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caycaramel · 7 years ago

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All Dad Tips

#1 - Don't forget to floss every day.

#2 - It's never too early to invest in a personal IRA.

#3 - Start building credit as soon as possible.

#4 - Stand up for yourself - don't let anyone disrespect you.

#5 - Everyone needs to know how to use power tools.

#6 - Don't trust anyone who likes their meat well done.

#7 - LaserDisc is clearly the superior video format.

#8 - Drink a full glass of water in the morning to help wake up.

#9 - Don't use metal utensils on nonstick frying pans.

#10 - If you're parking uphill, be sure to turn your tires towards the street.

#11 - It's rude to ask people about their mysterious hand tattoos.

#12 - Moving pictures is hands down the best Rush album.

#13 - Buy quality, not quantity.

#14 - Shave with the grain.

#15 - You always have time for a beer with your buds.

#16 - Always use a coat of wax after a wash.

#17 - Nothing can beat reading in print.

#18 - Always carry a pocket knife.

#19 - Use your hips when throwing.

#20 - Keep your word.

#21 - Eat a lot of broccoli.

#22 - Drinking too much water can cause water intoxication.

#23 - Take care of your health while you're still young.

#24 - Always help a friend in need.

#25 - Drink plenty of water.

#26 - Exercise regularly and you'll stay healthy!

#27 - Don't eat too close to your bedtime.

#28 - Always check the card reader at ATMs before you swipe.

#29 - Medicine is not always the best medicine.

#30 - Always bring a war chest.

#31 - You're young, you have your health, now is the time to take risks.

#32 - You can't beat the whammy bar.

#33 - The solo from Kid Charlemagne is the greatest guitar solo ever recorded.

#34 - Peter Weller actually has a PHD in history.

#35 - It's called masking tape for a reason.

#36 - Trust no one.

#37 - If you press the ignition too long you'll just flood the engine.

#38 - The extended cut is the only cut worth watching.

#39 - They really stepped up the production value in Episode V.

#40 - Managing debt is just part of being an adult.

#41 - Run through the finish line.

#42 - What you do, when you don't have to, will determine where you'll be when you can't help it.

#43 - When lifting weights, use proper form and a full range of motion.

#44 - Gas is cheaper in the suburbs.

#45 - Do what you love and the money will come.

#46 - Do it once, do it right.

#47 - Don't skip the corners.

#48 - Eat plenty of carbs the night before a big game.

#49 - If the police are driving behind you, don't give them probable cause to pull you over.

#50 - Try to drive in a way where you never have to use your brakes.

#51 - You can save bookmarks directly to your desktop.

#52 - A bird in the hand is better than a bird in the eye.

#53 - Pet every dog.

#54 - Have you ever read Rich Dad Poor Dad?

#55 - Liquor before beef, you're in the clear.

#56 - Go ask your mother.

#57 - If life gives you lemons, parsley, onions, and eggs... make a really nice omelet.

#58 - Practice makes permanent.

#59 - First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairiest chest.

#60 - Never give up, never remember.

#61 - That quirky lab assistant from NCIS just reminds me of you.

#62 - Whistle while you work.

#63 - Please remember to call us once in a while.

#64 - Get whatever job you want, just make sure it has health insurance.

#65 - Grow your own vegetables. It's cheaper, I think.

#66 - It's okay if you don't come in first, just make sure you have health insurance.

#67 - Try to exercise regularly.

#68 - Sleep is important! Make sure you're getting enough.

#69 - It's okay to cry if you're feeling sad.

#70 - Make sure to sweep under your tent so you don't sleep on rocks.

#71 - Good tire pressure is essential to optimal mileage.

#72 - The only acceptable time and place for decaf coffee is never and in the trash.

#73 - When changing a tire, make sure to tighten the bolts in a starfish pattern.

#74 - Anyone who tells you that a drink isn't manly has never known heartache.

#75 - Call someone if you're thinking about them. They probably want to hear from you.

#76 - If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

#77 - Don't smoke.

#78 - Try not to make assumptions about people.

#79 - Don't trust gas station egg sandwiches.

#80 - Please don't pirate games.

#81 - It's better to be early than late.

#82 - Eat a balance meal every day that includes vegetable, fruit, and protein.

#83 - Minimize eating fried foods, candy, and sweets.

#84 - Treat people better than they treat you.

#85 - Be generous and kind to everyone.

#86 - Always try your best at everything.

#87 - Spend less money than you make.

#88 - Pay your bills early.

#89 - Look at situations positively.

#90 - Always try to make others around you happy.

#91 - Smile as often as you can, it will make others around you feel more comfortable.

#92 - You're never too busy or important to be kind to others.

#dream daddy #ddadds #dad #not written by me #but it's nice to have them on Tumblr #damien bloodmarch #craig cahn #robert small #brian harding #mat sella #joseph christiansen #hugo vega

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currentlyinapickle · 7 years ago

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Stuff I learned while playing Dream Daddy

Dream Daddy, a game where you play a single-dad and date other single dads. During the loading screens, the game provides "Dad Tips," almost all of which contain genuinely useful information and reminders. I decided to write them down and share them because I think everyone could find them useful.

#1 - Don't forget to floss every day. #2 - It's never too early to invest in a personal IRA. #3 - Start building credit as soon as possible. #4 - Stand up for yourself - don't let anyone disrespect you. #5 - Everyone needs to know how to use power tools.

#6 - Don't trust anyone who likes their meat well done. #7 - LaserDisc is clearly the superior video format. #8 - Drink a full glass of water in the morning to help wake up. #9 - Don't use metal utensils on nonstick frying pans. #10 - If you're parking uphill, be sure to turn your tires towards the street. #11 - It's rude to ask people about their mysterious hand tattoos. #12 - Moving pictures is hands down the best Rush album. #13 - Buy quality, not quantity. #14 - Shave with the grain. #15 - You always have time for a beer with your buds. #16 - Always use a coat of wax after a wash. #17 - Nothing can beat reading in print. #18 - Always carry a pocket knife. #19 - Use your hips when throwing. #20 - Keep your word. #21 - Eat a lot of broccoli. #22 - Drinking too much water can cause water intoxication. #23 - Take care of your health while you're still young. #24 - Always help a friend in need. #25 - Drink plenty of water. #26 - Exercise regularly and you'll stay healthy! #27 - Don't eat too close to your bedtime. #28 - Always check the card reader at ATMs before you swipe. #29 - Medicine is not always the best medicine. #30 - Always bring a war chest. #31 - You're young, you have your health, now is the time to take risks. #32 - You can't beat the whammy bar. #33 - The solo from Kid Charlemagne is the greatest guitar solo ever recorded. #34 - Peter Weller actually has a PHD in history. #35 - It's called masking tape for a reason. #36 - Trust no one. #37 - If you press the ignition too long you'll just flood the engine. #38 - The extended cut is the only cut worth watching. #39 - They really stepped up the production value in Episode V. #40 - Managing debt is just part of being an adult. #41 - Run through the finish line. #42 - What you do, when you don't have to, will determine where you'll be when you can't help it. #43 - When lifting weights, use proper form and a full range of motion. #44 - Gas is cheaper in the suburbs. #45 - Do what you love and the money will come. #46 - Do it once, do it right. #47 - Don't skip the corners. #48 - Eat plenty of carbs the night before a big game. #49 - If the police are driving behind you, don't give them probable cause to pull you over. #50 - Try to drive in a way where you never have to use your brakes. #51 - You can save bookmarks directly to your desktop. #52 - A bird in the hand is better than a bird in the eye. #53 - Pet every dog. #54 - Have you ever read Rich Dad Poor Dad? #55 - Liquor before beef, you're in the clear. #56 - Go ask your mother. #57 - If life gives you lemons, parsley, onions, and eggs... make a really nice omelet. #58 - Practice makes permanent. #59 - First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairiest chest. #60 - Never give up, never remember. #61 - That quirky lab assistant from NCIS just reminds me of you. #62 - Whistle while you work. #63 - Please remember to call us once in a while. #64 - Get whatever job you want, just make sure it has health insurance. #65 - Grow your own vegetables. It's cheaper, I think. #66 - It's okay if you don't come in first, just make sure you have health insurance. #67 - Try to exercise regularly. #68 - Sleep is important! Make sure you're getting enough. #69 - It's okay to cry if you're feeling sad. #70 - Make sure to sweep under your tent so you don't sleep on rocks. #71 - Good tire pressure is essential to optimal mileage. #72 - The only acceptable time and place for decaf coffee is never and in the trash. #73 - When changing a tire, make sure to tighten the bolts in a starfish pattern. #74 - Anyone who tells you that a drink isn't manly has never known heartache. #75 - Call someone if you're thinking about them. They probably want to hear from you. #76 - If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. #77 - Don't smoke. #78 - Try not to make assumptions about people. #79 - Don't trust gas station egg sandwiches. #80 - Please don't pirate games. #81 - It's better to be early than late. #82 - Eat a balance meal every day that includes vegetable, fruit, and protein. #83 - Minimize eating fried foods, candy, and sweets. #84 - Treat people better than they treat you. #85 - Be generous and kind to everyone. #86 - Always try your best at everything. #87 - Spend less money than you make. #88 - Pay your bills early. #89 - Look at situations positively. #90 - Always try to make others around you happy. #91 - Smile as often as you can, it will make others around you feel more comfortable. #92 - You're never too busy or important to be kind to others.

