sho

Belfast boxers show support to youth club's NHS appreciation video

Paddy Barnes, Sean McComb, Tyrone McKenna and Padraig McCrory are all seen in the video




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Syndicated Show 'Lost & Found' Offers New Episodes To Public Radio

After a long hiatus, the syndicated one-hour weekly show, LOST & FOUND hosted by LUKE CRAMPTION, is offering 13 new shows to public radio free of charge. The shows can be accessed either … more




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Prince's Never-Before-Aired Demo Show For SiriusXM To Air Tonight

The previously-announced debut of the pilot show PRINCE produced for SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO in 2005 (NET NEWS 4/29) will air TONIGHT (5/1) on the limited-run PRINCE CHANNEL, premiering at 7p … more




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Black and White Shoes

True Love Cafe on Dundas Street....




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Patients taking ACE-i and ARBs who contract COVID-19 should continue treatment, unless otherwise advised by their physician

Embargoed until 8 a.m. CT/9 a.m. ET, Tuesday, March 17, 2020   DALLAS, Tuesday, March 17, 2020 – As the global impact of COVID-19 rises, the scientific community continues to evaluate the clinical impact and health care needs of patients with...




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FDA’s Graphic Cigarette Warnings Show and Tell the Deadly Truth About Smoking – They Must Be Fully Implemented and Vigorously Defended

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 17, 2020 – By issuing a final rule requiring large, graphic health warnings on cigarette packs and advertising, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today has taken a critical and long-overdue step forward in the nation’s battle...




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Leading Health Care Groups Issue Urgent Call for Federal Action to Address Medical Equipment Shortages

  WASHINGTON, D.C., March 30, 2020 — As longstanding organizations representing and supporting those on the front lines who are risking their lives caring for the world’s most vulnerable patients, we stand united in voicing our concern over the ...




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More than 200 patient groups call on Administration to take additional action to alleviate critical shortage of ventilators, PPE, ensure safety of providers, patients

Today, more than patient advocacy, medical and public health organizations sent a letter to senior Trump Administration officials, appealing to the Administration to take immediate action to alleviate the critical shortage across the nation ventilators...




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Cronulla Riots - The Day That Shocked the Nation

Investigate the simmering tensions between groups of Australians that led to racially motivated violence at Sydney’s Cronulla Beach in December 2005.




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Most shocking free-agent decisions in MLB history

Since the first free agent signing of the modern era back in 1974, there have been several free agent deals that shook the baseball world and realigned power across the Majors. Here's a look at several moves that changed the landscape of baseball, and in some cases, were downright shocking:




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Why personas are antiquated (and what you should use instead)

Personas are antiquated… this coming from someone who has relied on and written about them for years. For years at 3.7 Designs, we’ve created personas during the design discovery phase. I recently realized that the traditional marketing persona is no longer a relevant practice. The keyword here is “traditional.” At 3.7 we’ve adopted a practice […]

The post Why personas are antiquated (and what you should use instead) appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.




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7 Online Tools All Photographers Should Use

There are so many things you need in order to take successful photos, from the correct composition to the best use of light. There is no doubt that your foundations need to be solid, but you can also take your great shots to the next level using online tools. Online tools are also useful for a range of things related to being a photographer, such as marketing yourself online or using your images for various mediums, such as Stickerit stickers. Here are our pick of the top 7 online tools that all photographers should use. Adobe Lightroom Editing and image

The post 7 Online Tools All Photographers Should Use appeared first on Photoshop Lady.




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5 Things You Should Keep in Mind Before Starting a Website

Starting a website can be a fun journey for some of the tech wizards out there, and a relative nightmare for the rest of us. So before you take a leap of faith and jump-start this project, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. 1.   The aim matters This is where it all begins, your vision. What is your website about? What is it that you would like for your website to showcase? What is the call-to-action you hope your website’s visitors to make? As you answer the above questions, you will be able to utilize

The post 5 Things You Should Keep in Mind Before Starting a Website appeared first on Photoshop Lady.




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Low-Budget Glamour Shots That Are Just Too Terrible For Words

Some people actually paid money to have these photos taken. Can you imagine? How much would you pay for a...




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Best sports movies: ‘Slap Shot’ is true to the sport of hockey

Editor’s note: The Gazette sports staff has compiled lists of its top 15 favorite sports movies. Each day, a different staffer will share some insight into one of their favorites. Some of them...




