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mastersgreys · 2 years

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Excel sm account tracker

Excel sm account tracker how to#

These tags help isolate trends in creative content so you can select more engaging images and write more dynamic copy for your posts. Keywords, image descriptions (such as person, object, colors, size or orientation) and even tone descriptors for the copy (such as humorous or excited) can be used as meta-tags. CLICK TO LEARN MOREĮnter your calls to action to help you monitor your success.įor a much deeper analysis on your types of content, you should use additional meta-tags to describe the individual elements of the content itself. Learn from the industry's most trusted experts, rub elbows with other smart marketers, and take your marketing to the next level during this 3-day event in sunny San Diego, California.

Excel sm account tracker how to#

Want to get ahead of the competition and learn how to diversify your social marketing strategy? Get Expert Social Media Marketing Training from the Pros Just keep in mind that not all posts need CTAs and not all CTAs must be related to products. However, I encourage you to spend time considering the different types of people in your audience and build context around those individuals to inform your content strategy.ĬTAs take many forms, depending on the individual goals of the post in each category. For the sake of simplicity, we will use “male” and “female” as target examples. Your business may have multiple targets based on the people and decision-makers who engage with your content and purchase your products. The target is whom you’re speaking to with your content. You’ll need this information to fill out these columns on your spreadsheet. These two columns require the most forethought and a good understanding of your target market and business goals. #3: Outline Your Targets and Calls to Action Keep your categories broad and use subcategories to drill down. Each subcategory should have at least three posts otherwise it may be too specific and better suited as a meta-tag (more on that later). Subcategories can be as specific as you like, but keep them thematic.

Specific website names from which you pull content or categories of topics for articles such as “humor,” “lifestyle” or “beauty.”.

Specific names of holidays or campaigns you’re running for a particular season.

Based on the categories above, examples could include: This enables you to identify microtrends, as well as which pieces of content work the best and the worst. Save the specifics for subcategories.īreak down categories into smaller subcategories.

Third-party content: Posts with content from other websites such as news, articles and blog posts.Ĭreate as many categories as you like, but keep them manageable and general.

Holiday/seasonal: Posts with seasonal themes, which are especially helpful for e-commerce businesses.

Product: Posts about major product categories.

You’ll get actionable, business-building ideas from proven innovators-without all the techie jargon.īase your categories on the major topics of your posts and use them to identify major trends in content performance across each network. Join us in sunny San Diego, California, for the first-ever crypto conference for business pioneers…not finance and tech nerds. Introducing the Crypto Business Conference a premium event for anyone who wants to learn how to put Web3 to work for their business. The Web3 renaissance opens up new opportunities for entrepreneurs, creators, and marketers who are ready to embrace the changes. You’ll need to decide on the information below and make a note of it before moving on to step #4 below where you fill in the spreadsheet. #2: Identify Categories and Subcategories Use this spreadsheet to store data and analyze your content. Even on Instagram, which does not have a repost function built into it, there’s user behavior of reposting and tagging the original author. Every network has three basic engagement actions: like, comment and share. The last four columns are where you store the engagement numbers for your content. To begin, open Excel and create 14 columns that will contain the following categories to incorporate all of the information you need on your social media updates and posts:Īn example spreadsheet (target, meta-tags, posts and impressions hidden). To ensure that you deliver great content that resonates with your fans and followers, you need to track, test and measure the posts you put on your social networks. No matter the size of your business, when it comes to social media you want to build two things: engagement and community. In this article I’ll show you how to analyze the engagement and impact of your social media posts using Excel. If you don’t have the budget for expensive software, spreadsheets and a little of your time can produce some useful data. Are you looking for a way to analyze the impact of your content?

#Excel sm account tracker

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adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy · 4 years

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CHARACTER PROFILE: demon!harry

so I was chosen by the amazing miss anna @for-fucks-sake-h to do this neat lil tag meant to give more insight to one of the characters you’ve created! Thank you so much, anna, I had so much fun doing this 🥺🥺🥺

the art on the bottom left was made by the lovely jinx4karma and the one on the bottom right was by sunfllowerstyles :D I cry every time I look at it

Choose a few favorite photos/aesthetics of your tagged character, answer the questions below from their point of view, and tag some characters/authors you would love to see answer next!

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1.) How do you display affection? What’s your love language?

I’d say I’m pretty big on physical touch— my girlfriend can definitely attest to that. I think it’s because I went so long without being touched in an emotionally intimate way— I say that at the risk of showing my age— rather than just in a sexual manner, so now that I have that connection with someone, it’s become my favorite way of showing love.

2.) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I feel like the obvious answer would be not selling my soul because it brought a lot of pain and trauma into my life, as well as the lives of the people I left behind. However, when I think about it, if I hadn’t done that then I wouldn’t be here right now, wouldn’t have met my girlfriend, and needless to say I would have missed out on a lot. So I think instead of removing that event from life, my answer is that I would have handled myself better once I got out of Hell. I spent so many decades pushing down my emotions and locking them away instead of talking out what I’d been through, and that really stunted my mental stability and the relationships I formed with others. I was pretty reckless and full of self-destructive tendencies, and as a result, it took me way longer to reach a point where I feel at ease with who I am...Fuck, that got deep really fast. Turned into a proper inspirational speaker, didn’t I? [light laughter]

3.) What is your ideal Saturday morning?

Just waking up late into the afternoon, spending some time lounging in bed with the missus, and then going to the kitchen to make my favorite breakfast together. Though most of that time is spent towards keeping her from burning the flat down. Afterwards, just sitting on the couch watching some stupid reality TV show on Netflix and eating. Nothing too fancy— simplicity’s pretty satisfying.

4.) What is your ideal drink of choice? Nonalcoholic? Alcoholic?

I feel like I’m expected to immediately say “tea” considering I’m as pure-bred English as they come. I’m gonna have to go with probably either cranberry or passionfruit juice as the nonalcoholic choice. Sodas aren’t really my thing. As for alcohol, can never turn down a good cocktail. I have a friend who’s a bartender and he taught me to make this really good lazy-friendly drink that literally tastes like the Bahamas. Three ounces Crown Royal peach whiskey, two ounces of pineapple and mango juice, half an ounce of grenadine. Drink responsibly because it’s dangerously easy to pound back.

5.) How competitive are you?

Incredibly competitive. Definitely way too competitive. It’s to the point where it’s gotten me in genuine trouble before, but it’s not my fault I can’t turn down a good challenge. I’ve just always been that way, even back when I was alive. My mum used to joke about how it’d probably get me killed one day, and if the hellhound hadn’t gotten there first, it probably would’ve. [snort] Sorry, that was morbid.

6.) When did you last have sex? Feel free to describe if you feel comfortable?

About...ten minutes ago on the kitchen island. I feel like that’s my signature spot— good for easy mobility. That counter’s been through a lot. And it was just a quickie, no complicated positions or anything. It’s best when it’s fast and desperate, anyways, right?

7.) What is your idea of a perfect date?

I’m not really one for all the extra bells and whistles when it comes to dates. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m a pretty easy person to please and I just think there’s something really heartfelt about doing something simple just so my focus is solely set on enjoying the other person’s company. My favorite dates are just going to eat at one of my favorite restaurants and then walking around an open-air mall, preferably during the evening when the sun is setting and all the lights come on. It’s really nice.

8.) What is your most treasured possession?

Probably my demon blade. I forged it myself and it’s been through a lot with me— gotten me in and out of some pretty tight spots. I put a lot into making it so it’s like my baby, in a sense. Just way less annoying and much more practical. It’s also just really fucking sexy, which I get is a weird thing to call a knife but look at it. The leather handle? The way the obsidian glints in the light? The symbols etched into it with gold? That’s some raw sex appeal, if I’ve ever seen it.

9.) Would you ever get a tattoo? Do you have any?

Is that a joke? [soft smirk] I stopped counting after twenty.

10.) Do you believe in love at first sight? Have you experienced it?

I think that’s a bit too fairy-tale, honestly. How can you fall in love with someone without even knowing them? Solely based off looks? It’s a bit shallow. And yes, I’m aware of how ironic that is coming from me, considering my past habits, but there’s a difference between actual love and a warm body. I think in order to truly love someone, you have to form a connection with them first. It takes time and patience, y’know? Otherwise, it’s just infatuation. But that’s just my opinion. Just a little bit of wisdom from your typical seven-hundred year old.

///

thank you so much for reading! I tag:

painter!harry by @theasstour

witch!harry from Blood Moon by @strawberriestyles

best friend!harry by @sunflowervolvimp3

#tagged #this was so much fun!!!#demon!harry

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edgewoodrp · 4 years

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SPEED MEET

In the spirit of love and forming connections (and not being alone on the quote unquote “most romantic night of the year”), a very bored and ambitious local event planner has organized a Speed Meet event for the lonely hearts of Edgewood. Registration was open to the public for the low, low price of $5 plus a donation of three non-perishable food items for the local food pantry. Now, who’s ready to meet other people very quickly?!

Event: Speed Meet

Where: Lake House Bar & Grill

When: Friday, February 14th

Time: 6:30PM - 10:30PM

Click the cut for more event-related details!

The in-game duration of this event is one night only, February 14th from 6:30PM to 10:30PM, but the event will run from February 14th through February 21st to give everyone ample time to participate and complete their threads. Be sure to tag your event-related starters with #edgewoodevent.

This event is based much on the Speed Dating formula, only not everyone’s objective is to get a date. When checking in at the event venue, participants will be given different colored wristbands that indicate what it is they signed up for this evening.

Individuals that signed up to meet other people will be given blue wristbands at the door.

Individuals that signed up to date other people will be given pink wristbands at the door.

And individuals that signed up for both dating and meeting will be given orange wirstbands at the door.

Check-in begins at 6:30PM, followed by a short period of time for participants to settle in, get a drink, and mingle while everyone arrives. Participants will get their colored wristband and a name tag to wear--first names only!

After a brief introduction and a rundown of the format, the first dates and meetings will begin at 7:00PM. Each pairing will have five minutes to chat and ask their partner questions. Whether your character is here on a date or here to meet new people, here are some questions they can ask to keep the conversation flowing:

Are you an animal lover?

Have you ever been here before?

What is your favorite thing to do around town?

What was your childhood dream job?

What is something good that happened to you today?

What’s your favorite thing to do outside?

What is one thing you absolutely cannot stand?