#Dream Daddy #let me know if I missed any #This game has too many MBMBaM references for it to be a coincidence

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hnd2akatherineohara-blog · 7 years ago

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Photography of the 1970′s

In 1972, the idea for an electronic camera that didn't require film came out, but a prototype wasn't made until 1975, by Eastman Kodak and Steven Sasson. It weighed 8 pounds, captured black and white images on a cassette tape with a resolution of .01 megapixels but wasn't the most practical. It was never intended to be mass produced but was still a big step forward for digital photography. In the 60's Kodaks 'Kodachrome' colour film was available, but it wasn't until the 70s that it actually became affordable for most people. It was the most popular camera for normal, everyday folks who weren’t serious photographers but enjoyed taking photos. The company’s most popular camera was the Instamatic, which had been introduced in 1963. However, in 1972, the company introduced the more streamlined Pocket Instamatic, which took 110-format film and could fit easily into a pocket. In 1970, the first solid-state video camera was released by Bell Labs. In 1972 the Polaroid SX-70 came out - the first fully automatic, motorized, folding, single lens reflex camera which ejected self-developing, self-timing instant colour prints

A very famous photograph called 'Napalm Girl' by Nick Ut was taken after an attack during the Vietnam War in 1972, when they accidentally dropped on its own troops and civilians. Children ran from the area and the most iconic part is the little girl who stripped off her burning clothes.

The 1960s and 1970s were eras known for social revolution, art and creativity, completely changing the history of art, music, fashion and film as industries. These decades also gave the world several photographer-masters to look up to: from Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Gary Winogrand, Helmut Newton, Annie Leibovitz to Robert Mapplethorpe.

Below is the photograph of the first ever African American cover girl for Vogue.

http://photography.lovetoknow.com/Timeline_of_Digital_Photography_Technology

#decadephotographic

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ethanalter · 7 years ago

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ATX Television Festival Founders on the Lessons They've Learned

In most parts of the world, you don��t have to look very far to find a film festival. But a television festival? That’s a rarer genre. At least, it was before the ATX Television Festival flickered to life in Austin in 2012. The brainchild of TV lovers Emily Gipson and Caitlin McFarland, this four-day celebration of all things televised has quickly grown from its humble freshman year origins to become a major destination for people who might otherwise be loathe to leave the company of their DVR.

Staging reunions for such beloved shows as Friday Night Lights and Gilmore Girls has vaulted ATX into the pop-culture consciousness in a big way, and has shown other festivals the power and popularity of including television in the program. Sundance, Toronto, and Tribeca are just some of the film festivals who have made room for TV premieres in recent years, and in May, the storied Cannes Film Festival screened episodes of Twin Peaks and Top of the Lake: China Girl to great acclaim. We spoke with ATX’s founders about being the Peak TV Festival in the era of Peak TV, and what they’re most excited to present at the sixth edition of the festival, which runs from June 8-11 in Austin.

ATX Television Founders Emily Gipson and Caitlin McFarland (Photo: ATX)

Before this interview, I stumbled upon the Kickstarter campaign you organized to help launch the first-ever ATX Festival in 2012. It’s an amazing contrast between where you were then and where you are now.

Emily Gipson: Every once in a while I come across that page, too. We had one year with that original logo, and then every other year since has been our current logo. I think of all the people who helped us make that Kickstarter video, some of whom we’ve never met. At the time, nobody knew what they were going to or promoting. It’s kind of amazing.

2012 was just before the Peak TV era. Did you have a sense of where the industry was going, or did you launch the festival purely out of passion for the medium?

Caitlin McFarland: It was a mixture of things. We’ve talked about how part of the reason for creating a TV festival was us wanting to go to one or wanting to go work for one, and not finding it. Emily and I originally became friends when we were out in L.A. working as assistants at Fox. We loved to talk about movies and pop culture, and we just found ourselves talking about television more than film. Even five years ago, we were so much more excited about the things that were on our DVR rather than what was playing in movie theaters.

Then I was unemployed, and went to look for work at a television festival specifically and was really shocked that they didn’t exist when there were thousands of film and music festivals. How could there not be the same community and event environment for television? That was when Emily said, “Write it down. What does it look like? What do you want to go to?” Together we created this thing, and took baby steps towards the Kickstarter page. We launched it in January 2012, the campaign ended in February, and then we had the festival in June! So whenever I feel like I’m behind nowadays, I remember that we practically planned the whole thing in three months the first time and I feel better about life. [Laughs]

Did you both originally go to L.A. with the intention of being part of the industry?

Gipson: We definitely moved out there wanting to create, whether it be film or television. That was our passion when we went to school, knowing that we loved storytelling and really wanted to be part of that process. At the time we moved to L.A. — this was 2004 or 2005 — film was what you went there for. People weren’t really going there to start TV careers. Funny how things change so quickly!

McFarland: Emily and I were on either side of the Fox lot, and oftentimes we’d walk by the sets for Bones, How I Met Your Mother, House, and Arrested Development. There were a lot of Buffy cast members around, too, which is Emily’s favorite show.

Gipson: It would be like, “David Boreanaz is blowing something up on the lot — come on down!” [Laughs] I decided what my role in the creative process was going to be through the process of elimination. I knew I didn’t want to be an actor, I slowly figured out that I liked to write, but probably shouldn’t be a writer. So it landed closer to producer, for me. And producing the festival is kind of like producing a season of television.

