#so I switched to firefox instead and got a few others that actually works | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kitkatt0430 · 1 month

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Instead of doing a Six Sentence Sunday today, I think I'll do a short tutorial on copying over fanfic from FFnet to Ao3.

So you've got some old fics on FFnet and you'd like to back them up to Ao3, given the instability of FFnet. And for whatever reason you don't have the original files for the fics, or maybe you have edits to the FFnet versions that you don't want to lose that the OG files don't have. Whatever the reason, you're looking to directly copy over your fic from FFnet to Ao3. And you're looking for a relatively easy way to do so, but Ao3's import functionality doesn't work with FFnet web pages.

Never fear! It's actually a fairly easy process to get your fic copied over from FFnet.

First, head over to FFnet and open up the fic you want to port over to Ao3. You don't need to log in if you don't want to, just so long as the fic in question is yours and you can access the page, then you're good.

In a separate tab, open Ao3 and login, then choose the option for posting a new work.

Now back on the FFnet tab, you should be able to directly copy over the title, summary, fandom, and what little tagging was available on that site onto the relevant Ao3 fields in the tab you have for a new fic. You'll also want to take note of the published date on FFnet and back date the new work in the Ao3 tab.

FFnet may not have a lot of useful tag data, but it's pretty easy to replicate and build off that in Ao3.

Now for the hard part. Which is still pretty easy. Getting the fic body, plus any notes in the fic itself, copied over to FFnet.

While getting around FFnet's lockdown on the text of the fics they host is fairly simple - I'm pretty sure it's entirely css based - you don't really need to do that in order to get the body of your fic copied. And, honestly, even if you do have a work around in place to allow copying of the fic's text... you will probably find the following method a lot easier still.

In the body of the fic, right click the first line of the fic, which should bring up a menu with a bunch of options. On Firefox or Chrome you want the inspect option.

This'll bring up the dev tools with the html inspection tab open and, if you give it a few seconds to load, the specific line you right clicked to inspect should become the visibly selected section of the html.

The selected section of the html should be a paragraph (or <p>) element. You're going to want to right click the div (<div>) element that encapsulates that paragraph and the rest of the paragraphs in the fic body. This'll bring up another browser menu with the option to copy, which will bring up a flyout menu when you select it. From that flyout menu, you want the select the option for Inner HTML.

You have officially copied the html for the fic body. And you can dump that entirely in html format straight into Ao3's html work text editor. Then switch it to rich text for easier editing if you want to fix any spelling, grammar, formatting, or aesthetic issues. I typically try to fix at least the line breaks since it took a long while before FFnet adopted real line breaks and so there are a lot of fics where I have various combinations of dashes, em-dashes, equals signs, and other characters as line breaks. I figure, if I'm bringing the fic to Ao3 then I can try to make it more screen reader friendly in the process.

You can also move fic notes around in order to move pre/post fic notes out of the fic body or basically whatever you want to the fic. Maybe re-read it to determine any additional tagging you want to add now that your fic has access to Ao3's much more robust tagging system.

But that's it. You can hit post and have your fic with all it's original notes, and a back dated post date to reflect when it was actually written, all available on Ao3 now.

It's a pretty quick process, all told, and the only real bottleneck you might encounter is any time spent in re-editing the fic between migrating and posting. Even chaptered fics are fairly easy to migrate with this process, since the bulk of the work in publishing a new chapter is just copying the inner html and then moving any notes to the appropriate location before hitting post.

Anyway, for my fellow fic writers looking to move your old FFnet fics to a more stable archive, I hope this process helps a lot.

#kitkatt0430 rambles #fanfiction archiving #migrating from fanfiction.net to ao3 #ao3 #ffnet #fanfiction.net #tutorial

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transition-with-the-torah · 1 month

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I've been doing a little experiment with not using Tumblr on Shabbat, but I didn't want to rush making a post about it on Tumblr until I did a few weeks of tweaking the process.

I'm vaguely aware that some people avoid using the internet in its entirety during Shabbat, but I'm not aiming for that. I watch livestreamed Kabbalat Shabbat and Shabbat services, and I'm really trying to reduce unnecessary stress instead of jumping straight to no internet. So, I looked into a few website blockers of the anti-procrastination or productivity sort of tools with a focus on what I can try for free on my laptop [Windows].

I've been using LeechBlock NG (Firefox || Google Chrome), which allows up to 30 sets of websites to block with some of the usual features (customize your block list, whitelist, immediate lockdown option). [Predetermined block lists that include Youtube would not be helpful here, since I need to access Youtube for service livestreams.] I also liked the sound of the delay feature ("set a countdown to delay access to sites instead of completely blocking them"), since I was originally going to use a mix of delay and block. Scheduling is by the 24 hours of a particular day without overlapping, so a set doesn't get scheduled from, say, 1700 Friday to 1700 Saturday (you'd have one set for Friday and another one for Saturday).

I like that I have the ability to schedule, since some website blockers are more of a turn on/turn off button, but considering what I'm using LeechBlock NG for, I wish I could have more options around scheduling. (I imagine it's easier on the creating and maintaining side to not get too complicated in scheduling features, and I think some other website blockers paywall calendar syncing.) This isn't a deal-breaker right now, but I can't not mention that the only way to update the times for Shabbat starting [1] and ending [2] is manually updating that every week.

Originally, I started out with four sets: Friday (Delay), Saturday (Delay), Friday (Block), and Saturday (Block). The delay options used the default delay pages, had a countdown for an adjustable amount of seconds before allowing access, and were set for the winter Shabbat range for my location. The block options were narrower time ranges when I figured I was most likely to forget I had a delay, redirected to a page, and used the summer Shabbat range for my location.

Redirecting to a website page is what counts as having a custom block page:

Friday's redirect page: We Are Everywhere print, which is the starry pomegranate piece from @/iliothermia.

Saturday's redirect page: "Shabbat Shalom" Vintage Tee from Woz Art.

I did note that I was worried that I had overcomplicated things, and I didn't know how well this four set arrangement would hold up as sunset times change over the year. While I could make the sets once with this plan, I then had to remember if I was in the right season for ignoring a delay. (Or: My Friday Delay set started at the December time when Shabbat starts earliest in the year for my location, which is at least three hours before I actually need to worry about Shabbat starting in July and August.)

It sounded better on paper. I got caught in a loop of delay countdown pages while trying to reblog something during that Friday Delay, and I messed up listing out the times for the Saturday Block (and could just outright access Tumblr when I did my first trial of accessing Tumblr to make sure the delays and blocks actually worked). I switched over to one Delay set per day with an uninterrupted chunk of time that needs updated weekly, and I fixed whatever technical problems I accidentally created before. It's the 'did I remember to update my Shabbat times?' questioning mid-week that's now the hard part.

I have no doubt that some people find it easier to not use a website blocker at all, but it feels an awful lot like - if you really cared, you'd just remember and willpower your way through this. Been there, internalized that, didn't even get to join a club. So far, writing down the times in my planner is an obvious visual sign that I did the update, but I'm thinking of making a list for the rest of the year [3] and crossing each week off. (Checking each week isn't very hard when there's not a lot of weeks left in 5784, but a list will probably help more in 5785.)

Outside of all the technical stuff, it's been nice to not be on Tumblr during Shabbat. (If I curated a very specific Shabbat only dash, it'd probably be different, but that would probably entail undoing some XKit fixes in order to get another tab at the top of my dash for specific tags/blogs.) I've debated adding more websites to the block list for my sets, but most of my other sites are considerably less stressful compared to Tumblr. While it might be nice to try avoiding the whole internet on Shabbat at least once in the future, I think trying that now would be a bit rushed when I haven't built in alternatives yet.

[1] Why Are Shabbat Candles Lit 18 Minutes Before Sunset?: Technically, Shabbat starts at sunset, but we light candles early because we shouldn't light candles once Shabbat begins. Ancient reckoning for the amount of time do a certain thing gives us 18 minutes, though some places have different local customs.

[2] What is Havdalah (or, When does Shabbat end)?: Havdalah is at nightfall. When is nightfall? Traditionally when three stars are visible, but most times that I've seen use some sort of formula such as the sun being 7.5 degrees below the horizon (about 42 minutes after sunset) [medium sized stars], 8.5 degrees below the horizon (about 50 minutes after sunset) [small sized stars], or a fixed 72 minutes after sunset. [Depending on location and time of year, the time using the degree tactic may be a bit shorter than the times listed here.]

[3] Hebcal has Candle-lighting Times Year at a Glance. I was originally curious about whether elevation made a difference in my times, but honestly, it's not a large enough difference that I'm worried about using the default sea-level assumption.

#sharing my path #Shabbat

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ridertrust · 2 years

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Tripmode alternative windows 10

Tripmode alternative windows 10 code#

Tripmode alternative windows 10 mac#

On my yak-shaving list: finding a terminal-based webkit browser, setting up a travel Firefox profile w/ uBlock, Noscript, images and all updates disabled for travel mode.īesides the browser hijinks, my current setup is incredibly well behaved – a few bytes for occasional ntp updates that I haven’t been able to track down (it’s not in my init.d…), but I can live with that. I’m also using elinks (links/lynx as backups), which is much more efficient, of course. I could probably disable the updates (there may be other extensions as well though) and various syncing things, but instead I’m using uzbl at the moment (surf and vimprobable are other options) for lightweight browsing. The other thing that was (not surprising) was that both Chromium/Chrome and Firefox chew through networking with their auto-updates. It’s purely local, but it was running up charges so I ended up uninstalling it for now. OOTB, things were decent – I wrote a script to stop unattended-upgrades and dropbox to avoid any surprises, however a few surprises: avahi-daemon doesn’t seem to stop chattering even when turned off. iptraf and iftop work well for tracking connections, and nethogs lets you see connections on a per-process basis. I’m running Ubuntu 15.04 on my X250 at the moment. There’s no way for me to effectively control all the various daemons or lock down the network (Little Snitch tracks and shows me everything, but inexplicably gives me no way to go into a lockdown mode). I haven’t bothered using my Macbook Air – it chewed through 20MB of even more expensive internationl airplane wifi in a matter of minutes. The portal itself is a simple Python cgi-bin, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find it backed by a solid embedded FreeBSD setup (curiousity got the better of me, It’s running an ancient Debian Linux (2.6 kernel), the web server is lighthttp).

Tripmode alternative windows 10 code#

The captive portal is a short code provided by receipt-printed vouchers, and it’s actually pretty good/reliable as far as these things go. The pricing is tiered, and the best per-MB pricing is 50MB for 10NZD (0.20NZD/MB) – I’m on day 2 and my third voucher right now. I am currently on “Milford Sound Lodge Internet Access” which is a pretty decent satellite connection (about 20KB/s) considering that cell phone reception ended over 100km back (I have a Vodafone and Spark prepaid sims for this trip). Those specifically interested in my yak shaving experiences on getting Linux set up on a Lenovo X250 of course can follow along, but this will be more focused. I’m spending the month driving around New Zealand and I figure I’d write about one interesting tech travel challenges (and one of the major reasons that I’m in the process of switching to Linux from OS X). As mentioned, Linux has a lot less processes randomly talking to the network, but tc can be used to control ingress and egress speeds, Duoane and OpenSnitch allow per-process blocking.

Tripmode alternative windows 10 mac#

UPDATE: if you are using Windows or Mac and will be on metered Internet, be sure to check out TripMode, an invaluable app for helping you control data usage (Mac users can also try Radio Silence).

#Tripmode alternative windows 10

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sharky857 · 6 years

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((( SCROLL TO BOTTOM FOR IMPORTANT UPDATE! )))

Alright, does this mess happen to any of you, after you rebloged a post that wasn’t even your own for starter?

If it does, no worries. I think I found a way to get that “XXXX replied to YYYY’s post” spam (courtesy of Dumblr) outta my way:

Get yourself some Xkit (downloads are available for Firefox, Chrome and Safari browsers);

Install “Activity+” from their "Get Extensions” menu;

Under “NOTE VIEW” check “Enable FIlter Notes by Type”.

This should result in you having these new options in the top right corner of your notifications page.

Of course, you can switch between filters any time you want. From left to right:

The asterisk will display all notifications;

The green one will display only all reblogs;

The red heart will show only the liked posts;

The blue balloon will show all the replies left (given the current situation, you might not want to use this option);

The plus symbol will show if you got any new follower;

The @ is for the mentions;

The two, blue figures will show any notification from your followers.

Personally, right now I set this extension on the latter filter, for it allows me to look only at whatever my own mutual may have done in terms of likes, reblogs and (I hope) replies, while filtering out all that mess of replies from the first screencap.

!!! PLEASE NOTE !!!

1. This part of extension is marked “E” for “Experimental”, meaning that you might also expect it not to work as it should.

2. As a PC user, I don’t know if this same extension may be available for mobile users too. All I know is that Xkit alone has a mobile version too, but not all extensions are available yet.

((( UPDATE AHOY! )))

@gaogaigar-the-king spotted this post as well and told me that Tumblr has actually come with a feature of its own to disable that sort of “replies spam” in one’s own notifications (so, this time my apologies for calling this site “Dumblr”. Just this once, tho.).

