#Wordpress assignment help

[mi6-cafe]

It’s almost time to sign up for 007 Fest!

What is 007 Fest?

007 Fest is a month-long July celebration of all things Bond! This year marks our 10th Fest!

This year, the storyline we are following is dueling conferences. Agencies from all over the world are coming together in the spirit of cooperation and trust. It’s JELLYFISH Con!

For four days, agencies will show off their new tech, brag about the skills of their agents, showcase anything and everything. The goal? To form new alliances between agencies, inter-agency agent partnerships that can be called upon in times of need.

Everything is a little tense when trying to get naturally suspicious people to work together, but the biggest challenge might not be anything anyone predicted. It might be the convention happening on the floor below theirs: The International Mystery Writers Convention.

It's up to you, the support staff, the hotel staff, the B team who make things run smoothly to ensure that's what happens this time, too. When you sign up for Fest, start thinking about how you want to fit into this world. It's not critical, but there are some fun bonus challenges that build on some role play elements. Don't worry about which agency you might be a part of; we will be assigning time-zone-based stations for Fest depending on the demographics of sign ups.

During July, decide on your goals at the beginning of each week in July. Completing these weekly goals helps save the conference from that week’s threat! (But if you don’t complete them…well…maybe your station’s part of the conference ends up a little more lava-covered than it was before…yes, even though you’re not anywhere near a volcano… Luckily, you can help each other out!)

More info on our wordpress or our tumblr post.

I don’t write or art! Can I still participate?

Absolutely! If you want, you can only make social goals—hosting or joining watch parties or Discord chats, for example.

We also have fun immersive goals/scavenger hunt activities that don’t involve writing or arting.

Additionally, the ‘creative’ goals don’t have to involve fanfic or fanart; if your weekly goal is to make 5 James Bond memes or three headcanons, we support that!

And if you want to make a “hold my beer” level of goal, we also offer prompt tables and other challenges!

You can also participate without goals during certain weeks or the whole month if you want! 007 Fest is as chill or as high-key as you want to make it.

How can I sign up?

Sign-ups are open June 1st until June 15! Just fill out the form (forthcoming in a reblog) and we’ll contact you around June 18 so you can meet your team. If you’d like to onboard after that, you can, it will just take the mods a little longer.

We look forward to saving the world with you in July! :D

[17020]

AMOR'S WORDPRESS EVENT!

hello, and welcome! if you don’t know me! i’m amor, an 18 year old latino currently studying marketing. i have been assigned a homework where i need to create a wordpress blog about anything, and the group that gets the most web traffic wins and gets an 100, and the rest get 80, 70, and under.

me and my group partner both have scholarships, and if we don’t get a reasonable grade we might lose our scholarships because averages are strict. we need your help! we need web traffic, and me and my partner have written quick articles for you to read. please help a gal out! we’ll update the posts and stuff this week, so stay tuned!

IF YOU SEND ME PROOF THAT YOU BROWSED THROUGH MY WORDPRESS/LEFT A COMMENT/SIGNED UP, I WILL WRITE SETS OF 4 HEADCANNONS FOR A CHARACTER IN MY WRITING LIST.

UPDATE!!! we have met the deadline!! thank you so much for participating, i’ll let you know if im first or second place <3

SFW AND NSFW WELCOME! READ MY RULES, SEND THE PROOF, AND YOU'RE GOOD TO GO! proof can be on anon too, just say “i browsed through this article and blah blah!” simple as that

my partner and i really need this grade to pop off. we need all the help we can get. i already outed myself as a fic writer to my professor, so please help me out. i will post the headcannons throughout the week. thank you and sorry to bother! stay safe, i love you.

tagging my dearest moots who said they'd help me with the wordpress, @vinomino @ryescapades @itoshiexx @sanemistar i love you have a kiss from me

[wingedcatastrophe]

The Inathamel Emergency Services Brigade ;; a wip intro

Inathamel is a melting pot of civilization, a city-state sandwiched between three other kingdoms. Malyn has only just finished the training required to join the Brigade and has been assigned to their very first posting. They quickly find that a melting pot of cultures also happens to attract a whole host of emergencies and problems, and everyone is quick to call on the ESB for help. It's a firefighter story in fantasyland because i spend too much time watching shows like 911 okay it'll be wacky and fun and sometimes sad, as the genre goes. The Inathamel Emergency Services Brigade will be posted bi-weekly to a wordpress blog starting sometime in the near future! More updates on that later. For now, keep an eye out for character intros coming in the next few weeks!

Genre: High Fantasy, episodic drama Content Warnings: violence, trauma, medical emergencies, natural disasters, inter-personal drama Wordpress link: coming soon!

Taglist (ask to be added/removed!) @theaistired

[actuallyadhd]

Tips & Tricks: Managing School Assignments

If you need help keeping track of your school assignments, you might appreciate this post!

I thought it was about time I wrote a proper, thorough post about how to keep track of your assignments for school. If you’re not in school anymore, this can also be helpful for managing your work projects. Instagrammable image for this post, including a line drawing of a person sitting among piles of books. There are a few ways to manage school assignments, and what I’m going to explain here…

[exteenpopstar]

Hi! I'm sorry if this isn't a super helpful message. But I am literally also trying to help a relative in Chicago navigate getting a home aide right now. (from a distance, I am on the east ghost.) Howtogeton dot wordpress dot com has some great info I've been looking at. And also we filled out tinyurl dot com / findingcarechicago and they sent us the list of like thirteen covid-safe care providers in their network. Our issue is right now this is just out of pocket for us. Idk if you could tell me any more about how you got approved for the medicaid payments, if not I understand and good luck with your search!!

EDIT: That list you sent me is awesome tysm i will have to see if any of those people can mesh with the medicaid PA system since i don't completely understand how works yet. 🥳

hello. thank you for links. is your relative already approved for medicaid? like are they under the income limits? because that is the first required thing. you need to be on medicaid as your insurance to get the state provided home care. if your income is too high for regular medicaid i believe you can get medicaid ABD (aged blind disabled) if you prove disability which is a whole other rigmarole that i haven't done. not sure if same as SSI or not. so it's unfortunately easiest to just have very low income (under ~$20k/yr for 1 person).

This is where you apply for benefits in general: https://abe.illinois.gov/access/

Then this is where you apply for home care: https://wr.dhs.illinois.gov/wrpublic/wr/dynamic/referral.jsf

^And check off "I would like help living independently at home".

Then they will contact you via email/phone. It will be very frustrating and weird. often even if you specify support person they will contact the person who needs services themself, and often if you specify not phone they will call anyway. Also they will send complicated paperwork to provided address. I had to ask doctors and social workers for help filling out and everyone claimed was not their job. I still have not been assigned an actual case manager. if you get medicaid home care they will assign you a care coordinator but she is only supposed to meet with you every 3 mos.

i don't know how they decided how many hours i got or anything. i don't have access to like what they filled out about me or their analysis of my functioning. i am only approved for "homemaker" services and they sent me a random person from an agency. if you can find your own person it's called a "personal assistant" and i think you get to manage the care more independently, which is part of why i'm looking for new aide. but my current aide is from agency and has to follow some rules that i don't really understand.

[justablogger113]

10 Top Tips to Master Your Studies

Introduction Studying effectively is a skill that anyone can master with the right strategies. You’re preparing for exams, tackling assignments, or trying to stay ahead. A structured approach can make all the difference. In this post, we’ll explore 10 actionable tips to transform your study habits and help you achieve your academic goals. These tips are not just about working harder—they’re…

[jerickaas-blog]

MY REFLECTION WHAT I LEARN IN EMPOWERMENT TECHNOLOGY

Empowerment technology is a great idea for students like me, to learn better, understand better and to socialize. Using technology is very convenient and it is easy to use and you get faster information, it is very applicable in education. As a student, I learn better by using technology and empowerment technology is teaching us the way of using technology it gives us information how to be more responsible of using it for good intention and that is by education. I learn so much about empowerment technology it helps us to know more about ICT or Information Communication Technology. I learn about the WWW or World Wide Web, internet, static and dynamic web pages, key features, semantic web, several problems about 3.0, mobile technologies, trends in ICT, mobile OS, how to be safe online, six types of social media, internet threats and many more are the lessons that we tackled and learb about. And these lessons help me, the new generation or the millennials to be responsible enough to use technology in means of education.