McFarland: It really is. We both still have this huge passion for story, and have a production arm that we’ve been in the process of launching for the past year. We have a “Pitch Competition” at the festival and we’re attached as producers for the winner that’s announced every year. So we still have this huge love for [telling stories]. Five years ago, we never dreamed we’d be sitting here about to plan Season 6 of the festival. I don’t think that we even knew how much we were going to love doing this, and love bringing these people out to talk about TV and experience TV together. We’re television fans to our core, but we’re also part of the industry.

Jesse Plemons and cast members attend the Friday Night Lights Tailgate and Pep Rally Reunion at the ATX Television Festival in Austin, TX on June 10, 2016. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for Entertainment Weekly)

Do you point to one particular edition as a turning point?

Gipson: When we did a Friday Night Lights panel [in 2013] and surprised the audience with Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler, I felt us being Tweeted for the first time. You just feel the energy in the room. After that, I would say the Gilmore Girls reunion in 2015. That was something we had been working on for over a year, and the timing lined up with [the original run] being released on Netflix. The build-up and intensity leading into it, you could already feel it was different. We doubled in size that year, and launched to a new level in terms of awareness. And each year’s programming is bringing us a new audience. We’ll get people [this year] who are coming for a Battlestar Galactica reunion or the premiere of Glow and the hope is they’re going to be exposed to something else they didn’t come for and understand that good TV is good TV, and there’s a lot of it to be discovered.

McFarland: One big lesson we learned from the Gilmore Girls reunion is because we knew that people were obviously coming for that show, we couldn’t lose Amy Sherman-Palladino, Lauren Graham, or Alexis Bledel. If we lost one of them, there could have been riots!

Gipson: There was so much pressure on us [that year] that we took the mantra of creating a festival that’s so well-balanced that if any one person drops out, the festival can still stand and be strong. We’re always super sad when someone can’t come, and there were a couple of reunions that had to go away this year. That’s sad, and we’re sad to tell our audience, but at the same time, we feel we’ve got such a great balance that it’s still a strong festival. We keep telling people over and over and over again, “Don’t come for one thing. Come because you love TV.”

America Ferrera, Ana Ortiz, Eric Mabius, and Vanessa Williams attend the Ugly Betty Reunion at the ATX Television Festival in Austin, TX on June 11, 2016. (Photo: Rick Kern/Getty Images for Entertainment Weekly)

The older shows programmed at the festival tend to be rooted in the ’90s and ’00s era — Alias, Battlestar Galactica, and Northern Exposure are all represented this year. There’s also a tribute to Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who created such ’80s favorites as Designing Women. Are you interested in programming more series from earlier decades?

Gipson: It’s harder to do reunions of much older shows. In our third year, we added our Achievement in Television Excellence Award, which we’ve given to Henry Winkler, James L. Brooks, and Norman Lear. This year, we’re not presenting an award during the festival, but we’re looking to do an event in L.A. in a couple of months. We also hope to start having current creators, producers, and writers talk about the television that inspired them. We’re always looking for ways to get past the ’80s, basically. If we could do an I Love Lucy reunion, we would!

McFarland: Our audience is a little more female, and the age range is 17 to 70. My mom keeps throwing out these shows she watched in the ’60s that were on for 24 episodes and then went away. I say, “I don’t know that we can do that, but we can always use your help.”

In terms of your own TV influences, what are some of your formative shows?

McFarland: My parents were pop-culture junkies, so I really did grow up on I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Those shows are still my happy places, and I laugh at all of them. In the ’90s we were WB viewers, so Buffy, Dawson’s Creek, and definitely Felicity. I watched Lois & Clark with my mom, and in college, my mom was mailing me VHS tapes of Gilmore Girls and Friends. With the exception of those shows, I have a black hole of TV viewing during my college years.

Gipson: It’s funny, because my parents were not pop-culture junkies at all. I grew up on old movies, but I didn’t really grow up on a lot of TV shows. The first shows I really remember are Saved by the Bell and Home Improvement — that was the one show my family all watched together. Buffy was the first show that I discovered that was mine. And Buffy was a year older than me in the show, so I grew up in my teen years with her.

So your personal TV tastes are already very diverse and wide-ranging. Early on in the life of ATX, did you have to make a conscious choice whether to prioritize genre shows, which often come with a devoted fanbase, or series that you weren’t necessarily as sure people would turn up for?

Gipson: It’s funny because when Buffy was on, I didn’t even know that it was a genre show. To me it was a high school show that happened to have vampires. It’s been a lesson learning that there are these shows that have these really cult fanbases. But the thing that we realized the first year of the festival was that Firefly fans were just as devoted as Parenthood fans. Those two screenings were up against each other that first year of the festival, and people were super-excited and crying in both of them. So I think that’s what we realized coming out of that first festival; there are these other shows that people love so much and they don’t have a place to go. I think all of the excitement around Gilmore Girls was that was never a show that was going to have a convention or that kind of fan gathering, because people who want to celebrate non-genre shows don’t have the place to do it. Genre shows have a place, and we’d be in heavier competition with Comic-Con or their show-specific conventions.

McFarland: To add on to that, I would say that we do not consider ourselves a convention. So even when we do genre shows, we’re trying to do it differently than others. We are shifting into trying to figure out the best ways to honor them in ways that don’t compete with Comic-Con, which happens the month after us.

Gillian Alexy, Ryan Hurst, Christina Jackson and Executive Producer Peter Mattei at Sony Pictures Television and WGN America’s Outsiders Q&A at the ATX Television Fesitval on June 11, 2016 in Austin, Texas. (Photo: Sarah Kerver/Getty Images for Sony Pictures Television)

Speaking of competition, I’m sure it’s not lost on you that film festivals like Sundance and Cannes have started to screen TV shows. Do you credit yourselves with spurring that on a little bit?

Gipson: They would have gotten there on their own, but I think it’s great. We spent a few years convincing people that television would work in a festival format, and that people would want to watch TV on a big screen together. There’s room for many more television-specific festivals as well as television in traditional film festivals, it’s just about figuring out how they’re going to showcase them. I know that South by Southwest has a pretty hard rule that the TV shows they showcase are mostly first episodes of first seasons. They may do conversations about other shows, but in terms of their screenings, they mainly show first episodes of brand new series.

The Split Screens Festival hosted its inaugural edition in New York earlier this month. Did they reach out to you for advice in organizing a television-specific festival?

McFarland: They did not reach out, but we did hear about it. I think that it’s really interesting. New York is going to be a different audience and, I think, a different showcase. That’s part of it, too, when you’re creating an event: what kind of community are you creating? We talk a lot about how our festival feels like TV camp for grown-ups. It’s a destination, and our goal is to create a physical community of TV. If you meet somebody on the street [at the festival] and you love the same show, you feel like you’ve found your people. So for Split Screen, I am really interested to see how it goes, how many people go, and the flavor and tone going forward. We joke all the time that we actually didn’t know what we were starting. It almost seemed to define itself.

For this year’s program, is there one panel or series that you’re particularly excited to present to people?

Gipson: There’s a couple. I’m excited about a panel called “Complex, Not Complicated,” which is about strong female characters and the people who create them. Kyra Sedgwick and Mary McDonnell, who I’m big fans of, are on that, along with Casual‘s Liz Tigelaar, and Tayor Dearden and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson who did Sweet/Vicious. We sometimes have to go searching for panelists, but that group came together very organically, because they all wanted to talk about this topic, and I think it’s a nice balance between actors and creators. We also created a “Directors & Showrunners” panel, where pairs of directors and showrunners talk about how they work together. If TV is a writers’ medium, but you have recurring directors, how does that work for the vision of a show?