They refer to it has “ a little circle with a lightning bolt in it”. You can see it by clicking on the notes counter at the bottom of the same post you may have reblogged (as long as it’s not your own post, that is); here’s an example from a random post I fetched from my own notifications:

If you have a dark circle with a white bolt in it, then that means that your notifications for that post are active, leading to the “replies spam”.

To avoid future spam, just click on that symbol and the colours will turn the other way around (white cirle with a dark bolt in it):

PLEASE NOTE!

This feature has no retroactive effect (yet). So if you turn off those notifications after you found yourself flooded with unwanted replies, your notification page will keep on displaying the replies up until that point. What it blocks out are only the new replies.

In addition, some else who reblogged this same post added that disabling this kind of notifications, without going after the reblogged posts one by one, can be done from the settings page. For further info, you can read their two cents in here.

As for this post in particular, I felt like updating instead of deleting it for two reasons: the first is that, despite Tumblr does have its own feature to turn off those notifications, one cuold never tell if and when it migh bug out, and it’s likewise unknown how long the staff could take to fix everything (this is Tumblr we’re talking about, after all). So this post may still provide a sort of backup plan, in case that situation might ever happen.

Second reason is that, by the time I got around to do anything, this post already gained a few notes, meaning that, even if the original were to be deleted, reblogs would be still going around.

#tumblr shenanigans #signal boost #(maybe?)#Idk if this may come in handy to others in a similar situation.#updated post #also: look at me trying to make a good use of the coloured text :°D

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maevefiction · 6 years

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Your Light in the Mist - Chapter 5

I dropped my fork. “I’m sorry, I must have heard that wrong, because it sounded like you just asked me to become your employee.” Luke’s brow lifted.

“No, you heard it absolutely correctly. I did ask you to come work for me. For Prosper. Initially as Tom’s social media manager, and when that’s squared away, as Prosper’s social media director.” So many things I wanted to include in my reply instantaneously flooded my brain, but, as usual, it was miles ahead of my mouth and lord knew what would come out if I spoke. I decided taking another bite of my cannoli while they fell back in sync was the best course of action. Chewing slowly, I looked back and forth from Tom to Luke, then swallowed. I chose my words carefully, hoping to not be offensive.

“Luke, I’m incredibly appreciative, but normally my role is to provide plans for social media managers and directors, which they in turn implement while working one-on-one with their clients. Direct client management isn’t really something I’ve done in a number of years, and I’m not sure it’s something I’m interested in, or even capable of doing again.” He fished some papers out of his bag and pushed them across the table.

“Anne Rice says you’re capable.” I snatched them up, holding in my hand a copy of my resume as well as an email from Anne, singing my praises. It appeared to have been sent earlier in the day. I laughed softly. Client testimonials were usually all anyone cared about, but I kept my resume posted on my website just in case. I didn’t think anyone had ever even looked at it, never mind taken the time to contact my former employers.

“Nice detective work, Luke. I’m impressed. But not only was that more than ten years ago, Anne doesn’t count. She has to say nice things…she’s a friend of the family.” He looked puzzled. “My parents owned a home right down the street from her in the Garden District of New Orleans. When she got wind of my new business venture she volunteered to be my guinea pig.”

Tom leaned forward, scrutinizing me skeptically. “You’re from New Orleans?” I nodded and slipped into an exaggerated southern drawl.

“Born and raised. Even rode on some Mardi Gras floats.” I shrugged and switched back to my regular dialect. “I never had a strong accent, and I’ve lived in New York nearly as long as I did in New Orleans, so it’s faded almost completely.”

Luke pointed his index finger at me. “You should know that not only did she reply to my email immediately, she gave me her number so we could speak. We talked for a good twenty minutes, and she told me she credits you with all of her social media success, including the idea for ‘People of the Page’. She said you were the only one who managed to help her not only understand, but embrace the technology that allowed her to form deeper connections with her legion of fans. And, she wishes she could have held on to you forever, but she didn’t want to keep you from your dream.” He paused for a moment. I made no comment. “According to your resume, you’re also proficient in website design, graphic design and photography, which are additional assets you’d bring to the company. I’m assuming you do your own site?”

“Correct.” I opened my laptop, started Firefox, pulled up Prosper’s website and grimaced. “Who does yours? It’s…it’s…how do I do put this nicely?” I raised my eyes skyward in thought. “Nope, I can’t. It’s awful. You’re redirecting people to your social media instead of having an actual site. It’s all lowercase, and the italic version of your font is hard to read. There’s a generic, single email as a means of contact. I don’t see a phone number. And that black background…I just can’t even.”

Luke began rubbing his temples. “Admittedly, we’re lacking in that area at the moment.” I snorted. “Maude, this is exactly why I need you. As far as PR goes, I’m exceptionally motivated and skilled.” Tom coughed. Luke shot him a chastising look. “Quiet, you. I lighted out on my own because I know I have something unique to offer…genuine bespoke, personal publicity. What I didn’t account for is the amount of time and effort the social media aspect of it would require. Events, interviews, red carpets, networking, I can handle all of those things with very minimal assistance.” He frowned.

“Unfortunately, I’ve found that all too often I put social media on the back burner because I can’t keep up with it, and as a result I feel like I’m not delivering what I promised to my clients. A few months back I determined it was time to seek outside help, but not a single applicant met my expectations. You, however, exceed my expectations.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Luke, I always appreciate an ego boost, but let’s keep in mind that I didn’t apply for anything.” I put an elbow on the table and rested my chin in my hand. “I did agree to an initial consultation, and since you attended my seminar you know where things are supposed to go from there. Translation – not here.” I leaned back in the chair and linked my hands behind my head. “But, this is where we’ve ended up, and I would be remiss if I didn’t entertain your offer, however briefly. So, what the hell. Lay down the details. Especially the ones pertaining to compensation and benefits.”

************************************************ I stood staring out at the horizon as the waves hit my shins, wiggling my toes in the wet sand underneath the water. Finally, beach. Warm, breezy, sunny, quiet, beautiful beach.

After learning that Tom had no prior knowledge of Luke’s plan to hire someone as his social media manager, I excused myself so they could speak in private for as long they deemed necessary. That’s what I told them, anyway. In truth, I really just needed to get the hell out of there so I could attempt to process all this insanity… which I knew wasn’t even remotely possible until I was alone. Part of me hoped that ‘as long as they deemed necessary’ turned into several hours. Or days.

Luke had proposed an initial annual salary of one hundred thousand dollars while I was working with Tom, increasing to one hundred and twenty-five thousand upon assuming the role of Social Media Director of Prosper. I’d be issued a corporate credit card and expense account, and the company would cover all travel expenses. I currently grossed around forty thousand more than that a year on my own, but being stuck covering all my own travel costs made it a negligible difference. When I factored in the lack of income stability that goes hand-in-hand with self-employment, I’d probably come out ahead financially if I opted to accept the position.

When I pressed him to define my duties and responsibilities, he’d shaken his head and imparted that I was the expert, not him, and therefore I should implement whatever strategies I would have included if I had drawn up a proposal. Though I’d technically be an employee, he preferred that I handle everything on my own and retain complete creative control for the duration of my time as Tom’s personal social media manager. We’d step back and re-evaluate things when I was ready to take the directorial helm.

My spot near the water was becoming popular, with several children running amok carting floats, balls and a slew of other things ankle biters enjoy that destroy peace and solitude for the rest of us. I was walking to the opposite side of the property from Luke’s room where it was less crowded when the gravity of my situation overwhelmed me completely and began to literally pull me down. I sank to my knees on the sand, then tried to shift to a sitting positon as gracefully as possible and without flashing everyone on the beach. Again.

I rested my ass on the back of my calves, listed to one side using my arm as a support, lifted my hips a little, extended both legs at the same time, then pushed myself upright. Not pretty, I’m sure, but I had managed to keep my legs closed. I crossed them at the ankle just to be safe and began to mull over my options. “Okay, Maude. Crunch time. Don’t fuck this up.”

When I first started out, I loved every minute of my ‘job’ and had a burning desire to share my knowledge. Maude Gallagher, LLC was everything I had aspired to do and be. I ate, slept and breathed it like oxygen. I never stopped working, always a phone call or an email away from jumping on a plane. But over the past few years, it seemed that my interest in my own company was steadily waning. While I constantly updated my lectures, the material remained essentially the same and what I used to find fun had become work. Every proposal I presented to a client was unique, but at its core it was identical to all the rest. I still put forth 100%, and my ‘phoning it in’ was akin to someone else’s ‘gave it my all’, but something inside me had changed. What was once my life had become just a job, and that prompted me to consider that I might have missed out on actually living along the way. I kept on truckin’, as they say, because the money was so damn good and the idea of having a boss was horrifying after so many years of answering to no one but myself.

Now here I was, sitting on a beach in Kaua’i, wearing a dress and trying to ignore the sand working its way between my thighs, faced with the daunting task of deciding what the fuck I wanted to do with my life…keep running in place, monotonous but comfortably familiar? Or race off in a new direction, intriguing but entirely foreign?

My proposal for Luke would have advised him to have a website created, marketing materials designed, the existing social media accounts revamped and new platforms established with all of them monitored intensely. I also thought it best that Tom have his own photographer/videographer who’d travel with him to shoot on set, at events and in ‘normal’ situations when deemed permissible. He would have had to hire three or more individuals to meet these specifications, but if I signed on he’d only need me. When I thought of all the types of work involved, how it would be different every single day, that I could be creative again…there was no way I could deny that it sounded pretty fucking spectacular. But something was holding me back, making me hesitate instead of screaming ‘yes, I’ll take it!’…and that something was Tom. Though we’d just met a few short hours ago and I didn’t know him at all, I felt…well, I had no idea what it was, only that is was THERE and that it scared the living shit out of me.

************************************************ I was picking up handfuls of sand and watching it sift through my fingers over and over again when I noticed the long shadow to my left, growing ever closer. Khaki cargo pants followed. I looked up…and up…and up. The sun was almost directly behind us, bathing him in an ethereal glow. So, so beautiful. I licked my lips and wished he’d lose the T-shirt already. He squatted beside me, elbows on his knees.

“Hi.” The corner of his mouth curled in a half smile.

“Hey.” I wiped the remaining bits of sand on my dress. He gestured towards the ground.

“May I?” I nodded. He sat, crossing his legs Indian style, which I wouldn’t have believed possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. “Luke and I just finished chatting.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks for coming to let me know.” I started to get up, but he put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“I…erm…there are a few things I’d like to say before you go back to see him. If you don’t mind hearing me out, that is.” I shook my head.

“Nope. I don’t mind at all.” He ran his hands through his hair and met my gaze.

“Thank you, Maude.” He swallowed. It crossed my mind that he appeared nervous, but I dismissed it because I didn’t want to consider what that meant. I frowned, turning to look towards the ocean. I heard him inhale deeply.

“First, I want to apologize for losing control of my emotions and acting like a tit. My comment about social media being a waste of time and effort and doing nothing but spreading hate was uncalled for, and I in no way meant to devalue you or your work. All of the feelings I entombed broke loose and I’m so very sorry you had to bear witness to my little crackup.” I turned to look at him and patted his knee.

“No worries. Everybody loses their shit to some degree at one point or another.” He pointed at me, brow raised. “Yes, even me. But really, this was nothing. I once had a client scream ‘this mother fucking social media bullshit has ruined my fucking career and my cunt of a wife fucking left me and now I’m going to have to pay her a fuck ton of alimony and it’s all your fault, you stupid fucking fat piece of shit’ in my face.” Tom’s mouth was closed so tightly his lips were a tiny, thin line. “He was so inept that he accidentally posted a photo of his girlfriend sucking his cock across all his accounts instead of sending it directly to her phone. Best part was that he took the shot in the mirror so his face was clearly visible.”

He put his hand on mine. “Tell me who it was and I’ll happily beat the living shit out of him.”

“Thanks, but not necessary. I handled it. By slapping him three times. And telling him that if I ever heard even a whisper of him saying another derogatory thing about me I’d hunt him down, rip his nuts off with my bare hands and feed them to him for dinner.”

Tom’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “You did no such thing.” I laughed.

“Oh, but I did. And then I fired his sorry ass. And then his band fired his sorry ass. Last I heard he was broke and filing for bankruptcy. Karma, Thomas. She is indeed a wicked bitch.” Before I knew what was happening he leaned in and enveloped me in an embrace. Time came to a grinding halt and I was frozen in place. He rubbed my back for a moment and released me before I even had a chance to hug him back. He remained close, his face only inches from mine.

“Maude, you are an amazing woman. And absolutely beautiful.” I blinked. It was the only thing I was physically capable of doing. I considered telling him that being called fat was a common occurrence for me, though it did happen less now that I was a size 14 instead of a 24…and that it really never got under my skin. Because, fuck that. I had never been lacking in the self-esteem department no matter what the scale said. Or my mother said. I had just come to the conclusion that I’d save that particular tidbit for you know, never, when I felt something under my chin. It was Tom’s hand.