Empowerment technology is one of my subject in third trimester. And for the three months of Class Lectures, Projects, Assignments and Performance task, i have learned a lot. more than what I needed. I’am a person who is not techie, yes, I may love to surf the internet that much but that’s all. Doing computer works like Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Excel is not my thing and I hate doing it also. I’m ignorant with its features but then when we had subject, it thought me the things I never knew. I learned also the Key Features of different kinds of web pages. And Empowerment Technology course thought me how to handle the internet with safety and security. It has also taught me the different online platforms tools for Information, Communicaton and Technology Content Development. I also can say that this subject was useful and very helpful because today’s modern world, we shall know how to be within the trend. And right now, technology has a really fast pacing. Whenever, there’s one gadget coming out, different inventions also of gadgets will follow. I’ve also learned a lot in different malwares, adwares and phishing–It made me aware what are the things that could possibly harm my personal gadgets or computer. I can relate Empowerment technology to my life by saying that for example, In the Personal Computer we can download everything that but its just that there is something that we should always be careful of: the Virus. It may cause a greater harm than we ever thought, and Just like in life, when we ask too much, when we download what we want; saying that we didn’t intended to do so, or assuming that we didn’t think of its possibilities and impossibilities, its causes and effects to us, we end up being greedy that it causes harm in our very own selves. I have come to understand that Empowerment Technology made my learning skills more in trend and explore and discover in a looks of a valuable and interesting. Empowerment Technology allowed me to a finer interactivity in order to cope up with the experience of learning based on what I needed. Instead of using the “old way” of learning like writing all the articles in hand-written, we had it using WordPress and it made me, as student, to utilize the material we had-which is laptop- to make it easier.The thought also of Empowerment Technology made my life easy as in this course, we have been educated to do research and so with the help of Internet-as of one of our lectures- it is a powerful tool for it became as way of us, the students to have a active learning and provides opportunities for authentic learning experience.

And so, I thank my subject Mr. Erica Decapia for giving me the things i need to learn throughout this subject that she made me less ignorant with the technology. Five hundred words are more than enough to describe how thankful I am that we had this subject this trimester for us to help to be with one in the trend.

As technology advances, our leisure time is increasing this statement make a rather unreal assumption. It is in our nature to invent, improve, innovate and think of a better ways in order to make solutions in every problems that we might encounter in our daily lives. Nowadays, technology controls everything even ourselves and the things we use to do, everything is changing and technology changes us all. The development of technology will continue to expand rapidly.

Empowerment is the process of becoming stronger, more confident and in control of what might happen while technology deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life and society. Empowerment technology help us strengthens our scientific knowledge in order for us to learn how to apply different technology-related information at certain things in our lives.The extent of ICT integrated in the teaching learning process in Senior High School have a positive impact in every student like us especially were taking ABM strand. In our Empowerment Technology subject our activities are to be done through the use of social media, this blog that we create using WordPress is one of these example. For us, it paves the way for self- discovery.

[integratedropbox11]

How To Integrate Dropbox with LMS Integrations

Integrating Dropbox with your LMS could change how you manage courses, assignments, and projects. Bring Dropbox to the course, assignment, and project management of your LMS Integrations. Dropbox can make those file storage, sharing and collaboration made Easy.

Provided that you can establish a predictable level of payments, it is both user friendly and has plenty of great features, which make it appealing for LMS Integrations. Using Dropbox makes the learning experience even better when paired with an LMS. It’s a connector that links cloud storage with the LMS platform. It’s faster for file management, collaboration, and accessing materials.

Dropbox integration with a Learning Management System (LMS) opens the doors for Instructure, teachers, and students all at once file management is made easier, collaboration becomes more accessible. By connecting Dropbox to your LMS, you can simply upload everything into one place in one Dropbox folder and they don’t have to worry about multiple uploads or complex settings.

A direct Dropbox to the LMS secures this folder so LMS integrations can get to what they need without struggling. Dropbox also lets students with poor internet offline downloads. Using Dropbox also helps handling large storage as your needs. It saves server costs and keeps things from being overcrowded. During busy times, the integration provides a load off LMS servers.

Also Read: 7 Best Dropbox Plugins for WordPress for 2024

Saving Hosting Space

Integrating Dropbox with your LMS saves space and costs. Traditional LMSs, especially those with video, multimedia, or large datasets, quickly run out of space. Dropbox allows you to store these resources in the cloud. You can access them anytime via its website or app. This not only frees up space but also taps into Dropbox’s strong, scalable infrastructure. It cuts costs on storage hardware, maintenance, and support. As courses and resources grow, so do storage needs.

Reduced Server Load

Dropbox with an LMS, it can reduce  load on their servers significantly. Dropbox utilizes cutting edge load balancing techniques to ensure good performance from its servers. Dropbox making user requests faster, thus providing better user access times and overall performance when users are accessing course material. LMS runs better by leveraging Dropbox’s infrastructure, but an LMS also offers a more reliable and scalable delivery of educational content.

Effortless Content Distribution

Integrating Dropbox with your LMS simplifies content sharing. Instructors can easily upload notes, presentations, readings, and videos to Dropbox. These then become accessible in the LMS, using the same interface students are familiar with. Instructors only update files in Dropbox it show up in the LMS instantly. This saves time for instructors and keeps things organized for students. Students no longer switch between platforms or versions.

Cross-Platform Accessibility

Linking Dropbox with your LMS boosts its accessibility across devices. Dropbox functions smoothly on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and all web browsers. This allows students and teachers to reach materials on any device. Students often switch devices phones, working on laptops, or looking at tablets. Students can quickly find readings or notes anywhere, enhancing learning and productivity. It supports various learning styles, letting students engage with lms content in their preferred way.

Offline Access to Course Materials

Accessing course materials offline greatly helps students with poor internet. They can use Dropbox with an LMS to sync files for offline access. This is particularly beneficial for commuters and those in areas with bad connectivity. It allows studying anywhere, as long as there’s power. With a good internet connection, students download everything. This flexibility increases involvement and improves retention of the studying.

Simplified Content Updates

Effective learning needs up-to-date content. Dropbox and LMS integration makes this simple. When instructors update a file in Dropbox, all media files sync automatically on lms platform. Students always access the latest materials without extra effort. Instructors can update lecture slides, add course, or change assignment instructions in real-time. So, students always see the most current information. This process is straightforward thanks to dropbox smart file sync.

LMS Integrations together with Integrate Dropbox can help you to build a full fledged e-learning platform or simply add an e-learning part to your business or personal brand. In order to actually optimize your learning platform, you may want to combine your LMS plugin with Integrate Dropbox best free dropbox plugin for WordPress. This powerful plugin frees up server space and ultimately provides a better performance for your site.

Embedding Dropbox documents, videos, and other media files smoothly in your inserts seamlessly into widely used LMS platforms like Tutor LMS and Master LMS and simply coexists from your WordPress dashboard to share and manage files with ease Integrate Dropbox plugin easily . These make it easy to create, manage and customize your own online courses right within the WordPress dashboard.

Step 1: Install and Configure the Integrate Dropbox with LMS Integrations

Install the Dropbox Plugin: Search Integrate Dropbox and activate

Connect Dropbox Account: Check the Official Website Documentation to connect

Step 2: Adding Dropbox Video to a Course Lesson in MasterStudy LMS

Navigate to MasterStudy LMS: Go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to MS LMS > Courses. Edit OR add new the course to which you want to add the video.

Edit or Add a Lesson: Scroll down to the Curriculum section and either edit an existing lesson or create a new lesson. – First Create / Add Video Lesson > Click on the Save

Select Video Type as External: When editing the lesson, scroll to the Lesson Type section. From the dropdown, choose Video as the lesson type.

Select Video and Video Poster from the Popup: 

Auto Save the Lesson: 

Once the Dropbox video and Poster are added, It will automatically be saved, and make sure the fields are filled.

Step 3: Test the Lesson Video

Now, it’s time to preview the course video lesson.

Wrapping up

Dropbox is used as a Learning Management System benefits for both instructors an d students can be got whenever . And this integration drives such a deal of the pain points we encounter in these digital learning environments, such as improved file management and collaboration, improved accessibility, and greater security. The strengths of both the platforms are combined and allowed educational institutions to build a stronger and more robust, flexible and more engaging learning ecosystem capable of meeting the future needs of modern education.