In terms of the show panels, I’m really excited about The Leftovers, because it’s happening four days after the finale aired, and I think that all I want to do is sit in that panel and ask questions. We love that show so much here in the office. We’re also doing a script reading of the Suits pilot with the entire Suits cast to celebrate their 100th episode. Suits was our first-ever Opening Night screening in 2012, so it’s really cool for a number of reasons.

McFarland: The fact that they took that chance on us in our first year, and now the script reading is the second-to-last piece of programming six seasons into the festival is really nice for us. It kind of says, “Look where we’ve come.”

The ATX Television Festival runs from June 8-11 in Austin, TX.

#battlestar galactica #_revsp:wp.yahoo.tv.us #TV #Gilmore Girls #ATX Television Festival #Friday Night Lights #Suits #_lmsid:a0Vd000000AE7lXEAT #Emily Gipson #_author:Ethan Alter #ATX Festival #_uuid:06ac7f36-6bd3-3ea9-b545-2826f3f5cf58 #Caitlin McFarland

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ravencheck02-blog · 5 years ago

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Vegan challah with fruit and nuts

Our lazy cat (she is living up to her name!!) home is finally taking shape! We finally have a dining table and chairs, whoop whoop. And we are hoping to finally paint the guest bedroom next weekend so that my brother and his girlfriend have somewhere nice to sleep when they visit us in two weeks time. You may be wondering why it’s been taking so long? Well, we take our prep very seriously and it’s very time consuming, especially when the previous house owners clearly did not. Why bother with a masking tape when you paint two very different colours next to each other, eh? Sorry for sounding a touch exasperated. I am a little… As there are a lot of botched jobs to correct and that is why it is taking ages.

Later on today, I am hopping on a ladder to fix a spiderweb of small hairline cracks that mysteriously appeared on the bedroom ceiling all of a sudden. We did investigate the seriousness of them by the means of me walking around in the loft and Duncan watching the ceiling for movement down below. There was no movement whatsoever so it does appear that the cracks are merely a cosmetic issue, phew… But they still need to be patched up properly or they will start showing through in a few weeks after painting. So I armed myself with some jointing tape and a joint compound and after watching tens of videos on YouTube, I am hoping to be able to fix this myself. Who would have thought that those cake icing skills are so transferable, eh 😛 ?

So all this chaos is probably the reason why Easter has crept up on me AGAIN!! We don’t really celebrate it, but if we did I would feel tempted to make a sweet vegan challah packed with dried fruit and nuts. It’s not quite a bread and not quite a cake either, but it is a pleasure to eat and my twist on the traditional braided breads that are popular all over Eastern Europe during Easter and which probably all derive from the Jewish challah.

Challah and those traditional Easter breads are made from yeast dough enriched with quite a few eggs. I’ve swapped the eggs out for a mixture of orange juice and rich vegan yoghurt as I’m not a fan of contributing to male baby chicks being ground alive. While killing them in this way is the domain of big industrial farms, small-scale, local farms kill their male chicks too – albeit they use a different method – as male chicks do not bring any profit so there is no point in keeping them alive!! I thought I would throw it out there as painted eggs and fluffy baby chicks are a symbol of Easter and it’s so ironic that their fate over Easter especially (when people buy even more eggs) is anything but fluffy.

One cool thing about challah is that, eggs aside, it is easily made vegan, as according to the Jewish tradition, it has to be made with no butter, so oil is used in the traditional recipes too. This sweet bread is really easy to make and full of flavour – dotted with sweet dried fruit and chopped nuts for a bit of crunch. It would make a perfect Easter breakfast table addition or simply a fantastic companion to your afternoon tea or coffee. If somehow you manage to let it go stale, don’t throw it away. The leftovers will make a great vegan French toast or bread and butter pudding!!

PS: If you make my vegan challah, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram as @lazycatkitchen and use the #lazycatkitchen hashtag. I love seeing your takes on my recipes!

makes: 1 loaf

prep: 30 min

cooking: 35 min

Ingredients

BASIC CHALLAH RECIPE

250 g / 2 cups bread flour

250 g / 2 cups all purpose flour

4 tsp instant dried yeast (prior activation is necessary with non-instant dried yeast*)

4 tbsp sugar (you can use maple syrup, but use less orange juice to compensate)

1 tsp salt

180 ml / ¾ cup orange juice or almond milk, lukewarm

180 ml / ¾ cup thick vegan yogurt (I used The Coconut Collective), at room temperature

2 tbsp olive oil (or any other vegetable oil) + a little extra for pan glazing

2 tbsp apricot jam, pressed through a sieve

EASTER ADD-ONS

75 g / 10 dried apricots

70 g / 1/3 cup sultanas

100 g / ½ cup almonds, chopped

Method

Sift the flours into a large mixing bowl and mix in yeast, sugar and salt. If your yeast requires activation, add the activated yeast in the next step.

Pour in the lukewarm orange juice, vegan yogurt, olive oil and stir everything together with a large wooden spoon until roughly combined.

Knead it lightly for about 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface – don’t knead too much to keep the bread delicate! The dough will be on the wet side, if it’s too hard to handle, dust with a bit more flour, but don’t go nuts 😉 .

Form a dough ball and place it in a clean bowl covered with a kitchen towel. Place the bowl in a warm (but not too warm – avoid going too close to an open fire or a hot radiator) place until the dough has doubled in size (approx. 1-2 hrs)**.

Meanwhile, immerse sultanas and apricots in a little hot water for 5 minutes to rehydrate them. Drain and squeeze the excess moisture out of them using a sieve or a muslin cloth. Chop the apricots into fine dice.

Mix apricots, sultanas and almonds together.

Split the dough into three, four, five or six equal parts – it’s best to use kitchen scales here. The type of braid you make is up to you – I found this video really helpful. I went with a five braid loaf, but the instructions below are how to make the simplest of them all – a three strand braid.

Roll each part into a long rectangle using a rolling pin. Sprinkle the rectangle with a portion of fruit and nuts and then roll up into a tight strand with both hands, applying even pressure. Once all your stands are ready ensure they are all similar width and length.

Place all three strands on a lightly oiled baking tray alongside each other, leaving a bit of space around each strand.

First pinch the ends of the three strands together at one end, then start braiding by folding the right strand over the centre strand and then the left one over the centre strand. Repeat until you get to the other end. Pinch the ends together again. Fold both pinched ends underneath the bread gently.

Cover the bread and rest for another 60 minutes, until fully proofed – if you poke it with your fingertip, it should not spring back fully, but retain a little indent.

Pre-heat the oven to 190° C / 375° F while the bread is resting. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until nicely brown on top.

Glaze while hot, with apricot jam mixed in with 2 tbsp water.

Notes

*If your yeast needs activation, make sure not to use extra liquid or sugar – simply use some of what this recipe calls for.

**You can also make the dough and place it in the fridge overnight for the proofing stage. The next day, punch the air out, bring it to room temperate and proceed as per instructions 7-13.

If you want more info on some of the ingredients that we use in our recipes, check out our glossary.

