#and also access stuff without having to memorize all my passwords

[kirby-the-gorb]

[purplesurveys]

1108

[created by: vyvyan86]

What did you think you were good at, until you saw someone else do it? Probably at being detail-oriented. I’ve always held secretarial positions so I knew I was somewhat good at it, but my manager is far more capable than me to a ridiculous extent; she’s great at catching mistakes or knowing the right questions to ask.

What's a fun fact you tell in social situations? About me? The go-to fact that has never failed me before is that I don’t like fruits. Alllllllways riles up an entire crowd, and it’s such an easy way to break the ice hahaha.

What's something you're positive that only you do? I don’t enjoy chicken meat too much, so when I eat fried chicken I usually tear off the chicken skin (the only part I like) and give the rest of the meat to whoever wants it - usually my parents, or my dogs if they’re around.

What is something nice going on in your life right now? I’ve been feeling more free than lonely, which is a crucial mindset shift I needed in order to start healing.

What was the pinnacle of wealth to you as a child? Probably Lisa Frank merchandise, or a Speed Stack set.

What's something that you hate, but can't live without? Delayed flights are extremely inconvenient especially when I’m already itching to be back home, and they’re bound to happen every now and then, so.

What skill do you not talk about, because you feel it sounds like bragging? I’m not sure if I can say anything in the field of skills, but there are topics outside of talents that I do shy away from talking about because I don’t want to sound like I’m showing off. One of them is certain relatives I have.

What is an absolute 100% fact? I have work tomorrow and I’m dreading it as always because Monday. I already have 11 items lined up on my to-do list and it’s making my stomach turn.

What's the most useless thing you've memorized? Multiple episodes of Friends in their entirety.

What is your personal curse? My...what?

Who's the worst person you've encountered on the Internet? The trolls/bots employed to praise the government.

Do you ever stop and think, “what the hell am I doing with my life?” Just every once in a while. I don’t run into this crisis too often, and most of the time I always have a reason to be satisfied with where I happen to be in life.

What are some of the small things in life you enjoy? Feeling fresh after a shower; the scent that wafts from the kitchen when my parents have started cooking or baking something; lightning-speed internet; and driving at night.

What happened recently that made you really happy? I took myself out on a self-date for the first time last night. I’ve taken myself out before, but it was always at some coffee shop where I can stay for a few hours and take a survey or two – and people are usually alone there, anyway. I’ve never eaten out on my own, or went beyond getting coffee, before. I feel like last night was such an important mark for my newfound independence, and I let myself be emotional while I was downing my ramen. I can’t believe I’m getting better; I never thought I’d see the day. :)

If death wasn't a consequence, what would you try? Probably touching stuff that aren’t meant to be touched to know how they’d feel like, like lava.

What's the dumbest thing you've heard someone say? Superlatives are always hard to determine...but I’ll be happy to refer you to most of the quotes Duterte has said over the last five years of his presidency.

What is the worst smell you can remember? The sour stench of rotten food always gets me. Other than that, my stomach is a bit of a trooper when it comes to smells so I haven’t smelled a lot of stuff I’ve found to be terrible.

What's something you want that doesn't exist yet? Some kind of invention that lets you Control+F in real life. I can’t even begin to imagine how infinitely convenient this would make things.

Where is your happy place? In my car, driving at night with the right mix of songs to accompany me.

What song gets better the louder it gets? Born For This by Paramore or New Day by The Bouncing Souls.

What's the most deceptive advertising you've seen? Menu items, mostly. Like the one time a local pancake joint promoted their limited edition red velvet pancakes; I was big on red velvet at the time so I hurriedly ordered it, excited to see how they applied it to pancakes; but was disappointed to see that they were only about the size of my palm. 

I honestly don’t mind deceptive advertising for fast food since people should really expect to get what they pay for - so for the most part I don’t find myself feeling betrayed by sloppy-looking Big Macs hahaha - but the pancake place I was referring to was a sit-down restaurant so I did feel a bit upset seeing how sad and tiny my pancakes looked.

What's a joke you always tell people you meet for the first time? Back when I still went to school and we were required to introduce ourselves on the first day of classes, my go-to line was a joke in itself. I liked saying, “Hi, my name is Robyn. You can call me Robyn,” because for some reason it was the quickest way to get chuckles out of my classmates. I guess it’s in the way I deliver the line, but yeah that’s my way of breaking the ice.

What's the biggest inconvenience that does NOT ruin your day? When my dogs do their business somewhere they’re not supposed to. My dogs are my babies haha, so it’s easy to forgive them.

What's your best wrong number story? I don’t know if I have one. I usually ignore/block wrong numbers lol.

What's something everybody should know how to do? Approach intersections slowly, whether they’re walking or driving.

What is a great movie no one knows about? I suppose it’s quite known given the cast is has and the awards it got to have or be nominated for, but no one in my circle knows about it - Revolutionary Road.

What type of person could the world use less of? People who spit in public.

What makes you think, 'Oh dear, I'm old...'? Erm, maybe the fact that you can ask some kids if they know who Hannah Montana or Drake and Josh are, and it’s very likely that they would say no. Also, the fact that current college students were born in the 2000s.

What is one food that you hated as a kid, but love now? Vegetables and my grandma’s chicken curry.

What makes you tingle? Whispering in my ear.

What was your travel nightmare? Any time our flight would get delayed 2-3 times and we have to wait an extra hour per announcement. Even worse if the plane itself takes foreverrrrrrrrr to get clearance to take off.

What’s the best Wi-Fi name you’ve seen? Nacho’s wifi was “Yell ‘Bayani si Marcos’ for password,” which is “Yell “Marcos is a hero” for password.” It’s in reference to Ferdinand Marcos, a former president who doubled as a murderous dictator and thief and is of course not a hero, but for some weird reason is still revered like a god by people from his hometown, including my mom and grandmother. I’ve kept his wifi name on file on my laptop and have no plans to delete it.