[streamondemand]

'Close to the Enemy' – England after the war on Acorn TV and free on Hoopla

In 1946, mere weeks before he is to be demobilized from military service, British intelligence officer Callum Ferguson (Jim Sturgess) is given one last assignment: convince a German scientist and mechanical engineer (August Diehl) to remain in Britain voluntarily and help the British compete with the Americans and Russians in the military technology race. Close to the Enemy (2016), the…

[jcmarchi]

10+ Excellent Web Design Tools & Resources to Use in 2024 - Web Design Ledger

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/10-excellent-web-design-tools-resources-to-use-in-2024-web-design-ledger/

10+ Excellent Web Design Tools & Resources to Use in 2024 - Web Design Ledger

It’s a New Year, but one thing hasn’t changed. The number of web design resources and tools just keeps on increasing. That’s a good thing. But it does make it that much more difficult to find a theme, plugin, or resource you really have a need for if you are to stay abreast of or leapfrog the competition.

We are in a position to make your search easier. Much easier in fact. We reviewed and tested web design tools & resources we believe many users, designers, and developers have a genuine need for. The types we believe to be essential, and that you will see in our final list of 15 are:

website builders for building landing pages and multiple-page websites quickly, easily, and without any need for coding.

WordPress plugins that can incorporate potentially game-changing functionalities, that are challenging to design, into websites.

WordPress themes for building complex and high-conversion rate websites and online stores.

Vector illustrations that can give a website a whimsical or entertaining aspect.

font identifiers to identify and provide access information to a “must have” font or fonts.

A majority of the web design resources and tools in the following list have a free or trial version:

What are a few of the important attributes these Excellent Web Design Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies share?

They look premium. There is something about a top tool or resource that makes you wish you had acquired it a long time ago, e.g., how enjoyable it is to use.

They are intuitive. From signing up, to downloading, using, cancelling, and anything in between, everything needed is placed precisely where it should be.

They add real value. They facilitate getting more and higher paid assignments by helping you deliver web design projects faster, making your final deliverables more attractive, or both.

15 best web design Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies

To help you in your research, we’ve included top features, customer average grade on non-biased platforms such as Trustpilot, Capterra or WordPress.org, and client feedback.

Ready? Then let’s get started. 

1. Brizy Builder™

Brizy is the best website builder for Agencies, Designers, and anyone else in need of a White Label solution.

Brizy’s top feature is without a doubt its 100% customizable White Label solution that allows its users to add their own branding, including the builder name, builder logo, domain URL, support link, about link, and project subdomain.

Brizy Builder’s library of demo/template/prebuilt websites is also highly popular with its users. Soulful and Cuisine is one of the 5 most downloaded pre-built websites. It is attractive and inspirational, and while it provides an ideal foundation for a restaurant or bistro, the layout can be used for other service-oriented website types as well.

There’s more to like as well. New users quickly become aware of Brizy’s intuitiveness, and their ability to edit any type of content in place. Many competing builders force their users to create their content in a disjointed sidebar. That’s not the case with Brizy.

Customer Average Grade: 4.6/5 on Trustpilot

Client Feedback: “I am amazed by my experience with Brizy. The tool is easy to use, and the support is one of the best I have ever experienced. Fast replies and my contact really went the extra mile in helping me solve my problem. I can only recommend Brizy to everyone who’s looking to build their own website”!

Instant Support Materials:  Documentation, Brizy Academy, Useful Blog Posts and YouTube videos

View the Builder 

2. Trafft – Booking Software

 The Best Free Scheduling Online Software Solution for Business Owners.

Flexibility is always important when selecting a theme or plugin. The top feature of this software solution is the ability to operate in a wide range of languages because of its powerful Multilingual Notifications System.

This user favorite:

facilitates the effective management of appointments and events using email, SMS and/or WhatsApp messages.

keeps users informed about the status of appointments or events.

offers custom notifications that enable users to tailor alerts for specific services or events.

The library of prebuilt websites also plays a significant role in making working with Trafft a pleasant experience. The Career Mastery Coaching prebuilt website illustrates what an effective event booking system might look like.

Key features users notice once they start using Trafft include easy backend and frontend interface navigation and the power the customization options bring to the table.

Web developers and digital design agencies can be expected to be more than pleased to discover that Trafft offers a White Label option.

Customer Average Grade: 5 stars on Capterra

Client Feedback:  “ I love that Trafft has so much included – and that you can customize literally everything, including the email & SMS notification wording (which is a big deal for me since I like communications to be in my brand voice).”

Support Materials:  Trafft’s ticketing system. Support manual, YouTube videos, social media, and email.

View the Booking Solution

3. wpDataTables -The Best Tables & Charts WordPress Table Plugin

 wpDataTables offers an ideal solution for businesses and individuals who need to create tables and charts.

The wpDataTable plugin’s top feature, its Multiple Database Connections capability, represents a data management breakthrough by empowering every table to become a data hub that can pull information from different databases or servers.

By simplifying data management tasks, wpDataTables allows its users to create custom, responsive, easily editable tables and charts with ease.  A bookseller could probably put this Responsive Catalog Table with Books to good use.

Features new wpDataTables users will discover include:

an abundance of useful functionality wrapped in an intuitive package.

the ability to adroitly manage complicated data structures.

wpDataTables also supports separate connections for working with specialized database systems and features chart engines for displaying data for marketing, financial, and environmental uses.

Customer Average Grade: 4.5/5 pm WprdPress.org

Client Feedback: “WpDataTables is an excellent WordPress Plugin. What you are able to accomplish with this plugin is nothing short of amazing. Their support is even better! Highly, highly recommend using this product and supporting this company.

I have tried different utilities for creating charts out of a series of CSV files I use for weather data, but it has been a hassle until I discovered wpDataTables which does exactly what I need. Very user friendly and versatile. And it also understands that there are other standards for date, decimal, and time apart from the Americas.”

Instant Support Materials:  Support manual, the Facebook community, and YouTube videos

View wpDataTables

4. Uncode – Creative & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Uncode is the #1 WordPress and WooCommerce theme for creatives, professional designers, and agencies looking for an ideal solution for any project.

While Uncode’s ensemble of website building tools and options would seem to more than justify its popularity, most of its users say the demo library is its #1 feature. The demos not only exhibit exceptional attention to detail but have proven to be excellent sources of inspiration as well.

Uncode’s classic Web Experiences is one of the 5 most downloaded  demos. Just imagine what you could do with it.

New users are impressed with the value inherent in Uncode’s demos and wireframes, the level of customization, and the top-notch customer support.

Uncode’s principal users are:

Agencies and Freelancers, because of the multitude of options that cover the needs of every customer or client.

Shop creators, who can easily make effective use of Uncode’s advanced WooCommerce features.

Customer Average Grade: 4.89/5

Client Feedback: “I have used Uncode on 6+ websites now, and it’s absolutely my go-to theme! The features, quality, and customer support are outstanding. The developers do an incredible job of keeping the theme up to date and stable, constantly implementing new features and optimizing the theme. A solid product with great documentation and responsive support team. Kudos!”

Instant Support Materials:  Support manual, Facebook groups, YouTube videos

Purchase the Theme

5. LayerSlider – Best WordPress Slider Builder Plugin

 LayerSlider, the top-rated WordPress slider plugin, empowers web designers to effortlessly enhance websites and make them truly shine.

LayerSlider’s scroll effect has emerged as its top feature. You can find it prominently displayed in the recent batch of full-size hero scene and whole website templates. Scroll through the Flavor Factory pre-built web page and see how easy it can be to use LayerSlider to help capture and engage visitors.

LayerSlider easily accommodates a range of uses, from creating simple sliders or slideshows to sprucing up your site with captivating animated content.

Newer users appreciate:

LayerSlider’s customizable interface that suggests the plugin was created specifically for their use only.

easy access to millions of stock photos and videos plus other integrated online services.

the Project Editor that ensures that what you need is right where you need it.

LayerSlider also really shines when there is a need to create content for marketing purposes. Marketers are impressed with the mind-blowing effects that can be incorporated into their popups and banners.

Client Feedback: “A fantastic slider plugin with regular updates to make sure compatibility is never a problem. Keep up the amazing work!”

