#ok so there's a security question you have to answer to edit your account

[nexus-nebulae]

a few years ago i got a free copy of Morrowind (i think it was a promo for the Blades release??????) and Bethesda's site is fucking broken so i effectively no longer have Morrowind

[syeunko]

2022

Quit CVS and secured my first big-girl, full-time, fully remote job

Got confirmed (Baptism)

Tried omakase, surfing, and ceramics (loved, liked, and tolerated, respectively) for the first time

Traveled to Barcelona by myself! (Ok, it was one day. But still) + Portugal with Hanna

Got my first tattoo, and three more thereafter

Moved out of Boston, my home for the past 8 years

Into Williamsburg, New York

But visited Korea in between

Caught COVID for the first time

Witnessed 2 weddings

Lived with a dog

Discovered a love for thrifting

The unplanned nature of all these events, save one, is the common denominator, and goes to show two things: one, how little control or gauge I have over the happenings of my life, and two, I’m not much of a planner.

Which is sort of ironic, considering how much I dislike not knowing things. I easily give up on a problem if I can’t get the answer right away, often frequent the Wikipedia “Plot Summary” section for most movies, and am more comfortable in the position of asking questions rather than answering them.

But I’m not a fan of questions like “What is your passion? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” And especially the Christian edition: “How is God working in your life right now? What are you struggling with?” 

I find them to be such big, meaty questions, either questions I mostly don’t know the answer to or questions with complex answers I don’t feel like sharing. I’d go as far to say they’re overwhelming, because heck if I know how to artfully say, “I have no passions nor any plans for the next 5 years” or feel comfortable disclosing struggles I’m sure are universal to most humans. 

There’s nothing like the advent of a new year, rife with prospects and unknowns, to raise big questions and reflections with no definitive answers. I hate it.

But if there’s one thing I learned in 2022, it’s the importance of continuing to ask these types of questions, if only to myself for myself; they musn’t be glossed over simply because I’m not satisfied with who’s asking the questions or the effort needed to digest them. 

The main question I found myself asking this year was “What does it look like to live a life with purpose?” Not so much in those words, because really, who wakes up everyday and asks themselves, “How do I live purposefully today?” (If you do, I don’t want to be friends with you.) But I’d question my motivations for work, evaluate my spending habits and time management, scrutinize my shortcomings as a friend, sister, and daughter, evaluate my impact in my community, and wrestle with trying to reconcile my status as a sinner to my position as a child of God. 

2022 marked my first year out of college, and I learned a lot. I learned Grace’s Chinese name this summer despite being friends with her for the past 6 years, that respecting boundaries is respecting yourself, dogs are a good cure for loneliness, the freedom of a paycheck, to be more patient, the ins and outs of Teams etiquette and drafting Outlook emails, what a gift covenantal friendship is, more about God, the importance of buttons, and most importantly, how little I know. 

Many a time I’ve dismissed “purpose” as a loaded buzzword; it’s a term so overtly obvious it’s confusing. I know what it means, yet somehow the semantics get hazy when I want it to materialize as tangible actions. Maybe that’s the point - I really don’t know, leaving me little choice but to trust God by reaffirming to myself the uncomfortable truth of my brazen ineptitude. Nevertheless, it’s a question I’m going to continue chewing on in 2023. 

To chew on it in more practical terms, I’ve decided on monthly resolutions. Like I’ve mentioned, I’m not enough of a planner to realistically bring New Year's resolutions into fruition, but monthly goals seem more reasonable. My plan is to do a monthly update for each goal, so I’m putting this out there on the internet in hopes of keeping myself accountable. First up is No-Buy-January! 

“Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, even without noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.” - Sue Klebold

Here’s to learning to appreciate questions without immediate answers~

[imagine-loki]

Soul-mates

TITLE: Soul-mates CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: one-shot AUTHOR: colifower ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki’s spotify wrapped. Wait, what’s that? They added a musical soulmate in this year’s edition? RATING: PG NOTES/WARNINGS: my AO3 version has Tess' spotify wrapped up and some basic mechanics behind the selection of the Soul-mates. I honestly couldn't bother to copy them here so... bon apple titty, as the youths say

"Huh," said Loki, sprawled over Thor's sofa. "Have you seen this?" Thor peeked over his shoulder and shrugged. "With the ammount of times you've rickrolled me this year it's no wonder it's on your top five. 420 views? Seriously?"

The younger snickered. "I actually rickrolled you 413 times, but I HAD to play it up to 420. I was talking about the music soul-mate feature." "Oh, yeah! They added the feature this year." "Here it says it's somebody with the username Space_Stoned_420" "With that username they need to be somewhat like you." "I'm intrigued. I think I'm gonna find them." "What?" "Aren't you intrigued? Who is your music soul-mate? Show me!"

Thor took his phone out of his pocket and smashed it against the closest wall. Being the heir of a galactic empire meant that he neither had a concept of money nor was he going to start any time soon.

"I only listen to Bears and Beards," said Thor. "So it makes sense that it's Fandral and Hogun's podcast account." "I thought they stopped uploading after the first wave of negative coments." Thor shook his head. "They are my friends," he said full of pride. "But I would do anyways, the bear tips are just incredible." "What do you want them for? Do you have a boyfriend or something?" "They're not for that kind of bear. Most of the times, at least." "Do you have a bear, Thor?" "I like to support local queer artists." "You have not answered my question." "What question?" "Do you have a bear, Thor?" "Hm...?" said the eldest, walking slowly towards the door. "Thor." "...what?" Loki sighted. Thor kept avoiding the question. He stepped once again towards the exit. "Thor..." groaned the god of mischief. "Not this again." "Ok, I can explain..." Please do." "...They are an endangered species, so I brought two with me home because here on Asgard polar bears don't have any natural predators and..." "TWO POLAR BEARS?!" "It is part of a rescue program. Besides, mom and dad won't even notice..." "Thor! They hunt people! To eat them! Asgard is not prepared for another one of your experiments in invasive species." "Yes, well, I..." Thor sprinted out of the room and down the corridor, Loki followed suit, knife in hand. Later on, Loki sat on his bed, feet up on the wall, staring at his email inbox. He furrowed his eyebrow. It was spotify alerting him that Spaced_Stoned_420 followed him back on the music platform." That was the problem, wasn't it? No chat option in the music app. Loki sighted. At least he could give them a follow back. Perhaps even snoop on their playlist, surely their 'music soulmate' would have good taste. Loki was greeted with a collaborative playlist called 'follow this n00bmaster69', you bitch. He smiled.

The charm worked wonders on those midgardian mercenaries known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Loki was able to slide right under their noses and into the secured vault. He opened the case, as their instructions told him to. There layed...

"A cube?" "The sexiest cube in existance ;)" Loki blushed. The sound of the... being? reverbereated loudly in his head. "So... Space Stoned 420?" "You're missing a fiew _, but yes. That's me," continued the cube. "I go by Tess these days. It comes from Tesseract." "Oh, em... Loki. I mean... I'm n00bmaster69. I think we're spotify soulmates." "Oh yeah! I forgot about that," said the stone. "My brother has been recently involved with an AI. And by involved I mean intrinsically connected: they share a body." "I know the kind," said the magician, thinking of his brother's 'hammered dates' where the alcohol and the palm fruits were nowhere to be found.

"Yeah... he's been trying to set me up with increasingly more complicated algorithms. My tinder match called me a bluff for posting 'unrealistic body images'. It's not my fault I'm a powerful and mysterious cube." "That sucks, bestie." Tess sighted. "It's difficult out here. More if you look like I do." "I like it" said Loki. "Unexpected. Uncommon." "Thank you. It means a lot, it really does." "So... are you up to a date? I've heard that they sell boba tea here in Algeria. Globalization and all that." "What doesn 'tea' mean?" Loki wrinkled his nose. "It's... um... a drink. I think you'll like it." said the somewhat of a man, picking up the stone. He found Tess warm to the touch, and found himself fond of it." "Hell yeah >:P"

[crowfootwrites]

Los Guardianes | Part II [Nestor Oceteva x Fem!Reader]

In which Nestor needs a bandaid and we learn more about you.

Also, my apologies for any mistakes/errors. I was trying to edit this while surrounded by other people, so...

Warnings: mentions of blood, violence, and injury; language; mentions of alcohol | Words: 1,600+

Taglist: @chibsytelford @megapeacelovemusic-blog @broiderie

Part I of Los Guardianes

You had assumed, in your little flirtation with Nestor, that he was joking about coming around injured. So, when he showed up two days later, a little late for afternoon pickup, with a large piece of bloodstained gauze taped to one side of his face, you were shocked.

Your classroom was empty, and your aide had left for the day, leaving you to hang out with Cristóbal while you waited for Nestor to arrive. You were sitting at your desk with Cristóbal beside you, each of you scribbling away with crayons on coloring pages. Movement registered in the corner of your vision and you glanced up to see Nestor standing in the doorway, his face bandaged and the arm of his dress shirt covered in dried blood. His normally immaculate dress pants and shirt were covered in a layer of silt. You inhaled sharply as you rose from your seat, your feet carrying you quickly to stand in front of him. Cristóbal went to Nestor immediately, wrapping himself around Nestor’s leg in a fierce hug. Nestor sagged against the door frame with a grimace and your fingers reached for him instinctively, pausing when he met your gaze. But there was something encouraging in his glance, so you placed your cool hand softly against the feverish skin around the gauze. His eyes closed for just a moment, leaning into your touch, before you spoke.

“You know, I didn’t think you were actually going to take me up on my offer… I’m not sure I have any robot bandaids big enough for all this,” you teased quietly, tracing the bloodstained dressing. Nestor’s eyes opened and he smirked. You pulled your hand away, exceedingly aware of your rapidly increasing heart rate.

“Are you ok?”

His nod was slight, but it made you feel a little better. “I’m sorry I was late,” he mumbled, wincing as he took a breath. “I hate that you had to stay on my account.” He tapped Cristóbal and motioned for him to collect his backpack out of his cubby. Cristóbal did as he was asked, leaving you standing there alone with Nestor.

“Nestor, it’s really fine. Besides, if someone else had come to pick him up, I probably would have assumed you were dead, and that would have been worse.”

He studied you seriously for a few seconds, his expression giving nothing away. You tucked your arms behind your back nervously, rocking back onto your heels, but you managed to keep your eyes locked on his.

“Still,” he said finally. “I’d like to make it up to you. Can I take you out for a drink?” Cristóbal lumbered over, his backpack comically large on his small frame.

You smiled softly, trying not to appear as flustered as you felt on the inside. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Nestor grinned, and underneath the blood and filth, his face lit up. “I’ll text you,” he said with a quick nod, his stare raking over your body briefly before turning and ushering Cristóbal to the car.

Nestor had texted you that same evening and asked you to grab a drink with him the next day, which was how you found yourself at a low-key, dimly lit bar on the outskirts of Santo Padre on a Friday night. Your inclination towards promptness meant you had arrived fifteen minutes early, so you headed inside and took a seat at the bar, ordering a gin and ginger.

You glanced around you, trying to hold back the nervousness fluttering in your belly. You fiddled with the hem of your black dress before laying it flat against your thigh. In your classroom, you rarely wore anything other than pants and leggings. Working with preschoolers meant that you were always prepared to be crouching, crawling on the ground, sitting on the floor, bending over, carrying kids on your hip, cleaning up various bodily fluids, getting things spilled on you. So, it was always a treat to get to dress up and you felt extra cute tonight.

Shortly after the bartender returned with your drink, you heard Nestor’s low, familiar voice near the shell of your ear.

“I was supposed to buy that for you,” he murmured, and you shivered just slightly at the fanning of his warm breath on your neck. His hand grazed your lower back as he passed you to take the stool next to yours.

You ducked your head to hide your grin. “You can buy the next one.”

Your smile faltered as he faced you completely and you got a clearer look at his injuries. He had forgone the gauze on his face, instead opting for a series of butterfly closures running down the jagged cut along his cheekbone. He was sporting a shiner on the eye on that side, but he seemed like he was in one piece otherwise.

“How’s the face?” you asked with a grimace.

“I’ve had worse,” he told you before ordering a beer from the bartender.

“I guess a life of crime would do that to you,” you said, and he glanced over at you with a raised eyebrow, perhaps trying to gauge how you meant it. You tossed him a wink and he smirked, shaking his head slightly.

“So,” you asked casually, “how did you end up being a security detail to the little man?”

“Big man’s mad at me.”

You laughed. “What?”

Nestor sighed, smoothing his facial hair with a hand punctuated by scabbed knuckles. “I, uh – fucked up, a while ago. Caused a lot of issues for Mikey. He put me on school duty as a punishment, I guess.” He paused, tossing back his beer. “But things are really tense right now, too, and I think it helps Mikey to have Cristóbal with someone he trusts. So, he kept me on it. And it’s fine, you know? They’re my family.”

He met your gaze meaningfully. “And it’s a nice way to start the morning,” he added.

“You’re really good with Cristóbal,” you commented warmly, heat rising on your cheeks. You hoped he couldn’t tell just how much you adored that about him.

Nestor’s lips curled into a small smile. “I’ve been around his whole life. Plus, he’s a pretty great kid.”

“Can confirm.” You paused around a sip of your cocktail. “So, I would imagine that you can’t share too much, but what does being the head of security for a cartel boss entail?”

Nestor’s eyes darkened broodingly, and you wondered if you’d overstepped, although you’d tried to acknowledge that you realized there were things you weren’t allowed to know. He leaned onto the top of the bar on his elbow, studying you again. “A lot of illegal shit. A lot of violence.” He paused thoughtfully. “But it’s also just a lot of… waiting. A lot of phone calls, researching, driving, babysitting – and not just babies.”

You chuckled at his sardonic choice of words. “I don’t know how you do it,” you joked. “I’m only okay with the babysitting involved in my job because they’re actual babies.”

“What made you decide to be a preschool teacher?” he asked, his shoulders relaxing a bit. You were distracted for a moment by the way his floral dress shirt pulled taut over his biceps and you swallowed hard.

“Uh – I got my degree in elementary education, and I started out as a kindergarten teacher. I was working in LA, but I had sort of a… rough patch, and needed to start over somewhere else. When the director, Maria, opened New River, she offered me a spot so I could come down to Santo Padre and get my shit back together.” You took a long pull on your drink, trying to swallow down your nerves.

Nestor’s head was tilted to the side curiously and you waited to see if he would inquire further. You let out the breath you didn’t realize you had been holding when he stuck to easy questions.

“How long have you been in Santo Padre?” he asked, tapping his fingers against his beer bottle.

“About two years. You?”

“Most of my adult life. I grew up with Mikey. And then I was in the Navy, moving around a lot. When I got out, Miguel offered me the job and I’ve been here ever since.” He shrugged slightly.

You studied him thoughtfully for a moment, the question you’d been wanting to ask him since you first met him resting on the tip of your tongue. He held your gaze steadily, so you went for it.

“Is it lonely?”

In the brief silence that followed, you wondered again if you had overstepped, if maybe it was too personal of a question. But you also felt strongly that the way Nestor answered would give you some indication as to his intentions with you.

