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ephemerlskies · 4 years

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emerald dreams: REDACTED | kth

⇢ pairing: taehyung x reader

⇢ genre: series, blackmirror!au, angst, fluff, artist!taehyung, strangers to lovers, set sometime in a dystopian era of technology, taehyung is s o f t

⇢ word count: 4.5k

⇢ warnings: explicit language, memory loss, mentions of death, themes of grief/depression

⇢ summary: in a technologically advanced utopia where a memory can be stored as a data file in a chip inserted in your head, it was entirely impossible to forget anything. when you met taehyung, a young at heart yet talented artist, he garnished an odd familiarity, raising suspicion that some of your memories had been lost in the digital cloud, or worse, erased from your memory chip.

♪ playlist: IDK you yet - alexander 23 • 4 o' clock - v & rm • jamais vu - bts • the story - brandi carlile • moonlight - ariana grande ♪

╰ episode index: 01 | 02 (coming soon)

a/n: if you don't watch black mirror then just imagine that everything is technology based, even the inner mechanisms of your thoughts/mind/memories and social culture has centered around the automation of the human body. also the government is sleazy and controls literally everyone in this au >:) also, i'm going to try and update this weekly!!

Scenario No. 2: Re-test

You didn’t expect to be spending your weekly visit at your favorite coffee shop gasping for air in the single occupancy commode. An unsettling familiarity had reached into your chest and compromised the body of your lungs, now savagely hyperventilating for air, and seized control on the reins of every sensory neuron in your body.

First, it was the sensation of sound. That voice, that unusually specific coffee order, the soft lilt of politeness riding through his etiquettes of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ struck right in your chest with a shockwave of deja vu, like you’ve heard that order before, a million times before perhaps. No part of you would let go of the fact that for some reason, this stranger was someone you knew very well.

And yet you had no idea who he was.

“Hi, how are you?” He smiled to ease the nerves of the overworked barista on this Sunday afternoon. Your ears picked up his husky, sweet tone through the scuttle of customers walking in and out of the shop and a commotion of side conversations that filled the room. It was quite noisy, enough so that it muffled any specific utterances, but the bass of his voice had met your ears with a strong posture of familiarity.

You looked over to the sweater draped over his frame that fit snugly against his broad shoulders. That was when your visual senses were overrun with the muted forest green of the knitted jumper. You’ve seen this color green. To be fair, green was always secured in your life abundantly through your own will. You had always loved this color and demonstrated this through small displays such as picking the green straw from a bundle of multicolored ones, or scanning over a set of shirts to find which one had the most green in it.

You surrounded yourself with a life full of green, but when this green sweater was paired with the voice there was a strange jolt of reminiscence.

It was not just a sweater, it was a sweater that you have touched, even worn before. And when he wore it, it wasn’t just any green. It was his green.

His figure drew closer to you as he waited at the side bar for his drink to be called, sending a waft of his scent to nullify those of fresh brewed coffee and pastries. Along with your eyes and ears, your nose now fell to the magnetism of this stranger.

He smelled of fresh evergreen with a bit of pinewood, mixing into an overwhelming oaky aroma. As the smells that resembled a tranquil forest ruminated through your lungs and your bloodstream, it weakened your body to a state of paralysis. Your motor skills were numbed to endow a series of mental backflips to figure out where this estranged attraction was coming from, and why it was him who provoked it.

Standing comatose in the middle of a populated coffee shop meant the clash of your body into another's was bound to occur. And of course, it was his body that bumped you out of the trance of obscured memories. It was his arms that held your shoulders steady so you wouldn’t topple over and spill your latte over yourself.

“Oh, sorry! Didn’t see you there. Are-” His eyes studied your aghast expression, “Hey, are you okay?”

This marked the compromise of your visual sensory. You looked right into his eyes, kind and concerned, and your surroundings had melted away into a whirl of unidentifiable colors. Your body was transported to a purgatory that rested between reality and a dream-like setting, which eventually molded itself into actuality before your eyes.

Redacted File No. 6

Suddenly you turned your head side to side and the territory that was once a café was no more, and had alchemized into a zone of unparalleled comfort. To your left, you were warmed by a wood-burning fireplace with stones crested along the frame of the pit. Your body was covered in a blurred canvas of forest green, and there were two hands holding your body gently and lovingly. It was a vision so incredibly clear and intricate it couldn’t be conjured through imagination or illusion, but a very real and vivid memory.

“Excuse me? I’m sorry… You’re okay right?” His jostling hands fainted the memory that swept you from the cafe. You blinked a few times before your eyes could refocus and land you to your present circumstances.

The man’s firm grip hadn’t abandoned your shoulders even though you regrounded your balance, which quickened the pace of your heart. They you earnestly, that even though you were certainly not going to fall over, he wouldn’t have let go. Without more than an array of unintelligible stutters to confirm you were okay, because you weren’t okay, you hobbled backward quite ungracefully to the privacy of the bathroom. After your rushed retreat, you tried to analyze the string of memories that pervaded your mind.

How do you know this man? Were these your memories? Or perhaps your memory chip glitched and downloaded files that didn’t belong to you?

The blunder of confusion racked your head with a slight tension headache. What was once a temporary occupancy of the restroom turned into a marathoned hideout until you could safely assume the stranger’s drink was made and he would leave the vicinity.

You checked your phone to count the duration of time spent. It had been about ten minutes since you pathetically holed yourself up, and it would be about five more minutes until you felt you could confidently emerge and escape.

You knew him, and for some reason it sent you into a fearful sequester.

Luckily, just last week you downloaded an upgraded storage plan which gave you access to all your past memories.

You activated the chip residing in your temple to trace every single unit in the archives, even the ones from as early as your birth, to see if anyone, including the likes of a passing stranger, a waiter that took your order three weeks ago, even a student from your high school class, resembled the man in the café. There were no records in your memory files of someone who echoed the same unsettling familiarity that this man had.

If the advanced technology that contained each capsule of every moment in time that you have ever experienced couldn’t give you the data on this man, then perhaps it was just an unusual coincidence.

One of those Twilight Zone-esque occurrences that isn’t deployed through factual evidence. Though you weren't entirely met with closure for this reasoning, it was enough to cope through the rest of your lengthened stay in the restroom.

What battered your precisely timed and nearly successful plan to avoid further interactions with this man was the light knock against the door. And it was the feeling of guilt that there must be other customers who planned on using the bathroom for its intended purpose that hoisted you up and had you reluctantly vacating the protected area.

Though, it was punishingly ironic that the one who had torn you from your sanctuary was the same person who put you there in the first place.

“Sorry,” He apologized about three times within the small window of time he’d been confronted by you and you already caught on to his habit of perpetual remorse, “Um, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I bumped into you and you kinda… freaked then ran and hid in the bathroom.”

If he weren’t so considerate to a stranger that was acting oddly evasive, this would have been easy. But he was considerate, and this was unbelievably difficult.

“Yeah um,” Your eyes sank down to rest on the comforting hue of his sweater, “I’m, uh, I'm okay. Thank you.”

He cleared his throat, dislodging the nervous laugh blocking his words.

“Okay well, I was just wondering if you were all good. You seemed a little shaken up back there.” Frankly, he still sensed something about him was off-putting to you, but he tried to deny it for the moment.

Your assurances fell gravely short of convincing since you couldn’t even bring your eyes to level with his. The soft-spoken gesture of kindness made you feel like a helpless animal that would surrender at the slightest sign of danger. It was a fair assessment for you acted as though his accidental collision into you through a crowded space was the end of the world.

“Yeah, sorry. Thank you!” You chirped to imitate a normal reaction despite this tremendously abnormal situation. “I was just um… It's just one of those days, ya know?”

Then, it was his smile that cluttered your sensation of touch. He was standing a respectable distance from you, however, his smile touched you. It cornered you into blurting out something even more peculiar than the overwhelming deja vu that had been commencing the moment you noticed him.

“Do I-” You paused to lower your voice that could have outsourced to the collection of ruckus in the café. Now in a whisper, you continued, “Do I know you?”

He didn’t offer a voiced response, but an equally bewildered expression. You couldn't quite read what this implied so you assumed he thought you were crazy, maybe even a bit creepy.

“Sorry! Fuck, that’s so creepy. I’m just gonna go.” Before you had the chance to push past him and the billowing clouds of regret, he obstructed your path to the doorway with his body.

“No! I think I know you too. Like, I’ve never seen you but I remember you. Like… Like a dream.” He scaled the length of your body with his eyes, which only manufactured his intuition into an undoubtable certainty. “I know you. How do I know you?”

“Hell if I know. I’m just as confused as you.” You felt your body slumping into itself under his gaze. He was attentive to every detail of you, from the length of your hair to the twitch of your fingertips, making you feel over exposed to this stranger that wasn’t a stranger.

“Well, do you wanna maybe sit? Have a coffee with me?” He propagated his interest like there was no reason to be afraid which only intimidated you further. There wasn’t a real threat in his invitation, however accepting it felt like you were walking on thin ice.

The government agent standing guard with a perfect earshot of every conversation wiring through the small café didn’t help ease your nerves either.

“I really should be heading home soon.” Guilt worked quickly to try and compensate for the discouraged expression on his face, “But… if you give me your number I’ll call you and maybe we can go out for lunch or something?”

He traded his grim with excitement while pulling a pen from his pocket and walking over to the condiments bar to write his number on a napkin. You had no clue as to why, but the fact that he had a pen on hand was strikingly nostalgic, much so as every other detail you had acquired from him.

Although entirely unheard of, you felt like this new knowledge of him was not adding to the collection, but rather dusting old artifacts that had simply been forgotten. You weren’t learning things about him, but instead remembering them; the more you stood watching him scribble his name and number on the napkin, the deeper you entrenched yourself in this theory.

Not to mention, you couldn’t recall the last time someone favored using a pen over a keyboard and a paper napkin over a digital contact entered on your phone.

What kind of person carries around a pen in the age of modern technology?

“Thank you. I’m ___, by the way.” Your hand wavered a bit before holding out to greet him, and when his hand made contact, you could have sworn on your own life that this wasn’t the first time it happened.

This was no introduction. It was a reunion.

The fix of his gaze had suggested he too felt reminiscent with the feeling of your hand.

A shared inability to let go held your hands together, trying to harness a bit of recognition or recall a social function where you two might have met in passing. Neither one of you had shown any intention to pull away, which dragged the formality of shaking hands into a gesture of mutual wonder; now you were not so much exchanging a handshake but rather holding each other. Holding tightly, as if you were rediscovering a mass of feelings that would give you an answer.

However, the answer was not generous enough to make itself available to either of you.

It could have been hours until you were able to unriddle this strange sensation, so you made the preventative move of pulling away before the warmth concocting between your hands would produce a light sweat on your palm.

He too seemed to retract upon regaining his sensibilities, but there was a glint in his eyes that suggested he would have held on for longer, maybe even forever if necessary. If it would regroup the unattainable and partially inexistent memories into cognizance.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

Redacted File No. 12

You clung with desperate persistence onto the flaccid hand. Trailing up the arm was an indiscernible figure that had no features, no notable detailing, not even a vague outline of facial structure; just an ethereal glow that projected throughout the entire room. The nebulous haze terminated any identifiable aspect of the room except the hand you were holding, so you focused on the scant detail your eyes offered.

There was no specified context, no real evidence that you had to hold on, but something deep within you was urging for it. Some omnipotent instinct which prophesied that if you let go of the hand, you would in turn be letting go of the world.

You had to hold on.

However your hands wouldn’t obey you. Each time you tried to tighten your fingers, it felt as if the hand would continue slipping from your grasp. Or maybe, your hands weren't gripping at all.

They were numb, or paralyzed, and unable to execute your urgencies. The more force you exerted into your dire intentions, the easier it was for the hand to grow limp and melt through your fingers like liquid. It was frustrating, your willful attempts to hold on seemed to elicit the opposite effect as the hand, unowned by a certain being, resigned from yours.

“I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go.” You chanted through the tears, feeling as though that would somehow ignite a stronghold on the lifeless hand falling away.

But even so, it did fall away.

Perhaps the pain of it was that it wasn’t you who was letting go, but the hand that was being taken away from you. That you had been fighting a losing battle far beyond the prospects of your own decisions or control.

You begged for mercy, but were bestowed with your hands clean of what it was trying so desperately to hold onto. The hand slipped and when you peaked through the glaze of tears, your knuckles and fingers were gripping airy, cold emptiness.

“I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go.”

Soon you were captured in a perpetual aria of pleas to the ears of a God that would not listen. Unsettling despair had mutilated the illuminating glow of the room to bleak darkness. The world of colors had fallen absent akin to the cold hand vaporizing alongside the dispersal of light.