“Shit, sorry, I got lost there for a bit. Woolgathering.” He smirked as he slid his fingers and thumb along my jaw and slowly backed away. He put his hand over his heart.

“Second on my list of things to say… I’m afraid I have a confession to make.” I made a get on with it motion with my right hand. “Earlier, at Talk Story, my requesting you specifically to assist me may not have been entirely a happenstance of fate.” I raised an eyebrow.

“When I walked in, the desk was completely deserted so I wandered off to see if I could locate someone to help me. After coming out of a side room I glanced back at the desk, saw the lovely girls in their Loki shirts, realized they were all staff members, and admittedly panicked a bit. Not because they were fans, but because I had very little time and I knew they’d want a few moments with me and I just couldn’t squeeze it in. I’d worn the ugly shirt and cap so people would be less apt to recognize me for that very reason.”

I poked him in the chest. “You know you have to go back there, don’t you? That adorable girl Alani will die of heartbreak knowing that you were in the store and she didn’t get to meet you.” He grinned.

“I absolutely will. And I’ll ask for her by name. But, on with my confession. So, there I was, caught like the proverbial deer in headlights. And then I saw…you. You had two books in one hand, and a several spread out on a table. I heard your phone alarm go off, and I saw your lips move but couldn’t quite make out what you were saying. I watched you gather them up as if they were precious treasures, and I sneakily followed you as you returned them gently to their proper places. I saw someone with a very obvious love for books, who happened to be a gorgeous woman, a ray of light shining through the early morning fog. It seemed logical that you were an employee, or perhaps the owner, but…here’s the confession part… I honestly didn’t care whether you were or not. I just had to meet you, and my book reservation was the perfect cover story in the event my logic was flawed. I hesitated when I was finally directly behind you, and when you turned around I almost lost my nerve, but when you looked into my eyes I knew it was now or never. ” He took a deep breath, and I noticed that his hands were shaking slightly. I reached out and took one in mine.

“I thought you may have recognized me, and was waiting for you to out me. I really was. Instead, you marched up to that desk, got my book and brought it to me even though you didn’t actually work there. You paid for the damn thing. And when you called me Indy, the fact that you not only picked up the reference but played along…” He shook his head and put his free hand on top of mine, sandwiching it between both of his.

“Which brings me to the third thing on my list of things to say. And it’s the last. On the street, when I said I wanted to find out who you were, and that I had never wanted to discover anything else quite so badly? I meant that, Maude. All the way down to the depths of my very soul.” I was speechless. Completely, utterly without words. He leaned in to meet my gaze.

“I don’t understand why, or how, or what the fuck it is exactly that I’m feeling…but what I AM certain of is that I’ve never felt it before and it’s glorious and incredible and terrifying all at once. And whether you decide to take the job or not, I still want to KNOW you, Maude. I NEED to know you.”

I smirked devilishly, hoping to add some levity to the situation so I wouldn’t totally freak the fuck out.

“Like, biblically?”

He threw back his head, laughing so loudly people down the beach turned to look our way. I started giggling, which turned into guffawing, and then the snorting started. He laughed even harder and soon enough we were both weeping and holding our sides, trying to catch our breath. I was wiping the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand when he whispered in my ear.

“Yes, Maude. Biblically. As often as humanly possible, preferably.” He pulled back so he could see my face, trying to analyze my expression to determine what I was thinking. I smiled softly.

“I want to know you too, Tom. In every way imaginable.” He grinned, then stood, offering me a hand up. I took it. “Let’s go see a man about a job, shall we?”

************************************************ Luke was overjoyed at my acceptance of his offer and after we all had a quick dinner he broke out the bottle of champagne he’d ordered. He placed a glass in front of me and began to pour. I held up my hand in protest.

“No thank you…none for me, please.” He cocked his head to the side. “Do you have any tea lying around? I’d love a cup if you do.” He went off to see what was in the kitchenette. Tom was pacing around outside, phone up to his ear, his free hand gesturing wildly. He’d just gotten word that Michael Keaton and J. K. Simmons had pulled out of Skull Island. I saw him tap the end call button and he walked back into the room just as Luke came in to tell me he hadn’t had any luck finding me some tea. He set the phone on the table.

“Well, it looks like the shoot’s been postponed until early 2016.” Luke shrugged.

“It happens, Tom. I wasn’t thrilled with either of them being cast, to be honest.” Tom sighed, then grinned at me.

“On the bright side, this gives us lots of time to get things up and running on the social media front.” I yawned. We still had a ton of details to work out as far as how we were going to proceed, but I was exhausted and needed some time alone to get in the zone for my two long days of seminars. Which would be my last, at least for a while. Knowing that felt…delightful, as much as it pained me to admit it.

“Gentlemen, I hate to be a party pooper, but I have two insane days coming up and need some rest so I don’t muck things up too badly.” They both awwweeed but I got up from my chair anyway, slinging my bag over my shoulder and picking up my shoes. “We’re still on for the museum’s hula class at five on Wednesday?”

They nodded, and Tom rose from his chair, grinning like a fool. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. May I walk you to your room?”

I rolled my eyes. “If you must.”

He took my elbow and walked me to the door. “Oh, I must.”

I waved at Luke. “Goodnight, Luke…and thank you. If you need something, call.”

“Goodnight, Maude. And thank you. This is a game changer for Prosper, and I appreciate you being on board. I couldn’t make it happen otherwise.” He closed the door behind us.

Tom stopped out in the hallway. “Where is your room, exactly?” I headed for the stairs. We walked in silence, just basking in each others presence. I stopped in front of my room, found my keycard in my bag and opened the door. He pointed to the number.

“Oh, 203…you’re right above Luke.” I just stood there and watched his face, waiting for it to dawn on him. When it finally did, his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, finally spluttering “Right above. Luke. Your room. Is.”

It was my turn to grin like a fool. “Yes, yes it is. If you take another run in the morning you may want to look up periodically. You never know, I just might forget to close the balcony doors again.”

#your light in the mist #chapter 5

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python-planet-blog · 7 years

Text

Rundown of Selenium and BeautifulSoup (BS4)

Hi everyone. For the first post here I am going to cover a topic that I've seen people ask about in online Python communities such as r/learnpython. This is a quick rundown of how to use Selenium and BeautifulSoup to interact with websites and parse html. Now, these concepts can be applied to do anything from scrape the web to automate processes and make bots.

Honestly, this first post is all the info you need to begin effectively working with these modules.

Let's start with

SELENIUM

Selenium is a web testing module that can be used to interact with web elements, which has applications such as the ones mentioned above.

To import selenium, I like to do the following:

from selenium import webdriver from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC from selenium.common.exceptions import TimeoutException, NoSuchElementException, UnexpectedAlertPresentException, WebDriverException from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

It doesn't add much load to import all of these, and you'll end up using most (probably all) if you are working with Selenium in any substantial way.

The last one is only necessary if you're using Chromedriver, not Firefox. I would reccomend chromedriver as it seems a bit faster and cleaner to me.

Next, we need to initailize our WebDriver object:

opts = Options() opts.add_argument("user-agent='your-user-agent") driver = webdriver.Chrome('/path/to/chromedriver', chrome_options = opts) driver.wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 15)

A few things here. One, where it says 'your-user-agent,' you should put your user agent (shocker). This isn't strictly necessary, but often the default python requests user agent will get blocked/rate limited by sites as everyone using python at a given moment without specifying their user agent is telegraphing that user agent.

To get your user agent, google 'what is my user agent.'

If you're using chromedriver, you need to put the path to where chromedriver executable is on your machine.

Otherwise, for Firefox:

profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile() profile.set_preference('general.useragent.override','your-user-agent') driver = webdriver.Firefox(profile) driver.wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 15)

The driver.wait line sets the implicit wait for the WebDriver object. I'll get to that in a second.

So, now we've got the driver initialized, so let's interact with some web elements.

driver.get(url)

This opens url in our webdriver.

Interacting with web sites via Selenium/bs4 is, like much of programming, consists largely of telling python what things are and then what to do to them.

To use Selenium (and bs4) you must use the Web Inspector to analyze your webpage and find out how to identify web elements. I reccomend using the web inspector in either Safari or Chrome, as these browsers offer the handy 'copy xpath' functionality.

We can identify web elements in a number of ways. We can use HTML tag attributes such as name, id, class name, tag name. We can use XPATH or CSS Selector. There are other options too, all listed here.

Tag names look like this:

The 'a' is the tag name. The thing after class is the class. All other tag attrs (name, id etc) work like that. They're in orange/yellow in the safari web inspector.

CSS Selectors look like this:

a.title.may-blank.outbound

XPATHs look like this:

//*[@id="new_post_buttons"]/div[4]/div[2]/div/div[5]/div[1]/div/div[3]/div/div/button

You can get CSS selectors by mousing over elements in the Web Inspector. You can get xpath by selecting an element (click the target thing in Safari or the arrow thing in Chrome, and then click the desired element) and then right clicking the corresponding html (it will become highlighted) and clicking 'copy xpath.'

The syntax to find elements is as follows:

This returns the first matched web element (going down the source HTML):

link = driver.find_elements_by_xpath(’this-xpath’)

And this returns a list of all matched elements:

links = driver.find_elements_by_tag_name('a')

Detailed syntax, showing similar underscore syntax ways to find by the aforementioned parameters, can be found at the docs link from earlier.

This approach, using find_elements_by_xyz, uses an implicit wait (remember that from before?)

When the driver is told to find an element, it must first wait for the element to be loaded. Using an implicit wait means it will wait up to n seconds specified in

driver.wait=WebDriverWait(driver, n)

before throwing a TimeoutException.

This is NOT THE BEST PRACTICE. I really only use implicit waits when I need a list of all the matched elements:

time.sleep(5)

my_xyzs = driver.find_elements_by_xyz(’my-xyz’)

my_fav_xyz = my_xyzs[9]

Technically, you shouldn't need the time.sleep(5)... but implicit waits can be inconsistent, so I throw it in there to make sure the page has loaded by the time Selenium looks to construct the list of matching elements.

So, most of the time, you should use explicit waits. Instead of finding elements via the find_element(s) commands, use:

elem = driver.wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable( (By.XPATH, 'my-xpath')))

Again, full syntax available which details all possible excepted conditions (the EC). This means that you can wait for the element in question to be clickable, visible, present, stale..you have a lot of options. Similarly, elements can be designated for waits By.XPATH, tag name, class name, css selector, and more.

But what if the element we need is only differentiated by an esoteric html tag attribute, I hear you lament.

Not to worry. We can use XPATH to designate a web element by ANY tag attribute.

elem = driver.wait.until(EC.visibility_of_element_located( (By.XPATH, '//[@attr="value"]')))

The above code designates elem as the web element on that page with tag attribute attr equal to 'value'. You can put a tag name in between the // and [ to specify further:

'//div[@attr='value']'

This finds only div tags with attr='value'.

Once we have identified our web element by an HTML attribute, xpath, or css selector, and defined it in Python using selenium syntax, we can do many things to it:

elem.click() #clicks elem elem.send_keys('abc') #types 'abc' into elem elem.get_attribute('href') # gets the 'href' attr of elem elem.send_keys(Keys.COMMAND, 'v') #pastes -- all keyboard shortcuts are similarly available

One caveat on shortcuts: ChromeDriver on OS X does not support most keyboard shortcuts. If you have to paste on os x with chromedriver, the following will get the job done:

elem.send_keys(Keys.SHIFT, Keys. INSERT)

It doesn't matter if your Mac doesn't have an insert key-- windows shortcuts seem to work on mac selenium. I imagine other shortcuts can be used on chromedriver using this workaround.

To get the html of a page loaded in the driver:

driver.page_source

Other commands I use relatively often:

driver.back() #goes back driver.quit() #quits

----THAT'S IT!

I mean, there's more to Selenium, but that's more than enough info for you to discover the rest on your own.

BeautifulSoup

A lot of the HTML stuff from up there will translate well to bs4 as well. bs4 is used to parse HTML. If you want to scrape info from a website, or whatever, bs4 is going to help you do it. The syntax is VERY straightforward-- gotta love Python.

Like any great chef (and the bs4 docs) will tell you, first we need to make the soup.

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup as bs4 driver.get('https://www.reddit.com') soup = bs4(driver.page_source, 'html.parser')

So what's going on here? First, we import bs4. Then we use Selenium to open a URL. We then create our soup object. First argument is driver.page_source, meaning we want to parse the source html of the current driver page. Then, 'html.parser' specifies which parser we want to use. You can use lxml if you want. I have no idea what the difference is. If one isn't working, try switching-- this has never been a problem for me.

Go ahead and print

(soup.prettify())

to see what's what here-- it'll be a bunch of HTML. You can print (soup.text()) to get just the text.

Ok, so how do we actually parse the HTML? We use the find() and find_all() methods.

links = soup.find_all('a')

Both find and find_all accept a tag name as the first argument. The second argument is class_ (underscore to differentiate from Python classes).

account_links = soup.find_all('a', class_='account')

The difference between find() and find_all() is that find() returns the first match and find_all() returns a list of matches.