His eyes narrowed on you, his head cocked to the side. “It can be.” He shifted on his barstool, his clothed knee knocking gently against yours, the touch sending electricity directly to your heart. Before you could respond to his statement, he asked, “Are you lonely?”

You were immediately annoyed at yourself for not anticipating that he would turn the question back on you; that was followed by the rush of embarrassment at your answer. Your mind reeled. Should you be honest with him? If you told him about your past, would he feel sorry for you? If you shared how and why you ended up in Santo Padre, would he pity you? You didn’t want that.

But.

You also desperately wanted to trust him. There was something about Nestor that made you feel safe, and while you supposed that was a side effect of his job, his interest in you represented a connection you hadn’t had with another person in years. And that alone pushed you towards the truth.

Your eyes found the bar top as you answered. “Yeah. I am.” You waited nervously for the follow-up questions, but they never came.

Instead, you felt Nestor’s knee knock softly against yours again and you looked up to meet his eyes. “Maybe you don’t have to be anymore,” he offered, leaning to bump his shoulder into yours, making you smile.

Part III of Los Guardianes

[freedommapk]

Download Freedom APK Latest v2.0.9 (Official Website) – 2019

There is no doubt that you can do a hell lot of interesting stuff by rooting your Android device from overclocking the processor to cracking games and apps. Now, if you have rooted your Android phone and want to do some crazy stuff like cracking games or free In-App purchases, then it’s time to install the Latest Freedom Apk on your phone. Do you play games like Subway Surfers or Temple run? Well, the chances are that you want to buy all the things available in the game, but due to lack of coins, you cannot do that.

CHECK OUT: [WORKING] How To Install Freedom App For PC – Freedom APK Latest Version

Also, you don’t want to spend any money on buying things in a game so what to do? Well, it’s time to try Freedom app and do absolutely *Free* In-App purchases. There are more than 2 Million apps and games available to download right now but have you ever wondered how the developers make money from them? You might think of ads. No! Most of the apps and games have In-App Purchases meaning you have to spend some real cash to enjoy all the features of that particular app or game.

download freedom app

Freedom App lets you make free In-App purchases, and the only requirement is that your phone needs to be rooted which is not a big thing as everyone knows how to root a phone. Now, since this app lets you do cracking or patching kinda stuff, it is pretty obvious that this app is not available to download from the official Google Play Store. But, we are here to help you out. We are providing the latest Freedom App to download, and there are no surveys or whatsoever. Just click on the download button, and that’s it. The apk file will start downloading.

So, time to say No to those annoying ads or surveys. We know that these surveys suck as they waste your precious time and also, sometimes there is no file and you are only making money for that website owner.

WHAT ARE THE FEATURES OF FREEDOM APK? Freedom Apk Features

As mentioned above, Freedom App lets you do the amazing thing from your rooted device so you should know about all the things that you can do with it. Here are the amazing features of Freedom App –

Want to get free gems or coins? Try Freedom and there you have them. Freedom lets you bypass the In-App Purchases, and so, it will let you make free purchases of things in the game. You don’t need to buy the full version of any app. Just use Freedom, and you are all set to go. The app is regularly updated by the developers so that it is compatible with every new app or game. Also, we regularly update the download link so that you get the latest apk file. Want to remove ads from any app or game? Download Freedom Apk Directly. The App uses many mods and patches to exploit apps and games. Aren’t the features offered by the Latest Freedom App amazing? Well, what is more, surprising that the fact that this app is available to download Free.

App Name Freedom Main Purpose Free In-App-Purchases Latest Version 2.0.6+ Last Updated On 20 April, 2017 APK Size 1.7MB Minimum Android Version Required Android 2.3+ Root Required Yes Downloads 5,00,000+ Quick Infographics freedom-apk-infographdsfsdic CAN I INSTALL FREEDOM APK ON MY PHONE? Now, for every App, there are some minimum requirements. So, here are the requirements for the Freedom app –

Android 2.3 Gingerbread or Above – For the Freedom App to work on your smartphone, it is necessary that you should have atleast Android 2.3 Gingerbread running on your phone. If you are running on any android version below it, this app won’t work. It is hard that it fails to work on Nougat so better if you try it on Lollipop or marshmallow or earlier versions. 512MB RAM or Above – RAM is one of the main things that are considered when we run any app. The more the RAM, the better the performance (But this doesn’t mean we will add 8GB RAM to phones). To run the Freedom APpp on your phone, make sure that you have atleast 512MP RAM and above. Your Phone should be ROOTED, or this app won’t work – A rooted phone allows you to do things that you cannot even imagine doing with the non-rooted phone. Freedom App is a root app so it will require Root. Make sure your phone is rooted before trying this app. At least 100MB free space should be there in your phone – RAM is not the only thing that is the reason for a better performance. There should be some minimum space also so that an app runs without any hassle. So, to run the Freedom APK without any hassle, make sure you have at least 100MB free space on your phone. PERMISSIONS THAT ARE REQUIRED Well, this is something that you surely need to read. If you are one of the thsoe guys who are concerned about the privacy of their phone, then it is better to check the permissions that are required by Freedom App for Android. Here are the permissions  –

INTERNET ACCESS – Ok, this is pretty simple one. Freedom APK can work without the internet too but sometimes, when it needs the internet, you have to provide access to it MODIFY SYSTEM SETTINGS – Since freedom apk works only on rooted phones and we know why, it is necessary to keep in mind that this app can modify the system settings in order to make it easy to do free In-App Purchases. KILL BACKGROUND TASKS – Might sound weird but this app requires permission to kill the background tasks. GET ACCOUNTS – It can access the accounts you have on your phone. WRITE EXTERNAL STORAGE – The Freedom app can write external storage. REBOOT DEVICE – Sometimes, it asks for the user to reboot the phone so to reboot the phone from inside the app itself, you have to provide it the permission. INSTALL,  FORCE STOP PACKAGES – If you are installing something, this app can force stop that or install any package. HOW TO INSTALL & DOWNLOAD FREEDOM APK ON YOUR ANDROID DEVICE (LATEST VERSION) | FREEDOM APK DOWNLOAD Download Freedom Apk for Android

Now, since you are aware of what Freedom app for android does and what should be the minimum specifications of your phone to install this app, let us talk about how to install the Latest Freedom App on your Android phone. The installation steps are damn easy, and you don’t need to do any extra stuff. Just make some little changes in your Android phone’s settings, and that’s it. You can then easily install the application. So, are you ready to get free gems, coins and everything from your favourite game or app without spending any real cash? Well, let’s see how to install the app –

First of all, go to the Settings of your phone and then go to Security. There, the first thing you need to do is to turn on ‘Unknown Sources’ option. No, there won’t be any virus or something like that in the app that we are providing. You have to turn this option on only because you are installing an app from outside of the Play Store. Now, once you are done with this, download Freedom Apk file from the Download button given below. As mentioned above, there are no surveys or ads, and this is the direct download link to the file. Download Freedom APK

Assuming that you have downloaded the file, next thing you need to do is to head to that file and install it as you do for the other apps. In a few seconds, the Freedom app will be there on your Android device, and you are all set to do some crazy stuff. HOW TO MAKE FREE IN-APP PURCHASES WITH THE FREEDOM APP | FREEDOM APK DOWNLOAD

Now, since you have the Freedom app installed on your phone, you must be figuring out how to use it and make free In-App purchases. Well, here are the steps –

1. First of all, open the Freedom App by tapping on its icon.

Freedom APK Free In-App Purchases Freedom APK Free In-App Purchases 2. Then, a popup will be shown to you that will ask you to grant Root permissions. This is very important steps so don’t try to skip it. Just grant the root permissions and the app’s interface will open.

3. You will see all the installed apps that you have on your phone at the moment.

4. Select any app or game from which you want to make free In-App purchases and then click on the app name and wait for a few seconds.

5. Once that app launches, just go to the store of that app or game from where you can buy coins or gems. just click on Buy Now button and you will see that the payment will be done for free.

FIX PLAY STORE NO CONNECTION ERROR

Wasn’t that super easy? Well, many users say that they get the ‘No Connection’ error in the Play Store when they try to make in-App Purchase to here is what you need to do –

Download a file explorer that let you edit the system files. We will recommend Es File Explorer as it is the best in this task. Now, go to the Root Directory of your Phone and there will be a folder named ‘System’. Open it and then open the folder ‘etc’. There, you will find Hosts file. You need to edit that file and add the code below to it – 127.0.0.1 localhost

Save the file. Once done, go to Settings > Apps > Google Play Store and then Clear the Cache and Clear the Data as well.

Lastly, just reboot your phone and the error will be no more. Download Freedom APK

SOME GENERAL FAQ Now, this is an obvious thing that if you are downloading an app that is not there even on the Play Store, then there are some questions that arise in your mind. For Example, you might get a file infected with virus etc. So, here are some of the questions that we will answer. You Can ask more via the comments section as we will always help you.

DOES THIS APP WORK FOR NON-ROOTED DEVICES? Sadly, no! This app requires a rooted Android device and rooting your phone isn’t a tough task actually. There are a ton of guides on how to root android online that you can follow. So, a rooted phone is one of the requirements for this app.

ARE THERE ALTERNATIVES TO THE FREEDOM APK? Of course there are. Some of these include apps like Lucky Patcher, Game Killer, XModgames, Gamer Hacker and much more.

IS THIS APP HARMFUL FOR MY PHONE? Now, there are two answers for this – Yes and No. This app is surely harmful if you download it from an untrusted source as they might give you a file infected with dangerous malware or virus. But no, this is not harmful if you are downloading it from a trusted source like our site which provides the file directly from the developers.

IS THIS APP FREE OF COST? Yes, freedom app lets you make free in-app purchases and it is completely free of cost. There are no In-App Purchases in the app itself.

CONCLUSION Well, that was all about the Freedom App & How to Download Freedom Apk ( Freedom APK Download), its requirements, how to install it and how to make Free In-App purchases. We also covered how to fix the annoying Play Store error. If you are still finding difficulties, then just refer to the video that we have attached below. Make sure to let us know if you face any problems while using the app in the comments section. We will try to fix that if we can. And yes, everything has its cons so this app might have some bugs. We will be updating the post regularly with the latest app file so stay tuned.

VIDEO CREDITS – THE ANDROID GUY

Here in the video below, it is thoroughly showed how you can make Unlimited Free In-App Purchases by using the Freedom App for Android. Make sure that you like this video and subscribe to the channel as this guy makes some amazing stuff.  Also, don’t forget to share this on social networks. This will help us. Have a Good Day.

[kevtastical-blog]

HOME

For more information, you may go to Recover Windows 7 Password! Windows 10 requires a minumum of one user account. Windows 10 is rolled out with a whole lot of login security alternatives. Windows hides a good deal of that complexity. Windows provides the capability to share 1 computer among multiple users, or for a single user to have several accounts for task schedule rvarious purposes. There are quite a lot of strategies to sign-out from the because there are shortcut also which will allow you to log-off in seconds. To log in to some other user, you have to wait around for Window to startup and login. 

When you discuss security, you've got to compromise convenience and speed. You may now enter in the system in an ordinary fashion and alter the password. A correctly done password process is one which's fundamentally not able to mess up even in the event that you try. If you're not great at computer, it is not advised to do it on your own. If your computer appears to be taking what feels to be an eternity to boot up, then there are a few easy things that you can do by yourself to diagnose and remedy the issue. On the flip side, there are a few security software that provides password protection together with the data protection like file locking software, data encryption software, USB security software and a lot more. You may also utilize third party computer maintenance tools for improving the speed and operation of your PC. 

When you click OK, you will be requested to put in your password twice. Resetting your Gmail password is straightforward. In the event you forgot Gmail password, continue reading. 

Passwords should increase security, but they frequently wind up compromising it. Your passwords should have the ability to handle completely arbitrary data. There's a better approach to take out the password entirely, however, so you will never will need to enter it. There are two methods to store a password that I am able to recommend. If you are able to type the incorrect password the exact same way, twice, you are going to see an error message once you reboot. Strong passwords are in reality important, even for your house computer. If you also forgot your associated email password then you must answer some questions regarding your Google account to confirm your gmail account to recoup your password. 

If you don't remember your password again, you may use the exact same password reset disk. Therefore, if you wish the exact same, you could alter the password by clicking the Change' button below the password section. You can have a very long password, and you're utilizing a PC where only you've got access. 

Your very best choice when you chance to forget Windows password. Following that, you're going to be in a position to unlock Windows 7 password in a moment. In any case, it isn't the difficult for somebody else to remove the Windows password. 

Higher-grade encryption can safeguard your data from just about anyone apart from the NSA. Smart card authentication demands the usage of the Kerberos authentication protocol. If you discover any malicious login of your account, you should reset your Microsoft account password when possible. As soon as you have made a user you will be prepared to create the very first server. Following that, you've got to sign out and pick the other user you wish to log on to. You could (if that's what you're looking for) determine anomalous logins over the whole data collection. 

Click the account that you want to change, and click Change the account type. Instead, if you're employing a Microsoft account, you can get rid of the password entirely, but you have to switch to a neighborhood account. If you understand the account listed, then no more actions want to get taken. The very first account you create will stay an Administrator account, which permits you to manage every element of your PC. If you have many unique accounts configured, pick the one which you'd like to skip the entire login and password option for. 

Click the account you wish to edit. Because almost any email account may also be set up to be a Microsoft account, it is a fantastic notion to make the most of the additional advantages that allows. Scroll down then pay attention to the SID values for the account you would like to change. An administrator account has higher-level permissions than a normal user account, meaning that an administrator account operator can perform tasks on your computer a normal user account operator cannot. Additionally, you can elect for developing a new administrator account to acquire in your computer rather than eliminating the forgotten password.

[acarreonh]

Communication Plan: The 6 Dimensions

Communication Plan: The 6 Dimensions

Nike, Inc.

1. Operational Dimension

Nike, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that is engaged in the design, development, manufacturing, and worldwide marketing and sales of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories, and services. It is the world's largest supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$37.4 billion in its fiscal year 2020. In 2020 the brand alone was valued in excess of $32 billion, making it the most valuable brand among sports businesses. Nike's main target is athletes, especially young people, who seek the innovation that the brand offers.

Business Planning Manager: In this role will support and drive alignment cross-functionally for In-year Management/Forecasting, CSR, AOP and Budget processes, prepare financial reporting, as well as provide insights and analysis into spend trends and investment performance. It will include heavy collaboration with IBP and Finance business partners on calendar, process alignment and tactical execution and will be required to work cross-functionally with Marketplace business partners, GEO Finance and Controlling. You will report to the FP&A Finance Director and work closely with both Finance & cross-functional partners across a diverse set of teams.

2. Strategic Dimension

Nike Inc.’s corporate mission is “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” The company further states that everybody is an athlete, based on Nike founder Bill Bowerman’s statement, “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” This mission statement represents the company’s strategic goal of reaching out to the global leisure and sports footwear, apparel and equipment market. As a leading manufacturer of sports shoes, apparel and equipment, Nike Inc. inspires people to adopt a “winner mindset”, which is covered in the “inspiration” component of the mission statement. The company’s slogan “Just Do It” represents this inspirational goal. Also, Nike’s corporate mission statement emphasizes innovation. This component is applied through the company’s strategy of continuous improvement of products through new technologies, as included in Nike Inc.’s generic competitive strategy and intensive growth strategies. The “every athlete in the world” component indicates that the company’s corporate mission pushes the business to target every consumer in the world. As noted, the company considers every person an athlete. Thus, based on this corporate mission, Nike’s products are designed to attract and satisfy a wide variety of market segments globally.