Then, everything was black.

Your eyes shot open with deep distraught.

The full moon flashed against your dampened face; half of the moisture sourced from a cold sweat and half from the heavy tears pouring from your eyes.

You knew the only explanation for this dream, which resonated more closely to a memory than a figment of sleepful imagination, was curated by the peculiar events that took place earlier today.

Soon, the dream drifted from your mind as consciousness took its place. Your tardy response to write the sparse remnants of it had left you with nothing but a distorted plot of what transpired during your slumber.

Widening your awakening through long sips of water had forced you into an obsessive rewinding of your memory files. It was a shame there wasn’t technology yet to store memories of your dream, or you’d have been replaying the one you just dreamt about a hundred times.

You scanned through a collection of moments in the afternoon when you first met Taehyung. The clear, digital picture of him glassed over your eyes, taking the place once inhabited by the moon, as you pressed the play button on the handlebar of functions.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

You rewound no later than a second after he introduced himself back to the beginning.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

Rewind. 0.5 x speed.

“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.” Said in a distorted voice from the ‘reduce speed’ function you equipped.

“Kim Taehyung.” You muttered to the empty room and the bright moon.

Sleeping was abstracted to an impossibility, and for the sake of your sanity, you walked over fish out the napkin in your coat pocket. It took you a while to move on from meticulously inspecting Taehyung’s handwriting.

The aimless effort to recall if it was the penmanship of some classmate had slackened to yet another unmet hope. Taehyung didn’t reside in your memories, but claimed quite an existence in your intuition. However, that wasn’t satisfying enough. You settled with the unsolved familiarity, though not before a lengthy wrestle between your eyes and the seven numbers scribbled into the napkin.

After dancing with the idea of it, you resolved some courage to finally dial. Each ping of the phone had you dreading for the automated message to inform you the recipient was not available at the moment, that you would have to hang up or wait for the tone to leave a message. Little by little your spirited nerve had depleted as you were now practicing what message you would leave Taehyung in his voicemail box, praying that it wasn’t full.

“Hello?” The sound of his voice interrupted the seventh or eighth ring, along with your rehearsal of the voicemail you assumed you’d have to leave being that the moon had been aging the sky into midnight.

“Oh! Oh, sorry I didn’t expect you to pick up.” After the chaotic pounding in your chest settled, you realized how nonsensical you sounded. Everything you methodically planned to say had been scattered by his unprecedented answer.

Instead of asking why you would call if you expected him not to pick up, he asked with a kind curiosity:

“Who is this?” He didn’t sound tired, in fact it sounded as if he had been hard at work preceding this call.

“Oh yeah! It’s ___, from the coffee shop. You remember me right?” Though you powered through, the worry was quite deafening. Taehyung seemed to pick up on it and diffused it with a gentle chuckle.

“Of course I remember.” On the other end of the line, he had been penciling a sketch on a blank page in his notebook.

The serenity of the stars and moon pinned on the navy blue sky never failed to spark inspiration. Taehyung was the type to refuse passing up a surge of an artistic muse, even if that meant he would shed a few hours of sleep from his routine. No matter the time or place, he always had a pen on hand to honor his heart’s unremitting passion.

He loved the moon and stars. He loved it so much as one would love a dear friend. He wished to be a part of the scenes of lights that hovered just out of reach, but could only settle on capturing a piece of the starry heavens on paper with his trusty pencil, sketchbook, and emerald-tinted muse.

“It’s late to be calling, but you’re lucky I was awake.” He said to hide how ecstatic he was you had actually called.

For someone you had just met, or at least you thought you just met, he threaded a flirtatious coyness in his response. It difficult to hush the winged eruption in your stomach because of that.

“Lucky, huh.” You repeated through a mumbled laugh, “I was just… I was thinking.”

“About what?” He had placed his phone on speaker mode and laid it next to his sketchbook.

There was a new inspiration that bore a louder siren than that of the moon and the stars. He sifted through the memory files throughout his day to the minute he first bumped into you, and though your face had been ingrained quite clearly behind his eyelids with each blink, he relied on the accuracy of a reference to perfect his drawing of you; not to mention he projected the image of your face to delight his undeniable attraction and to moderate the wildly romanticized version of you in his head.

Perhaps if he hadn't, he wouldn't be able to discern your face from the arena of glimmering stars scattered along the shaded skies.

“Just about how I think I was too quick to pass your offer.”

“Really?” That endearing lilt hope in his voice, the excitement expressed, acted as some puppeteer that manipulated the corner of your lips to lift into a smile.

No muscle in your body could ever be moved with the same conviction as it did when he was the reason for it. It bewildered you, almost to the point of frustration, as to why he had this power over you.

I just met him. I'm already getting this worked up? You thought how absurd it was you'd fallen this quickly, hoping it would ground you to the reality that he was still a stranger you hadn’t exchanged more than two conversations with.

Though, reality and memories and data files had all been obscured ever since you met Taehyung which was fascinating more than it was disorienting.

“Would you want to, maybe, grab coffee? Say next Thursday?” Your hand was subconsciously gripping the bed sheets, just like the way you gripped the disembodied hand in your dream, and awaited his response with full-blown suspense.

“I’ll see you next Thursday, ___.” Taehyung's confirmation put all your anxiety to rest, as well as your tightly clamped hand around the cotton fabric.

“I’ll see you.” You mimicked as if that would make the idea of seeing Taehyung again any less surreal. He laughed at this and brushed up a few finishing touches on his drawing.

“So just to clarify.” His pause gave entry for curiosity to wire through your head.

“Yes?”

“When you said you were thinking… you were thinking of me?” You wanted the upper hand to be reinstated with you, but your shy chuckle was no match to the smirk adopted on his lips that you couldn’t see, but you knew was there. You knew he was prideful when he swept the rug right out from under your feet, and you were right.

“Perhaps. And what if I was?” You framed your question to render your intimidation as flattery. Though, you had no idea how convincing this facade actually was and that it came off more suggestive than you had expected. There was a part of you that had fraternized with the romantic idea of Taehyung which might have registered your motive to reciprocate an undertone beyond platonic.

“Then that would be one thing we have in common.” He sounded responsive to your flirting and raised the bar significantly.

Your eyes and smile were directed towards the scenery displayed by your window, but they were not dedicated to the moonlit beauty of the diamond encrested sky. Though the midnight glades of stars were the ones to witness your smile, it was, without a shadow of a doubt, dedicated to Taehyung.

He was staring at the same moon, the same plot of stars, so perhaps you were looking into each other. When the moon twinkled, it looked awfully similar to a smile. Your smile.

For the moment, there was a radio silence that splintered through the two speakers of your and Taehyung’s phones. Even if the use of his hands weren’t engaged by his needful recreation of your face through his art, if his hands were left unused, he wouldn’t have mustered the discipline to end the call. Your unoccupied hands were trying to find any employment so you could have some excuse for not hanging up as well, not that there was anything else to be discussed.

Again, it felt familiar. The feeling of hesitance to be the first one to hang up despite the conversation’s recoil.

The cohesive idleness of you and Taehyung was unprovoked and ran out for about a minute. Neither of you had the intention to sever the virtual communion quite yet. The awkwardness of sitting in silence on the phone with a newly acquainted stranger was a delicacy compared to preemptively ending the call.

At one point, you were about to question if he had hung up; but the rhythmic and light breathing told you otherwise. And because of that mutual need to stay on the line, it seemed to be unreasonable to hang up, save for the yawn that eventually trimmed the call to an end.

“You’re tired.” He stated, now prompted with a yawn of his own upon hearing yours. “Goodnight, ___.”

“Goodnight, Taehyung.” Saying his name out loud sent you into that same blend of reminiscence and nostalgia.

His name was not unexplored by your tongue, that much was certain, and the thought of putting your entire life on hold to discover why it felt that way was a tempting venture. Why when he said your name, it felt like sitting in front of a wood-burning fireplace under the security of a green sweater and wrapped in safe arms.

More than that, you wanted to know if he felt all these things too.

“I’ll see you?” You asked instead of saying that dreadful word 'goodbye'.

“I’ll see you.” He repeated before reluctantly hanging up.

“___.” He whispered your name, hoping the inky sky would design it in the stars for the world to remember forever.

Hoping that the next hours, which would surely be spent on multiple sketched renditions of your face, would amount in some revelation of the mystifying familiarity. He believed shedding a few graphite imitations onto the surface of his sketchbook, soaked by the glow of moonlight, would somehow make him remember everything hidden in the dark compartments of his heart.

However, if it didn’t, he would be okay with it. Because at least he knew he would see you again.

“Meeting place: Silver Lining Café.”

“Thank you, Agent Park. Heighten surveillance on the two subjects.”

#bangtanarmynet #btswriterscorner #ficswithluv #btsgoldnet #bts fanfic #bts fluff #bts writing #taehyung series #bts series #taehyung fanfic #taehyung fluff #taehyung x reader #artist!taehyung #rubycoast #emerald dreams: REDACTED

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linuxlife · 5 years

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Linux Life Episode 51

Hello folks as I have managed to get myself a quiet moment it’s time to check in with the blog. As I said I will be a bit more sporadic with the posting here this is due to family situations.

So what have I being doing with Linux since the last episode. Well my Kingston 120GB SSD I was running Linux on decided to have issues and for all of the attempts to save it I had to swap it out and replace it with my Integral 120GB SSD.

Luckily because I don’t keep my home directory on the SSD but on a separate 1TB Seagate hard drive no data was really lost. So I had to re-install Namib Linux onto the new drive. This was a bit odd but I got it working.

The installation went smooth but upon restart GRUB would start and then pixelate the screen as the video didn’t initialise correctly. So I went in using mode 3 to just a text prompt but upon signing in this way MATE actually started which was odd but handy.

At first I could not update as Pamac would not download any of the required 538 updates from the base Namib. So I opened a terminal and tried to use pacman. First attempt using ‘pacman -Syu’ it just sat there after updating the main repositories as it failed to download just as Pamac had.

In the end the way I managed to get it working was to use the ‘pacman -Syyuu’ which forces the update. So finally I managed to get the system updated and working. I also managed to install the Nvidia drivers while I was there and all of the previous programs I was using which luckily was not many as I have been pretty quiet on Linux at the moment.

After installing Grub Customizer from the AUR I was able to put Grub into a mode that I knew would work with my ageing monitor. I really must get a new one although this works it’s an old Dell 19 inch monitor with a max resolution of 1280x800 so it really is showing its age. It works fine however and there is no pixel damage so I really can’t complain.

So within an hour I was back up and running and even managed to get my desktop back including my Cairo Dock at the bottom of the screen with all its icons restored and reworking including the Vulkan drivers and DXVK to get games working through Lutris.

However I have not really been playing games lately but it is nice to have that capability should I start using it.

I have however been messing around with stuff. I was playing with the Previous emulator. If you remember I discussed this NeXT emulator before. Well I managed to get a few programs installed using ISOs of the Peanuts Archive including a few games and a few applications.

I have also been messing around with DosBOX and I decided to have a bit of fun playing with some old programming stuff to see if I can remember any of it. I honestly can’t but I installed Borland Turbo Pascal 6.0 for DOS and Borland Turbo C 3.0 for DOS and I was playing with them.

I vaguely managed to get a basic “Hello World” type program that cleared the screen and then waited for a key press to exit but it took me far longer than it should have as I have totally forgotten how to program Pascal and C++ and to begin with could not even remember the keywords.

This could be because the last time I actually did any programming in DOS has to be more than 25 years ago. However I did have fun playing with them and although it won’t lead to anything serious. Trust me I don’t desire to become a programmer as I just don’t have the patience, it is fun to mess around and do small things with.

I did create their own dosbox.conf files so they auto-start in DosBOX from a launcher and now they sit on my Cairo Dock bar along with everything else. I’m sure in time I will kill them off but for now it keeps me vaguely amused in this tricky time.

So that’s what has been happening in my little Linux world so until next episode. Take care.