Join our mailing list

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Source: https://www.lazycatkitchen.com/vegan-challah-fruit-nuts/

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years ago

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Google Stadia vs. Apple Arcade streaming sport providers: All the pieces we all know

http://tinyurl.com/y4k62jca Google Stadia involves your browser later this 12 months. Google We obtained a couple of extra spilled beans about Google Stadia on Thursday, its streaming sport service that can run on the Chrome browser. We now know the way a lot it can price, the way it will work and across the time it will come out (this fall). We all know much less about Apple Arcade, Apple’s competing gaming service. The rival tech big is much extra obscure, solely confirming at its current WWDC event that Arcade might be accessible “later this 12 months”. This is a few of what we discovered: Google Stadia gamers will be capable of subscribe to its service for $10 a month or use the service at no cost by shopping for particular person video games. Google’s service will work a bit like Netflix, the place you stream video games to your units, with Google’s information middle dealing with all of the processing. And Google may have a Stadia sport controller that can join by way of Wi-Fi to Google’s providers and supply devoted buttons for sharing gameplay on YouTube and for looking for gaming assist with a Google Assistant button. For each Apple and Google, streaming video games are a brand new frontier that takes the wild reputation of gaming apps a step additional. Excessive bandwidth fueled by sooner Wi-Fi and the upcoming 5G networks have the potential to make streaming video games potential with little or no lag and superior graphics. Tapping into the zeitgeist of gaming additionally opens up extra income streams by giving Apple and Google methods to cost subscription charges. Sonic Racing from SEGA on Arcade. Apple For Apple particularly, the push into gaming is an element of a bigger effort to offer providers tied to its {hardware}. Its games service, video-streaming platform and even Apple Music all are compelling causes to stay loyal to Apple’s world and use an Apple system. For Google, it is concerning the cloud, and its gaming platform performs to its strengths, letting gamers participate in cloud-based gaming after which share gameplay by way of YouTube. Google — way more than Apple — is slowly filling in particulars on its gaming subscription service, and we now have many extra questions than solutions about which one could also be proper in your gaming model and would provide you with extra in your cash. Here’s what we do (and do not) know concerning the sport platforms. After they’re coming Stadia: Google, in a pre-E3 announcement, mentioned you’ll play Stadia in November by preording the Stadia Founder’s Version for $129. To play particular person video games with no subscription, you will want to attend until 2020. For what it is price, Google had Stadia up and operating in its sales space at GDC for conventioneers to play with. Within the brief time I obtained to play a sport by way of Stadia, the service appear stable, and I could not inform I used to be streaming a sport as a substitute of enjoying it domestically. We additionally caught a glimpse of the service late final 12 months, when Google had a beta version of the service running beneath the title Venture Stream. Arcade: Apple confirmed at WWDC that Arcade is coming this 12 months, although did not slender down a time-frame. We anticipate Apple to launch the iPhone 11 at an occasion in September, which is one potential stage for the corporate to disclose extra Arcade particulars. Google Stadia, in motion. Google Stadia and Arcade: How a lot they’re going to price Arcade: Apple acknowledged that its service might be accessible by way of a subscription with no in-app purchases. Nevertheless it did not give a value. Stadia: In a taped video previous to E3, Google revealed Stadia pricing, however we do not have an entire image. On the starter stage, you possibly can play video games on Stadia at no cost with the Stadia Base tier by simply buying particular person video games to play in 1080p decision. Google did not reveal pricing for single video games. For $10 a month, you possibly can subscribe to Stadia Pro, which will get you entry to some video games at no cost and others you buy to play at as much as 4K decision and 60 frames per second. Stadia will supply reductions on choose video games, however we do not know what that pricing construction seems to be like. To prime the pump, you possibly can preorder the Stadia Founder’s Edition, a $130 limited-edition package deal that provide you with entry to the service in November, a limited-edition controller, a Chromecast Ultra streaming system, three months of Stadia Professional, a three-month buddy go so you will have somebody to play with, and first shot at claiming your Stadia title. We do not know what occurs to video games you buy on low cost with a Stadia Professional account for those who swap to a Stadia base account. And we do not know what occurs for those who personal a sport on one other service and wish to play it on Stadia. Projection: First Gentle from Blowfish Studios, coming to Apple Arcade. Apple The place they’re going to run Stadia: Google’s streaming sport service will run in a Chrome browser, on a TV related to a Chromecast Ultra streaming device and on Pixel 3 and Pixel 3A phones. Google mentioned it can add help for extra phones. Arcade: Apple’s Arcade will run on iPhone ($1,000 at Amazon), iPad ($249 at Walmart), Mac, and Apple TV ($169 at Walmart). What about controllers? Stadia: Google said it will have its own $70 controller for Stadia, connecting to the service by way of Wi-Fi. Should you join the Founder’s Version package deal, you get a Evening Blue Stadia controller with the $129 buy. You’ll use your personal controller, too. Arcade: Apple CEO Tim Cook at WWDC 2019 mentioned an upcoming model of Apple TV will support Microsoft Xbox One S and PlayStation DualShock 4 controllers. The controllers — which can work with Arcade on iOS and MacOS units and in addition to on Apple TV — open up fascinating prospects for Arcade gameplay and offers Apple a solution to Google’s Stadia sport controller. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, from Ubisoft, coming to Stadia. Google Who will make the video games? Stadia: Google mentioned it is working with a spread of sport builders — together with Ubisoft and ID Software program — to ship video games to Stadia. At its pre-E3 occasion, Google confirmed off a dozen video games operating on Stadia, together with Baldar’s Gate. At GDC, Ubisoft confirmed off Murderer’s Creed: Odyssey and ID demoed Doom Everlasting on Stadia. Ubisoft’s Murderer’s Creed: Odyssey has been with Google since Stadia was nonetheless often called Venture Stream. If you were part of the Project Stream beta, you performed it final 12 months. Google can be opening its personal sport studio however did not supply particulars on video games it has within the works. Stadia may have unique video games in addition to ones accessible elsewhere. Arcade: Apple mentioned all Arcade video games might be unique to the brand new program and will not be accessible on different cell units or a part of different subscription providers. Arcade will embody video games from Annapurna Interactive, Bossa Studios, Cartoon Community, Finji, Large Squid, Klei Leisure, Konami, Lego, Mistwalker Company, Sega, Snowman and Ustwo. Apple can be moving into the game-design enterprise and mentioned it is contributing to the event prices of video games coming to the service. Enter The Assemble by Directive Video games Restricted, on Arcade. Apple Stadia or Arcade: Which service is for you? It is approach too early to dig into the professionals and cons both approach. Having mentioned that, for those who like console video games and have a great web connection, Stadia may be a great match with its controller-driven service. Should you’re an off-the-cuff gamer or drawn to indie video games, Apple’s method may be a more sensible choice. Arcade help for Microsoft Xbox One S ($279 at Amazon) and PlayStation DualShock 4 controllers actually make the choice extra fascinating. Apple Arcade vs. Google Stadia Apple Arcade Google Stadia Launch date This 12 months November, for Founder’s Version. 2020 at no cost play. Value You may subscribe, however no specifics about value but Free to $9.99 a month, plus value of particular person video games Units Cellphone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV units Something with an web connection and Chrome browser Controller Sure Sure Variety of video games 100 unique video games to start out Unknown, however a mixture of unique and basic $249 CNET might get a fee from retail affords. Source link

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etechwire-blog · 6 years ago

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Best ways to share big files

New Post has been published on https://www.etechwire.com/best-ways-to-share-big-files/

Best ways to share big files

Other cloud storage and online backup articles

If you’ve just recorded a home video or created the ultimate mix tape – a digital version of that old chestnut, of course – no doubt you’ll be eager to share it with your friends and family.