What weird thing turns you on? Haha I don’t think anything I’m into can fall under ‘weird.’ I’m not into anything much in the first place.

What's easy to learn, but hard to master? Any sport.

What's something you've changed your opinion on? Certain politicians I used to look up to, but have since learned that they have unfavorable tendencies or traits as well.

Describe your favorite movie as obscurely as possible: A couple drives for the entire movie.

What's the most satisfying thing you've ever felt? So at work I have to use this extension called YAMM and it’s basically a way to be able to mass-send emails to hundreds and even thousands of recipients. I use it regularly to send press releases to media, and it makes me anxious every single time because one mistake can fuck up the spelling of names or the order of email addresses. Every time I accomplish a YAMM send-out without any mistakes I exhale a giant ass sigh of relief.

If you had a refilling bowl, what would you want it to contain? Money or macarons.

Where do you mostly live? In the past, the present or the future? Up until recently, I used to think a lot about the future; in the latest ~chapter of my life I had been finishing up college, figuring out what job.I wanted, and was in a long-term relationship, so it was inevitable for me to think about next steps. Now that I’ve gone/am going through all these massive changes, I’ve found that this time around it’s a lot healthier for me to stay in the present and be happy with what and who I have.

What is more important to you, the way you look or the ideas you present? The ideas and thoughts I have to offer, of course. The current generation doesn’t care as much for physical looks anymore, which I’d say is a great improvement from before.

What don't people get about what it's like to be you? I’m not that rare a snowflake lol, but I guess when it comes to certain things, like my breakup, I’ve since preferred to be insanely private about them (except on here, of course) so that I don’t have to take the whole neighborhood along in my healing process.

If your bedroom had three portals to anywhere, where would they lead? Another country, a coffee shop, and a beach.

How is parallel universe you doing? I hope she’s happier when it comes to love.

Which historical event should be the next huge television series? I’ve always wanted a fictionalized take on the British royal family, so The Crown already works out pretty well for me, actually.

What country should fictional villains be from? Any answer to this would be offensive lmao, so pass.

What is your imaginary Eden? Living conveniently in the condo of my dreams, making enough money to live comfortably and having easy access to whatever food I’m craving at any given moment.

Which Disney princess would make the best villain? I haven’t seen all the princess movies, so I’m not so sure if I can judge well on this.

You can ask any author one question about their story. What do you ask? I’d probably just ask Angie Sage if movie adaptations for Septimus Heap will still push through because I’ve been waiting on them since I was a lot younger.

Would you want a rewind or a pause button for your life? Why that one? Pause. So that if I’m feeling happy, I have the option to stay there longer if I want.

Are you worth your weight in gold? Idk.

[tech-battery]

The Asus RT-AX86U Is a Wi-Fi 6 Router That Doesn't Sacrifice Looks for Power

Wi-Fi 6 has accelerated its creep into mainstream wireless networking, urged along by the similarly accelerating spread of gigabit internet. Until the last few months or so, purchasing a Wi-Fi 6 device has largely been a decision more about future-proofing and less about immediate gain. That’s quickly changing, however, with all manner of wireless device manufacturers releasing products boasting about blazing this and blistering that, and it’s finally time to take a serious look at 802.11ax routers.

The Asus RT-AX88U was an early entrant in the field, and the company now has several follow-ups, including our best gaming router runner-up: the RT-AX86U. There, I gave it credit for being extremely fast and for its restrained physical design. However, I took issue with Asus’s UI decisions. In the end, I concluded that I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good gaming experience. Now I’m taking an even deeper dive to find out: Is this router worth it for just any old person and not just gamers presumably reading this in a hoodie with some kind of RGB lighting and heat vents? I think so, and you should, too.

As far as the design of the Asus RT-AX86U goes, there isn’t much to say, and frankly, that’s a good thing. It’s neither a slab nor a monolith, neither an ancient alien artifact nor an air freshener chic pod (though it can be a Gundam, apparently). It’s black, it stands upright, and it has three stabby, removable, adjustable antennas jutting from the top. It has four outgoing gigabit ethernet ports—one of which is an auto-prioritizing gaming port—in the back, a gigabit WAN, and a 2.5-gigabit LAN/WAN port for those lucky enough to be able to make use of it. Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports give you a fast NAS if you’ve got a hard drive lying around.

Getting it set up is a quick process, refreshingly letting me choose up front whether to separate the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Knowing that I would need to reconfigure some real dumb smart devices, I opted for separation, and my network was up and running in about five minutes.

But it should be noted there are two ways to handle setup and management. One is via a lovely mobile app, and the other is via the browser, and I hate the browser-based UI of Asus routers. It’s just a weird, unfocused, confusing mess. If you’re the type of person who wants deep, granular control of your home network, but don’t want to shell out for expensive enterprise-grade hardware, you could do a lot worse than Asus, but prepare to hunt for the settings you need to adjust. Trudging through the settings reveals menus and submenus that stretch out seemingly to infinity, with an intimidating depth that would have most people regarding it with narrowed eyes and a feigned understanding, muttering, “Yes, I see,” as they slowly mouse up to click the X button on that tab.

The intro screen has a basic network topology map which gives you a diagram of what all is connected, and a section where you can split out your 2.4 and 5 GHz bands or update your network SSID and password. After that, you get the shiny feature-y stuff, the majority of which, like the specific data-type prioritizing Adaptive QoS, Traffic Analysis, and various media modes and security, is powered by Trend Micro.