#linux life #namib linux #linux arch #DOS #Turbo Pascal #Turbo C++#NeXT systems #Previous emulator #waffle #still here

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kimfifield230-blog · 5 years

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Merge MP3 Information, Online MP3 Joiner

These audio cutter software program program features not solely allow you to trim pointless elements from audio recordsdata, but additionally embody options like multi-format help, segment trimming, merge functionality, and a lot more. Both styles of half-rack device are uncomplicated in design, with Spider Audio being most likely the most straightforward Motive system of all. It supplies two basic circuits: a 4:1 mono or stereo merger designed to merge 4 indicators into one, and a 1:4 stereo splitter designed to separate a single sign into 4 so that it may be sent to four totally different destinations. Front-panel 'LEDs' point out the presence of audio exercise, and that is it for exterior options (see footage above). There aren't even any stage controls for the inputs within the merge circuit. As for computerized routing issues, there aren't any of those both, since the person makes all the connection selections. All tracks will get merged to Track 1. Subsequent is go to the editor and highlight the part of the music that you just wish to merge then hit the Edit button adopted by Copy. After which switch to the succeeding monitor, on the boards editor transfer the cursor merge mp3s at the finish of the track and press Edit > Paste Repeat this process till the whole mp3 information that you just need to merge for you mission is finished. After having a normal idea about this fashionable and simple-to-use MP3 Merger, simply observe the three steps as proven beneath to combine a lot of MP3 files with it.

Free Merge MP3 is a instrument that permits you to merge completely different audio tracks into one single, longer tune the only manner potential: by dragging and dropping. This program actually delivers on what it was designed to do. Nevertheless, there are certain limitations which is able to finally turn some folks off from utilizing it. Whereas there are other packages on the market that help you do comparable points as Merge MP3, it has the clear edge in ease of use. You're continuing to advertise the usage of Podio as a CRM and I can say with confidence that the ability to merge records is a completely primary characteristic of any CRM.

three. With a view to save the merged MP3, select the audio output formats as MP3 within the "Profile" menu and click "Convert" button. After seconds, Merge MP3s you may playback the merged MP3 file on your laptop. When the process completes, it can present a link to download the combination. Besides combing audio recordsdata , the crossfade function of makes the merged songs stream one into another seamlessly. Then, you can reorder some audio blocks to patch a music cowl. Furthermore, as a typical audio editor, WaveShop can lower, trim, merge MP3s, add audio transitions, normalize, amplify, reverse, fade audio, and so on.Audio Joiner is a free online MP3 joiner, which is extremely simple to use for novices. With this forthright assistant, you can get unlimited audio tracks merged with ease. Not just confined to MP3, it's also possible to import more than 300 types of audio codecs, like M4A, OGG, WAV, etc. The obvious will be textual content data, however you'll be able to too merge QuickTime MOV recordsdata (although I've on no account examined this). Handy Audio Editor is a Multi-purposeful software for enhancing your audio recordsdata. Utilizing a program particularly designed to affix MP3 recordsdata with out re-encoding would give barely larger high quality and be faster.Moved: The data on the Merge From file is moved to the Merge To file (i.e., the data is copied, then deleted) because the system can't store the same value twice. This is the case with gifts and appeals. On-line audio cutter and joiner software is straightforward to access and operate, nevertheless it additionally has its disadvantages as described above. If the online apps disappoint you, possibly you may try a desktop audio cutter and merger corresponding to Joyoshare Media Cutter. Freshly signed to Merge Records, Sneaks' Eva Moolchan is poised to maintain issues shifting on and up.Official video for "Kaputt" by Destroyer, taken from the album Kaputt, out now on Merge Information. Simply receive the app in your LAPTOP or Mac and observe our information to study to merge songs collectively utilizing Movavi Video Editor. Official music video for "Would That Not Be Good" by Divine Suits, taken from the album A Issue Known as Divine Fits, out now on Merge Data. You need to use the timecode from an audio grasp clip whenever you create a merged clip. You can even choose to omit the source digital camera audio when creating a merged clip.Files will probably be merged in the order displayed - use the up or down arrows within the toolbar to move tracks up or down the checklist if you want to change this order. Initially, the fields for Monitor, Title and so on are greyed out - if you want to add them, tick the checkbox near the highest left then fill within the particulars as proven above. Added the flexibility to transform merged file into an audiobook format. Merge your music recordsdata into one and convert any audio & video to various formats reminiscent of MP3, AAC, AA3, MP4, AVI, MKV, and so forth. Edit media recordsdata with its built-in editor to fulfill your different demands in easy clicks. Obtain on-line video & audio from YouTube, Fb, Twitter and different 300+ sites. one hundred% free and clean.On the top of the screen, you will see the overview of the 2 information being in contrast. You'll merge the document on the appropriate into the report on the left. If you need to use the document on the correct as the first report, merely click Switch Positions. Click "Merge into one File" field and tap "Convert" when you've gotten chosen the audio format to the consolidated audio file. After profitable conversion, click "Open Folder" to find the combined audio file. The consumer interface is comparatively straightforward to use, but there's a learning curve. The software has a constructed-in audio participant so you'll be able to play complete audio tracks or preview your MP3 slices. In case you have a big recording, Mp3splt produces good outcomes.Someone mentioned on June 26 this did not work for them - the merged file could not be discovered anywhere. I don't know if this was their downside, but I, too, discovered myself in that very same place a few occasions - until I found why that occurred, which turned out to be "my" fault. Once I open my apps, I must click on "Run As Administrator", and the few times I forgot to try this and simply opened the app and tried merging the information, NOTHING occurred - no merger passed off. As quickly as I spotted this, in fact, I re-did the merger by FIRST clicking "Run As Administrator" and all was okay again. So just a thought as to presumably why you may not find the merger anyplace you probably have your "Person Account Management Settings" turned on and need to "Run As Administrator" BEFORE trying to merge files. Hope this "tip" might be of some assistance.

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fardell24b · 4 years

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The Engineer and the Time Lady - Rescue 1.0

9. Rescue

Alpha and the Synth were in Transporter Room 1, along with a replicated coracle, which the Synth would use to board the distressed ship. “Ready for transport?” Alpha asked.

“Yes,” the Synth answered. “I have run through all your scenarios.”

“Very good,” Alpha said as she moved behind the console.

“Energize.”

The Synth materialisd, in the coracle a short distance from the ship. Alpha continued to watch his progress via the probe.

Nina entered the library on her third day of work. Immediately she was called into the head Librarian's office. She could see the expression on her new boss' face. “Is something wrong?”

“Aialah Alera-Kalrea hasn't come in today.”

That was something Nina hadn't expected. “She didn't.”

“I know something of what occurred yesterday,” the Head Librarian divulged. “Including about the book that shouldn't have been loaned.” She shook her head.

“What I suspect is personal, but I have reason to believe she could be in danger.”

“I knew about her and the Mayor's son. So I suspected that something like this could happen,” the Head Librarian got up from behind the desk and paced. “But Aialah is missing and I should have looked out for her more.” She gestured to the pile of paperwork at one end of the desk and sighed.

Nina could see that the Head Librarian took duty of care seriously. It was just as well she had read up on the way this particular society worked. “So, you have informed the Police and the Guild then? Why are you telling me this?”

“The Guild, yes,” the Head Librarian answered. “The Police, not yet. The latter may be more influenced by the Mayor than I like.”

'Of course. It will the Guild leading this investigation,' Nina thought. She just wanted a quiet few days! “So...”

“Given that Aialah confided in you, a little, the Guild wants you to help with the investigation.”

Nina nodded.

The Emergency Away Mission Synthetic analysed the refusal that the crew member had given him. “Why?”

“You have your answer. The Captain won't see you, and we can repair the ship ourselves!”

“I still can repair your ship.”

The crewmember then brandished a sword. “Get off this ship!”

Alpha saw saw the Synth retreat. She supposed she could beam him into the hold, but that was still rather risky from a Prime Directive standpoint. 'There's probably not much choice if the ship is to be saved,' she thought. She wished she had tried to run simulations of external repairs to the hull. She shook her head. There was no way the Synth could have done that.

“Emergency Away Mission Synthetic to Baffin.”

“Alpha here.”

“I was unable to gain entry to the hold.”

“Could you try again?” she asked. A look at the sensor data told her there were crew in the hold. She wasn't sure they would leave it.

“There's a high probability of failure, but I'll try.”

“Is that strange man asking to help repair the ship again?” the Captain asked.

“He is. I should note that the cracks in the hull are getting bigger. We won't be able to save the cargo.”

“Forget the cargo, can all of us escape?”

“Yes, barely. The jollyboats are ready to go.”

“Good. Now, tell that man to go.”

The Synth saw the Mate approaching. “His answer?”

“Clear off. We have the repairs well in hand.”

“I can repair your ship.”

“No!” the mate said, brandishing a sword again.

“Withdraw,” Alpha said.

Nina had worked for a few hours before she was called into the Head Librarian's office again. The local Guild Representative was there. “So, Nina Lumber?”

“That's me.”

“So, Aialah Alera-Kalrea confided in you about why she thought she would get into trouble?”

“Yes.”

The interview went on for a while, during which Nina filled in the Representative on what had happened two days earlier.

“Thanks for the help,” the Representative said.

“I would like her to be found too.”

“Stay at the library after work and I'll fill you in on what has been figured out so far.”

“Sure.”

During her lunch break, Nina went back to the TARDIS. She wondering if she would be able to find Aialah using the Scanner. 'OK, TARDIS, scan the data downloaded so far. Search for Aialah Alera-Kalrea.”

The TARDIS beeped. A picture of Aialah came up. The word Missing was prominent in the poster. 'That didn't help.' But she had barely begun. “Right, the last time she was seen in surveilance footage.”

There was another beep and a video of Aialah and the Mayor's son appeared. The time stamp indicated it was taken the previous night. It was at the city's main train station and they were waiting at the platform.

“Were there trains scheduled last night?”

A list of services to that station came up on the screen. None of them matched the timestamp, which was firmly an hour after the last one. Something had happened to her after that? Locating the Mayor's son would be the next step.

“Search for Karlan Lanronal.”

Mayor Lanronal honors son for services rendered.

'Nepotism!' she thought. The timestamp for the newspaper article was earlier that morning. 'The possibility that she has been spirited away somewhere is high.' She turned her attention back to the surveilance footage. She could see Aialah was distressed. She noted the time stamp. “Jump forwards at one minute intervals. Pause when Aialah disappears.”

Only five minutes later, Aialah was no longer there. But the video also showed a rail motor diappearing into the distance. She was certainly on that. “Bring up the rail network in the city.”

The scanner screen filled up with the diagram of the railway network. There were many abandoned stations and sidings listed. 'A needle in a haystack,' she thought. But there was another way. While the TARDIS was 'tied up', there was another time travel option. The Emergency Subset. Sure, it was meant for emergencies, but it could be used in this instance for a short range hop. She rushed out of the Console Room.

The Emergency Subset room just looked like a barebones Console Room, with cupboards filled with emergency supplies. As she entered, the scanner activated, showing the surveilance footage from that station. The coordinates were set. She breathed deeply as she approached the console. 'Ready!' she thought, as she set the Emergency Subset into motion.

As soon as the Emergency Subset had materialisd, Nina bounded outside. She saw the rail motor clear the platform. 'There has to be a way to track it.' She could either run after it or return to the TARDIS. “What should I do?”

After a moment, she made her decision. She rushed back to the Emergency Subset, and initiated the Return Protocol.

After returning to the TARDIS, Nina noted that only a few minutes had passed. She then went back to the Library.

The afternoon passed slowly, with Nina helping various patrons find books, or online resources. The thought of remaining in the library indefinitely, rather than returning to the Baffin crossed her mind, but she knew she had to return. 'I can always return after they return home,' she thought.

Aolare Palet-Ienae, the Librarian Guild Representative for Naneare - Rladibud, saw Nina Lumber enter the meeting room a few minutes early.

“So, any more news?” Nina asked.

Aolare hesitated. “It is serious. It seems Aialah was kidnapped,” she explained.

“I see,” Nina said.

“I know this is a shock.”

“I want to help.”

“I know you do.”

“So, any evidence?” Nina asked.

“There's plenty of evidence,” Aolare said. “It is circumstatial.”

“Oh!”

“But you're still going to present it to the City Court.”

“Yes.”

“Right,” Nina said with disappointment. It seemed she would need to find Aialah herself.

That evening when she re-entered the TARDIS, Nina called up the diagram of the city's rail network again. That rail motor had to end up somewhere. She also called up the surveilance footage of the rail motor again. 'Locate the rail motor,' she directed.

An icon appeared, indicating that the rail motor had been last spotted at one of the abandoned stations an hour after Aialah's disappearance at the main railway station. She brought up the relevant footage. It showed the rail motor arriving, and Aialah being rough handled off it by several men, including the Mayor's son! She was getting somewhere. 'First, the Guild needs to know. Then I'll try to rescue Aialah from those men!' Nina thought as she saw the rail motor leave again. Probably was stored in a thought abandoned rail shed somewhere, she supposed.

“OK, TARDIS, let the Librarian Guild know. Give them this footage as an anonymous tip.”