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18-year-old charged in fatal shooting arrested for drunken driving while out on bail

CEDAR RAPIDS — A 17-year-old, charged in January with fatally shooting an 18-year-old during a drug robbery, was released in March only to be arrested about a month later for drunken driving....




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Iowa should give cash to undocumented immigrants

Immigrants have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 pandemic. They’re more likely than native-born Americans to be laboring to keep our essential services running, especially in the...




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Tyson outbreak: Short closure but enduring grief

As the coronavirus spread from the nation’s meatpacking plants to the broader communities where they are located, it burned through a modest duplex in Waterloo. In the downstairs unit lived...




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Shower Mom with love — from a distance

Mother’s Day celebrations will look different for many families this year as we follow social distancing guidelines. Fortunately, we don’t have to be in proximity to express our love...




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Man arrested in Texas faces murder charge in Iowa City shooting

IOWA CITY — An Iowa City man has been arrested in Texas in connection with the April 20 shooting death of Kejuan Winters. Reginald Little, 44, was taken into custody Friday by the Lubbock...




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C.R. workplace shooting suspect turns self in after father drives him to Alabama police station

A man suspected of a workplace shooting last month at a vinyl window manufacturer in southwest Cedar Rapids turned himself into authorities Friday. Jamal Devonte Edwards, 26, has been wanted since...




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Should you care about digital waste?

Watch my video and see why it’s so important to minimize digital waste. Are you aware of how much digital waste your WordPress website is producing? Did you know this waste carries an actual cost for both you and your website’s visitors? Digital waste is an especially poignant topic in open source software (like the […]




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Churches should listen to God

The Gazette recently published an open letter from a group of church leaders regarding Gov. Kim Reynolds’ decision to allow in-person gatherings, asking her to reconsider.

Why? Why not let individual churches decide whether to hold services?

The people who signed this letter trust the pastors who are under their purview to teach God’s word to their congregations. Do you not trust them to prayerfully consider whether they should hold in-person services and ask for God’s guidance?

When you have God to guide your decisions, what does it matter whether the government decides a thing is permitted or not?

Pastors who lead those churches should seek God’s guidance on whether to meet in person, not Kim Reynolds.

Kent Christen

Coralville



  • Letters to the Editor

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Iowa should give cash to undocumented immigrants

Immigrants have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 pandemic. They’re more likely than native-born Americans to be laboring to keep our essential services running, especially in the food processing sector that has been ravaged by the pandemic.

And yet immigrants living here illegally — including many food industry workers, their family members and people who have been living here since they were children — do not get the same coronavirus relief that legal citizens do, such as the $1,200 federal payment millions of Americans are receiving.

To remedy the situation, Iowa could coordinate direct cash payments to undocumented immigrants who were left out of the federal program. California announced such a program last month, offering $500 payments to thousands of undocumented Californians.

The public health crisis is tightly bound to the immigration crisis. It has exposed disparities in the workforce and also given rise to protectionists who want to restrict migration.

Iowa’s meat processing industry has been slammed by the virus, with at least one plant in Iowa reporting more than half of its workers have tested positive. Those production lines are heavily populated by immigrants. Well over 1,000 combined cases have been reported at four major packing facilities.

Nationally, 28 percent of agriculture workers and 29 percent of food processing workers are foreign-born, according to the pro-immigration New American Economy Research Fund.

Most immigrant workers have legal status, but many don’t. Some of those who are legal have family members who are undocumented. An influx of cash would help bring some stability to struggling families so they can weather the crisis.

At the same time we are asking essential workers to risk their health to sustain us, the anti-immigration lobby has used the pandemic as an opportunity to ramp up their campaign to cut off the flow of workers across borders. As one recent example, four GOP senators — including Iowa’s Sen. Chuck Grassley — sent a letter this week to the Trump administration, asking for guest worker visas to be suspended until next year.

In the pandemic, the idea of giving people money quickly gained political support. Direct payments are not mucked up by the corporate cronyism that plagues traditional economic development, a la checks to companies and targeted tax breaks. When politicians and bureaucrats pick certain businesses to stimulate, they do a bad job.

As long as the government is doing stimulus, the best avenue is writing checks to individuals. People need to buy stuff and as long as the economy limps on, they can buy stuff with money. Immigrants are people, even if they came here illegally. They are also workers, caretakers and taxpayers.