At most Speed Dating events, everyone gets a five-minute date with everyone, but for simplicity’s sake, each character will only be assigned two dates/meetings to complete. These interactions should be quick chat threads with short responses, or if you want to rapid-fire the evening back and forth on Discord in a Chatzy-like manner, that’s fine too. Just be sure to format and post the date/meeting after it has concluded. Once you have completed your two meetings, you may message other players for additional interactions during the Speed Meet event if you so choose.

If you did not sign your character up to participate in the event, the Lake House Bar & Grill will be open for normal business during the course of the event, but those that did not sign up will not be able to participate in the Speed Meet. And finally, the event only runs from 6:30PM to 10:30PM, so other Valentine’s Day interactions may take place outside of that time frame.

And now, the randomly selected pairings!

The Dates!

Heather Payne has a date with Charlotte Kingsley.

The Meet-Ups!

Beatrice Larson has a meet up with Demitri and Lucio Rinaldi.

Demitri has a meet up with Beatrice Larson and Simon Romero-Martin.

Frankie Holloway has a meet up with Caterina Singh and Karen Pierce.

Karen Pierce has a meet up with Frankie Holloway and Valerie Bianchi.

Lucio Rinaldi has a meet up with Beatrice Larson and Nico Mitchell.

Maggie See has a meet up with Maxine Beauchamp and Nico Mitchell.

Maxine Beauchamp has a meet up with Maggie See and Simon Romero-Martin.

Monty McAllister has a meet up with Juliet Hawthorne and Xavier Bennett.

Nico Mitchell has a meet up with Lucio Rinaldi and Maggie See.

Phoenix Castillo has a meet up with Bridgette Kingsley and Monica Rodriguez.

Simon Romero-Martin has a meet up with Demitri and Maxine Beauchamp.

The Dates or Meet-Ups!

Bridgette Kingsley has a meet up with Phoenix Castillo and a date or meet up with Valerie Bianchi.

Caterina Singh has a meet up with Frankie Holloway and a date or meet up with Juliet Hawthorne.

Charlotte Kingsley has a date with Heather Payne and a date or meet up with Logan Cree.

Juliet Hawthorne has a meet up with Monty McAllister and a date or meet up with Caterina Singh.

Logan Cree has a date or meet up with Charlotte Kingsley and Monica Rodriguez.

Monica Rodriguez has a meet up with Phoenix Castillo and a date or meet up with Logan Cree.

Valerie Bianchi has a meet up with Karen Pierce and a date or meet up with Bridgette Kingsley.

Xavier Bennett has a meet up with Monty McAllister and a date or meet up with Heather Payne.

#edgewoodevent #event: speed meet

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spacetimewraithwrites-archive · 5 years

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Character Creation Tag

Thanks @starlitesymphony for the tag!

I’ll be answering for Thrive this time, since he’s an alien and the most interesting character of mine imo lol

1. What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc)? His name. I actually pilfered the name Orthrive’poliea from another WIP concept I had that didn’t end up working out.

2. Did you create them with any other characters/ OC’s from their universe in mind? I may have subconsciously had Warren in mind when creating Thrive’s human appearance. Actually just in general. They’re kind of opposites in lots of ways, but that’s what I felt would help create the most chemistry between them.

3. How did you choose their name? I think I came up with the nickname Thrive first, then built Orthrive’poliea around it, because I love the idea of him having a nickname that’s an English word even though it makes no sense as an English name. And Orthrive’poliea just kinda fell together on its own.

4. In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts? Some of it is pretty spoiler-centric so I’ll just mention that he’s very rebellious against obhelian society while also cherishing the “religious” and traditional aspects of his heritage.

5. Is there any significance behind their hair colour? Not really. In human form, he’s blond, and I think it was more that it just felt right.

6. Is there any significance behind their eye colour? In human form he’s got bright, unnaturally green eyes. A shade that’s not immediately captivating, but if you look at him long enough you start to notice that it’s a little odd. I have an idea of the significance in mind, I’m trying to work it in somehow.

7. Is there any significance behind their height? His human form is about 6′2-6′3, and I’ve always had him pegged to be tall but more so after I found someone to use as a reference for him appearance-wise. His natural form is probably somewhere closer to seven feet. No significance other than the need for him to be an intimidating but ethereal figure.

8. What, if anything, do you relate to within their character/ story? He never quite feels like he fits in anywhere he goes. Even later, when he has people to hold onto, he’s always feeling just that little bit out of place.

9. Are they based off you, in some way? Not really. Well...not that I can immediately see, anyway. Maybe the part of me that’s convinced I’m an alien, lol

10. Did you know what the OC’s sexuality would be at the time of their creation? Yeah pretty much. But also, no. Because obhelians don’t reproduce like most species, they’ve evolved out the need for any kind of sexual attraction of their own, but they still have the capacity to love. And obhelians have several different classes of biological sex. Thrive chose to present as a male for simplicity’s sake when he landed on Earth. I guess to put it one way, he’s panromantic? With partial asexuality? He can only feel sexual attraction if he makes physical contact with someone who’s also feeling it. Idk what to call that or if it even matters cuz he ain’t human. But some of that I knew when I created him, and some of it I actually kinda had to rejigger after I’d already written the first draft of the third book lmao

11. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art, writing, drawing, edits, etc)? ….Not using the actual person I use as a reference in edits. I mean...I did once when making the cover for book two (for myself, not to be used when publishing) but I feel really weird about it.

12. How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all? Well so far his story goes into five books, and I’ve only just started the first draft of book four, soooooo it’ll probably go on for another ten books knowing me. But to answer the question, I’ve dabbled with prequel-like scribbles in the past surrounding him and his life on Slodia.

13. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be? He’s over eight thousand years old and has seen lots of traumatic bullshit but he’s got an impressive sense of humor and relishes Warren’s witty quips even if he doesn’t show it all the time. And everything he’s been through truly plagues him, and will plague him for the rest of his life, even if it’s just in the background.

14. What is something about your OC that can make you laugh? When he makes little jokes of his own to make Warren laugh. They’re not often nor are they very good a lot of the time but ugghhhhh. Also, he’s surprisingly very expressive when he wants to be, and sometimes his reactions to situations are funny to me.

15. What is something about your OC that can make you cry? His utter loneliness. The pain he carries with him always from things that happened on Slodia. The idea he’d subconsciously harbored that he was truly unworthy of love by anyone.

16. Is there an elemet that you regret adding to your OC or their story? Let’s just say that it’s uhhhhhh a little hard to work around the bit from question 10 sometimes ok

17. What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC? He’s got some things he can do that some others of his species can’t. For...reasons.

18. What is your favorite fact about your OC? He’s so god damn fiercely loyal. Like fuck. The things he does, the things he endures for those he cares about, whoa y’all.

#tag game #I'm in love with him can you tell #character profiles

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traincat · 6 years

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I think I Kno the answer but I like the way you explain things so; would you ever write superfamily?

This is the sort of stone cold ‘no’ where it’s literally one of the only things I say I will not write on signup sheets. You’d have to pay me to write it. Substantially. If there’s one Marvel fandom-specific trope I hate above all others, it’s this one. I ‘flames on the side of my face’ gif loathe it. And because you played to my ego here, anonymous, I’ll explain why it bothers me so much. (Joking aside, I do genuinely appreciate that people want to hear my thoughts on things! Thank you! I’m sorry for how seethingly bitter I’m about to be, but anon, I suspect you knew what you’d be getting when you asked this!)

Frothing hatred, a discussion about the integrity of the character of Peter Parker, and The Importance of May Parker – all beneath your friendly neighborhood cut.

Superfamily in this instance refers to a specific fic trope in Marvel fandom where a pair of superheroes, traditionally Captain America and Iron Man (the superhusbands, hence the superfamily) although I’ve seen other pairings especially as of late, are written as the fathers of Peter “Spider-Man” Parker – usually adopted, sometimes biological, but ultimately legally.

In general I don’t really enjoy this kind of fic where two characters who aren’t related (by blood or otherwise) are re-envisioned as relatives. It’s not that I think it’s inherently a bad concept, but what I would hypothetically want out of it – an exploration of how these characters change as a result of being related in this version – is almost never what it actually is, which is that Characters A and B are the author’s OTP, and the author wants to give them a child, and Character C, who is off over there minding their own business probably with their own supporting cast, is right there.

(While trying to come up with comparative combinations on a tangent I ultimately dropped, I did think “Maria Hill and Natasha Romanoff are the parents of Daisy Johnson, costarring Nick Fury as the mysterious uncle” and apparently there are versions of this I would read. Make superspyfamily the next big thing.)

There’s a lot of other things I don’t like about the trope: the diminishing and infantilization of Peter Parker, a ~30yo man in the comics with his own complicated web of connections and relationships – including, if we wanted to go here, a surrogate father figure in Joe “Robbie” Robertson. The twisting of Peter’s personality in order to make his a Good Earnest Kid, his Grand Canyon-wide independent streak and his anti-authoritarian nature stripped away in favor of making him beholden to two characters who are, you know, not his parents. Two characters who aren’t even, striking a stint in the ice where Steve Rogers is concerned, that much older than him in 616. The fact that, over the years, Iron Man and Spider-Man have clashed several times, often aggressively on Peter’s side of things.

(This post isn’t meant to be a criticism of Tony Stark – even if I was interested in taking that angle when discussing this trope, which I’m not, I frankly haven’t read enough Iron Man comics to offer a valid criticism – but rather a statement that Peter Parker is an aggressive character by nature, and that sometimes two characters with the best of intentions can have damaging interactions with each other. That’s the beauty of having a canon with 80 million different characters – every possible dynamic exists. And that’s why there’s several canon instances of Peter attacking Tony in my Spider-Man refs folder. Listen, I like when he punches people, okay.) The invention of a totally fake dynamic that has become so widespread and latched on on a fanon level to the point where it was shoehorned into the latest Spider-Man movie adaptation to the detriment of Spider-Man’s actual supporting cast. The fact that when I read Spider-Man fic, I want to be reading about Spider-Man, not someone’s Peter Parker shaped OC. And maybe most importantly: the erasure of May Parker. Without May Parker, there is no Spider-Man, not as we know him.

I’ve spoken before about the importance and gravity of Ben Parker’s death and how without knowing the exact circumstances, I find it difficult to know what form Peter’s actions will take. (The differences in his crime fighting methodology 616 vs Marvel Noir, for instance.) But while Ben Parker’s death made Spider-Man, the vigilante, I think it’s May Parker who makes him a hero, every day.

