looked into other fabrics that would be suitable for our collection in which I came across a fabric called Lyocell. The only problem with this material is that it is semi- synthetic meaning there was a chemical process when creating it. 

Lyocell is created from the cellulose in wood-pulp from trees. This comes from trees like Oak, Eucalyptus and Birch and is broken down and reformed into woven fibres. The fabric has high Elasticity which I thought would be good if we were to do both loungewear and activewear. It would be ideal not having too many suppliers in order to keep our carbon footprint small however I don't think I want to use this fabric as much due to it being synthetic and chemically broken down. It also is more expensive which is a key factor to take in consideration. As I said before I need to ask my group if we want to lower the original value of these garments in order to keep out target market despite us loosing profit to begin with. Although there are many negatives for this fabric, it is breathable and lightweight which is sustainable for our garment ideas. It is also very durable and long lasting which I hope would reduce the amount of consumers throwing away clothing frequently. If this did occur, it wouldn’t cause as much harm as Lyocell is biodegradable. In comparison to cotton Lyocell is much less harmful as the manufactures don't use pesticides in order for the cellulose to be released from the tree. Cotton does use water pesticide and is very labour intensive due to its demand in fast fashion which is why I think overall our brand should use Lyocell in order to cause as little harm to our planet as possible. 

Lyocell is produced in both Europe and China which is expected however I think it would be best to by from a supplier who manufactures in Europe as this is closer to the UK and reduce our carbon footprint. I have yet to find a business which sells this fabric however when looking in the shopping section on google the price ranges between £25-£30 depending on how many metres you would like. There are sellers on eBay however I would prefer to find a business which is more sustainable as most products which sell stock on eBay can be harmful to the environment or are shipped further away than Europe.

I think it would be best to buy these fabrics organically and then dye them ourselves as the businesses I've researched don't explain how they have dyed their fabrics. I began to research which natural dyes are best for fabrics.

  This business called George Weil sell fibres which enable fabrics to change colour. I thought this would be interesting to test out so I began to look at how you would dye fabrics this way. Re-using the dye bath water can help save tons of water without fixing the color of one bath to another one's fabric. Other techniques I think we should try involves; Cold dying and dry heat fixation which is another method of steaming to fix the pigmentation of the dyed fabric. This is much more eco friendly to the planet and much less harmful to the workers who would be dying these garments. Chemical dyes are very toxic and actually caused a lot of health problems to workers who were exposed to them often. This involved skin diseases and respiratory problems also which we don't want. I came up with the idea of sharing information about the workers we would hire and their own background on the site for our consumers to see. It would prove how important their lives our in our development of our brand and how they wont be mistreated in any way.

I think it would be important to tell our consumers that each product would look different because of this process which I hope they would understand the reasoning behind. I think this adds more sentimental value to our brand rather than creating a mass production of the same garment.

The final piece of research I did regarding this factor, was the reasoning behind the expenses of sustainable fabric being higher than the standard clothing. I didn't know much about this topic so I think it would be just as important to include this information on our website in order to inform and educate our customers.

You would think it would be more expensive to produce more crops which make these fabrics however with the help of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and the widespread demand of materialistic clothes, this isn't the case. Sustainable fabrics don't use these and use much lower impact crops that produce in their own time. This slows down the production completely which most fast fashion companies do not want. In addition, these manufactures make these items to order which reduces the amount of waste significantly. 

To conclude, this research was beneficial as I now know the importance of our brand being sustainable. Reading the impact these fabrics have on the environment is shocking and I don't want to use these for our brand. I think we should use Lyocell fabric for our loungewear if we did make new items. I think we could consider using existing clothes which customers don't want and repurpose them into something more wearable. This would be best as we wouldn't be adding any more harm to fashion pollution but staying in the fashion cycle by borrowing existing items

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Google Stadia, Australia and the Impending Game-Streaming War

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/google-stadia-australia-and-the-impending-game-streaming-war/

Google Stadia, Australia and the Impending Game-Streaming War

The future may well prove that OnLive was ahead of its time. Like Timothy Dalton’s serious Bond take before Daniel Craig, or Boss before House of Cards, OnLive may have been that necessary sacrificial trailblazer whose death leads to the next down-the-track leap.

For those unaware, OnLive was the first game-streaming service of note. It’s now gone the way of the dodo, but the idea was as straightforward then as it is today for surviving services: instant on. No need to physically own a game. No need for a high-end PC or the latest console. Just a compatible device and a high-speed internet connection.

The catch is that game-streaming services require adequate, stable bandwidth to be playable.

When OnLive fired all its employees in 2012, Australia’s average internet speed was an abysmal 4.2Mbps. It’s likely why OnLive and other still-alive services like Sony’s PlayStation Now or the online component of Nvidia’s GeForce Now never made it to Australian shores.

OnLive’s DNA may still live on, though, given that Sony bought the service before shuttering it. Sony will no doubt launch some kind of streaming service for PlayStation 5 – PlayStation Now branded or otherwise – and it certainly won’t be alone. EA also has an unnamed game-streaming service in the works. Microsoft has xCloud. But the current big name in what might become gaming’s next big thing is Google Stadia, which is due to launch in select countries this November.

The nitty-gritty of game streaming

The Stadia pitch is that you can open a Chrome tab or smartphone app to stream a game “instantly”. This means no download, no patching, just immediate access. This pitch, however, doesn’t extend to accessing a catalogue of games through a Netflix-style subscription – players must still purchase the vast majority of games on the service for full-price, to then be able to stream them.

Even so, the prospect of streaming high spec games to almost any screen (at some point in the future – the launch is more limited) is a major reason why companies are falling over themselves to be involved. Instead of there being millions of compatible gaming devices, the number stretches to potentially billions. Google, for instance, has showcased Stadia’s potential on older PC and Mac hardware, streaming Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to them from a specced-out gaming PC.

The point of this demonstration is simple: these older machines wouldn’t be able to install and run the game, let alone play it at max settings. This lack of the need for a dedicated gaming platform lowers the barrier of entry. Chuck in the possibility of streaming directly to compatible TVs, smartphones or tablets, and it’s easy to understand why game streaming is a big deal for those companies with budgets big enough to back the R&D.

In terms of the actual process of game streaming, the upload bandwidth requirements are less important than download because the main thing being transmitted from the player’s end is control inputs. The download bandwidth requirements, though, include all of the game video and audio, which scale upwards based on each incrementally increasing fidelity metric.

The Stadia pitch is that you can open a Chrome tab or smartphone app to stream a game “instantly”.

“

For Stadia, Google recommends a minimum download speed of 10Mbps for 720p gaming at 60 frames per second (fps) with stereo sound. Bump that up to 1080p/60fps with 5.1 surround sound (the max resolution for free Stadia users) and you need 20Mbps minimum. Jump up again to Stadia’s current maximum of 4K/60fps with 5.1 surround sound and you need at least 35Mbps of dedicated download bandwidth.

Google has also been talking up future leaps to 8K resolution and up to 120fps, which would likely translate to at least double the download bandwidth, unless bandwidth improvements can be made within the technology. Still, the prospect of a minimum of 70Mbps for fidelity lovers streaming in 8K is a giant bandwidth pill to swallow.

Consistency is important, too, as the real-time nature of gaming means that, unlike video, it can’t have breathing space in a buffer. The other challenge is data usage. Extrapolating Google’s minimum bandwidth estimates, 720p gaming uses approximately 4.5GB per hour of gaming, with Stadia’s 4K/60fps option stretching to a cap-destroying 15.75GB for every hour you play.

The need for speed

Australia isn’t on the initial launch roadmap for Google Stadia, though it may be one of the countries that Google targets from 2020 onwards. This is likely an infrastructure consideration, given we don’t have Google data centres (yet?), even if we do have a Google Cloud Platform.

Regardless of where you’re located, there are three key player-side considerations when it comes to any game-streaming service: download speed, latency and minimal (ideally zero) data loss. Conceptually, even these are problematic in Australia, especially when you account for the reality that no matter how fast the back-end architecture of a game-streaming service is, it’s at the mercy of a player’s internet connection.

According to the Speedtest global index, Australia’s fixed broadband average at the time of writing is 38.54Mbps (57th in the world), compared to 119.09Mbps in the USA (7th) and 61.02Mbps for the UK (41st). (The USA and the UK are two of 14 launch countries for Stadia.) While comfortably above the minimum (10Mbps) and 1080p (20Mbps) Stadia download requirements, Australia’s average fixed broadband speed is not comfortably above the 35Mbps needed for 4K game-streaming. It’s also worth considering that the internet’s busy period is 7pm to 11pm every night, where user demand slows things further. This means it’s possible that average would drop below the 35Mbps required to stream 4K Stadia games.

For comparison, Italy has the slowest average fixed broadband speed of the 14 Stadia launch countries, but that’s still 53.89Mbps: comfortably above the 35Mbps requirement.

Australia’s average fixed broadband speed should improve once the NBN rollout is completed and as more Australians connect to the new access network. Additionally, if NBN follows particular upgrade paths in the future, it should bring copper/fibre hybrid technologies closer to the current max consumer fibre speeds.

Australia’s mobile internet fares much better: we’re ranked fourth on the Speedtest global index with an average download speed of 63.2Mbps. That’s faster than the UK average for fixed broadband, but there’s a big catch. Australia doesn’t really have mobile plans with unlimited data at these speeds. We do have unlimited-data mobile plans, but they’re either fully or fine-print capped (once you reach your data cap) at a paltry 1.5Mbps.

With 5G on the way and as consumer data demands grow, that may change. But given that 5G depends on device compatibility and telcos treat data as though it’s as scarce as helium, this network upgrade isn’t likely to change much, at least not in the short-term.

Beyond the need for speed

The bigger catch of game streaming is latency, particularly for those living in regional locations in Australia. In these locations, the only internet options are satellite or fixed wireless, where the pings can be high (particularly for satellite) and reliability is impacted by total users and adverse weather.