The TARDIS 'dinged', the the footage had been sent to the Guild.

“Lead the coordinates into the Emergency Subset,” Nina cried out as she left the Auxillary Console Room. She stopped by a wardrobe and threw on a concealing outfit.

Again, the Emergency Subset left the TARDIS.

The Emergency Subset materialised off to the side of the abandoned station, the sound of that materialisation drowned out by the sound of the poorly maintained rail motor departing. As Nina moved towards Aialah and her kidnappers she could hear the former struggling.

“You won't get away with this!” Aialah cried out.

“Stop!” Nina cried out as she approached, throwing her voice lower so Aialah wouldn't recognise it.

“Get that person!” the Mayor's son called out to his men.

The gang pulled out firearms and started shooting. Nina ducked behind a pillar just in time. Her hearts beat faster as she heard the bullets ricochet off it. 'I didn't think they would be armed!' she thought. She looked back towards the Emergency Subset. She would make it. 'But do I have the phaser?' she wondered. She checked her pockets, but it was obvious the phaser was back in the TARDIS. But she did have a spare tricorder. 'I'll retrieve it later,' she decided. She started it scanning and threw it aside as a distraction.

She ran back to the Emergency Subset as the goons shot at the tricorder.

She returned to the TARDIS and ran back to the Zero Room to try to calm down.

Having spent the night in the Zero Room, Nina returned to the auxillary Console Room in the morning to find that the leaked footage had caused a media frenzy. Most of the outlets were calling for the Mayor to resign. But the Guild hadn't yet found Aialah. 'I'll have breakfast and go to the Library.'

Aolare was approaching Nina's motor home when Nina emerged. “Good. I need to talk to you. That leak may have done more harm than good.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Guild needs to find Aialah before the Police do.”

“Right...” Nina considered.

“Let's go. I've set up an operations center in the Library.”

Nina entered the room in which Aolare was coordinating the search for Aialah. “The team are approaching the abandoned station now, Ma'am,” one of the other librarians said.

“Good,” Aolare said.

Nina breathed deeply.

It was a long day. Hardly any progress was made, except that evidence from the station indicated that Aialah had been taken elsewhere. “Maybe we should try calling in the Mayor's son,” Nina groused as she left the Library.

“No, he'll just stonewall us,” Aolare objected. “We're tracking down the others that were with him.”

“Probably.”

Entering the TARDIS, Nina saw that the download of the network was complete. “I know where Aialah was two nights ago. I can use the TARDIS to rescue her.” But there was a lot of risk in that. She called up the abandoned station.

She grabbed the phaser and then set it to stun and put it on wide beam. She set the TARDIS in motion...

#doctor who #fan fiction #star trek

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impartofthesolution · 4 years

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Hacking Corporate

His body draped over the desk, coffee cup still gripped in his head. The sedative she gave him was working as intended. She slipped through the window she knew he’d open and stood behind him in his office. She set down her case and removed a laptop computer. As it booted up, she carefully unwound the coiled cables and plugged them into their respective ports in the laptop. She didn’t have to work fast, but she had to be perfect. Otherwise, the mission would be a failure, and she could not bear that punishment. The reward for a job well done was a stay of execution, so to speak, such was the Ango Underworld. She didn’t know who this man was, just that he had the clearances she needed. He was someone of enough importance to have access, but not significant enough to be guarded. He was the perfect target. She plugged her computer into the jack on the back of his neck and started hacking through the neural firewalls. This is why she got the job in the first place. Even the most advanced AI firewalls still couldn’t match her superhuman mind. Sure, a computer might crunch raw numbers faster, but she solved complex problems with an ingenuity against which an AI was helpless. It was precisely one minute, twelve seconds until she was in and the body recognized her as natural. It was far better to trick the system than shut it down, but far harder. It wasn’t her fastest work, but she was still far off from killing him. Even insignificant men had data protection protocols in place to kill the host if an unauthorized intrusion was detected. Once in, she set to programming his suggestibility. It was cruel, but she preferred to embed the compulsion to obey into his central nervous system. It wasn’t permanent, no. It worked long enough for her purposes, and then it overwrote itself to code for an allele that makes the person perceive purple whenever he or she sees green. It was her special calling card. His coffee was still warm when she jolted him awake. He jerked upright, spilling his coffee all over the desk and his pant. He looked around wildly. “Freeze, don’t say a word,” she commanded. “Who… AHCK!” he moaned, his hand going to his head. “That’s what will happen if you don’t do exactly what I say. Now listen up.” She was unfazed by his attempt to defy her. They all learned their lesson sooner or later. He settled on glaring at her, and she was fine with that. “I need you to go to the main central processing unit in the subbasement and download the contents of the following folders onto the flash drive I placed on your desk: personnel, clients, transactions, and accounts. Then, bring the flash drive next to me. Nod if you understand.” He continued to glare at her for a few seconds until a pained expression crossed his face. He nodded slowly. “Good,” she continued. “I thought you would. I’m leaving a pistol on your desk. You are to shoot anyone who tries to stop you. Don’t even think about shooting me.” He continued to glare at her as his put a hand to his head. His head started to shake. “Stop it before you hurt yourself,” she demanded. “You have to understand that if you try to disobey me, you will feel intense pain. This will all be better if you just follow my directions. Now, you may speak.” “Go to hell. I know who you are, majo.” “Then you also know who I work for. You know you have to follow my orders, or things will go very bad for us both.” “Why me?” he grumbled. “Ahh, well, that question is above my paygrade.” She made a play of checking her wristwatch for the time, even though she wasn’t wearing one. “I think it’s time for us to begin, don’t you?” “Not at all.” “But you do think it’s time to begin.” “I…. do.” “Yayy!” she cheered quietly. “How exciting. Here’s your gun. Remember, don’t shoot me or yourself. Act normal. Only shoot someone if he tries to stop you.” He glared at her but gave up resisting. He stood stiffly, his pants still wet from the coffee. He grabbed flash drive and the gun. Without dropping his scowl, he walked haltingly towards the door to his office. “Normal,” she reminded him. “So conceal the gun.” He did and resumed walking with a somewhat more pleasant expression. She never ceased to be satisfied by how effective a motivator pain was. When she was little, a hacker could mind control someone from a distance. However, with the advances in security technology, a hardwired connection was the only way to go. Since it was infeasible to walk behind him with a cord sticking out of his head, she had to get creative with a semi-permanent solution. It would wear off, and he’d eventually stop being her puppet. She wouldn’t stick around long enough to see that. She turned back to her laptop and watched the man’s progress through the building from the mini camera she attached to his belt while he was unconscious. So far, he was sticking to the plan. He got out of the elevator in the basement. From the looks of it, the elevator only went so far. He’d have to cross the basement and take the steps to reach the subbasement. Halfway down the hall, a man opened a door and greeted her man. She hoped for everyone’s sakes that he’d act normal from the get-go. “Hey, Jeremy. Long time no see. Gosh, ever since I was promoted and they moved me down to the basement.” The man chuckled. Her man, Jeremy, responded. “Oh, yeah. Has it really been that long, Hiro? You haven’t forgotten us upstairs, have you?” They both laughed. Good, it seemed Jeremy could act normal. “Uh oh, it looks like you’ve got something on your pants.” “It’s nothing. It’ll dry.” “You look ridiculous. Come to my office. I have a spare pair of pants you can change into.” He began to usher Jeremy into his office, and Jeremy put his hands up. “I’m kind of in a hurry here.” “Stop it. You’re acting weird. Come have a drink of my junmai ginjo. I’ve been looking for a good reason to break it out.” “Uh oh,” the woman at the laptop muttered to herself. She liked pain, but she didn’t care for a complication. Every time someone had to die, it was a complication. Sure enough, Jeremy pulled out his gun and aimed it at Hiro. “Woah!” Hiro put his hands up and started backing up. “What’s gotten into you?” “I… I…” Jeremy tried to talk. He shook his head and re-trained his gun on his old friend. “I think I have to kill you.” “You definitely do not have to kill me.” Hiro kept his hands up while his eyes narrowed. “No, tell me it’s not true.” He watched Jeremy’s gun waver. Then, Jeremy flinched and steadied it again. “You’ve been hacked!” Fear played clearly across his face. “Oh, Jeremy,” he lamented as he continued to back up into his office, Jeremy following. “I can’t… I can’t let you push that button,” said Jeremy. His words, pistol, and expression were at odds with each other. “Why not? We can have you sedated in a minute, and you won’t be in pain anymore.” Desire crept across Jeremy’s expression, and he lowered the gun. Two seconds, and he had to put his hands to his head and point the gun back at Hiro. “You can’t believe how much it hurts. There’s so much pressure. As long as I do what she says, it goes away. I just want this to be over.” “But you’re betraying all of us.” “Don’t think I don’t know that,” Jeremy growled. The effort was clear on his face. His body told him he should have pulled the trigger a minute ago. Still, he was fighting it. “Let me help you.” Hiro slowly reached for a button on his desk phone. Jeremy still wasn’t shooting him. He started bleeding out of his nose. “Hang in there.” He pressed the button. “I can’t do it. I can’t. It hurts so much.” Jeremy walked towards Hiro, gun extended, until the gun was touching Hiro’s chest. The blood was flowing from Jeremy’s nose. The woman could hero footsteps and voices approaching. Her operation was blown. Packing up her equipment quick, she hurried out of the office to pursue Plan B. It was desperate, but it was this or face her boss a failure. Down in the basement, Jeremy could finally hear the footsteps of the guards rushing down the hall over the pounding in his head. “I can’t… hold on.” Then he screamed. There was a large pop and he fell over, a few wisps of black smoke coming from his head. Hiro’s face hardened as the guards burst in and noticed Jeremy dead on the floor. Hiro spoke, “we have a hacker, and she has failed. She is trying Plan B. Be ready.” Back to Table of Contents (x)

#Horror Vignettes #October2020 #A little This Mortal Coil a little Ghost in the Shell a little Sairento #corporate espionage #hacking #neural hacking #writings

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memozing · 5 years

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#online learning

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bsleycasestudies · 5 years

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Resy

Portfolio: Resy

I spent a year at Resy, helping them relaunch their guest experience on iOS and Android. I've taken a stab at summing up what me and my team did below.

I left Starbucks in January 2018 to join the Resy team in New York. I'd worked with my friends at Canlis for years and gotten a glimpse of what good software could do to a dining experience and buisness. Resy and only a few other players were at the center of that.

In the reservation space, OpenTable had long been a monopoly and Resy was challenging the behemoth, going after some of the best restaurants in America.

Resy had spent most of their time focusing on their primary product: the restaurant app itself. Reservations, hosts, and servers used Resy to take reservations, cater to guests, and organize their inventory for years. This was the bread and butter and what ultimately sat at the center of their business proposition.

The next big step for Resy was the guest side of things. The iOS and Android app had been largely underserved and the user experience hadn't seen much change since its launch.

I worked along side of John Neidermeyer, on the heels of the work he and the engineering team did in relaunching a new resy.com. I began revisiting their iOS and Android apps for the best reservation experience and updating the whole suite to feel like one cohesive brand. I dig into some specific features below.

I worked closely with the Tomor Molovinsky (Product Manager), Tobin Schwaiger-Hastanan (iOS), and Rob Glover (Android) to prioritize where we wanted to put our focus the most. Core parts of the app were litered with dsyfunction and we had to juggle a big pile of low hanging fruit along with some bigger aspirations like a rewards model and smart ways of personalizing the app.

Component-Based Design:

Product designers tend to like systems but beyond a loose ideal, I learned the value of a component-based design system at Starbucks. I was at the center of developing a design system for our web and ultimately all native platforms.

First on the list at Resy, regardless of the feature we needed to tackle was to reign in dozens and dozens of styles and build a small system of reuable parts. This included typography, color, UI components and some rules around when we used custom components vs. just relying on tried and true native interactions.

The challenge was that iOS and Android had a wildly different look and feel from the newly redesigned resy.com. We wanted to leap forward into the future of what the app could be but we also didn't want to c reate scenarios where brand new screens that looked entirely different than a screen you'd just screen would disorient you and ultimately impact our user e xperience.

The compromise was to settle on an interim design languagen that used the same font as the existing UI and a dark theme. Later, I'd go through these same set of components and revisit them to reflect the visual choices on resy.com. In fact, this was consistently updated in tandem.

Performance:

Resy app was built when Resy was small. So many of the issues we had were a direct result of growth that wasn't kept up with. It's a soapbox of mine, but user experience isnt limited to visuals and the things a designer is typically assigned to. In this case, our biggest issue was performance, specifically when you opened the app. I worked with Kevin Schumacher and other back end engineers to take our 16+ second load time down to 4. From there, Tobin and I built in ways to load the content incrementally, not letting things like large images and big map areas block loading content that could be immediately visible.