Nike Inc.’s corporate vision is “to remain the most authentic, connected, and distinctive brand.” The business continues to apply this vision statement, which was emphasized in the corporation’s global growth strategy for 2015. The company focuses on developing its brand. Nike’s vision statement uses the word “remain,” which indicates that the company already considers its brand as the most authentic, connected, and distinctive in the global market for sporting goods and related products. The “authentic” component of the corporate vision statement shows that the company aims to make its products deliver high performance to consumers.

On the other hand, the “connected” component is about ensuring consumers’ personal connection with the brand. Nike’s marketing mix or 4P supports the creation and maintenance of such connection with customers. The company also maintains distinctiveness by delivering the best possible products to the market.

This corporate vision regards Nike Inc. as a leader in the industry, while pushing the business to further separate itself from competitors. A notable point about the company is it also develops connections with consumers through its vision for corporate social responsibility: “to help NIKE, Inc. and our consumers thrive in a sustainable economy where people, profit and planet are in balance.” This vision serves as the basis for Nike Inc.’s corporate social responsibility strategy and stakeholder management approaches.

As a Business Planning Manager you will need to demonstrate a strong financial acumen, business partnership experience, comfort with data to drive actionable insights, team mindset, accountability, pro-active attitude and communication skills. You will interact with a diverse set of business partners, so understanding your audience and communicating the appropriate level of detail will be a critical skill set. Within Finance, you will partner closely with the Margin planning, SG&A & Marketplace finance team providing guidance, expectations and targets to MPUs/Functions, prepare consolidated GM/SG&A, owner of reporting in the system and run CFOR process.

3. Cultural Dimension

At Nike, we know the importance of Doing the Right Thing. No matter how big Nike may get, we stay accountable by making the best possible decisions around people, assets and resources. We must always use an “edit to amplify” approach to the opportunities before us, to be intentional about choosing those investments that deliver the most impact on our business. The choices we face aren’t always easy. Many decisions can appear to fall into a gray area. Some may have an emotional aspect and can even become personal; remaining objective while making decisions resources can be difficult. When considering these tough choices, we must strive to always think through all possible outcomes and commit to owning the results. In the end, you are the one who will own the result, so make the best decision you can. This roadmap is intended to help you navigate through the decision-making process: if the answer to each question below is “yes,” then you have done your due diligence. But if the answer is “no,” even once, please consider seeking more feedback or guidance from others before moving forward.

1 Follow the Rules: Does it follow Nike policy and the law?

2 Serve Nike’s Interests: Does it serve a legitimate Nike business purpose and not just one personal to me?

3 Drive Efficiency: Have I explored a smarter, faster, more economical way to achieve the same result?

4 Consider Implications: Have I considered how this decision might affect others (consumers, shareholders, partners, employees, competitors and the community)?

5 Accept Responsibility: Have I considered how this decision will look to others and how I would feel if it were to be made public?

As members of the Nike team, we count on each other to live our values and act ethically. Have this commitment in mind as you watch over every business relationship, every transaction and every product – and make sure your actions always reflect our values. Follow our Code as well as the laws and regulations of the countries where we work, and protect what we’ve built. If you manage people, you have an even greater responsibility – a special obligation to demonstrate high performance with high integrity. Lead by example, making sure your team members know the Code is a resource for them and that there is no difference between what you do and what you expect from others. Acting with integrity is about more than reading a set of policies and checking a box.

It’s about always acting ethically – in the small moments, as well as the big ones. It’s about holding each other accountable every day we go through our jobs. And it’s about feeling OK with asking for help from others. Everything we do matters, and we are all in this together.

Nike respects the rights of its employees to partake in activities – financial, business or otherwise – outside of work, as long as that activity does not interfere with Nike’s interests or the parameters of your employment. But conflicts with Nike must be avoided. If you use your position at Nike for personal gain, that’s a conflict. And if your personal activity could compromise –or even appear to compromise – your ability to make the best business decisions for Nike, that’s a conflict. Learning to recognize potential conflicts of interest can help you avoid one. A conflict can happen when you supervise or conduct business with someone with whom you have a close personal relationship. And it can also happen when you own, invest in or do work for a company that competes, does business or wants to do business with Nike. A conflict can even happen if you simply accept, give or offer gifts, hospitality or favors from or to parties doing business with Nike. Potential conflicts can often be resolved with an open and honest discussion. Remember: having a conflict of interest is not necessarily a violation of our Code, but failing to disclose it is. “POTENTIAL CONFLICTS

CAN BE RESOLVED WITH AN OPEN AND HONEST DISCUSSION.”

4. Motivational Dimension

Nike is one company that revolves around motivation. The company has a compilation of motivational slogans to get people going. Although the brand is big on positivity, Nike motivates employees as well. Like most companies, Nike inspires and influences employees to take challenges. They believe each employee holds great potential. The corporation trains leaders and enables them to make knowledgeable decisions. Nikes motivational approach is a huge part of why the company is so successful. Employees are encouraged to meet goals. One effective motivational technique Nike uses is group exercise. Sustainability is also an effective approach to keep the company operating. It’s proven that benefits and rewards influence people to perform better. Positive working conditions, policies, job security and status have a big influence. Nike offers employees product discounts, paid vacations, retirement plans and insurance. This makes working for the company more attractive. Managers are taught to extend their employees' talent, and these motivational approaches definitely do the job. The learning environment is a great influence for significant company growth and change. Nike works in house to inspire a culture of purpose and encourages its employees to participate in making a positive impact. Nike matches employee donations and offers volunteer pay, which means Nike gives the employee $10 per hour for volunteer hours volunteered that they can donate to the organization they choose. And it gives retail store employees time on the clock to serve as weekly volunteer coaches in their communities. the company is Fair Labor Association (FLA) Workplace Code of Conduct certified, and received a score of 51-60% in the Fashion Transparency Index. Nike likely publishes detailed information about its supplier policies, audits, and remediation processes. It also publishes a detailed list of suppliers in the final stage of production, and some information about the findings of supplier audits.

5. Feedback Dimension

We will work with suppliers to incorporate worker engagement and wellbeing processes into their overall HR approach. We will continue to evolve tools and advance capabilities to help suppliers in converting the insights from their EWB Survey into actions that positively impact workers.

These include supports such as the EWB Toolkit, which helps factories develop and implement a process for converting these insights from workers into action and embedding these practices into their HRM systems. We developed the Engagement and Wellbeing Survey (EWB) to measure engagement based on the experiences of individuals working in factories. The EWB survey highlights areas where employees already feel supported and engaged and helps identify opportunities for factory management to improve employee engagement. The survey was extensively piloted and tested, in collaboration with suppliers and other organizations, to ensure the results were statistically relevant, actionable and successfully painted a comprehensive picture of the current status of engagement in a facility. By the end of FY20, we increased the reach of the EWB Survey to 64 factories in 13 countries. In total, the EWB Survey has been scaled to factories employing 385,000 workers.

6. Proposal Dimension

We believe that a skilled, valued and engaged workforce is key for growth and sustainability and we want to empower suppliers to engage with and value their people because we know that high employee engagement leads to a more efficient, agile, and committed workforce which results in beneficial outcomes for both the individual and the organization. Not only are engaged workers more likely to feel physically and mentally secure, but they’re also more likely to actively and positively contribute to their work. Having an engaged workforce is proven to fundamentally shift overarching business issues such as compensation, overtime, and workplace conditions.

Over the past five years, we developed and implemented the Engagement and Wellbeing (EWB) Survey to measure the level of engagement and experiences of factory workers. While we have been scaling the deployment of this survey to reach more factories across our supply chain, measuring worker voice is just the start. We are actively supporting our suppliers in building capabilities that will increase engagement, and this approach is foundational to a future where we continue to grow with those factories that value and engage workers. We bring pragmatic, evidence-based and measurable practices to our suppliers to increase engagement and have set an ambitious target for 2025. By 2025, we expect 100% of our strategic suppliers to be measuring and improving the engagement of the people making our products.

We’ve set this target because we believe an engaged workforce is one where people are valued and want to positively contribute. In addition, the work environment must be physically and emotionally safe, with management actively striving to create that safe environment.

[seoriseup]

Why Are Facebook Ads Not Delivering?

If you have ever asked yourself this question, you should know that there is no accurate answer to it. There are various reasons why Facebook ads are not delivering, and trying to find “your” reason could be frustrating. In this article, we will go through the possible reasons why this happens and what to do in such cases. 

10 Common Reasons

Although the reasons for Facebook ads not delivering are quite a few, the answer is generally simple. Once you have found why it is also easy to troubleshoot.

Your Ad Has Not Been Approved

Facebook ensures that every ad on the platform complies with its advertising policy. If your ad does not, they will send you a notification and an e-mail informing you about the reason for disapproval. If you cannot log in to your e-mail, you may also check your ad’s status inside Facebook’s ad manager. Your ad might have been disapproved for several reasons, such as:

Time needed: 2 hours.

Your ad might have been disapproved for several reasons, such as:

Substance

Promoting tobacco, drug use, and drug-related products.

Discrimination

All kinds of practices that promote discrimination.

Harmful Products

Selling weapons, ammunition, and/or explosives.

Violence

Airing ads that feature excessive violence.

Mature Content

Adult content, products, and/or services.

Unreliable Supplements

Selling diet products and additives without proven results as well as unlikely “before-and-after” images for weight loss.

Third-party Breaches 

Breaches that vioalate security measures of all kinds.

Misspelling

Grammar mistakes / punctuation issues.

What to do: If this is the case, you have two options to fix the issue. First, you can make the necessary changes by using the information in your disapproval. Once you have edited and saved your ad, it will be resubmitted to Facebook automatically for further review. Secondly, you can appeal the disapproval decision. As it is artificial intelligence reviewing the ads, mistakes are quite possible. If you think your ad is rejected due to a mistake, you can submit an appeal through Facebook’s request review form.

You Have Reached Your Spending Limit

A spending limit ensures that you do not exceed your initially intended campaign budget. Even if you set a limit to your spending, it is quite easy to forget about it afterward. When you reach this limit, Facebook naturally stops displaying your ads. 

What to do: You need to open the Ads Manager menu on Facebook. Then, you should navigate to the Billing & Payment Methods tab. There, you will find your “account spending limit” box along with how much you have spent out of it. There are three links at the bottom, through which you can change, remove, and reset your limit consecutively. 

Your Image Ad Has Too Much Text

As well as its written rules, Facebook has plenty of unwritten ones, too. One of these unwritten rules is the “20% Text Rule”. According to Facebook research, images with less than 20% text cost less and reach more people than ads with over 20% text. Therefore, Facebook finds these ads low-quality and may not deliver them. However, there are some exceptions to the 20% rule: 

book and album covers

games

product images

charts and graphs

event posters

movie and TV show posters

magazine and newspaper covers

legal texts

What to do: If you are not sure whether your ad violates this rule or not, you can use Facebook’s Text Overlay Tool. With the help of this tool, you will rate your image and get one of these results: Low, Medium, High, or OK. If your image is in the High or Medium category, it means it does not meet Facebook’s criteria. In this case, use as few words as you can or reduce the font size. Another option might be to replace your image with another one on which there is less text. 

Your Bid Is Too Low

When you determine your bidding strategy, you choose what actions to pay for and how much you want to pay for them. You have two options to pay: lowest cost or lowest cost with bid cap. If you prefer “lowest cost,” you allow Facebook to choose the best amount for your selected action and bid competitively. This option guarantees that your bid price will never be set too low and under deliver. Therefore, it is an ideal option for most advertisers. By adding a bid cap, on the other hand, you tell Facebook the maximum amount you want to pay for an action. In this case, you may end up with Facebook ads not delivering if your bid is too low. 

What to do: If you have delivery issues, you might try raising your bid to an appropriate amount for your action. If you are using a bid cap and encounter delivery issues, you can either raise your bid or switch to the lowest cost without a cap. When you choose the latter, Facebook will bid on behalf of you in a competitive way.

Your Campaign Does Not Have Enough Budget

There are many factors that affect the cost of a campaign budget. Nevertheless, the basic campaign prices range between $2 and $10 per ad daily. This amount enables Facebook to deliver your ads to a large group of audience. A big mistake here is to run numerous adsets with multiple ads inside of each and all sharing one tiny budget. If you allocate enough budget to your campaign, your ad will have far more impressions than the adsets. 

What to do: To adjust your budget, you should go to the Ads Manager menu and click on the adsets tab. After that, you need to select which campaign you want to edit and click on the pencil icon. Through the pop-up window, you can navigate to the budget settings. If you are using AdEspresso, you can manage your budget directly from the campaign dashboard.

Your Optimization Goal Is Hard to Reach

When you select an optimization goal, you tell Facebook what type of action you expect your audience to take. At the same time, you are giving Facebook permission to target your audience with more precision. If you have chosen to optimize for click links, you are telling Facebook to target the ones more likely to click on links based on their interaction with similar ads. Choosing the proper optimization goal is vital to narrow down your audience. However, delivery issues tend to occur when you optimize for conversions. These issues come up because Facebook uses these conversions as a “source” to find ideal targets for your campaign. If you do not have any conversions, Facebook will not know who could be interested in your campaign as there is no data to work with. As a result, it just stops running your campaign.  

What to do: You can use a conversion type that might occur many times a day, like using an “add to cart” event rather than “purchase.” Another option is to switch the optimization goal to link clicks instead of conversions. By doing so, your campaign will still be tracking these conversions. However, this time Facebook will also see who is interested in your ads depending on who has clicked. When you start to get consistent conversions, you can change the goal back to conversions. (Facebook suggests you should get at least 50 conversions a week.)

Your Ads Are Irrelevant to Your Audience

Low ad relevance is another issue causing Facebook ads not to be delivered. Through “relevance score,” Facebook tells you how interesting and engaging your audience finds your ads. Viewers engaging with your ad in a positive or negative way affect your overall score. Facebook takes your score into account before delivering your ads. Therefore, if it is not delivering your ad, it might be due to low relevancy.

What to do: There are many ways to improve your ad’s relevancy. Using Facebook’s ad relevance diagnostics can help you determine whether your ad was relevant to your audience or not. Relevance diagnostics assess your ad’s performance in terms of quality, engagement rate, and conversion rate.

If you want to increase your quality ranking, you can try improving the quality of your creative assets. You can also target an audience who will consider your ad is high quality. If you have a problem with your engagement rate ranking, improve the relevancy of your ad. Try to make your ad more engaging and interesting. Another option is to target an audience who tend to interact with your ad. As for your conversion rate ranking, you can try improving the call-to-action of your ad or post-click experience. If your score is below average in all these categories, you should then test different targeting strategies, creative, optimization goals, post-click experiences, and so on. 

