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Marquis Who's Who Honors Alan Goldberg with Inclusion in Who's Who in the World
Alan Goldberg channels years of artistic and educational expertise into his work with Minds Eye Photos
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Alan Goldberg Featured in Marquis Who's Who Millennium Magazine
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Violet's Beaute Palace Now Accepting Appointments at the Salon and Spa Galleria Six Flags in Arlington, Texas
Cosmetologist Violet Baker offers full body waxing for women and men, skin lightening, plus custom manicures & acrylic nail services
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Award-winning Author Mark D. Walker's New Travel E-Book, The Guatemala Reader, Will Be Available At No Charge from May 27 Through May 29, 2024
Walker is the author of several award-winning articles and books. His second book, My Saddest Pleasures: 50 Years on the Road, was recognized by the Peace Corps Writers for Best Travel Writing. The Guatemala Reader debuted as a #1 New Release
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SEAL Legacy Foundation Announces Inaugural Night of Heroes Gala and Patriot Open Golf Event to Help Support Families of Fallen Heroes, October 2-3, 2022
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Award-winning Travel Writer Mark D. Walker Announces No Charge Download Of His Bestselling Travel E-Book, The Guatemala Reader
The Guatemala Reader debuted as a #1 New Release on Amazon. His previous book, My Saddest Pleasures: 50 Years on the Road, was recognized by the Peace Corps Writers for Best Travel Writing. Walker is also the author of several award-winning articles.
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Alan Burghard Celebrated for Dedication to the Field of Entertainment
Alan Burghard lent years of firsthand expertise in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to his work as a technical adviser for the television show "NCIS: Los Angeles"
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"For Harris" Coalitions Launch Sweet Celebrations Honoring Kamala Harris' Birthday
Election Confections: Founders for Kamala Lead the Charge in Joyful Celebration Initiative to Honor VP Kamala Harris' 60th Birthday
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CCI France Malaysia Gala Night 2024
Celebrating Franco-Malaysian Bilateral Trade with France as Malaysia's 3rd Largest EU Partner
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ProScala Foundation Starts Fundraising for its Podcasting Endeavor: ProScala Podcasts
The focus is Scala programming and giving a helping hand for Java developers to make a career shift toward that language as it is familiar means of programming for newcomers to the Functional paradigm
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iuvo Technologies recognized as one of the Best Companies for Work-Life Balance
For the first time ever, iuvo Technologies is proud to announce we've been named as one of the Best Companies for Work-Life Balance by Comparably. We're honored to be recognized this year.
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Mew Mews Women's Clothing: The Perfect Balance of High Fashion and Affordability
Mew Mews Women's Clothing blends high fashion with affordability, offering unique designs that highlight individuality. With a focus on quality craftsmanship and eco-friendly fabrics, the brand provides stylish dresses and bold pieces for women.
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La Gala de Premios de Audiodescripción 2024 del Consejo Americano de Ciegos se transmite este 14 de noviembre
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Award-winning Author Mark D. Walker Announces Bestseller Status For His New Travel E-Book, The Guatemala Reader
Walker is the author of several award-winning articles and books. His second book, My Saddest Pleasures: 50 Years on the Road, was recognized by the Peace Corps Writers for Best Travel Writing. The Guatemala Reader debuted as a #1 New Release
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Navigating AI Regulation: Balancing Innovation and Protection
In this article, we will learn how to navigate the fine balance building AI regulation while simultaneously fostering innovation.
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Trump Reportedly Urges Russian President To Deescalate War With Ukraine: Here's How Crude Oil WTI Futures Are Reacting
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Palantir Stock vs. Super Micro Stock: Billionaire Israel Englander Buys 1 and Sells the Other.