Together they offer a host of security features in the AiProtection section, promising to block malicious sites, protect you from Distributed Denial of Service attacks, and network vulnerability attacks like Heartbleed, while also monitoring outgoing traffic for suspicious packets from virus-infected devices. Each tab under this section gives you reports of suspicious network behavior, with downloadable logs for your review. In testing at wicar.org, the router blocked all but two of 10 sites, with Safari catching the last two. It seemed to work well, though the experience is barebones, and unlike the rest of the settings for the router, there are no opportunities for customization, just toggles for each of the three categories of protection. But using this, or a few other key features powered by Trend Micro, will bring you eventually to this EULA notice:

It seems that in order to have access to Trend Micro’s features, you must agree to give them access to all kinds of data, which may include your e-mails or your web browsing history. It’s spooky stuff, as usual, but thankfully all fairly easy to opt in or out of, as well—so long as you can bear the ensuing message about the valuable capabilities you’ll lose out on. So, it’s not quite the deal with Ursula the Sea Witch I initially worried it was, and, in the end, the details in the EULA are perhaps not unexpected for security software like this. I reached out to both Asus and Trend Micro for their input on what sort of data they collect and how exactly it’s used, and we’ll update here when we get a response.

Deeper in the menus, you will find a surprisingly pleasant Open NAT section with pre-configured port reservations for specific games and consoles, and NAS options that include support for Apple’s Time Machine backup software. Most people will go wall-eyed looking at options past these, but it’s worth noting that if you want to use features like OFDMA and MU-MIMO, beamforming, and, I don’t know, the actual Wi-Fi 6 standard, you’ll want to push on into the advanced settings—just don’t expect to understand much of what you are presented with here, unless you have studied networking down to a very specific level. That said, if you have time and sufficient grit, you can sift through it and find some truly powerful options.

Now, for all the shade I throw at the browser interface, Asus actually does a pretty decent job with their mobile app. Appearance-wise, it’s far from the tidy design of most of Asus’s competitors; the app looks the way we might have imagined the UI of the future would in the early aughts or late ‘90s—all sci-fi space controls floating against a star field, complete with animations that are just there to look neat. While very silly, it’s a breath of fresh air after using the web interface, with more of the stuff you would want quick access to right there on the home screen, like Adaptive QoS mode switching, letting you quickly switch priority to games, video conferencing software, media streaming, and more.

While not quite as robust as the browser UI, the mobile app is far more user-friendly, even if it isn’t perfect. I greatly appreciated seeing signal noise shown for individual devices—also an option in the browser—which helps a lot when placing them for the best signal, which is especially important for things like smart speakers, which can be made or broken by your choices regarding network topology.

Looking at the feature list, it’s not unusual to wonder why in the hell you would want to command your router with Alexa. But, in the interest of being thorough, I grabbed my long-banished Echo Dot to test, and I did find some genuinely useful bits here—temporarily activating your guest network, for example, or pausing wifi. Perhaps the most useful of the bunch is the ability to change Adaptive QoS modes without going into the app.

The main shortcoming of Alexa Skills remains: Every command must be prefaced with “Alexa, ask my router…”, followed by a prescribed set of phrases you must memorize (or look up every time, defeating the purpose). The pricier RT-AX88U gives you a small selection of more natural-sounding phrases like, “Alexa, pause my wifi.” I tried anyway; not only did it not work, but Alexa pretended not to know who I was.

The rest of my smart home experience on this router, initial difficulties aside, was a good one—lightbulbs flicked on and off, routines ran, and my chosen smart assistant didn’t hesitate to respond to my requests.

The RT-AX86U is powered by a 1.8 GHz quad-core CPU with 1 GB of RAM and 256 MB Flash memory. Theoretically, it can transmit up to 4804 Mbps on the 5 GHz band, or up to 861 Mbps on the 2.4, but you’ll never see those speeds, nor should you expect them. It has four antennas—one of which is an internal, printed circuit board antenna, and works all the way up to the 160 MHz band, which is a key component of Wi-Fi 6, and necessary to reach the fastest speeds the router is capable of. It has a long list of other terms that describe how powerful it is.

As I’ve noted previously, the RT-AX86U is great for gaming. I wanted to take it further, so I decided to stress test the router, streaming music at the highest quality available on multiple devices, watching a 4K nature documentary on Apple TV, which is known for its high-bitrate streaming, conducting a video call with a friend, and playing CS:GO on official servers. This is a realistic scenario in my home, and the RT-AX86U aced it—I saw no sign of buffering or stuttering anywhere, my friend reported clear audio and smooth video, and in-game ping seemed unaffected. In raw numbers, I had to move into my back yard to get anything slower than the max I’m getting from my ISP, finding that I had good, usable internet even at the farthest reaches of my yard, which is about a fifth of an acre.

I tested file transfers with a 734 MB copy of Ernest Saves Christmas—a typical use case for network storage—and found the transfers to be very fast, with the limiting factor seemingly the actual read/write capability of the router. Transfer speeds reached as high as 465.79 Mbps, but averaged between 310 and 350 Mbps, and hardly budged at any distance. Write speeds were about half that.

After determining that the RT-AX86U was gross overkill for my needs, I thought I would look at Asus’s AiMesh, which lets you use multiple Asus routers to create a mesh network. Self-healing and pretty straightforward to set up, an AiMesh network can definitely get you that kind of blanketed internet plants crave.

I tested the mesh capabilities with the addition of an RT-AX82U, and for some reason, setting this up ended up actually being the only way I could finally get my “smart” bathroom light switch to join my new network. I came to this experience with the breezy setup of Eero already in mind and found it similarly easy with Asus. Network performance was as expected, with devices generally connecting to the node closest to them or, at least, with the lowest amount of signal noise, and no real noticeable changeover time. Basically, mesh networking is a revelation to anyone who hasn’t used it, and that much is true here, as well.