Support Materials:  Product manual, In-editor help, support tickets, and email.

Preview LayerSlider

6. Amelia – WordPress Booking Plugin for Appointments and Events

 Amelia is the best WordPress plugin for Agencies and Businesses in need of a streamlined booking solution.

The automated notifications system is Amelia’s top feature. Users could tell you how easy it was to categorize and position appointments as pending, approved, cancelled, rejected, or rescheduled. Special notices such as upcoming events or birthday congratulations can also be forwarded via the notifications system to assist clients and enhance their loyalty.

Amelia offers a number of templates that can be customized to help businesses grow. Yoga Studio is a notable example of how a template can be put to use to advertise a business.

Those new to Amelia could tell you about:

the ease of navigation they discovered, the innovativeness exhibited in the backend and frontend interfaces, and its functionality and user-friendly design.

the value its transparent pricing policy offers.

the extent of the customization options.

The Amelia plugin offers an ideal booking solution for service-oriented businesses including those specializing in ticket sales and/or events. Programming agencies and developers could also profit from having Amelia in their design toolkits.

Customer Average Grade: 4.8 on Capterra

Client Feedback: “Great plugin, I have tested similar, but Amelia seems to be the best for my site, I have many customers through the site, and everybody is satisfied with this appointment system. Sometimes there are a few bugs but quickly corrected through regular updates. Globally very good notation.”

Instant Support Materials:  YouTube videos, Discord Group, and Support Manual

View Amelia

7. WhatFontIs

The most powerful and  accurate free font identifier.

This tool’s top feature is its accuracy. WhatFontis users have a 90%+ chance of finding whatever free or licensed font they want identified.

No other system can claim that accuracy, and most of them charge a fee for whatever service they provide. It is worth noting that the ability of WhatFontis to identify a given font correctly can be compromised if the quality of the submitted image is subpar, and that is what accounts for some of the roughly 10% of missed identifications.

WhatFontis can do what it does best in part because of its database of 990K+ free and commercial fonts. This is nearly 5 times as many fonts as that attributed to the nearest competitor.

Whether the goal is to identify a specific font sent by a client, or simply because it is attractive, a customer wants to know what it is and where to find it. A search can be conducted for a font regardless of its publisher, producer, or foundry.

The process is as easy as can be.

Upload a clean font image.

In response, an AI-powered search engine identifies the font and as many as 60 close neighbors.

Links are provided that show where a free font can be downloaded or where a commercial font can be purchased.

Note: Cursive font letters must be separated before being submitted.

Client Feedback: “I came across this website courtesy Google search, used their services successfully; and today I find out it’s on product hunt! If you are ‘driven’ by the need to discover what font ‘that person/ company’ uses, then this should be your go-to solution site. For most of us it would be a once in a blue moon need, except for the professionals.”

Types of Instant Support Materials: User Forum

View WhatFontis

8. Slider Revolution – More than just a WordPress Slider

 Slider Revolution is the best WordPress plugin for Designers, Web Developers and anyone seeking a way to create jaw-dropping animated sliders.

This plugin’s top feature is the ability it gives to its users to visually create stunning animated effects for WordPress.

The Slider Revolution plugin is not limited to creating sliders. It can be used to:

create stunning home pages that immediately engage its visitors.

create portfolios that will be viewed a second, or third, time because of the method of presentation.

design eye-catching sections anywhere on a website.

A stroll through Slider Revolution’s library of 250+ templates may be all that’s necessary if you need a little inspiration to get started. These templates have been 100% optimized for different screen configurations and feature special effects you won’t see on most websites. The Woodworking Website template for example, makes clever use of the hover effect to highlight both text and images. The layout itself can be used for a wide variety of website types or niches.

The Slider Revolution plugin is tailor made for individual web designers and developers, web shops, and small agencies.

Customer Average Grade: 4.6/5 on Trustpilot

Client Feedback: “I absolutely love the Slider Revolution. It does wonders for my projects. I am super excited about all of the templates that are ready for use. Their support has been incredible”.

Instant Support Materials:  Support Manual, YouTube videos

View the Plugin

9. Getillustrations – Creative Stock Illustrations Library

The best resource for designers who are looking for top quality illustrations with terrific attention to detail.

Getillustrations’ top feature is three things in one; 21,500+ vector illustrations, free updates for one year, and new illustrations added every week. In other words, once you get started, good things keep coming your way!

You will have 40+ nicely arranged categories to select from. Most categories have several hundred illustrations, a few have more than 1,000.

These illustrations appeal to clients ranging from students and businesses to designers and developers. You’ll find pencil and basic ink illustrations, several 3D illustration categories, and fitness, logistics, and ecology illustrations to name but a few, and since they are exclusive to Getillustrations you will have an edge over those using other stock illustration resources.

You can purchase illustrations by the pack if you choose to. The Motion Illustrations pack is one of the larger ones with 1,090 vector web illustrations at latest count .These Motion illustrations feature a diverse range of themes, each of which makes a statement.

Client Feedback: “I really like the different styles available in this library. I used it to illustrate some of my blog posts. Since you get vector files, you can also recolor them to have them match your brand and product identity!”

Support Materials:  Vector stock illustrations in .Ai .Figma .PNG and .SVG

View Getillustrations Offerings

10. Mobirise AI Website Builder

The best tool for creating and downloading full page websites using prompt commands only.

The Mobirise AI website builder is a revolutionary tool that uses intelligent algorithms to generate beautiful websites. Its top feature enables its user to generate a website using a single prompt.

The super-intuitive single prompt interface makes Mobirise AI an ideal choice for anyone looking for a simplistic yet efficient design approach.

Describe in detail what your site is all about, and this AI website builder will take your data and through the use of intelligent algorithms auto-generate a basic layout.

Once that is accomplished you can use prompts to customize style, colors, fonts, etc., and edit pre-generated content to suit your needs.

When you have the beautiful, optimized for Google and mobile devices website you want you can launch it with a single prompt.

Note: Even though Mobirise AI does much of the work, you retain full ownership of your website.

Client Feedback: “The AI website builder was astonishingly intuitive. What I appreciated the most was the seamless drag-and-drop interface which allowed me to position elements anywhere on my site. The AI’s design recommendations saved me hours of second-guessing my layout choices. Not to mention, the automatic SEO feature was a godsend–it optimized my site without me having to learn the complex ins and outs.”

Instant Support Materials:  Support Manual, User Forum, YouTube Videos

View the AI Website Builder

11. XStore – Best WooCommerce WordPress Theme

XStore is the best WooCommerce theme for anyone looking to quickly build a high-converting online store.

XStore is obviously tailored for use by shop owners and prospective shop owners who seek an online presence. While the selection of ready-made stores (pre-built websites) has always been highly popular, the recently introduced selection of Sales Booster features has emerged as the top favorite.

New users soon come to appreciate the Builders Panel and the intuitive XStore Control Panel, both of which give them the store-building and customization flexibility needed to create the custom store they envision.

They also like the solid start XStore’s pre-built websites make possible. The layout of the Marseille prebuilt website is an excellent example of why it’s possible for a novice to get a store up in running in a few hours.

XStore doesn’t stop there. Its users have instant access to the powerful family of Single Product, Checkout, Cart, Archive Products, and 404 Page Builders; all favorites of shop owners.

Customer Average Grade: 4.87/5

Client Feedback: “I love this theme! There’s a wider learning curve to go through before getting a hang of the features, but the overall versatility and aesthetic factor is excellent.”

Instant Support Materials:  Support Manual, YouTube videos

Buy the Theme

12. Blocksy – Premium WooCommerce WordPress theme

Blocksy is the best free WordPress theme for building attractive, lightweight websites in 2024.

There doesn’t appear to be much about Blocksy that its users don’t love. Consequently, when it comes to identifying this premium WooCommerce WordPress theme’s top feature, there’ s a 4-way tie.

Blocksy’s footer and header builders are super-user friendly.

Gutenberg support ensures top performance.

Developers love the advanced hooks and display conditions.

Everyone appreciates seamless WooCommerce integration together with its associated features.

And on top of it all, Blocksy is free!

Several of the things new users quickly recognize is that Blocksy:

uses the latest web technologies.

provides exceptional performance.

integrates easily with the most popular plugins.