Depending on the size and number of files you need to send, this can be a problem. For instance Gmail only allows you to attach files of up to 25MB in total to email messages. Not to mention the fact that large files will quickly eat into your storage space quota while lurking in your Sent folder!

If you need to send big files online, there are plenty of good ways to do so without running into trouble – and we’ve highlighted 12 of the best here, the vast majority of which are free (though they tend to have premium tiers if you want to pay for an improved service).

1. Use a VPN

What? I hear you say. What does a VPN have to do with sharing large files. Well, unbeknown to many, some internet service providers (like Virgin Media) use broadband traffic management to moderate upload bandwidth (rather than download). Using a VPN like our number one choice, ExpressVPN, means that your ISP cannot determine the type of files you’re uploading and therefore cannot – in theory – apply traffic shaping to your account.

P2P (peer-to-peer), one of the most popular and reliable methods for moving large amount of data, is the one type of content that’s most likely to be flagged and pushed down the priority lines. We have compiled a list of the best VPN services available. Just bear in mind that your mileage will vary and using a VPN can also slow down your connection.

2. Use file compression

One of the easiest solutions to the problem of sending large files is to use file compression software such as the cross-platform program 7-Zip. This is particularly handy if you have multiple files, as you can place these in one folder and compress them all in one go. As a rule of thumb, a large file will transfer faster than a folder containing smaller files of the same size.

7-Zip is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and can compress files to the regular ZIP format as well as its own slightly more efficient 7ZIP. Most major operating systems can extract ZIP files without any additional software. 7-Zip also lets you set a password to protect the files, so you can share them safely. Just bear in mind though that uploading very large files can time out.

3. Courier a hard drive

The fastest way to transfer a large number of big files is not via the internet but by using a disk drive and a courier. All the big cloud providers (Microsoft, Google and Amazon) have the ability to transfer large amounts of data using hard disk drives.

Microsoft Azure charges a nominal flat fee of just under £60 ($70) per storage device handled, but you must be prepared to supply your own drive. This is similar to Amazon Web Services’ Import/Export disk, whereas Google uses third-parties.

Transferring the content of a 20TB external hard disk drive on a 100Mb dedicated line would take more than 500 hours (or around 20 days), on consumer-grade broadband lines, expect it to last more than one month and that’s for the upload only. Just remember to keep a copy of your files and to encrypt the hard drive you’re sending.

4. Google Drive

Although Gmail messages can only have attachments up to 25MB in size, when files are too large Google gives you the option to place them in your Google Drive and send a link to share. Gmail users can share files and folders up to 10GB in size. Considering that Google’s free tier gives you 15GB of storage, you can repeatedly share large files entirely free of charge (assuming you delete, rinse and repeat).

Google allows you to choose whether to create a link that can be shared with anyone, or one which is only available to people to whom you send the email with the link. Premium plans start from $2.34 (£1.59) per month for 100GB storage.

5. FTP

While FTP (File Transfer Protocol) may be fairly old-school when compared with cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive, it’s still one of the most reliable ways to upload and download files.

All operating systems support FTP and there are plenty of websites and add-ons which support uploading and downloading from within your browser, such as FireFTP. Windows and Mac users can also make use of the free desktop FTP client Cyberduck.

The only downside to this is that you need to have access to a remote server (like a web hosting service). Many companies like DriveHQ offer some free storage space (1GB), and prices can compare very favourably with cloud storage providers.

6. Mediafire

True to its name, MediaFire is a trailblazer. Register for a free account and you get 10GB of storage. Connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts, install the mobile app, and refer friends to earn up to 40GB of bonus space. You can upload files either directly from your computer or the web, and generate a link which will allow others to download your files from the MediaFire website.

Paid subscriptions begin from $3.75 a month (around £3, AU$5) and include 1TB of storage space, a hefty 20GB limit on file sizes, as well as eliminating annoying Captchas and ads. Another handy premium feature is one-time links which make sure that once your recipient downloads your files, they’re no longer accessible.

7. Hightail

Hightail (formerly YouSendIt) has been made with business users in mind. Upon registration you can create special ‘spaces’ for various files and projects, which you can then share with others. The handy ‘PipPoints’ feature can even be used to record notes on documents as you and others work on them.

The free Lite version of Hightail only allows sharing of files up to 100MB in size. The Pro subscription is available from $12 a month (around £9.50, AU$16) and includes unlimited workspaces and support for files of up to 25GB. There’s also no limit on the number of people who can access a file at any given time.

8. Wetransfer

WeTransfer is one of the simplest services to use for sharing large files. A few clicks of the mouse and the website will automatically send files for you, and these will be available to download for seven days. Everything is very user-friendly, too, with a step-by-step wizard to walk you through the upload process.

For $12 a month (around £9.50, AU$16) or $120 (around £95, AU$160) per year you can upgrade to WeTransfer Plus which allows up to 20GB of file transfers at a time, and 100GB of storage. You will also have the option to set a password to download files – plus you can customise backgrounds and emails if you wish.

9. Resilio Sync

Formerly BitTorrent Sync, this handy utility uses the BitTorrent protocol – designed specifically for sharing big files – to sync files directly between your devices. This peer-to-peer connection can be used for two or more devices, such as a phone and desktop PC.

Resilio Sync also supports generating secure links to allow your contacts to download files from your folders. This naturally means your device has to be online at the time in order for them to access it. The software itself is provided free of charge and there are no limits on how much data you can transfer or store.

10. Adobe Send & Track

Send & Track lets you use the Adobe website or Acrobat Reader app to share large files with multiple recipients, whatever device you’re using (be that phone or PC). The website doesn’t mention any limit on the number or size of files you can send, but the service isn’t free and will set you back $20 per year (around £16, AU$27).

There are also restrictions on what files can be sent – for example, 7-Zip archives aren’t allowed. One of the most useful features here is the tracking, whereby you can see clearly whether a document has been opened or not.

11. Send Anywhere

Send Anywhere is available for just about every platform you can think of, and can transfer files up to 10GB completely free. The file sharing service is available as a web app at https://send-anywhere.com, as a browser extension for Chrome, as a mobile app for Android and iOS, and as downloadable software for Windows and macOS. There are also versions for Linux and Amazon Kindle, plus plugins for WordPress and Outlook.

The browser widget lets you share files up to 4GB, but the desktop software supports files up to 1TB for paid subscribers. That should be more than enough for all but the largest 4K video files.

12. Dropbox

Sign up for this cloud storage service and any files moved into your Dropbox folder can be shared through use of a web link. Some operating systems let you do this by right clicking, for others you may need to log into the site and click the Share link. Most importantly, the person to whom you send the link doesn’t need to be a Dropbox user – they can simply download files from the site.

Dropbox has a free tier which gives you 2GB of storage space, but you can earn more by referring friends to use the service – or increase the limit to 1TB by signing up to Dropbox Plus for $9.99 per month (around £8, AU$13). The latter also allows you much greater control of files, including versioning as well as remote device wipe, and you can set a password for downloads.

#big #files #share #ways

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webanalytics · 7 years ago

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How to Know If Your Content Marketing Just Isn’t Working

Content is king.

And content marketing in 2018 remains a brilliant and cost-effective method for engaging with leads and customers, spreading brand awareness, and getting around the increasing use of ad-blockers.