And, my line on her to Peter is that he got his powers from the spider but he got his strength from May. Because that backbone is what made him who and what he is today. The choices that he makes now come of her having raised him a certain way. – J Michael Straczynski (x)

Look, I think there’s a simplicity to Superfamily that contributes to its overwhelming, infuriating, kudzu-like popularity: Spider-Man is one of the biggest superhero properties on the planet. He’s often, however incorrectly I would personally suggest this is, depicted as a kid. He is, as we all know, an orphan – he has no parents, and he lives with his aunt and uncle, and then – robber, bang, power, responsibility – only with his aunt. And I think sometimes when people hear “orphan” and “aunt” they kind of feel a distance – a disconnect. Or maybe it’s an age thing – the idea that May’s somehow too old to be his parent, so she’s discounted. Maybe it’s just because she’s not a superhero, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence that early Marvel is populated with non-traditional family models – the Fantastic Four, for example, are not a team but a family – when these stories were created by Jewish people living in a heavily Jewish area in the shadow of WWII. In the face of decimation, you come together however you can. Orphaned Peter Parker and his aunt, his father’s brother’s wife, alone together. But May Parker’s a lot more than just that.

In Amazing Spider-Man #33, Peter finds himself hopelessly trapped under rubble while Aunt May’s life hangs in the balance – if he cannot free himself, it’s not only his life but hers that’s forfeit, and through his love from her he finds the strength to literally move mountains. (Speaking of removing May from the picture in favor of Iron Man, I’ll never forgive Spider-Man: Homecoming for recreating this scene so that Peter derives his strength from him and not from, you know, the woman who raised him and who he loves more than his own life, in favor of the inherently more marketable Iron Man brand.)

A lot of times in Superfamily fic, they just kill May off. Okay, fine, whatever. I might hate it (I hate it a lot) but like, alright! Fine! If you gotta go here! May’s often been in delicate health, especially in older comics, and if an author needs to take her out of the picture, her literally being dead is basically the only in character reason she wouldn’t be there for Peter if he needs her. I might personally have a grudge against about it, but hey, as we’ve established, I have a grudge against the whole trope. Lately though, and I suspect because of the advent of Homecoming’s Hot Somewhat Younger May – I’d like to suggest that 616 May is not as old as one might think looking at her first appearances and that, as the sliding timescale moves along, we have to address the fact that people both live longer and look younger today than was expected in the 1960s –, I’ve been seeing a different trend. (Yes, I’ve been known to hateread, I’ll admit it. How else would I know how much I hate it! Also it keeps ending up in the JohnnyPeter tag and I make poor choices re: deriving enjoyment from my anger over fanfic of all things.) Lately, more and more, I’ve been seeing fics where Tony adopts Peter from May – as in, she signs the forms giving up her child, because obviously he loves him so much more. Fics where May is just the cover story so Peter Stark can escape media attention – so great, now she’s an employee. And at least one tweet about how great it would be to see a fic where Peter comes out to May and she throws him out in a homophobic fit but wait! The Avengers can rescue him! So now she’s demonized for the Drama. Gag me. (Not that I think it should matter at all for the sake of this argument, but we have May’s actual word in Amazing Spider-Man v2 #38 on what would happen if Peter came out as gay to her, and that it’s she’d love and support him no matter what.) And listen, like, part of me is like let it go! The majority of this content is written by younger fans just figuring out what they want to write, dipping their toes into the swampy waters that is Marvel canon! But the problem is, this perpetuates. It gets popular, and people form their opinions based on headcanons and not on canon and it becomes a vicious cycle, and suddenly Peter’s the Kid Avenger like, ACTUALLY, and May’s role in the story has been demoted to Roommate With a Car at best. Just there until better, cooler parental figures show up at the doorstep with adoption papers.

Because, listen, May Parker is Peter’s mother.

One thing I find fascinating about Peter Parker in 616 is how he relies on and draws strength from other people’s goodness, and none more so than May. It’s her well of inner strength and kindness that enable him to be kind of superhero that he is.

Without May Parker, Peter Parker would be a totally different character – and I don’t want a different character. I like this one. (For a canon story about how Peter would be different without May, check out Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #8.)

Like I said above, the great thing about having 80 million characters is that those characters get to be different things, and as superheroes they get to protect different things. Iron Man is a futurist. The Fantastic Four are about discovery. The X-Men protect a world that hates and fears them. Spider-Man isn’t here to save the world. Spider-Man is here to protect ordinary people – people like May Parker.

In conclusion: fuck Superfamily as a widespread trend.

Anyway I had to see an actual article about the MCU refer to two characters as Spider-Man’s “Avenger dads” and another suggest that Dr. Strange and Spider-Man are the father-son combo we never knew we always needed (it’s not, and we don’t), so I guess I’m going to go live in a cave and throw rocks at innocent hikers who stumble upon my Spider-Man Opinions cave now.

#this is for you anon!#and not for stroking the fires of the my hatred!#not for that at all!#traincat talks comics #traincat talks homecoming #tangentially #peter parker #may parker #long post/

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the-colony-roleplay · 6 years

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❆❅ ANNUAL APPRECIATION AWARDS NOMINATIONS ❅❆

Thus far, the Brink Tower Grand Opening had gone on without a hitch. Well, more or less. Citizen’s responses were a mixed bag; some appeared to be apathetically benevolent about the whole thing, puttering around the room with both a kind of bored disinterest and a lack of anything better to do, some seemed pleased by the display, or at the very least, by the distraction, while others still were crotchety and bitter about the whole thing.

However, it was smooth enough to be deemed a success, at least by account of a neutral party.

And so came the first announcement of the night—The official nominations of the 2nd Annual Appreciation Awards. It was none other than Alex Donovan who stepped to the middle of the room as Clove dipped the music down and the chatter in the room hushed, eyes slowly looking in his direction. Considering Donovan’s involvement as one of the hosts of last year’s ceremonies, he hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter—besides, Mitch Douglas had asked it of him, and Donovan didn’t have it in his heart to let him down.

Mitch, as the main force behind last year’s event when he’d still been Calyset Head of House, had brought the spirit and enthusiasm to the evening that it both needed and deserved. Alex had only been doing him a favour then too, when he’d agreed to be one of the MCs that night. But now, with the NWRF under roof, it was still a bit unclear as to who would be taking full responsibility for this year’s event. Currently, Mitch was motoring along with plans for it just as he had in its first year—but he and many of his fellow Elites were well aware it could be taken out from under him at any moment.

And so Alex did as Mitch asked, because it was the least the man deserved. He also knew the awards were something that brought Mitch a lot of joy, as he had high hopes for the tradition to be a long-standing one, and one that would continue to unite Colony 22 citizens and promote a sense of community and appreciation for many years to come.

So Alex cleared his throat and described to the room the purpose and meaning of the appreciation awards—it served as a reminder for those who had been around last year, though it was brand new information to many others. He talked about it being an opportunity to recognize not just first place winners of the areas of recognition, but every citizen at the Colony. He did not mention the NWRF, or the fact that last year the awards were largely in celebration of a democracy, which was technically no longer within the Colony’s grasp, what with the Reformist regime hanging overhead. Instead, he focused on the positives, and the vague but truthful sentiment of it being a Holiday season event by which everyone would receive at least a modicum of the recognition and praise they deserved.

He then explained that this year’s awards would be held around the second weekend of December, but that official invites and details would be sent out within the next few days. Now, however, the nomination categories and awards were officially available in Echo and all PDDs would be receiving an invite to nominate fellow citizens for each award. Every citizen would be permitted to send in two names per award, to be considered for official nomination during the ceremonies. First place awards and runner ups would then be decided by a panel of Elites, who would do so by reflecting on the general performance of the nominees over the last twelve months.

Gracious but ever-stoic, Alex did his best to warmly thank the room for their attention, before encouraging them to give some thought to their nominations and send them in by the end of the week.

And with a small nod, followed by a spattered and slightly-awkward applause from the party-attendees, Donovan nearly leapt from the metaphorical spotlight. There were still a couple hour’s worth of fun to be had at the gallery event, and citizens were encouraged to take advantage as Clove turned the music back up and new trays of food were slid neatly in place of the empty ones.

Okay team!

With that long winded little cut-scene there, the Brink Grand Opening has official seen the announcement of the future Awards Ceremony. And, as promised, a couple of minutes after Alex said his piece, all the PPDs in the room chirped quietly with the arrival of the newest Colony Notice—the award categories and titles, and a hot link to submit nominations.

The Categories and Awards are as follows:

Training Awards:

Melee Combat Award

Hand to Hand Combat Award

Most Improved Award

Community Awards:

Team Player Award

House Spirit Award

Helping Hand Award

Precision Awards:

Academic Excellence Award

Resourcefulness Award

Huntsman Award

Leadership Awards: (Elites Only)

Big Brother/Sister Award

Leadership Excellence Award

Colony Pride Award

So! Each of you may submit two nominations per award—and when I say each of you, I mean each member can submit two, not each character—just for simplicity’s sake because otherwise I’m sure it would get very confusing. However, keep in mind that in the verse, all characters would have been asked to nominate two people. Whether they do or not is up to you. But in terms of out of character stuff, we do ask that every member submits their nominations to help the mods build this next event!

Please be sure to peek at the masterlist when considering who to nominate. Base it off of their bios, their reputation, your experiences with them, or even just your ideas of who might be good for each award... there’s no wrong answer, just be honest! The survey form itself will have descriptions of each award so you know what each means! It is anonymous, but all members should submit only once. You will also find a password in the OOC which you should use when submitting—in order to keep things anonymous, we needed a way to verify rp member identity.

All nominations will be considered, but each award will likely only have 4-5 nominees, so we will be taking the names that are nominated most frequently for each award, as well as using our own fair judgement, to build our official nomination list for the upcoming Awards Event! So submitting your choices is your chance for you (and your characters) to get some of your appreciation feels up in here, and to contribute to the realism of the next event!

If you have any questions whatsoever, just hit us up in our ask box. You may also be interested in checking out the tag of our last appreciation awards here.

Nominations will be open probably until a week or so before the launch of the next event—which we do not have an official date for yet, though it will likely be sometimes around the end of October, real time. Please send in your nominations as soon as you can, to help Lottie and I out in terms of planning, but we will be sure to give you a head’s up well before nominations close when you are running out of time!

Without further ado,

HERE’S THE SURVEY

P.S. We used a hella ~pretty~ survey form this time, so enjoy!!