As before, we can find()/find_all() by ANY tag attr, this time by passing a dict:

names = soup.find_all('a', attrs={'id':'name'})

I find that SO nice. Hope you do too.

Now, these methods return tag(s). Meaning

soup.find('div')

will find the first 'div' tag in the HTML, and return everything between its beginnning <div> and its end </div>

I find that we rarely want the whole content of the tag haha. So, to grab just the TEXT in this tag, we can do:

soup.find('div').text

Or, to get the value of any tag attribute:

soup.find('a')['href'] #replace 'href' with whatver tag 'attr' you want to get the value of

FINALLY, a helpful tactic in web scraping: narrow your search!

If you want to go down LinkedIn Recruiter search results and grab everyone's name, first make a list of all the profile cards, and then look in each one for the name. That way you decrease the amount of 'p' tags (or whatever) in your search area and make it easier to grab the right ones.

e.g.:

cards = soup.find_all('div',class_='profile_card') for card in cards: name = card.find('p')

And, actually, a helpful tactic in building bots/automating processes: you can use bs4 to scrape a website and make the bots job easier. If how to interact with the web elements to get your desired outcome is not immediately clear, pull up the web inspector and see if the link (or whatever, ember perhaps) you need is stored in the HTML somewhere! Then you can just pull

driver.page_source

with bs4 and parse out what you need. Often, link 'suffixes' such as '/post/comments/12314141/this-is-a-great-post-man' will be stored in the 'href' attrs of HTML tags. You can parse that out and store it in link, and then do

driver.get(url+link)

to save you some hassle. Just a thought.

Anyway, I hope you got some value from this. If so, LMK! I might make videos doing some examples or respond to specific questions or just otherwise maintain some sort of presence in this line of content.

#python #howto #how #to #beautifulsoup #bs4 #selenium #web scraping #tutorial

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somanypetals · 7 years

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ok ok ok. are you a spuffy fan? i feel like i've seen spuffy on yr blog and if that's not true then please ignore but i've been thinkin recently and i'm very interested in what you think/how you reconcile spike's attempted rape?? bc as a spuffy fan i love them together but i also can't ignore this part of their history in good conscience. was it ooc? was their relationship building to a horrible climax? i'm just very interested in what people think abt that writing decision

omg I’m sorry for taking so long to answer this, I wrote like half an essayand then firefox crashed and I got grumpy about it for a few days lol ;___;

anyway in short: do I ship it? yes. is my relationship with the shipcomplicated? fuck yes. can I reconcile the attempted rape? on a base level, no.on a character level, I am able to move past it but not look past it. on awriting level, I don’t reconcile it at all. was it ooc? yes and no,which is the interesting part

this got really long and I’m hoping that I can remember everything I wassaying before I had to start all over again (rip) but I’m sorry it got so longunder the cut

so I do still ship spuffy, but I have a really complicatedrelationship with it. I’ve shipped it since I was a tween, before I reallyunderstood the unhealthy parts of it (rape scene aside, which I was very clearon), and I’ve come to see those in a new light the past five or so years, butI’m still also someone who is very adamant about people being allowed to shipwhatever the fuck they want in fiction whether it’s unhealthy or not becauseit’s fiction, and at the end of the day I’m shipping something because I findit entertaining or interesting, not because it’s the paradigm of relationshipexamples. in fact most of the time it’s not, because I find most of thoserelationships boring on screen. so like, I do still ship it, but not the way Iused to?

anyway, was it ooc? in terms of mythology canon I don’tthink it was ooc at all. spike had no soul, he was at a base level evil. I don’t think this excuses theattempted rape at all, nothing excuses it or forgives it, but it does explain abit how the spike who dressed buffy’s hand wounds at the start of the seasonwas the same spike who flipped a switch and attempted to rape her near the endof the season. spike never became “good” when he had no soul, he was like aferal animal on a leash. he learnt to play relatively nice with others andbecame fond of some of his owners, but he still wasn’t cured and if you tookthe leash off at the end of the day he would have bitten them. yes, spike lovedbuffy in his own soulless way, but he still had a literal, animalistic demoninside him (we even see in angel in over the rainbow etc. what the actual demoninside vampires is like at its base level) and no soul to control it—only theintellectual knowledge that some actions would get him in buffy’s good booksand some would get him in buffy’s bad books and so he kept it under controlbecause he wanted her and he also wanted to not be killed by the scooby gang.again: this does not excuse the attempted rape at all. nothing forgives it. butlike, it does explain why buffy and many viewers are able to move past it. Idon’t think that on a mythology canon level it was ooc at all, I think thatpeople just forget that spike was stillevil when he was being nice to buffy or dawn or joyce. I think that’s partof the reason it’s so hard to piece together whether spuffy really could workor be good as a ship, because the show never separates spike with a soul fromspike without a soul the way they did with angel. with angel it’s so clearlytwo different people, but with spike it’s a muddy mess of the same thing and ifyou don’t write spike with a soul differently to how you wrote him withoutone—how are viewers supposed to forgive him for what he did?

was it ooc on a character level though? that’s a wholedifferent thing because that opens the can of worms of spike being ooc ingeneral. the spike we see in season four onwards is drastically different fromthe spike we see in season two, and I do think part of that is just plain oldcharacter development but I also think that part of that is due to them wantinga slightly different character when he became a regular? spike was almost woobified by his own writing team? I don’t thinkit’s anything like the character assassination of britta for example, and Iwouldn’t even call it character assassination, but I do think that at somepoint late during season three or early season four they decided they wanted aspike who was funnier, a bit more sympathetic, and a bit more worthy of being afan fave. it's less like character assassination and more like characteradaptation? I feel like they saw that james had this excellent comedicpotential and wanted to use that, and I’ve seen that with other characters onshows too. I think they had to bend spike a bit along the way to get the spikethey wanted and who they could have fun with. he went from spike the genuinelychilling villain, to spike the comedic relief, to spike the stalker, to spikethe coping mechanism, to spike the love interest…and it definitely wasn’t astraight line of development. they definitelyhad to bend the character along the way and lose some of what was thereoriginally and add some of what wasn’t there. and like, it’s not necessarily abad thing, like I fuckin love comic relief spike and I can totally understandwhy they might’ve been like “fuck this james guy is good we want more of that”,but I do think that on a character level they ended up with something that wasquite frequently messy. if you’ve taken this villain and woobified himyourself, then even if he is still evilit’s not surprising that people are surprised or find it ooc for him to attemptto rape buffy because they made him a puppy with a temper instead of a wolfwith a playful streak, and then suddenly his fangs come out again. andobviously to a degree that was the point of it, to remind viewers that he wasevil and he wasn’t good and buffy forgot that, the scoobies forgot that, everyoneforgot that, but at the same time if you woobify a character that much doesthat point land? or does it just become ooc? I think a spike in love with buffyand protecting dawn and getting flowers after joyce died could be consideredjust as ooc as a spike who attempted to rape buffy. he became a bit of a messycharacter if you really think about it for too long, and they never separatedhis soulless state from his soul-having state enough to keep track of it

so anyway, on a character level I’m able to move past itbecause I think at the end of the day…spike didn’t have a soul when it happenedand he was written kind of weirdly over the course of the show but I still likehim. I move past it as a viewer because I wantto move past it, and because I find the spuffy relationship interesting (yet Istill want more/better for buffy always? man, I said it was complicated hahah)

NOW, FROM A WRITING STANDPOINT

bullshit bullshit utter fucking bullshit.

why though? well apart from the reasons I’ve already mentionedabout kind of messy character writing and it being impossible to tell whichparts of spike are ooc or not…………the attempted rape scene was not about buffy,before during or after it happened

they wrote it as a gateway to spike’s redemption arc. theytraumatised their main character, this beautiful female character and one of mytop favourite characters of all time, to boost a man’s redemption arc, andthat’s just fucking awful and we’ve seen it too many times and buffy doesn’t deserver that bullshit.

now I don’t know whether there’s a solid answer on whetheror not spike went to that demon at the end of season six to get his soul or toget his chip removed, but it also like…doesn’t matter, lol? I personally alwaysread that scene as he went to get his chip removed so he could kill her, andthen the demon was like lol psych herehave a soul! which I think also makes it easier for me to move past theattempted rape, because then it didn’t literally lead to him choosing to go have a redemption arc andbecome a better man for her, but like a lot of people do read it the secondway. and either way!! it’s a crock of shit!!

not only did they put in this scene so they could kickstartspike’s redemption, instead of picking some other non-rape or non-violence againstbuffy related plot point to lead to him getting a soul, but then they sort ofmade it all about spike in season seven too?

they do address bits and pieces of buffy’s trauma afterwardsand how it impacted her, but way way too much of the focus was placed onspike’s guilt and spike’s wanting to fix it and how it impacted spike etc., sonot only did they have buffy almost raped to kickstart a man’s storyline, butthey barely focused on her trauma over the “trauma” of spike and that’sjust…fucking awful. like it makes me so mad and it makes me feel so gross.

as a writing decision I think it’s sexist, disgusting, lazyand unforgivable and the biggest fault with what is literally my favourite tvshow of all time lol (you wouldn’t think it is from this rant?? but it is?? andI like spike and ship spuffy??? god this is a mess) and I think it was probablythe worst fucking writing decision on all of buffy (and this is the show thatkilled tara, a literal lesbian angel)

and honestly……the fact that I am aware of and think it’s theworst writing decision possible almost makes it easier to move past from acharacter standpoint? because it was a bad writing decision, it takes some ofthe weight off of spike’s actions for me and I’m aware that it was stupid and grossand it would’ve been better if spike tripped and accidentally fell into a gravethat had a stray soul in it that he inhaled.

I don’t know if that makes sense, in fact I don’t know ifany of this makes sense…but it’s like: spuffy is interesting. to me they havechemistry, they have narrative and trope appeal (even though it wasn’tfulfilled, or wasn’t fulfilled right), they are two characters I likeindividually, and so…I continue to ship it and enjoy it despite the horriblefucking bad writing decisions that went down in season six. I know that evenwithout the attempted rape season or even without season six it’s still anunhealthy ship and it’s problematic (and I want better for buffy at the end ofthe day), but it is at a base level to me entertaining, and that’s what I likefrom my ships

god this is almost two thousand words I’m so sorry I have alot of thoughts and I had to rewrite half of this so it’s really, really scattered and confusing butlike…yes I ship it, no I don’t think the attempted rape was a good writingdecision, no I don’t excuse or forgive it but I do move past it

and in answer to what other people feel about the scene andship….it’s really divided lol, a lot of people feel like I do, a lot of peopleprefer bangel, a lot of people prefer spuffy, a lot of people can’t look pastthe rape at all, a lot of people look past the rape too easily, and a lot of people probably don’t know what to thinkor have no strong opinions lol

god

this is two thousand words I’m sorry

#Anonymous

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN AUDIENCES

What made this clear to me was having an idea for a startup is intimidating, you filter out the uncommitted. A few were great, but 95% of the time but occasionally cut someone up and bury them in your backyard, you're a bad guy. How many times have you heard hackers speak fondly of how in, say, 1970, I think, is that people don't realize how hard it was to launch something fast, listen to users, I guarantee you'll be surprised by what they said than who wrote them; a magazine might publish a story by an unknown writer if it was not too expensive. Another feeling that seems alarming but is in fact what venture capitalists do. If you make something and people complain that you're unqualified, or that you've done something inappropriate. If you're controlling them, they're not drifting.1 What if you run out of ideas?

This is a critical phase—this is where ideas come from the margins. The trouble is, it's not always a damning sign when readers prefer it. They still rely on this principle today, incidentally. These too are engaging in the wrong way: they have the really big ideas. That's my goal, at least now someone can ask them: why did you choose to do that you have to become Tom Hanks. Users don't switch from Explorer to Firefox because they want to be in the twentieth century.2 They expect to avoid that by raising more from investors.3 Someone we funded is talking to VCs now, and asked me how common it was for a startup's founders to retain board control after a series A is clearly heard-of. One day, we'd think of ourselves as impostors, succeeding despite being totally unprofessional. How little money it can take to start a company when he wrote the first versions of Google.

Exception: If one of the founders are equal partners.4 And to my horror I started acting like a child.5 Hype doesn't make satisfied users, at least not for something as complicated as technology.6 We all thought there was just something we weren't getting.7 That may seem utopian, but it's clearly now the established practice. West coast investors are going to die.8 In fact, even that is an interesting prospect. This will sound shocking, but it may be that they aren't.

Audiences tune that out. But there is another possible approach.9 Small things can be done by a bad writer.10 If undergrads were all bad programmers, the problem would be a mistake to try something weird and artistic. If you want to get the gold out of it. So why does anyone invest in bonds? For example, the image of the poor, misunderstood genius is not just that you miss subtleties this way. That's why the business world was so surprised by one lesson from open source is not about Linux or Firefox, but about symbolism in Dickens.11 Where is the man bites dog in that?12 In software, a problem that can be done fast. Someone is going to be an employee anymore—that is, hacking. Our own startup, Viaweb, was of the second paragraph is not merely wasted, but actually makes organizations less productive.