In the end, the Asus RT-AX86U is a great router, with speedy performance and easy setup, despite an annoying menu system. Actually getting down and dirty in the settings is a pain, thanks to confusing, incompletely explained technicals and messy organization, but basic and intermediate settings can be easily changed in the mobile app. Security and device prioritization for the router is decent, though I recommend you review the EULA before proceeding to make sure you’re comfortable with the exchange you must make to take advantage. The mesh setup was fairly painless. The RT-AX86U met and, in some cases exceeded, my expectations, at least where it counts. Of course, you’re going to pay for it, at MSRP $250—though you can find decent discounts at the usual online retailers.

Whether you just want lag-free gaming or you need something that can handle a heavy overall load, this router does it with aplomb. We are rapidly approaching the day when recommendations like this one isn’t just about future-proofing, but you will find in the RT-AX86U a router more than capable of meeting the unexpected demands put upon all of us this year. If you’ve got a smaller home that needs a lot of power and would prefer to check out mesh networking at a later date, this is absolutely the router for you.

[benpluck]

33 tips to avoid getting hacked (save the student)

Get yourself decent anti-virus and firewall software – and turn it on! Some insurance companies and banks only cover fraud and theft if you can prove you had security in place.

Back-up important data on an external hard drive or USB stick. If there’s something that you’d be gutted to lose, keep copies!

Be picky about which companies you share your personal info with – your data’s only as secure as they are.

Be very suspicious of emails or messages asking for login or account info, and check that any links are legit (i.e. not hsbo-bank.co.uk) and secure (https not http). This is known as phishingand is one of the easiest ways for passwords to be nicked.

Most cloud storage is snoopable: encrypt the content you keep in them, or check out Dropbox(which claims to encrypt all files stored).

Only log in to accounts from your own gadgets. If you do have to use a public or shared device, make sure you log out afterwards.

Where possible, buy online using a credit card. If you're a victim of fraud you'll have a better chance of getting your money back. If you can't get accepted for a credit card, use a prepaid card instead – while this won't insure your stolen cash, hackers will only have access to what you've topped up rather than your entire bank balance.

If there’s something you really, really don’t want anyone else to know or get hold of, don’t put it online!

Use an unusual but memorable phrase, and replace letters with numbers or punctuation marks (0 instead of o, or 3 for E).

Never use real answers in security questions – make up memorable answers that will only make sense to you.

Change passwords at least a couple of times a year: get fresh ones, and don’t just swap around the ones you already use!

Get LastPass – seriously. It's all very well (and essential) having long and unique passwords for each site, but you'll never remember them without a password manager. LastPass is the most popular free solution for storing them all and integrates easily as a browser extension (and app).

Use two-step verification if it’s available for logins: if someone signs in from a new or unauthorised device, they’ll have to provide a code that’s only sent to your phone or email address.

Don’t use an easily-guessed email – like yourname@gmail.com – for logging into sites holding sensitive information (like online banking). Use alias emails that you can simply forward to your main account.

In fact, use alias emails for all aspects of your online life: work, personal stuff, surveys, memes, whatever. This will limit what info hackers can access (and how much spam you get!).

Forced to enter an email address but worried you’re going to be inundated with spam afterwards? Use one you can burn when you’re done! You can create a temporary email that will combust after use over on guerrillamail.com.

If your email account displays the location of the last login (Gmail does – check the bottom of the screen), take a look at it every now and again to spot any rogue usage.

Check your privacy settings: don’t broadcast every update to the whole world. Log out every now and again to view your profile how strangers will be able to see it.

Don’t accept friend requests from folk you don’t know (obviously!)

Enable login alerts to get beeped when someone signs into your account. On Facebook, you can turn it on through Security Settings (approve your own devices so you don’t get pointless alerts!)

Be careful what you share on social, especially your date of birth or any info banks use to verify accounts or lost passwords.

Review app permissions: whenever you log in to another site using Facebook or add an app to your account, you've opened another door for personal data leakage. See what info you're handing out here.

Always lock your phone using either fingerprint recognition, a secure PIN (not your birthday) or unique gesture.

Know how to wipe your gadgets if they're lost or stolen.

Put a sticker over any unused webcams (hackers could be watching you).

Read app permissions to see exactly what data you’re allowing them to access before you install them.

Install Find My iPhone (Apple) or make sure you've set up Find My Device on Android. Prey is also excellent for tracking, locking and wiping missing phones and laptops.

Always password protect your home WiFi network, and change the default admin password on your internet routers.

Remember that public WiFi has more holes than Swiss cheese – everything you do while connected can be spied on.

Only use well-known or reputable WiFi hotspots – setting up fake free networks is a common sting.

Turn off sharing, so that things you usually connect or share on a secure network (files, devices or logins) aren’t discoverable.

Use a VPN – Virtual Private Network – to 'cloak' yourself and your data. Private Internet Accessis our favourite due to ease of setup, privacy settings and security features.

Only visit secure sites: check for the padlock and ‘https’ in the address bar.

Bibliography

Murray, J. (2019). 33 tips to avoid getting hacked. [online] Save the Student. Available at: https://www.savethestudent.org/extra-guides/32-ways-avoid-cyber-hacked.html [Accessed 4 Feb. 2020].

[luxus4me]

Line25 http://j.mp/2QuFcPB

How to Create a WordPress Site: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide 2019

I think you’ll agree with me when I say: creating a WordPress site is a challenging feat for a beginner. Where to start; what to do? Should you choose WordPress.com or WordPress.org, and what’s the difference between the two?

How much does creating a WordPress site cost? Is it $50 bucks, $100 bucks or $10,000 bucks? You have no idea. But still, you yearn to create a WordPress site and that’s good.