Even fixed broadband internet users are at the mercy of server locations for a hypothetical Stadia rollout in Australia. If, like Microsoft’s Azure data centres, servers are only positioned on the east coast of Australia, those in the far west and north of our expansive country will have higher latency. To put that in context, there’s lower latency between the east coast of Australia and New Zealand than there is with Perth in Western Australia.

Put simply, the farther the distance, the higher the latency. The higher the latency, the more the real-time illusion of game-streaming is broken and input delays are more noticeable, among other detractors.

Data loss is the final concern, and while there are controllable factors within the home, loss can come down to external networks outside of the player’s control. By way of example, my Telstra cable connection was incredibly reliable for the first year (outside of the odd day-long outage). It’s now basically unusable for any live-streaming service because of data loss care of sporadic 10-second dropouts.

The higher the latency, the more the real-time illusion of game-streaming is broken and input delays are more noticeable, among other detractors.

“

With the NBN arriving in my area next year and after a year of fighting, Telstra tossed my case in the ‘too hard’ basket and stopped trying to fix it. I was given bill credit for the lack of reliability but, honestly, I’d rather be paying full price for a consistent connection, especially because that all-important r-word is the first adjective in Telstra’s internet sales pitch.

Outside of these dropouts, my latency is an impressive 7ms with an above-spec 112Mbps download bandwidth. Incidentally, this bandwidth is fast enough to pass the Google Stadia bandwidth test with a big green tick.

What’s less viable for Stadia or a similar game-streaming service is my Optus phone internet. I get two bars of 4G reception in my area (10km from the Sydney CBD), and while that equates to a respectable 14ms latency, the download speed is around 35.5Mbps. It doesn’t help that it’s not the most reliable of connections. Additionally, while 60GB of data is adequate for my monthly needs, it would only allow for around 6.5 hours of 1080p streaming on Stadia’s 20Mbps recommendation.

Granted, my phone plan is more than a year old. With a top-tier plan today, I could score 200GB of data from Optus, which would allow for 22 hours of monthly game streaming (and nothing else) at the same resolution on Stadia. That’d cost $105 per month (excluding any handset repayments) on top of my home internet.

Cracking the latency code

The challenge of any form of wireless technology – Wi-Fi, mobile or otherwise – is that it includes inherent latency. It’s likely why the Google Stadia founder’s edition includes a Chromecast Ultra, the top-end gizmo that’s also best used with its included ethernet capability. The Stadia requirements list this particular Chromecast model as the minimum for using Stadia on a TV.

What Google has cleverly done is push Stadia wannabes towards its proprietary controller. At first glance, it looks like just another average controller. The cleverness comes from the inclusion of a link between controller and Stadia gaming server (via Wi-Fi), as opposed to being paired to the device displaying the screen. This has the potential for lower noticeable input delays.

Clever controller tech.

Users can opt for their own controller or keyboard/mouse combo, but this will introduce additional latency. Even though this ultimately amounts to milliseconds of latency, it can start to add up to noticeable delays between control input and onscreen responsiveness.

This was the case with my xCloud experience at E3, with an Xbox One controller connected via Bluetooth to a mobile phone that was streaming Resident Evil 7. While the major detractor was the screen darkness of this particular demo, the adequately lit areas showcased a noticeable delay between joystick camera movement and onscreen actuation.

Game-specific impressiveness

There is a chance these kinds of game-streaming input delays may be less noticeable to more casual players, for whom these types of technology may be more relevant than the dedicated gamer crowd who likely own their platform/s of choice. Mobile games are often designed with control limitations in mind, and the same logic may well prove true in terms of the type of game that’s best played via game streaming.

Competitive multiplayer shooters are out for now and, unsurprisingly, almost entirely absent from the list of Stadia launch titles (though Google notes there will be multiplayer games at launch). Doom and Doom Eternal are potential exceptions to this, but there’s more on them below. It’s not a stretch to imagine that other games like Cuphead and Dark Souls, which rely on immediately responsive control feedback, are going to be a challenge for game-streaming services because of the inherent latency.

Competitive multiplayer shooters are out for now and, unsurprisingly, almost entirely absent from the list of Stadia launch titles…

“

It’s interesting that the rise of controllers like the Xbox Elite and Scuf, which champion the competitive advantages of lower latency, are on the rise alongside the birth of a gaming service that includes inherent latency. On top of this, Sony and Microsoft have talked about the high frame rate potential of the next-gen consoles, which is another step closer to lower latency (albeit perceived, in this instance).

Even TV manufacturers have included higher-refresh-rate ‘game modes’ for years, and newer-model teles offer 120Hz refresh rates and FreeSync support. In this respect, a new technology that inherently includes latency seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Devilish delights

While the bigger focus is on core game-streaming technologies like Stadia, Bethesda swooped into the race with a surprise announcement at E3 2019: Orion. Initially, it sounded as though Orion was another competing service. Instead, the pitch for the patented tech is as a Pied Piper-like middleware software solution to improve the hardware-focus of game-streaming services.

Orion is implemented at a game-engine level and is built to reduce two all-important factors: latency and bandwidth. These improvements are potentially significant, too, with the claim of latency reductions of up to 20 percent per frame and a 40 percent reduction in the required bandwidth.

Orion is implemented at a game-engine level and is built to reduce two all-important factors: latency and bandwidth.

“

According to the spiel, technically, Orion can be used on any game-streaming service, which means it’s there to complement the Stadias and xClouds of the gaming world, albeit with one big caveat: developers, publishers and streaming providers have to choose to use it.

If the theory is true in application, Orion has the potential to lower bandwidth requirements and data usage. The Orion official page even claims “imperceptible latency” in reference to “twitchy shooters”, on top of this huge-if-true statement: “a wider availability, making quality play available to players living far from data centers.”

Orion is likely why both Doom and Doom Eternal are the only fast-paced shooters among the launch titles; it’s a chance for Bethesda to showcase its tech. Both shooters have multiplayer but the higher PvP time-to-kill (TTK) makes them less in the vein of Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six Siege, and closer to the likes of Destiny 2. The extra survivability of a higher TTK shooter is better suited to the inherent latency of game-streaming services.

Game-streaming downsides

There are more game-streaming detractors outside of those previously mentioned. Interruptions in the connection, be it player or server side, result in choppier frame rates, graphical artefacting and input delays. Even a dip in connection speed can reduce resolution, introduce latency and equate to more noticeable on-screen compression.

At best, these are immersion tarnishes; at worst, tech destroyers. Google does note that Stadia will automatically adjust “to deliver the best possible visual quality at all times” during bandwidth fluctuations, but if that’s a fidelity-at-all-costs mentality, something has to give, and that may be responsiveness.

Even a dip in connection speed can reduce resolution, introduce latency and equate to more noticeable on-screen compression.

“

In terms of mobile devices, Stadia is curiously only limited to Google Pixel phones and Chrome OS tablets for the time being. Google has confirmed this will change, but it’s odd that other modern Android devices can’t also run the tech. Given that Stadia will be accessed via app, conceptually, it seems straightforward to lock out incompatible phones and tablets via Android OS version.

If a player’s connection drops out, the server will stay live for a few minutes. This means that even Google Pixel owners are at the mercy of internet coverage to ensure they can reconnect in time to resume or save their game. Australia, for instance, has great mobile coverage in cities, but in smaller city centres and in rural areas, the coverage starts to shrink and speeds slow.

Game access in general is also a big issue. The US$9.99 monthly fee for Stadia Pro grants access to a limited library of free games, discounts and 4K streaming, but you’re utterly dependent on an online connection to use Stadia, which means no form of offline gaming. The same is true of the free version of Stadia, and in both cases most of the games on the service cost full price to purchase. Google does note, though, that purchased games will be playable on Stadia even if they’re removed from the library.

It’s also worth flagging that older compatible devices will be at the mercy of their screen technology in terms of resolution (unless Stadia supports Xbox One X-like supersampling) and refresh rate, which may not be capable of frame rates beyond 60fps. Finally, unlike a service like Netflix, Stadia only allows for a single stream, albeit a single user can use this single session across unlimited compatible devices.

Perks of game streaming

It’s not all bad news, though. Stadia and other game-streaming services effectively eliminate piracy, which is great news for developers and publishers. Lower device requirements mean a lower initial barrier of entry to play games. Playing Stadia with a stable online connection is reportedly comparable to local game-streaming services, like Steam Link and GeForce Now.

On top of this, because the games are streamed and not installed, there’s no need to make space for increasingly growing game installs. Additionally, games are patched on the server side (at Google speeds for Stadia), meaning you don’t have to wait for patches to download before you’re ready to play. This, in particular, is a gaming-godsend for players who have limited gaming time that may be chewed up by waiting for patches.

There’s also the early pledge from Google that Stadia will support cross-platform multiplayer. This is, of course, reliant on other platforms coming to the party. Still, it’s a strong pro-player stance that sets an example for other parties to follow suit. Mind you, for that to work, latency really will have to be in line with other platforms.

Future potential

Stadia’s Director of Product Andrey Doronichev had this to say recently in a Reddit AMA: “To be clear, Stadia Pro is not ‘Netflix for Games’ like some people have mentioned, a closer comparison would be like Xbox Live Gold or Playstation Plus. The Pro subscribers get 4K/HDR streaming, 5.1 sound, exclusive discounts and access to some free games. Roughly one free game per month give or take. Starting with Destiny 2 (yay!).”

So… no broad catalogue, just a drip feed of free titles, with all others to be purchased at full price. That being the case, what is the use case for streaming that makes this worthwhile? If you don’t have a high-end gaming PC, a PS4 Pro or an Xbox One X maybe it makes sense. But if you don’t have that entry-level investment in gaming are you really interested enough to pay a monthly fee? If you do buy in, will you hog the bandwidth in your house to the point that a flatmate or partner may not be able to do what they want to do online?