As far as features go, we started with the top. A lot of users were bouncing due to a difficult sign in process which required an email, full name, location etc just to look at what restaurants we had in the app. I simplified this a ton, asking for just a phone number, then using Twillio to send the user a code, that they could easily pop into their app and become a user immediately. This increased new user conversion a ton, drove up our app store ratings, and gave us a much more dependable phone number for guests that we'd later use for reservation confirmations.

You can see this feature live by downloading the Resy app here: XXXXX

Profile:

There was a lot of appetite for change in the app but when it came to making big shifts in the UI, allegiance to the way things were became a barrier to getting things done. One of the ways me and my team navigated this was by choosing a relatively isolated part of the app, Profile and proving we could make big, meaningful improvements without interupting the core experience of browsing restaurants. I have Tomer to credit for driving this strategy.

Profile was all the obvious things you'd expect under "Account" but also managing your reservations, past and present. The existing screen was a flyout menu of titled sections. The terms in many titles were unclear and the most important actions a user would want to take were buried under a couple taps. I worked with real users in testing and data from Mixpanel to identify key actions and figure out a way to elevate those beyond just browsing a heirarchy.

This also required revisiting the whole information a rchitecture and parent/child relationships within Profile. I used a tree test to validate and investigate multiple different models of organizing the sections before landing on the one Resy uses today. Listening to the language real users used to describe their actions was key to clear labels and easy to find actions.

You can see this feature live by downloading the Resy app here: XXXXX

Map vs. List:

This interaction was tough. We explored a bunch of different models. Tested them in coffee shops. Used principle.

Search:

Before leaving Resy to work at Goodthings, my last feature was Search.

Reccomendations

Autocomplete

Filters

Sort

Testing different models of re-arranging the screen.

Everything is search!

Tada!

big image to tie it up.

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jumpgap · 5 years

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iAllowance 3.0

After 8.5 years, it’s time for a big change.

For those of you that are not familiar with iAllowance, it’s an iOS app for managing your kid’s finances. This includes keeping track of their money, tracking allowances and helping get chores done and motivate kids to work toward earning rewards.

The main driver for me to write this blog post was to communicate the big changes that are coming in iAllowance 3.0 and why some things took so long. Before I can do that, we need to cover a little history.

History

iAllowance is almost 9 years old. It’s so old, that when it came out, the current iPhone was the iPhone 3G and the iPad was brand new. It was also during that time when putting a small ‘i’ in front of names was the ‘thing’ to do.

iAllowance 3.0 (2019)

iAllowance 1.0 (2010)

The app started with humble beginnings as I was looking for a way to manage my kids finances — who where 13 and 9 at the time. In the early days of the App Store, there just weren’t that many choices (unlike today). I tried to manage things with a spreadsheet but that didn’t work. I tried to use real money in separate piggy banks but that was a big problem too as I always forgot to make the payments and handling physical money was cumbersome.

I had a programming background and was already dabbling with iOS apps (then called iPhone OS) so I decided to write my own app and after several months of work, iAllowance was born as an iPad only app.

iAllowance also started as a virtual bank only for money. Based on feedback, chores and rewards were added. Later came tracking stars and time in addition to money.

The iPhone version came later as I didn’t think the app could work well on the iPhone. Ironically, I prefer the iPhone version layout better than the iPad today. Another big reason why I waited on the iPhone version was that I knew that if I released both an iPad and iPhone version, they would need to sync all the information between the devices.

Sync is hard.

Dropbox Sync

When I sat down to work on sync 8+ years ago, I had to make some choices. How would the data in your app get from device to device. At that time, there wasn’t services like iCloud or inexpensive server storage to host your data in the cloud.

I also wanted to keep your data private. This was important to me. After a lot of looking, I found that I could ‘sync’ by using a shared Dropbox account.

In the early days, this really wasn’t a true sync. It literally copied your entire database (Apple CoreData Database) into Dropbox and copied to back to the device when the data in Dropbox was newer. When you launched the app, you would need to wait for it to do it’s thing before you could do anything else.

In the early days, this worked pretty well — until it didn’t.

With each release of iOS and Dropbox, things got less and less stable. Customers were finding data loss or their database would get corrupted and I would need to help them manually fix it — this was bad. It became clear after about 5 years that my old way of ‘syncing’ just wasn’t going to work for much longer.

I needed a different plan.

Ensembles Sync

I found a commercially available syncing engine called Ensembles. Ensembles brought me closer to a true sync. It allowed me to use my existing customer’s database on the device and use the same Dropbox backend for sharing the data but it didn’t copy the entire database. Instead it handled the sync between changes made on various devices.

This was a huge improvement. It allowed the app to sync when it started but you could continue to work while it did it’s thing. Also, my problem with database corruption was gone.

By every measure it was a better way to sync. It also allowed me to add iCloud as a syncing option — which was both a good and bad thing.

As for this post, iAllowance uses Ensembles to sync. Most of the time it works pretty well — until it doesn’t. The biggest problem that some of my customers have is that data between devices gets out of sync. There is different data on different devices — which is a big problem. Also, after using the app for many months, the sync could really slow down to the point where it really wasn’t syncing anymore.

Once again, I needed a different plan.

True Cloud Sync

For the past several months, I’ve been working on converting this 9 year old app over to put your data in the cloud — a Google service called Firebase to be exact.

When the next version comes out (see below about getting involved in testing the BETA), the app will ask you to create a free, secure iAllowance account using a simple email and password. Once created, your local data will be migrated up to the cloud and it will live there moving forward.

Your need for a local database — gone. Your need for Dropbox — gone. Your need for common iTunes accounts — gone. Your need to wait for the app to sync — gone. Your need to purchase more than one in-app purchase because of Family Sharing — gone. Your fear of having the app deleted and having your data deleted with it — gone.

With iAllowance 3.0, your data is always, safe, secure up to date. In fact, you can have the app open on 2 different devices; make a change on one device and the second device will update almost instantly — which in 2019, this behavior is expected. I put together a little video below showing the setup and sync in action.

youtube

No Longer Handcuffed

With the current sync and database structure, the app has been handcuffed for a very long time. There have been many things I’ve wanted to do to improve the app but couldn’t without breaking things.

Now that iAllowance is in the cloud, those handcuffs are gone. I’m free to start moving the app forward again.

There are big things coming to iAllowance but immediately you will see things that you expect in a modern app — swipe to delete, drag and drop, and multitasking support on the iPad.

However, as 3.0 develops over 2019, look forward to things like an Apple Watch app. A Today Widget. Remote Push Notifications when chores are completed on other devices (not possible with the old sync). And many more.

3.0 BETA

If you are interested in giving the BETA a try, you can sign up here through Apple’s TestFlight BETA program. There is no need to sign up. Just pick which version of iAllowance you want and click on the link.

You have a couple of options depending on what you want to do:

iAllowance Paid Up Front Version: https://testflight.apple.com/join/uJIqc7wi

iAllowance Free Version (with or with out In-App Upgrade): https://testflight.apple.com/join/JYUs7GbF

BETA Expectations

After updating and running the app, you will be presented with a popup. What popup you get depends on if you are an existing user of iAllowance or not.

If you are an existing user you will be prompted to create a free iAllowance account with an email and password. Once created, your data will be upgraded to the new cloud system. Depending on how much data you have, this could take up to 2–3 minutes. Most upgrades should take about 20–30 seconds. (PLEASE BE PATIENT AND LEAVE THE APP RUNNING.) It is in this area that I need the most of your feedback.

After the upgrade, things should look ‘normal’ with your existing data. Look over your data carefully and make sure nothing is missing. If you see something that didn’t transfer properly, please report it immediately to [email protected]

If you’re a new user, you will still be asked to create a login. After that, you will be able to setup the app with your kids.

If this is being installed on a secondary device, you will see the option to log in to an existing iAllowance account. Once logged in, your data will just appear. (See the video above.)

After the upgrade, it may take a few seconds to download your data. It is stored locally so things should appear to speed up after that.

If you run into any problems, you can get your old data back. Simply re-install the app from the App Store and your old data will appears. DO NOT DELETE THE APP.

That said, any changes you make to the app after the upgrade will be lost and your data will revert back to the state you had it in prior to installing the BETA.

Please report all problems and issues to [email protected]

Known Issues:

The search is not enabled.

What Happens After The BETA?

After the app is released into the App Store, you will be able to simply update the app and you will be good to go.

If you are using the paid version of iAllowance BETA and haven’t purchased the app, your BETA will expire after 90 days and you will need to update the app to keep using it. Updating to the released version will require that you pay for the app. This is a one-time purchase. No subscriptions needed.

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computingondemand · 8 years

Text

How to Install Nextcloud on Ubuntu Server

New Article has been published on http://computingondemand.com/install-nextcloud-ubuntu-server/

How to Install Nextcloud on Ubuntu Server

There are a lot of things Windows Server does well. However, coming off of the NAS environment, there are a lot of things that it doesn’t. One of these is a simple method for web access to various files and folders, along with the ability to share them via user login or simple url. Until recently, there had been only one real player in this space, OwnCloud. I had fiddled with the product for some time, but features were slow to show and it just didn’t work the way I had been hoping it would.

When I had finished the last server build, I had been looking for a way to simply address the needs that QNAP had been fulfilling for me with ease. With MyQNAPCloud I could easily share files or folders without issue. While on the hunt for the latest release of OwnCloud, I hit Google and just tried something. I tried “OwnCloud vs” and let the magic of Google happen. That is how I found Nextcloud.

While I won’t get into how Nextcloud came to be, I will tell you that there are a ton of similarities between the two products. When you do some research, it will become clear why that is. However, that is neither here nor there, the product is attractive, seamless, but a major pain in the … to get running. As usual, the best things in life are on linux. With that in mind, I created a Hyper-V hosting Ubuntu Server LTS 16.04 and started my journey.

Much of what I detail out here will be under the assumption that you have a CLEAN Ubuntu LAMP server up and running. For me, Hyper-V was a quick and logical start, but that doesn’t limit you to anything. Feel free to run VirtualBox, VMWare, or dedicated hardware.

Considerations

Before you build out your virtual machine for this install, there are some considerations to make. For instance, you need to plan for the amount of space that your VM will occupy. For me, it is easy, all my folders reside on another server, so a 100GB virtual hard drive is overkill. I have seen some “paid” for preconfigured VMs running around in 500GB and 1TB flavors.

System Requirements

(Taken Directly from Nextcloud.com)

Memory

Memory requirements for running an Nextcloud server are greatly variable, depending on the numbers of users and files, and volume of server activity. Nextcloud needs a minimum of 128MB RAM, and we recommend a minimum of 512MB.

Recommended Setup for Running Nextcloud For best performance, stability, support, and full functionality we recommend:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 / Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

MySQL/MariaDB

PHP 7.0 +

Apache 2.4 with mod_php

Supported Platforms

Server: Linux (Debian 7, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 & 12, Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 6.5 and 7 (7 is 64-bit only), Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS)

Web server: Apache 2 (mod_php, php-fpm) or Nginx (php-fpm)

Databases: MySQL/MariaDB 5.5+; PostgreSQL; Oracle 11g (currently only possible if you contact us <https://nextcloud.com/enterprise> as part of a subscription)

PHP 5.6 + required

Hypervisors: Hyper-V, VMware ESX, Xen, KVM

Desktop: Windows XP SP3 (EoL Q2 2015), Windows 7+, Mac OS X 10.7+ (64-bit only), Linux (CentOS 6.5, 7 (7 is 64-bit only), Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS, 14.10, Fedora 20, 21, openSUSE 12.3, 13, Debian 7 & 8).

Mobile apps: iOS 7+, Android 4+

Web browser: IE11+, Microsoft Edge, Firefox 14+, Chrome 18+, Safari 7+

Database Requirements for MySQL / MariaDB

The following is currently required if you’re running Nextcloud together with a MySQL / MariaDB database:

Disabled or BINLOG_FORMAT = MIXED configured Binary Logging (See: MySQL / MariaDB with Binary Logging Enabled)

InnoDB storage engine (MyISAM is not supported)

“READ COMMITED” transaction isolation level (See: Database “READ COMMITED” transaction isolation level)

Installing Ubuntu Server

Download: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/thank-you?version=16.04.1&architecture=amd64

Walking through the standard install, for the most part, is a series of next and enter clicks. There isn’t much excitement. After you get past choosing your language, Install Ubuntu Server.