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Inside Companies that Get the Purpose-Profit Balance Right
Purpose has become a corporate buzzword over the past decade. Leaders are embracing the idea that companies can’t just do well financially; they also have to do good for society. But how many organizations are really walking the talk? Ranjay Gulati, professor at Harvard Business School, has studied how dozens of purpose-driven companies -- from Etsy in the United States to Recruit in Japan -- simultaneously pursue profits. He argues that while we all want a win-win, leaders must also sometimes learn to make thoughtful tradeoffs. Gulati is the author of the book "Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies” and the HBR article “The Messy but Essential Pursuit of Purpose.”
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Startup Palazzo Seeing Success Expanding Its Virtual Staging Offering to Brokers
Staged listing photos have been an effective—and expensive—tool meant to pique the interest of inquiring home seekers. But given the ever-growing landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) in real estate, that hurdle could soon be a thing of the past. At least, that is where things are headed for Palazzo, an AI-driven interior design platform that…
The post Startup Palazzo Seeing Success Expanding Its Virtual Staging Offering to Brokers appeared first on RISMedia.
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RISMedia’s 2024 Real Estate Rookie of the Year Revealed at Annual Power Broker Gala
Above, from left, John Featherston, Tina Lapp, Heather Stenson and Brian Joyner During its 28th Annual Power Broker Reception & Dinner held at the Renaissance Boston Seaport Hotel Friday night, RISMedia announced its 2024 Real Estate Rookie of the Year winner, Heather Stenson, a REALTORⓇ with Connect Realty in The Woodlands, Texas. Designed to honor…
The post RISMedia’s 2024 Real Estate Rookie of the Year Revealed at Annual Power Broker Gala appeared first on RISMedia.
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“Reduce likelihood of a tick bite by 73.6 times”? Forking paths on the Appalachian Trail.
Shira writes: As an Appalachian Trail hiker, I always treat my clothes with permethrin. I’m a big fan of Sawyer products, but this claim caught my eye: Reduce likelihood of a tick bite by 73.6 times by treating shoes and … Continue reading
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Supreme Court Says TTD Award Not Immediately Appealable
The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that an administrative law judge’s order awarding temporary total disability benefits to an injured worker was interlocutory and not appealable. Case: Spencer County Fiscal Court v.
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U.S. young adults used e-cigarettes at alarming rates during pandemic
DALLAS, Nov. 8, 2023 — The popularity of e-cigarettes remained disturbingly high during the COVID pandemic, particularly among young adults who had never used traditional cigarettes, according to findings published Friday in the JAMA Network Open ...
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Salaries For Digital Marketing Creatives
Unless you graduated from college in the last 5 years, chances are the job titles have changed significantly. A decade ago there was no such thing as a “social media manager” or a “digital content strategist.” Now just about every company has people doing those jobs, whether they work under those titles or not. Sure, […]
The post Salaries For Digital Marketing Creatives first appeared on TECH Intelligence and is written by Brian Wallace.
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Balancing Image Speed and Quality with imgix
Users expect a website to load fast. An average web page loads in about 2.5 seconds. The longer the user has to wait, the higher the user bounce rate. There are a lot of factors that go into site speed, but images account for about 75% of the page weight on an application or website. Google’s Core Web Vitals uses several metrics to rank sites. Visual site speed or largest contentful paint affects ROI as slower sites have fewer repeat users and fewer sales.
Without properly sized images, both site speed and image quality are affected. Accordingly, we use several methods to deliver properly sized images. Our primary solution is imgix because it is easy to implement and saves managers and clients time and effort.
Imgix Key Features
Imgix provides a lot of features — some we consistently use on projects, and others we use in very specific situations.
Responsive Images
Setting up responsive images can be complex. As the variety of devices and their screen resolutions continue to expand, managing all the different image requirements is increasingly challenging.
Consider this scenario: a website’s images look crisp and clear on a high-resolution monitor. When that same page is viewed on a mobile device, the images are so large the page takes forever to load. A solution could be to upload a smaller image for mobile, right? It's not quite that simple. We need eight or more different sizes of the same image to account for different screen sizes and retina screens. Keeping track of all the image sizes and saving each size gets complex and would be nearly impossible to do manually on a site that has hundreds or thousands of images.