Ultimately, services like Stadia need to prove that the many potential headaches associated with them – at least early on – are actually outweighed by the advantages. Would you, for instance, take instant-access gaming that’s potentially lower fidelity and higher latency every single time you want to use it over simply waiting for an install at the beginning and then having consistent, excellent performance from that point on? I think that trade-off would be much easier to sell if Stadia was indeed offering up a Netflix-style service, rich with content. The ability to browse through a large catalogue and try anything you like instantly would be pretty compelling. But that’s not what Stadia is going to be at launch.

Stadia and other streaming services really do feel like they raise more questions than they answer, so for now, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that Australia isn’t part of the initial rollout. This vision of the future of gaming seems like it’s going to feel pretty inessential for some time to come. Mind you, it’d still be nice to have the internet to support it.

Nathan Lawrence is a freelance writer based in Sydney who writes about games and film, and is a shooter specialist. Say hey on Twitter.

Source : IGN

[brianobrienny]

Marketing in the Age of Disruption

What does marketing even mean right now? That’s what many businesses are asking. The world is in a place of dramatic change. So, what’s the answer to marketing in the age of disruption?

Marketing isn’t a function. It isn’t a department, either. It’s a process, a voice, and a conversation.

In this post, I’ll take you through marketing in the age of disruption and define five essential tips to help your brand make the leap to change and evolve.

Quick Takeaways

Disruption isn’t new, just more intense, and that sets the course for rethinking marketing.

The digital disruption of marketing is still in its infancy but has profoundly changed how brands connect with buyers.

Most marketing is still stuck in traditional mindsets.

Content marketing is the most critical aspect of modern marketing, and its focus is always on the customer.

Marketing Isn’t What We Thought It Was

It’s obvious we’re in a disruptive cycle right now. The world is chaotic. It’s been a perfect storm but one you can weather. The year 2020 has seen a culmination of disruptive forces — COVID-19, a recession, and social tensions.

So, what’s the context for marketing in a world like this. Does it even matter? Do we have anything to offer our audiences right now?

Yes, absolutely, because disruption isn’t new. It’s been around for some time. We’re seeing the acceleration of it right now.

Everything that’s changing has been changing. Maybe, we’re just paying more attention now. And that’s a good thing.

The Disruption Began with the Digital Channels and Devices

If you look at the history of the evolution of brands, you can start with some key dates over the last 17 years.

2003: LinkedIn launches, providing professionals a virtual way to connect and learn. In just 17 years, LinkedIn has become a valuable channel for marketers.

2006: Facebook debuts. In only 14 years, the effect it has had is profound. It’s still the most popular social media platform. It’s much more than a place to share family photos. It’s a news source, a marketplace, and a place for brands to tell stories.

2007: iPhone is available in the U.S. With this launch, we all now have the internet in our pocket. This accessibility has been life-, culture-, and business-changing. Answers and needs are available with a click.

2011: Snapchat arrives, becoming beloved by all generations because who doesn’t look better with a filter. Again, it’s a game-changer for consumers and brands.

Digital, social, and mobile technology would seem immature in most situations. It’s only been 17 years. We don’t call a 17-year-old an adult. Yet, these are fundamental revolutions for society.

All of this contributes to the massive shift in the way that businesses work. The most substantial impact has been on marketing. Knowing the power of these components, why does marketing still seem so pre-internet?

Most Marketing Is Still Without a Revolution

The majority of marketing still looks like it didn’t get the memo on change. It’s a cycle of brands telling us how wonderful they are. The narrative is still all about them. The only difference may be the channels they choose.

The reality is we’re all connected now. It’s easy to find information, and we expect this information to be accessible and meaningful. When it’s not, we ignore it.

This digital transformation means customers have different relationships with brands. They have expectations because this is the experience economy. When you don’t meet them, they move on.

But marketing, in many organizations, is stuck in the past. It’s not providing returns or revenue. And, CEOs are unhappy. They overwhelmingly blame their CMO.

A study from the Fournaise Marketing Group found 80 percent of CEOs don’t trust their CMOs. Subsequently, only 10 percent have those same feelings about other C-suite leaders.

This disapproval is most likely due to disconnects. There is also a dichotomy in what CEOs want and what they tell marketers to do.

The CEO Paradox on Marketing

CEOs are typically numbers and metrics people. They expect marketing to generate leads, expand brand awareness, and increase revenue. Those are reasonable requests. CEOs often have the wrong idea about how to achieve this.

They want us to change a logo. There’s no return on investment (ROI) with these vanity projects. How do you track if that activity helped meet your goals?

It’s easy to place the blame on misinformed CEOs for bad marketing, but marketers have to be accountable, too.

Marketers Can’t Be “Yes” Men or Women

Companies hire marketers to implement strategies that drive marketing value. Your job isn’t to say yes. It’s to push back. In a way, it’s your job to educate your CEO and other stakeholders on what marketing is.

What Do Most People Think Marketing Is?

If you ask most people, including CEOs, what market is, they’d probably say ads. It’s an antiquated way of looking at the process. Yet, companies still spend millions or even billions on traditional advertising or brand marketing.

Surprisingly, Coca-Cola recently halted ad spend, with a statement from the CEO that, “There is limited effectiveness to brand marketing.”

That’s an interesting response from a company that has undeniable brand equity. Their brand message has been about the product. Product marketing is the old guard. It’s all about the product and not the user. It’s true that it’s ineffective.

The Advertising Research Institute reports that product sales decline after 48 ad impressions. That may seem like a large number. However, think about watching a football game on a Sunday. Those impressions add up fast with commercials, logos on the field, and every sponsored segment.

And do customers remember the ads? They may be more for entertainment. Think back to the Super Bowl ads of this year. Some were funny and clever, yet I have no idea what brand created them. I didn’t see myself in the ads. So, it didn’t resonate.

More ads are not what your customers want. To thrive and grow during this storm and more to come, stop promoting ads to audiences that don’t want it.

Here’s what marketing needs to do instead.

What Should Marketers Do to Connect with Customers in an Age of Disruption?

Marketers need to deliver content that attracts buyers. This is what content marketing is. It’s the meeting in the middle of what you want to publish and what customers want. The illustration below shows what I mean and the fact that most things are explainable with a Venn diagram.

Content marketing isn’t novel. It’s been a force in the world for at least a decade. Its adoption and use are growing. The reality is content marketing is in opposition to the instinct companies have to market.

Their instinct is to talk about themselves. The messages are about features, benefits, and differentiators. It’s me, me, me…

It’s not that companies aren’t publishing content. It’s ineffective. A report found 60 to 70 percent of B2B marketing content is unused.

That’s a lot of effort that went nowhere. What’s this content missing? It’s not what buyers want or need. Most importantly, what’s missing in the equation is the customer.

Content marketing is the overlap of what you know and your solutions with answering customer challenges, problems, and questions. You must move from a promotion mindset to a publishing mindset.

That change has much to do with empathy. Empathy in content marketing drives real connections. Yet, it’s hard to explain to executives who are devoid of empathy. CEOs care about the money, but content marketing has the power to do that. It’s just not in a “traditional” way.

There are actions you can take that bridge this gap. Let’s explore these.

Being in Step with Disruption

The disruption is here. It’s not going away. It will only continue. It may seem like chaos, but there are critical steps to take to embrace the disruption.

Websites Aren’t Brochures

Before the internet, companies spent time and money on brochures as their calling card. Then they moved to a digital channel. Except, many businesses didn’t rethink how to use it differently.

Your website is your most important digital asset. You own it and control it. It can drive real value over time if you use it wisely.

The graph below illustrates the value of the return on content marketing on your website versus paid ads.

Image: Marketing in the Midst of Disruption

First, content marketing budgets are substantially less, with no fluctuations. Ad spend seems to always balloon. Over time, the focus on content marketing shows a significant increase in traffic. Traffic is always growing. Once you put out a quality piece of content, it doesn’t only make an impact on that day; it will for months or years to come. It’s like an annuity.

Ads, not so much. As soon as you end your Google ad, the return is zero. No ad, no return. It’s not a sustainable way to market.

You can see that content marketing has a 7x greater ROI than paid ads.

Real-World Examples of Content Marketing Success and Missed Opportunities

For proof that this phenomenon is real, I’ll tell you about three brands.

Brand A doesn’t use content marketing. I’ve been trying to educate them for five years to no avail. They stick with product promotion and advertising. That strategy isn’t working for them. If I look at their website traffic, it’s not looking good for them. They are failing. They are dying.

Brand B has a content marketing strategy. They don’t follow it. Instead, they publish content based on the whims of executive requests, product releases, and campaigns. Their site traffic is flat. They are losing market share. To correct these losses, they keep throwing money at paid ads.

Brand C is a client of five years. Every week, they publish two customer-focused articles. They have a strategy and abide by it. Their investment has been small compared to big ad spenders. The results? Consistent organic search traffic continues to grow. They are seeing more traffic, and because they put the customer first, the conversions are following.

(Note: It would be good to put the charts in the webinar here – however the ones in the deck are of low quality.)

Any Company Can Pivot

So, those are some interesting numbers — things that may pique a CEO’s interest. Here’s another story about how content marketing drives returns.

In 2011, I worked at SAP, an international software company that’s certainly a leader in the field. I was the first head of digital marketing. It’s a new role, so ripe for disruption, right?

I simply had to make the business case for content marketing. I started with thought leadership content. I found it was much more effective than product content. When we produced content that was based on expertise, audiences responded.

That was laying the foundation. The CEO and CMO were on board with content marketing. I began to construct a global content marketing strategy that would focus on thought leadership content.

This was a breakthrough, except my marketing peers weren’t on board. Those marketers were caught up in product promotion because of the expectations of product owners. Those product owners expected their marketing colleagues to push product.

I went back to the data. I found that the paid ads around product had no true ROI. Our audience ignored them. The content was ineffective. Our audience needed something more relevant.

I began to simply perform searches on the kinds of products SAP sold. Two specifically were big data solutions and cloud computing technology. For organic search rankings, SAP was losing here. Their competitors were holding the top spots, not with product content, but customer-focused content.

To sum it up:

Ads were ineffective.