Cosmetic is a beautiful, meticulously crafted starter site with a pleasant design that lets products take center stage. While centered on beauty products, its layout can be used for a wide variety of website niches. Cosmetic is one of the 5 most commonly used starter sites.

Customer Average Grade: 5/5 on WordPress.org

Client Feedback: “Blocksy is fast and light, responsive and beautiful. Blocksy has nothing superfluous and has everything you need. I love Blocksy, and Blocksy loves me.”

Instant Support Materials:  A readily accessible Documentation Section, Support Manual, YouTube videos. Facebook Group

View Blocksy 

13. Total WordPress Theme

 Total is the best WordPress theme for web designers and developers seeking the flexibility required to design from-scratch.

Total’s top feature is its seemingly unlimited flexibility. Its assortment of design tools and options makes it a Swiss Army knife of website design and is one reason its name is so appropriate. A well-deserved reputation for amazing support also tends to set Total apart.

Not long after becoming acquainted with Total, its users could tell you about a number of things they discovered and like including the fact that:

Total has settings for everything, tons of page building options, a font manager, custom post types, and more.

Total is speed optimized.

Total provides dynamic templates for posts and archives.

Total’s pre-built website collection is another favorite. Synergy’s minimalistic design lends itself to a wide range of uses and is one of the 5 most widely used pre-built websites.

Total is tailored for beginners, developers, and DIYers. Advanced designers like Total as well, and for all intents and purposes, anyone else will too.

Customer Average Grade: 4.86/5

Client Feedback: “I have been using Total for several years now for several (10+) websites. Out of the box it’s already a great theme and very well documented. Some websites required specific functionality and so far, there was nothing I couldn’t provide. If I can’t figure it out myself, support is always willing to help. I don’t need another theme anymore.”

Instant Support Materials: Support Manual

View the Theme

14. Essential Grid – WordPress Gallery Plugin

Essential Grid is the best WordPress Gallery Plugin for businesses who want to capture visitors’ attention with breathtaking galleries.

Essential Grid is the best WordPress Gallery Plugin for anyone who wants to create a unique, attention-getting gallery.

Essential Grid’s library of 50+ unique grid skins is its top feature and is what this WordPress gallery plugin is all about. Why these skins are such a favorite is easy to see. Most web designers and developers would not want to have to take the time to create a gallery from scratch and the grid skins offer an excellent alternative approach.

In addition to making it easier to create a gallery layout you want, it’s also possible you’ll come across a grid skin layout you haven’t even thought possible and can’t wait to put into use.  The YouTube Playlist layout for example shows how the hover effect can transform a seemingly run-of-the-mill gallery into a real attention getter.

Essential Grid’s users will tell you how much of a time saver this plugin can be, and how effective it is at helping them organize their content streams.

Customer Average Grade: 4.7/5 on Trustpilot

Client Feedback: “I have to say that the level of support I received is definitely one of the best I have ever experienced. Big thumbs up!”

Instant Support Materials:   Support manual and YouTube videos

View Essential Grid 

15. WoodMart – WordPress WooCommerce Theme

WoodMart is the best WooCommerce theme for niche ecommerce design.

Just a glance at the WoodMart website is enough to grab your attention. Woodmart’s top feature, super-realism, pops right out at you. The custom layouts for shop, cart, and checkout pages are so well done that it’s easy to forget where you are and start window shopping.

There is plenty more to about WoodMart too, for example:

A multiplicity of available design options.

Easy customization to fit the brand.

The time-saving Theme Settings Search and Theme Settings Performance Optimization features.

Widely used “Frequently Bought Together”, “Dynamic Discounts”, and social integrations options.

WoodMart also has a White Label option.

Finding the most popular demos isn’t easy since most of them enjoy lots of usage.  WoodMart Organic Baby Clothes is one of the 5 most downloaded demos.

Customer Average Grade: 4.93/5

Client Feedback: “This theme is perfect. It has all the options you can imagine and tooltips to help you understand what you are about to change. It’s fast out of the box and makes a great use of Elementor. Great responsive design.”

Instant Support Materials:  Support Manual and YouTube Videos

View the Theme

*******

Do you see one or more web design resources and tools you would like to add to your toolkit? It would certainly be easier than having to sift through hundreds on your own. That is why we did the vetting process for you. You still will want to preview those that interest you and try them out if possible. The free ones are of course for the taking.

What will you be looking for? These 15 excellent web design tools & resources have several characteristics in common. Characteristics that are necessary to be considered as “best-in-class”. Those characteristics are as follows.

Plugins, themes, and resources are easy to install or set up and are user friendly.

They give your website an edge in terms of design, functionality, or visitor appeal; or all three.

Customer support is friendly, fast, and competent.

They allow you to test the product for free. Or give you enough information to ensure that won’t end up feeling like the product you purchased is markedly different from the one you saw advertised.

Check out any or all of the 15 best web design tools and resources you believe you could put to good use.  Test them out if you can and either add them to your toolkit or write them off.

Are you done? Not really. Since there are many new web design tools & resources coming into the marketplace every day, some of which might offer greater opportunities, your search will never really end.

[dispatchdcu]

Batman and Robin and Howard #3 Preview

Batman and Robin and Howard #3 Preview #batmanandrobinandhoward #howard #batmanandrobin #robin #DCEU #dccomics #comics #comicbooks #news #dcu #dcuuniverse #art #info #NCBD #amazon #comicbooknews #previews #reviews #batman #darkknight #detectivecomics

Batman and Robin and Howard #3 Preview: When tensions from group homework projects and soccer sessions reach their breaking point, Damian and Howard are assigned a little quality time together to work out their differences. As distracted as he has been, Damian hasn’t yet realized that Batman might need a little help of his own… Written by JEFFREY BROWN Art and cover by JEFFREY BROWN $3.99 US | 40…

[mi6-cafe]

Only a couple days left to sign up for 007 Fest!

What is 007 Fest?

007 Fest is a month-long celebration of all things Bond! At the beginning of each week you make your own personal goals about how to celebrate: these might include creating fic or art, making headcanons, going to watch parties, posting memes, or anything else that you find fun. You make these goals on a team sheet, and your team's goal is to help everyone get as close to 100% goal completion as possible!

You can SIGN UP here!

More info on our wordpress or our tumblr post.

What are the optional role play elements?

This year, the storyline we are following is dueling conferences. Espionage agencies from all over the world are coming together in the spirit of cooperation and trust, or what passes for it in the spy world, to make allies and show off. It’s JELLYFISH Con!

(Meanwhile, a floor below, the Mystery Writers Conference is plotting...)

One way to enjoy the premise is to make a character. Will you be a scientist with a table at Inventor's Alley? An agent trying to make friends and influence people? An expert lecturer demonstrating the perils of exploding pens? The grizzled con staffer whose job is to hand out name tags to every guest AND all of their aliases, who will use Any Means Necessary to figure out who Seymour Butts is?

When you sign up for Fest, start thinking about how you want to fit into this world. It's not critical, but there are some fun bonus challenges that build on some role play elements. Don't worry about which agency you might be a part of; we will be assigning time-zone-based stations for Fest depending on the demographics of sign ups.

Completing your weekly goals helps save the conference from that week’s threat! (But if you don’t complete them…well…maybe your station’s part of the conference ends up a little more lava-covered than it was before…yes, even though you’re not anywhere near a volcano… Luckily, you can help each other out!)

---

I don’t write or art! Can I still participate?

Absolutely! If you want, you can only make social goals—hosting or joining watch parties or Discord chats, for example.

We also have fun immersive goals/scavenger hunt activities that don’t involve writing or arting.

Additionally, the ‘creative’ goals don’t have to involve fanfic or fanart; if your weekly goal is to make 5 James Bond memes or three headcanons, we support that!

And if you want to make a “hold my beer” level of goal, we also offer prompt tables and other challenges!

You can also participate without goals during certain weeks or the whole month if you want! 007 Fest is as chill or as high-key as you want to make it.

---

How can I sign up?

Sign-ups are open June 1st until June 15! Just fill out the form and we’ll contact you around June 18 so you can meet your team. If you’d like to onboard after that, you can, it will just take the mods a little longer.

We look forward to saving the world with you in July! :D

[your-tutor-abacus]

a "Travel Blog" for the Sunspot

I spent quite some time considering just what my URL should be. And what I chose is ironic. Let me explain.