One of our clients, National Park Foundation (NPF), wanted to clarify its message to better target major donors. Their gorgeous, large scenic images are essential to their website strategy. NPF needed the images throughout their site to be crisp and clear at all screen sizes. Using imgix, NPF content managers can load high-resolution images to the CMS and not worry about the site's speed or performance. They rely on imgix to deliver the correctly resized image for any user's screen.
Imgix does this with their Device Pixel Ratio and Client Hints which automatically sets the pixel density for the image based on the user's device. Those API parameters can be easily set in the URLs for the image’s `srcset`. This allows developers to set an image width for an image `srcset` and then imgix delivers the right pixel ratio image to the user. We use `srcset` with imgix on other client sites like Bezos Earth Fund and Human Rights Campaign as well.
Resize and Cropping
Imgix allows you to crop images in addition to setting an image’s focal point. So, only one image needs to be uploaded and it can be used at multiple sizes and croppings throughout the site. Let's say we upload a large landscape image, but on some pages we only need to use a portion of the image cropped as a square. Imgix will crop the image and deliver the smaller versions on the pages we need while persisting the larger versions on other pages.
At Viget we use resizing and cropping on our own website, including our articles, to crop the staff photo to a smaller size at the top of the articles. This makes it possible for us to upload the staff photo once and the article image gets created automatically.
Color Palette
Another feature that we've used on client sites is the Color Palette API which allows you as many colors as you want from an image. For example, the Shedd Aquarium website that we built uses this feature by pulling a vibrant color from the image and setting it as the background color for the page hero. Aside from taking the manual work out of closely aligning photography with a page’s design, there’s an additional benefit: if you are on a slow connection, you will see a dynamic colored banner at the top before the image loads.
Image Upscaling
Another valuable feature is the ability to upscale images. Even if you upload an image that is low resolution, it can still be used at a higher resolution. This is especially useful for e-commerce sites or applications where users are uploading their images. The upscale feature uses Generative AI to take a pixelated image and create a higher-resolution image. The final image will not be perfect, but it looks more professional. See the upscale demo on imgix.
PDF Preview Images
There is also a PDF page to image option in imgix. The API enables the generation of a page-specific image preview from the PDF, which can serve as both a thumbnail and a full-size preview. When we built AHIP.org, they had a resources section for their members containing quite a few PDFs. To help with clarity and findability, we used imgix to show previews of the PDF documents to non-members. This feature allows AHIP to upload resource PDFs without having to also upload any thumbnail images.
Face Detection
Another nice feature is a face detection parameter that you can pass to the API. This allows you to upload a photo and no matter the cropping or size it will keep the face as the focal point of the image. We used this feature on NEA for their team member page. It's great for user profile images that are used in different contexts throughout the site.
Video Streaming
Videos have become a key design element on websites. However, determining which service to use for embedding those videos is an ongoing topic of discussion. Video platforms enable you to integrate the video onto the page, yet they introduce scripts that may impede page loading speed. Imgix offers a video embed service that allows content managers to keep all the images and videos in one place. The videos are automatically encoded to Adaptive Bitrate Streaming to get the best compression and video quality. So, videos load fast and look great on mobile and desktop.
Performance
A lot of CMSs have image transformations built in. An image transformation encompasses everything for that image including responsive sizes, cropping, resizing, and face detection from the original. This is great for small sets of images, but transformations quickly get out of hand the more images there are on a site. For example, the homepage of the National Park Foundation has a minimum of 96 image transformations.
Processing all of those image transformations uses a lot of server resources. Imgix saves the images and delivers them through their CDN. The imgix image CDN has an average of 0.15 milliseconds return on requests which enables images to load as quickly as possible. The CDN also caches the images on CDN edge nodes making them immediately available for future requests.