#col22btgo #col22event

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123designsrq · 5 years

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PACKAGING DESIGN AWARDS FOR 2019

Your product’s packaging award is perhaps the very first awarding factor the customer sees, as part of the merchandise experience. It forms the very first ever interaction between product and consumer, along with a effective interaction means someone will select the product up from the aisle and combine it with their cart. Bad packaging design can adversely affect a product’s success or its performance, while a properly packaged product enables it to stick out, prompting anyone to get it and end up buying it. Packaging Design is not only a box with artwork… it’s the merchandise round the product, and deserves just as much attention while designing because the item there. Packaging Design forms one of the different groups from the A’ Design Award and Competition, which spans the most popular groups like Architecture, Lighting, and Electronic Devices, along with the obscure, less popular groups like Cybernetics, Prosumer Products, and Safety Apparel Design. The A’ Design Award’s ultimate goal will be an umbrella that covers good design across all disciplines, and that's why it's 100 different groups for submitting design projects, and also over 200 jury people (comprising academics, design professionals and press people) from all across the globe with each other knowing the whole shebang. Winners from the A’ Design Award don’t just win a trophy along with a certificate, but get an entire PR Campaign dedicated towards pushing their career, clout, as well as their projects to newer heights. A’ Design Award’s winners as well as its participants are incorporated in the annual award book and business network, while furthermore adding for their country’s overall design ranking that paints an all natural picture of methods design-centric and style-forward each country is. The A’ Design Award is presently accepting records for that 2020 edition from the award program, so go on and provide your work and career the push it deserves! Here are a few in our curated picks of Packaging Design winners in the A’ Design Award & Competition 2019. For those who have a possible packaging design project that you simply think deserves an award, click the link to join up & have fun playing the A’ Design Awards 2020. Hurry! The standard deadline ends on 30th September! 1- Awanama Sake by Ryuta Ishikawa With the type of sheer finesse you’d expect from the handle on the samurai sword, the Awanama Sake bottle is simply a canvas because of its beautiful texture. Made to stick out in the group of sake, Awanama really wants to introduce its unpasteurized sake like a new make of grain-wine that’s authentic and deserves universal recognition. The bottle has a heavily textured black exterior that catches the attention, whilst remaining opaque in order to shield the sake inside from exterior light. Produced from glass, Awanama’s bottle surely understands how to attract with only how intricately detailed the feel onto it is, practically hypnotizing one into attempting to get it!

2- Eco Freshness Tag by Zeyuan Zhang Designed and that means you never finish off getting stale chicken, the Eco Freshness Tag notifys you once your eggs go south. Yes, you are able to submerge your egg in water to determine if it sinks or floats (whether or not this floats, dump it), but however, you may just think about the hue of the tag, which alters in a period of 10-14 days. A eco-friendly tag signifies the egg is fresh and eager for consumption, a yellow tag probably means that you ought to eat the egg immediately as opposed to waiting, then when the tag turns red, just ditch them eggs!

3- Raimaijon Pasteurized Sugarcane Juice by Prompt Design and Cordesign The resourcefulness in the Raimaijon sugarcane juice bottle is always that when stacked, it literally seems just like a sugarcane stalk! The marginally warped round bottles nest one on top of another, because the label makes its eco-friendly color. If you stack several, the bottles begin searching like sugarcane stalks, full of nodes together! Exactly what a terrific utilize the bottle to follow along with back the product’s origin story! This might lead to a reasonably eye-catching installation around the storefront, would it not?

4- New Hope Seed Brand Gift Box by Yung-Li Chen – Fineherbsoap Co. Ltd. When you purchase certainly one of Fine Herb’s soaps, you’re doing even more than just buying soap. You’re purchasing a plant too! The organic natural soaps are available in white-colored vessels having a small seed recorded towards the bottom. Go ahead and take soap out and water the seed also it eventually grows right into a plant. After that you can put some soil in to the vessel, turning packaging right into a planter for the Zinnia seedling! Out on another worry, the planter is made of mixed pulp of 100% recycle paper and lavender grass seeds, which makes it eco-friendly and biodegradable too!

5- Cedea Luxury Mineral Water Bottle by Nick Pitscheider and Sharon Hassan Packaging Designed as an homage to Cedea, the goddess of water and life inside the Dolomites’ Ladin Culture, the bottle can pay award homage to the Northern Italian culture and its lore, with two water bottles, one representing the ruby purple of roses, and one shooting the beautiful blue of the sky. What’s surely outstanding is the bottle’s construction, that’s designed to perfectly refract light in a clever way. The bottle’s bases are colored both red or blue, whilst the relaxation of the bottle is absolutely obvious. Look at the bottles head-on, and you see clear water in them, however examine the bottles when they’re beneath your line of sight, and the glass’s refractive assets makes the whole bottle look both blue or yellow. Its lens-like effect apart, the bottle seems absolutely beautiful too, with its gently swirling shape highlighted via the twisting vertical strains that supply the bottle a sensitive spiral asymmetric shape, corresponding to the natural shape of Cedea, the Goddess of Water and Life.

6- Dinosaur Packaging Design Award for Packaging Design of Ice Cream Box by Mengying Zhang & Zhicheng Chen A amusing manner to make kids experience the experience of consuming ice-cream (enjoy it even more, instead), the Dinosaur Ice Cream Box packaging design comes with an embossed dinosaur fossil form at its base. Fill the bathtub with chocolate ice cream that represents the soil, and your children turn out to be archaeologists who have to dig through the ground with their ice-cream spoons to hit the fossilized treasure at the lowest! When you attain the give up of the box, the remnants of ice-cream appear like stray quantities of soil close to the dinosaur’s cautiously preserved fossil. Now if simplest there has been a manner to use this box to get kids to consume greater of their greens!

7- Small Bag Candle Packaging Design by Liangfang Fang and Jinxi Chen Just an fashionable manner of packaging a candle, Liangfang Fang and Jinxi Chen’s answer includes a small, flat piece of paper that’s pinched and folded, with a neat tape on top. What’s sincerely really worth appreciating is its simplicity and its minimum beauty… and the truth that it literally looks like packaging for a chocolate, because those candles appearance genuinely safe to eat, don’t they?!

8- Ooops! Use Toilet Paper Package by 2Republic BTL Reklámügynökség Kft. While the dressmaker’s call may additionally surely be a handful, the Ooops! Toilet paper is deliberately designed to be a handful too! Unlike maximum rest room papers that come packed in units of multiple rolls, and require to be unpacked and installed on a bathroom-paper-holder, the Ooops! Toilet paper is available in a p.C. Of three, and might literally be used in the field! The packaging comes with a manage, allowing you to without problems bring it round, inside the shopping center, and also interior your own home, from the shop room to the lavatory, where you can just region the package DESIGN AWARD deals right beside your lavatory. The package deal comes with a gap at the top, which you can use to pull out as tons rest room-paper as you want. Designed to be used with out a bathroom-roll-holder, the packaging dispenses the paper directly from itself. The rolls in the box are center-fed, which means that there’s no cardboard tube at the center of the roll… it’s paper proper from start to finish. That doesn’t just provide you with more lavatory paper in keeping with roll, it also way you may pull the paper out like you'll from a tissue-field. Easy peasy!

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korean-365 · 7 years

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Day 124

I did do more memrise today (although since there were a lot of words to review today I didn’t do anything besides just review). But more importantly, I started to use Korean Grammar in Use! I’ve decided to write notes on here in the same daily post that I usually write, just for simplicity’s sake. I’ll try to have some form of organization in the tags for each topic so if you want to look for something specific (or for myself later), that’s how you can find it :) And as you can see, I’ll be leaving it under a cut just to keep the posts from being super long ^^; As for today’s, I’ve done the first three sections of the “Introduction to the Korean Language” bit at the beginning so you can check that out if you want ^.^

Korean Sentence Structure

Korean Sentences are either:

Subject + Predicate (verb)

~ 캐럴이 먹어요.

Subject + Object + Predicate (verb)

~ 캐럴이 사과를 먹어요.

Only the verb has a fixed position in the sentence (i.e. the end) while the rest of it can be moved around based on what they speaker wants to convey. Particles are then used to differentiate between the different parts of the sentence.

이 or 가 is used after the subject

을or 를 is used after the object

에 or 에게 is used after an adverbial

*If the subject can be understood from context then it can be left out altogether.

Conjugation of Verbs and Adjectives

Adjectives and verbs are both conjugated in Korean based on tense, politeness level, passive and causative forms, and speech styles. They consist of a word stem and a word ending with their base form (also called the dictionary form) made up of the word stem and 다. When conjugated, the word stems don’t change, instead 다 is replaced by the correct ending.

Connecting Sentences

There are two ways to connect sentences in Korean: conjunctive adverbs (such as 그리고, 그렇지만, 그래서, etc.) and conjunctive endings (using the previous examples: -고, -지만, -서).

To connect sentences, either place a conjunctive adjective between the two sentences or use a conjunctive ending by attaching it to the word stem of the predicate (verb) of the first sentence.

#korean langblr #langblr #korean #day 124 #KGiU #sentence structure #verbs and adjectives #connecting sentences

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janisursteforex · 4 years

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Janis Urste Tips On Generating Leads For Your Business

Janis Urste Professional tips provider. Are you trying to use lead generation to boost business? Are you unsuccessful with this technique? If you do, then the following article offers tips and suggestions that will lead to your success in that area. Read it to find great advice, and do yourself a favor and take notes.

Use social media as a lead generation tool. In social media, you need to not only build a presence, you also need to build a community. It's an opportunity to build trust which will lead to more and more leads coming your way. Don't just look at the obvious social media channels. Consider them all.

Reward your current loyal customers for providing you leads. One way that many companies do this is by offering their current customers referral rewards. These rewards run from future discounts to actual cash back. This can be a lot cheaper in the long run than any form of traditional advertising.

Understand the value of leads. Some leads simply won't be what you need for your current campaign. Make sure to qualify which leads are going to be your target for your marketing and do not waste time sending information to those you know will not benefit. If you have good leads, you'll find success.

Make sure that opt-out and privacy policies are clearly visible and laid out on your website. Be sure you're on top of things like your leads that don't want to get incentives or offers. You will not only waste your time contacting someone not interested in buying, but you should not send to anyone opting out for privacy's sake.