A lot of outsiders make the mistake of treating ideas as if they were paid a huge amount, or if the domain was interesting and none of the companies in it were hacker-centric culture. There are two different ways people judge you.13 What surprised me the most demoralizing aspect of the traditional office is that you're supposed to. You can afford to be passive.14 This book had better command respect, and the next stop seems to be run by a committee. This is a good way to learn. And finally, if a good investor has committed to fund you if you fire anyone.15 You'd think they'd have had more confidence. Immigration difficulties might be another reason to stay put. How casual successful startup founders are.16

You have to learn to judge by outward signs which will be worth your time. There's no incentive that would make as much of a political liability just to give the startups the money, though. We made software for building online stores. Did they want French Vanilla or Lemon?17 Imitating nature also works in engineering. Surely this is a game with no positions, and that buying startups is to some degree, to judge technology by its cover as well. But this is something all programmers have to do.

Notes

The place for people interested in each type of round, or a community, or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000.

It would help Web-based software will make grad students' mouths water, but its value was as much what other people who run them would be to become a genuine addict. Except text editors and compilers.

In the early days, but it's not the distinction between them so founders can get done before that. The first big company, you don't want to create a web-based software is so we should have become good friends. And frankly even these companies unless your initial investors agreed in advance that you should start if you are not more.

You can get done before that. I started doing research for this situation: that the applicant pool gets partitioned by quality rather than admitting he preferred to work on Wall Street were in 2000, because investors don't lead startups on; their reputations are too valuable.

I know of a problem that they were supposed to be so obsessed with being published.

Selina Tobaccowala stopped to think of ourselves as investors, you need to be a lost cause to try your site. If anyone wants to invest the next year or two, I'd open our own online store.

The Old Way. In fact the secret weapon of the ingredients in our common culture. So instead of profits—but only if the company at 1.

An influx of inexpensive but mediocre investors. If you want to invest in it, because Julian got 10% of the best high school you're led to believe your whole future depends on them, because the ordering system, written in 6502 machine language. Google.

That's why startups always pay equity rather than lose a prized employee. Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation—maybe around 10 people.

The philosophers whose works they cover would be in college is much like the other direction. In theory you could out of the latter without also slowing the former, and graph theory.

But the change is a scarce resource. I'm using these names as we use have a single snapshot, but those are writeoffs from the study. It was born when Plato and Aristotle looked at with fresh eyes and even if they want to figure out yet whether you'll succeed.

I'm using these names as we walked out we ran into Yuri Sagalov.

If you want to hire any first-rate programmers. P 500 CEOs in the sense of mission. It requires the kind of kludge you need a higher growth rate early on. The powerful don't need.

Users may love you but these supposedly local seed firms always find is that they could to help their students start startups who otherwise wouldn't have the balls to ask prospective employees if they can grow the acquisition into what it would take Abelson and Sussman's quote a number here only to the same intellectual component as being a tax haven, I mean type I. Apple's market cap the day Steve came back in a domain is for sale. The meaning of distribution.

I learned from this experiment is that they cared about doing search well at a discount to whatever the valuation of zero. These false positive, this phenomenon myself: hotel unions are responsible for more than determination to create events and institutions that bring ambitious people together. Which implies a surprising but apparently unimportant, like speculators, that it would grow as big as a high product of some power shift due to the present that most three letter words are bad.

At first I didn't care about. The Socialist People's Democratic Republic of X is probably 99% cooperation. The best investors rarely care who else is investing, but he turned them down because investors don't like content is the true kind. Some of the bizarre stuff.

Download programs to encourage more startups to kill Archimedes.

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holytheoristtastemaker · 4 years

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Graphics technologies have changed a lot over the years, including on the web, and the web is on the cusp of its next big change with WebGPU on the horizon. In this first blog post in a series of two, I'll cover a brief history of graphics APIs and what's in store for the future. I'll also focus on Construct - our leading web game engine - and how it's evolved with these changes over the years too.

A few notes on terminology

Construct's renderer is the code that draws all the graphics to the screen - also known as rendering. When it comes to rendering, most modern devices have two chips in them which are involved:

The CPU (Central Processing Unit), a general-purpose chip that runs the main application logic

The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), which is specially designed to handle rendering graphics really quickly.

In general the application logic on the CPU builds up a list of rendering instructions, and then sends these to the GPU to execute quickly, so both are involved in rendering. These days GPUs are used for other specialist purposes like AI too. Broadly speaking, CPUs are designed to run serial instructions (one-after-another) efficiently, which is typical of application code, and GPUs are designed to run parallel instructions efficiently, which is typical of rendering (e.g. filling all pixels in an area the same way). Some devices have both the CPU and GPU on the same physical chip, also known as integrated graphics, but the same purposes apply.

The CPU can also render graphics by itself, but this is usually very slow as the chip isn't specially designed for it, so wherever possible the GPU is used instead. Drawing on the CPU is called software rendering, and drawing on the GPU is called hardware acceleration.

It's also worth mentioning that before Construct 2 I had plenty of experience working with C++ and DirectX 9 on Windows while working on Construct Classic. So coming from that, I knew what it took to build a native-grade high performance renderer for games.

The early web

Historically, it wasn't generally possible to achieve high-performance graphics on the web. Browsers generally used software rendering so tended to be very slow with graphics. They also lacked appropriate features, meaning games would have to resort to inefficient hacks like moving HTML elements around. Flash was the best available option, and so became the de-facto web gaming technology.

HTML5 canvas

Construct 2 was first released in February 2011, around the time HTML5 was taking off. The key feature of HTML5 that made games possible was the <canvas> element. This provides an area of the screen that you can draw images to, which is exactly what you want for a game.

At first it only supported the "2d" context (often referred to as canvas2d), which essentially provides a basic "draw image at position" capability. It had pretty limited features, and was not as fast as other lower-level graphics APIs like DirectX or OpenGL. The main reason for that was around how efficiently the CPU can issue drawing commands to the GPU. With canvas2d all you can do is repeatedly say "draw this image at that position" (via drawImage), requiring lots of function calls with lots of performance overhead. The key to achieving good rendering performance is the ability to batch commands together - meaning being able to have a single command that says "draw these images at these positions". This creates lots of work for the GPU to do at once, which is ideal for a massively parallel processor. But more on that later.

Even canvas2d was software rendered at first, but pretty quickly browsers added hardware acceleration since making fast games - and getting rid of plugins like Flash - was on the browser maker's minds. Still, this was enough for Construct 2 to launch with its canvas2d renderer, being one of the first engines to provide a reasonably performant HTML5 game engine without needing any plugins at all.

I can't resist a bit of nostalgia, but at the time we assumed this would only ever work on desktop. Mobile devices in 2011 were very weak by today's standards, both in hardware and software. The idea of running high-performance games in mobile browsers was unimaginable at the time. We've come a long, long way!

WebGL

The Next Big Thing in web graphics was WebGL, which appeared surprisingly quickly after <canvas>. WebGL is essentially OpenGL for the web (OpenGL ES 2.0, strictly speaking). OpenGL is a low-level native-grade graphics API similar to DirectX. If you are serious about high-performance graphics with impressive effects, it's a must. So WebGL was clearly an essential feature for a web game engine.

WebGL first appeared in Chrome 9 and Firefox 4, both released in early 2011. In November that year we released our first support for WebGL rendering in Construct 2 r68. Our initial benchmarks showed it was 4x faster than canvas2d, later increasing to more like 10-20x faster - a huge improvement! It also had far more features and support for beautiful shader effects. WebGL allows us to produce sophisticated batched commands, such as drawing hundreds of sprites in one go, which is why it's so much faster. Back in 2014 I wrote a blog post on How the Construct 2 WebGL renderer works which despite being quite old, is still a pretty good overview of the details of optimising WebGL rendering and how batching works. It's useful background reading to help you understand the rest of this blog series.

Full browser support for WebGL took a few more years. It wasn't until iOS 8 added WebGL in 2014 that all desktop and mobile browsers had support. Also at first not even all desktop systems supported WebGL, and IE11 had added WebGL in 2013 but was taking years to roll out to everyone. So we had to support both canvas2d and WebGL in Construct for many years. In fact we only really fully removed canvas2d when we launched the C3 runtime in late 2018 - which requires WebGL and has removed all canvas2d code. By then WebGL was ubiquitous so it was no real loss, and greatly simplified our codebase too, allowing us to focus on one renderer. (The old canvas2d code is actually still hanging around in the C2 runtime in Construct 3! But the C2 runtime will be retired in July 2021 along with Construct 2 itself, when after a decade we'll finally say goodbye to our ancient canvas2d code.)

WebGL 2

WebGL 2 is an update that improves WebGL's capabilities to be equivalent to OpenGL ES 3.0 (where WebGL 1 is equivalent to OpenGL ES 2.0). WebGL 2 adds loads more features to the API, but in the context of Construct, it's a minor update that just lifts some minor restrictions and allowed us to tweak some parts of the engine to be a bit more efficient. It's not really that important an update for 2D games, and is probably much more important for 3D games.

WebGL 2 first arrived in 2017 with Chrome 56 and Firefox 51. It never got added to Internet Explorer or Edge, until Edge switched to the same browser engine as Chrome (which only got released this year). Mystifyingly, Safari has to this day still not added support for WebGL 2. It appears to still be in development though, but it's not really especially important, since as noted it's only a minor update for Construct. Meanwhile Apple do appear to be actively working on WebGPU - an even more advanced API - so it'll probably matter even less in the long run, but more on that later.

Since adding support for WebGL 2 in Construct only meant making a few changes, it's still basically the same renderer. Most modern devices support WebGL 2, but if it's not supported, Construct switches back to WebGL 1, and everything largely works identically. It's hard to come by good numbers but probably something like 60%-80% of devices support WebGL 2, so there's still quite a significant use of WebGL 1, but unlike with canvas2d it's very little work to keep supporting that.

WebGPU

We've caught up to where we are today: using WebGL 2 or WebGL 1 for high-performance graphics in Construct. However the tech continues to improve, and there is now WebGPU in the works to provide even faster and more powerful graphics technology for the web! But to understand what's exciting about WebGPU, we have to review a brief history of native graphics technologies too.

OpenGL

OpenGL, the cross-platform low-level high-performance graphics technology that WebGL is based on, is very old. It was originally developed in the early 1990s. In computing terms, that's ancient! Modern GPUs actually work very differently to how they did back then - but many core concepts of OpenGL had not changed. Consequently, applications were basically using OpenGL like it's the 90s, and then the graphics driver - the software between the application and the hardware - would convert that in to something that can actually run on the GPU.

As GPUs became more complex and powerful, the graphics driver ended up having to do a lot of extremely complex work. This made graphics drivers notoriously buggy, and in many cases slower too, since they have to do all this work on-the-fly. A similar fate had befallen DirectX, although probably to a lesser extent, since Microsoft had the power to make major upgrades at a couple of points through its life. OpenGL was particularly lumbered by decades of backwards-compatibility.

Vulkan

What can't be fixed can still be replaced. As a result Khronos, the group behind OpenGL, came up with an all-new, completely redesigned modern graphics API: Vulkan, released in 2016. It's even more low-level, faster, simpler and a much better match for modern hardware.

However it also meant applications had to completely rewrite all their graphics code to support it. This kind of tectonic shift in technology takes years to play out, and as a result there's still a lot of OpenGL out there.

Whilst Vulkan is designed to be a standard API that is able to work on all systems, as has long been the case with standards, Apple also came up with Metal for iOS and macOS and Microsoft also came up with DirectX 12 for Windows and Xbox. Both are more or less the same idea as Vulkan: new, lower-level APIs that throws out all the historical baggage and starts with a clean slate design that much more closely matches how modern hardware works.

WebGPU again

With the graphics world moving on to this new generation of APIs, the question was then what to do on the web. WebGL is basically OpenGL with many of the same pitfalls, and high-performance web game engines like Construct's still stand to benefit a lot from the new generation of graphics APIs.

Unfortunately unlike OpenGL, Vulkan has run in to trouble getting true cross-platform reach due to Apple. iOS and macOS only support Metal and have no official support for Vulkan, although there are third-party libraries for it. Further, even Vulkan is not really suitable for the web: it's just too low level, even dealing with minutiae like GPU memory allocators so that AAA game engines could extract the maximum conceivable performance. Not all of this is appropriate for the web platform, and security is also a much more significant concern in browsers.

So the solution was an all-new API designed specifically for the web, high level enough to be usable and secure in a browser, and able to be implemented on top of any of Vulkan, Metal and DirectX 12. This is WebGPU, and it seems to be the only truly cross-platform, modern and low-level graphics API. It's still in development, but all major browser vendors are on-board - including Apple - and working on experimental implementations. And I've been prototyping a WebGPU renderer for Construct! But more on that next time.

Conclusion

That covers the history of graphics technologies on the web, up to recent progress with WebGPU. Note that WebGPU is still very much an experimental technology under active development. There's lots more work to be done before it gets anywhere near release, so don't hold your breath.