Flexibility
Imgix is flexible enough to work with almost any site structure; including WordPress, Craft CMS, Shopify, React, Ruby on Rails, Python, and more (see the full list). So, whether a site is a WordPress site or a Rails application, imgix fits right into the ecosystem. And, even better: you don’t have to rebuild your web app or website to gain the benefits of image performance, which can save you a lot of time and money.
Setting up imgix on an existing website is easy. Imgix can connect to existing asset storage sources like AWS, Azure, or a web folder on the same domain. Once the image source is set up, a developer can start passing parameters to the API.
Cost
Imgix is free for 1,000 images which makes it easy to integrate and grow with your site. Pricing goes to $750/yr for 5,000 images and $3,000/yr for 25,000 images. In their pricing structure, “images” are categorized as origin images, so the count only includes original images and not transformed ones. So, you could have hundreds of images and thousands of image transformations all being delivered through a CDN for free.
Conclusion
Ensuring fast site speed isn't just important. It is vital. It's the cornerstone of a successful online presence, directly influencing search engine rankings, user satisfaction, and ultimately, your return on investment. Properly sized and optimized images are key to ensuring your site loads quickly and displays correctly for users across various devices.
We have found that imgix enables our team to efficiently create projects with diverse image options, saving managers and developers valuable time. Our clients benefit from reduced server space and an increased site speed. Imgix’s API is comprehensive, so you can use one tool for all features and options around site images — from cropping and resizing to face detection and automated color palettes, to video and beyond. Having used imgix for the past five years to support the wide-ranging needs of our clients, we feel confident recommending it and using it again and again.
Users expect a website to load fast, and imgix is a reliable way to make sure that happens.
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Fishing for Kings in ???????? Alaska
This summer, we were finally able to travel back to the Kanektok River in Alaska. Located about 90 minutes by charter flight from Anchorage, the Kanektok is a truly unique and remote destination. The dirt air strip we landed on is part of the first native village of Quinhagak, and the only way to reach…
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The Hopeful Work of Turning Appalachia’s Mountaintop Coal Mines Into Farms
By Catherine V. Moore YES! Magazine In the post-coal economy, life-skills training helps employ people and restore the savaged land. On a surface-mine-turned-farm in Mingo County, West Virginia, former coal miner Wilburn Jude plunks down three objects on the bed … Continue reading
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Revising the Early Universe: Black Holes and Bright Galaxies Unraveled
What were galaxies like in the early universe? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as an international team
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Galaxy Interactions and Cosmic Illusions: Webb's Stunning New Images
How did stars form 7 billion years ago, or approximately halfway between the Big Bang and now? This is what a recent study published in the Monthly Notices
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A New Look at Galaxy Boundaries: Discoveries from Deep Imaging of Cosmic Gas
What are the exact sizes of galaxies, and are they bigger than they appear in deep space images? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy
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Webb Telescope Reveals Supermassive Black Holes Can 'Starve' Galaxies of Star Formation
What influence can black holes have on a galaxy’s formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address
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Galaxy Interactions and Cosmic Illusions: Webb's Stunning New Images
How did stars form 7 billion years ago, or approximately halfway between the Big Bang and now? This is what a recent study published in the Monthly Notices
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A New Look at Galaxy Boundaries: Discoveries from Deep Imaging of Cosmic Gas
What are the exact sizes of galaxies, and are they bigger than they appear in deep space images? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy
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Webb Telescope Reveals Supermassive Black Holes Can 'Starve' Galaxies of Star Formation
What influence can black holes have on a galaxy’s formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address
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Exposure to Malaria Infection During the Day Limits Parasite Growth
Malaria is a life-threatening disease commonly transmitted by mosquitos. Symptoms include fever, chills, vomiting, headaches, abdominal pain, and rapid hea
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Galaxy Interactions and Cosmic Illusions: Webb's Stunning New Images
How did stars form 7 billion years ago, or approximately halfway between the Big Bang and now? This is what a recent study published in the Monthly Notices
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A New Look at Galaxy Boundaries: Discoveries from Deep Imaging of Cosmic Gas
What are the exact sizes of galaxies, and are they bigger than they appear in deep space images? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy
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Webb Telescope Reveals Supermassive Black Holes Can 'Starve' Galaxies of Star Formation
What influence can black holes have on a galaxy’s formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address
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Alan Robiette (2000)
Alan Robiette works as Programme Director for JISC's rapidly developing interests in authentication and security. He began his career as a physical scientist but became increasingly involved in IT planning and management, and directed IT services in a number of HEIs for a period of some 15 years before taking up his current position. He is a former member of the Computer Board and of a number of JISC committees and working groups, and was closely associated with the eLib Programme throughout much of its existence.