Your Audiences Are Overlapping

If you have audiences with almost identical interests across your campaign’s adsets, Facebook intervenes in the process. The aim of Facebook here is to prevent your ads from competing against one another during the ad auction. As a result of this, Facebook will stop running some of your adsets. 

What to do: Facebook created the Audience Overlap Tool to check how similar your targeting options are. To use this tool, you should go to your “audiences.” Then, to compare your audiences, check the boxes next to them, but do not select more than 5. Click on the Actions dropdown menu and choose “Show Audience Overlap.” Now you can see where your audience is overlapping.

Your Ad Is Still in Review

Facebook ads not delivering do not always mean that they are rejected. Sometimes your ad can still be in review. Facebook states that they review most ads in 24 hours, yet in some cases, it might take longer. It can take the platform even longer to review if you have recently changed your targeting, creative, optimization, or billing. 

What to do: An easy solution to this issue can be scheduling the ad as far in advance as possible. This can save you a couple of days in case you need to send your ad to the Facebook team for manual approval. Not editing your ads until the approval has gone through is another option. Edits cause the review process to start over again, retarding the approval. 

Your Ad Is Low Quality

Sometimes your Facebook ads can be active yet not delivering. They might not be showing to many users if they are low quality. Facebook divides these low-quality ads into three main categories: 

Engagement Bait: These are the ads that pressure people to like, share, comment, or tag a friend. This type of interaction is against Facebook’s policy and can affect the delivery of your ads.

Withholding Information: These ads withhold important details regarding the ad intentionally to make users click to see the full content. They are likely to end up in reduced delivery or even getting disapproval. 

Sensationalist Language: Some ads contain exaggerated headlines or might ask people to give a reaction to the degree that can cause a disappointing post-click landing page. There is a high possibility that Facebook will not deliver such ads.

What to do: The answer is quite simple! If you do not want your ad to be low-quality, avoid all the things mentioned in the examples above. You should edit any ad that falls under one of these categories so that it complies with Facebook’s ad policy.

FAQs on Facebook Ads not Delivering

How do I find out whether my Facebook ad is still in review?

Facebook has a form called “Ads Pending Review more than 24 hours”. If you are sure Facebook will deliver your ad, you can contact the platform through this form.

How much audience is too narrow for Facebook? 

You need to have a minimum of 1000 active users in your target audience. Otherwise, your ads will not run on Facebook.

What scheduling issues could prevent my ad from delivering?

If your campaign’s end date has already passed or if your ad is paused, Facebook will not show your ad. Similarly, if you set your campaign to run in the future, it will prevent your ad from delivering, too.

How do I view a Facebook Page’s ads?

First, you click the name of the page in your Newsfeed or search for it to navigate to the page. Then, select “See All,” which is in the Page Transparency section. Finally, select “Go to Ad Library,” which is under “Ads from This Page.” 

How do I contact Facebook ad support?

First, log into your account and go to the “Ads Help Center.” To do that, you can use this link to the website facebook.com/business/help. At the bottom of the page, you will see the “Still Need Help” section. Click on “Contact our Support Team,” which is right below it. 

Concluding Facebook Ads not Delivering 

In this article, we have made a list of the ten most common reasons why Facebook ads are not delivering. We have also explained what to do if you face any of the issues we have mentioned above. Also, we have referred to how many active users people should have to run their ads as well as possible scheduling issues that might occur.

We have also shared the processes of viewing the ads on a Facebook page and getting in contact with the Facebook Ad Support Team. Hope you find this article of use and have a great time while reading it! If you want to learn how to advertise on Google, go ahead and check out our guide.

The following blog post Why Are Facebook Ads Not Delivering? was originally published to SEO Rise Up

[ao3porcelainstorm]

poison ivy & stinging nettles 19

On Ao3

Pairing: Sherlock/OFC

Rated: M

Warnings: eventual violence, torture, swears, adult themes (no explicit smut)

Chapter 18 - Chapter 20

Chapter 19- Willow

~~~

I used to love playing pretend when I was a boy. My sister and I would spend hours dreaming up impossible scenes to play in; dinosaurs, spacemen, anything you could imagine, we would come up with.

That’s what this has felt like- playing pretend. I don’t mind it, personally. Given all that has happened, it’s a bit nice to see my two dearest friends get on and enjoy a short break from solving crimes and dealing with Moriarty.

It’s just, unfortunately, the problem with playing pretend is that eventually your mum has to call you in for dinner and you’re thrown back into reality.

~~~

And if it was an open-shut case, I never would have known from the look on your face. Lost in your current like a priceless wine. - Willow (Taylor Swift)

~~~

“And what?” Amelia challenged a laugh on her lips, teacup in her lap and watching John in amusement. “You’re opening the present or so help me John Watson, I’ll tell Mrs. Hudson.”

The doctor lifted the bundle of perfectly wrapped boxes tentatively, giving the smallest one a shake.

“It doesn’t feel right,” he continued, and Amelia sent him a pointed look.

“I opened mine,” Sherlock commented, arms crossed, leaning back in his chair.

“You did?” John gaped at his friend in disbelief. “When?”

“A few nights ago,” Amelia waved her hand, not wanting to go into detail about her complete meltdown that first night. “And Mrs. Hudson opened hers yesterday. Just open it!”

Mrs. Hudson was gifted an all-expense paid spa trip to Bath with the three ladies she played cards with each week. The housekeeper had practically screamed with excitement, pulling Amelia into a tight hug, thanking her profusely before making phone calls to set up a date.

It was nice to have a bit of normal.

“Fine,” John grumbled, opening the first box.

All in all, he loved his gifts.

Two cashmere sweaters in navy and merlot, and an original 1st edition of Grey’s Anatomy.

He set the book aside and pulled Amelia into a hug, and even though he tried to blink away the tears in his eyes, she definitely saw them glisten.

No one mentioned the lapse in time often. Only when Sherlock was working on the case did he pepper he with questions. John talked about it even less, which was sweet, but no matter how much Amelia tried to pretend things were ok, she was still reeling from it all.

The Christmas decorations had come down after the New Year, leaving the apartment sparse when she returned, having left with it covered in lights and tinsel. The days were easing into February, while she was still waiting for January.

She’d started therapy the day before, at John’s insistence. Twice a week for the foreseeable future. The hope was that the sessions would unlock whatever secrets were hidden in her subconscious.

More than anything, though, she was tired of everyone looking at her like she was this fragile thing, waiting to shatter at the lightest touch.

She’d been home a little over a week now, and it was getting old. Amelia wasn’t one who did well with coddling.

Even her mother had become almost unbearable. Constantly calling and texting.

The only person she had the energy to deal with was Sherlock. He was careful not to overstep his boundaries, but also read her like a book when she was uncomfortable.

He’d insisted on accompanying her anywhere she wanted to go, including the shops when she decided to pick out a new winter coat.

It was nice.

Amelia had always enjoyed spending time with both John and Sherlock alone, but while John felt like an older brother, Sherlock gave her butterflies whenever he spoke.

Greg had been sweet enough to avoid calling him in unless absolutely necessary. And on the one occasion he did, Sherlock made sure Amelia was left with Molly at the hospital. Safe and secure while he and John went to the crime scene.

Otherwise, Sherlock was always at her side. But it wasn’t as smothering as anyone else. He didn’t nitpick and ask her how she was feeling or fetch her things because he pitied her. It was a natural presence, a little protective, but safe and warm.

Amelia had no problem falling back into old routines, sketching by the fire while Sherlock read and John worked through a crossword. It was what she needed.

Nighttime was the only thing that had changed drastically.

Ever since that first night in her room, Amelia and Sherlock had spent every night together, alternating between beds.

The first night in his room, Amelia had burrowed her face into his pillow, much to his amusement, trying to guess the elements of his cologne.

“I’ll never tell,” he teased when she listed a few common scents.

“I will figure it out,” she vowed.

And she did. He didn’t bother hiding the bottle and a quick google search revealed a blend of pine and light jasmine.

It certainly didn’t account for the smell of firewood, old books, and wool that seemed to be all his.

Neither of them had tried to name whatever this had turned into. There wasn’t “I love you’s” or kisses in the morning. They never had sex.

It felt like an entirely natural progression of things, granted, with the underlying context of kidnapping and memory loss. But Amelia didn’t mind. She was happy. Sherlock seemed happy. That was good enough for her.

She wasn’t so naive to assume that this would last forever, either.

They’d discussed it extensively, lying awake next to one another and dissecting potential plans that Moriarty had for the future and a grand reveal was the first idea they’d agreed upon.

It was coming. She didn’t know when or how, but it was.

Amelia just wanted to enjoy this little slice of joy that they had as long as she could. They could name things and have serious talks about the future, later on. For now, she was content in this vacation-like bliss.

~~~

“10... 9... 8...”

It was a small get together, Ruthie, Greg, Molly, and the residents of Baker Street, but it meant the world to Amelia.

John had pulled up a video of the New Year’s Eve celebrations, Mrs. Hudson had pulled out hats and noisemakers, and the plan was to count down until midnight.

“..2...1! Happy New Year!”

Laughing, kisses were peppered onto everyone’s cheeks. When Amelia passed Sherlock, he linked his finger with hers, giving her a small smile when she glanced curiously in his direction.  

Turning around, she pecked a kiss on his cheek, tapping the tip of his nose with a finger, before returning to the others.

More than anything, Amelia wanted to grab him by the shoulders and kiss him like she meant it. But they hadn’t even discussed their unspoken thing or shared the first kiss at all.

So, she held her composure and sent him smiles whenever he looked in her direction.

Greg and Molly left after Mrs. Hudson announced that she needed sleep. Ruthie was offered Amelia’s bed, but the women stayed up in the flat with John, splitting a bottle of gin and laughing next to the fire.

“Christ, I needed this,” Ruthie leaned her head back, resting up against Amelia's legs hanging from the sofa.

“No kidding,” Amelia murmured, taking the bottle from John and taking a large swallow. Making a face and handed it to Ruthie. “Gin. Awful.”

“Gets better the longer you drink it,” John voiced, sprawled over his chair.

“Tastes like a liquid pine tree,” Amelia grumbled.

“I bet you like rum or whiskey,” Ruthie held up the bottle to John.

“Bloody Americans,” John rolled his eyes. “Terrible taste in everything.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Amelia fell back, throwing a pillow over her head for effect. “Deep-fried Oreos are the shit.”

“Deep-fried... Oreos?” Ruthie poked her in the leg, the gin bottle making a return. “I love Oreos.”

“They’re like, deep-fried in pancake batter,” Amelia explained, popping back up. “It makes them all gooey and amazing.”

“Holy shit,” Ruthie paused. “We need to make some.”

“Not in my kitchen,” Sherlock threw blankets around the room, snagging the gin from Ruthie and taking a sip for himself.

“Sher...lock,” Amelia slurred, putting emphasis on the final “k”. “There are eyeballs and a human tongue in the freezer.”

“We can make Oreos,” John held up a hand.

“Deep-fried Oreos,” Amelia clarified with a wavering finger. “A very important distinction.”

“You’ll burn the flat down, no,” Sherlock countered.

“Not right now,” Amelia laughed. “Silly Sherlock. We don’t have Oreos.”

“Which is a tragedy,” Ruthie complained, stealing back the gin and finishing what was left. She grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders like a cocoon, tackling Amelia onto the sofa. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Me too,” Amelia snickered, pressing a sloppy kiss on her cousin's cheek.

“Ugh, gross, you slobbered on me,” Ruthie dropped back, wiping at her cheek in disgust.

“You got emotional, consequences,” Amelia gestured above her, hand swaying while she examined it in the air.

What Sherlock first noticed was the way Ruthie stiffened at the sight of the vicious scarring and scabbing on her cousin's wrist. The second thing he noticed was the way Amelia went quiet when her drunken focus fell on the injury.

John let out a snore and Sherlock jumped up.

“Bed,” he announced, earning a chorus of complaints from Amelia and Ruthie. “You’ve both had plenty to drink. Happy New Year, bedtime.”

“I’m not moving,” Ruthie announced, curling up on the sofa, making it as difficult as possible for Amelia to crawl over her.

“Enjoy John and his snoring,” Amelia stumbled over the edge of the rug and caught herself in the doorway between the living area and kitchen. “Mmmm goodnight!”

“Don’t be loud!” Ruthie called once Amelia and Sherlock rounded the corner to his bedroom.

Sherlock had to redirect Amelia a couple of times, helping her navigate the hallway without smashing her head or breaking anything. She dropped onto his bed with a long sigh.

“What?” he stood over her, brow quirked.

“I think you’re right,” she answered, eyes opening to look at him. “Your bed is the best.”

“I’m never wrong,” he answered, dropping next to her with a soft thud.

“So very humble,” she rolled toward him, amusement in her eyes. “You’re the humblest guy I know, Sherlock Holmes.”

He turned his head to better see her, his chest hammering once he realized how close her face was to his.

Was this the right time? They’d both had a bit to drink and he didn’t want to escalate things to an inappropriate level until they were sober and-

Amelia pressed her lips against his, her fingers threading their way through his curls.

He pulled her closer, hand cupping her cheek while he reciprocated in turn. It felt like everything the movies and books he’d read about said a kiss was supposed to be.

His brain felt like it’s erupted in fireworks, and the rest of his body-

“Oh,” he pulled away, clearing his throat. She leaned on her elbow, watching him try to adjust his pants.

“I didn’t mean to get you all fired up,” she smirked up at him. “I feel a little powerful right now.”

He turned to her, scowling at her words. Cruel. She was being mean and enjoying it.

If he half a mind- nope. Gentleman. He was a gentleman and he was going to change into his sleeping pants and go to sleep. He announced as much, stood up, and locked himself in the bathroom with a change of clothes until he pulled himself together.

He stared at his reflection, hands gripping the sides of the sink. Gentleman.

If things came to that, he’d make sure it was right.

Groaning, he threw his night clothes on and returned to the room.

Amelia was on her back, snoring loudly, having only managed to change into an oversized shirt.

Running a hand down his face, Sherlock pushed her aside and threw himself onto his side of the bed.

Amelia rolled onto him, arms snaking around his waist and her hips against his.  

