Escape the high fees of Etsy when you start your own store! Increased profits & greater flexibility are just 2 benefits. Here's how to do it the right way.

The post The Right Way to Move from Etsy to Your Own Website appeared first on WooCommerce.

Benjamin Stuben Farrar of Iowa City is a storyteller without a story to tell at the moment. The first story is as dramatic and layered as his bold scenic and lighting designs for area stages:...

Watch my video about the incremental approach—the cheapest, smartest, and easiest way to build a website (and a business!) One thing that’s always annoyed me about contract web design and development is this idea that you can actually pay for a finished product to be delivered within a particular time frame. Nothing actually works this […]

Canusa Street in Vermont is the border between the United States and Canada. Roughly 200 years ago, when the border was decided, no one could have imagined that breaking your leg on one side of that street would have vastly different consequences than breaking it on the other.

I’m Kimberly Graham. I’m an advocate and attorney for abused kids and for parents in Iowa’s juvenile courts. I’m also a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa.

On one side of Canusa Street, that nation has a universal single-payer health insurance system. For 20 years, I’ve been friends with an international circle of moms who met in an online mommies group when our kids were infants. Some of us have had medical events requiring expensive care.

To this day, my Canadian (and Australian and British) friends are shocked when we American moms talk about $5,000 or $10,000 deductibles, plus astronomical premiums. We talk about medical debt and how we put off or avoid medical care. We talk about how our child’s broken leg and the resulting deductible has set us behind financially and will take years to pay off.

A poll commissioned in 2018 by West Health Institute and the University of Chicago showed that 40 percent of Americans are more frightened by the cost of health care than getting sick.

Are Canadians, Brits and Australians more deserving of health care without premiums, copays and deductibles than Americans?

Of course not.

In a moral and wealthy nation, health care should be a fundamental human right.

Human rights are not for sale.

Human rights are not commodities to be marketed, bought and sold.

We need a universal, single-payer health care system (Medicare for All) that covers everyone. It should work like a public library. We value libraries and all of us can use them. But libraries aren’t free, so we all pitch in and pay for them. When I want a book, I go to the library, hand them my library card, check out the book and never hand them a debit card or receive a bill in the mail.

Health care should work like that in a moral and wealthy nation. Please join me in working for the day when all of us truly have the health insurance system we deserve. You can learn more at www.kimberlyforiowa.com Onward to justice for all, Kimberly

Kimberly Graham is a candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

After more than a decade in the making, the Tea Party moment has finally arrived.

The movement originated in 2009 as a challenge to runaway taxes, spending and regulation. Organizers sought to restore the constitutional balance of power between the states and the federal government.

Eventually, the Tea Party devolved into a catchall for right-wing populism, and a magnet for xenophobes and culture warriors. In 2016, its early adherents overwhelmingly fell in line with President Donald Trump, choosing protectionism over freedom.

But that original Tea Party spirit — the charge to buck the national government in favor of local control — was on full display recently from two unlikely sources.

Trump decided early on in the coronavirus pandemic that the federal government would not centrally coordinate the purchase and distribution of medical supplies. That might have worked fine, except the Trump administration actively undermined state governments’ efforts. The federal government has outbid state buyers and even seized products from states.

After 3 million masks ordered by the Massachusetts governor were confiscated in New York, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker decided to sidestep the usual procurement process. He sent a New England Patriots’ private airplane to bring supplies back from China.

In Maryland, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan coordinated a large COVID-19 test order from South Korea. The delivery was facilitated by the National Guard and state police, and the tests were put in a secure location with armed security.

“We guarded that cargo from whoever might interfere with us getting that to our folks that needed it,” Hogan said last week in an interview with Washington Post Live.

Hogan and Baker don’t fit the common perception of the Tea Party mold. They both have harshly criticized President Donald Trump and supported the impeachment inquiry. Hogan openly considered challenging Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.

They are among the last vestiges of moderate conservatism in American executive office, and yet they are the ones waging a battle over federalism and states’ rights.

The political minds built for this moment — the ones who have long fantasized about escalating the state-federal power struggle — are not up to the task. The conservative firebrands who should be taking up this fight instead are beholden to Trump and whatever cockamamie plans he comes up with.

At a news conference last month, Trump made a striking claim about his powers in managing the public health crisis: “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total.”

That should have been a flashpoint for conservatives, the beginning of a revitalized Tea Party that recognizes the enormous threat Trumpism poses to our values.

But it wasn’t. Loyalists brushed it off, again, as Trump misspeaking.