Direct payments would not be a special kickback or a reward for people living in the country illegally. It would be just like the $1,200 direct deposit I got from the government. It comes with a recognition that they are the same as us, important contributors of our culture and economy who are victims of an unworkable legal system.

If the federal government won’t do it, Iowa should.

adam.sullivan@thegazette.com; (319) 339-3156




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5 Reasons Why Should Hire a Web Design Company (Now!)

Wondering why you should hire a web design company? If so, click here for five reasons why you should hire a web design company now! More




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18-year-old charged in fatal shooting arrested for drunken driving while out on bail

CEDAR RAPIDS — A 17-year-old, charged in January with fatally shooting an 18-year-old during a drug robbery, was released in March only to be arrested about a month later for drunken driving.

Kyler David Carson, now 18, of Cedar Rapids, was charged last month with operating while intoxicated and unlawful possession of an anti-anxiety prescription drug.

After two judges reduced Carson’s bail, he bonded out and was released pending trial.

Police arrested Carson April 24 when they believed he was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to a criminal complaint.

He provided a breath sample, which showed no signs on alchol, but refused to provide a urine sample for chemical testing, the complaint states.

In January, Carson was charged with voluntary manslaughter, delivery of a controlled substance-marijuana, carrying weapons and obstructing prosecution.

He is accused of fatally shooting Andrew D. Gaston, 18, on Jan. 24, as Gaston and his cousin, Tyrell J. Gaston, 16, were attempting to rob marijuana from Carson, according to a criminal complaint.

Police received a report of shots being fired at 11:48 p.m. and found Andrew and Tyrell Gaston with gunshot wounds in the parking lot of 3217 Agin Court NE.

During the investigation, police learned the Gaston cousins had arranged, with the help of others, to rob Carson that night. Witnesses told investigators they contacted Carson and “lured” him to the address to rob him of marijuana.

Carson thought he was called that night to sell 45 pre-rolled tubes of marijuana for $900, according to criminal complaint.

While Carson was delivering marijuana to the others in their car, the cousins and a third person ambushed Carson from behind, according to a criminal complaint.

Andrew Gaston struck Carson in the back of the head with a metal object. Carson then turned around and exchanged gunfire with Tyrell Gaston before running from the parking lot, witnesses told police.

Both Carson and Tyrell Gaston later discarded their firearms, which police didn’t recover, according to the complaint.

Tyrell Gaston also was charged with first-degree robbery, conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance-marijuana, carrying weapons and obstructing prosecution.

A judge, during Carson’s initial appearance in the fatal shooting, set his bail at $50,000 cash only, according to court documents. His bail was amended, in agreement with prosecutor and Carson’s lawyer, to $50,000 cash or surety March 23 by 6th Judicial Associate District Judge Russell Keast.

Carson remained in jail, but his lawyer asked for a bond review three days later, March 26, and Associate District Judge Casey Jones lowered the bail to $30,000 cash or surety.

Carson posted bail that day, according to court documents.

Assistant Linn County Attorney Rena Schulte has filed a motion to revoke Carson’s pretrial release and will request his bail ne set at $500,000. A hearing is set on the motion for next Thursday in Linn County District Court.

If convicted, Carson faces up to 19 years in the fatal shooting and up to two years for the other offenses.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com




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Tyson outbreak: Short closure but enduring grief

As the coronavirus spread from the nation’s meatpacking plants to the broader communities where they are located, it burned through a modest duplex in Waterloo.

In the downstairs unit lived Jim Orvis, 65, a beloved friend and uncle who worked in the laundry department at the Tyson Foods pork processing facility, the largest employer in Waterloo. Upstairs was Arthur Scott, a 51-year-old father who was getting his life on track after a prison term for drugs. He worked 25 miles away at the Tyson dog treats factory in Independence.

The two men were not well acquainted. But both fell ill and died last month within days of each other from COVID-19 — casualties of an outbreak linked to the Waterloo plant that spread across the city of 68,000 people.

Similar spread has happened in other communities where the economy centers on raising hogs and cattle and processing their meat, including the hot spots of Grand Island, Neb., and Worthington, Minn.

The virus is “devastating everything,” duplex owner Jose Garcia, who received notification two days apart from his deceased tenants’ relatives, said recently. “These two guys were here last week. Now they are gone. It’s crazy.”