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Alan Collins
Alan Collins is a Web programmer with the Information Services Directorate at the Queen's University Belfast. Prior to joining the University in Autumn 1997 he was a Health Service Clinical Scientist, specialising in the diagnosis of opthalmic disease by electrical methods.
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Plenary Talk 3: Building Highly Scalable Web Applications
Jeff Barr, Amazon Web Services (Senior Manager, Web Services Evangelism) will discuss Amazon's approach to Web-scale computing. Using this new approach, developers can use Amazon's broad line of web services to rapidly and cost-effectively build scalable and flexible Web applications. Jeff will focus on Amazon's newest services, including the Simple Queue Service, the Simple Storage Service, and the Elastic Compute Cloud. The talk will include technical details and an overview of how the services are being used by customers all over the world.
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Minimum Salaries and the Evolving Workforce: Why the DOL’s New Automatic Salary Updates Clash With Legal Precedent and Economic Facts
Alexander MacDonald says overtime exemptions are about to get more expensive as the salary necessary to qualify for the FLSA’s “white collar” exemptions will rise in July and again in January 2025.
The Federalist Society
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States That Raise Minimum Wage May Counterbalance Inflation
Paul Piccigallo talks about considerations for employers when raising minimum wage in the midst of rising inflation.
SHRM Online
View (Subscription required.)
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Maneuvers to rake the salary of employees
Teresa Trigueros talks about formulas companies can use to balance wage increases, as long as they do not cross certain insurmountable limits or requirements that are conventionally or legally established.
El Pais
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Pro Bono Week Podcast – Adoption in Alaska
Renea Saade and Breanne Martell talk about an Alaska adoption case with a great outcome.
Littler attorneys provide pro bono services in a variety of areas, depending on the interests of individual attorneys. The firm values and encourages the community-minded and pro bono efforts of our lawyers and staff.
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Steven Friedman Explains Effects of Obama's Cap on Executive Salaries
"How Obama's Cap on Exec Salaries Could Cause as Many Problems as it Solves," The National Law Journal
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The Coming Regulatory Avalanche: Engineering Practical Employment and Labor Law Compliance Solutions
The focus of this 2011 Littler Report is to provide employers with information to prepare and plan for regulations recently passed and those currently making their way through the agency rulemaking process. Part One of this Littler Report will set the stage and define the challenge employers will face in the coming years as the Obama Administration enters the second half of its term.
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Salary History Ban Coming to Federal Employers and Contractors
Joy Rosenquist talks about the impact of an executive order banning the use of salary history in hiring by federal agencies and contractors.
WorldatWork
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Changes to Alabama Tax Laws Impose New Reporting Requirements on Employers
Three new rules will take effect this year that alter the overtime wages subject to Alabama withholding tax and employers’ requirements in reporting those newly exempt wages. On October 31, 2023, the Alabama Department of Revenue’s Income Tax Administration issued three final rules that take effect December 3, 2023, and will cover all tax years beginning after December 31, 2023, and ending prior to June 30, 2025. Notably, the entirety of overtime wages paid to full-time hourly employees will be excluded from Alabama withholding tax.