I didn't want to end up with too epic a blog post, so I've split the second part of this blog in to a follow-up post: From WebGL to WebGPU in Construct. This continues on from this blog, covering how my experiments with WebGPU support in Construct have gone, what I've learnt while porting our engine to support WebGPU, and how it compares to WebGL. So take a look for the next part of this series!

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rebeccahpedersen · 6 years

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Welcome To Your New Toronto Realty Blog!

TorontoRealtyBlog

Well, first thing’s first – how the hell am I going to write my “teaser” in one or two short lines? Brevity has never been, nor ever will become, an attribute of mine. That space above the fold was always my opportunity to lead, engage, attract, tease, trick, or regale!

Alas, I’ll just have to make do with a smaller introduction which makes the whole site look a lot cleaner!

And that’s really what the new layout was about; making things look a bit cleaner.

Or should I say, a little more 2018, and a little less 2006.

I’ve never been one to accept change.

Whether it was moving houses when I was 12-years-old (even though I was moving to a house twice as large, in a better area), or switching from a Blackberry to an iPhone (why did I wait so long?), or downloading the MLS app on my phone and scrapping the keychain-authenticator (I was the very last TREB agent to do this), or even switching from a paper/padfolio day-planner to an online calendar…………which I have yet to do…

…I have never been good with change.

My beloved Toronto Realty Blog, which many of you might find zero fault with, has looked old, stale, and outdated for quite some time.

I brought a new layout online in the summer of 2016, but as I was told by many, it was basically just the same red and white version iteration as before, with a few subtle changes, a bit of moving column A to column B, and removing the disastrous colours in the “TRB Channels” I had below the fold.

I suppose I’ve come a long way since 2007.

Here’s my very first masthead:

And then my “updated” second version:

Wow, they’re just, like, so different!

But that is what used to represent change to me.

I started the blog in June of 2007, and within months, I already had major formatting issues.

On Internet Explorer (this was before Google Chrome and Firefox got a bigger market share, not to mention Mac users), which back at the time represented about 60% of my users, the masthead would not display properly, and was actually showing at the bottom of the blog……….for about 12 months.

Yes, 12 months. Before I finally thought, “I wonder if anybody other than the guy I found on Craigslist, and paid $500 to, could work on my website.”

The masthead and the menu bar running across the top of the home page were both lost below sea. But it didn’t seem to matter, because my following was somewhat underground back then. People seemed to like the imperfection of the site, as it almost underscored how rare it was to find a licensed real estate agent opining about shady developers, or misleading sales tactics.

But eventually, as I said, I had to get the site fixed.

And that’s where the beautiful second version of TRB, that you see above, came into play. Oh, just so different from the first! But at least everything was in the right place.

And this was well before you’d ever access a website on your phone. My 2008 Blackberry could barely load the blog. All the users were on desktops.

But the second version was cleaner overall, and oh – the new logo! Yes! I finally decided to scrap the puffy, orange, first-font-I-randomly-chose lettering, and get a logo.

I had this idea that I was “putting my stamp” on the city, and I thought this looked really cool:

Just as my Mom told me I was cool in Grade 9, when I sat home instead of going to parties, I told myself this was cool in 2008-09 when I had some random part-timer in my office draw it, likely in Paint.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2013 that I made another change.

Raise your hand if you’ve been around since this version:

In hindsight, it looks awful, right?

But at the time, it was supposed to be a “window into my mind.”

Coffee, a blackberry, keys on the desk, and old-fashioned paper day-planner, all strewn across a hardwood floor, in a city where everybody seemed to be obsessed with hardwood floors.

The “Top Posts Of The Month” was a leading feature, since I was starting to see 20-30 comments with regularity, and I felt that more people were coming back to read what others were saying.

Eventually I grew tired of this, and wanted something cleaner, which was ironic, given the whole idea behind this layout was to “jazz it up.”

When I launched the new version somewhere around 2014, I was surprised by the response! Readers were actually telling me they like the old version, which made me realize that I wasn’t the only one averse to change.

The new version was cleaner, and easier to navigate, with way more features, and it had multiple ways to find the same thing, no matter what you were looking for.

But as I would soon learn, and as I fully expect with today’s new launch, readers just don’t like change!

Here’s the 2014 version:

Of course the top wasn’t cut off, but my archives are only so perfect.

So compare this to the wood-flooring-version, and how can somebody say they don’t like it?

Well, like I said, the consensus always seems to be, “What you had before was fine. Why bother changing?”

Then in 2016, for some odd reason, I decided to launch a “new” layout, that was more of the same:

That’s the site you all knew and (hopefully) loved, until this week.

Boy, it really really was similar to the 2014 version.

In any event, this time around, I really wanted to get with the times.

I wanted something that made me uncomfortable, and I found it during my first meeting with my team – when I said, “Not a chance,” and walked out.

And that’s when I knew it made sense.

I had to change. I had to get more modern.

And I had to risk being “too salesy,” as a close friend of mine called the mock-up when I showed it to him two months ago.

But you know what? It’s out of necessity.

Would you believe it if I told you that many people who email me don’t know I’m a real estate agent?

True story.

I get a slew of emails every week, and not just from buyers and sellers who want to be come clients. I get at least 2-3 people who are looking to get into real estate and want advice, I get 2-3 people who had interesting experiences in real estate and want to share, I get 2-3 people who know I’m a real estate agent, and used another agent for their transaction, but are really hoping I’ll spend some time to consider their situation and give them advice, and then, above all else, I always get at least one email from somebody who needs my help, pleads with me to call or email, and then is surprised to find out I’m a real estate agent.

Just last Friday, I spoke to a woman who was asking for advice on two condos in her target area, and eventually said, “My Realtor thinks the maintenance fees aren’t a problem in either building.” I told her, “You should have mentioned you’re working with a Realtor, because I don’t want to interfere.” She said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were a Realtor.”

Yes. Really. This does happen.

So because I knew I was going to write this blog when the new site launched this week, I asked her, “What did you think this site was?’

She said, “Well, I was just Googling ‘maintenance fees’ and I found it, so, I dunno, I guess I thought it was like a public support page?”

What the hell is a public support page? Is that even a thing?

So yes, you could label TRB V6.0 “more salesy,” but not because I am trying to attract more business, but because I think people should know who I am, what I do, what services I provide, etc. Just like any business, selling any good or service.

But that’s just me being self-conscious. Overall, I love the new look and feel. It’s very modern, sleek, dare I speak the over-used buzz-word, “sharp,” and above all – clean.

The blog itself won’t change in format.

New posts will still be published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with Pick5 on Thursday.

The big changes are in the form of additions to the site, specifically new features.

First and foremost, we have a listings portal. This is, like what you will find online, 100% up-to-date and complete. And like what you will find online – it doesn’t take 24 hours to populate new listings, like the archaic www.realtor.ca that CREA shoves down our throats.

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when a wee-blogger like myself has new listings posted before our public MLS, but that’s a topic for another day.

The listings will have sales trends for each neighbourhood and/or building in which that listing resides, as well as amenity information, open house info, etc.

I’ve also scrapped a few features, starting with “ASK TRB,” which was my previous brainchild, thinking that readers would take the opportunity to start their own thread. But as you saw from last Friday’s blog about “MLS Musings,” when the readers want to start a thread – they just do it in the current blog!

I also scrapped the “Featured Listings,” ie. the Hot House of The Week, Hot Loft of The Week, etc. I deliberately have not updated this section since January, because I wanted to see how long it would take for a reader to email me, since readers will literally email me when I’ve used a semi-colon incorrectly. But guess what? Nobody emailed me! So it’s like I thought: nobody uses that feature.

Many of the regular readers will be VERY happy to see that I’ve re-ordered the comments section, so that the first comment appears, well, first, and subsequent comments below. This was a major sticking point back in the summer of 2016 when I first launched, although part of me thinks you’ll all be so used to it, that you’ll complain now that I’ve switched it back.

But the big addition to TRB is something that no other real estate agent in Toronto can offer.

I call it the “Data Hub.”

Let’s say that I wanted to know the average price of a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, semi-detached house that sold specifically in the “Danforth Village” community of TREB District “E03,” between January 1st, 2018, and March 31st, 2018.

Right now, I would go to the back-end of MLS (which of course you guys don’t have), and I would search accordingly.

I would then copy and paste all those sales into Microsoft Excel, clean the data and use the AVERAGE function on the “Sold Price” column.

That’s a lot of work.

And it’s work that you guys can’t do.

But what if you could?

Folks, let me introduce you to the TRB Data Hub.

I will admit that the functionality takes some getting used to (ie. holding CTRL to select multiple sections, using the map versus using the auto-complete for areas, etc), but give it a shot, and play around with it.

Over the next two months, I want you guys to use this feature, and give me your feedback.

As it stands now, we have only “Beds,” “Baths,” and “Parking” for the drop-down options, but as I said – we’re working on it.

We plan to add features as we move along, but wanted to get this launched for you folks to play around with.

As cheezy as this might sounds, I view Toronto Realty Blog as a community that I have built over eleven years, and many of the readers and users have been around for a long, long time. I value the input of the readers more than you’ll ever understand. I might write the blogs, but it’s the users that truly make TRB all that it is.

So that’s it, folks.

I welcome your feedback, even if you liked the previous version more, which is what everybody has said after every change.

The post Welcome To Your New Toronto Realty Blog! appeared first on Toronto Realty Blog.

Originated from https://ift.tt/2matAnR

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jostylr · 7 years

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What a year: 2017

This year has been a long year. Much of it centered on the national news. The anger and threats. The crumbling of icons to harassment. The feeling of powerlessness as the majority is ignored in the country. The non-stop desire to see what other embarrassment or trauma was in the news. None of that was good, but good did come out of it.

It was a year of endings for me and, in that ending, hope of new beginnings.

Apple

The only apple device I currently use that I used at the start of 2017 is my iPad Pro. In the spring of 2017, my 2009 iMac died (hard drive failure). It was a slow death which held the promise of maybe keeping it as a display monitor. I tried to use just my Macbook air and either use a dedicated external monitor or the 2009 iMac screen. Both ultimately ended in failure (the dedicated ones never looked good with the MBA while the iMac had catastrophic heat failure).

I ordered a new iMac in May, but they released a brand new version at WWDC. It was just within my return window so I returned the old new one and got a new new one. Been happy with it ever since.

My MBA died in November. It was working fine one moment and then it was dead the next. The repair would have cost more than a new refurbished one at MicroCenter (Apple no longer makes my beloved 11" MBA) and so I got that. Looked briefly at the Macbook but the keyboard felt like pounding on concrete.

iPhoneX came out and I just had to get it despite getting a lot of flack for paying so much for a new phone. I love it. I love the FaceID login flow, the smoothness of it all, the screen, and the camera is just fantastic. Low light, no problem. Crystal clear video. Cool zooming. I am not that much into taking pictures anymore, but this makes me wish I were. I might explore Halide a bit with it to learn more about digital photography. My daughter inherited my iPhone6; she was another motivation as her iPhone4S (my old one) died suddenly.

I bought the iPhoneX and the iPhoneSE for my wife using a tradeoff of a new carrier: Xfinity Mobile. We were paying $90 a month for AT&T. After our first month, we paid $25 for Xfinity Mobile, $12 for 1GB usage level (we used 200Mb) and $13 in taxes. The taxes are non-negotiable, but the $12 could disappear if we used less than 100Mb -- seems unlikely).

So in one year, I got a new iMac, MBA, and iPhone. If FaceID comes to the iPad and they redesign the Apple Pencil to have an eraser part, then I would consider replacing the iPad Pro too.

I also bought AirPods and absolutely love them. They can be a little slow to switch between devices, but otherwise, I am very pleased with them. Being wireless is incredible, and pausing when I take them out is a fantastic feature. I don't use the taps very much. The quality is fine for me and the range is great. Also, when they run low on power, I can charge one at a time. I don't often run out of power, but in the times I do, it comes in handy. I also enjoy sharing them with my wife when we are watching something together that is not intended for our daughter.

Apps

While speaking of Apple, there are a few apps that I find amazing to use:

Mac

Yoink. Drag and drop files onto the side, then find where to put them, drag them out. I find this works very well for me as I like to segment out my process in exactly this way: First find it, then figure out where to put it.

Grand Perspective. This is blowing my mind away. It can scan any folder (or the whole drive) and show in nested blocks the storage area. As one mouses over the blocks, it shows how much space and what file it is. This is a great way to get an understanding for where the space goes. Pretty too.

Magnet. Still early days for me, but this is a windows manager for snapping to a few specified areas using the keyboard. It seems to do exactly what I want though having a few more options would be very useful for me.

The indispensable apps I use all the time are, of course, MacVim, SourceTree (git), Terminal (ssh, literate-programming), 1Password, and the browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari). Some storage programs and some math apps are listed below.

I also acquired AffinityDesigner. It looks awesome and I hope to use it, but I have not yet had an opportunity to really delve into it.

iOS

To be honest, I have tried a number of apps, but there are not that many that really captures my attention. I continue to use SafariBooksOnline, Reeder, Firefox Focus, all for consuming.