Take a breather. Turns out creating a WordPress website is easy, and in this post I will show you exactly how. At the end of the day, you’ll end up creating site after site like the pros.

Read on to learn more.

Start With a Plan

Setting up a WordPress website is like building a house. You must start with a plan. What kind of website are you creating? Why are you creating the website to begin with? I mean, what would you like to achieve with the said website? Answers to these questions (among others) will inform your plan.

For instance, if you’re building an ecommerce website, you consider plugins such as WooCommerce, Ninja Shop and WP Shopify among others. You’ll also need a WordPress ecommerce theme. Additionally, you need a powerful hosting solution.

If you’re creating a portfolio site on the other hand, you need plugins that help you to showcase your work. You’ll also need a theme that fully supports portfolio features. A basic host is adequate for a simple portfolio.

See where I am going with this? Different websites will need different features and tools. Not to confuse you though (seeing as you’re a beginner), let’s get to work.

Disclaimer: For the purpose of illustration, we use Namecheap for this guide. You can, however, choose any other domain registrar and host. The process of creating a WordPress site remains technically the same regardless of the host or domain registrar you choose. If you need help choosing the perfect host for your WordPress site, we trust and recommend the hostingfacts.com website for the best hosting reviews.

What You’ll Need

A domain name such as line25.com

Great web hosting

30 minutes or less to configure it all, which includes installing WordPress

Buy a Domain Name

A good domain name is short, catchy and memorable. The domain name is your website address, or how readers recognize and find your site on the internet. Good examples of domain names include line25.com, google.com and facebook.com among others.

If you’re creating a personal blog or portfolio site for instance, you can use your name as your domain. You know, something like beyonce.com and charlimarie.com among others.

For ecommerce and business sites, you can use your business name as your domain name. For example, we use line25.com, and many other businesses do the same.

If you can’t come up with a nice domain name, feel free to use a tool such as Namemesh to get ideas based on your business name or keywords.

Many hosts nowadays offer you free domain registration for the first year. Once you sign up with the host, you start paying for the domain from the second year.

Alternatively, you can buy a domain name separately from a domain registrar such as Namecheap, and add it to your hosting account. But why buy a domain separately? Well, it offers you more control over your website address since you can add it to any hosting account.

Getting a domain name via a hosting company means you have lesser control over the domain name, since it’s owned and controlled by the same company.

Buying a domain name is easy and cheap, what with domains costing about $10 bucks per year. For instance, buying a domain name at Namecheap is a straight-forward process I wouldn’t you to run into any problems.

How to Buy a Domain Name at Namecheap

Without further ado, let us buy a domain name. Head over to Namecheap.com and enter your keyword in the search field as we highlight below.

Next, hit the Search button to get the ball rolling. Clicking the search button will lead you to the following screen, where you can see different variations of your domain name.

Choose one that rocks your world and hit the corresponding add to cart button. Once you hit the add to cart button, Namecheap (just like any other host) will try to cross-sell their other services to you. Ignore this, and click the View Cart button instead as shown below.

On the next screen, hit the Confirm Order button as we highlight in the image below.

Clicking the Confirm Order button will redirect you to either login to your Namecheap account or create a new one if you’re a new customer. As a new customer, fill out the form accurately and hit the Create Account and Continue button at the bottom of the form.

After that, add your account contact information on the next page we show in the image below.

Once you’ve filled out the form, hit the Continue button. This leads you to the Whois contact information screen. Set up your Whois  contact info and hit the Continue button as shown below.

Next, choose your payment option on the billing screen and click the Continue button to complete your purchase.

Upon successful order completion, you’ll be redirected to an intuitive dashboard that looks like this:

My account has a total of three domain names, but yours will only show the domain you just bought. With a domain name in hand, it’s time to shop for a good host.

Choose Good Hosting

Your WordPress site needs a good home. Just like you’d do anything for the perfect home, your WordPress site needs the best hosting to thrive.

You cannot afford downtimes and server-related errors that make your beloved WordPress site unusable at any given time. If there’s a spike in traffic, your host should shoulder the burden without taking down your site.

Choosing a good host is all about your specific website needs. Different website features have different resource requirements. Your host of choice should cater to all of your website needs.

WordPress by itself has very low server requirements. Nearly every host on the planet can host WordPress. The problem arises when you start building your website on top of WordPress and the host doesn’t have sufficient resources for your website. Only go for the best.

There’s a special group of hosts known as managed WordPress hosting. They host WordPress sites exclusively. They are a bit pricier than, say, Namecheap, but many users feel the price is worth it. Popular companies in the area include WP Engine, Kinsta and Pagely among others.

A good host provides enough resources to sustain your site. On top of that, they offer great backup plans (although you should invest in off-site backups e.g. ManageWP.com), military-grade security and world-class 24/7 support.

From personal experience, Namecheap is a decent WordPress hosting company for beginners. Besides, you can always upgrade hosting depending on your website needs.

How to Buy Hosting From Namecheap

Point your browser to Namecheap.com, mouse over the Hosting menu and click the Shared Hosting sub-menu as shown below. Notice also, the other available hosting packages. For beginners though, I recommend shared hosting.

This will lead you to the pricing page for shared hosting packages. Choose Stellar, Stellar Plus or Stellar Business by clicking the respective Add to Cart button as shown below.

Shown above are the monthly prices for each package at the time of writing. As you can see, hosting a website is relatively cheap.

On the next screen, hit the Use a domain I own with Namecheap button as shown below.

This will prompt you to sign in to your Namecheap account. Click the Sign In button as we detail in the image below.

Enter your username and password to login, select the domain you’d like to use and hit the Continue button as shown below.

On the next screen, confirm your order by hitting the Confirm Order button as shown below.