Originally, I thought I really should write to our collective wordpress blog under my name. But the truth is, as much as it would be good for this series of articles to go there first and foremost, I hate the wordpress interface for just writing off the cuff. I used it for the work of uploading my novel for so long, it saps me of all lucidity when I look at it. And I need something more personal, that feels more like it belongs to me.

Hence this tumblr blog.

Of course, then, I found that someone already had abacus dot tumblr dot com. It's a ancient word in a few Earth languages, so that's no surprise.

But while I could go by my original untranslated name, Yarrayoa'uf, I don't want to. Even though it was my choice, I made that choice at just a few years old, and I've lived with it far too long. And now that I've discovered the English pronunciation of Abacus, I find I quite like it. So, Abacus is literally my name now.

So, then there's the question of how to differentiate myself.

I could have chosen abacus-the-dragon for my url, and it still tempts me. I am a dragon, after all. Though there are at least three words in Inmararräo that get translated to dragon in English, all three do apply to me, so the English word "dragon" would be a very fitting descriptor for me.

But, honestly, it doesn't tell you what this blog is for, and I wanted something that did that.

And here's the thing, if you've read any of the Sunspot Chronicles (or if you live aboard the ship) you know just how important and culturally charged the word "Tutor" is. That word holds so much meaning that tells you exactly what I aim to be for you, if only temporarily through this blog. Think of it as "tutor" with a lowercase "t".

Tutors guide their Students through every aspect of their first life, from birth to ascension, with the hopes of ushering them into Crewhood with as broad and deep a knowledge of the Sunspot's culture and workings as possible.

And when Ni'a was born, and my position of being their Tutor was usurped by Phage, I was assigned by the Crew Council to write a book about them. And during that task, I discovered something horrific. The Crew are Ignorant to what the Children are doing! And that's when I started my tours. Which are ultimately what have led me to start writing this blog.

You may have heard some of my speeches or read some of my documents calling for the abolition of Tutorhood. This is what makes my blog url ironic. I still stand by every word of those. But I mean that Tutorhood as an assigned position should be abolished. Tutoring as an Art, however, is still needed. It should be voluntary.

I, personally, have chosen to re-embrace that Art. But in a new way, to show the people of `etekeyerrinwuf, the Sunspot, what it can be and mean.

So, here we are.

"But, Abacus," you may ask, "what is this about English? How is it that the Sunspot has contacted Earth, and why English?"

The simple answer is that there turns out to be a Tunnel Apparatus there, located in the PDX area of Oregon, operated by some English speaking individuals who help us maintain our Network presence on Earth. I am very interested in the other languages spoken on Earth, but I have not yet had time to study them as much as I'd like.

How that end of the Tunnel got there and just exactly where it is are protected secrets (and potential spoilers for the Sunspot Chronicles), however, so I'm not going to tell you that part. It's a precious connection, and we can't risk it.

We are, however, working on a method by which Earthlings might visit the Sunspot. So, if you happen to be one of my readers who lives on Earth, please stay tuned. We look forward to visiting you in person some day! And this blog may yet be more than just a work of fiction for you.

In the mean time, you may wish to read more about the Sunspot, and fortunately our history is being recorded here:

[standardquip]

4 years of running BentoVid & RICE (an extremely long & meandering retrospective about survey data) This is an entry that's part history about the fanvid server I run that hosts a [now] feedback event [then contest] called RICE, and part data analysis from 4 years of pre-RICE survey data and one post-RICE survey from a particularly "problematic" year of the event. Read the entry as it was intended on dreamwidth by clicking the link above, or expand the cut tag and hope the html I pasted into tumblr displays correctly. [edit: it doesn't, but it's readable if you don't care about line breaks.]

Preface

Or, the time I accidentally influenced an entire industry through a survey question (click to read more) In 2015, I created a website called fursuitreview.com (FSR). Fursuits (one of a kind whole body animal costumes) are expensive and it was hard to keep track of makers that didn't have huge followings. I didn't want to run a review page, but only two existed prior to mine. One had died completely several years before, and the other one updated so infrequently it was almost useless (it, too, eventually died after FSR took off). The other two pages were a victim of putting too much work on themselves. The first had several questions reviewers had to answer and assign points. The moderators would average all the points for each review and give the overall review a score out of ten. This ensured consistency in the scores across all reviews. It was an amazing system but it would simply take too long to do myself (plus I'm terrible at math). Both sites were not actually sites - they were user accounts on furaffinity.net (and sometimes tumblr or livejournal) - which required write-ins to copy a big block of text and hope they got the format right (they rarely did, which meant moderators would have to correct it). FSR started out on furaffinity, but very quickly moved to a wordpress website. I thought very carefully on how I would keep manhours and costs down. I decided to not have any user accounts at all, nor would I bother with a numbered rating system (I instead went with a "positive / neutral / negative" system because that's really what everything boils down to anyway). I devised the least amount of questions I could in order to pry the information I wanted out of fursuit buyers when they wrote in. This resulted in two sections: wear satisfaction, and visual satisfaction. Each section had several sample questions to help guide the writer. "Wear satisfaction" was like, do you like how it fits you? how is the ventilation? how is the vision? Visual satisfaction was questions about looks.

Example screenshot of the FSR "wear Satisfaction" questions from 2020+

When people submitted a review, I would read over them all and make sure everything was copacetic before publishing it. Back then (before 2020), I was a one-man operation so I read literally every single review coming in. I noticed that some writers would mention lining in some of the fursuit parts. Most parts are unlined - it's just faux fur and the backing of that will be up against a wearer's skin. Lining is unnecessary and can ultimately make the costume much hotter - but it does make everything look really nice and marginally more comfortable to wear. After a few of these, I added "Does the item have lining?" to the list of sample questions.

Does the item have lining?

Surely nothing bad could happen from such an innocuous question!! (upside down smiley face goes here)

I must take a break here to mention that I had no experience doing literally anything that FSR required to run. I had bought 3-4 fursuits and thought it would be nice to keep track of my opinions of them. Everything else, from coding a website to writing survey questions, I had taught myself. I had some very very basic wordpress experience from a personal roleplaying character wiki wordpress site for myself, but that was it. FSR was a learn by doing experience. And boy, was it an experience. Writing, reading, reviewing, editing, customer service... FSR had me dealing with it all, and I'm surprised it gained as much traction as it did throughout that process.

So, needless to say, I had no idea what "survey bias" was.

Weeks, possibly months, later, I was browsing twitter keeping up with FSR social stuff, when I came across a tweet from a rather well-known maker (I believe it was either beetlecat or beastcub) asking other fursuit makers why customers were suddenly asking for their fursuits to be lined. I wish I had a link to this tweet, but I no longer have a twitter account. (If you happen to find it, do link it in the comments!) It didn't hit me at first. I watched the thread and the responses roll in. As other makers replied, the sense of dread was very slowly overtaking me. Could FSR really have that much influence? Could just a single little sentence really cause so much strife? Yes, it did, and yes... It did. Once I connected the dots, I edited the sample questions. No longer is it simply "Does the item have lining?" Now it is: "If it is lined, what material was used? Does it absorb sweat appropriately? Does it make cleaning easier?" But I went through a few iterations before I got to that wording. I believe my first edit was something like "(Note: most fursuits aren't lined)", but that didn't properly imply that you shouldn't be asking your maker for lining. After this lining snafu, I had to go through all of my questions and determine what I was accidentally influencing, how that could change what customers ask of their makers, and if I really needed that information in the review to begin with. I also, finally, learned about survey bias, and took some time to read up a little more on how to craft survey questions. And, of course, I had to come to grips with the fact that, yes, FSR was big. And it had influence. My little side project was a staple of the community and people counted on it to make very expensive purchases. Maker reputations and business operations began to live or die by the reviews we pulled in. FSR got to be too big and too much stress for me, so I ended up giving full ownership of the site to someone else in 2022 or 2023 (it was a long transition and I'm not sure when the public announcement was made). However, as of today (31 March 2024), fursuitreview.com is still fundamentally unchanged from how I was running it - including the review form. Nowadays, I have nothing to do with the site. I couldn't deal with the stress and responsibility once it grew to be a community cornerstone. Unfortunately, history may be repeating itself with the project I replaced FSR with...