Content wasn’t usable.

No leads came from these campaigns.

Our buyers wanted help.

These realizations and data analysis led to the idea that content marketing could help reach, engage, convert, and retain customers. Providing them with expertise and education content was what would help meet those goals. We had to position our content marketing as value and make the buyer the star of the story.

This strategy led to the creation of the SAP Digitalist Magazine. The content there became what users found on organic search. It now has thousands of contributors. It’s a real hub for customers.

This example serves as the way to sell the business case for content marketing.

Tip 1: Making the Business Case for Content Marketing

The business case aligns with your goals to attract your ideal buyers.

You reach by using the keywords the use.

You engage by creating the content they want.

You convert by handing them over to sales when ready.

You retain by keeping the conversation going with useful content.

Tip 2: Frequency Drives Results

What’s one area where brands derail their content marketing efforts? They are inconsistent in publishing. You must frequently deliver content customers want. You have to publish more and better content.

The more consistent you are, the higher rates of traffic. SAP’s success was in part due to frequency. In one year, they saw a 7x ROI.

This exercise led me to define a formula for marketing ROI. I published the book The Content Formula. This was my message to CMOs on how to leverage content marketing.

They didn’t want to hear it. They weren’t ready, but there was no denial of the shift to becoming customer-centric.

Experts continue to study the frequency question. How often should you blog? Check out our post on blog frequency that delivers data-driven conclusions to the question.

Tip 3: Focus on Customer Interests

What makes content marketing relevant is that it focuses on customer interests. Those interests do not have to be product-specific. For example, GE Healthcare wants to reach radiologists. They don’t care about the features of GE’s latest equipment.

We found they did care about salaries by looking at search data. To meet that need, the company published an eBook on radiology salaries. It was controversial, but it performed very well.

This is an example of the paradigm shift that must happen in organizations. This way of thinking must root out the engrained mindset of pushing product. It has a lot to do with empathy. The importance of empathy for customers and colleagues is integral to successful content marketing.

However, it’s often a cultural problem. I was challenged by how to explain the value of empathy, so I wrote Mean People Suck. Based on examples and data, I proved empathy-based organizations show better business results. Marketing should care about culture.

Most organizations still hold on to org charts. An org chart is nothing but a map of who tells who what to do. Org charts don’t see roles as humans and all the baggage and politics involved.

Most importantly, where’s the customer in the org chart? No representation here.

So, I advocate for The Bullseye, which puts the customer in the center.

Tip 4: Answer Customer Questions

One great example of the Bullseye is what Rena Patel accomplished at Capgemini. She was the brand and communications head. The company was fourth in the market behind some big names like Accenture.

The CEO saw that Accenture sponsored golfers and decided they should, too. This would have been a $20 million spend.

Rena pushed back. She found that their audience wasn’t really interested in golf. She also knew that this tactic would not serve the needs of customers.

She began to see that content that was educational and customer-focused had high returns. The company had the expertise to share, they just needed to put effort here. Her goals were to increase revenue and elevate their experts.

The company’s content began to answer customer questions. For 0.1% of the budget of a golf sponsorship, the efforts increased revenue by $1 million in the first year.

Rena provides the results, but the CEO still wants to sponsor a golfer. Rena says no again, understanding that here experts are the key to conversions.

Tip 5: Activate Your Experts

So, Rena gets the CEO to back off on the golf sponsorship. She doubles her budget for content marketing. This allows her team to create more content and tap into every SME (subject matter expert).

At the end of the year, content marketing drives $24 million in sales. It’s the highest ROI-producing product I’ve ever seen.

You may be thinking, how can a small company do this with little to no budget?

No Matter Your Size or Budget, Content Marketing Can Deliver

It’s vital to understand that you do not have to pay to get website traffic. My site currently ranks for 24,500 keywords. We don’t spend money on ads.

We get noticed by publishing consistent content that answers customer questions. If you look at thought leadership, our blog on the subject is the first organic result. The first ad at the top is Accenture, a billion-dollar company. They have to pay to be on page one. We don’t.

That didn’t happen overnight. Content marketing is a long game. But you’ll recall its impact compounds over time. Advertising does not.

Disruption Isn’t Going Anywhere, Your Marketing Should

Disruption is part of the world. Everything is changing. If your marketing does not reflect this, you need to reassess. Remember these important elements:

The customer should be the hero of your content.

You’ll have to sell the business case and ROI for content marketing.

Consistency and frequency are essential for effective content marketing.

Content should always answer customer questions.

Activating experts, internally and externally, will boost your content marketing ROI.

Be the Future of Marketing with Content Builder Services

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service.

Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today — and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post Marketing in the Age of Disruption appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

Marketing in the Age of Disruption published first on http://rssmix.com/u/11592782/rss.xml

[charlieharry1]

Make a retail internet site your number one storefront

In mid-march, when the implications of the covid-19 pandemic started out to end up clean, i talked to extra than forty of our retail clients about their concerns and requested how google may want  Digital Marketing Agencies in Cardiff to assist. Weeks later, i’m persevering with to hear from these clients approximately the demanding situations they’re dealing with, especially with the continued closures or regulations on their physical shops. Consumers are facing uncertainty too. Extra than 50% of u.k Buyers searched for what's open or closed close to them remaining week. So the pressure is now on shops’ new primary shops — their e-commerce web sites —  to now not simplest promote stock and generate revenue, however additionally to support, inform, and reassure customers along the manner. It’s a delicate balancing act, however now not an not possible one, and i’ve labored with my team to identify 8 strategies that stores can practice to offer their clients with applicable, frictionless, and helpful buying stories proper now. 1. Prioritize enterprise challenges

your team is probably being inundated with requests and new thoughts. However you could’t tackle them unexpectedly. Prioritization is key. Examine whether or not there are aspects of your website online’s messaging or design which are hurting the logo or having a negative effect on customers’ revel in. Regulate that first. Then dig into optimizations that can either enhance the experience or improve overall performance. Matters to recollect include website online performance and matching the messaging in your advertising channels on your site. You may additionally need to observe approaches to optimize customer service and promotions, in addition to methods to control volatility in website traffic and transaction quantity. Focus on those initiatives to be able to force the maximum effect, then define how you may measure their fulfillment. 2. Optimize website online speed

with ongoing store closures, an increasing number of people are shopping online. And as on line visitors spikes, it’s essential that your retail website can take care of multiplied quantity. Those guidelines will make sure you’re geared up in case you dont have search engine optimization business enterprise that will help you. Test your content material transport community (cdn) companies (as an example., akamai, cloudflare, google cloud cdn) for settings which can allow faster requests. Many web page resources don’t require updates on next visits. Undertake easy http-caching strategies that improve load times for returning users and reduce server load with minimal code adjustments. Make your website online load faster by means of compressing your pictures and text, with out compromising visual satisfactory. Put in force font-display swap so clients can examine your website online’s textual content, even if the number one font doesn’t load rapid sufficient. Delete unused tags out of your tag managers, clean up bloated css and js code, and eliminate different deprecated functions. Regularly take a look at your web site’s speed the use of gear like check my web site and pagespeed insights. You’ll locate greater guidelines on the way to accelerate your internet site here. Three. Offer a unbroken checkout enjoy

seventy-six percent of phone customers are more likely to purchase from organizations whose mobile websites or apps permit them to make purchases quick. 1 make sure your payment processing system is speedy and effortless. Also become aware of ways to comprise personalization enhancements, along with storing purchasing records or these days explored objects. In quick, your the front- and lower back-give up framework and era need to deliver the pleasant revel in viable. Work together with your tech teams to map the infrastructure and tech stack that aid your web site and make certain they interact seamlessly. Four. Leverage era to relieve customer service call for

more than 1 in four u.k Customers say manufacturers will be most helpful to them by way of training their customer support groups on a way to pleasant deal with their needs inside the second. 2 with that in thoughts, are you giving clients the sort of aid they want in nowadays’s environment? Use your teams and chatbots to clarify customer support updates, be obvious approximately expectations, and signpost on hand sources. Permit and check any patron messages on your google my business profile too, so clients get solutions fast and effortlessly. Five. Use top real property for vital facts indicators

Read Also:-  How to use your free time to become a digital marketing expert?

we know that over 50% of u.k Customers need to listen how manufacturers and corporations are responding to the crisis. 3 use your site’s homepage to proportion information approximately the way you’re supporting customers. Stay real, avoid company-talk, and ensure your banners and other site notifications are easy, yet wonderful, with calm hues and fonts. Also don't forget to allow customers to without difficulty “x” close any banners that allows you to maintain navigating. 6. Make your product services and promotions applicable

the closure of nonessential shops and persisted shelter-in-location orders have disrupted clients’ routines and changed their priorities. Is what you’re offering in your website applicable to this new everyday? Are you promoting the goods that could assist your clients most? Almost 40% of u.k Customers say they can’t find the goods they need or need to shop for and have bought brands they wouldn’t commonly buy at some stage in this time. Four the brand new growing re tail categories device on assume with google can help agencies keep tempo with rapidly changing customer wishes at some point of covid-19. 7. Adapt your innovative and media marketing campaign approach

as routines and schedules alternate to meet the needs of social isolation and safe haven-in-place orders, so are buying behaviours. Ensure your brand campaigns and innovative belongings replicate that. Update your content material to force buyers in your website in preference to physical locations that can be closed. Discontinue campaigns in areas wherein you may’t function or in which the content material may additionally seem insensitive, such as regions where your supply chain is disrupted or stores are closed. Make any logo message or innovative relevant and empathetic. Seek advice from these 5 guiding principles for media teams. Use automatic solutions that respond to real-time indicators to maintain up with consumer demand and optimise inside your virtual budget. 8. Be consistent throughout channels

on this turbulent surroundings, people are struggling to locate statistics they are able to consider, and that they’re going on-line to discover it. Almost 60% of u. Ok. Consumers searched online for  Digital Marketing Company in Glasgow what’s open or closed close to them ultimate week. Five whether or not you’re communicating product availability, delivery instances, or logo messaging, ensure the messages reflect what’s in your site. P. C provider

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Transforming ‘Content Marketing’ to ‘Content Experiences’: 3 insights for Marketers

What are the 3 things CMOs need to know to transform their content marketing efforts into a content experience strategy? Randy Frisch: Co-Founder, CMO, and President of Uberflip; and drinker of their own (content-experience) champagne shares insights based on hundreds of conversations with CMOs about ‘the new CX’.