Gentleman.

~~~

“Mrs. Peacock, in the library with...” Amelia shuffled through her notes. “The rope!”

Sherlock lowered his hand and smirked.

“Nope,” he replied, popping the “p” and earning a fresh scowl from her.

“What do you mean, ‘nope’? You didn’t even open the packet,” she protested.

“I told you not to play him,” John mumbled, turning the page to his paper. “It never ends well.”

“It was Mrs. Peacock, and it was in the library,” he contended before flipping a card with his fingers. “But it wasn’t the rope.”

“But- you-,” Amelia scrambled through her notes and cards. “Impossible. Because then if you have the rope it had to have been the pistol.”

Sherlock handed her the envelope and with a litany of curses, sure enough, Mrs. Peacock, in the library, with the pistol.

“How did you...?” she stammered. “I didn’t... my cards...?”

“You touch the pieces you have at the beginning of the game,” he pointed out, lifting the tiny candlestick. “Unconsciously, of course, but you do. It’s an endearing tick, but sufficient to win.”

Amelia threw her cards into the game board, gaping at him in shock.

“I told you,” John sang, folding his newspaper. “You would have been better at Monopoly or Life.”

“I just...” Amelia shook her head, lifting the three cards from the envelope again. “I’ve never lost at this game before.”

“It is easier when it’s only two people,” Sherlock tried to offer but she shook her head.

“No. This is-,” she sat back into the sofa with a sigh. “I’m going to have to think about this. Restrategize.”

“It isn’t chess,” John chuckled.

“No, this is far more serious John,” she looked up at him firmly. “I’m going to beat him.”

“Good luck,” Sherlock mumbled and she whipped her head in his direction.

“I’m going to. And you’re going to eat humble pie, accepting that I, Amelia Ophelia Brenner, am better than you at something,” she announced, hopping to her feet.

“You’re better at painting than I am,” he suggested. “This is a game based on observation and deduction. You can’t win.”

“That’s why my victory will be all the sweeter,” she poked him in the chest with a grin. “Just you wait.”

“When shall I send out the wedding invitations?” John asked the pair. “I picked a lovely periwinkle card stock you’ll love.”

“I think a summer wedding would be nice,” Amelia paused. “Find a little church in the countryside. Wildflowers everywhere.”

“Allergies could be risky,” John replied. “Wouldn’t want to be sneezing on your wedding day.”

“Ah, but I assume you’ll be best man, so I would hope you’d be on hand wut Jaime antihistamines?”

“Of course,” John nodded solemnly. “Assuming Sherlock hasn’t taken them all first.”

“I would have accounted for allergies,” Sherlock piped up. “The insects would be my primary concern.”

“Bees,” Amelia pointed out in agreement. “I’m actually very allergic.”

“So we’re back to allergies,” John said.

“I know you’re allergic,” Sherlock looked at Amelia. “Which is why I renewed your epi-pen after it expired two months ago. I’ll make sure both John and myself have a backup.”

Amelia’s hand went to her chest, eyes wide, with a small “aww”.

“Clearly we’re going to have to bump the date up,” John snickered. “A nice spring wedding?”

“Rain,” both Amelia and Sherlock replied in unison.

“Also periwinkle is nice, but what about a yellow?” Amelia hummed in thought. “Or a tasteful navy with pastel pinks?”

“You just want to cover the tables in peonies,” Sherlock snorted, fishing for his phone after it chirped with a new message.

“Is that so wrong? They’re incredibly good luck for marriages,” she sighed dreamily.

Sherlock ignored the comment, reading over the short message from Mycroft a few times, just to be sure he understood it correctly.

Moriarty turned himself in.

MH

And just like that, the fun was over.

He looked toward Amelia, who was giggling with John over fictional seating arrangements, wrapped-up in Sherlock’s robe.

This was the part he’d been dreading. The game was on, and Amelia was back on the board. This last week being so peaceful for them all. The last tease before things became messy.

Sherlock had no doubt that by the end of this Amelia would know full well what had happened, and that terrified him the most.

~~~

Now this is an open-shut case, guess I should have known from the look on your face. Every bait and switch was a work of art.

Chapter 20

[nollid]

ENG 347 Blog Post #2 Dillon Rowe

1. Explore Elizabeth Acevedo’s online presence across social media and various literary communities. Briefly discuss something you find about her or her work that allows you to approach and/or frame your reading of The Poet X in a new or deeper way. Some places to start: Her official website, twitter account, Instagram account, interviews with NPR, other lit journals/websites, etc.

     I chose to search/examine Elizabeth Acevedo’s online presence on YouTube, and in my search discovered that The Poet X was heavily influenced by Acevedo’s own personal life and poetry. In her video with the YouTube channel ‘Epic Reads’, Acevedo mentions that she pulled poems from some of her own journals, particularly one from her junior year of high school. She described this process as being a “collaboration with my younger self” which I find so interesting and cool (Epic Reads).

     In another interview with PBS NewsHour, Elizabeth also described herself as being a “spare writer” (which is a term I had never heard before), and that the first draft of The Poet X was only 20,000 words before adding another 15,000 in revision. She also states that the process of writing The Poet X early on was to tell herself the story and sort the holes out from there. The last thing I want to highlight that I found (also from the PBS NewsHour interview) is that in her words, “The emotional truths of the story are my own”. With this bit of information in mind, I feel like I am going to pick The Poet X back up with a newfound level of love and respect for Xiomara as I know now that, as Elizabeth states, “The heart of [the story]” is autobiographical, although many of the plot points are not (Acevedo clarified that she didn’t get in trouble, and she wasn’t shy, unlike Xiomara) (PBS NewsHour).

2. The Poet X tackles Xiomara’s questions regarding religion, her struggle to be at home in a body that is often perceived in ways she can’t control, and her intense relationship with her mother.  Discuss a particular quote/page/poem that particularly that you believe has the potential to resonate with adolescent readers who are going through similar struggles to Xiomara. (Keep in mind our guiding question: What could this text do for adolescent readers?)

    The poem I selected from The Poet X that resonated with me (and that I think will resonate with adolescent readers) is “Ms. Galiano” from page 39 (this page may be different for you—I’m reading from a digital copy). The reason I chose this poem is because I think that all adolescents can or will relate to the feeling of being told “Oh you got THAT teacher?! They’re so strict or so uptight or assign so much work.”—especially in middle school and high school, which is around the grade level I imagine many The Poet X readers are. For me that teacher was my seventh-grade social studies teacher who, my sister described as being “wicked”. And not in the good connotation. But from day one, that teacher ended up being the exact opposite. In fact, that teacher my sister described as “wicked” ended up being one of my absolute all time favorite teachers. Was she strict? I guess, but she was doing her job and was trying to teach us—a bunch of punk ass tweens—a thing or two. Did she assign a lot of homework? Again, I guess, but I learned a LOT in that class that I can still recall today. And above else, did she care about her students? Absolutely. I used to test in alternate locations to minimize distractions, and I hadn’t studied for this particular geography test. She came to check on me and saw that I was distraught and was so keen on making sure that I was OK that she let me retest at a later date. And I know she would’ve done the same for any of her students!

    What this long winded anecdote is meant to suggest though is that I think we all had that one teacher. That teacher everyone says to be afraid of, but who turns out to be a genuinely amazing teacher, facilitator, and above all else, person. I think that adolescents reading The Poet X will find that, when they get to the poem “Ms. Galiano”, that a teacher of theirs comes to mind. I also think that adolescents who lack an authoritative, adult figure who loves and cares about them unconditionally, will resonate with the fact that, as Xiomara states, “… although it’s the first week of school, / and teachers always fake the funk the first week, / I have a feeling Ms. Galiano / actually wants to know my answer.” What this short excerpt exemplifies is that, in spite of what others have to say about this teacher, she genuinely cares about her students and what they have to say. I also think that adolescent may resonate with the point that Xiomara makes about Ms. Galiano being “… little… / but carries herself big… Like she’s used to shouldering her way through any assumptions made about her”. I think this is an extremely admirable trait that many adolescents will find security in—the feeling of being small, but learning to carry yourself as though you are much bigger.

3. Xiomara writes, “Late into the night I write and the pages of my notebook swell from all the words I’ve pressed onto them. It almost feels like the more I bruise the page the quicker something inside me heals.” Poetry and writing allow Xiomara to heal.  When you were an adolescent, what creative outlet or passion allowed you to heal?  Has this outlet changed now that you are older?  

    When I was an adolescent, I only had a few honest-to-goodness creative outlets. If I were upset or struggling to cope with something, I used to like listening to music while going for a walk or on a bike ride. I also played a lot of video games. As much I still like these activities, as I got older, and life threw more curve balls, my desire to find creative outlets that lend themself to more creative self-expression became much greater.

     Initially it was digital art (i.e. collages in Photoshop, video editing, etc.). I had also always wanted to learn an instrument (my sister played guitar, but I’m left-handed and am no Jimi Hendrix), so I opted to learn how to make music on the computer. Initially the music I created was a complete joke. And I mean that literally—my friends and I would make instrumentals and would freestyle rap/sing about whatever came to mind. One of my friends, Connor, went as far as to do a whole album of covers. Some covers included “Locked Out of Heaven by Bruno Mars, “Let Me Love You” by Mario, and my personal favorite “Leavin’” by Jesse McCartney.

     But as I got older, I realized how much I had learned about the software I was using and how I could produce more serious and meaningful instrumentals as a way of expressing myself. After my first break-up, I really began to take it seriously. Eventually I realized though that, as much as an instrumental can convey emotions, without words it’s meaning was somewhat superficial. That realization led me to where I am now, writing. Not song lyrics, but prose. Whether it’s for school or for myself, the amount of relief I find in writing is unprecedented.

Works Cited:

Epic Reads. “Epic Author Facts: Elizabeth Acevedo | The Poet X.” YouTube, uploaded by Epic Reads, 27 Mar. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdd9b3pfA-o.

PBS NewsHour. “‘The Poet X’ Author Elizabeth Acevedo Answers Your Questions.” YouTube, uploaded by PBS NewsHour, 30 Nov. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRrL5gSkfzY.

[pogueman]

Inside the Amazon company that's even bigger than Amazon.com

Everybody knows what “the cloud” is, right? It’s, like, internet storage or something? Sure. Yeah.

I wanted to go a little deeper. I wanted to know exactly what it is, where it is, who owns it, who runs it, and how it works. So I did a little travel, conducted some interviews—and last Sunday, “CBS Sunday Morning” aired my story. You can watch it here.

The “who runs it” part has a particularly interesting answer. In large part, the answer to that is, “Amazon” (AMZN).

Over the last decade, Amazon has quietly built up the world’s largest cloud-services company, called AWS (Amazon Web Services). In terms of income and profit, it’s much bigger than Amazon.com (the division that sells stuff by mail-order).

It’s also much bigger than its rivals, which include Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM), and Google (GOOG, GOOGL); in fact, AWS says that it’s bigger than its next 14 competitors combined.

Most companies don’t like to reveal what cloud-services company they use, but here are a few companies that don’t mind saying that they run on AWS: Hulu, Netflix, Comcast, Spotify, Pinterest, Yelp, Airbnb, Slack, PBS, SmugMug, Hertz, Time, Intuit, Unilever, Zillow, Dow Jones, Morningstar, Under Armour, Kellogg’s, Expedia, Adobe, Philips, GE, Shell, AOL, BMW, Canon, Capital One, IMDb, Johnson & Johnson, Lamborghini, Lyft, McDonald’s, NASA, Novartis, Pfizer, Philips, Samsung, SAP, Sony, SoundCloud, Ticketmaster, and the US Department of State.

For the TV story, I had the rare opportunity to interview an Amazon executive: Dr. Matt Wood. His current title is general manager for artificial intelligence AWS, but he’s been part of AWS from the beginning. (I asked him if the “Dr.” meant medical doctor or PhD doctor. In Wood’s case, both. He started his career as a medical doctor.)

As always happens, though, the time constraints of TV meant that not all of the good stuff from our interview made it into the broadcast. So here, for your reading pleasure, is a more complete edited transcript of my interview with Dr. Wood.

Dr. Matt Wood (right) joined me for a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

POGUE: Because AWS caters to businesses, not ordinary consumers, most consumers haven’t heard of it. But it’s giant, right?

WOOD: It’s a relatively large business today. We’re a little over $16 billion in revenue run rate [projected income for 2017], and we’re growing at just over 40% a year.

POGUE: So who had the foresight, when AWS started, to say, “You know what could be really a good business for us…?”

WOOD: It actually came out of Amazon retail. The developers inside Amazon retail wanted to be able to move more quickly. They were frustrated about having to write big checks [to buy new server equipment] and wait and wait and wait [for them to be delivered], and do all this extra work to be able to try out their idea.

And so we started to come up with some ideas about how we could make that faster. And so we started to explore an entirely new business for us, selling these services to businesses in the same way as Amazon was consuming them.

POGUE: So all of these companies are hiring AWS to do what?

WOOD: They are able to pull down computational power as if it was a utility.

So let’s say you’re a brewery, right? They don’t want to manage computers. They want to brew beer. They don’t want to be going through the expense and the upfront cost and all the complexity of managing these large amounts of computers.

POGUE: So it sounds like cloud companies like AWS are basically renting computers, storage, power, security—all the stuff that technicians would have normally had to do on site, right?

WOOD: That’s right, yes.

AWS is relatively unknown to consumers—but it’s by far the largest piece of Amazon.

POGUE: Are you also saying there was a time before cloud companies when people did all this stuff in house?

WOOD: Yeah. People often talk about the “heavy lifting” of building web applications or mobile applications. Well, back when I was doing my Ph.D., we were given the task—a group of Ph.D. students—to move a mainframe computer from one room to another.

This thing weighed — it must have been several tons. It took about eight wimpy nerds to try to lift it. We dropped it, and it got stuck in the doorway. (LAUGH) We had to get the university football team to come in and help us move it out of the way before our professors came back and found us!

POGUE: (Laugh) Literal heavy lifting!

WOOD: So it’s not like that today. All I need is an AWS account and a credit card, and I can start trying out new ideas, for pennies.

And larger organizations find the same benefits. And so today, very large organizations such as, you know, GE, Shell, Phillips, Netflix, all run on top of AWS.

POGUE: Really? Netflix?

WOOD: Yes.

POGUE: Wait. Amazon has a very similar business—Amazon Prime Video. Why would Netflix hire its arch-rival to store and serve up its movies?

WOOD: Well, that’s a good question. It’s one that Netflix asked us very early on. (LAUGH) From the very first day of AWS, we set up the company as a separate business. We have a separate management chain; we are situated in a separate building.

We even wanted companies that could potentially compete with Amazon.com—our cousins at retail—to be able to use the same platform. And so to AWS, Amazon.com is just another customer.

POGUE: Is there a downside to the cloud idea? Is there any reason that somebody might shy away from structuring their data this way?

WOOD: The only reason I can really think of is that some companies have already made those very, very large investments in their own data centers. They’ve signed the checks, they’ve done the waiting, they’ve racked and stacked their service. And so they’ve already made that investment.

POGUE: So suppose I’m one of these companies who’s got an existing computer setup, and I want to move to AWS…

WOOD: Yeah. There’s a couple of ways that you can do that. You can just upload it as normal. But sometimes you have so much data [that it would take forever to transmit electronically]. So we built this device–the Snowball.

(He shows me a suitcase-size, gray, plastic-enclosed case.)

The AWS Snowball can be a faster, cheaper way to send a company’s data to Amazon than uploading it.

POGUE: Snowball, you call it?

WOOD: It’s 100 terabytes of storage. And you just connect this up to your data center, load your data on. And then you just physically ship it back to us, and then we load it into the cloud from our data center.

POGUE: Ship it, like through FedEx or UPS or something—

WOOD: Exactly. You should never underestimate the bandwidth of a FedEx truck. (LAUGH) In fact, right on the front here, you can see that we have an e-ink display—basically, a Kindle—which shows the customer’s address when we ship it out to them. And then as soon as they arrive and plug it in, [the address on that screen changes to show] our data center collection location, and you just ship it back to us.