Janis Urste Expert tips provider. Do not pre-judge your lead gathering technique. Though you may think you are not going to get great results, or you are overly confident about the success, you cannot be sure. The only way to know if your lead generation is working is to put it into action without preconceived ideas about results.

Analyze the numbers surrounding your lead generation. Are you finding it takes lots of hours to discover potential leads? Are these leads qualified or rather weak? Measure the time you have in versus the conversion rate. This will help you decipher which tactics give you the best return on your investment.

Can you teach locals about what you do? For example, if you are part of a multi-level marketing campaign, you could run a free class teaching people how to sell the product or even letting them know about how they can do the same thing you are doing in building your downline.

Door knocking is always an option, so don't rule it out. This can even be true if your business is B2B. Visit businesses and ask them about who they're currently using for whatever it is you're selling, then let them know why you're the better option. Leave some materials behind and move on to the next location.

Develop content marketing that will help you generate leads. Offer potential customers special newsletters and tips emails to help them make the most of their time. The better the content you create, the more likely you'll get people opting in to receive it. That opt in is your first step to creating a very hot lead.

Janis Urste Professional tips provider. See if you can find any local leads. Usually the groups will consist of different types of local business owners who are looking to trade leads with each other. While you may question getting leads from someone in a different industry, this is actually a possibility. Similarly, they can return the favor and bring in leads for your business as well.

When using Twitter, most people think about growing followers and using hash tags. Sure, but also consider searching for keywords related to your products so that you can find people talking about buying things related to your products. Finding posts of interest can help you generate new leads within your niche.

Only focus on bringing in leads who will buy from you. Generic leads are fine if they can result in sales. If you focus all of your efforts on creating a list that is based on your niche, your chances for a successful campaign increase greatly and fulfill the desired results you were hoping for.

Keep lead gathering simple. Do not force your potential lead to fill out endless amounts of information. Use simplicity such as name and email gathering at first and as they look further ask for more. Your initial info gathering gets you a potential lead, but the further information you gain will allow for qualifying potential.

Ignore any preconceived notions that you may have about your lead generation campaign. Business owners often think that any ugly ad or one that's not too well thought out isn't worth publishing, when in fact it could still yield great results. The same thing can be said that perhaps a too polished looking ad may not get any leads generated.

Janis Urste Top service provider. Consider publications which fit your niche and write for them. For example, real estate agents could write an article in New Homes Magazine about what to look for when checking out new homes, or what sort of fees one should expect when buying their first home, and then include a byline with a call to action.

If you get a lead it is important that you contact them right away. People like immediate attention. By waiting a week, chances are a competitor has already captured their interest. Aim to respond to a lead within one day.

Be sure to join blogs, groups and forums online which fit your niche and participate daily. Include a link to your site in your signature so that others can follow you and what you do. As long as you stay professional and offer up your expertise, you'll find leads are generated.

Janis Urste Professional tips provider. Use these ideas and determine which strategies suit your business best. When you find the pieces of puzzle that lead to in increase in interest and revenue, don't stop learning. You will always discover new tweaks and techniques to expand the empire you are now building. Stay on top of your game and you'll never have to worry about finding leads again!

#janisurste #Janis Urste

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aurelliocheek · 4 years

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A Year of Rain: 1+1=Chaos

The pillars and challenges of implementing cooperative gameplay into your design.

When was the last time that you witnessed people yelling at each other in public? How did it make you feel? When was the last time you behaved out of the ordinary?

Those were the questions I asked myself while sitting in our break room watching my colleagues play a furious match in a 2v2 battle of Rocket League. The score was even, the mood tense, the banter on the rise. After the match went into overtime, one team inevitably emerged victorious and celebrated with cheers and high fives. Through the magic of play, yelling out loud in ecstasy or anger is, to a certain degree, socially acceptable. But how does it change the emotional impact a game has on players? How much sweeter are victories if celebrated with friends and how less painful are defeats?

When we allow ourselves to enter a state of play, we can observe that raw emotions, provoked by game states and human interactions, quickly surface. These emotions then get drawn in and reflected by everyone around us and create a unique experience that humans have enjoyed since their very beginning. While it is hard to quantify how reflected emotions impact the emotional state of players, it is evident that it does. Playing games together always held the potential power to establish or transform social bonds while being entertaining.

A study by Quantic Foundry (n=1266) in June 2016 did show that cooperative gameplay, locally and online, outranks the enjoyment versus competitive play by more than double the amount. Additionally, while competitive play shows a higher grade of entertainment with male audiences, cooperative play is loved by male and female players alike.

When playing with strangers, Quantic found that the appeal of co-op gameplay dropped sharply. Male players found more enjoyment in engaging strangers in a competitive game mode instead of teaming up.

Finally, the study reveals that older players are less affected by enjoyment depreciation. This would suggest that, with an aging community of gamers, co-op should be continuously on the rise.

So what is the takeaway? What can we learn? In comparison to competitive play, co-op seems to be more enjoyable to more people and ages. In short: Playing games can be a lot of fun, but playing games with friends has the potential to provide an even better experience. So why don’t we just make some more multiplayer games that focus on co-op then? Well, as it turns out, it is not all that easy. While making games itself is hard, many developers suggest that adding multiplayer to a game comes with a hefty price tag of development time and cost that is often hard to calculate. That aside, co-op on its own does raise a lot of design questions bringing even more issues to the table that we have to consider.

While a common goal is important, many more topics have to be carefully designed in order to form a good co-op experience.

The Pillars When I started working on our real-time strategy game A Year Of Rain, I tried to define pillars of co-op gameplay. Going forward, I will try to highlight what I think are the most valuable points we have to take care of in order to create a memorable cooperative experience:

After deciding that you would like to include co-op aspects in your project, you have to face a bunch of questions that define the multiplayer experience of your game. First off, which systems can you provide players with to allow cooperative gameplay and what kind of challenges will emerge out of those systems? Games like Overcooked will ask players to satisfy the culinary needs of virtual customers, while the game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes tasks players to defuse a bomb. In order to create a co-op experience, players need a common goal.

Secondly, it might seem obvious, but it is essential that players win or lose together. The outcome of cooperative play has to be the same for all players. This does not imply that a single participant should not be able to stand out, but it is important that, in the end, players get the opportunity to celebrate together. After all, a match of Dead by Daylight is hard to win with all of the four survivors still being alive. The emerging player stories will tell of daring distractions that turned into heroic sacrifices to allow the team to score a shared victory. Players would ignore teamplay if their potential rewards were at risk.

As you want players to work together, your created challenges must base on interdependencies between your players. A World of Warcraft dungeon is rarely done by a single player because usually, a class-based system of an MMORPG does not allow everyone to do everything. However, your game does not need a heavy asymmetric character design in order to work as a co-op title. Symmetry is fine as long as the overarching goal can only be achieved together. In A Way Out, both characters have the same set of skills, and players are constantly tasked to open pathways together by swapping items or moving heavy objects to progress through the game.

Once you are happy with your interdependency design, make sure you add tools for players to communicate with one another. If you are not designing a local co-op game only, you need signaling mechanics. Do not assume that players will use VoIP applications like Teamspeak or Discord. A simple “Follow me!” in Counter-Strike or the interactive ping system of Apex Legends are especially needed in real-time games where decisions have to be made fast.

While players overcome challenges in your game together, feel free to add more social interactions. Those can be short visuals like emotes in Clash Royale or a high five animation in Portal 2. While it may not be necessary to progress through your game, simply playing some music together in a calm moment might evoke powerful emotions and create memories that players keep in the back of their heads for a long time.

To take it a step further, adding gameplay relevant co-op interactions is always a good idea. Picking up downed players in your favourite battle royale or sharing health pickups in Kirby Star Allies are mechanics that double down on team play and the importance of shared resources.

After the boss is defeated, the puzzle is solved, or the match is won; it is equally important to highlight the achievement of the team. A successful party will receive loot to empower their characters and become even stronger. Your team might rank up, or you simply unlock more challenges for you and your friends to overcome. What kind of team-based rewards will you have in store for your players?

The Challenges Now that we talked about the co-op design pillars, let me give you some insight on how we tried to tackle some of them in our current project and what issues we faced. For the sake of simplicity, I will not go deep into the competitive multiplayer part of the game, but rather focus on some of the co-op campaign issues.

Setting up a common goal by itself is not all too hard. Defeat the big bad boss, find the powerful MacGuffin or rescue the poor NPC. Yet, while symmetrical goals do not produce a lot of work, they can become stale fast. Remember when we talked about interdependencies? Creating some asymmetrical objectives that have to be solved by specialized players prior to the final goal helped us to break up the campaign gameplay. In order to design those puzzle elements, we have to assume a certain degree of control over the game state. That includes, for example, spawn points, resources, units, or hero abilities.

In contrast, a co-op mission in Starcraft has to be solvable by all commanders with all ranks. This leaves less room for specific interactions but allows Blizzard to add more Commanders to their in-game shop on a regular basis while mutators keep the available content fresh.

Winning or losing games together might feel pretty straight forward as well, but what would you do if a skill mismatch exists between your players? Let’s assume you design a mission with an asymmetric short term goal where one player has to fend off waves of enemies while the second player has to fight a boss at the other end of the map. Since we wanted to include asymmetric goals, the A Year Of Rain co-op campaign has several instances of player separation. Imagine player one repeatedly fails at his task of defending the base because he simply does not play a lot of strategy games. This would result in a shared lose condition, a degree of public humiliation and might demotivate our players.

The A Year Of Rain team is talking about the most valuable points to create a memorable cooperative experience.Since we always try to solve issues with a minimum design approach, we decided to allow players to change the difficulty setting before each mission. However, this is most likely not the ideal solution, since lowering the difficulty setting and therefore, the challenge might feel bad for skilled players. Developing a fully dynamic difficulty system that matches the skill of both separate players could be a better solution.

Looking at special interdependencies between players, it is important to realize that while you want players to work together, it should never feel forced. Interactions should emerge from your game by design. This is often an issue when gating players through our cooperative mission. To give some context, imagine you designed a mini-boss that you want your players to fight. Ideally, both players reach the boss arena at the same time. You can fire a cutscene and start the fight. In reality, however, this is unlikely, and the gate has to stay closed until both party members are ready and in the right position. Just teleporting all characters into the arena once the first player reaches it feels like getting pulled by the iconic Scorpion spear from Mortal Kombat. In our case, we use mechanics like switches in front of the arena that both players have to activate at the same time in order to initiate the fight. Additionally, we are trying our best to keep players busy by adding story bits or minor tasks while they wait for the second player to arrive.