Marketers – aka MTA readers - have been showing a voracious appetite for all content related content…and it’s no surprise either. Some estimates put the budget spent directly or indirectly on content creation/management/ distribution/ analytics at 30% of the marketing budget. And most all players- B2B and B2C – have plans to increase that in 2019. This is because, in the DIY economy, customers – aka ‘all of us’ -   prefer to use publicly-available content to ‘inform themselves’ about proposed purchases before we actually choose the vendors we want to talk to. This choice is based on the credibility, engagement, experience, and excitement they are able to build during the consideration phase, through; most dominantly, content.

There are many ways to get the content right, and yet, most marketers will end up falling into one of these content marketing traps:

Creating content without compelling insight into the audience who will consume it

Not focusing content on the ‘problem the prospect is seeking to solve’ but to say the things they want prospects to hear

Creating content but not making it accessible to touchpoints where customers can access, including Salespeople (especially true in B2B situations)

Creating too much content instead of intelligently amplifying some content

Not basing content strategy on data, not knowing the right performance metrics to focus ons

Not connecting content outcomes to business outcomes… the list goes on.  

It is no surprise that CMOs are frustrated with Content – can’t live without it, don’t know how to elevate it to a more strategic tool – but going to spend more on it anyway.

So when we decided to focus on content experiences as a strategic CMO imperative for 2019, who better to share some key lessons than Randy Frisch: Co-Founder, CMO, and President of Uberflip. A company that has been relentlessly championing the cause of Content Experience; and of course; precisely because of that, a company that needs to put their own content experiences where their mouth is.

Randy confirms our initial understanding: when embarking on content marketing, the first thing marketers do, is go and create a bunch of content. Or they curate a bunch of content. As Randy puts it, “CMOs jumped in hard on the “idea” of content marketing 5–10 years ago. But the “idea” got a bit confused along the way. Many organizations believed if they simply created content, people would come. You know like Kevin Costner in “Field of Dreams” …if you (create) it they will (buy). Fast forward to recent years, **CMOs have realized that creating content isn’t the key to winning - it’s aligning content to the needs of an audience at specific stages of the buyer journey**. Randy reminds us of the SiriusDecisions report that found 80 percent of content created goes unused. So, what lies beyond content creation – no matter how great that content may be? “In some ways, marketers are realizing that if content marketing is heavily focused on creation, content experience and content distribution are the real keys to driving engagement.”

Here are 3 Content Experience insights we distilled from our conversation with Randy.

Lesson 1: Content Marketing is not Content Experience

If content experience is distinct from content marketing, what does “content experience” entail?

“We’re all obsessed with better experiences. We cut our cables for Netflix because it delivered a better recommendation experience; we switched from Walmart to Amazon for the experience; and we buy the most tedious furniture to build from Ikea because they display it in an amazing in-store environment. The same reasons that these customer experiences win are the reasons a content experience will help you win or lose. **We are all delivering a content experience—even if we haven’t focused on it. The question is whether we’re delivering one that embraces or turns away our customers**.”

Randy specifies 3 core components of Content experience, that make a strategic distinction from content marketing (which focuses on content creation and distribution aspects):

The environment in which we serve our content

The structure in which we organize it

The way we compel people to engage through elements like personalization  

No marketer wants to wait around passively hoping their content gets discovered or hits the right mark at the right time for the right prospect. **Following the Content Experience approach helps put more control back in the hands of the marketer than the content marketing approach; while also focusing on the Brand experience rather than our own marketing objectives.**

As Randy says, “We need to lead with the stuff that keeps marketers up at night, not the stuff we want to sell. For a while, our team was always trying to sell by leading with content experience. Then one day I told a bad joke: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a noise?” Debatable, right? “Well, if we’re not around, do people talk about content experience?” Again, debatable. We had to lead with the items keeping our audience up at night (for us, topics like demand generation, inbound, ABM and sales enablement) and Trojan horse in our mission (that content experience could help). The same idea applies to all marketers. Make sure the stories you tell speak to the items that people talk about when you’re not around.”  

Storytelling is still the key element of content marketing. Memorable experiences are not about the gimmicks- they are about relevance and context. Randy enriches that by making a distinction between the experience needed to win a considered purchase (whether high-value B2B or even high-involvement B2C verticals like financial, education and automotive) versus content for low-consideration purchases, “where the content is important, but it’s more about building brand loyalty out of the gate, so people continue to buy time and time again—think Coke vs. Pepsi.”

Lesson 2: Content Discovery is not (just) about the first click

Popular wisdom says Search Optimization is a crucial component of successful content discovery. What should marketers know about content discovery that they don’t do enough of today? Randy says it depends on the stage of the journey you are building the experience for. “Google has gotten a lot smarter than you. If you’re looking for best practices, look to experts like Moz or other platforms and agencies that can help you optimize for the top of the funnel. But, even at the top of the funnel, it is worth remembering that discoverability has evolved. “There used to be a funny joke that the best place to hide something was on page two of Google results. Well that’s an old joke because now we speak to a Google Home and instantly trust the first result as authority. Our ability to search and rank content will become more important than ever. Whether on Google search or what people expect when they land on your home page, we have come to expect that you (the brand) know what I (the buyer) want.

But once you’ve captured someone, then what? That’s the big question. Most of us are obsessed with the first click. But to me, true content discovery happens once you’re found.

It’s so easy for people to click back to Google results after the first piece you serve. It’s the same on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. The challenge is to keep someone engaged. On average, it takes seeing seven assets before someone is ready to buy, according to IDC. So, build content journeys that can accelerate sales velocity. That is true discovery!”

Lesson 3: It’s not about the tech, it’s about the 2 P’s: people & processes

This one is not much of a surprise to us, in spite of being a martech-focused publication. Undoubtedly, tech helps drive consistency, accessibility, personalization – at scale. But the correct path, as Randy confirms, in spite of being from a martech platform himself, is people>process>technology.

Buying tech should be the last thing you do. The first is invest in great people—talent trumps all!

Once you have great people, implement sound processes and frameworks for the strategies that will be key to your success. Then, once you see the horizon where those people and the processes won’t scale, introduce tech that takes it to the next level. One of our customers, Snowflake, took this approach when they were delivering streams of hand-picked content to target accounts. Daniel Day, Snowflake’s ABM Director, first built a kickass team, hacking away at a template that worked for the first 12 or so accounts he wanted to target. When Daniel’s concept caught fire, and his execs asked him to deliver the same experience to 300 accounts per quarter, he needed to invest in a content experience platform. That’s when he turned to Uberflip for a framework that could manage content at scale.”

Speaking of scale, AI in content creation and distribution is a hot topic right now. A simplified view of AI, Randy says, is asking how we as marketers can leverage all the data we have (on visitors and campaigns) to deliver a better experience. “When we get into AI, we’re really talking about taking that data when it reaches scale to make split-second decisions and recommendations. But marketers still need to inform those recommendations – a content experience platform should allow a marketer to organize content and inject other ingredients like third-party intent data (at Uberflip we have a partnership with Bombora for this) to deliver the right content at the right time.” 

Involving the right subject matter experts while creating content, and making the content available to the right stakeholders are two additional aspects of internal engagement that will help transform content marketing to content experience. “Great content is all about adding or revealing value. The tricky part is making sure your sales teams can find the right content to serve to your audience”. That is yet another trap marketers’ fall into - investing disproportionately in content being ‘discovered’ by prospects but ignoring how internal stakeholders and other customer touchpoints will find/ use the content they need to serve customers ‘in the moment’. This is even more relevant in the omnichannel environment customers operate in today.

As is the tradition for MarTech Musings - I wrap by asking Randy what trends he was tracking in the space as we head into 2020 and beyond. The themes he is tracking prove just how central to marketing he views content experience. “We’re in a world where we expect a balance of personalization, but also privacy. The trick will be to personalize without being creepy about it. After a year of marketers scrambling to become GDPR-compliant, there’s going to be an ongoing threat to our ability to personalize unless we find ways to show that we can be trusted to turn that data into a relevant experience. Or perhaps I finish with a play on the late Stan Lee’s Spiderman line: “With great data comes great personalization.” 

  More about Randy

Randy has defined and led the content experience movement, prompting marketers to think beyond content creation and focus on the experience. He also hosts Conex: The Content Experience Show podcast; was named one of the Top 50 Fearless Marketers in the world by Marketo, and is the author of the upcoming book, F#*k Content Marketing (yeah, he swears sometimes).