Whether it’s an email newsletter, social media post, or blog on your own or someone else’s website, people want to see your stuff. They accept it. Approve it. Whitelist it. Because it’s the user him or herself clicking on it, there are no concerns of spam complaints, or annoying the recipient, or ending up in the junk folder.

It’s popular, powerful, and for all intents and purposes, perfect. If you’re online in any professional capacity, you’re already using it.

Google “content marketing” and you’ll uncover millions (78,200,000 when I did it just now) of results, everything from definitions to how-to guides to case studies. You can quickly and easily pick up the how, why, when, what, and where of content marketing. Every online marketing personality and business has their own advanced guide or step-by-step guide, allowing anyone to grasp, experiment, and eventually master the subtle art of content marketing.

“Content Marketing is all the Marketing that’s left.” ~ Seth Godin

Strikingly, the only thing you won’t see much of in those millions upon millions of links is how to know when your content marketing isn’t working.

Because there’s a lot more to successful content marketing than just traffic and clicks, and a hell of a lot more than just likes, shares, and retweets. Those are simply vanity metrics that don’t tell you anything of importance by themselves…although it sure does feel nice to see people are loving your stuff.

Now, vanity metrics can be used to find actionable insight, but that’s the subject of another post on another day. Suffice to say, if you’re gauging the success of your content campaigns on likes and shares alone, you’re doing it wrong and wasting your time and energy.

Instead of focusing on the vanity metric, use it to inform your marketing decisions. Dig deeper. Find the corresponding actionable metric.

Content marketing is an active endeavor, and most of the hard work starts after you hit publish. It’s not about reaching people; it’s about reaching the right people.

How do you know when you’re not doing that?

Look for these five red flags before and during the push.

Content Marketing 101

But before we get to that, let’s review some basics.

If you remember only one thing about content marketing, make it this: write your strategy down. Be explicit, detailed, and clear about goals (use SMART goals and stretch goals if applicable), tactics, channels, and how you’re going to measure success.

What will “success” look like? How will you measure return-on-investment? Make sure you and everyone on your team knows and understands.

How often will your marketing team meet? The most successful meet regularly to evaluate, tweak, and manage as necessary. Your content marketing should not be set-it-and-forget-it.

Target your ideal customers. Segment your audience. A/B test. Monitor your efforts. Create evergreen content. Measure the return-on-investment to maximize your budget. Look at your competitors and industry to see what’s working, what’s not, and what others are and are not doing.

In their 2018 annual report on content marketing, CMI discovered that only 38% of B2C businesses have a documented strategy. That’s appallingly low.

Document your strategy. Do that, and you’re ahead of 62% of the competition.

Diversify your tactics and channels. The same report found that B2C marketers:

Use an average of five social media platforms, with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram the top five choices.

Use and average of four formats for distribution, with social media, email, blogs, in-person events, and print the five most popular.

Use an average of five different types of content, with social media posts, pre-produced videos, illustrations/photos, infographics, and interactive tools like quizzes and calculators rounding out the top five most used.

The tricks and tips and hacks for better content marketing are many. Read some. Read many.

“We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.” ~ Craig Davis, former Chief Creative Officer at J. Walter Thompson

And that brings us back full-circle. Knowing when your content marketing isn’t working is as important as knowing when it is…if not more so.

How can you tell if you’re on the wrong track and heading in the wrong direction?

Watch for (and respond!) to these five signposts along the way.

Signpost #1: The Wrong People Are Signing Up

Consider this hypothetical scenario: you launch an aggressive content campaign, complete with blog and social media posts, videos, and infographics, to promote your new SaaS product launch.

Everything has a rock-solid call-to-action inviting people to a free 7-day trial. They click the CTA button, are transported to a well-crafted landing page, and sign up.

That’s an undeniable content marketing win, right?

Wrong. It could be a win…depending on who is signing up. Numbers alone don’t answer that question. Even if you’re looking at an insane 60% conversion rate, it’s meaningless if those signing up are the wrong people.

So who are the “wrong” people? Anyone that’s not within your target market. They may be interested in your content for a wide variety of reasons – research, curiosity, education – but they’re not necessarily interested in your product or service.

Now, far be it for me to suggest that you shouldn’t ever target outside your market. I’m not, and you should. Sometimes your best customers down the road are the ones you’re not even considering at the moment.

A portion of signups outside your target audience is not only nothing to worry about, but a positive and worthwhile goal.

That said, if 50%, 60%, or 70%+ of your leads are falling outside of those you were targeting – wrong geographic location, industry, background, profession, income level, interests, or whatever – something’s wrong. If the majority of those signing up for your email newsletters, gated content, or free trials are nowhere near your ideal fit, your content marketing isn’t working.

Before you write a single line of blog post or send a single tweet, you need to be crystal-clear on your ideal customer. Get to know him or her. You’ve no doubt heard about the importance of buyer or customer personas. Build and use them to guide your content efforts. Do that, and the likelihood of the “wrong” people coming to your content goes down exponentially.

Why? Because a detailed persona allows you to reverse engineer your content specifically for them: their wants, needs, pain points, values, and more. That’s more than half the battle.

If you’re just starting out, this is a bit more difficult, but not impossible. If you have existing customers and sales data to work with, though, you can zero in on the best of the best. According to Duct Tape Marketing:

Identify your most profitable customers.

Identify those who refer within that group.

Identify the common traits and characteristics within that small group.

Create a customer persona based on that data.

That’s your ideal, most profitable customer. Create content for him or her. Share it on the platforms he or she uses and spends the most time on.

Social platforms typically have built-in capabilities, such as Twitter Analytics audience insights dashboard.

If you’re targeting English-speaking men over the age of 50, and your Analytics report shows most of your visitors are females under the age of 25 and from Italy, all those conversions – sign-ups, downloads, or otherwise – probably aren’t going to amount to much with your bottom line.

The sooner you know that, the sooner you can fix it. If the wrong people are signing up or downloading your lead magnets, you have to change direction. And fast.

Know exactly who you’re targeting, and give them exactly what they want and where they want it. Then monitor to make sure it’s drawing them in.

Signpost #2: Incompatible Backlink Profile

Backlinks are still important for your search engine optimization. In fact, many would argue that they’re the key to your overall SEO success. Quality backlinks from respected sites is a surefire indicator to Google and the rest of the search engine overlords that your content is valuable, useful, and worth a read. It’s a vote of confidence.

And that can translate into a big jump on the SERPs. The closer you are to that coveted top spot, the better the chance someone will click on your link. Increased traffic means increased leads, which means increased revenue. Google is happy, the users are happy, and you’re happy.

Backlinks and SEO go hand-in-hand. But backlinks can also tell you if there’s something amiss with your content marketing.

Imagine if your backlink profile – a report on which external sites are linking to your stuff – is populated with websites you wouldn’t expect your target market to visit. Good? Bad?

It depends on your criteria. If those sites are quality sites, those backlinks are still going to give you a healthy SEO boost. That’s good.

However, it may be evidence that your content is not resonating with your ideal customers. And that’s very, very bad. Your content, after all, is how you introduce yourself to them, educated them on your products and services, and persuade them to open their wallets. If it’s missing that mark, you’re failing at the marketing game. It’s the difference between leaving a flyer on hundreds of windshields in a mall parking lot, and hand-delivering to prospects you know would benefit from what you have to offer.