He said it’s possible one of the men infected the other because they shared an entryway, or that they each contracted the virus separately at their workplaces.

The virus threatens the communities’ most vulnerable populations, including low-income workers and their extended families.

“They’re afraid of catching the virus. They’re afraid of spreading it to family members. Some of them are afraid of dying,” said the Rev. Jim Callahan, of the Church of St. Mary in Worthington, a city of 13,000 that has attracted immigrants from across the globe to work at the JBS pork plant.

“One guy said to me, ‘I risked my life coming here. I never thought something that I can’t see could take me out.’ ”

In Grand Island, an outbreak linked to a JBS beef plant that is the city’s largest employer spread rapidly across the rural central Nebraska region, killing more than three dozen people. Many of the dead were elderly residents of long-term care facilities who had relatives or friends employed at the plant.

In Waterloo, local officials blamed Tyson for endangering not only its workers and their relatives but everyone else who leaves home to work or get groceries.

They were furious with the state and federal governments for failing to intervene and for pushing hard to reopen the plant days after public pressure helped idle it.

“We were failed by people who put profit margins and greed before people, predominantly brown people, predominantly immigrants, predominantly people who live in lower socioeconomic quarters,” said Jonathan Grieder, a high school social studies teacher who serves on Waterloo’s City Council. “This is going to be with us for so long. There are going to be very deep scars in our community.”

Grieder cried as he recounted how one of his former students, 19, lost her father to the coronavirus and has been left to raise two younger siblings. Their mother died of cancer last September.

Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said he first became concerned after touring the Tyson plant April 10 and witnessing inadequate social distancing and a lack of personal protective equipment. As hundreds of workers began getting sick or staying home out of fear, Thompson joined the mayor and local officials in asking Tyson to close the plant temporarily on April 16.

But Tyson, with support from Gov. Kim Reynolds, waited until April 22 to announce that step after the outbreak intensified. The company warned of the significant economic consequences even a temporary shutdown would create.

The plant, which can process 19,500 hogs per day, resumed limited production this past week.

First, Tyson invited local officials and some employees inside for tours to show the new safety precautions, including plastic shields and more space between workers.

This time, Thompson said he was “reserved in my optimism” that worker safety would be a priority at the plant.

Although Tyson has declined to say how many of the plant’s 2,800 workers had been infected, state health officials announced last week that 444 — or 17 percent — had the virus.

In three weeks, Black Hawk County’s cases skyrocketed from 62 to at least 1,450, or more than 1 percent of the county population. Deaths because of the virus rose from zero to at least 15. Ninety percent of the cases are “attributed or related to the plant,” the county’s public health director said.

Thompson said the plant’s outbreak decimated the community’s “first line of defense” and allowed the virus to spread to nursing homes and the jail he oversees.

“These are the places we did not want to fight the COVID-19 virus,” he said.

The losses mounted.

A refugee from Bosnia died days after falling sick while working on the Tyson production line, leaving behind her heartbroken husband.

The virus also took an intellectually disabled man who died at 73, years after escaping forced labor at a turkey plant and retiring to Waterloo.

Scott, who went by the nickname Dontae, was planning to reunite in June with two teenage children he had not seen in person since he was incarcerated on federal drug charges in 2011.

A former small-time heroin distributor who suffered from addiction, he and his wife divorced during his prison term, and she moved to Mississippi with the children.

Since his 2018 release, friends said he was doing well and rebuilding relationships.

Scott told his daughter, Destiny Proctor, 18, that he suspected he became infected at the Tyson pet food factory, which has stayed open under federal guidance classifying the industry as critical infrastructure.

Proctor and her 15-year-old brother were looking forward to living with their dad this summer. Instead, their final talk was a video call from a hospital where he struggled to talk.

“It was so, so sad,” Proctor, who described her father as funny and caring and frequently sending her cards and gifts, said of their final call. “He told me he couldn’t breathe.”




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Man arrested in Texas faces murder charge in Iowa City shooting

IOWA CITY — An Iowa City man has been arrested in Texas in connection with the April 20 shooting death of Kejuan Winters.

Reginald Little, 44, was taken into custody Friday by the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office, according to Iowa City police.

Little faces a charge of first-degree murder and is awaiting extradition back to Iowa City.

The shooting happened in an apartment at 1960 Broadway St. around 9:55 a.m. April 20. Police said gunfire could be heard during the call to police.