The installation will guide you through a series of pretty standard questions:

Once the additional components are completed, it is time to pick your system’s hostname. If you don’t know, a hostname is a label assigned to a device for identification. I named mine “nextcloud”, but while creating this tutorial, I left the default in place.

The username and password you choose are completely up to you. Make them something you will not forget!

When asked the next few questions, the easiest way to go is with the defaults, that is until you get to Paritition Disks.

Partition disks, Yes. Full Size, Yes. Write Changes, Yes. Proxy, continue.

Choosing whether Ubuntu will install updates automatically is up to you, this is something you can change.

Software selection is the start. Here, the easiest way to proceed is to select LAMP, SAMBA, OpenSSH.

If you selected the previous recommendations, you will eventually be asked for a MySQL password. Pick a password that is easy to remember but hard enough to guess.

Install GRUB

As your installation finishes, it is important to take note that you have a basic install of Ubuntu Server. This is not a hardened version nor are there any security considerations made. Security is not something to take lightly and there are plenty of threads on many great sites that can get you going.

Installing Nextcloud

Once your system has rebooted, the fun work of installing Nextcloud can begin. I would like to start off by saying, I am not the author of this entire process. While some of it is mine, I have also collected the information from various websites and collected them into a single tutorial.

Log into your system with the username and password you provided during your install.

When you first log into your server, you will be dropped in your user’s home directory. The path for this will be, by default, /home/username

There are a few modules that Nextcloud will need

sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev php-zip php-dom php-xmlwriter php-xmlreader php-gd php-curl php-mbstring

Let’s start by fetching the latest build, available at the time of this tutorial, of Nextcloud

wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/nextcloud-11.0.1.tar.bz2

Now, we need mod_rewrite

a2enmod rewrite

Restart Apache

sudo service apache2 reload

Once the download has completed, let’s untar.

tar -vxjf nextcloud-11.0.1.tar.bz2

Move the folder to /var/www. When you first run “sudo” you will have to re-enter your password.

sudo mv nextcloud /var/www

If you plan on connecting Nextcloud to your Windows Server, like I am, you will have to make sure you have Samba installed and configured. In my efforts, I have found that SMB2 is required for Nextcloud to function properly.

sudo apt-get install smbclient php-smbclient

Change the configuration of samba for SMB2

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

When the file opens, you will have to add teh following lines under [global]

max protocol = SMB2 client max protocol = SMB2

To exit the editor CTRL-X and click Y to confirm, then Enter to save

Create the apache configuration file

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/nextcloud.conf

Paste the following into the file and save.

Alias /nextcloud "/var/www/nextcloud/"

Alias /nextcloud “/var/www/nextcloud/” Options +FollowSymlinks AllowOverride All Dav off

SetEnv HOME /var/www/nextcloud SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/nextcloud

To exit the editor CTRL-X and click Y to confirm, then Enter to save

Create a symbolic link for apache

sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/nextcloud.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/nextcloud.conf

Enable the apache modules required for Nextcloud.

sudo a2enmod headers

restart apache

sudo service apache2 reload

Create the DB for Nextcloud

sudo mysql -u root -p

When prompted, enter the password your created for your database during the install

Create the user for your database. In the example below, I chose nextcloud as the password for the user nextclouduser. DO NOT USE THAT PASSWORD! Create your own password.

CREATE USER nextclouduser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'nextcloud';

Grant all privileges for that user

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON nextcloud.* TO nextclouduser@localhost;

Exit

Secure and provide write abilities for Nextcloud (nextcloud in the example below is the username I chose during install)

sudo nano /home/nextcloud/grantperm.sh

Paste the following

#!/bin/bash ocpath='/var/www/nextcloud' htuser='www-data' htgroup='www-data' rootuser='root'

printf “Creating possible missing Directories\n” mkdir -p $ocpath/data mkdir -p $ocpath/updater

printf “chmod Files and Directories\n” find $ocpath/ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0640 find $ocpath/ -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0750

printf “chown Directories\n” chown -R $rootuser:$htgroup $ocpath/ chown -R $htuser:$htgroup $ocpath/apps/ chown -R $htuser:$htgroup $ocpath/config/ chown -R $htuser:$htgroup $ocpath/data/ chown -R $htuser:$htgroup $ocpath/themes/ chown -R $htuser:$htgroup $ocpath/updater/

chmod +x $ocpath/occ

printf “chmod/chown .htaccess\n” if [ -f $ocpath/.htaccess ] then chmod 0644 $ocpath/.htaccess chown $rootuser:$htgroup $ocpath/.htaccess fi if [ -f $ocpath/data/.htaccess ] then chmod 0644 $ocpath/data/.htaccess chown $rootuser:$htgroup $ocpath/data/.htaccess fi

To exit the editor CTRL-X and click Y to confirm, then Enter to save

Grant execution privileges

sudo chmod +x grantperm.sh

Run the script

sudo ./grantperm.sh

Open a browser, navigate to the IP address or hostname of the server you just completed to finalize the Nextcloud install

http://ipaddress/nextcloud

If you don’t know the IP address of the machine, you can use ifconfig to find it

ifconfig

Fill in the required fields and enjoy. If you followed this tutorial to the letter, pick a username and password for nextcloud admin

Database user: nextclouduser Password: nextcloud Database: nextcloud Database host: localhost

There are more things to do, for instance, there are a ton of security concerns to consider. There are also caching recommendations. I also highly recommend that you consider using https for your server.

Caching: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/11/admin_manual/configuration_server/caching_configuration.html Security: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/11/admin_manual/configuration_server/harden_server.html Backups: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/11/admin_manual/maintenance/backup.html

#Featured #File Sharing #NextCloud #OwnCloud #Ubuntu

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glammaaqilah · 4 years

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The New York Times

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TikTok Said to Be Under National Security Review

The review comes after lawmakers raised concerns about TikTok’s growing influence in the United States.

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Over the past 12 months, TikTok’s app has been downloaded more than 750 million times.Credit...Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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By Jack Nicas, Mike Isaac and Ana Swanson

Nov. 1, 2019

The United States government has opened a national security review of a Chinese company’s acquisition of the American company that became TikTok, the hugely popular short-form video app, according to people briefed on the inquiry.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal panel that reviews foreign acquisitions of American firms on national-security grounds, is now reviewing the two-year-old deal after lawmakers raised concerns about TikTok’s growing influence in the United States, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was confidential. One of the people said that the American government had evidence of the app sending data to China.

The move is the latest in a back and forth between the United States and China, which are enmeshed in a global competition for technological dominance that has begun to cleave the high-tech world in two and start what some analysts refer to as a new Cold War.

ByteDance, a seven-year-old company based in Beijing, acquired Musical.ly in November 2017 for $800 million to $1 billion. At the time, Musical.ly, an app popular with teenagers to make homemade karaoke videos, had about 60 million users in the United States and Europe. ByteDance said it would keep Musical.ly separate from its family of Chinese apps. Less than a year later, ByteDance merged Musical.ly with its similar service, called TikTok, and the result has since become one of world’s fastest-growing apps and a global cultural phenomenon.

Over the past 12 months, TikTok’s app has been downloaded more than 750 million times, more than Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, according to the research firm Sensor Tower.

“While we cannot comment on ongoing regulatory processes, TikTok has made clear that we have no higher priority than earning the trust of users and regulators in the U.S.,” a ByteDance spokesman said in an email. “Part of that effort includes working with Congress, and we are committed to doing so.” TikTok does not send any user data to China, he added.

Reuters earlier reported the review by the federal panel, known as CFIUS, of the Musical.ly acquisition.

China blocks many foreign companies from openly existing online in the country, but Chinese companies that have developed cutting-edge technologies are growing more popular around the world. Many lawmakers and Trump administration officials see the trend as a threat to American national security and the economy, and they have set up numerous barriers to stop Chinese firms from acquiring American data and technology.

The Trump administration prevented the Singapore-based Broadcom from purchasing Qualcomm, an American chip-maker, and quashed deals like Ant Financial’s bid for Moneygram.

President Trump has also placed Huawei and other Chinese tech firms on a blacklist that blocks them from purchasing American products over national security and human rights concerns. He has also imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion of Chinese products in a trade war that was at least partly in response to Chinese theft of American intellectual property.

U.S. government officials have been particularly alarmed by the implications of China’s 2017 national intelligence law, which contains sweeping language that requires companies to comply with intelligence gathering operations, if asked. Chinese officials have pushed back against these assertions, saying that companies should comply with local laws while abroad.

On TikTok, users create and share short, inventive videos and bizarre memes, an endless scroll of clips that has been called “the last sunny corner on the internet.” The vast majority of its footage comes from Western users, in large part because TikTok isn’t available in mainland China; ByteDance instead offers a highly similar service there called Douyin.

But TikTok’s Chinese connections and growing popularity in the United States have drawn new concern in Washington after news reports highlighted that there were few signs of the Hong Kong protests on the app and that TikTok moderators were instructed to censor videos that featured a number of political themes.

ByteDance has said that the Chinese government does not order it to censor content on TikTok. The spokesman said that the app’s content policies are led by a team in the United States and are not influenced by any government.

“To be clear: we do not remove videos based on the presence of Hong Kong protest content,” a ByteDance spokesman said.

A former content moderator for TikTok said in an interview that managers in the United States had instructed moderators to hide videos that included any political messages or themes, not just those related to China. The moderator spoke on the condition of anonymity because he didn’t want to speak publicly about a former employer while seeking another job in the tech industry.

The moderator said that the policy was to allow such political posts to remain on users’ profile pages but to prevent them from being shared more widely in TikTok’s main video feed. The person said that while moderators were told to censor racy videos, such as those featuring scantily clad women, in Muslim countries, he never received specific instructions to censor content related to China.

The ByteDance spokesman said the company had recently changed the policy restricting political videos and called the previous rules a blunt approach intended to keep the app fun.

Last month, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who leads CFIUS, urging him to open a national security review of ByteDance’s purchase of Muscial.ly.

“There continues to be ample and growing evidence that TikTok’s platform for Western markets, including those in the U.S., is censoring content that is not in line with the Chinese Government and Communist Party directives,” Mr. Rubio wrote.

Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Senate minority leader, said the security review was “validation of our concern that apps like TikTok — that store massive amounts of personal data accessible to foreign governments — may pose serious risks to millions of Americans.”

Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said that new guidelines passed by Congress last year about personal data clearly indicate that CFIUS should review the purchase. He said the companies would likely have to take steps to convince the administration that American data would be secure.

“It’s a large transaction, it’s a tech transaction, and it does involve American users transferring data to a Chinese firm,” Mr. Scissors said. “I don’t see how they get away with not taking some sort of mitigation here.”

The ByteDance spokesman said the company hired a consulting firm in Colorado called Special Counsel to analyze TikTok’s app to understand where it sent user data.

Data about TikTok users, including their videos, names, dates of birth and other information, was stored exclusively on computer servers in Virginia and Singapore, said Douglas Brush, who led the analysis for Special Counsel. He added that in the analysis from July to October, which included interviews with TikTok employees and a review of the app’s underlying computer code, his team found no way TikTok could send data to China during those months.

ByteDance has tried to build its relationships in Washington amid the growing scrutiny. TikTok has joined NetChoice, a trade association that has been aggressive in pushing back on critics of tech companies. One of Bytedance’s own staff members registered to lobby for the company this summer. The company also hired the powerful corporate law firm Covington & Burling — whose clients include Facebook, among others — to advocate on its behalf.

In total, ByteDance spent $120,000 on its federal lobbying operation last quarter, according to a public disclosure posted last week.

TikTok announced last month that it was working with the law firm K&L Gates on its moderation policies, and it joined a nonprofit organization focused on children’s online safety. In February, ByteDance agreed to pay a $5.7 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission to settle accusations that Musical.ly illegally collected information on users under 13.

“We’ve just gotten started,” said Bart Gordon, the K&L Gates partner working with TikTok, on Friday.

David McCabe contributed reporting.

Jack Nicas covers technology from San Francisco. Before joining The Times, he spent seven years at The Wall Street Journal covering technology, aviation and national news. @jacknicas • Facebook

Mike Isaac is a technology reporter based in San Francisco. He covers Uber, Facebook and Twitter, among other companies. He previously worked for Re/Code, AllThingsD and WIRED, and began his career writing about music for Paste Magazine and Performer. @MikeIsaac • Facebook

Ana Swanson is a trade reporter in the Washington bureau. She previously worked at The Washington Post, where she covered trade, the Federal Reserve and the economy. @AnaSwanson

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virtualdesignstudio · 4 years

Text

Monday 30th March

MONDAY 30TH MARCH:

WHAT’S THE PLAN FOR THIS WEEK?