POGUE: Oh, this—this is a screen, this is not paper—

WOOD: Exactly, yes. Because we didn’t want the shipping labels to come off in transit.

POGUE: So essentially, this is like a giant shippable hard drive. Can you track it?

WOOD: Yeah; it has 3G, Wifi, and also a GPS system.

POGUE: But hard drives are delicate. What if the shipper guy drops it?

WOOD:  We built them to be robust and ruggedized. We actually built them to military specifications. We put them on a boat in the middle of a lake and then exploded depth charges around the boat and then made sure they could still work.

POGUE:  Can it handle a drop to concrete?

WOOD:  Easily, no worries.

POGUE:  Like this?  (I shoved the Snowball off the table onto the concrete floor, where it just bounced and then lay flat) It’s okay, folks! It doesn’t have a scratch on it. I don’t know about the floor, though.

WOOD: (LAUGHS)

How AWS handles security

POGUE: OK, we gotta talk about security. I imagine you have a huge staff of experts?

WOOD: Yeah. I mean, security really is job zero for us. We take it extremely seriously. It’s the first thing that we think about when we get up in the morning, it’s the last thing we think about when we go to bed.

POGUE: Because “the cloud” actually resides in data centers—huge, unmarked buildings running thousands of servers. And one AWS data center may house the livelihoods of a bunch of companies, all concentrated in one building.

WOOD: Actually, we don’t even store all of the data in one place. We don’t have a single data center. We use groups of data centers. And those groups of data centers are separated by large distances. They’re on separate floodplains and fault lines. We move data automatically between the data centers in those groups. And that means the data is always backed up, not just inside a data center or between data centers, but between groups of data centers in different physical locations.

POGUE: So I don’t mean to give anyone ideas, but let’s say I figured out that one of these unmarked buildings was an AWS data center, and I blew it up. Are you saying that it’s so backed up and redundant that you probably wouldn’t notice?

WOOD: Yeah, you wouldn’t notice. I mean, we might be a bit upset, but you wouldn’t notice.

POGUE: That leads into my other question, which is that 70% of the cloud, 70% of the world’s internet traffic, flows through data centers in Loudoun County, Virginia. Should we be worried about that concentration?

70 percent of the world’s Internet data flows through the massive data centers in Loudon County, Virginia. (CBS News)

WOOD: No, that data is backed up across multiple different physical locations. And we do that to limit the blast radius. If something does happen, or we have a power event, or there’s a flood in one specific location, that data is held redundantly in other locations, as well. So the cloud just keeps running.

POGUE: How is each physical AWS data center protected?

WOOD: The first thing is that we control personnel extremely tightly. So although I’ve been at Amazon nearly 10 years, I’ve never visited one of our data centers. I’ve never stepped foot inside them. I don’t even know their addresses.

POGUE: Because you’re not allowed to?

WOOD: Because I’m not allowed to, yeah. I don’t have any reason to be there. And a data center’s primary vector of insecurity is physical attacks. So you don’t want people there that don’t need to be there.

Beyond that, obviously we have all of the controls—the concrete, the guards, the bars—to prevent and mediate and evaluate physical access to the security. If you don’t need to be in there, you don’t get in.

POGUE: One of the data center managers told me that one reason we’ve never heard of terrorists attacking a data center is that they’re interested in terror—and that’s attacking people, not things. That a data center is just a bunch of machinery that’s easily repaired and replaced.

WOOD: Easily repaired, easily replaced, and can cause no disruption whatsoever.

POGUE: What about hacks? You know, Equifax, Sony, and other big companies being hacked. Does that have anything to do with the cloud and the way it’s structured?

WOOD: Only in that we provide developers the tools to prevent these sorts of attacks. So you can go in and very quickly protect all of your data. You can encrypt all of your data. And we even provide machine learning tools that evaluate the risk associated with your data.

So we can identify, with customers’ permission, a difference between a webpage, which is OK to deliver, or Social Security numbers and personally identifiable information. And then we continuously monitor for differences in how that data is accessed. And if we find an anomalous access, then we alert both automatic remediation and people, so they can go investigate.

POGUE: Then how do these hacks happen?

WOOD: In a variety of ways. The most common way is social engineering—trying to figure out someone’s password through nefarious processes. So calling up and saying that you are the telephone operator and you’re asking for their password, for example, and then the person just giving it to you. So it’s much more common for those sorts of attacks to be propagated.

POGUE: So the weak link turns out to be us.

WOOD: As it so often is.

More from David Pogue:

The $50 Google Home Mini vs. the $50 Amazon Echo Dot — who wins?

The Fitbit Ionic doesn’t quite deserve the term ‘smartwatch’

Augmented reality? Pogue checks out 7 of the first iPhone AR apps 

iOS11 is about to arrive — here’s what’s in it 

MacOS High Sierra comes this fall—and brings these 23 features

T-Mobile COO: Why we make investments like free Netflix that ‘seem crazy’

How Apple’s iPhone has improved since its 2007 debut

Gulliver’s Gate is a $40 million world of miniatures in Times Square

Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant is ambitious, powerful, and half-baked

Is through-the-air charging a hoax?

David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, is the author of “iPhone: The Missing Manual.” He welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. You can read all his articles here, or you can sign up to get his columns by email. 

[gunthyofficial]

Take Your Gunbot Security to Advanced Level....EASY IN 5 MIN!

Are you using all advantage of security features that Gunbot offers to protect your money?

Like in real life, cyber-space is full of pick-pockets. You would never leave your phone and wallet with credit cards and cash on the table coffee bar while going to the restroom for a few minutes? Of course, you would not. But, are you aware of all potential threats that can harm your hard-earned crypto-cash while you sleeping? Is your answer YES? Then, you must have headaches and insomnia from reading all the news, hack forums, CVE site, and others. Is your answer NO? Good for you, the grass is green, the sky is blue, you sleep calmly. Everything is fine until something bad happens. Then you start asking questions like “What I could do to prevent it” or “How it happened??”

Here in Gunthy, we consider security as the top priority. Money is money, no matter is it in the form of paper, number on your bank account or cryptocurrency, you should know how to protect it.

Encryption and security today is perfect. It’s based on mathematical functions built-in ways it’s impossible to break down. Even with all computer power in the world, it can take more than a few million years to break one cryptographic key pair. So, how all these thefts happen you may ask? The answer is not “easy” or something that will blow your mind. The answer is most of the times HUMAN error. Lack of knowledge, wrong or partial security implementation, being lazy and careless result running unprotected machines or software are common causes of all “hacks”. Ok, I didn’t forget social engineering, but it's topic for next time. Grab your cup of coffee and let’s start, this will be quick and easy  

1. Most of Gunbot users use Linux VPS server to run their bots. Why you should too?

SECURITY! Linux is free and open-source software and its code are reviewed by thousands of developers all over the world compared to dozen of employees that code other closed-source OS, like Windows. Maybe you heard something like “Viruses don’t hit Linux!”, it’s partially true. Most of the software for Linux is free and open-source, anyone can review it – that means it’s hard to “hide” malicious code inside. PERFORMANCE! Running fully functional OS without graphic with only command line sounds like a nightmare to you? It takes some time to get used, but once you master it, it becomes much faster. Remove the graphic user interface and leave CPU and RAM for running things that matter. Most modern Linux distros use less than 250MB of RAM space after boot. Also, not having bloatware installed increases stability – it’s crucial if you want your money-maker bots to run 24/7/365 without interruption. Did you know that you can update all your Linux apps and packages without ever restarting the machine? Even upgrade OS is possible. Imagine migration from Win 7 to Win 10 without restarting your machine, crazy isn’t it? PRICE! Period. You can’t beat free, right? Especially with that performance, you can save on the VPS plan and buy cheaper ones.

2. Installing Gunbot on your VPS and secure it!

Ok, now the fun starts. Download your Gunbot to your machine, unzip it and… DON’T RUN IT YET! We have important things to do before, security first, right? Probably you running Linux and access to your machine via SSH. Great, but if your GUI is still unprotected. First, you need to install “OpenSSL” package, type in terminal (for most distributions): sudo apt-get install openssl Then navigate to /lin folder where you unzipped Gunbot. Type in terminal: openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout localhost.key -x509 -days 365 -out localhost.crt   You will be asked to enter the country code, after that you can leave everything blank. It will not affect security. Now, you have to edit your config.js file from Gunbot installation. Find: "https": false, and change it to: "https": true, Save config.js file. You have successfully enabled SSL for your Gunbot GUI! Now, you can start Gunbot and access it via a web browser at: https://your-vps-ip:5000 But wait, it says “your connection is not secure!!” That happens because SSL certificate is self-signed, it’s normal. You can have signed an SSL certificate by companies like VeriSign, Norton, etc, but they cost a lot of money. Only payment sites use them and if you ever go to the site that requests your credit card info or similar with self-signed certificate – RUN AWAY! “Your connection is not secure” warning is actually for that moments. Now, with SSL installed – you can create a password for Gunbot GUI without fear that anyone will intercept your password in-between your PC and VPS server. The last thing for today (I said it will be quick and easy) is setting up 2FA authentication. It is a good idea if you completed previous steps with your PC, now use your phone, laptop or any other device for this step. This is the last line of defense and you don’t want to make mistake now. Even if someone has compromised your PC and watching your whole time while you entering a new password for your GUI, let’s say “it’s still OK”. Change device, use your phone for example. Install any 2FA software, depends on your preference, like Gauth, Authy, etc... Go to https://your-vps-ip:5000, enter your password. Navigate to Settings > Authentication > Enable Two-Factor Authentication. Scan QR code or copy the “QR Code” phase under the QR code image to your preferred 2FA application. Make sure you make a backup of the QR code or phase in case you lose your 2FA device. Do not store it on your PC or phone, best practice is to write it on a piece of paper and store it safely. Congratulations! You are safe now! Well, almost. There are many other ways for hackers to exploit, but more on that later, I promised to be short right now. Even this 10 minutes of your work can make your Gunbot protected enough for some attackers to quit and leave you alone and go search for next easy target.

Install self-signed SSL certificate

It encrypts all communication between your PC and your Gunbot GUI. All passwords, settings, API keys and everything you do is impossible to see for any Man-in-the-Middle. Your ISP, VPN, various routers around internet or even other devices connected to your WiFi network can see your passwords and all you do if you are not using HTTPS.

Setting GUI password

It’s obvious. But this feature is used very poor by many people. Did you know how easy is for modern computer to brute-force passwords? All 8-lenght lower-case combinations can be brute-forced in few hours on home PC. Good strong password should be at least 16 characters, contain upper-case and lower-case letters, special signs as !./%# and numbers. It would take more than many million years with all computers in existance to guess correct password. Use password managers and protect them also! You can’t blame Gunbot security if you use LetMeIn! as your password. Also use different password for every site in case one of sites go down. There is big chance that one of forums, web-shops, etc where you have account already got hacked!

Two-Factor Authentication

It’s your last resort if your password goes down! 2FA device generates new code every minute and old one becomes invalid, so if attacker doesn’t have latest key he is unable to get in.

Now with bot set up like this, #ifyouarenotinkrakentradingcompetitionyouaregay

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[allenmendezsr]

Crypto Ultimatum - Simply Follow The Methods And Multiply Your Money!

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Updated at: Jan.18.2020

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(X252, X92, X48, X39, X17)

Stellar price on January 5, 2017

$0.0027

on January 5, 2018

$0.681

Exchange rate increase

X252

Ethereum price on January 3, 2017

$9.69

on January 3, 2018

$898.13

Exchange rate increase

X92

XRP (Ripple) price on May 16, 2016

$0.006

Exchange rate increase

X48

Litecoin price on December 09, 2016

$3.71

on December 09, 2017

$143.46

Exchange rate increase

X39

Bitcoin price on March 25, 2017

$941.43

on December 11, 2017

$16,697.60

Exchange rate increase

X17

Tim Draper venture capitalist told these to CNBC, who thinks that Bitcoin is going to be worth up to $250,000. Tim Draper has successfully foreseen the rise of Tesla and Skype – now he considers Bitcoin as the biggest business.

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According to Henry Blodget, the CEO of Business Insider, the value of Bitcoin may reach $1 million.

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Updated at: Jan.18.2020

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EXTREMELY LIMITED: This special edition of “Crypto Ultimatum” (with bonuses) will be removed from the market VERY SOON.

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Do NOT miss this opportunity!

Regular Price: $77

You can get it for only $9.99 now!

(one time secure payment, 100% risk-free, satisfaction guarantee)

P.S.: BONUS #1 (value $97): ULTRA-PASSIVE INCOME: I have included a method in the package that helps You make money in an ULTRA-PASSIVE way thanks to cryptocurrencies.

BONUS #2 (value $147): SURPRISE BONUS: You will know laser-precisely after learning the method, what to do in a specific market condition. You will know when to buy, when to sell and when to keep a certain cryptocurrency.

P.P.S.:

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P.P.P.S.:

Get the “Crypto Ultimatum” training system right now to make high profit within 24 hours!

“Crypto Ultimatum”: Frequently Asked Questions

Q

Is an absolutely beginner able to understand the content of the training?

Yes! Understanding the training system does not require any skill, it introduces everything in details.

Q

May a professional dealing with cryptocurrencies for a while find useful information in it?

Yes, certainly! Such techniques are also included in the training, which are known by very few, and even less people can use them successfully.

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Yes, it may be used perfectly on both systems.

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Yes! I am continuously updating the training, and all updates will be available free of charge. The last update was on: Jan.18.2020

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Yes, of course. My goal is to support You making money using cryptocurrencies. If You get stuck anywhere, or do not understand something, feel free to send me a message and I will answer.