Officers found Winters, 21, of Iowa City, with multiple gunshot wounds. He died in the apartment.

Police said Durojaiya A. Rosa, 22, of Iowa City, and a woman were at the apartment and gave police a description of the shooter and said they heard him fighting with Winters before hearing gunshots.

Surveillance camera footage and cellphone records indicated Little was in the area before the shots were fired, police said.

Investigators also discovered Little and Rosa had been in communication about entering the apartment, and Rosa told police he and Little had planned to rob Winters.

Rosa also faces one count of first-degree murder.

The shooting death spurred three additional arrests.

Winters’ father, Tyris D. Winters, 41, of Peoria, Ill., and Tony M. Watkins, 39, of Iowa City, were arrested on attempted murder charges after confronting another person later that day in Coralville about the homicide, and, police say, shooting that person in the head and foot.

Police also arrested Jordan R. Hogan, 21, of Iowa City, for obstructing prosecution, saying he helped the suspect, Little, avoid arrest.

First-degree murder is a Class A felony punishable by an automatic life sentence.

Comments: (319) 339-3155; lee.hermiston@thegazette.com




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C.R. workplace shooting suspect turns self in after father drives him to Alabama police station

A man suspected of a workplace shooting last month at a vinyl window manufacturer in southwest Cedar Rapids turned himself into authorities Friday.

Jamal Devonte Edwards, 26, has been wanted since two men were shot at Associated Materials, 3801 Beverly Rd. SW, the morning of April 9.

Cedar Rapids police had indicated Edwards was wanted in particular for the shooting of Mark Robertson, 36.

Edwards faces charges of attempted murder, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, going armed with intent and willful injury.

The U.S. Marshals Service helped locate Edwards, distributing a photo of Edwards along the Gulf Coast. He was located in Mobile, Ala. when his father brought him to the Mobile police department so he could turn himself in, according to a Cedar Rapids police news release.

The April 9 shooting was reported at 5:03 a.m. after two employees were shot at Associated Materials. Both suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Police said at the time it appeared the shooter knew the two men.

Shawn Hardy, senior vice president of integrated products for Associated Materials, confirmed Edwards worked at the Cedar Rapids business, which gave him access to the building, but said he had been employed through a temp agency.




sho

I’ve shot at this location a few times but for some reason...



I’ve shot at this location a few times but for some reason I’ve never seen it from the other side. Literal proof that shooting with other creatives gives you new perspective. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)




sho

I like the philosophy behind shooting with primes; that a...



I like the philosophy behind shooting with primes; that a photographer shouldn’t stand still but instead, continuously move closer, further, lower, or higher relative to his/her subject as a means of establishing a deeper connection. ????????

Save 50% on my custom Lightroom presets with HOLIDAY50. Link in profile. (at Toronto, Ontario)




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This is from my favourite shoot/photoset of all time. It was...



This is from my favourite shoot/photoset of all time. It was spontaneous, serendipitous, and simply beautiful. ☂️
.
The edit: After applying my preset (I used Clean for this one), I bumped up the exposure and desaturated the yellows/oranges a bit. As a finishing touch, I used a graduated filter to brighten the top a bit and a radial filter on @sllychn to brighten and sharpen the focal point. That’s it! ✨ (at Toronto, Ontario)




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Trying to straighten all the lines on this shot is a sure fire...



Trying to straighten all the lines on this shot is a sure fire way to go blind. ???? (at London, United Kingdom)




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I took this shot about a year ago when I had a very different...



I took this shot about a year ago when I had a very different editing style. A ton of faded blacks and, believe it or not, a subtle green tint (unknowingly inherited from the preset I was using at the time). Re-editing it now, I’m happy with the way my style has evolved, though I can already sense that I’m on the brink of evolving it again. And I’m okay with that. ???? (at London, United Kingdom)




sho

Should you use Userbase for your next static site?

During the winter 2020 Pointless Weekend, we built TrailBuddy (working app coming soon). Our team consisted of four developers, two project managers, two front-end developers, a digital-analyst, a UXer, and a designer. In about 48 hours, we took an idea from Jeremy Field’s head to a (mostly) working app. We broke up the project in two parts:. First, a back-end that crunches trail, weather, and soil data. That data is exposed via a GraphQL API for a web app to consume.