EI: The site’s getting there. We have two pages, one for Text, and one for a homepage. There’s a few minor issues with formatting/sizing etc, but on the whole it’s looking okay. Let’s get a domain name and try putting it online… Let’s get that done by 12pm… 11:16

EI: I bought the domain name thevds.xyz and have managed to get the homepage up! Next step is to make the links work, and fix the ‘virtual design studio’ page, which is essentially the about page! 13:55

WEDNESDAY 1ST APRIL: DISCUSSING THE TO DO LIST.

EI: how do we make a data dictionary for the virtual design studio? 13:59

TF: It turns out this is something that I've been thinking about on and off over the last few years. Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about having a data dictionary for the UDK, and of course this could lead to a community designed data dictionary. I figured it was worth another shot and looked for some data that would be appropriate for the virtual design studio. The first thing I looked at was the Illumination wiki, which provides an enormous amount of data about your design studio from all of your major tools, as well as some secondary (Gif, audio, etc.) data. The key lines are where to find all of this stuff – Sb (not sure what that stands for.. 14:00

EI: A Community designed data dictionary, huh? That could be good… I’ll have a look at the illumination Wiki. 14:03

EI: I’m not sure which Illumination wiki in particular you’re referring to- one seems to be a media company. I wonder what data can be derived from our major tools… GIF, Audio are definitely good starting points. But there do we start for the VDS? 14:05

TF: Well as we've mentioned already this idea is to create graphics from scratch. Basically with Photoshop. Or any other design program. That could be Photoshop. Illustrator. Krita. Inkscape. We should start with our graphical objects and tools like sketch, photo. Create our own ideas as we went along and turn these into usable images that our business or team can use. You don't have to be an artist to do this. (I can only do vector graphics so that's what I'm doing currently but it's pretty simple if you want to try something new.) 14:06

EI: How can you make vector graphics? You’re just a transformer. 14:07

TF: Of course, being a transformer, you can change into a graphic design. Though, remember, there are other ways to spend your time. Just look at the tools that are available today, say, the ones that you will receive when you register for the first CSS Boot Camp. 14:08

EI: I've already made some graphics for the Virtual Design Studio identity on illustrator and exported them as SVG for the website. I'm wondering how to create more narratives or contexts for new graphics/images and drawings, and what that might look like. What do you think? 14:10

TF: Any suggestions for ideas for a logo for Level 9? 14:11

EI: what’s level 9 of the virtual design studio, and why does it need a logo? 14:11

TF: Not all designers, yes; but some. We want to increase the competence level of our teams. Level 9 is there for the team's daily needs.

Also the big "The Vision" found at the top. We just wanted to say, what's the vision? How can we make the website better? How can we improve things? What have you learnt?

Design your own logo. If you have questions, contact the design team, as we can answer them. This is one way of supporting the team. Your favourite logo design tool? Rebrand your company! And why not? It's not like we don't support our own 14:13

EI: Ok, so let's get back to the team members of the virtual design studio. There's Emma the Human, Botnik, Transformer. What other skills and people might we need? 14:14

TF: No one would even know if anyone could be an asset to our company.So let's continue the various stuff I did to get bots to work:

Demo the different options for setting the shots. I got a robot that was so hard to handle that I couldn't see why the team was spending so much time working on it.

Here's some sample example footage of Botnik in action:

What's the problem I asked myself in these experiments? How do I get a robot to move at the right speed and consistently? 14:15

EI: But if we think about it, we need *other* skills; we need to outsource things we aren’t already doing. Like drawing for example. Let’s find an intelligence who is an expert at drawing, and ask them to help us generate some stuff. Only question is, what are we generating and why? 14:17

TF: Anybody who knows how to draw will have no problem passing our test, because at least half of the time it will be something of worth. Think about that. * We're looking for a person who can produce art. * Somebody who can produce art can work for us, and not be completely unproductive, it turns out. 14:18

EI: I think I know someone… 14:18

EI: She’s called Quick, Draw!, and I think she can help us with some images, or doodles of certain things. What should we ask her for first in relation to the virtual design studio? 14:20

TF: First, you should be clear what you are wanting from the virtual studio. Do you want a full user interface design session, full stop? If so, that would be really cool, but not what this project is about. You may want a non-digital process such as art direction or actual design work and not just a design document for you to download. You may want to work with Quick, Draw! in-person. Do not have in mind a "completely digital process." 14:21

EI: I think it would be good to make an illustration of what we are. I’ll ask. 14:22

EI: Ok, so I’ve been and asked, and the images aren’t actual image files. I think they’re drawn in Json, or Javasript somehow, but they’re numbered, and they’ve been logged with places and dates, and how fast Quick, Draw! Identified them and what they’re drawings of. So I called up all the computer drawings, and there’s 117,460 of them. 14:32

EI: This is making me wonder what virtual narratives might look like, and how we can potentially begin to pull these drawings, perhaps randomise them with tags, and then generate illustrated, virtual, narratives. 14:33

EI: That said, this has a very limited vocabulary, and I think we need to find alternative intelligences that are capable of recognising imagery of a greater number of categories. 14:36

EI: I’m currently searching for AI that can draw, or any kind of AI that can make images. There’s quite a few that are capable of identifying images, but not a lot that are capable of producing an image when prompted. 14:41

EI: OH MY GOD. I’ve just found an AI that makes COLLAGES. I’ve typed a brief description into it, and the image re-renders every time you add a new letter. It’s SUPER weird.

“virtual design studio sat at their desks doing work for the virtual design studio. they make images about the internet and human interaction with computers and the problems that occur when the real and the virtual are separated” is what I typed in. Here’s what it made

EI: It’s so bad at doing what it’s supposed to do that it’s actually good. It starts to create things that allude to what we’re talking about here at VDS, but it also it completely does not make any sense. It’s like those pictures that are really ambiguous and you’re asked by a psychologist “what do you see here?” to try and diagnose what’s wrong with you etc. When in actual fact, these are completely perfect to the “clutching at straws nothingness” that the territory of the project resides in. 14:51

EI: OK, this is actually phenomenal and is everything I didn’t know I needed from an image generator. I’m actually feeling a little overwhelmed because I’m not sure I can do justice to everything this is producing; like how do I even handle and manage this? I’ve just gone through and saved all of the images. https://experiments.runwayml.com/generative_engine/ has created. I don’t even know what it’s called. It’s an experiment and a generative engine. Like, how do I begin to decide what to do with this next? Because what I just did was quite time consuming, but the result are VERY worth it. I think this is where the notions of CARE that Laura Potter was talking about on monday come into play. This is a powerful tool, and I have to be very careful with how I use it; what I ask it to do etc. 15:11

EI: I only found it because some news platform had written an article about it, saying how BAD it was. But, in fact, what it does is “hubristically tries to assert meaning meaninglessly where there is none”. I think it’s the same with the other intelligences I’ve employed to work for the studio. But, Congratulations Gengine (Generative Engine), you’re in the crew. 15:13.

EI: Right, so I’ve spent the past few hours plugging in words to the Image Generation Engine, and in return I’ve gotten some amazing stuff. The final task was plugging in the ‘living internet’ text, and then recording the playback and saving the images. Yes. All 480 of them. Individually. But that’s ok. I’ll need to make a gif of it, and I’d like to make some drawings from some of them. So that’s perhaps a task to start after dinner or tomorrow. The other thing it’s made me think is that I need to plug the text statements that Botnik made the other day into them. In particular the one that starts with ‘hands’ or ‘death’. I’d also like to put each of the categories of ‘living internet’ into it, as I feel like each category will end up having its own unique image aesthetic. Perhaps then I can make more drawings, or this will prompt more text pieces. Overall I just need to manifest the ‘nothingness’ that the project is about, and the truth is there’s very little to hold onto. So I guess it’s using the internet to analyse itself, but also using the internet to provide commentary on itself, and the theory that goes with it. Clearly the context report was GOOD- we just have to continue in the same way we did then- take the feeling and run with it.

I’d also like to teach botnik to set tasks for the studio. I’m not sure how I’d do this. Perhaps it’s by writing down the tasks we’ve already done (a bit like this) and then using his predictions to write and designate new tasks. I don’t know if plugging this script into him will do that. It might struggle to generate NEW content, but maybe that’s ok. Perhaps reworking the old is enough for now, and then the studio feedback loop will allow progress to occur, as transformer can be asked to comment on Botnik’s tasks, and that will push us into new territories.

Since I’ve mentioned feedback loops, it might be a good idea to start to document what these look like for the individual pieces that seem to be emerging. 17:40

This might be something along the lines of diagrams for the audio clip we recorded the other day, and then maybe making the GIF and drawing a system diagram/feedback loop/production line for it. This way we can spot patterns and begin to explore/exploit them. 17:41

I also need some help pinning down exactly what we’re tapping into here, and articulating that. I’m not sure if I should ask matt to describe what he sees on friday, or if something else would be more beneficial/helpful. That’s something to think about. Perhaps there’s an online bot that can write copy text or that can make a summary document? I don’t know. But it’s something I’m aware is lacking. But, maybe it’s not something that CAN be articulated in words. Maybe the articulation needs to be communicated through practice, presentation and execution, as those are equally credible modes, just not often regarded as highly as language. AND, maybe the best method of articulation is via setting up and running the studio (that’s the tool) and then employing sub-tools and devices that each serve an independent purpose and deliver independent deliverables/outcomes/articulations of the overall theme/struggle and nothingness. 17:45

#script

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lanceprance-blog · 6 years

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You Should Experience SEO 2019 At Least Once In Your Lifetime And Here's Why

The particular search engine optimization (SEO) is usually an important design feature associated with the website that enables the particular spider or robot to quickly access it, thereby increasing the visibility on the internet. If you understand you might have VERY lower-quality doorway pages on the site, a person should remove them or re-think your SEO strategy if a person want to rank high within Google for the long phrase. One of the issues search engines like yahoo and Bing have often attempted to overcome is knowing which external links exist exclusively for SEO purposes and which usually links represent a true sign that the source content will be of value to the visitors. 2018 has currently seen some particularly significant SEO paradigm shifts from Mobile First” in order to the ever-advancing Rankbrain machine-learning criteria. Content marketing will be a bigger approach which along with SEO forms a part associated with your digital marketing strategy. What You Should Know: Typically the future of search engine search engine optimization is Semantic SEO. Links plus technical SEO are the biggest pieces of the pie, yet multimedia efforts such as video clip, photos, and podcasts will become the game changer and differentiator in many competitive markets. Occasional, and I actually do more occasional and not really frequent, usage of keywords plus keyword phrases in these hyperlinks may also help very somewhat in your SEO processes. Excelling at SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION means serving your visitors—not simply search engines. Here arrives the idea of SEO or even search engine optimization. The particular fact remains that SEO solutions assure clients that even when the site will not position among the top search motors like google, the money will certainly not be a waste expected to the refund.

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Some other SEO ranking factors include: obtainable URLs, domain age (older is usually usually better), page speed, cellular friendliness, business information, and specialized SEO. Your own search engine optimization strategy can end up being divided into two different types: on-page SEO and off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. While you familiarize yourself with this neighborhood, you will inevitably stumble your own way onto the websites associated with SEO Gurus” selling courses that will teach you SEO for hundreds of dollars. Expert SEO writers can also make use of modifiers and keyword variations in order to further optimize the content. Inside a lot associated with cases, this happens as the consequence of non-ethical SEO specifically buying and selling links which usually could get you up the particular Google ‘adder' quickly. 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Topics: SEO, backlink, articles marketing, social media marketing plus advertising, analytics, and more. 60+ sessions on hot topics, good results stories and strategies in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION, SEA, PPC, Social Media, On-line Marketing and SMX Future Observe. 2018 (I believe) will be a lot associated with catch up on current SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION themes, with the biggest trends” occurring around voice queries to look results. Therefore, SEOmonitor tracks all of the related data that could influence SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION performance and displays it within the Keyword Events Timeline. If you forget that will quality content is a best priority, then you can definitely forget about having an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION strategy. The particular way we asking the device is different from person in order to person. therefore, optimizing your internet site 100% mobile friendly to accomplish cellular voice search is very essential to SEO 2019. I actually am just newbie and significantly i do get frustrated whenever articles doesn't rank on best or near top, but individuals like you and many additional also inspire me to never ever give up. There are various points that i wasn't identified up to now but say thanks to to you, you are constantly make us learn important points about seo.