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[siva3155]

300+ TOP COGNOS ReportNet Interview Questions and Answers

COGNOS ReportNet Interview Questions for freshers experienced :-

1. What is the main advantage of impromptu over cognos reportnet? One of the advantage's of Reportnet, is 1. It is web-based reporting wherein, reports can be easily accessed from anywhere through a browser. by using ipromptu we can use multidimensional analysis to see the data in diff formates.i.e we have drillup,drilldown features in cognos impromtu,but it is not possible in reportnet. 2. What is the difference between Native SQL and Cognos SQL? In cognos reportnet Native SQL is used for the single datasource to import the meta data Cognos SQL used for multiple datasources to import the metadata 3. What is the Difference between PowerPlay transformer and power play reports? 'Powerplay transformer' is an 'MOLAP' tool using which one can create multi dimensional structure called "CUBE". 'Powerplay for reports' is used to generate report from the cube.Only one report can be generated from one cube.If u want 'n' reports u must create 'n' cubes. 4. Is there any comparison available for Cognos Reportnet Vs Crystal reports? There is a lot of difference between Crystal reports an Cognos Report net. Crystal report is a product of Business Objects where as Reportnet is of cognos. Cryatal reports is for only low 2 midrange analysis and that to some even says tha they wont use this for analysis used to make proper strategic decision But report net yes it is for high end analysis. In reportnet we can login through web and can create our own desired report through web. 5. How do i allow a dynamic selection of a column for a measure in a chart,without using Variable You can in do it in this way. first creat a list report in which u have a calculated item in the starting. Then creat a prompt page with a value prompt.In value prompt creat static choice of which u want to be dynamically displayed. Let the parameter of value prompt be ?Par1? and the choices as Revenue, Cost. Now u write the expression of the calculated item in the report page as follows, "If ?Par1?=Revenue then Revenue else Cost. Here Revenue,Cost should b dragged from the Model Items. So now the calculated item column displays the value of the one selected in the prompt. Now make a graph using the list report,then place the calculated item on the axis of the chart ,which u wanted to display dynamically based on ur selection. So now if u select Revenue in the prompt then the grph will take the values for Revenue.And if u select Cost then graph will be with the values of Cost. 6. How do we drill through from a powerplay cube to reportnet? Setting up drill-through access from PowerPlay Web to ReportNet involves configuring Cognos Series 7 for drill-through access to ReportNet preparing the Transformer model and cube copying the search path of the folder that contains the target report enabling the cube for drill-through access to ReportNet deciding which filters to create in the target report creating the target report disabling the Drill Through Assistant 7. What are versions of reportnet? In ReprotNet have two vertions ReportNet 1.0 ReportNet 1.1 MR1, MR2 8. What is prompt?types of prompts?use of prompts?syntax of prompt? Prompts act as questions that help users to customize the information in a report to suit their own needs.The different types of Prompt are Value prompt Text Prompt Date prompt Time prompt Date and time prompt Using prompts is faster and easier than repeatedly changing the filter. Cognos Report Studio provides several ways to create prompts. You can use the Build Prompt Page tool build your own prompt and prompt page create a parameter to produce a prompt create a Prompt directly in a report page 9. What is difference between qurry studio and report studio? Query Studio: Used to create Ad-hoc (or) simple reports. It does not provide any pre-defined report templates. It directly displays data (without running the report) when we insert attributes in the report. Report Studio: Used to create complex reports. It provides pre-defined report templates. It does not display the data directly in the report. We need to run the report to display the data. 10. What are components of report studio? Componenets of Report Studio: Insertable Objects pane. Properties pane. Explorer bar - Conditional Explorer, Query Explorer, Page Explorer. Report Viewer - Workarea, Report Layout Objects.

COGNOS ReportNet Interview Questions 11. What are necessary tasks to install reportnet software You need to do the following for a standard installation process: Verify your system requirements like RAM Minimum: 512 MB, a Web server installed and started Review the ReportNet default settings like default ReportNet ports and URI settings. Create the database for the content store which means you must create the database that is used for the content store using either Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or DB2 UDB. ReportNet uses this database to store, organize, and retrieve information. Install ReportNet: Use the installation wizard to select the components you want to install and the location on your computer where you want to install them. Set up the database client for the content store (Oracle and DB2): If you use Oracle or DB2 as the database server for the content store, additional steps are required after you install ReportNet before you can configure ReportNet. you need to go to the 6th step only when installing on UNIX. For Windows above 5 steps are good. Update Your Java Environment: Before you can use the cryptographic operations, such as data encryption and key management, implemented by ReportNet, you must check that the required JAR (Java Archive) files are present in your Java Runtime Environment (JRE). 12. What are components of reportnet? ReportNet has a three-tier architecture, namely, (1) Web server (2) Applications and (3) Data. The tiers are based on business function, and are typically separated by firewalls. ReportNet user interfaces sit above the tiers.ReportNet user interfaces include (a) Web-based Cognos Connection, Cognos Report Studio, and Query Studio (b) Windows-based Framework Manager 13. How do we provide security in frame work manager for a query subject? procedure for providing security for query subject in frame work manager is: select querysubject -> in properties pane select ->security filters(click on edit)a specify data security wizard appears->click on add groups -> cognosnamesspace(select users and groups wizard opens) 14. I want to display zero when null values coming to report how can I do that? You can follow this procedure :- Lets assume revenue is the field in which we have to display null values as 0. First create a calculated item and Then write the expression of the cal item using If Then Else construct as If (Revenue is null) Then ('0') Else(Revenue) I think u can easily understand this. Now u can see that the null values r displayed as '0' in the calculated item. Select the data item in which you want to replace null with 0 .Go to Properties pane, Click Data Format, in this put 0 in Missing value Characters. 15. How can i create prompts in report net Prompts is mean by the end user can be filter the data. you can open the explore bar and added the new prompts page, And enter the new name. you go to tool menu and track prompts button you select prompts and then ok 16. Difference between filter and conditin The difference between Filter and Condition:Condition returns true or false Ex: if Country = 'India' then ...Filter will return two types of results1.Detail information which is equal to where clause in SQL statement2.Summary information which is equal to Group by and Having clause in SQL statement 17. Can report net connect multiple datasource at a time in report creation time Yes it can connect multiple datasources at a time when the frame work manager has the metta data regarding that datasources. 18. How can i test report in reportnet If we wanna test the report in report net, first we can intially check by validating it in the report page. After that we can test the out put of the report Using a sql anlyser and sql query.so here we will be comparing the sql analyzer output with the output of the report viewer. 19. What are the various file formats involved in reportnet? It has six (6) formats in report net. They are HTML, PDF, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, CSV, and XML format. We can see the types of formats in the report viewer on the right side . 20. How to generate IQD file from framework manager Create a Query Subject, from the properties pane select externalise,there we have 4 options in that select IQD 21. What is meant by Junk Dimension? The junk dimension is simply a structure that provides a convenient place to store the junk attributes".It's randomly used dimension. 22. what are semi and non additive measures.. 1.Semi-Additive: Semi-additive facts are facts that can be summed up for some of the dimensions in the fact table, but not the others. 2.Non-Additive: Non-additive facts are facts that cannot be summed up for any of the dimensions present in the fact table. Current Balance and Profit Margin are the facts. Current Balance is a semi-additive fact, as it makes sense to add them up for all accounts (what's the total current balance for all accounts in the bank?), but it does not make sense to add them up through time (adding up all current balances for a given account for each day of the month does not give us any useful information). Profit Margin is a non-additive fact, for it does not make sense to add them up for the account level or the day level. 23. What is catalog and types of catalogs in cagonos and which is better? catalog is a data base and also frient hand data base. types of catalog is 4 tyes personal secured shared distributed 24. what is difference between PAGE BREAK and Section Report? Section-section is eliminate the duplicate recod.but report looking separate bluck.setpagebreak means to display the reports in onepage. eg. suppose u create a list report ordermethod,orderyear,revenue when u create section on ordermethod.it will eliminate the duplicate record.but when u apply the set pagebreakc.report display in onepage.like fax reports in onepage,email reports in another page.this in cognos 8 querystudio.But in report studio you can do using propetispan. 25. use this query i am retriving all years OCt data from 01-10-2004 to 30-10-2007 i need to restrect this query to current date and current year ..between 01 and to_number(to_char(current_date,'MM'))and ..=to_number(to_char(current_date,'MM')) pass polar ID A.You have a function called 'extract' in cognos. Ex:- extract(month,the dte field). by giving like this you will get month. so you can keep a filter to restrict the rows only for october. COGNOS ReportNet Questions with Answers Pdf Download Read the full article

[mmoinstituteguru-blog]

How to Start a Blog in 9 Simple Steps (Beginners Guide)

How to Start a Blog in 9 Simple Steps - Starting a blog was a big dream I had, and always wanted to actualize. But the issue then was that I didn't know where to start. As a beginner, without any idea how to start a blog, it could be so complicated. Why say so? Because I had the same experience. Back then I used to hear people saying that, before you can start a blog, you must know how to code, which actually was my main obstacle. I became so worried about the fact that I did not know how to use HTML or whatsoever to code, so bad, I had not enough money to pay a web developer for the job.

How to Start a Blog as I Did without Any Technical Knowledge.

Ok, I'd like to learn how to code, it's worthwhile. But on second thought, can't I start a blog without having to code? My desire to own a blog is what propelled me to go deep into studying the nitty-gritty of starting a blog without any technical knowledge of coding or whatsoever. In this article, I will be more open-minded, guiding you through all the steps I took to start my blog. The information provided here is purely written from my experience. I like to share this because I believe you also would want to start a blog, but because of how difficult and complex you see it be, it hindered you. Now the tide has changed, starting a blog is no more a hard-to-do. All you have to do to start your blog is get a chair, sit comfortably and follow the guide below; Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a little commission if you click through and make a purchase. Now, let’s get started. 1. Choose Your Niche: What do you want to blog about? Choosing a niche is crucial, your first step to start a blog. Are you interested in entertainment, like music, sports? You can start an entertainment website. Or, do you like keeping up with the latest tech trends? You can start a Technology website, to make it more fashionable, a tech site. You can start a blog and earn from your passion. A niche is simply your area of interest. You wouldn’t want to talk about sport, and technology at the same time. So, having a niche guarantees you to position yourself as a professional and talk to a particular set of audience. Some niche example includes Business, Technology, School, Entertainment, Finance, Automobile, Sports, Health, etc. The niche you select must be something you are so much interested in, if you are not passionate about the niche you choose, you wouldn’t be focused, and you would be more willing to be discouraged. I did so well to choose my niche of which I have a passion for it. 2. Pick your Domain Name: What would you like to name your Blog? You wouldn't want to have a website without a name, of course, that is not possible. So, you must have to pick a domain name for your blog. A domain name is any name given to a website on the internet. It is your unique address on the internet, for example, you type mmoinstitute.com into your browser to visit the website, that’s the website’s domain name. A domain name is followed by either a TLD or ccTLD. TLD means top-level domain, such as .com, .net, .org. These domains are poised to target a global audience, that is, all over the world. Most websites on the internet make use of .com and it is the most preferred. CcTLDs, these are country code top level domains, such as .com.uk, .com.ng, .com.in, .com.sg. These domains target specific countries. Although they can still be accessed anywhere in the world.  For example, the .com.ng domain targets Nigeria, .com.uk targets United Kingdom, .com.sg, Singapore. You can choose any of those, it all depends on your target audience, you want to go worldwide, and I suggest you choose the TLDs, or you are targeting the audience in your geographic location, you can go with the CcTLDs, but you can still use the TLDs for this. Now, what would you like to name your website? You may decide to name it after your name, like my name Samuel Umo, I can use samuelumo.com, or you can choose any name that you find suitable to use. For those whose first choice of the domain name is not available or has been taken by some other user. Do not panic, there are thousands of names out there to choose from that are yet to be noticed. Think smart, you will come to find a better alternative.

How to Register Your Domain Name.

For your website to be visible on the internet, you must purchase a domain name and register it. There are a couple of domain name registrars to choose from. But most users will go for Bluehost. I also recommend Bluehost. They provide affordable web hosting, a free domain name for the first year of your web hosting and a couple of spectacular features to help you get started smoothly. 3. Find a Reliable Hosting Provider: Where do you want to host your blog? To make your website accessible to other people on the internet, you need a Host. Your web host serves as a shelter to your website. It stores your website files and database, it makes sure your site is safe and secure that it can be easily accessed when people click on your link or type your URL. Finding a reliable hosting provider is one thing that really matters. There are hundreds, if not thousands of web hosting services out there to choose from, but what you should be looking for in all of them is; Speed, Security, Storage, Performance, and Real-time Support. These are important features to consider when choosing a web hosting service. There are many out there, but few are chosen. Bluehost is one web hosting service, I’ve found worthy of this, yes, I know very well that I have mentioned them several times in this article, and it is for a good reason.

4. Choose a versatile Content Management system (CMS): Which Blogging Platform do you want to use? Before I proceed, allow me to be more sincere to you. There are two compulsory questions to answer here that are really important. First, do you want to start a blog, just to own a blog? And secondly, do you want to start a blog, and make money or simply earn a living from blogging? The answers to these very questions are really important to you. Why? Because they will help you understand why you need to follow these steps, as I have given you. Before I started my blog I had to understand, why I want to start blogging, I asked myself these questions as I have asked you. And thankfully, I was at my best. RECOMMENDED: How to Start Dropshipping Business in 4 Simple Steps (Beginners Guide) Now, without wasting much of your time, let’s understand what a Content Management system (CMS) is? A Content Management System (CMS) is a platform that allows you to design your blog, write, edit, and publish your blog posts. Choosing a versatile content management system is one thing that really matters. There are several blogging platforms available to choose from, some of which include, Wordpress.org, Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, Tumblr.com, Wix, Squarespace, Medium, etc. Like I said earlier, you should understand why you need to start a blog. Knowing the right answer to this question will guide you through in all your steps to start a blog, and choosing the right blogging platform is one of these steps. There are basically two major blogging platforms to start a blog; 1. Hosted platforms 2. Self-hosted Platforms Hosted blogging platforms: These are platforms owned by companies (like Wordpress.com, Tumblr.com, Blogger.com, Wix, Squarespace, medium, etc.), that provide simple proprietary software to build your blog, and storage to save your website files. With Hosted platforms you don’t have control of your blog, your blog is managed by a third party, and you are limited in some functionalities as regards building your blog to standard, which may, in turn, affect you, if you plan to monetize your blog later on. Self-hosted platforms: These are platforms (like, Wordpress.org) that allows you superior accessibility to functionalities and absolute control over your website. With self-hosted platforms you can decide your website appearance, that is, how you want your website to look. You have access to hundreds, if not thousands of plugins that will help you build and design your website to standard. Not enough, you have opportunities to monetize your website freely and without limitations. Now, after hearing all these, which do you prefer as your blogging platform? It’s a choice to make there. But I suggest you go for the self-hosted platforms, with reasons, as discussed above. The most popular content management system you likely have heard of is Wordpress.org, which is what I use here in mmoinstitute.com. And thankfully, it’s a self-hosted platform that promises professionalism. In fact, the latest figures account to 33.6% of the website running on Wordpress.org, including TechCrunch, Forbes and many of top popular website all over the world.

How to Install Wordpress for your Blog.