This article was first appeared on MarTech Advisor

[makemoneyonlineprofit-blog]

How To Purchase Products From Amazon Using Bitcoins & Save Up To 25%

https://120profit.com/?p=1766&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr Whenever I talk about Bitcoin, one of the most common questions I get asked is:In 2017, there are plenty of ways you can use Bitcoin.You can use it to buy things (like you would with “traditional” money), and you can use it to make money (i.e. investing).Today, I’m sharing a detailed tutorial that will help you to purchase products from Amazon using bitcoins & also help you save up to 25%.You can do this with Purse.io.Purse is a popular tool used for many things:Exchange Amazon gift cards for bitcoins.Purchase products from Amazon using bitcoins.Get discounts on purchases from Amazon.In the past, I have used Purse.io to earn bitcoins in exchange for Amazon gift cards.In this tutorial, I will show you how to use Purse to order any product from Amazon & save money. The only thing that you need to have with you are your bitcoins. If you don’t own bitcoins yet, you can purchase them from one of these places:You can also buy bitcoins anonymously using Localbitcoins. (Here is a tutorial on how to do that.)Backstory Before we move to the serious part (the tutorial), let me quickly share a story about my phone.I was using a OnePlus 3 phone for the past few months, and I was pretty happy with the overall performance & value for the money.During the 2nd week of January 2017, I visited the USA to give a talk at Affiliate Summit West. Well, at LAX (the Los Angeles airport) I got pick-pocketed! Luckily, the only thing that I lost was my phone. I used Android Remote Manager and deleted all the sensitive data.However, I still needed another phone. So, instead of directly buying one, I decided to order a new phone using Purse.io (and save myself a significant amount of money). I’m creating this tutorial as I purchase this new phone. I’m making this guide so that in the future, you can also save money with this method.For this tutorial, I’ll be putting in an order for a new OnePlus 3T mobile phone which retails for INR 29,999 ($440).How To Save Money On ALL Amazon Purchases Using Bitcoins:If you haven’t yet created an account on Purse, go ahead and create one right now.What I like about them is they are user-friendly for first-timers, and they’re very active on social media.Make sure you verify your account using Google Plus or Facebook for an additional 10% to 15% discount.Note: After your first successful transaction, you can get a discount of up to 33%.A little more about Purse: Purse is an escrow service that connects Amazon gift card holders with users who want to purchase stuff on Amazon. In a majority of cases, users with unused Amazon gift vouchers want to get rid of their cards & Purse offers them a great opportunity to exchange them for bitcoins. To offer this service, Purse uses the “Wish List” feature of Amazon.In their own words:“Amazon gift cards are uniquely abundant and illiquid, which has led to insane demand to liquidate these cards even at premiums of 15-25%, and Purse is the only path to liquidity. Shoppers spend bitcoins for products and Earners trade Amazon gift cards for bitcoins. Purse acts as the escrow agent (or trusted third party) and verifies purchases, shipments and deliveries. Bitcoin is required for these transactions, because credit cards and PayPal are incompatible with Purse’s blockchain escrows. All payments on Purse are escrowed (or held with a trusted third party) providing protection for consumers as the merchants are not paid until the products arrive.”This solves two purposes:Amazon gift card holders get something of value for their unwanted gift cards.Buyers get to purchase stuff at discounted prices from Amazon.I know it may not be clear right now, but trust me, follow this tutorial and I will help you save a lot of money. You regular Amazon buyers will thank me for this tutorial!You can use it to order stuff from any Amazon site. The majority of their audience comes from Amazon.com, but in my case, I will be ordering from Amazon.in.The next thing we need to do is go to the Amazon product page & click on “Add to Wish List”.Create a public wish list & add whatever you want to purchase through Purse onto that list.You can access your wish list anytime by clicking on your name (top right) > “Your Wish List”.On this page:Fill out the “Delivery/Shipping Address” section with your address.Make sure that “Third party shipping agreement” is checked.Make sure that “Don’t spoil my surprises” is unchecked.Click on “Save Changes”.Now, go back to your name (top right), and click on “Your Wishlist”.Click on “Share” to get the shareable link.  (See screenshot below.)That’s it. All we needed from Amazon was the wish list share link, and we can now proceed to the final step on Purse.Placing An Order & Adding Bitcoin On PurseOnce you have the shareable link for your wish list, simply go back to Purse.io & paste the shareable link into the search bar. Hit the Enter button.Now, use the slider to set how much of a discount you are looking for. (Purse will automatically recommend the best price based on market conditions.)Once you are satisfied with your price, simply click on “Place Order”.After you place your order, you need to deposit the funds into your Purse Bitcoin wallet.The next page will show a QR code, or you can copy down the Bitcoin address and transfer the funds there.Once you fund your deposit, you will have successfully placed your order!Upon confirming your deposit, your listing will be available for the public to accept.Depending on the country you are in, it can take up to a few hours (or even a few days) for your order to complete. This is one reason why I usually recommend not to place time sensitive orders. If you really need to get your order completed fast, lower down the discount amount.Here’s what a successfully completed order looks like:I will update you as soon as my order gets fulfilled. Meanwhile, here are a few interesting & important things you should know about Purse:Using Purse, you can also place instant orders using Bitcoin. You will save around 5% with this method (currently only works for US addresses).Purse has mobile apps for iOS (download now) & Android (download now).I will do another guide on how to exchange Amazon gift cards for bitcoins in the coming days. For now, the above tutorial will help you to save a ton of money on Amazon purchases.Here is another review of Purse:Conclusion: Is Purse useful for an Amazon shopper?Apps like Purse.io are putting Bitcoin to good use & paving the way for end users like you & me who want to save money while using our bitcoins.In many countries, this app is already very popular among Amazon shoppers who want to save money on shopping while helping other users sell their unwanted gift cards for bitcoins.But it’s going to take time to become mainstream because Bitcoin is still very new. Only a handful of smart, techy users are using Bitcoin.If you haven’t yet started using Bitcoin yet, I would suggest you start. You can follow my CoinSutra blog to learn more about Bitcoin.Personally, I find this tool to be highly useful. Whenever you are shopping for anything which is not time-sensitive, Purse should be your go-to website for Amazon shopping.Have you ever used Purse before? How much money has Purse helped you save? Have you used it to trade in your Amazon gift cards for bitcoins? Let me know your experience in the comments section.Here are some hand-picked tutorials that you should read next:Like this post? Don’t forget to share it! Like this:Like Loading...!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); var aepc_pixel = {"pixel_id":"801823183238237","user":[],"enable_advanced_events":"yes","fire_delay":"5","enable_viewcontent":"yes","enable_addtocart":"yes","enable_addtowishlist":"no","enable_initiatecheckout":"yes","enable_addpaymentinfo":"yes","enable_purchase":"yes","allowed_params":{"AddToCart":["value","currency","content_category","content_name","content_type","content_ids"],"AddToWishlist":["value","currency","content_category","content_name","content_type","content_ids"]}}, aepc_pixel_args = [], aepc_extend_args = function( args ) { if ( typeof args === 'undefined' ) { args = {}; } for(var key in aepc_pixel_args) args[key] = aepc_pixel_args[key]; return args; }; // Extend args if ( 'yes' === aepc_pixel.enable_advanced_events ) { aepc_pixel_args.userAgent = navigator.userAgent; aepc_pixel_args.language = navigator.language; if ( document.referrer.indexOf( document.domain )

[millerharris0-blog]

Packing A Weekend Travel Bag Efficiently

Turn off unused appliance - turn off and unplug home appliance that are not used. This is because running appliances emits heat. The more appliances are on, the more heat your house will have to accumulate. So if you have 3 televisions, now is the time to use only one. If you have a dishwasher, try not to wash the plates until the evening. Evening air is cooler and this can offset the heat that your dishwasher emits. You won't only feel cool if you use this technique, you'll also save energy. Yet, that may not happen. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF), your average Christmas shopper - whoops, how incorrect. Your average "holiday consumer" only plans to spend about $682.74 on holiday related shopping. That is a 3.2 percent dip from last year, where we all ponied up to the bar, I mean, when we all went shopping and spent about $705.01 apiece.

You will need to compare the nurseries that you have on your list. Take into consideration such factors as how large they are, how many staff members they have working there, how old are the majority of the children, the facilities they have, the quality in child care and so on. chợ cán cấu ở sapa to get paid for your travel writing is with a blog about your travel adventures. You can setup a blog for free at a number of sites. To get started making money, just sign-up for a free Google AdSense Account and Google will place relevant ads on your site. As people read your articles, they may click on one of the ads and you get paid for that click. Believe me, those clicks add up fast and the next thing you know Google is sending you a check or depositing money in your PayPal account. Below are many of the secrets that can be found in "Banjo-Tooie." Remember that not all of these will be strictly Easter Eggs, as some of them are just major secrets within the game. However, they will still be labeled as Easter Eggs for consistencies sake. We talked about diving places and he told me that in order to discover most enjoyable dive, must visit 2 o 3 different places of the fascinating underwater world among the coral reefs. Mr. Bli Monyoh looked at his Balinese calendar to see a good day to go to the sea. My clients were crazy about dive. Unsolicited Message Filters, or Junk Filters - Most email client software also provides some sort of Junk mail filter, like Outlooks Junk E-Mail filter and add-on filters like SpamAssassin. These filters have become quite reliable, but there is still a small percentage of False Positives that will occur. Your message could fall victim to one of those false positives. Cityscape portraits and landscape shots are the most popular topic, but this means getting up early in the morning. You need to plan carefully and arrive at your destination before most tourists do. Other important subjects are local people, food and drink, buildings and stores and road signs. Portraits of local people in national dress will also sell well.

[jpweb12]

6 Web Design Trends You Should Forget

Do you remember those websites back in the 90s, and how they first landed on your screen? Do you remember Comic Sans, Scrolling Marquees, Hit Counters, Animated GIFs, or “Under construction” pages? If so, you are right on track! I was reminiscing these past days about these…

Well, a lot has changed by now, especially in the creative industry. Technology has advanced; marketing and communication paradigms have changed, bringing along innovation within web design. Therefore, websites have become increasingly exciting, insofar as unconventional features that are primarily designed to serve content to their users.

Some of these features have become trendsetters for many years. Others simply appeared and passed, barely touching the market for a short while. Trends come and go. There will always be a new trend coming along superseding the one in existence. That’s also the case for website designs, although we never know what becomes novelty and groundbreaking. Having all these cool functions to explore, many website owners adapt to whatever trend comes their way. Unfortunately, others are still stuck in the 90s.

Speaking of which, have you surfed various sites lately? Because I have. And I have noticed that while most sites adhere to the latest web design trends, others fail miserably at maintaining an updated design and implementing it properly.

Have you landed on a website with infinite scrolling, but without any function to go right back to the top (except for scrolling endlessly upwards again)? Some websites have features that are the death of them – slow loading pages, missing or hidden navigation menu, and even pushy CTAs that burst right in front of your eyes, cajoling you to subscribe to their never-ending newsletters and freebies. With that being said, I have listed below some previous design trends that should remain buried forever.