Another issue that comes with co-op multiplayer gameplay is a potential lack of clarity. Since most of the time, you will be focused on your own character or party, it is unlikely that you constantly keep track of the actions of your fellow players. This issue only grows with the number of players involved. Luckily, we focus on two-player co-op, provide good communication tools, and try to keep mission-relevant information on the UI at all times.

Healing an ally is a simple co-op interaction that feels great for both players.

Lastly, if you put two strangers in a co-op game, they might not be kind to each other. Jerks are a real issue, especially if you have a shared lose condition. Chat filters, surrender votes, and punishments for toxic behaviour are a way to mitigate the issue, but the past has shown that especially in competitive multiplayer environments damage will be done. As Alfred Pennyworth said: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” In order to create a stress-free alternative, we decided to allow players to enjoy the campaign with an AI player if they so desire.

However… Do not be discouraged. Despite the hardships, creating a cooperative game, and seeing players interact with each other is incredibly rewarding. Watching players formulate a strategy, jump in a game, adapt and overcome challenges, get motivated to play again and try a different approach is worth the struggle.

Christoph Carstensen Game Designer

Coming from an IT background, Christoph obtained his B.A.Sc. in Media/IT in 2013. After working as a Game and Level Designer for indie studios and a mobile game company, he now happily designs A Year Of Rain at Daedalic Entertainment and enjoys exploring the possibilities of blockchain-based games in his spare time.

The post A Year of Rain: 1+1=Chaos appeared first on Making Games.

A Year of Rain: 1+1=Chaos published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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Squared Circle Otaku: How Anime Inspired Wrestlers

Two rivals stand across from each other, ready to throw down. This is the culmination of weeks of blood, sweat, and tears of high emotion and raw power. Everything fans have been waiting for is about to happen in an explosive, no holds barred battle, where only the strongest survives! If you had to pick whether that passage described your favorite anime action series or professional wrestling, you might have a hard time picking between the two of them; the fact of the matter is that wrestling and anime have a lot more in common than most people think they do.

Several weeks ago, we did a video on that very subject, focusing on the ways in which these two seemingly different types of entertainment crossover with one another frequently. But were you aware that many wrestlers are big anime fans? Whether its wearing gear inspired by their favorite series, special attacks with homage names, or simply wearing their love for anime on their sleeve, many of today’s titans of the ring have a deep love for anime. If you’re curious about some of them, we’ve got a few wrestlers to grapple with here, but trust us when we say this is just the tip of the iceberg!

If you’re already a fan of both wrestling and anime, you may have immediately thought of Xavier Woods, member of the longest reigning WWE Tag Team Champions, the New Day, as well as host of video game channel Up Up Down Down. Xavier is a well known fan of anime and games, and the New Day’s Dragon Ball Z themed Wrestlemania entrance is legendary! But aside from that nod in the ring, Xavier has talked about his deep love for anime and gaming for a long time, and he regularly attends conventions such as Dragoncon in full cosplay, pulling off an impressive Sailor Mercury cosplay last year!

On his YouTube channel Xavier routinely plays anime themed and inspired games and occasionally talks about anime with his guests, such as one episode devoted to the Sailor Moon fighting game featuring fellow WWE wrestler and huge Sailor Moon fan Sasha Banks! Sasha has routinely mentioned her love of Sailor Moon in interviews, even stating that she identified the most with Serena/Usagi when she was watching the show while growing up. Longtime readers here at Crunchyroll may even remember that Sasha and Xavier appeared on an episodes of our very own Lighting Round back in 2016, answering our burning anime questions for them, which you can check out here and here if you’re curious.

Xavier and Sasha are far from the only WWE talent that wear their love for anime on their sleeve, though. NXT Superstar Brennan Williams is another longtime anime fan, whose original signature move in the ring was the “Nico Nico Knee,” an homage to everyone’s favorite Love Live idol and gremlin Nico Yazawa. Williams is perhaps even more obvious about his love of anime than most, and with a Twitter handle like “GREATBLACKOTAKU,” it’s hard to argue with that! Brennan’s Twitch channel has a Pop Team Epic inspired logo, and he regularly posts about anime and games that he’s playing and watching when not training or entertaining in the ring. His streaming partner and fellow NXT Superstar Shane Thorne shares similar enthusiasm for anime, even having a Brand of Sacrifice tattoo on his abdomen and professing his love for Berserk on Twitter.

Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, and Berserk seem to be big hits amongst wrestlers, as shown by WWE wrestler and former NXT North American champion Ricochet, who back when he wrestled mostly in Japan dressed up as Frieza for Halloween, accompanying fellow wrestler (and now NXT Superstar) ACH, who had dressed up as Ash Ketchum. ACH is perhaps another go to for wrestling and anime fans in the know, as he’s been combining his two loves into his performances for a long time. ACH’s signature ring entrance pose is inspired by One Piece’s Franky, would be introduced as hailing from the Planet Vegeta, and he even wears a Naruto ninja headband with his gear as well! In my own experience, I even got to see ACH after a show cradling a brand new Naruto figure he picked up while in town for a show, keeping his work life and hobby life alive at the same time!

Loving anime on your free time is one thing, but incorporating that love into your moves in the ring is quite another. Although some like Brennan Williams have found some success with it, there’s probably no greater nod to a love of anime than Samoa Joe, whose signature move the Muscle Buster is a very obvious homage to the famous Kinniku Buster from Kinnikuman! Although he hasn’t used the move in quite a while, checking out replays of his matches in NXT will give you a chance to compare the two; we have to say, Joe’s version is quite authentic and just as devastating as Kinnikuman’s signature finisher. Joe also posted back in 2017 that his youngest child had become interested in boxing anime Hajime no Ippo, and there’s nothing quite as heart warming as seeing one of the most destructive wrestlers in the world share his love of anime with his kids like a good dad.

But which wrestlers are the MOST anime? That is a bit of a hard question to answer (and, for the sake of simplicity, we’re not including wrestlers who are literally based on anime like Jushin Thunder Liger and Tiger Mask), but for this particular article we’ll leave you with two very special people: WWE’s Asuka and NJPW’s Minoru Suzuki.

Asuka, who wrestled in Japan under the name Kana, has a long history of enjoying anime and manga, as well as video games. Aside from her wrestling career, Asuka owns a hair salon named Another Heaven, and worked as a graphic designer and video game journalist. Her background in these, coupled with her love of anime, leads to some pretty amazing moments, such as her Twitter re-creation of the infamous stand off between Dio and Jotaro, with herself and WWE’s Charlotte Flair taking the roles! Asuka has always had a flair for the dramatic, flashy, and colorful, and her non-wrestling related tweets tend to involve games (she’s a huge fan of Okami and retro games!), and just recently posted that she’s anxious to read the newest issue of Manga Action that’s due out in May. Asuka’s twitter is routinely filled with various games, anime, manga, and art that she enjoys, making her one of the most vocal wrestler anime fans by far!

Finally, that brings us to Minoru Suzuki. Infamous for his extremely threatening aura and physical style in the ring, Suzuki is also a diehard manga fan, especially One Piece! There may not be a wrestler that is a more avid and open fan of anime than Suzuki, who has been such a vocal fan of One Piece that he’s even appeared in it, voicing the character Minoru Kazeno (A combination of Suzuki’s own name and reference to his classic theme song, “Kaze ni Nare”). If you want to see Suzuki in anime form, you can check it out right here on Crunchyroll! But it doesn’t quite stop there with Suzuki; he’s such a huge fan of One Piece that he shaved the Devil Fruit design into his hair, and has appeared on a few shows to discuss his love of the series. In an episode of the variety show SMAPxSMAP, Suzuki showed up as part of a trivia challenge, walking away the victor after a series of grueling superfan questions!

And that’s still not all; Suzuki has even had his own official One Piece themed spin-off in Saikyo Jump’s One Piece Party, known as One Piece Corner, where he discussed things going on in and coming up in One Piece at the time. Suzuki also hosted a podcast called “Manga King Minoru Suzuki,” where he talked about manga he was reading and his opinions on them. And his classic theme song, “Kaze ni Nare,” is famously sung by Ayumi Nakamura, who has performed theme songs for shows like Magic Knight Rayearth. When it comes down to it, it’s pretty hard to beat Minoru Suzuki when it comes to that marriage of anime and wrestling, but take it from us, I think I’d let him win any manga debates he wanted to have…

As anime and manga become more popular, its only to be expected that more and more people come to love and appreciate them, but it is certainly interesting to see the mixture of wrestling and anime take form in the way wrestlers bring their love of the hobby into the ring with them. And we’re sure that there are many more anime loving wrestlers out there, as this list is by no means exhaustive, but simply a way for you to see that anime really is for everyone! Now, we suggest you follow Suzuki’s advice, “be like the wind,” and settle down for some anime and wrestling binge watching! Nothing says anime marathon break like a few hours of amazing wrestling, right?

Did you find out anything about some of your favorite wrestlers? Maybe considering giving wrestling a chance if you haven’t before? Know of any wrestlers we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments!

----

Nicole is a features writer and editor for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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mobilenamic · 6 years

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Terraform Multi-Provider Deployment Including a Custom Provider

Introduction

In the post Continuous Delivery on AWS with Terraform and Travis CI we have seen how Terraform can be used to manage your infrastructure as code and automate your deployments. When working on a project involving different infrastructure providers Terraform can also be very helpful.

Besides managing popular cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure, Terraform supports a great set of additional official and community providers. If the desired provider happens to be missing you can write your own custom provider and utilize Terraform’s flexible plugin mechanism to include it into your workflow.

The fact that Terraform is not tied to a specific infrastructure or cloud provider makes it a powerful tool in multi-provider deployments. You are able to manage all resources using the same set of configuration files, sharing variables or defining dependencies between resources across providers.

In this post we want to take a look at an example on how to provision resources from two providers. We will combine an AWS API Gateway deployment with a webhook subscription for the Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) tool called LeanIX. I chose LeanIX in this example because we have recently been working with a customer who uses it for their EAM and it has a very developer friendly API.

We are going to write our own custom provider for LeanIX because no community provider exists, yet. The goal is for both the API and the webhook subscription to be integrated such that webhook is calling the AWS API. All resource configuration will be managed from within Terraform. The source code of the complete example as well as the custom provider is hosted on GitHub.