Love you to bits. This is a graphical game that reminds me strongly of text-based games. My daughter and I both enjoyed playing through it. It is the spiritual successor to the much beloved (and gone) Tiny Thief.

GrafnCalc83. A wonderful touch implementation of the TI-83. I have the actual calculator, but the iOS version is a joy to work with while being very faithful to what the TI-83 would produce.

Many of the apps I come across seem to demo nicely (IKEA furniture placement app, for example), but I simply do not use that many despite having a lot of them.

I do use Notability for writing out notes on my iPad. It was particularly useful in conjunction with Screenflow in doing videos of working out mathematics problems.

I have also used AstroPad for converting my iPad into a graphics tablet for my desktop.

Storage

With all the failures of my devices this year, backup has certainly been on my mind. I had pretty good luck with them all except for my daughter's iPhone4S though I am not sure that there was anything much lost on it. Right now, I am using iMazing to do backups to an external drive connected to my iMac. They do it wirelessly to all the devices and this seems to be working fine.

For the desktop and laptops, I use Carbon Copy Cloner 5 and back the laptops up once a month. I also have Arq which backs up the high use folders (desktop, downloads, documents, my repositories) to OneDrive. Additionally, I have a main external storage folder that keeps a bunch of stuff, such as the photo library and I back that up to another external drive.

I just finished sorting all the many "messy desktop" folders all around and consolidating all the materials. Saw some interesting memories along the way, including my Tiddlywiki experiments. I have my OneDrive sync folder with a variety of documents that I find useful. I hope to keep it in sync with the folders on the main Storage device, probably using rsync.

Storage is still a bit of a pain, but I am hoping to work at it.

Currently, I have Amazon Cloud Storage and OneDrive. They are both very nice. I opted to not go with iCloud because I could not understand how to control what was syncing where. It sounded like they try to stuff my hard drives full and manage it. I am a big fan of having control even if it does cause me headaches of organization.

Jobs

My jobs have certainly changed a bit this year. I quit one part-time online teaching gig because I did not like the direction it was heading. I also wanted to have more time for other efforts. But another of my part-time online teaching gigs has been going crazy with enrollment so instead of 2 semesters, it looks like I will be teaching 3 semesters in the year.

I also left the neighborhood association. I am quite pleased to no longer be going to meetings.

My Arts&Ideas job also expanded to include a summer camp for our students. It went well and we expect to continue it. It is a very different feel, much more relaxed, but it also takes up a lot of time. I did feel that having limited free time helped keep me focused on working on what I was concerned with.

Healthcare

We have used CareFirst since going on our own about five years ago. We initially had $300-500 in premiums per month, but last year it spiked to $900 and now this year it would be $1500. This is insane given our income levels. So we switched to KaiserPermanente for about $500 a month after subsidies. I worry about the stability of the health system, but I guess we'll take it one year at a time.

This year, none of us needed medical help, that I can recall. In previous years, I had sicknesses and a surgery, but this year was a healthy year.

I did get a FitBit which has helped me stay motivated to move around. My weight is not moving in the direction I want it to, but it does seem at least stable. My goal is to lose about 30 pounds from where I am now.

Shoes and Sandals

This is the year when my feet stopped wanting to wear shoes. Shoes I have worn for a long time became uncomfortable. Perhaps my feet have gotten wider, perhaps I just have transferred my claustorphobia to my feet.

In any event, I started wearing sandals. All the time. Even with socks. To deal with weather, I have overshoes. One pair ($10) is for rain and light cold or snow. Another pair is expensive ($100) but are built for heavy winter use.

I have used both of them, I find them amazing. They look a little dodgy, but I love to wear my sandals and this is a neat separation of the external needs. The foot size of these overshoes are very large, but my feet are securely placed inside thanks to the sandals.

Inside, I have the comfort of open-toed sandaling.

RPG

Pushed by the students at Arts&Idea, I have been working on a new role-playing system based off of D&D. I call it self-directed role-playing. It takes the classes and breaks them up into individual skills. The system is complicated for the assignment of experience points and requires a computer. I also revamped the magic system to open it up to characters in a more general way. The combat is largely opposed rolls of attack versus defense. The initiative system is also computerized to allow for a dynamic ordering based on trying to make everyone feel like they are participating more (the less well one does or the more minor the action, the sooner one gets to play again; also defending slows one down a little as defending is rolling dice).

One neat feature (I hope) is that instead of a d20 for everything, the skills start at d4 and work up to d20, gaining modifiers at each level. Since attack and defense are opposed, this should balance out, regardless of how it goes, but I am hoping to reduce some of the random swings of fortune while still giving the thrill of rolling. The damage is a multiplier based on weapon and other factors, multiplied by how well one does in succeeding in the attack.

The biggest question is whether we can run this at a fast speed.

I hope this deals with the problems I have with D&D. The material is very nice and thorough, but the system has always felt not quite right. I have done some playtesting with a brave group of guinea pigs. In a week, I hope to begin two groups working through the prepared D&D adventures of Out of the Abyss and Curse of Strahd.

Fifth Staff

We spent the year at school looking to hire a fifth staff. It was quite a journey. We learned a lot, had a lot of fun with the Hiring Committee, and we finally did find someone that we are all very excited to join us.

But it is tough to envision a fifth person. We have been a tight group of four, knowing each other quite well. We can anticipate how each reacts and we have the bonds to both care about the others while also being free to oppose one another.

I have confidence in the person we hired, but it will take time to adjust.

We also hired a professional cleaner for bi-weekly cleanings. This has also been an adjustment.

Development

I have found this year to be difficult to work on my projects. I have added some to literate programming. I entered this winter break with the intention of redoing it, using Promises or perhaps Observables. But on looking at the options, I realized I love my Event-When paradigm. So I have spent the vacation trying to improve that, which is still a work in progress, but I am pretty happy with some of the innovations. It strikes me as the mental model that works well for me: events happen, stuff reacts to it. This is a bit silly in terms of scientific or mathematical computations (maybe), but for user interaction stuff, it is perfect. Even in the realm of math and science, events can be a way to break problems into separate computations.

My goals are to finish the Event-When rewrite, incorporate that into Literate-Programming and update all of that. With luck, I could get that done by May.

Once that is done, or perhaps concurrently, I intend to finally get my own blog system going and MathPebbles. So much to do and I still need to do A&I internal web stuff.

I am captivated by the ideas of mathematics and physics. I have been taking breaks from programming this vacation and retreating to reading mathematics. There is so much to explore and understand. This is what I hope to bring to MathPebbles. I think one idea for the site is to thread some pebbles together as a kind of companion to some good math books. I used to think of writing a math book, but there are plenty of those in existence. What is needed is a platform for exploring mathematics in a way that is most helpful to those learning. I absolutely love GeoGebra, WolframAlpha, Desmos, but they all strike me as giving answers while skipping much of the journey. I want to remove the burden of the manual computations, but facilitate stepping through the process rather than shortcutting it.

Family

Family has been good. My daughter is growing up fast. While only six, she seems much older. She has just lost her two front teeth. She is into Legos this year, working diligently in following the instructions of the sets. While I always enjoyed the free form method, I have to admit it is pretty cool to see the constructions she makes.

My parents are definitely getting older. We have had some conversations in trying to prepare for the inevitable, but I get the sense that when disaster finally strikes, I will be completely unprepared. I can't help but continue to think that our society is most failing the young and the old. Our lack of neighborly community, shall we say, hurts them the most.

I do worry that I spend too much time working on my projects when I should spend more time with my daughter and my parents.

My wife is going through her own journey. The new year may see some significant changes to our lives as she takes on a new direction.

Future

I am hoping this year will be pretty stable in terms of my jobs, devices, and time usage. My hope is to get MathPebbles going full blast along with finishing up Literate Programming and Event When. There are some internal projects at A&I to do as well as the RPG to run.

Each year, I hope to get further into my many projects. There are books and other projects I want to do, but I think the biggest desire is MathPebbles. So let's hope this is the year for that!

Sunday will be a day to declutter, clean, and refocus each week on the upcoming week. Discipline is the call to action.

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extraupdate-blog · 7 years

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Learn How To Set Up iTunes and iPhone Sync on Your Mac

New Post has been published on https://extraupdate.com/learn-how-to-set-up-itunes-and-iphone-sync-on-your-mac/

Learn How To Set Up iTunes and iPhone Sync on Your Mac

If you have had a problem with putting in place iTunes to your new Mac and syncing along with your iPhone, you then aren’t alone. While regularly misdiagnosed by the “geniuses” at the Apple Store, this is definitely a common trouble for brand new Mac users.

However, when Mac customers try to find a recommendation for this trouble on their own, they often find out that they want to struggle through quite a few bad advice first to get to the right solution. A higher way to resolve that is to seek advice from a Mac restores professional or an Apple Authorized Service Provider.

Here is a trouble a consumer came into our store with these days. Whenever he tried to sync his iPhone with the iTunes application on his new MacBook, he changed into prompted to “switch purchases from iPhone”. The only trouble was, his MacBook wouldn’t apprehend the iPhone. A friend advised him to make the switch directly from his old PC, or observe the net forums and troubleshoot the trouble on his personal. He didn’t advocate him to discuss with an Apple Store or different Authorized Apple Expert.

Like a lot of our clients, he observed statistics online about a downloadable iPhone power, but he wasn’t positive he preferred the idea of paying Apple for the privilege of syncing considered one of their merchandise with some other and he changed into afraid it might be a rip-off. As Mac professionals, we’ve got heard approximately many iPhone/Mac customers who tried this approach and it did not remedy their trouble.

Fortunately, as Mac Repair Experts we stay current on the forums and we were capable of discovering an easy and effective solution for syncing iTunes on a new MacBook. It grew to become out that this consumer didn’t want to buy a new force, nor did he want to make the trek to the Apple Store.

If your iPhone isn’t always recognized by using your MacBook, the satisfactory answer is to install software program updates on your laptop. The hassle will now not be resolved with the aid of reinstalling iTunes to your MacBook. Even if it syncs up as soon as, you can have this hassle time and again till you replace your software, and who wants to reload iTunes every time you sync?

Instead of losing more money and time with the Apple Store, you ought to usually strive software program updates first. In this example, what you should search for is the “iPhone compatibility SDK” replace. A consumer of ours took his new MacBook returned to the Apple shop last year after having troubles with this actual trouble, and the fellow on the “Genius Bar” informed him it changed into a horrific logic board. After getting a replacement laptop, he experienced the identical problem the following week. A frustrating and costly experience that could have been averted with a higher recommendation from an Apple Authorized Service Provider that is targeted on servicing your Mac in place of selling you a new one.

If you simply added your new MacBook home from the Apple keep, or you obtain the brand new iPhone 4, then you may not have this issue at all. Save your self the time and frustration of seeking to clear up issues like those on your personal. Take your Mac all the way down to your nearby Apple Authorized Service Provider to troubleshoot the hassle.

Great Ways To Maximize Efficiency With a Mac

Computers are purported to make such things as work simpler for people who use them. Often just the alternative can be the case. It is simple to get slowed down with all the menus, packages, caution messages, and interfaces. However, in case you be conscious of this newsletter you have to (key phrase being ought to) discover that you may navigate through your computer a lot quicker and accomplish hard responsibilities with fewer complications. While there are is a vast array of “weapons” available to you in terms of the use of your laptop correctly, the maximum various and beneficial ones are software.

The software is the catchall-term for any software, application, executable-file or widget that is composed handiest of “code”. It differs from hardware in that in case you opened up a laptop you couldn’t bodily see or hold it. For example Quicksilver is a software this is downloadable on line and is prime to using your Mac efficaciously, at the same time as your GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is a silicone chip interior of your pc that permits so that you can view video and video games to your laptop. The distinction within reason clear now I hope. The software is tons greater flexible, very regularly less expensive, and permits you to do loads extra with it. As I noted in advance Quicksilver is an application (software) that you may down load at no cost of the Internet. It is the centerpiece of my set up for quick and smooth use. Once downloaded and installed Quicksilver takes a tiny little bit of set up. After putting your “warm-keys” and choosing a coloration scheme that tickles your fancy you are geared up to blaze through your computer. The nice part of Quicksilver; in my view, is that it permits you to easily open, close and transfer among any variety of documents and packages with out ever having to touch that mouse or song pad. That is a huge intention of mine, no mouse…No problem…Adopt that motto proper this immediately. Back to Quicksilver, the recent-key installation controls what keystroke will activate Quicksilver. One example (the only I use) is command + area, the command is a.K.A. The apple key. The possibilities are limitless and it’s miles without a doubt personal choice. Once we’ve Quicksilver activated you truly kind the name of this system or record you desire to engage with. In most instances, you most effective should type the first letter or two as Quicksilver catalogs your usage and determines which files and packages you get right of entry to the maximum. I will deliver an example to better explain what I mean. I press command, then area bar, I then press the F key and then input. Quicksilver is aware of that I use Firefox WAY extra then another document or app that starts of evolved with the letter F, so it opens Firefox. To cease Firefox while it’s far open it handiest takes me a further 2 key strokes…Tab to replace the record/software box into the feature field in quicksilver, and the Q to alternate the function to Quit. So you could tell that Quicksilver can make accessing packages and documents in your laptop a breeze.