1. FLASH     

This is the first trend I recommend that you forget about. Start adopting the new HTML5 or other ways to animate your website. It simply is too outdated. Even if Flash played an important role in the rise of the Internet, it has recently become a bad choice for any modern web design and may have a negative impact on your website search engine optimization (SEO).

Although many websites still use it, there are many reasons why you should drop it.

1.1. Flash does not work on mobiles

If you incorporate Flash into your website, it will be unusable on mobile devices. It might even cause frustration among your audience. Taking into consideration that more than 60% of the Internet traffic is made using mobile phones and tablets, I think you should pay more attention to this aspect.

1.2. Flash is bad for SEO

Flash does not have any URLs for the separate pages and does not allow you to monitor outbound links. Therefore, Flash-based websites don’t provide enough elements for an effective SEO. Besides, they tend to be harder to use. Hence, Google gives lower rankings to those websites.

1.3. Flash must be installed into the browser

Being a proprietary software, Flash has to be installed, as it does not come with the browser by default. Users with a browser without the plugin are prompted to install it. Otherwise it restricts access to the content that heavily relies on it.

1.4. Terrible loading time.

As I have mentioned before, Flash-based sites tend to take longer to load. Taking into consideration that Internet users are busier than ever, it’s essential to have a site with load times as short as possible. If visitors have to wait too long, they might be tempted to look elsewhere, hence your competition, for a faster site.

1.5. Serious security flaws

Flash has always been plagued with reported security issues, but the last security flaws which led Firefox to block Flash by default on all websites until the flaws were patched is the final warning. It won’t be long until other browsers do the same thing.

2. CAROUSELS

According to a usability study published by Neilson Norman Group, auto-forwarding carousels annoy users and reduce visibility. For sure, each of us viewed such sites at one time, and did not pay too much attention to those auto-forwarding pictures.

According to this study, there are a couple of reasons why these believed-to-be “cool” design features are not great for your site’s usability and conversions:

Automatic rotation makes users lose the control of their interactions with your website. That is particularly annoying to those with motor skill issues.

They create banner blindness, and are often ignored by the viewers. Take a look at the example listed below. You will notice how the image slider hardly gets any attention, especially when they are focused on their desired products.

In many cases, the slides rotates so fast that readers do not have time to read your texts. Especially when part of your audience has a different native language than yours. Users clearly express their frustration by saying “I didn’t have time to read it. It keeps flashing too quickly.”

  3. COMIC SANS FONT

Surely, there are many pros and cons to using Comic Sans font. But it’s time to let it go, even if it is one of the most frequently used fonts in the world. Granted, like everything else, there are designers who love it, but also there are designers who absolutely despise it. Personally, I am somewhere in between. It looks homely and handwritten, making the perfect choice for those things we deem to be fun and liberating. It could be great for toy shops. Nevertheless, t is not the ideal choice for corporate identity, luxury brands, media, or health services.

Still, Comic Sans is rooted in a history where early word processing had a limited number of fonts by default. Thus, Comic Sans was the go-to choice for the ‘less serious of fonts’. But nowadays, tens of thousands of fonts in every imaginable personality are readily available online, paid or free of charge. I hope the previously written article about Top 9 free fonts for designers (link la articol) will be a starting point, should you need some inspiration.

4. UNDER CONSTRUCTION PAGES

A common practice throughout the history of Internet and web design has been the use of “under construction”. These were useful pages for upcoming websites or for page that were in the process of redesigning. It was awesome in the past and people liked them. But nowadays, in a fast-paced environment, you should definitely put it on the ‘Do NOT’ list.

In many cases, a website establishes the first contact between your business and your target audience. So by providing a link to a web page, you have promised to deliver something (usually content). But by simply publishing an “under construction” page, you deliver nothing but frustration and disappointment. This is not the kind of first impression you want to give your customers.

Nevertheless, please take into consideration that plain “under construction” pages do not have any content on them. So, you do not deliver any content to Google, which in turn ranks websites based on their content. Therefore, they will not rank or index your page, and this is bad for your website!

So, instead of using this terrible option, you should consider putting up a beautiful landing page with some basic info, a newsletter sign-up form, a waiting list form, or a sleek-looking countdown.

You may find some inspiration here:

 5. DRAMATIC DROP SHADOWS

Although drop shadows is a tool that adds more spatiality to your text, you should stay away from the cheap & fake lighting effects! Big, soft, dark, and distanced drop shadows are the design equivalent of a Glamor Shot lighting, and no one really believes it. Even worse, anyone with some Photoshop skills can easily recognize the default drop shadow settings when they see them.

There are many other eye-catching ways to use drop shadows. For example, to make the text more realistic with added contrast, you may use subtle shadow, blending it in with the background.

If you want to add a cool retro vibe to your text, you may use the solid hard edge shadow behind the text. This is especially true if the hard edge shadow is separated from the text slightly, as well.

For an interesting, yet simple design element that gives movement without unneeded distractions, you may use long shadows. This is a newer trend that works perfectly with the minimalist trend.

 6. BEVEL AND EMBOSS

Nothing screams 90s designs like the old default bevel and emboss effect. For non-designers, “bevel and emboss” is a Photoshop effect that can be used to create a 3-dimensional appearance.

If a millennium ago it seemed like a good idea to add a tens of thousands of effects to your typefaces for highlighting your texts, it’s time you traveled into the future. Consider getting the same effect in a different way.

For example, make the button glossy, but using a smaller inner shadow and a light outer drop shadow.

Bottom line:

The trends above serve to illustrate the idea that keeping outdated design elements can actually negatively impact your website. Thus, making a bad impression on your viewers. But you should also keep in your mind the message you want to convey. As long as you have these pointers in mind, the design style you want to use is a matter of choice. Just make sure it’s one among the newest trends.

Read More at 6 Web Design Trends You Should Forget

from IT Feed https://webdesignledger.com/6-web-design-trends-you-should-forget/

[regulardomainname]

6 Web Design Trends You Should Forget

Do you remember those websites back in the 90s, and how they first landed on your screen? Do you remember Comic Sans, Scrolling Marquees, Hit Counters, Animated GIFs, or “Under construction” pages? If so, you are right on track! I was reminiscing these past days about these… Well, a lot has changed by now, especially in the creative industry. Technology has advanced; marketing and communication paradigms have changed, bringing along innovation within web design. Therefore, websites have become increasingly exciting, insofar as unconventional features that are primarily designed to serve content to their users. Some of these features have become trendsetters for many years. Others simply appeared and passed, barely touching the market for a short while. Trends come and go. There will always be a new trend coming along superseding the one in existence. That’s also the case for website designs, although we never know what becomes novelty and groundbreaking. Having all these cool functions to explore, many website owners adapt to whatever trend comes their way. Unfortunately, others are still stuck in the 90s. Speaking of which, have you surfed various sites lately? Because I have. And I have noticed that while most sites adhere to the latest web design trends, others fail miserably at maintaining an updated design and implementing it properly. Have you landed on a website with infinite scrolling, but without any function to go right back to the top (except for scrolling endlessly upwards again)? Some websites have features that are the death of them – slow loading pages, missing or hidden navigation menu, and even pushy CTAs that burst right in front of your eyes, cajoling you to subscribe to their never-ending newsletters and freebies. With that being said, I have listed below some previous design trends that should remain buried forever. 1. FLASH      This is the first trend I recommend that you forget about. Start adopting the new HTML5 or other ways to animate your website. It simply is too outdated. Even if Flash played an important role in the rise of the Internet, it has recently become a bad choice for any modern web design and may have a negative impact on your website search engine optimization (SEO). Although many websites still use it, there are many reasons why you should drop it. 1.1. Flash does not work on mobiles If you incorporate Flash into your website, it will be unusable on mobile devices. It might even cause frustration among your audience. Taking into consideration that more than 60% of the Internet traffic is made using mobile phones and tablets, I think you should pay more attention to this aspect. 1.2. Flash is bad for SEO Flash does not have any URLs for the separate pages and does not allow you to monitor outbound links. Therefore, Flash-based websites don’t provide enough elements for an effective SEO. Besides, they tend to be harder to use. Hence, Google gives lower rankings to those websites. 1.3. Flash must be installed into the browser Being a proprietary software, Flash has to be installed, as it does not come with the browser by default. Users with a browser without the plugin are prompted to install it. Otherwise it restricts access to the content that heavily relies on it. 1.4. Terrible loading time. As I have mentioned before, Flash-based sites tend to take longer to load. Taking into consideration that Internet users are busier than ever, it’s essential to have a site with load times as short as possible. If visitors have to wait too long, they might be tempted to look elsewhere, hence your competition, for a faster site. 1.5. Serious security flaws Flash has always been plagued with reported security issues, but the last security flaws which led Firefox to block Flash by default on all websites until the flaws were patched is the final warning. It won’t be long until other browsers do the same thing. 2. CAROUSELS According to a usability study published by Neilson Norman Group, auto-forwarding carousels annoy users and reduce visibility. For sure, each of us viewed such sites at one time, and did not pay too much attention to those auto-forwarding pictures. According to this study, there are a couple of reasons why these believed-to-be “cool” design features are not great for your site’s usability and conversions: * Automatic rotation makes users lose the control of their interactions with your website. That is particularly annoying to those with motor skill issues. * They create banner blindness, and are often ignored by the viewers. Take a look at the example listed below. You will notice how the image slider hardly gets any attention, especially when they are focused on their desired products. * In many cases, the slides rotates so fast that readers do not have time to read your texts. Especially when part of your audience has a different native language than yours. Users clearly express their frustration by saying “I didn’t have time to read it. It keeps flashing too quickly.”   3. COMIC SANS FONT Surely, there are many pros and cons to using Comic Sans font. But it’s time to let it go, even if it is one of the most frequently used fonts in the world. Granted, like everything else, there are designers who love it, but also there are designers who absolutely despise it. Personally, I am somewhere in between. It looks homely and handwritten, making the perfect choice for those things we deem to be fun and liberating. It could be great for toy shops. Nevertheless, t is not the ideal choice for corporate identity, luxury brands, media, or health services. Still, Comic Sans is rooted in a history where early word processing had a limited number of fonts by default. Thus, Comic Sans was the go-to choice for the ‘less serious of fonts’. But nowadays, tens of thousands of fonts in every imaginable personality are readily available online, paid or free of charge. I hope the previously written article about Top 9 free fonts for designers (link la articol) will be a starting point, should you need some inspiration. 4. UNDER CONSTRUCTION PAGES A common practice throughout the history of Internet and web design has been the use of “under construction”. These were useful pages for upcoming websites or for page that were in the process of redesigning. It was awesome in the past and people liked them. But nowadays, in a fast-paced environment, you should definitely put it on the ‘Do NOT’ list. In many cases, a website establishes the first contact between your business and your target audience. So by providing a link to a web page, you have promised to deliver something (usually content). But by simply publishing an “under construction” page, you deliver nothing but frustration and disappointment. This is not the kind of first impression you want to give your customers. Nevertheless, please take into consideration that plain “under construction” pages do not have any content on them. So, you do not deliver any content to Google, which in turn ranks websites based on their content. Therefore, they will not rank or index your page, and this is bad for your website! So, instead of using this terrible option, you should consider putting up a beautiful landing page with some basic info, a newsletter sign-up form, a waiting list form, or a sleek-looking countdown. You may find some inspiration here:  5. DRAMATIC DROP SHADOWS Although drop shadows is a tool that adds more spatiality to your text, you should stay away from the cheap & fake lighting effects! Big, soft, dark, and distanced drop shadows are the design equivalent of a Glamor Shot lighting, and no one really believes it. Even worse, anyone with some Photoshop skills can easily recognize the default drop shadow settings when they see them. There are many other eye-catching ways to use drop shadows. For example, to make the text more realistic with added contrast, you may use subtle shadow, blending it in with the background. If you want to add a cool retro vibe to your text, you may use the solid hard edge shadow behind the text. This is especially true if the hard edge shadow is separated from the text slightly, as well. For an interesting, yet simple design element that gives movement without unneeded distractions, you may use long shadows. This is a newer trend that works perfectly with the minimalist trend.  6. BEVEL AND EMBOSS Nothing screams 90s designs like the old default bevel and emboss effect. For non-designers, “bevel and emboss” is a Photoshop effect that can be used to create a 3-dimensional appearance. If a millennium ago it seemed like a good idea to add a tens of thousands of effects to your typefaces for highlighting your texts, it’s time you traveled into the future. Consider getting the same effect in a different way. For example, make the button glossy, but using a smaller inner shadow and a light outer drop shadow. Bottom line: The trends above serve to illustrate the idea that keeping outdated design elements can actually negatively impact your website. Thus, making a bad impression on your viewers. But you should also keep in your mind the message you want to convey. As long as you have these pointers in mind, the design style you want to use is a matter of choice. Just make sure it’s one among the newest trends. Read More at 6 Web Design Trends You Should Forget http://dlvr.it/Pf08kv www.regulardomainname.com