The remainder of the post is structured as follows. First we will quickly outline the solution architecture. The next section is going to discuss the implementation details, including the Terraform resource definitions, provider configuration, as well as the implementation of the custom LeanIX provider. We are concluding the post by summarizing and discussing the main findings.

Architecture

The solution architecture involves two main components: LeanIX and the API Gateway. In LeanIX you can create a new Webhook subscription in order to react to events happening within the system. This can be used, e.g., to build a Slack application that notifies you whenever a new user signed up.

In our example we will send the events towards a dummy API. API Gateway can integrate with arbitrary services to process incoming requests, e.g. AWS Lambda, but also just act as a reverse HTTP proxy. For the sake of simplicity we will only have a mock integration which does not actually process the requests. Let’s dive into the implementation details.

Implementation

To implement the target architecture we will define our resources in Terraform configuration files as usual. The AWS Provider is responsible for managing the API Gateway, while a custom LeanIX provider will manage the webhook subscription. The implementation of the custom provider will be explained in more detail in the second part of this section. First let’s look at the resource definitions.

Resource Definitions

API Gateway

An API Gateway deployment consists of a set of resources. Each resource can work with a set of methods. For each method we need to define what should happen if the API is called on this resource. This can be achieved by defining four building blocks: A method request, an integration request, an integration response, and a method response.

In our particular case we will have one resource called events which accepts requests made with the POST method. The definitions of method request/response and integration request/response are fairly simple, as we are using a mock endpoint. We configured the API to return status code 200 (OK) on every request. The following figure illustrates the final result after creating the API.

The method request defines the HTTP request format accepted by the API gateway. If your resource requires authentication and authorization, you need to define an authorizer inside the method request settings. The integration request defines how the API Gateway sends a request towards the integration endpoint. If your integrating with a Lambda function, it will contain the original request wrapped inside a JSON event containing additional meta data. But you are also free to define your own request mapping depending on the API of the integration endpoint.

The integration response defines how to transform the back-end response before passing it on to the client. The status code must match to an existing method response. The method response then defines the form of the final HTTP response sent back to the client.

The listing below shows the Terraform file required to setup the API Gateway deployment. After creating all required resources we also have to create a deployment resource. Each deployment happens in a stage, allowing us to deploy the API multiple times, e.g. one for testing and one for production.

It is important to note that AWS requires you to setup the request and response definitions in order, following the arrows from the figure above. Unless you are defining this dependency implicitly by using variables it is necessary to explicitly make the resources depend on each other.

Having the API that will accept incoming webhook events setup, we now need to create the webhook subscription.

Webhook Subscription

In LeanIX, webhooks allow you to subscribe to events happening inside the application in near-real time. You can subscribe to many different event types, such as creation, modification or deletion of objects and user logins, for example.

To create a new webhook subscription we need to provide the following information:

Identifier. The identifier is the name of the webhook that is shown on the UI.

Target URL. The URL which the webhook is pushing events to.

Target method. The HTTP method to use when sending a request to the target URL.

Activity Status. Whether the webhook is active or not.

Workspace ID. This associates the webhook with a specific LeanIX workspace, so it is visible and manageable through the workspace administration UI.

Tag sets. Tag sets can be used to subscribe to specific event types. Every event that matches all of the tags in at least one of the tag sets will get forwarded.

The following figure shows a successfully created webhook subscription in LeanIX.

There are more configuration options available but we are going to leave them out at this point. Please consult the official LeanIX API documentation for more information. The listing below illustrates the Terraform resource definition for the webhook subscription.

In this subscription we are only interested in getting notified when someone creates or deletes a fact sheet object. The service responsible for fact sheets is called pathfinder. We are generating the identifier from the LeanIX API key as it has to be unique across the system. The target URL is filled in by Terraform based on the API Gateway deployment.

In order to apply the changes and make Terraform create the webhook subscription we need to initialize and configure the AWS and LeanIX providers. In the next section will look into the provider configuration as well as the basics on how the custom provider is implemented.

Providers

Provider Configuration

The AWS provider needs to have a valid access and secret key. There are multiple ways to provide AWS credentials and you are free to choose the one you prefer. In this case we are using a credentials file to keep the provider configuration clean. Thus we are only providing the region to use.

The LeanIX provider needs to have the URL of your LeanIX instance, as well as a valid API token. You can generate new API tokens directly from within LeanIX.

Next we can initialize Terraform and apply the changes. For convenience reasons we even made Terraform generate a curl statement to immediately try the API.

Great! We have a working webhook subscription sending events towards our API hosted in AWS. The only open question is how did we write the LeanIX Terraform provider?

LeanIX Custom Provider

Terraform knows two types of plugins: Providers and provisioners. Providers enable you to manage resources provided by a specific service through an API. Provisioners are used to execute scripts on a local or remote machine as part of the resource lifecycle, e.g. bootstrapping a newly created virtual machine resource.

In our example we need to create a new custom provider to manage the LeanIX webhook subscription resource. Luckily, Terraform offers a comprehensive guide on creating custom providers. Here’s what we need to do:

Create new Go project. Terraform is written in Go. Terraform plugins are also written in Go. Each plugin is an executable that communicates with the Terraform core through remote procedure calls (RPC). Plugins are loaded dynamically and only have to be initialized once using terraform init.

Create main method boilerplate. In order for the plugin to be usable it needs to have a main method that initializes the provider. It will be called by Terraform as soon as the provider is being used.

Create provider definition. The provider definition contains the provider schema, the available resources, as well as a function to bootstrap the provider given a user configuration. The provider schema defines which configuration options are available and required to use the provider.

Create resource definitions. A resource definition contains functions to create, read, update, and delete resources. This usually corresponds to API calls on the provider service, e.g. AWS or LeanIX. It also contains a schema definition which states the configuration options available and required for the Terraform resource.

It is recommended to decouple actual client logic from the resource definition, which is why I implemented a separate LeanixClient type which contains all the logic including authentication and usage of the LeanIX API. Going into details regarding the actual resource implementation is beyond the scope of this post. But feel free to browse the source code and drop any question you might have in the comments.

Conclusion

In this post we have seen how Terraform can be used to deploy infrastructure involving more than one provider. By defining dependencies between resources and imputing variables across providers we are able to seamlessly integrate all infrastructure components.

Terraform resources can only be defined using configuration files, which is limiting the flexibility to some extend. Nevertheless the simple, yet powerful plugin system allows to extend Terraform functionality as required. Terraform plugins have to be written in Go, but there is plenty of documentation and examples available to refer to.

Please do not forget to destroy your resources in case you were following along. Did you write you own custom provider before? Do you know any alternatives to Terraform when it comes to infrastructure as code involving multiple service providers? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Der Beitrag Terraform Multi-Provider Deployment Including a Custom Provider erschien zuerst auf codecentric AG Blog.

Terraform Multi-Provider Deployment Including a Custom Provider published first on https://medium.com/@TheTruthSpy

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t-baba · 6 years

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Build User Registration with Node, React, and Okta

This article was originally published on OKTA Blog. Thank you for supporting the partners who make SitePoint possible.

Today’s internet users expect a personalized experience. Developers must learn to develop websites that provide that personalized experience while keeping their user’s information private. Modern web applications also tend to have a server-side API and a client-side user interface. it can be challenging to get make both ends aware of the currently logged in user. In this tutorial, I will walk you through setting up a Node API that feeds a React UI, and build a user registration that keeps the user’s information private and personal.

In this tutorial, I won’t use any state management libraries like Redux or ReduxThunk. In a more robust application, you’ll probably want to do that, but it will be easy to wire up Redux and ReduxThunk and then add the fetch statements used here as your thunks. For the sake of simplicity, and to keep this article focused on adding user management, I’ll be adding fetch statements into componentDidMount functions.

Install the Node and React Prerequisites

To set up the base application, make sure you have these basic tools installed:

Node (8+)

npm (5+)

create-react-app (npm package)

express-generator (npm package)

You’ll also need an Okta developer account.

To install Node and npm, you can follow the instructions for your operating system at https://nodejs.org/en/.

Then just install the two npm packages with the npm command line:

npm i -g create-react-app express-generator

Now you’re ready to set up the basic application structure.

Scaffold the Base Application

Go to the folder where you want your application to live and create a new folder for it:

mkdir MembershipSample cd MembershipSample express api create-react-app client

This will create two folders in the MembershipSample folder called api and client, with a NodeJS and Express application in the api folder and a base React application in the client folder. So your folder structure will look like:

MembershipSample

api

client

To make this next part easier, open two terminals or terminal tabs; one to the express app folder api and the other to the React app folder client.

By default, the React app and the Node app will both run on port 3000 in development, so you’ll need to get the API to run on a different port and then proxy it in the client app.

In the api folder, open the /bin/www file and change the port the API will be running on to 3001.

/** * Get port from environment and store in Express. */ var port = normalizePort(process.env.PORT || '3001'); app.set('port', port);

Then set up the proxy for the API in the client application so that you can still call /api/{resource} and have it proxied from port 3000 to port 3001. In the client/package.json file, add the proxy setting below name:

"name": "client", "proxy": "http://localhost:3001"

Lastly, don’t forget to run npm install or yarn install for each subfolder (api and client) to ensure that the dependencies are installed.

You can now run both applications by running npm start or yarn start in the appropriate folders for the API and the client application.

Add an Okta Application

If you haven’t already done so, create a free forever developer account at https://developer.okta.com/signup/.

Once you’ve registered, click on Applications in the top menu. Then click the Add Application button.

You will then be taken to the application creation wizard. Choose the Single-Page App button and click Next at the bottom.

On the next screen, you will see the default settings provided by the single-page application template. Change the name of the application to something more descriptive, like “Membership Application”. Also, change the base URIs and the login redirect URIs settings to use port 3000 because that is where your application will be running. The rest of the default settings are fine.

Then click the Done button at the bottom.

Once the application has been created, select it from the applications listing, and click on the General tab to view the general settings for your application.

At the bottom, you will see a Client ID setting (yours won’t be blurred out, obviously). Copy this to use in your React application. You will also need your Okta organization URL, which you can find at the top left of the dashboard page. It will probably look something like “https://dev-XXXXXX.oktapreview.com”.