While developers built the API, I built a static front end using Next.js. Famously, static front-ends don’t have a database, or a concept of “users.” A bit of functionality I wanted to add was saving favorite trails. I didn’t want to be hacky about it, I needed some way to add users and a database. I knew it’d be hard for the developers to set this up as part of the API, they had their hands full with all the #soil-soil-soil-soil-soil (a slack channel dedicated solely to figuring out our soil data problem—those were plentiful.) I had been looking for an excuse to use Userbase, and this seemed like as good a time as any.

A textbook Userbase use case

“When would I use it?” The Usebase site lists these reasons:

  • If you want to build a web app without writing any backend code.
  • If you never want to see your users' data.
  • If you're tired of dealing with databases.
  • If you want to radically simplify your GDPR compliance.
  • And if you want to keep things really simple.

This was a perfect fit for my problem. I didn’t want to write any more backend code for this. I didn’t want to see our user’s data, I don’t care to know anyone’s favorite trails.* A nice bonus to not having users in our backend was not having to worry about keeping their data safe. We don’t have their data at all, it’s end-to-end encrypted by Userbase. We can offer a reasonable amount of privacy for free (well for the price of using Userbase: $49 a year.) I am not tired of dealing with databases, but I’d rather not. I don’t think anyone doesn’t want to simplify their GDPR compliance. Finally, given our tight timeline I wanted nothing more than to keep things really simple.

A sign up form that I didn't have to write a back-end for

Using Userbase

Userbase can be tried for free, so I set aside thirty minutes or so to do a quick proof of concept to make sure this would work out for us. I made an account and followed their Quickstart. Userbase is a fundamentally easy tool to use, but their quickstart is everything I’d want out of a quickstart:

  • Written in the most vanilla way possible (just HTML and vanilla JS). This means I can adapt it to my needs, in this case React using Next.js
  • Easy to follow, it does the most barebones tour of the functionality you can expect to get out of the SDK (software development kit.) In other words it is quick and it is a start
  • It has a live demo and code samples you can download and run yourself

It didn’t take long after that to integrate Userbase into our app with more help from their great docs. I debated whether to add code samples of what we did here, and I didn’t because any reader would be better off using the great quickstart and docs Userbase provides—they are that clear, and that good. Depending on your use case you’ll need to adapt the examples to your needs, for us the trickiest things were creating a top level authentication context to manage users in the app, and a custom hook to encapsulate all the logic for setting, updating, and deleting favourite trails in the app. Userbase’s SDK worked seamlessly for us.

A log in form that I didn't have to write a back-end for

Is Userbase for you?

Maybe. I am definitely a fan, so much so that this blog post probably reads like an advert. Userbase saved me a ton of time in this project. It reminded me of “The All Powerful Front End Developer” talk by Chris Coyer. I don’t fully subscribe to all the ideas in that talk, but it is nice to have “serverless” tools like Userbase, and all the new JAMstacky things. There are limits to the Userbase serverless experience in terms of scale, and control. Obviously relying on a third party for something always carries some (probably small) risk—it’s worth noting Usebase includes a note on their pricing page that says “You can host it yourself always under your control, or we can run it for you for a full serverless experience”—Still, I wouldn’t hesitate this to use in future projects.

One of the great things about Viget and Pointless Weekend is the opportunity to try new things. For me that was Next.js and Userbase for Trailbuddy. It doesn’t always work out (in fact this is my first pointless weekend where a risk hasn’t blown up in my face) but it is always fun. Getting to try out Userbase and beginning to think about how we may use it in the future made the weekend worthwhile for me, and it made my job on this project much more enjoyable.

*I will write a future post about privacy conscious analytics in TrailBuddy when I’ve figured that out. I am looking into Fathom Analytics for that.



  • Code
  • Front-end Engineering

sho

Should you use Userbase for your next static site?

During the winter 2020 Pointless Weekend, we built TrailBuddy (working app coming soon). Our team consisted of four developers, two project managers, two front-end developers, a digital-analyst, a UXer, and a designer. In about 48 hours, we took an idea from Jeremy Field’s head to a (mostly) working app. We broke up the project in two parts:. First, a back-end that crunches trail, weather, and soil data. That data is exposed via a GraphQL API for a web app to consume.