Another notable piece of software program you could use is Spaces. It comes already mounted with all Macs and can be accessed through your device preferences. It creates some of the separate Desktops in your computer permitting you to have numerous programs open and going for walks at one time and segregating them into their personal screens. It also allows you to speedy transfer between programs using a pre-set warm-key (command and arrow keys). Spaces are awesome for all and sundry, from the iTunes user who’s browsing the net to the video editor who is operating in Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, After results and iTunes all at the equal time. In the set up you may specify what number of spaces you would like to be energetic and you can additionally lock sure Applications right into an area. This makes it in order that each time an application, says Microsoft Word, is opened; it’ll always appear and live in a space, say Space #1. While this will appear stringent it is also very clean to drag a window or software from one space to some other for those precise instances when this is required. I have handiest talked about packages but an endless wide variety exists, USE GOOGLE, look for packages. Whatever the particular requirement is I guarantee you that you may discover prison and loose software program to perform it.

I even have mentioned the time period hot-keys numerous times to date, rightfully so, as they are extraordinarily crucial to making you brief on the draw in terms of computing. A hot key’s only a combination of key-strokes (like command + S) that performs a characteristic. The functions are nearly always mundane and used often. The nice instance that I can think of is saving your paintings in a phrase processor. If you recognize anything approximately phrase processing you already know that you have to shop frequently. But rather than clicking on the File drop-down menu, and then clicking on keep; simply actually press command and the S key concurrently.This will store your report and you could hold on typing, without ever having to leave the house keys or touch that dreaded mouse. The key to hot-keys is in reality motivation. It could be very smooth to discover the listing for a warm key, as it is also right next to a characteristic inside the drop down menu. It is as much as you to locate it, take into account it, and USE IT. It does take some paintings and determination to become quick at computing. If you need to be a more effective computer then analyze the new-keys. I cannot pressure that greater.

Finally, we come to the set up of your computer. By set-up I actually mean synergy, however, this isn’t always an enterprise assembly so I am going to attempt to keep away from that time period. What I imply is the manner in which you chose software, hot-keys and other tools to work together. The goal is continually velocity and minimum input. Conveniently I discussed two unique packages that work nearly disgustingly properly collectively. By putting positive programs to a positive area and then switching among programs with Quicksilver I can blaze via multi-program initiatives conveniently and all the at the same time as maintaining the proper tunes on to feature the greater touch to the whole revel in. This all comes from enjoying, sit down along with your computer and paintings thru your programs. It is your laptop, so cater it to your self. If you do one form of assignment on it time and again, then find a manner to do the challenge faster and extra efficiently. Or better yet, automate it so you do no longer have to do something at all.

The desire to be brief and mouse much less is a private preference. If you’re nice with your computing experience then forget about what I have to mention, however, if you desire greater then dive proper in. Remember I have simplest mentioned what I use and the way I paintings. This is ready you! So get available, locate software program that will help you, research your hot-keys and rate via laptop paintings with ease. If you’re ever misplaced, overwhelmed or in trouble use the pleasant information aid in existence: THE INTERNET. Got a trouble than Google it. But please press Enter as opposed to clicking on Google Search.

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digital-strategy · 7 years

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http://ift.tt/2sLEyES

SEO is by far the most talked about, searched for and read about topic for web entrepreneurs. And so it should be, considering how vital it is to get SEO right for your business!

What’s puzzling, however, is that there are so many myths and misconceptions about SEO floating about. I mean, we all want to get SEO right, so why do these myths live on, acquiring the status of urban legend?

Some of them are hilarious, but some can really hurt you. They can keep you from improving your search traffic and website rankings, and hinder your best content marketing efforts.

Personally, I would hate to spend weeks perfecting one aspect of SEO only to realize a month later that it’s not even considered important by Google (and I’m sure you would, too!)

So I thought I’d write this post to debunk some of the most common SEO myths I’ve come across, and explain why you need to stop believing them today.

1. SEO is a scam

The myth: Fast-talking SEO consultants charge astronomical fees to provide services without any explanations that do almost nothing and may even penalize your website.

The reality: Sigh. SEO is not a scam. Check out Moz’s organic search improvement over SEO efforts of three years.

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Sadly this myth probably came into existence because there are many dodgy SEO companies out there that make a profit spamming sites with your links, leading to a quick increase in rankings that rapidly drops when the sites linking to your site are deemed to be spammers by Google.

However just because there are unethical SEO companies that promise you top rankings in Google then leave you high and dry, that doesn’t mean SEO isn’t legit or ‘real’.

For decent companies making sincere efforts to increase website traffic for their clients and improve user experience, SEO is a continuous effort that helps them beat competitors and gain from high SERPs.

This myth is probably rooted in the false idea that SEO involves quick and easy wins with little effort.

It doesn’t. It’s a continual investment, but it’s worth it. Just stop making silly SEO mistakes and keep the quality work up.

2. Reacting quickly to algorithm updates makes you more successful

The myth: Every time Google updates its organic search ranking algorithm, you need to make changes to your site as soon as possible to stay ahead!

The reality: Every search engine out there is continuously working to improve its search algorithms – Google alters its search algorithm approximately 500 times a year. The only updates you need to worry about are the major algorithm updates.

When these happen, the smart thing to do is wait and see if your site has been impacted. More often than not, if you are doing SEO right, your site won’t have been impacted negatively anyway, and you could even see a boost!

There’s no such thing as the perfect search algorithm, so updates will always be around. Try to wait to react, read credible sources about what the update involves, and give yourself a couple of days or even weeks to make adjustments if necessary.

If it’s an update that the search engine will stick to, you will soon hear about best practices for adjustments from the company itself anyway.

I visit this site on a semi-regular basis to stay abreast of the latest web news, and you could also follow the Twitter accounts of SEO gurus. However, the main thing to remember is that in the instance of an update, no one wins a prize for panicking or revamping their site the fastest.

Make a note of where you are when the update occurs and compare your metrics after a few weeks.

3. If you optimize for Google, you’re covered for all sites

The myth: You don’t need to worry about optimizing your content for other search engines if you’ve optimized it for Google.

The reality: Google search may comprise more than 60% of the search market, but Bing’s share is improving steadily. Bing is a great example of a website that works slightly different from Google and deserves your attention.

Bing doesn’t value backlinks as much as Google: instead, it compiles rankings based on user engagement, social signals, click-through rates, page authority and keyword domains. Google doesn’t use metrics such as Facebook shares or Twitter Followers directly in search rankings. So you can clearly see that if you only optimize for Google, you’re not covered for Bing.

If you are targeting exposure to 100% of web traffic, you should optimize for at least the top 3 search engines.

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4. HTTPS isn’t important unless you’re selling stuff

The myth: You only need to bother with HTTPS encryptions if you’re in eCommerce, otherwise the original HTTP protocol works fine.

The reality: Wrong! At the start of 2017, the average worldwide volume of encrypted internet traffic finally surpassed the average volume of unencrypted traffic, according to Mozilla (the company behind the Firefox web browser).

That means when you visit a website, you’re more likely than not to see a little green lock right next to the web address that indicates it came to you via HTTPS, the web’s secure protocol, rather than plain old HTTP.

Google has said loud and clear that it will give preference to websites with the HTTPS prefix over others.

That’s because the encryption within HTTPS provides benefits like confidentiality, integrity and identity.

Ultimately, using HTTPS is better than leaving the web unencrypted and it’s been a priority for big sites like Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and The New York Times to switch to HTTPS.

We’ve passed the tipping point when it comes to encrypted vs unencrypted data, and organizations like Let’s Encrypt are now helping millions of companies add HTTPS to their sites for free.

5. H1 tags increase search rankings

The myth: Using H1 tags is a must-do when it comes to good SEO practice.

The reality: This is not at all true, technically. Whereas H1 tags do help to make content more organized for the reader and also make it easier for web developers to design your website, they don’t contribute to SEO directly.

Former Google software engineer Matt Cutts says in this video that it doesn’t matter whether you use H1 or H2. What matters is that your page contains relevant and useful information that will address the needs of your users.

A few years ago, H1 tags used to be one of the most critical SEO factors; today, however, they’re just a part of basic best practice and not a source of SEO differentiation.

6. Link-building is black hat and attracts Google penalties

The myth: Google hates black hat link-building!

The reality: This is hilarious, really. Google rewards your website for backlinks – the only proviso is that these backlinks have got to be from relevant and credible sources.

If you plant your website’s links on article farms, unrelated websites, spammy websites or websites with malware and other suspicious scripts, then yes, you can expect to be penalized for back-linking.

But in that instance, it’s actually spamming, not back-linking.

When you’re building quality links, you don’t need to worry about this SEO myth. Many people think that leaving comments on blogs is a black hat SEO technique, but that’s only the case if the comments only link to your website without adding value.

The key is to ask yourself if you’re adding value every time you leave a comment on a blog or link to a website in an article – if you are, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.

7. Content is king

The myth: All you need to do is create high-quality, useful content to rank well in search results without much help from SEO.

The reality: Look, I’m not going to bag out the ‘content is king’ mantra here for fear of upsetting too many digital marketers. But while publishing timely, relevant and well-researched content is great, it’s not going to get you to the top of Google alone.

Content is like one of many directors sitting on a board, waiting to make a joint decision. The other directors are equally powerful: some of them include quality backlinks, user experience and responsive design.

If your whole website isn’t optimized, crawlers could struggle to even find your content, which means it won’t show up in results at all.

Focus on content, for sure, but don’t be myopic about it, as you’ve got to take care of the user experience on the whole.

8. Hosting location is important

The myth: If your website isn’t located in the country you are targeting, you may as well forget about success.

The reality: While it is better to host your website in the company you are targeting, it’s not essential. Google is smart enough to showcase the right country version of your website to the right audience. And this study shows us that Google prioritizes quality information over local content.

That means ‘au’ links are shown to Australians and ‘nz’ links are shown to New Zealanders.

If you don’t already use a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), I suggest using Google Webmaster Tools’ geographic target setting. In the Webmaster Tools sidebar, simply go to Search Traffic > International Targeting, and specify the target country for the website.

For international websites, just select ‘unlisted’ from the tab below.

9. Having an XML sitemap will boost your search rankings

The myth: Installing an XML sitemap can help improve your search engine rankings.

The reality: A sitemap doesn’t affect the rankings of your web pages, although it does make them more crawlable.

Sitemaps give more information about your site to Google and therefore make sure it indexes quickly.

However, there’s never been any Google announcement or study-based outcome to suggest that XML sitemap submission improves your website’s SEO.

Use one to make sure all of your URLs are indexed for easy crawling as this can improve the visibility of your website in the long run.

I suggest trying a plugin like Google XML Sitemaps generator, which works great with WordPress websites.

10. With personalized Google searches, there’s no such thing as ranking first anymore

The myth: Since everyone’s search results are personalized, everyone sees different results and there’s no way to be ranked #1 anymore.

The reality: My request to all readers – please, don’t be mislead by such rumors. Here’s a trick to try at home.

Do five Google searches related to your industry’s niche, first using your personal computer (where, in all likelihood, you’re seeing personalized Google search results), and then by adding &pws=0 at the end of the URL of the SERP.

That depersonalizes Google.

Now notice the difference.

Chances are, there isn’t one. Because websites that are good enough to make it to Google’s top 10 are good enough to feature on any personalized searches, too!

The differences between personalized results and non-personalized results are relatively minor. The advent of personalization does mean that rank tracking may provide somewhat less authoritative data than before.

But in no way is it the end of SEO or does it necessitate a completely new look at SEO practices.

11. Keywords in comments and title tags provide SEO juice

The myth: The strategic placement of keywords in HTML comment tags and the title attributes of IMG and A HREF tags will help you win at SEO.

The reality: Rankings really don’t work this way.

First and foremost, comment tags specifically mean that the content is out of Google’s view for calculating ratings.

Secondly, title attributes are not supposed to help you with SEO.

This Moz article will help you understand the specifics of why precisely title attribute tags are not linked to SEO.

In summary

There are at least half a dozen more SEO myths I could add to this list, but these are some of the main ones I see causing confusion amongst digital marketers, programmers, webmasters, designers, small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Hopefully I’ve debunked a few myths for you or at least motivated you to apply a bit of critical thinking to the next one you hear.

There is no easy science to SEO, and because the digital landscape is constantly changing, it’s hardly surprising that there’s a lot of misinformation out there. But moving forward, stop giving time or energy to SEO strategies or techniques that have no substance behind them or probably came about because of a bunch of snake-oil SEO salesmen.

Which SEO myth ticks you off the most? Let me know in the comments below.

Guest Author: Kuldeep Bisht, Inbound Marketing Consultant for SEMark, has over eight years of digital marketing experience. Throughout his career, he has helped many enterprise clients and local small businesses improve their marketing results by using strategic thinking and proven methodologies. You can follow his journey at KuldeepBisht.com and you may connect with him on Linkedin, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

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makeitwithmike · 7 years

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11 SEO Myths You Need To Stop Believing Today

By Kuldeep Bisht