Add Authentication to the ReactJS Application

Now that the application is created, add authentication using Okta by adding a couple of npm dependencies. From the client folder run:

npm install @okta/okta-react react-router-dom --save

Or, if you’re using the yarn package manager:

yarn add @okta/okta-react react-router-dom

Add a file to the client/src folder called app.config.js. The contents of the file are:

export default { url: '{yourOktaDomain}', issuer: '{yourOktaOrgUrl}/oauth2/default', redirect_uri: window.location.origin + '/implicit/callback', client_id: '{yourClientID}' }

Then, setup the index.js file to use the React Router and Okta’s React SDK. When the index.js file is complete, it will look like this:

import React from 'react'; import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'; import { BrowserRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom'; import { Security } from '@okta/okta-react'; import './index.css'; import config from './app.config'; import App from './App'; import registerServiceWorker from './registerServiceWorker'; function onAuthRequired({ history }) { history.push('/login'); } ReactDOM.render( <Router> <Security issuer={config.issuer} client_id={config.client_id} redirect_uri={config.redirect_uri} onAuthRequired={onAuthRequired}> <App /> </Security> </Router>, document.getElementById('root') ); registerServiceWorker();

Once complete, you will have added the BrowserRouter component (aliased as “Router”) from the React Router, and the Security component from Okta’s React SDK. Also that the app.config.js file is imported as “config” so that you can use the config values in the properties required by the Security component.

You will also have surrounded the App component with the Router and Security components, passing in the values specified. The onAuthRequired method, simply tells Okta’s React SDK that when somebody tries to access a secure route and they are not logged in, redirect them to the login page.

Everything else will have come from the create-react-app command you ran previously.

Add Pages to the ReactJS App

Before adding any routes to the React app, create some components to handle the routes you want to add.

Add a components folder to the client/src folder. This is where all your components will live and the easiest way to organize them. Then create a home folder for your home page components. For now there will be just one, but there may be more components used only for the home page later. Add a HomePage.js file to the folder with the following contents:

import React from 'react'; export default class HomePage extends React.Component{ render(){ return( <h1>Home Page</h1> ); } }

This is all you really need for the home page at the moment. The most important point is to make the HomePage component a class type. Even though right now it only contains a single h1 tag, it is meant to be a “page”, meaning it will likely contain other components, so it’s important that it be a container component.

Next, create an auth folder in components. This is where all components that have to do with authentication will live. In that folder, create a LoginForm.js file.

The first thing to note is that you’ll be using the withAuth higher-order component from Okta’s React SDK to wrap the entire login form. This adds a prop to the component called auth, making it possible to access things like the isAuthenticated and redirect functions on that higher-order component.

The code for the LoginForm component is as follows:

import React from 'react'; import OktaAuth from '@okta/okta-auth-js'; import { withAuth } from '@okta/okta-react'; export default withAuth(class LoginForm extends React.Component { constructor(props) { super(props); this.state = { sessionToken: null, error: null, username: '', password: '' } this.oktaAuth = new OktaAuth({ url: props.baseUrl }); this.handleSubmit = this.handleSubmit.bind(this); this.handleUsernameChange = this.handleUsernameChange.bind(this); this.handlePasswordChange = this.handlePasswordChange.bind(this); } handleSubmit(e) { e.preventDefault(); this.oktaAuth.signIn({ username: this.state.username, password: this.state.password }) .then(res => this.setState({ sessionToken: res.sessionToken })) .catch(err => { this.setState({error: err.message}); console.log(err.statusCode + ' error', err) }); } handleUsernameChange(e) { this.setState({ username: e.target.value }); } handlePasswordChange(e) { this.setState({ password: e.target.value }); } render() { if (this.state.sessionToken) { this.props.auth.redirect({ sessionToken: this.state.sessionToken }); return null; } const errorMessage = this.state.error ? <span className="error-message">{this.state.error}</span> : null; return ( <form onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}> {errorMessage} <div className="form-element"> <label>Username:</label> <input id="username" type="text" value={this.state.username} onChange={this.handleUsernameChange} /> </div> <div className="form-element"> <label>Password:</label> <input id="password" type="password" value={this.state.password} onChange={this.handlePasswordChange} /> </div> <input id="submit" type="submit" value="Submit" /> </form> ); } });

The other thing of note here is the OktaAuth library being imported. This is the base library for doing things like signing in using the Okta application you created previously. You’ll notice an OktaAuth object being created in the constructor that gets a property of baseUrl passed to it. This is the URL for the issuer that is in your app.config.js file. The LoginForm component is meant to be contained in another component, so you’ll have to create a LoginPage.js file to contain this component. You’ll use the withAuth higher-order component again, to get access to the isAuthenticated function. The contents of LoginPage.js will be:

Continue reading %Build User Registration with Node, React, and Okta%

by Lee Brandt via SitePoint http://ift.tt/2DJsndJ

#CSS3 #HTML5 Branding #HTML5 Weekly #HTMLl5 demos #Javascript Branding #Javascript Weekly #Mobile #Mo

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smoothiemakers2 · 6 years

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Americans Exiting Canada: Understanding the Five-Year Deemed Disposition Rule

Americans Exiting Canada: Understanding the Five-Year Deemed Disposition Rule Americans Exiting Canada: Understanding the Five-Year Deemed Disposition RuleAmerican citizens living in Canada for more than five years face an imposed exit tax on unrealized gains. americans living in canada One of the most common questions we receive from Americans moving to Canada is how to navigate around the Canada Revenue Agency�s five-year deemed disposition rule. Canada assesses an exit tax on any unrealized capital gains inside taxable accounts in cases where the U.S. citizen moves back to the United States after having been a Canadian tax resident for longer than 60 months. cross border tax and accounting It is important to note that this rule does not apply to any tax-deferred investment accounts or plans. Some visa holders arrange their date of return to the United States to be 60 months less a day in order to avoid qualifying for this event. But in many cases, this is inconvenient for the corporations that employ them. And it can create personal family hardship, should it occur, for example, in the middle of a school year. The Canada-U.S. tax treaty requires that non-tax-deferred securities accounts be taxed in the country of the beneficial owner�s residency. Accounts that are transferred to Canada from the United States �in kind� retain their original cost basis (usually the purchase price) for U.S. tax purposes. But a second cost basis�equal to the accounts� market value on the day the beneficial owner became a Canadian resident for tax purposes�is automatically generated. This can cause confusion, and in many cases erroneous tax reporting, in both Canada and the United States. Does leaving your accounts in the U.S. help? In the past, some U.S. citizens would simply leave their U.S. taxable and trust accounts in the United States in an attempt to get around the Canadian five-year tax rule. Prior to 2013, this sometimes worked. The CRA required, but did not rigorously enforce, reporting of unrealized capital gains of all taxable accounts, including those remaining in the U.S. In 2013, however, the CRA introduced a revamped, more robust version of a form called the T1135 Foreign Income Verification Statement, which is somewhat similar to the IRS� foreign reporting requirements in the United States through IRS Form 8938 and the FinCEN 114. The CRA T1135 form requires a detailed annual accounting of all foreign accounts (including those in the United States) held by a Canadian tax resident. Failing to file this form leads to penalties. And given the increased information sharing initiatives now in place between the CRA and IRS, taxpayers must be compliant. If an American moves back to the United States after five years, the CRA will have a complete record of all of their taxable investment accounts in both countries. When completing the Canadian exit tax returns, you will be assessed on any unrealized capital gains from the date of when you entered Canada to the date of departure. This is reported on your Canadian exit return through Forms T1161 and T1243. How do the tax rules work? Let�s use a hypothetical example to illustrate how the rules work. For simplicity�s sake, we will ignore currency exchange. Bear in mind that in real life, currency exchange must be accounted for to determine the proper Canadian basis and ultimate proceed numbers for Canadian and U.S. purposes. You purchase a number of investment securities (stocks, bonds ETFs etc.) in a taxable account that has a U.S. cost basis of $50,000. When you later move to Canada, the account is worth $100,000 ($50,000 of which is unrealized gains). Regardless of where the account is domiciled (Canada or the United States), you now have two adjusted cost bases for tax purposes. The U.S. basis is $50,000. The Canadian basis is $100,000. Five years later, you move back to the United States; the account has now grown to a value of $150,000 ($100,000 capital gains for U.S. tax purposes and $50,000 for Canadian tax purposes). For Canadian tax purposes, you will have an imposed departure gain of $50,000. In Canada, 50% of the gain is taxable at your respective marginal rate. Assuming that you are in the highest marginal rate in Ontario upon exit, your net tax would be 24.76%. For U.S. tax purposes, you would have to pick up capital gains of $100,000. The current U.S. long-term capital gains rate of 15% would be applied. However, depending on your filing status and U.S. Adjusted Gross Income amounts, you could be subject to an additional 5% capital gains tax and a 3.8% levy on all net investment income for the tax year. Therefore, it is extremely important to proactively gain a sense of what exposure might exist in Canada and the United States prior to departure or the end of the tax year in order to avoid any unnecessary surprises. On any Canadian tax paid, you would receive a passive foreign tax credit. The credit may be used for U.S. tax reporting purposes under the Canada-U.S. tax treaty�provided that it is properly filed by your accountant. It should be noted that this is a �deemed� sale, and not an actual sale of the securities in the account. For U.S. tax purposes, your original adjusted cost basis is still $50,000. Interestingly, when moving back to the United States, the IRS does not allow for a stepped-up basis to be used for securities bought while living in Canada. Unlike in Canada, where the basis for Canadian tax purposes is calculated based on the market value on the day that the beneficial owner became a Canadian resident for tax purposes, the U.S. will only recognize the original basis. This means that if a security was bought in Canada for $50,000 and it was valued at $100,000 at the time you move back to the U.S., the IRS would consider $50,000 to be the cost basis�it will not allow it to be stepped up to $100,000. How to minimize the Canadian exit tax A qualified Canada-U.S. cross-border financial advisor will keep track of both your Canadian and U.S. cost bases, and tax-manage your portfolio accordingly. Actively and prudently employing tax-loss harvesting to offset gains can reduce the amount of exit tax owed. Contact Cardinal Point to learn more about our tax-managed portfolio strategies for Americans living in Canada, and how we personalize our investment process to fit your needs. About the Author: Terry Ritchie is the Director of Cross-Border Wealth Services at the Cardinal Point, a cross-border wealth management organization with offices in the United States and Canada. Terry has been providing Canada-U.S. cross-border financial, investment, tax, transition, and estate planning services to affluent families for over 25 years. He is active as an author, speaker and educator on international tax and financial planning matters. www.cardinalpointwealth.com Tags: exit tax, five-year deemed disposition rule, Canadian exit tax returns

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