While developers built the API, I built a static front end using Next.js. Famously, static front-ends don’t have a database, or a concept of “users.” A bit of functionality I wanted to add was saving favorite trails. I didn’t want to be hacky about it, I needed some way to add users and a database. I knew it’d be hard for the developers to set this up as part of the API, they had their hands full with all the #soil-soil-soil-soil-soil (a slack channel dedicated solely to figuring out our soil data problem—those were plentiful.) I had been looking for an excuse to use Userbase, and this seemed like as good a time as any.

A textbook Userbase use case

“When would I use it?” The Usebase site lists these reasons:

  • If you want to build a web app without writing any backend code.
  • If you never want to see your users' data.
  • If you're tired of dealing with databases.
  • If you want to radically simplify your GDPR compliance.
  • And if you want to keep things really simple.

This was a perfect fit for my problem. I didn’t want to write any more backend code for this. I didn’t want to see our user’s data, I don’t care to know anyone’s favorite trails.* A nice bonus to not having users in our backend was not having to worry about keeping their data safe. We don’t have their data at all, it’s end-to-end encrypted by Userbase. We can offer a reasonable amount of privacy for free (well for the price of using Userbase: $49 a year.) I am not tired of dealing with databases, but I’d rather not. I don’t think anyone doesn’t want to simplify their GDPR compliance. Finally, given our tight timeline I wanted nothing more than to keep things really simple.

A sign up form that I didn't have to write a back-end for

Using Userbase

Userbase can be tried for free, so I set aside thirty minutes or so to do a quick proof of concept to make sure this would work out for us. I made an account and followed their Quickstart. Userbase is a fundamentally easy tool to use, but their quickstart is everything I’d want out of a quickstart:

  • Written in the most vanilla way possible (just HTML and vanilla JS). This means I can adapt it to my needs, in this case React using Next.js
  • Easy to follow, it does the most barebones tour of the functionality you can expect to get out of the SDK (software development kit.) In other words it is quick and it is a start
  • It has a live demo and code samples you can download and run yourself

It didn’t take long after that to integrate Userbase into our app with more help from their great docs. I debated whether to add code samples of what we did here, and I didn’t because any reader would be better off using the great quickstart and docs Userbase provides—they are that clear, and that good. Depending on your use case you’ll need to adapt the examples to your needs, for us the trickiest things were creating a top level authentication context to manage users in the app, and a custom hook to encapsulate all the logic for setting, updating, and deleting favourite trails in the app. Userbase’s SDK worked seamlessly for us.

A log in form that I didn't have to write a back-end for

Is Userbase for you?

Maybe. I am definitely a fan, so much so that this blog post probably reads like an advert. Userbase saved me a ton of time in this project. It reminded me of “The All Powerful Front End Developer” talk by Chris Coyer. I don’t fully subscribe to all the ideas in that talk, but it is nice to have “serverless” tools like Userbase, and all the new JAMstacky things. There are limits to the Userbase serverless experience in terms of scale, and control. Obviously relying on a third party for something always carries some (probably small) risk—it’s worth noting Usebase includes a note on their pricing page that says “You can host it yourself always under your control, or we can run it for you for a full serverless experience”—Still, I wouldn’t hesitate this to use in future projects.

One of the great things about Viget and Pointless Weekend is the opportunity to try new things. For me that was Next.js and Userbase for Trailbuddy. It doesn’t always work out (in fact this is my first pointless weekend where a risk hasn’t blown up in my face) but it is always fun. Getting to try out Userbase and beginning to think about how we may use it in the future made the weekend worthwhile for me, and it made my job on this project much more enjoyable.

*I will write a future post about privacy conscious analytics in TrailBuddy when I’ve figured that out. I am looking into Fathom Analytics for that.



  • Code
  • Front-end Engineering

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2017 Best Coffee Shop WordPress Themes

Avada Avada is clear, versatile and has a completely responsive design! Avada sets the new standard with limitless potentialities, top-notch help, and free updates with newly requested options from our customers. And its essentially the most easy-to use theme available on the market! Avada could be very intuitive to make use of and utterly able […]

The post 2017 Best Coffee Shop WordPress Themes appeared first on WP Theme Designer.




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The Book Wayshowing > Wayfinding

A review of the renewed book Wayshowing > Wayfinding from Per Mollerup.