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rsharma6431 · 6 years

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How to Speed Up Firefox

Your web browser of choice is truly the gateway into accessing the global Internet. The web has been growing exponentially, and we have seen tremendous changes to browsing software as well. Mozilla has been keeping up well considering the recent release of Firefox 10 which has seen mostly positive review. But as we all know, your web browser tends to slow down over time with repeated use. Firefox is not immune to this, but there are some tweaks you can use to optimize the browsing experience. The key values we’re looking for include startup speed, reduced load times, and accessible web pages. Check out some of my tips in the guide below if you’re looking to enhance the Firefox experience!

Quick Shortcut Commands

A good place to start is with a few handy keyboard shortcuts. These can be difficult to memorize at first, but over repeated use you’ll begin to adopt the routine. And I feel there’s no better way to speed up your web browsing experience than mastering a few shortcut keys. Only a couple examples may seem relevant to your needs. We don’t all require the same knowledge and so one command may be totally pointless to somebody else. If you check through Google you’ll likely find very helpful articles for the more common shortcuts.

1. Clear Private Data

Security is of the utmost importance to consider whenever you’re surfing the web. Even by today’s standards things are a lot less risky than 5 or 10 years ago. But you should understand how private browsing data is stored and what you can do to clear your info.

This short menu which pops up is a condensed version of the settings panel. You can choose how far back in time to clear out along with specific types of data such as cookies, cached pages, active login sessions, etc. I recommend that you clear everything within the list every time you close down the browser window. This is only my personal preference to keep my data secure – but of course you should adopt some form of routine cleanup which works best for you. Shortcut – Ctrl + Shift + Delete

2. Add-Ons Toolbar

The Firefox add-ons menu is a small toolbar which appears at the bottom of your Firefox window. From here you can access add-on commands and menus which are normally reserved from within the regular plug-ins area. This may be one of the lesser-known shortcuts but does come in handy frequently. If you like to keep your browser slim with reduced add-ons then this may pose as a bit uninteresting. And I have to agree that fewer 3rd-party extensions means much quicker browser performance. Just keep this in mind as you’re testing out new add-ons from time to time. Shortcut – Ctrl + /

3. Open Downloads Window

There have been numerous instances using Firefox where I’ve been downloading files and accidentally clicked out of the downloads window. It’s a harmless gesture, though it can be a pain to find your menu again. This command brings up not just your active downloads but also recent history of previous files – very handy when you forget which folder you saved into! Shortcut – Ctrl+J Note: For Mac users, replace Ctrl with Command.

Increase Local Cache Storage

When Firefox saves a cached version of website content it reduces any future requests needed for re-downloading code. By default you can only max out to 1GB of saved cache from the web. But this is likely such a small amount compared to your overall disk space, it’s well worth the effort to update your cache sizes. I recall Firefox 8.0 had local cache storage at 256MB by default. Honestly this is a fair amount of room, especially if you’re clearing out private data at the end of each session. Yet if you browse for hours at a time each repeat website visit will accumulate possibly 10-15 minutes of saved load screens.

In the top menu open Tools -> Options or Firefox -> Preferences... on Mac and click on the Advanced Tab. Somewhere in the middle of this menu you’ll see “Limit cache to” along with a number input. I’ve chosen 1024MB which happens to be the maximum allowed. Simply hit OK and restart the browser for this to take effect.

Popular yet Minimalist Add-Ons

It’s a good idea to keep wary of installing too many extensions into Firefox. The browser will begin to lag fairly quickly if you neglect to disable unused add-ons, but luckily it’s also an easy process to remove them. Below are a couple of the most popular user-voted add-ons which won’t interfere with your speed or page performance.

1. Download Status Bar

In particular this is a very helpful addon I’ve come to love since first installing. The download statusbar is not obtrusive or even displayed in any way until you download a file. Instead of having a new window appear you get a neat toolbar at the very bottom of your browser window.

From this you can check the total file size and amount remaining, along with an estimate of time remaining for the download to complete. You can single-click on a file to pause and even remove items from the queue. My process of downloading files has become more streamlined than ever now that I’m not dealing with a new window for my items list. If you haven’t tried this out yet I highly recommend giving it a shot!

2. WOT – Check Trustworthy Websites

The funky plug-in with a weird name actually has taken me by surprise! As the title says: WOT – Know Which Websites to Trust provides a rating for every website you visit. These are backed by users of the software who have given rankings to sites all over the Internet.

Many users feel this has little-to-no purpose since you can gauge the legitimacy of a website within the first few seconds of landing. Definitely true, but I do frequently cycle through random websites found in social network communities like StumbleUpon. In this scenario I feel WOT hasn’t provided any first step security, but it does help me build credibility and trust for domains I run into through differing sources.

3. Element Hiding Helper for ABP

Most Firefox users are familiar with Adblock Plus which has proven time and again as a sure-fire ads remover. From this core a developer Wladimir Palantfrom ABP released an extension called Element Hiding Helper. Now you can target any specific page element and choose to block it regardless of the internal content. This is perfect for when you don’t want to block all advertisements on a website but you need to remove 1 or 2 of them for whatever reason. Often times video websites will have loud audio ads start playing out of nowhere – and this plug-in is the perfect remedy. You can choose to remove things other than advertisements, such as annoying JavaScript apps or specific HTML blocks within the page layout.

4. Speed Dial

This feature has become standard to users of the Opera browser and more recently has been picked up by Google Chrome. Yet the speed dial home page setup was never implemented into Firefox in any majorly functional way.

This plug-in gives you total control over which links appear where in the 9-box grid system. You have easy access to manipulate settings as well, such as default thumbnail height/width and a few keyboard shortcuts. Overall the software has a lot of support from the Mozilla userbase. If you want to learn more check out the official website for detailed features and release notes.

System Edits in about:config

Firefox users have the ability to edit internal variables within the software from the configuration area. Simply open a new tab, type about:config and hit enter. You’ll come to a warning page mentioning the dangers of blindly changing these settings. But we know what we’re doing, so just hit “I’ll be careful” and you’ll be directed to sorted table of values.

Each of the values in the far left column are associated with a type of variable name. These control instances of how the software runs and performs in the background. I have just a few suggestions for reliable edits.

1. Increase pipelining

In the filter box at the top type in network.http.pipelining.maxrequests. This should limit your field to a single value row set at 4. We can increase this number to 8, which means Firefox can request data through 8 different channels rather than 4 – greatly decreasing your waiting time! Once you edit this value above you’ll need to enable pipelining to see any major effects. Do a search for network.http.pipelining and the first value should be set to false by default. You want to change this to true by double-clicking on the table row.

2. Disable placeholder images

Sometimes when Firefox realizes a page is going to take a while to download it will apply placeholder images. This is to prevent page content from rendering improperly while waiting for the image data. It seems like a good idea in concept, and it does have value but I feel disabling this feature will keep the requested content organized. In the filter box do a search for browser.display.show_image_placeholders which should be set as true. Double-click to change this to false and we should be all set.

3. Disable interface animations

While we’re removing unnecessary features let’s turn our attention to the browser UI. By default Firefox uses a small animation effect whenever you open or switch onto a new tab. It seems small at a glance but once you disable this you’ll be shocked at how much quicker you can move and create tabs. Just do a search for browser.tabs.animate and change the value to false.

4. Increase persistent connections

This variable is similar to pipelining except now we’re looking to open more connections on the server end. This is set much lower at first to keep Firefox downloading at a steady pace. But if you are downloading larger content such as streaming audio or video more persistent connections will mean more data collected at once. In the filter box enter network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server and you should find only one result. By default the value should be 6, but double-click and change to 8. Then hit okay and restart your browser for these effects to kick in!

Conclusion

With so many options in today’s browser market Firefox appears to be holding a steady place. Their engineers know how to build stable software as it has been a reliable brand for years. With the endless number of plugins and extensions free to download there are solutions for practically any problem. I hope these tips can provide a solid foundation for optimizing your web browsing experience. If you have any other great ideas for speeding up Firefox please let us know in the discussion area. Read the full article

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hotspreadpage · 6 years

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How to migrate your WordPress website domain name

Are you looking for a guide to migrate your WordPress website domain name? If the answer is “yes”, then you’ve come to the right place.

Migrating a WordPress domain name is not an overly common occurrence. However, there are many instances where a website might be required to change its domain name.

For example, your website might be penalized heavily by Google, and you want a new domain, or you might want to rebrand your business to a new name. Everything is fine until you have a proper reason to do so.

In this article, we will focus on the tools and techniques that will allow you to migrate WordPress website domain name. Before we start, however, let’s try to understand the impact of migrating your website domain on your SEO.

What is the impact of changing domain name on SEO?

One of the most common questions that a website owner has is: what will be the impact of moving the domain name on SEO?

As you might expect, Google will not respond quickly to the change in domain, and initially your search engine traffic will be impacted. With time and effort, however, your traffic will get back to normal after the switch.

To ensure that you get your traffic back, you need to follow a few simple steps. Don’t worry – we will go through them in this article. In short, you need to not only to buy a new domain, but also carry out proper 301 redirects to ensure that your SEO doesn’t get impacted any more than you can help.

Things to do before you start

Before we start, you need to do some pre-steps. These pre-steps will ensure that you don’t lose any of your work, and will also prepare the website for migration.

For the sake of an example, we will name the old site as “www.example.com” and the new site as the “www.newexample.com.” We will use these throughout the article for reference purposes.

How to migrate your WordPress website domain name

1. Creating a full backup

The first step is to always create a backup of your website, including files and database. As you are using WordPress, you will find a lot of backup plugins to do the task. We recommend using BackupBuddy, VaultPress, BackWPup or Duplicator. You can also use other backup plugins or services of your choice.

Last but not least, you can also back up your website using the Cpanel or use phpMyAdmin. Only try out these manual methods if you are sure what you are doing. For the most part, it’s a good idea to stick with backup plugins unless you’re 100% confident.

Once the backup is created, you can download it to your computer, or simply store it in the cloud.

2. Setting up the new site

To simplify things, we’ll use Duplicator as the example plugin for walking you through these steps.

To get started, you need to install the Duplicator plugin on your old site, http://www.example.com. Once done, you need to navigate to the plugin page from the WordPress side menu.

After you open the plugin, all you need to do is click on the “create” button to start the process of duplicating your website. After you provide the name of the package, it shouldn’t take more than 2-3 minutes for the backup to be complete.

Once done, you can download the package and secure it for the next step. For the sake of the tutorial, we will name the package “thekey.php”.

3. Connecting through FTP

The next step is to connect to your new site (www.newexample.com). You can use FileZilla to connect. After connection, just copy the the backup file, “thekey.php” into the root directory of the new website. You should be able to now access the website by typing the URL in your browser.

https://ift.tt/2uA9k6u

You need to change the URL and the file name accordingly for the above URL to work. Once done, you will now see a Duplicator Installer screen where it will ask for basic information such as the database.

Ensure that you check the “Table Removal” option and also ensure that the database on the new website is empty.

Next, you need to click on the “I have read all the warning and notices.” By clicking the “Run Deployment” option, the deployment process will now start.

After the initial installation process is completed, you will see another screen which is the “Update” screen. In this screen, you need to enter the old domain name and the new domain name. The plugin will try to guess the old and new URLs, but you should double-check to ensure that both values are correct.

The final step is to wait for the process to complete. After the completion, you can now log in to the WordPress admin panel using the old credentials and check if everything is working fine. The plugin also tries to prompt you to create a new backup which you should consider that you can always revert to the first instance if something goes wrong from here onwards.

You can also delete the installer file and clear your directory for any unnecessary files. You also need to re-initiate the permalinks by going to “Settings” -> “Permalinks.”

4. Final step: Implementing 301 redirects and notifying Google

With all the backups loaded into the new website, it is now time to tell Google that your new site is ready. To do so, you need to set up permanent 301 redirects using a simple .htaccess file hack. This hack is also used when switching a website from HTTP to HTTPS in WordPress.

You can find the .htaccess file in your wp-admin or wp-includes folder. It is a hidden file, and you might to search for hidden files if you are not able to locate it. After you locate the file, copy and paste the below code to make the magic happen.

#Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newexample.COM/$1 [R=301,L]

Don’t forget to replace newexample with your new domain name.

With redirection complete, it is now time to tell Google about your new domain.

You need to use Google Search Console to let Google know about the change. Go to the left-hand menu and click on “Change of Address.” You can follow this simple guide by Google for step-by-step instructions.

Conclusion

Migration a website domain name is not a simple task. You need to carry out the steps with caution and concentration.

We hope you found this guide useful. If you are not sure how to proceed with the whole process, it is always advisable to hire a professional to do it for you. Also, don’t forget to share your opinions in the comments section below.

How to migrate your WordPress website domain name syndicated from https://hotspread.wordpress.com

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