Luckily, generating a backlink profile and conducting a link audit is fast and easy, and there are many tools to assist with it.

To get a basic list, log in to Google Search Console. Click “Search Traffic” on the left-hand menu, and then select “Links to Your Site”. You’ll get a quick n’ dirty report with the total number of links, and the sites who link the most.

Now, you can determine if the sites linking back to your content are within your “demographic”. Some you might recognize by name, others you may have to visit and evaluate.

For a more detailed analysis, you can try a dedicated backlink tool. Some of the best include:

Majestic

Ahrefs

Moz

SEMrush

Bing Webmaster Tools

If your target is recent university graduates, and you’re receiving backlinks from retirement agencies, there’s a mismatch. You’re not producing the right content to connect with those just entering the workforce.

If you’ve done your homework, you should have detailed customer personas. You should know not only who they are, but also what they need, and where they are. Too many people outside those parameters linking to your content is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not going to generate massive sales and revenue.

The sites linking to you are an indicator of who your content is reaching. If you’re targeting professionals, but most of your links are coming from gossip sites, stop. If you’re after grandparents, but Millennial Now is your biggest external source, halt.

Check your link profile. Ensure most of them are coming from sites your target audience would frequent to increase your exposure with them.

If not, re-evaluate. Switch tracks. Create more of what they want, need, and desire. Align your content with your customer.

Signpost #3: No One Is Sharing

Yes, I did tell you at the beginning of this post that shares and likes are a vanity metric. That’s still true. But do you know what else is true?

Great content gets shared.

If people are reading your content but not sharing it, then you’re not producing quality content and your marketing is failing. Period.

This is especially true with influencers in your niche. If you create enough fantastic content, eventually some influencers in your market will share that content. If they aren’t, that’s trouble.

Think about your own online behavior. When you read or encounter a great blog post, infographic, or video, you share it with your own fans, followers, friends, and family. It’s almost automatic. Every platform has the ability built-in, and third-party tools like Hootsuite and sharing plugins make it effortless and convenient.

We read or watch it, we instinctively share it. You want your content to be shared. You need your content to be shared.

Every time you create something, you want it to go viral. That kind of reach and exposure is the dream. While it may not happen for you, consistent social sharing increases your exposure exponentially. One retweet puts your content in front of a whole new set of eyes. It gets people talking about you and your brand. And the cycle repeats if only one person from that new group shares it again, and so on.

First, you need to track how many shares you’re getting with your existing content.

Tools like Hootsuite can monitor your mentions across social media, Google Alerts can notify you when your tracked keywords and phrases are used, Likealyzer analyzes your Facebook Page, Snaplytics provides data on both Snapchat and Instagram Stories, BuzzSumo shows you how content on your site is doing on social media, Google Analytics can report on how much traffic to your site is coming from social channels (under Acquisition > Social > Overview), SharesCount displays social shares based on individual URLs, and all-in-one management platforms like Sprout Social can monitor most of the major platforms from one dashboard.

If you have no shares, you have some serious work to do. If you have some shares, more is always better. If you’re happy with the shares you’re seeing, you’re selling yourself and your content short.

“It’s not the best content that wins. It’s the best promoted content that wins.” ~Andy Crestodina

More shares, more exposure. More exposure, more leads. More leads, more conversions. So, do everything you can to increase the amount of social sharing you’re already seeing:

Produce only incredibly high quality and valuable content. Share nothing but the best you have to offer.

Spend more time on your headline than you do on the rest of the piece. Your headline needs to hook them and force them to click, read, or watch.

Write on topics that are both relevant and timely. What’s trending in your niche?

Try tools like Click-To-Tweet or a scrolling share bar like AddThis to remove friction and allow your readers to share what and when they want.

Make it easy to share with conveniently located share buttons at the top and/or side and/or bottom.

Ask them to share. Remind them to share.

Use compelling visuals.

Create evergreen content.

Increasing your social shares should be part of your content marketing strategy regardless of how many you’re currently seeing. Step 1: monitor your shares. Step 2: increase your shares.

None, few, or lots, more are better.

Signpost #4: Your Leads Aren’t Talking About Your Content

This one is reactive. You won’t know until you start generating some quality leads. It requires asking or surveying them about where and how they heard about you, your brand, and your products.

It might be a simple question in your email series or while talking to them on the phone, or a follow-up online survey, or a fill-in field on an opt-in form. “How did you hear about us?” is profitable and relevant data to collect.

The answers should be varied if you’ve diversified your marketing efforts. Some might say it was a referral from a friend, another might mention an online review or recommendation, while others may have clicked a PPC ad, or read a newspaper feature, or googled your targeted keyword.

But some of them will hopefully talk about your content. In a perfect world, they’ll bring it up without any solicitation from you, choosing to mention how much they loved your blog post on X, or how helpful they found your infographic on Y. That’s when you know your content marketing is crushing it.

Great content with great promotion should elicit great (and unsolicited) feedback.

“What you do after you create your content is what truly counts.” ~Gary Vaynerchuk

If none of your leads are talking about your content, that’s a major red flag. If none of them mention “content” when you ask, that’s a neon signpost. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Ask. And if the answer is anything and everything but content, you know you need to head back to the drawing board. Don’t stop whatever is working, of course, but tidy up your content efforts at the same time. It’s just too lucrative a tactic to allow it to fail so miserably.

Ask yourself: what do my ideal customers most need? What do they struggle with? How can I better/simplify/improve their lives?

Answer those questions and more with the content you create, and tongues will be wagging.

Signpost #5: Your Leads Want What You Can’t Do

Lead generation is a major part of any business plan. A steady stream of leads going in at the top of your sales funnel means a steady – albeit smaller – stream of customers and advocates exiting at the bottom.

But all leads are not created equal.

Picture this: the leads that are reaching out to you are asking about things you can’t or don’t do. Once or twice is an anomaly. But if it happens on a regular basis then your content is likely at fault.

Leads asking for something other than what you do is often a symptom of creating content that is not directly tied to the business.

If you’re in the analytics business, you should write about analytics. If you produce quality content on SEO as an extension of that, don’t be surprised if people contact you asking for SEO advice and solutions.

If leads are asking about things you can’t, don’t, or won’t do, you aren’t creating the right content for your business. Content marketing is supposed to introduce you as an expert and authority in your field. It’s supposed to initiate a discussion between you and those in need of what you have or do.

In your content efforts, stick to only those topics and sub-topics that are directly related to your product or service. Write only about those subjects. Talk, share, comment, and engage only in those areas.

Everything else is just noise.

“Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them.” ~Doug Kessler

Conclusion

No traffic. No clicks. No leads. No ROI. Those are a few common reasons your content marketing isn’t working for you. Those are easy to recognize and relatively easy to correct. Jay Baer suggests four categories to fix a broken campaign:

Fix your topic(s).

Fix your amplification and promotion.

Fix your format(s).

Fix your creators.

But content marketing can fail in many less obvious ways. It’s your job to watch, monitor, and manage those silent killers.

The five discussed here are far from exhaustive. The list of potential content assassins is long. You’ve got to stay vigilant.

It is possible to get and stay on the right track heading in the right direction.

Over to you. What other ways have you found your content marketing falling short? What hiccups have you stumbled upon in your marketing? What red flags are you always on the look for?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

from Search Results for “analytics” – The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog http://ift.tt/2CvAwSv #Digital #Analytics #Website

#Analytics #Search Results for “analytics” – The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog

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samiam03x · 7 years ago