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Design checklist: What clients should provide their designer

Hello! I have updated this very popular post to include a free downloadable PDF of this checklist.  Preparation is key to successful management of any project, and design projects are no different. The more preparation that both client and designer do right at the start, the more smoothly the work will go. I find checklists […]




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Should Designers Learn How to Code?

https://thenextweb.com/growth-quarters/2020/05/08/should-designers-learn-how-to-code-syndication/




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I Hate Photoshop

https://uxdesign.cc/i-hate-photoshop-49781b426aed




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10 Websites and Apps All Designers Should Be Using

As a designer, we’re overloaded with choices every day, but there are some apps that are absolutely worth your time and investment. Finding the best ones and most useful ones can be a difficult task, so we’re going to make things easy for you and give you our top 10 apps and websites we couldn’t […]

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Video Tutorial: How to Turn Anything into Gold in Photoshop

In today’s Adobe Photoshop tutorial I’m going to show you how to turn anything into gold using this simple combination of Photoshop filters and tools. The effect smooths out the details of a regular image and adds an array of shiny reflections to mimic the appearance of a polished metal statue. A gradient overlay gives […]

The post Video Tutorial: How to Turn Anything into Gold in Photoshop appeared first on Spoon Graphics.




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ColorWash Faded Photoshop Actions for Premium Members

Access All Areas members have a useful set of Photoshop Actions to download this week, courtesy of FilterGrade. This ColorWash product adds colorful washes and fades to your images, using the same tints and light leaks you see in professional advertising campaigns. Add retro effects to your images in seconds by playing multiple actions at […]

The post ColorWash Faded Photoshop Actions for Premium Members appeared first on Spoon Graphics.




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Video Tutorial: Vintage Letterpress Poster Design in Photoshop

In today’s Adobe Photoshop video tutorial I’m going to take you through my process of creating a vintage style advertisement poster with letterpress print effects. We’ll start by laying out the design with a selection of fonts inspired by the era of wood type, along with some hand-drawn graphic elements using a limited 3-colour palette. […]

The post Video Tutorial: Vintage Letterpress Poster Design in Photoshop appeared first on Spoon Graphics.




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6 Causes of Pixelated Text in Photoshop and Their Fixes

You’re working on some text in Photoshop for your photo. Things are going along great…until you realize that your text is horribly pixelated! Why? You may have even created this exact type of file before and not had this problem. Why is the text pixelated now? There are a few things that can cause pixelated text in Photoshop. The good Continue Reading

The post 6 Causes of Pixelated Text in Photoshop and Their Fixes appeared first on Photodoto.




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15 Effective Tools and Services You Should Pay Attention To

One of life’s pleasures is discovering when some small action taken yields a highly positive, or even a game-changing outcome. A web designer could spend many hours creating a modern website with old tools. A single new tool or a single new service could cut the time required to do so dramatically and produce an […]

The post 15 Effective Tools and Services You Should Pay Attention To appeared first on WebAppers.




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Top 8 WP Multipurpose Themes that you should check out

There are situations when using a specialty theme will enable a web designed to proceed more easily and efficiently. But, in most instances a multipurpose WordPress theme will do what needs to be done and do it well. Premium multipurpose themes generally provide all the functionality needed to create websites for most industry sectors, business […]

The post Top 8 WP Multipurpose Themes that you should check out appeared first on WebAppers.




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7 Reasons Every Photographer Should Learn How to Use Photoshop

Many photographers think that learning how to find the ideal location and take a picture at the right time is all they need to know. However, this isn’t the case, and in a world where CGI rivals reality and touch-ups via photo editing software are now seen as a necessity to customers, relying on point and click will kill your photography business. Here are seven reasons every photographer should learn how to use Photoshop.   Royalty Free Photo Touch-Ups Are Essential When a family orders school photos, they pay a flat fee for copies of the school pictures and a little more if the child’s name is embossed on the picture. They pay a separate fee if the picture is touched up, whether it is hiding acne or reducing glare on the child’s glasses. Photographers who know how to touch up photos without making it look artificial or cartoonish can ... Read more

The post 7 Reasons Every Photographer Should Learn How to Use Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography Tutorials.




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You Might Be Tempted to Use These CSS Tricks But Should You?

The temptation to dive right into new and exciting CSS tricks is strong – you might even do it without knowing it through learning by example or implementing that hot new framework everyone is talking about. It is more important to fully understand new CSS classes and properties, experiment with them and learn their limitations […]


The post You Might Be Tempted to Use These CSS Tricks But Should You? appeared first on Web Designer Wall.