[christfocused]

Jesus Never Stops Caring for You - Episode 28

We are on a journey of discovery. Our goal is to understand the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

In the first leg of our journey, we are visiting the seven signs performed by Christ that are recorded in the Gospel of John. These signs reveal the Glory of Jesus.

Our first was when Jesus turned the water into wine. This sign revealed Jesus’ love and mercy toward people. It demonstrated a truth about God – that God blesses both the righteous and the unrighteous. And it also revealed His power over the physical universe.

The second sign we studied was the healing of the nobleman’s son. Again Jesus demonstrated His love and mercy for mankind. It also revealed that God the Son is not hindered by distance, nor is he hindered by a lack of faith.

Purpose

Today, in this episode, we go the Pool of Bethesda where Jesus heals a paralyzed man. Open your Bible to John chapter 5. In a minute we will read verses 1-6. But before we do that I want you to look at verses 16-23.

In verses 16-23 we discover the primary reason Jesus heals this man. Of course, Jesus heals the man because he is merciful and because He loves people and because He has pity on this man. But the ultimate reason Jesus heals this man is to declare His deity.

Please read John 5:16-18

We need to understand this fact. Jesus healed the man at the Pool of Bethesda for this moment. He healed the man to force this debate. This debate gave Jesus the opportunity to declare His deity.

Healing

Now read John 5:1-6

Jesus goes to Jerusalem because of the Feast Holiday, probably Passover. He makes His way over to the Sheep Gate Pool, called Bethesda. This pool had become a place of healing. John writes that there was a great multitude of sick at the pool hoping to get healed.

The end of verse 3 and all of verse 4 tell a story of the waters and how an angel brought healing. The Scripture relays this story but does not comment on it. In other words, is this the reality or does it represent the myth of the pool? Regardless, if you look at verse 7 you will see that the man expected to be healed if he could only get there first. So the man believed this story.

Now back to verses 5 and 6. Jesus looks across the multitude and picks one man. How did Jesus choose? Here are some choices. You can pick only one.

The man had been there the longest.

The man was nicer than everyone else.

Jesus loved this man more than the others.

We do not know how Jesus chose.

The fourth answer is the correct answer. We do not know how Jesus chose.

There are two distinct forms of God’s will.

God’s moral will – Which is recorded in full in God’s Bible.

God’s sovereign will – Which in large part is unknown to us.

How He chose we can only guess. But we know this, Jesus was exercising His sovereign will. God has a plan and He does not often share His plan with us. We only understand His will after the fact.

From a human point of view, the choice Jesus makes might seem random or worse yet, unfair. But remember, Jesus is God. And He is Lord and God over all of the creation. As God, He will make choices that seem to go against our idea of fairness. When I say, “God is Sovereign”, what does that mean?

Christianity.com has an answer. The answer contains 6 bullet statements. I suggest you click the link listed below and read the entire article. Here is the one bullet statement from that article. 

“God can do all things and accomplish all things. Nothing is too difficult for Him, and He orchestrates and determines everything that is going to happen in your life, in my life, in America, and throughout the world. Whatever He wants to do in the universe, He does, for nothing is impossible with Him (Jeremiah 32:17).”

God the Son looks at the hundreds, maybe thousands at the pool. All needed healing. And Jesus picks just one man.

God Speaks

And that man is healed. Jesus heals this man with His word. Jesus says in verse 8, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk."

Take a moment and read Psalm 33:6-9.

As you read, note how God speaks and things happen. Jesus spoke and the man was healed. You see when God speaks stuff happens. And when God speaks to men, men need to obey. In Psalm 33:9 it says, “He commanded, and it stood fast.” When God speaks we need to obey. The man in our story does just that. He picks up his bed and walks.

All miracles are unexplainable events. And this healing is just that – without explanation. If you were paralyzed for 38 years and I gave you a shot that cured the paralysis, it would take weeks and weeks of therapy before you could walk. Why? Because your unused legs would be weak and because you would’ve forgotten the basics of walking. But not this man. This man is up and walking instantly. What a miracle! What a sign that reveals the Glory of Christ!

Jesus is God

Take a minute and read John 5:9-13. As you read, notice that the healed man did not know who Jesus was. Remember this - God is not hindered by your lack of faith or your unbelief. God is all powerful, He is sovereign. God will do what God is going to do.

In verse 15 the man pointed out Jesus as the healer. This got Jesus in trouble with the Jews because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. And now we come to the primary reason Jesus healed this man. Jesus loves the man. Jesus had pity and mercy on the man. But the primary reason Jesus healed the man was to declare His deity. Jesus healed this man to declare that He is God.

Read again John 5:15-18

In verse 17, when Jesus stated, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” He declared His deity. He does it in two ways.

1. Jesus says, like the Father, He, Jesus is Lord over the Sabbath.

God in Genesis sets the pattern. God works for six days and then rests from His work. But God does not truly stop working – ever! The sun rises and sets on the Sabbath. The planets orbit on the Sabbath. Wildlife is fed, the weather is directed, people are saved, and sadly people are condemned; all on the Sabbath. God the Father does not stop working, nor does God the Son.

2. Jesus calls the heavenly Father “My Father.” To declare God the Father as His Father, Jesus has made himself equal to God.

And of course as we read in verse 18, this declaration enraged the Jews and they sought all the more to kill Jesus.

We will stop here. Next week we will pick up with John 5:19. Verses 19 through the end of the chapter is a long important monolog. So we want to give it its own lesson. Today, we saw Jesus make a decisive sovereign act. Jesus looked across the multitude and selected one man to heal. He healed this man to declare His deity.

Think about this. Although there seem to be times when God is asleep or disengaged, the truth is God never stops working. God is always at work. And to personalize this idea, God never stops caring for you. In your darkest moments, God is there at work. In your greatest triumphs, God is there at work. When you sense His presence, God is there and when you can’t sense His presence, God is there. God is never absent; God is never asleep; God is always there.

Closing Thoughts

For the believer, God is there because He has a personal relationship with you. He is answering your prayers, He is receiving your worship, He is enjoying you. But for the unbeliever, I think God is there as well. But God is not there because He has a personal relationship with you. God is there because He wants a personal relationship with you. God is not necessarily answering your prayers, He is not receiving your worship, and I do not think that God is enjoying you because much of your life is centered around your sin.

You can change this. You can have that personal relationship with God. Turn from your sinful ways and turn to Jesus Christ. Admit that you are a sinner. Believe the Jesus died for your sin. And call on Him to save you.

Thank you for listening to Faith in the Valley. If you live in or near Carroll County Maryland, come by this Sunday and worship with us. If you already have a church home, then we want you to faithfully worship and serve there. But if you do not, then please consider making Wakefield your church family. You can find out more about Wakefield Valley Bible Church at wakefieldbible.org.

Thanks again for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and rate and review wherever you listen.

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Resources

What Does the Phrase "God is Sovereign" Really Mean?

  Check out this episode!