Next, choose your payment method and hit the Continue button as we highlight below.

Go ahead and complete the purchase. After successfully purchasing hosting for your domain name, you will be redirected to your dashboard. You can explore all products (e.g. hosting, SSL certificates, etc) attached to your domain name as shown below.

As shown in the image above, you can see Value Hosting is now attached to the domain we bought. To manage your hosting and access your cPanel, click the Manage button as shown above. Click this button leads you to the screen below.

From the image above, notice your username and the Login to CPanel button. Note that you will also receive a welcome email from Namecheap with your login details and everything you need to hit the ground running.

Are you learning something?

Installing WordPress

Setting up WordPress is the stuff of fourth graders. It takes less than 5 minutes once you have you domain name and hosting set.

Login to your cPanel and click the Softaculous Apps Installer button as we highlight below.

After that, click the WordPress icon as we show in the screenshot below.

Next, hit the Install Now button to start as we detail below.

On the next screen, choose your domain name and other settings such as the site name, description and admin login details (make the details strong).

Fill out the form carefully and click the Install button at the bottom of the page. This will initiate the installation, which looks something like this:

After a couple of seconds (and if everything goes well), you should see the success screen shown below.

From the screen above, you can see where you installed WordPress as well as the link to login to the WordPress admin area. When you click the Administrative URL (e.g. http://j.mp/2VzAu6O), Softaculous will redirect you to your WordPress admin login page as shown below.

Login to your WordPress admin dashboard using the details you created while installing WordPress. Here is how the WordPress admin dashboard looks like.

And here is how your new WordPress site looks on the front-end, complete with the default Twenty Nineteen theme.

That’s it; you now have a new WordPress site that you can customize as you desire. There are thousands of WordPress themes and plugins at your disposal, meaning you can build the website of your dreams without ever hiring a developer.

Necessary Start Plugins

After creating your WordPress site, you need a couple of start plugins to super-charge your site. Off the top of my head, I’d recommend:

Akismet to fight comment spam

Jetpack for a nice suite of features such as comments and automatic social sharing among others

ManageWP to manage your site, and more importantly, create free off-site backups

iThemes security to keep the bad guys away

Yoast SEO so you can optimize your site for search engines like a pro

And any other plugin that helps you to meet your goal

Really, the plugins you end up choosing depends on your website needs

On Choosing a WordPress Theme

Choose a theme that complements your website. You can go for a theme specifically built for a single purpose e.g. eCommerce, restaurant, portfolio etc or a multi-purpose theme such as Total by WPExplorer.

Alternatively, you can start with a free theme and go premium when need be. Note, however, free themes don’t come with pro support and as many features.

Conclusion

Save for a few technical hurdles that may delay you, creating a WordPress site is both easy and cheap. Just pick a domain name, choose a good host and install WordPress.

The theme and plugins you use afterwards depend on your needs and preferences. At the end of the day, you’ll create WordPress sites like you have web design hard-wired into your brain.

Have questions or thoughts regarding this post? If so, please do not hesitate to comment below. Cheers and happy creating with WordPress!

http://j.mp/2Qu2sNt via Line25 URL : http://j.mp/2n58RCK

[eikotheblue]

Darkness and Silence (on Aphantasia)

(This is an effortpost about my experiences with my self-diagnosed Aphantasia. While I believe everything that I’m saying and the personal stories are all accurate, I’ve not been formally diagnosed, the condition is understudied, and introspection is hard. It’s also very long, especially past the readmore.)

For me, one of the most obvious and powerful ideas in LW-rationalism is the typical mind fallacy, or the (often mistaken) belief that other people’s internal experiences are similar to yours when presented with the same stimuli. Reading that sentence really doesn’t convey how big of a deal this is, but I don’t think more words from me can do really do it justice; consider instead reading this post and the comments for a small glimpse into how different brains and experiences can be. 

When I first read that post, the thing I thought of immediately was smell. I’ve never had a sense of smell that produces anything that looks like meaningful input, and until I was about 13 or so I just assumed that nobody could smell much of anything, or that I’d never been exposed to a strong scent. (Then I encountered Axe, and realized there was a stimuli that really was invisible to me). I could talk a lot about lack of smell, but not in this post, because while that was the first atypical mind characteristic I identified in myself, it is far less impactful than Aphantasia. 

Aphantasia is described as “a condition where one does not possess a functioning mind's eye and cannot visualize imagery”. This describes my life experiences very well: I cannot recall or construct mental imagery, even slightly. To demonstrate this, I usually ask people to close their eyes and imagine a square. (Feel free to do so now, and lock the image in your head if you wish). I then ask questions like “What color is the square?” “What color is the background?” “How big is it, relative to your field of view?”, and people generate answers based on the square they imagined. I am always fascinated by these responses; if you perform the experiment and reblog, I’d love to see (either in reblog text or tags) the details of your square.

There is no square in my head. If you ask me to imagine a square, I see no image, only the concept of a 4-sided regular polygon. If you then ask me “what color it is”, I can pick a color at random (or one of my favorites), but the true answer is “None”; there’s no square to have a color. My thoughts and memories exist only as text, with webs of association and observation attached. If I’m asked to remember what something looked like, all that I can retrieve is thoughts that describe the thing I’ve seen, or facts that I know about it, if any. 

Observant readers might notice that while the title of this post is “Darkness and Silence”, so far all that’s been discussed is the inability to visualize. Something that I hadn’t realized until very recently is that Aphantasia is more general than the name implies, at least for me (and others online by anecdote). I can’t directly recall any sensory input from memory, or create sensory input-like experiences ex nihilo. I can’t imagine or recall any sound, taste, touch, or even pain, all of which I have heard other people tell me they can do. From my point of view, it feels unbelievable and incredible that people can do this, and it is hard not to be jealous of that ability. Inside my head, it is dark, silent, still.