A brief history of BentoVid (and RICE)

I have been editing anime music videos (AMVs) since 2001. I took a hiatus from the community from 2009ish to 2018. Despite that, I still managed to make at least one video every year. In 2018, I tried to get back into the community and realized it had almost completely changed. Discord was a thing now, and it seemed most of the activity was on there. I joined a few servers, but long story short they all weren't great. In a fit of frustration and annoyance, I did the classic move of going "Screw this, I'll do it myself!"

Bender (from Futurama): Fine! I'll start my own chatroom with blackjack and hookers! I glossed over it, but this is exactly how FursuitReview.com also started.

BentoVid (called AMV Sashimi back then) was created in September 2020. Back then, I did have high hopes. I did "plan" (finger quotes) on becoming a large community, but it was like how anyone plans on winning the lottery, you know? You don't actually expect it to happen. I thought that realistically I'd get maybe 30 members and it'd be just a chill hangout spot. But in 2021, we reached the fabled 100 members. Then 200. We broke 400 this year. And outside the very first year, I didn't actively promote. BentoVid has grown purely from word of mouth since 2021. On the other side of Discord was an annual AMV contest related to a particular anime convention. I first joined it in 2019. It was... okay... But not great. 2020 went even worse. The contest was going through a transition period and had a coordinator that, to put it mildly, was not well-liked. The concept behind the contest (which had been running for several years - I think 2005? Possibly even earlier) was great though. It was a contest focused on peer review. All the editors that submitted to the contest were the judges and voted on the winner. It was a blind contest, so nobody knew who made what, but only people who submitted to the contest could view and vote on the videos. The feedback was cruel. People did not hold back. Still, it was helpful, and I excelled my skills a lot by participating. The contest's discord server, however, went unmoderated and the coordinator made some very bizarre decisions. Another "Screw it, I'll do it myself" event occurred. RICE - Rewards imagined by a community of editors - was born by taking that other contest and implementing all the feedback participants had been complaining about for years. February 2021 was the first RICE. I had never run a contest before. Just like FSR (from the preface story), this was a trial by fire. I made at least one huge mistake every year the contest ran. But ultimately people liked RICE, and word of mouth about it (and the server) grew ever faster because of it. I had taken efforts to specifically NOT advertise RICE outside the BentoVid discord server, but that didn't stop it from growing.

4 years of RICE survey data

Partly due to my inexperience and partly due to my history with FSR, I put out RICE feedback surveys at every opportunity. I am actually not that into data. I don't analyze this stuff and I have no particular interest in collecting data at every turn for random things. I just find feedback surveys somewhat convenient and useful for my purposes. Sorry to people who are into that! XD

Pre-RICE survey data from 2021 - 2024

I have a small survey when people submit videos to RICE. It has (mostly) the same questions every year. Vivafringe helped me go through the data, and here are the results. (links to a google sheet) 2021 - 2023, the optional survey was on the same page as video submission questions. In 2024, I finally realized google form sections existed and I put it on a totally different page. I went from a 100% response rate to 58%. What a huge difference! But still inspiring to see so many people went out of their way to answer regardless. Here's my personal takeaways: US vs Non-US I personally thought there were more international editors participating, but it seems to hover around 20%. Do people keep their videos a secret? It looks like most of the survey respondents actually do attempt to keep their videos secret from everyone. However, almost as many people admit at least one person they know who will also be in RICE knows what their video is. I honestly thought it'd be the other way around, with more people sharing betas before RICE, so this is actually pretty cool to see. Thoughts on blind judging This question was multiple choice with only one answer allowed, so they had to choose which meant most to them. Most people seem to appreciate blind judging, but don't go out of their way to keep themselves blind during the event. (~70% combined) A large minority of people admit that guessing who made what during the event is part of the fun for them. (~25%) One possible answer was that blind judging is never truly blind - interesting to note only one person ever selected this and it was in 2023. Main reason for entering RICE? Another multiple choice answer where they had to select the "main" reason. Most people join RICE because they like the BentoVid community. However, almost as many people join because they like peer review. I'm flattered! lol But, in all seriousness, I really expected those results would be flipped, with peer review outranking BentoVid. Categories A multiple checkbox question for which categories your submitted vid belongs to, according to the editor. I mostly only care about theme, coordinator's choice, and live-action. Theme has submissions starting at 18% in 2021 and gradually going up to 29% in 2024. 2023 is an outlier with 39%. Coordinator's choice is very low. 1 - 3 videos. This is mixed news for me. On one hand, I think it's great people don't feel the need to pander to me (or maybe they don't know how). On the other hand... Please pander to me! XD Live-action is something I would like to see more of... The discord server started out as an AMV server and its audience is still mostly AMV editors. But I really want BentoVid (and RICE, by extension) to be about all fanvids and vidding (Hence the name change from AMV Sashimi to BentoVid). Long story short, live-action vids are obviously a very small minority that get submitted (5 - 9 videos each year), but they fluctuate between years. If you like live-action fanvids and want to join an active discord server... Please join us! lol How did you learn about RICE? This question was a small text field people could write whatever they wanted in. No surprise people learned about it from inside BentoVid. Next highest was word of mouth-related answers like "discord," "another discord server" or "friends". A little interesting was when AWA or POE were specifically mentioned (two popular AMV contests), but this was only twice for each.

Post-RICE survey data

2021 and 2022 had a feedback survey, but it was just one text block that asked for comments. Very few people ever filled this out and it was not very actionable feedback. 2023 was the first post-RICE feedback survey with actual guided questions, and it's because 2023 was... quite the year.

Understatement.

What happened during 2023 RICE?

Remember the contest I mentioned that RICE was based on? While RICE was thriving, that contest was floundering. The other contest, which for the rest of this blog I will call "HOST," happens in September - October, while RICE happens in February - March. 2022 HOST was another transition year for them. The old coordinator ("Elder") took over the contest after so many complaints about the coordinator that succeeded them ("Junior"). As far as I know, everyone was happy with Junior's leaving, but unfortunately it wasn't pretty. We weren't kind to Junior. Bridges were burned. Elder had some great ideas on how to bring HOST back up to its former glory days. But, procrastination got the better of them, so the contest started out very poorly. Then, during the contest, they had an extremely public and embarrassing meltdown. A number of people withdrew from the contest because of it. A totally different person ("Kidd") had to take over mid-event. The discord server went through an emergency restructure so Elder didn't have any special permissions anymore. Kidd was an absolute gem and managed to run the rest of the contest on their own very smoothly (Kidd continued through 2024 and deserves accolades). But the already negative reputation of HOST definitely turned into a dumpster fire after that. It was no surprise that RICE got touted as a good alternative. I was expecting more RICE entries than the previous year but. Boy. I was just not prepared. 2023 RICE saw 56 editors and 76 videos. The prior year was only 32 editors and 45 videos. RICE does not scale well. Moreover, I was experiencing horrible health issues at the time and really should have delayed or cancelled RICE due to them. Consequently, some people did not have a good experience with RICE. I thought the entire year was ruined. I made a pretty involved post-RICE survey due to it. This survey was mostly questions with text boxes where people wrote exactly what they were feeling. This made the answers a lot more personal and detailed. I will not be sharing the raw 2023 survey data. The complaints were about:

Too many videos for too short a time period

Some people were rude in the discord when discussing categories

Some people attacked one of the people giving critique in a voice call

I tried to enforce [very badly worded] content restrictions very late into the submission window. This had editors unnecessarily scrambling to re-edit things and ultimately ended up with multiple versions of videos in the contest [which should not have happened and that is entirely on me]