There are several means to install Wordpress by Bluehost, Softaculous, FTP, LocalHost, etc., but for the purpose of this article, we will use Bluehost. When you sign up on Bluehost here, you have access to all of their features. One of their unique features is that Bluehost comes with a one-click-installer for Wordpress. Here you can install Wordpress and set up your website in a few minutes. Now, how do you install WordPress on Bluehost? 1. Select or choose your preferred hosting package, we recommend the starter package. It offers lots of speed and spectacular performance for your first website. You may decide to change to a more advanced Hosting as your website grows. 2. You will be prompted to choose your domain. Choose your preferred domain here. 3. On the next page that appears, you will be asked to fill your details. Enter your personal information and credit card details there, and make your payment. 4. After making your payment, a green bottom indicating install on cPanel from Bluehost appears, click the bottom to begin the process. 5. Although not necessary, you will be asked if you want your website with or without {www} before the name of your website {like our website, www.mmoinstitute.com} or simply {mmoinstitute.com}. If you are not able to decide what to use there, you can live it, as it can be easily changed later on. 6. Wordpress installation details, like email ID, Username and Password can be set. Read and accept all terms and conditions given under license agreement. Then click install. 7. Once the installation is complete, you will see a clear message at the top stating, “Your installation is complete” And a button showing “View credentials”. Clicking this button will take you where you can find your newly installed Wordpress login credentials. 5. Add SSL Certificates to your site: You want your site to be secured? At first, I started my blog without adding an SSL certificate, but when I came to understand the need for it, I didn't wait to be told the second time, and that is exactly what you should do if you want your website to remain safe and secured. Now, if you’re using your personal computer to read this article, take your mouse to the top left corner of your browser search box that is where you will find my website URL. Right there, you will see that the URL appears as {https://www.mmoinstitute.com/} and shows a green lock symbol, before it. The most website has their URL starting with https, some with http. The difference between a secured website and the other lies in the https which actually is the secured one. I hope you understand me. The SSL means “security sockets layer”. It serves to secure your website by adding a special security layer on your website. This is one of the unique features Bluehost offers. 6. Choose a Theme and Design Your Blog: Don’t you like to see your blog beautiful? The Beauty of your site is one thing that attracts potential visitors to your site. It has a greater impact, growing your website as regards sending traffic, that is, the number of people visiting your site on a regular basis. Having a good theme can make your site talk of the city. So, you must have to find a good theme for your blog. If you have gone with a self-hosted platform as we suggested, you will have plenty of good themes at disposal, both free and paid. However paid themes are incredibly great and most of these themes are relatively inexpensive. Like the one, we usually recommend, Mythemeshop. Once you buy a theme, you will own it forever and get all the benefit of great support and customization option that applies to premium WordPress themes.  Now, how do you install your theme? After downloading your theme, head over to your Wordpress dashboard Click on Appearance, under it submenus, you will see Themes, click on it. There, you will see the “Add New” option, click on it. Select the theme file you just download and click on install. Wait for some minutes for the installation to be complete, then finally click on Activate. Now your theme is live!!! 7. Add Relevant Pages to your blog: You would like to add new pages to your blog? Without relevant pages in your blog, visitors will likely not understand what your website offers, so it’s important that you add them. Some of which include the About, Contact and Privacy Policy pages. So, how do you go about this? Go to your dashboard, you will see Pages, click on it There, you will see the “Add New” page option, click on it as well. Create your new pages there and click publish. 8. Write and Publish Your First Post: You would want to see your first post go live on the internet? One of the best moments I ever had starting a blog, was to see my first post go live on the internet. Wordpress is designed with great functionalities to simplify the blogging process. Writing and publishing my first blog post wasn’t a hard-to-do at all, because, I became friendly with the interface as I see that, all the tools I needed to get work done were actually in place. I believe by now, you should have had what to write about and without wasting your time let’s see how you can write and publish your first blog post. Go to your dashboard Click on “Add new” post As you clicked, you will be taken to the editing interface. There, you will be able to write and edit your post as you like. Finally, click on publish. Congratulations, your post is now live! 9. Promote Your Post: You want your post to reach as many people as possible? At first, I thought that when I publish my post it will be visible to everyone online. But that was a dream I never actualized. So good I published my first post successfully, but why then, I still see 0 views and no comments? Something must be wrong, ha-ha, so funny. But that was the impression I had. Although it wasn't really a problem, it could be a problem. Why? Because you need people to see your posts and read them. Most importantly, you need traffic if you would later want to earn from your blog (The more your traffic, the better you earn). If you are looking to drive traffic to your blog, either to create a strong online presence or build a successful business from your blog, you will need to promote your blog to a greater level. So, how do you promote your blog posts? The first and best place to turn to is social media. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, whatever platform you find suitable for your niche is the perfect one for you. And that is an important notice.

How to Make Money from Your Blog

If you still remember, I told you that, before you start a blog, you must know why you want to start a blog. Do you want to start a blog, just to own a blog? Or, do you want to start a blog, and make money blogging or simply earn a living blogging? Having a good understanding of why you want to start a blog, will allow you the space to make the right decision as you start your blog. Everybody would want to earn from their passion, with this, I see no reason why you wouldn’t want to start a blog and make money blogging. Starting a blog was not just a dream for me, it was what I had passion for. And I made it clear to myself at the very beginning that I was not just going to start a blog, but also make money blogging, even earn a living from it. You can also make this decision, and trust me, you won’t regret it. All it takes is your decision, commitment, patience, and then success at last. Before we get into, how you can start making money from your blog, let me quickly say this. Making money blogging is not something you should start thinking immediately, as you just start your blog. Though, having this in mind is essential. But, before you can start making money from your blog you need to find your readers, start building relationships with them, create a community around your blog and continue to deliver value (as content) before you will be able to build long term income from your blog. With these bases in place, you are now ready to start trying to make money with your blog, but you should keep in mind that just because you have set up your blog, have contents and have committed readers, the money will not be made automatically. It takes continuous work and experimentation to earn money with your blog. Now, let’s see how you can make money from your blog. One of the most common misconceptions bloggers have about blog monetization is that they have to do it in one of a handful of ways. The reality is that there are many ways to earn money through blogging. Now, let’s have a look at some of the best ways to monetize your blog and start earning.  1. Advertising Many bloggers start here. In many ways this model of making money from blogs is not different from how magazines or newspapers sell ads. As traffic and brand increase, advertisers will be willing to pay to get exposure to your audience. Although you need decent traffic for direct collaboration with advertisers, there are ad networks like Google AdSense that serve as brokers and allow smaller publishers to show ads on their blogs. This is where many bloggers start. 2. Affiliate Marketing Here's how affiliate marketing works: You get a special tracking link from the company you're an affiliate for. Then, you place that link within posts on your blog, emails to your blog subscribers, and place it in elsewhere that you can get to your readers. When someone clicks on that tracking link and completes the purchase, sign in, then you earn either a set fee or a percentage of that sale. You’re getting compensated for referring new customers to your affiliate partners. RECOMMENDED READING: How to Start Affiliate Marketing in 3 Basic Steps (Beginners Guide) If you have a website related to online marketing, blogs or businesses, there are fortunately many really strong affiliate programs for different services. I wanted to share some of my favorites so you could get an idea of ​​what an affiliate program entails and start having an idea of ​​what might work on your site. Bluehost - Bluehost is a web hosting company. The most reliable blog hosting provider, used with several websites over the years. Bluehost Web Hosting Affiliate is one of the most lucrative affiliate programs available. AliDropship - AliDropship is an eCommerce plugin designed to simplify the drop shipping process. The AliDropship Affiliate Program is completely free and anyone can sign up. Once signed up, you can start promoting their products and earn legitimate income with minimal efforts. RECOMMENDED READING: How to Start Dropshipping Business in 4 Simple Steps (Beginners Guide) 3. Selling eBooks and Online Courses. This is so interesting, you know you can even start from week 1, to make money from your blog. Selling eBooks and online courses is one of the easiest ways to make money blogging. Once you have acquired a skill, or experience that others also want to learn, it is relatively easy to integrate your best tips, strategies, tactics and tutorials into an online course, where people can pay for access to accelerate their learning much quicker and faster than they would otherwise have done going through the confusing process of learning by trial and error. Incredible! 4. Selling physical products Platforms like Woocommerce, Shopify, Wix, & Etsy have made it cheaper and easier than ever for anyone to create an online store and sell products online. Selling physical products online can be difficult to set up, as you will have to deal with storage, shipping and even things like local taxes and distance selling laws. Of course, much of this headache can be solved by finding a company that offers a direct shipping service or white label, like Jumia, Aliexpress, Amazon, etc., which will allow you to only worry about getting traffic and update the website. RECOMMENDED READING: How to Start an Online Store in 8 Simple Steps (Beginners Guide) 5. Selling digital products If you do not want the headaches of dealing with product shipping and storage, creating digital products can be a great way to earn money selling products and taking advantage of the scale of your business. Anything, from productivity software, to weaving patterns, recipes or even training courses, can be delivered electronically.

I hope this guide proves immensely to you. Do not hesitate to hire us if you are still confused or the processes seem too tedious/technical.

Do you have any more questions to ask or would you like to make a reasonable contribution that will be useful to our readers? Please talk to us in the comment box below and we would be delighted to welcome your sincere contribution. If you find that this post is useful enough to start a blog, please do not hesitate to share with your friends using the share buttons below. Read the full article

[corvosdaughter]

How To Make A Basic Discord Chatbot For Absolute Beginners

(by an absolute beginner who spent a full day blundering around and somehow made a functioning chatbot. for @tiigre)

This is a guide on how to make a basic chatbot that functions like a Magic 8-ball i.e. picks a random response when called up on text chat. 

NOTE: This chatbot uses Python. This guide assumes you don’t have any programming experience, but to make the bot more complex you’ll have to read up on both Python and Discord’s Python API Documentation.

WHAT YOU NEED

- An admin user account on a computer with Windows.

- A Discord account which is an admin for a server (even a server purely for testing bots)

Video Reference (not mine): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6tBvQSXJ7I

PART 1: SETTING UP

STEP 1: Download the latest version (3.4+) of Python here (including IDLE) and install.

STEP 2: Download the Discord Python API here and unzip. Save the file in the same folder as the (installed) Python application.

STEP 3: Add Python to the PATH variable. (Note: the exact links may be a little different in versions of Windows that aren’t 10.)  This video is a very clear visual explanation but in simple text terms

- Open Control Panel, go into System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings > [Advanced tab if not already there] > Environment Variables 

- Click on the “Path” line in the top box, then click “Edit”. 

- If you haven’t already made a new path variable, “Edit” should open up a window with only one editable line- make sure there’s a semi-colon ; at the end of the location already there, as it separates entries. If “Edit” brings you to a larger window with a list of locations in the computer, click “New”.

- Open up File Explorer and find the location of your Python application. Copy this into the Edit window. Assuming you saved it in the default place, it should be something like

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36-32

- Save, then add another path that’s the same, except with \Scripts added to the end i.e.

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36-32\Scripts

- Click OK when you’re done. You can close all the windows you just used.

STEP 4: Open up Command Prompt on your computer (search for cmd) and install the Discord library by typing 

python -m pip install discord.py

or alternatively

python3 -m pip install -U discord.py

and hitting enter. You should be able to see it installing.

PART 2: WRITING THE BOT

This Bot is called with !talk, responding to a question if one is asked, or making another comment otherwise.

It functions by having numbers allocated to several quotes (split into comments and answers). The program determines if the caller has asked a question or not, and therefore whether it should respond with a comment or an answer. It then picks a number at random and returns the associated quote.

STEP 5: Open up IDLE and go to File>New. The following code will make a basic chatbot as described above (indentation matters!):

import discord from discord.ext import commands import random

bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix="!")

@bot.event async def on_ready():    print("Bot logged on: " + bot.user.name + "//" + bot.user.id)

@bot.command() async def talk(arg=“whatever”):    talkdict = {0: "Should we gather for whiskey and cigars tonight?",                1: "Damn, I need to pee.",                2: "Think you'll get your own squad after what happened last  night?",                3: "Things are bad. Could the city get any worse?"                }    answerdict = {0: "Indeed, I believe so.",                  1: "Blow off, choffer.",                  2: "Never doubt it.",                  3: "Chances are very good.",                  4: "Bug someone else."                  }    randomtalk = random.randrange(0, len(talkdict))    randomanswer = random.randrange(0, len(answerdict))    if arg and arg[-1] == "?":        await bot.say(answerdict[randomanswer])    else:        await bot.say(talkdict[randomtalk])

bot.run("{Token}")

Tweak/rewrite as needed and save, making sure it’s a Python file (.py). Like the Python API wrapper, it’s probably best to save this in the same folder as the Python program (which is the default location anyway).

Some explanations of what’s been written above (feel free to skip this section):

- First chunk: importing the modules you need for the bot to function.

- Second chunk (single line): setting the sign you want to call up the bot e.g. if you wanted your bot to respond to /talk instead of !talk, you’d replace the exclamation mark with a slash.

- Third chunk (@bot.event): defining what Command Prompt will say when you run the bot.

- Fourth chunk (@bot.command()): defining the actual thing you want your bot to do. In this case, “talk” is the function name and “arg” is the function’s argument i.e. the input. So, on discord with this bot running, !talk[space]argument would get a response from the bot. =“whatever” is setting a default for the argument so your code won’t fail if you have put no argument at all. If you want multiple functions, just add a second @bot.command() chunk with a different function name.

- Sub-chunks “talkdict” and “answerdict” both define a type of variable called a dictionary, which is more or less like an actual dictionary. They take the form of {key: value, secondkey: secondvalue}. Keys must be different from all others in the same dictionary. As this bot works by generating a random integer (the key) and spouting the assigned value, each key is a number and each value is what you want the bot to say, in quotes.

- Sub-chunks “randomtalk” and “randomanswer” both pick a random number between 0 (inclusive) and the number of entries in the dictionary (non-inclusive). So in this case, randomtalk can generate numbers 0, 1, 2 and 3 as there are 4 entries in talkdict.

- Sub-chunk beginning with “if” creates the condition for the bot to pick a line from answerdict- presumably when the caller is asking a question. Due to the way Python works, a single argument is either one word, or several words within quotes. So you would get a line from answerdict if the call was 

!talk ? or !talk question? or !talk “question with many words?”

but not if the call was 

!talk question with many words?

- “Else” sub-chunk is fairly self-explanatory: if the argument is determined not to be a question according to the “if” condition, then a random line is chosen from the general “talkdict” dictionary.

- The final line will connect your bot to Discord, but don’t worry about what {Token} is yet as we’ll put that in in the next part.

- bot (all lowercase), arg, talk, talkdict, answerdict, randomtalk and randomanswer are all variables; that is, they are names that are assigned values. So, they can be named anything made up of letters and underscores and the code would work the same way, as long as you replaced (for example) every instance of “talkdict” with “blah”.

- Anything within quotes can be changed without causing a crash.

PART 3: RUNNING THE BOT IN DISCORD (LOCALLY)

STEP 6: Go to the Discord Developer site in your browser (link). Log in and click “My Apps” on the side if you aren’t there already.

STEP 7: Add new app, give your bot the name you want to be visible to others. You can optionally add a description and icon. Click “Create App”.

STEP 8: Click “Create a Bot User” and confirm your choice. Press “click to reveal” next to Token. Copy this token and paste it into your code where it says {Token} and save your file.

STEP 9: Save changes to your app (down the bottom). Scroll back up and copy the bot’s Client ID. In your browser, go to

https://discordapp.com/api/oauth2/authorize?client_id={ClientID}&scope=bot&permissions=0

(replacing {ClientID} with the actual ID, of course). Choose which server you want the bot to run on, then authorise. In the Discord server, you should now be able to see your bot as an offline user.

STEP 10: Run your .py file (with Command Prompt or opening with File Explorer, not editing in IDLE). A window should open, saying whatever you told the code to print in the @bot.event part. In Discord, you should see your bot pop online in the server and you can now chat with it as long as that window is open!

This local setup is great for testing your bot, as you can easily make changes to your code if it doesn’t work like you wanted- just edit your file in IDLE, save and run the bot again. However, a drawback is that people can only interact with your bot if your computer is currently running it. A conveniently free way to keep your bot running all the time is hosting it on Heroku. I have dedicated a second post to setting this up.

Please let me know how well this guide works (I wrote this a couple of weeks after making my first bot, so some of the installation steps in Part 1 may not be 100% correct). I’ll also do my best to answer any questions you have!