Aphantasia is not an inability to receive sensory input: i can still see/hear/etc, and describe what i’m experiencing. It is also not the inability to store sensory input at all, because I can recognize things that I’ve heard and seen before, and after recognizing them I can access details that I wouldn’t have been able to before (this comes up most often in music and other time-component experiences). Additionally, I can dream, and my dreams include images that I saw while awake, which means that the information is stored, just not directly retrievable. My dreams are all very visual, and have other sensory components as well. However, memory of the contents of dreams evaporate almost immediately: since I’m not awake to fully process what I’m seeing, all that gets ‘stored’ is fleeting bits of information, and the emotional state it ended in.

According to the data I’ve seen (which was of limited quality, since Aphantasia is very understudied), visualization and image recall ability vary a great deal from person to person: eidetic or “photographic” memory at the high end, and Aphantasia at the very other. The only place I’ve seen offering stats suggests that the incidence rate is around 2-5%, but the actual numbers could be very different: if I had read slightly different blogs or made slightly different friends, I never would have known!

Going through life without noticing that you have Aphantasia is incredibly easy: people have been doing it for probably longer than recorded history. There just isn’t a lot of evidence that would cause the casual observer to notice the problem: it’s really easy to excuse descriptions of a “mind’s eye” or discussions of visualization as flowery descriptions of the Aphantasia-equivalent skills that fill the gaps, and to just assume that the other variances are just weird quirks, because they don’t feel connected; without the central problem pointed out, it’s just an unlinked set of “things I appear to suck at”.

For me, the biggest observable was memory, and particularly what I called “raw memorization” growing up. I am good at remembering things I understand conceptually, but there are times when information (a chart, dates, a list of names in order, a paragraph of text) just needs to be stored for recall. I am terrible at this! I can manage, if the information is in the form of bindable text (Examples of bindable text are hard to give: a catchy phrase or good song lyrics are bindable, but a list of names and dates are not). If I need to memorize a chart or set of data I don’t get conceptual links from, I don’t really have a long-term solution. In school, I would design a compression system to convert the information into a sentence, reread the sentence over and over right before the test, and write it down as the test started. Then I’d (hopefully) remember my decompression, and manually draw out the info I need. 

I was always quick to take pride in my mental abilities, so when I realized that I was extremely bad at memorization, I tried to learn to train it. And what I found was... advice on memory palaces, a technique for mapping specific memories to specific parts of an imaginary landscape. There were a lot of variations on this, but everything I read basically boiled down to “Step 1. Unfold your wings. Step 2. Practice flapping until you’ve built up enough muscle to fly”; the basic ability required to use the technique was something that it is literally impossible for my brain to do.

And, weirdly enough, this still wasn’t enough evidence to make me figure it out. I got angry and frustrated with advice like this, and eventually quit bitterly, concluding that it was snake oil stuff, or memorization couldn’t really be taught meaningfully, but there were people who were very good at it and thought they could teach it. I gave up on improving and (for the most part) avoided classes and situations where that kind of memorization would be a necessary skill. It took me reading about the original experiment to even consider that I might have it, and over two year’s worth of idle thoughts, research, and conversations with ordinary people about their sensory recall for me to really start to understand just how different (and... diminished) my experiences are.

Aphantasia impacts my life in several ways, almost all of them negatively. I can’t conjure up stimuli to stave off boredom, or crowd out intrusive thoughts. I can’t listen to music in my head (though i can hum or sing it subvocally). I can’t compare 2 images without seeing them side by side. It takes me a lot of exposure to learn enough about a face to describe it, or tell it apart from a similar one. I won’t remember licence plates, too many different passwords, or the birthdays and ages of the people I care about. I get lost very easily, and can’t remember directions well, or make adjustments that deviate meaningfully from the path. Without GPS, I will frequently take a route that is 5 or 10 minutes longer if the alternative is something less familiar or easier to miss turns on.

Gaming is an important part of my life, and Aphantasia does not spare me there, either. It’s easy for me to get hopelessly lost in any game without a good map or obvious landmarks/anchors; I get turned around and spend a lot of time backtracking. Being attacked by something I’m not looking at is terrifying; while I do have object permanence, I can’t visualize my surroundings or keep track of positions that I can’t see. This experience is awful enough that I will almost never play games that regularly cause it. (Overwatch and other pvp shooters, but also many types of single player horror games). Being unable to recall images also poses problems in myst style adventure or puzzle games, although screenshots are a good way to cheat at this. 

To be fair to Aphantasia, there are times that being unable to recall stimulus is useful. I am extremely visually squeamish on several axes (gore, blood, disfigured people, distorted / warped visuals of people), and this would be a much bigger problem if I could recall that kind of image. Similarly, I can’t get songs stuck in my head; until a few days ago, I hadn’t really understood what it meant to have a song stuck in your head. Idle thoughts often remind me of a note progression that i then hum out or think about, but this never really bothered me that much, and I had been lowkey confused about how much it appeared to bother other people, until I learned it was a completely different experience for them. And lastly, the details of my nightmares quickly fade, which limits how upsetting they can be.

But I won’t end on that note, because it would feel like lying. I hate Aphantasia. I hate that my brain is so broken. I hate that I can’t do these things that are so basic for so many people. I hate that I’ll never be able to develop these skills or experience these things. but more than anything, i hate being trapped in my head nothing but my thoughts; i hate that all that it is to be me is a fragile flow of words on a backdrop of terrifying emptiness, of darkness and silence.

[ptetest-blog]

21 Must Have And Best Education Apps For Smart Students

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21 Must Have And Best Education Apps For Smart Students

21 Must Have And Best Education Apps For Smart Students

The upcoming time mandates the student population to use prodigious gadgets that stimulate technologically improved knowledge and refine their creative minds.