To me, the responses of the 2023 survey looked pretty dire. I immediately made changes to RICE following them. While RICE had started out as an improved version of HOST, I also had wanted the goal to be rewards for BentoVid server regulars. That's why I really didn't want to advertise it outside the server. I also never pinged \@Everyone or made a special role to get updates about it. The intent was if you were around the server, you'd know it was coming, and that was that. I wanted the good peer review and critique so we could all improve. I also wanted to see amazing videos. But what I DIDN'T want - and was (surprisingly!) NEVER concerned with - was lots of randos who didn't care about BentoVid. I explicitly never posted about RICE on a-m-v.org (despite people asking me to), and I never mentioned RICE outside my own server until after 2022 HOST. And even then it was really only in DM or if someone else had brought it up first. I still try to not advertise RICE, but I'm not as tight-lipped as I used to be. Still, it's primarily in DM. But anyway, I'm rambling now - the point is that RICE grew outside of the BentoVid bubble. People were joining RICE who did not care about BentoVid as a whole and I had to figure out how to handle that. My previous RICE messaging of "feedback event but also contest!" was fine for BentoVid regulars. We mostly knew what we liked and understood eachother because we hung out all the time. But for people new to RICE and/or the server, they had no idea and came in with false expectations. My two main takeaways from the 2023 Post-RICE survey were: 1. Because of my health issues and the mass increase of participants, the Discord server went (essentially) completely unmoderated during RICE. Because RICE (and BentoVid) is usually closely moderated, many conversations/debates went on a lot longer than they should have (because no moderators stepped in), which caused a lot of stress for participants. 2. The messaging of RICE was conflicting and led people to false expectations. People were essentially expecting HOST but "run better." "HOST but run better" is an over-generalization of how RICE works. It's actually quite different from HOST, but without the context of being a BentoVid regular, one wouldn't have that information. The first would be solved simply by me being present. Myself and most my staff could not be present during 2023 (honestly I'm surprised RICE ran as well as it did without us. Speaks a lot to our community!). To deal with the second point, I decided to focus on clearing up and changing RICE's messaging. Clearing the messaging had a few purposes:

More clearly differentiate RICE from HOST

Discourage non-regulars from joining without being super exclusionary about it

Discourage overtly competitive people from joining RICE

Encourage feedback-orientated participants

Focus more on accessibility (as RICE already applied VPR to all entries, it made sense to extend accessibility in other ways)

I took the survey responses very seriously, and as such, rushed to make announcements of what the changes would be. I ended up announcing them the same month RICE ended - March. Proof here (that is a discord link). You can read the initial announcement there in the BentoVid server, but I ended up changing things even more, so here's the summary of what the changes ended up being:

Very strict content restrictions (slightly relaxed later)

Focus on feedback event FIRST (took out all mentions of "contest" and "best" on the website, replacing them with "event" and "most-liked" )

No cash prizes at all (previously it was a $175 pool)

More emphasis on what exactly the server culture is like and what you can expect (basically: RICE is stressful, it's full of server regulars, prepare yourself if you're new)

Permanent categories got permanent names (previously everything was able to be voted on and changed)

All winners only get one award (previously there were multiple designs and names made for each award)

We added CWs as well as VPRs into the RICE expectations

Everything possible was outlined on the website. I literally wrote out the schedule and everything that you could expect to happen, how it all worked, etc.

The fallout from 2023 RICE continued throughout the entire year. It seemed negative feelings regarding it rolled out into other issues BentoVid was having (behind the scenes, especially in the staff channels) and overall I was really not feeling great about RICE. I was seriously considering 2024 RICE being the last one I ever ran.

2023 Post-RICE survey analysis

During 2024 RICE prep (which started in October 2023), I went through the 2023 feedback again. I asked some vague questions to random people about how they felt about 2023 RICE, and their answers (most of which were not negative at all) really had me questioning my perception of the entire thing. I gave the 2023 post-RICE survey data to a friend of mine who used to analyze that kind of thing for a living (Vivafringe). I went through the answers and redacted personal information, summarizing answers if necessary, before giving it to him. As part of the analysis, I asked him a bunch of questions and he looked over all the data to answer those questions. Again, I will not share the actual data here (even anonymized), but I will share the analysis he provided. Full disclosure: Viva did participate in 2023 RICE.

Analysis of Negative Experiences

Did more people have a negative or positive time in 2023?

to answer this I didn't do any fancy analysis. I read the responses and just did a vibe check of "negative" (pretty clearly had a bad time), "neutral" (had some things they didn't like, but gave other positive feedback or just in general didn't seem like they gave a shit one way or the other), "positive" ("vars you're the best" type comments) I think "neutral" people, if you actually asked them, would say they had a positive time, but it's hard to say for sure anyway I rated 7/25 negative, 7/25 neutral, 11/25 positive notably a lot of people didn't respond to this survey and the non respondants were likely positive/neutral. So I don't think you should read those numbers and assume 28% of people had a negative experience the overwhelming complaint from basically everyone was too many videos for the time they had - 5/6 people with "negative" feedback were returnees - 2/6 of the people who wanted "competitive" contest had negative opinions. No real signal there I think

I said the complaints about the VCs were really bad though?

I count 4 people that complained about the vcs my takeaway from reading this is basically: - moderate the vcs from now on, advertise them as critique/nice/whatever (you already are doing this but just saying I agree) - if you get 76 vids again, give more time to watch stuff I don't know how you solve chat getting tense, that was another common complaint

Category drama? Context: some people were very vocal about RICE needing fixed categories like typical AMV contests

I read the category stuff and broadly classified them as wanting "fixed" cats, "unfixed" cats, or "neutral" as you might expect most people didn't give a strong opinion on it, 10/25 were neutral 5 people wanted fixed, 6 people explicitly wanted to keep things as it was now (unfixed) if you read "neutral" as support for the status quo, which I do, I think the way you're doing it is fine. especially because a lot of the fixed cat people (3/6) had negative experiences and won't be here this year

I expected a smaller turnout for 2024 RICE. All I was really hoping for were more editors than in 2022 (which only had 32). Editors in 2023: 56 Editors in 2024: 43 (+3 more if we count DQs) A 17 - 23% loss, depending on how you count this. My thoughts: 1. That's not that bad, to be honest 2. If we treat 2023 as an outlier, 2024 is an acceptable and expected amount of growth from 2022. 3. One of the main complaints in 2023 was that there were too many videos, so 2024 numbers are more desirable in this context.

Other data collected from 2023 RICE

While I was mostly concerned about the negative experiences, I thankfully had the foresight to ask some other questions about RICE that gave us some valuable data.

Kollab vs frame.io = kollab wins by landslide

Direction for rice: contest vs feedback = 15/22 say feedback

Will you make an account on a website to do rice stuff? 12/25 say no

basically everyone answered the "what does rice do differently" question with "the feedback is a lot better". So a way to make rice better is to streamline process for providing feedback.

How long people spend on RICE vids:

10/21 (of the people that responded) started working on their rice vid 1 month or longer in advance

the competitive people ("A contest where the best of the best wins") seem kind of in the middle, time wise. 3/6 spent less than 1 month, 2/6 spent 2 months exactly, 1 didn't respond.

there were 8 newcomers, but basically same conclusion. 4/8 started more than a month in advance. 3/8 took a few weeks

Google docs & PSVs RICE offers a google doc with video information instead of trying to put it all in a filename. We also offered detailed VPRs and CWs, and, in some cases, alternate versions of videos that are more friendly for photosensitive users (called PSVs).

3/25 people said they used the VPRs.

18/25 people used the infosheet

4/25 used the CWs

3/25 used PSVs

What about 2024 Post-RICE survey data?

I collected that. This blog entry is already the size of a novel so I'll put it in another entry, I guess. Stay tuned! (Don't hold your breath though) I will exit this entry with the following results from that survey: If you participated in 2023 RICE, what would you say your overall experience was? 15/18 answered overall positive 2/18 said they did not participate in 2023 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said overall negative If you participated last year (2023), would you say your experience THIS year (2024) was: 9/17 answered overall better than last year 7/17 said about the same as last year 1/17 said did not participate last year 0/17 said overall worse than last year Your overall 2024 RICE experience was: 17/18 answered positive 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said negative 0/18 said boring 2024 RICE had 43 editors and 62 videos.

[registerednursern]

Nursing School Study Tips and Hacks

Nursing school is tough, and if you want to survive, you’ve got to learn how to study efficiently. Here are 5 nursing school study tips and hacks that can help you succeed. Nursing School Study Tips 1. Don’t think that you have to read every single word in your lengthy reading assignments. Instead, skim the chapters and concentrate on titles, bold words, chapter summaries, and key points that…

[type40fangirl]

Under the Cloak

Imagine… The Doctor: Since his youth he has studied martial arts as an outlet, for fitness and clarity of thought. He is dedicated in everything he does, so of course he gets very good at it. During the war, he is assigned a ground mission, and discovers a surprising aptitude for assassination. He acquires a reputation. His medical and combat skills are put to use developing drugs to help…