One has to accept the fact that several innovative Apps launched through the handsets significantly enhance the potential and garnish the raw ideas with additional beneficial information.

Both Apple and Android provide amazing set of programs and apps for college students that acts as a helping hand by offering a reincarnated or advanced learning process.

We are here to share 21 best Education apps for students,one must use once and forever after then.

1. Star Walk

Review : Extremely nice app! And what the H*ll, it might be a bit pricey with everything added up, but it just seems to do everything right! And the Info you get on Objects in friggin’ awesome!!! If I had one complaint, it would be to get a closer view of Satellites (see what they look like) and actually watch them.

2. EasyBib

Review : Oddly enough, my cheap phone is not having any of the issues everyone else is reporting. App working smoothly, camera did job in seconds. There are a few bugs & annoying things etc., and app hasn’t been updated in a while, but for me it does its job.

3. Ready4 SAT

Review : This app is LIT. Out of the three I’ve tried, Ready4 is the best! I tried 2 other BIG NAME SAT prep apps, and I regret wasting my time. Now, I’ve recommended Ready4 to three of my friends! We all are already doing better and the future seems brighter!

4. Dictionary.com

Those who are passionate to play with words, this application bring about a baggage of words and help you to make out easily through numerous tricky words. Dictionary.com makes you smarter to handle and receive the complicated meanings without giving a moon’s expression at the ones used by your friends that you might fail to understand occasionally.

5. Quizlet

Review : The new app is great! I get bored very easily by memorizing words, but this app makes it fun and easy to do it. I prefer this one to Duolingo app!

6. CamScanner

Review : It’s amazing working, any where,any time we can use, send mail r uploaded doc.for office purpose.without scanner mechine. Some times not available scanner that time we can use, scan clarity.very nice, photos pic if wants print it will get very dork. But its very clearly images/doc/photos will get printouts. No need of expenses I advise to everyone.

7. Learnist

Review : Good All around Good All around way to catch up on news, tech, movies, happenings, and more.

8. Due

You can think of the aptly-titled Due as a robust alarm clock, one that functions without an account or Internet connection. With Due, you can set reusable countdown reminders and implement both daily and weekly reminders that capitalize on nearly 60 alert tones. Moreover, reminders sync across your devices and automatically shift as you cross time zones.

9. Evernote

Review : For the past few weeks I noticed that Evernote was pretty buggy. Lots of notes synced incorrectly and some became duplicates of each other while deleting the other note. When I finally reached out to customer support, I was impressed with how hard they tried to fix the problem for me. They emailed back and forth to make sure that everything was back to normal and told me that they were aware of the problem and were working on finding a solution.

10. YouTube

Review : Stop changing the layouts and theme jesus christ. You’s are not making it easier for anyone to use the app if you keep changing everything that doesnt need to be changed. If you’s like change so much then might aswell add a theme/colour setting that people can change on their own. Because this update made youtube look ugly as hell.

11. Udemy

Review : Udemy is a great platform for accessing tutorials. However the app is very unreliable, it crashes frequently, and even though you’ve downloaded videos from a courses you occasionally get the message that offline content isn’t available. But when it works it’s quite decent, at least the downloaded courses are saved as .mp4 -files, so you can watch them when the app isn’t working.

12. SoloLearn

SoloLearn is a developer on Google Play. They have a large selection of learning apps that teach computer programming. They support web languages like HTML, more common languages like Java or C++, and even some more specialized stuff like Python. Each language has its own app and each app is completely free. Eventually, you’ll need to graduate to something a little more complex.

13. Math Duel: 2 Player Math Game

Review : I like it because my favorite subject is math. I love it because it helps us solve in mind faster and it is very challenging.

14. Screentime Ninja

Review : The basic idea behind this app is fun and attractive, using cute ninja girls and maths questions to motivate kids to earn more minutes. However, it is not as user-friendly as it could be. 1. Kids cannot “switch user” themselves without the parent’s password. So parents cannot leave the device to more than a kid when they need to leave the children alone.

15. Amazon Kindle

Review : If you’re a bookworm, this app is a life saver! As an Amazon prime customer, I get several good deals on books, some even free. This app also allows me to instantly sync ebooks checked out from my local library’s website. No more leaving the house and worrying about late fees if I forget to return on time! I’ve been using this for over year and love it!

16. Coursera

Review : While the option to download videos for offline use is wonderful, it would be even more wonderful if it worked reliably. Too often, when it’s time to access the videos, I get “Something is wrong with the downloaded video file. Would you like to re-download the file?” I’m usually not in a good downloading place.

17. Duolingo  

Review : Great app for language learning, also MOST IMPORTANTLY its encouraging. This is what I feel makes it so successful, because even when you make small spelling or accent errors it encourages you to try again, and thats what learning is all about! It also allows you to test your knowledge of the language frequently, AND the lingots you earn help you learn new phrases.

18. Khan Academy

Review : Mad people are calling this app boring. Leave studies no if you find study boring. This app has actually helped me in my AS and i don’t take tuitions because Khan Academy is everything. Thank you Sal Khan! The downloads are a bit buggy though.

19. Lynda

Review : Should add a Notes feature similar to desktop on this app. So users can take down notes when watching videos on the go. Will make it easier for us when there’s no need to switch between Lynda app and our phone’s Notes app.

20. Periodic Table

Review : LOVE the app but what’s not making it 5 stars is that the elements 113, 114, 115, 117 just been officially named and I would like the information on the elements updated to date with video.

21. StudyBlue

Review : I love study blue. It helps me in tutoring allot and tell me things that I wouldn’t know by just using flash cards