The small-government philosophy is founded on the likelihood that the levers of government power will eventually be grabbed by some menace, an incompetent or malicious figure. But when that menace is your friend, your fundraiser and your public relations manager, it proves hard to slap his hand away.

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

Sprucing up your website to enhance the look and feel is a great idea, but is it necessary? Explore these signs that it's time for website redesign. More

Instagram has become the rising star of social media marketing platforms. It is a very attractive option to marketers that are growing frustrated with Facebook’s algorithm changes. Instagram also has a very large user base. Over 116 million Americans are on this popular image sharing site. Marketers can also reach millions of users in India, […] More

Before 20 years, the websites are developed with text and static HTML only. But as technology is growing we have lots of new ways to create any complex to a simple website. There are so many options available to develop a user-friendly website.

The post Twilighters.org appeared first on WPCult.

For those looking for a way to optimize your search results on your WordPress blog. You may want to check out the following plugin. Goolge Highlight It will highlight or colorize the background of any letter or word that you search for. Head over to the site to see it, or do a search on […]

The post Google Highlight appeared first on WPCult.

Darren Rowse from Pro Blogger wrote a great article of a collection of different article to get the beginning blogger of his/her feet. Head over and check this one out!

The post Useful articles for beginers to start a blog right appeared first on WPCult.

Benjamin Stuben Farrar of Iowa City is a storyteller without a story to tell at the moment.

The first story is as dramatic and layered as his bold scenic and lighting designs for area stages: “Benjamin Stuben Farrar” is not his actual name.

He was born Stewart Benjamin Farrar 41 years ago in Kentucky. He didn’t want to go through life as “Stewie,” so he went by “Benjamin,” until he got to college at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He ran into so many other Bens, that his buddies decided to combine his names into “Stuben.”

That name followed him to grad school at the University of Iowa in 2002, where he earned an MFA in theater design. But when he moved to New York City in 2006 to pursue his career, he didn’t like hearing “Stuben” shouted across the theater.

“It sounded too much like ‘stupid,’ ” he said, “so I reverted back to Benjamin.”

But nicknames have a way of sticking. When he and his wife moved back to Iowa City in 2015 to raise their daughter, he switched to “Stuben” again, since that’s how people knew him there.

Professionally, he uses “S. Benjamin Farrar” and on Facebook, he goes by “Benjamin Stuben Farrar” so friends from his various circles can find him. Even though most people now call him “Stuben,” he still introduces himself as “Benjamin.”

“To this day, I have 12 different names,” he said with a laugh. “Only the bill collectors know me as ‘Stewart.’”

Like his name, his artistry knows no bounds.

He has planted apple trees on Riverside Theatre’s indoor stage in Iowa City; a child’s outdoor playground on the Theatre Cedar Rapids stage; and dramatic spaces for Noche Flamenca’s dancers in New York City venues and on tour.

These days, however, his theatrical world has gone dark.

His recent designs for “The Humans,” “The Skin of Our Teeth” and “Kinky Boots” at Theatre Cedar Rapids and “A Doll’s House, Part 2” at Riverside Theatre have been canceled or postponed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. He has “The Winter’s Tale” in the works for Riverside Theatre’s free Shakespeare in the Park slated for June, but time will tell if that changes, too.

“Within the course of two weeks, five productions were canceled or moved indefinitely,” he said.

Looking ahead, he’s not sure what shows he’ll have time to design for the upcoming seasons. He’s used to juggling three or four productions at a time, but he said that could become really difficult if the shows fall on top of each other at the various venues.

As with so many artists right now, his world keeps changing.

He and his wife, Jody Caldwell, an editor and graduate of the UI Writers’ Workshop, are both freelancers, leaving them with no income during this pandemic. So Farrar has been wading through red tape and delays to secure unemployment compensation and the government stimulus check, for which he’s still waiting. One bright spot was receiving a $1,000 Iowa Arts & Culture Emergency Relief Fund grant given to 156 Iowa creatives who have lost income from canceled projects.

With his regular revenue streams drying up, he’s been considering other ways to earn money through teaching theater or creating and selling more of his digital and film photography — an outgrowth of his fascination for the way lighting can sculpt a scene on stage.

“I love doing nature (photography). I love doing details,” he said. “I love photographing people, too, especially on stage — I love photographing my own shows. It’s just a lot of fun.

“For me, nature’s so interesting, especially living where we do in North America, there’s vast changes from one time of year to another. I just love looking at that on a very small scale, and how light happens to fall on that particular surface — how that surface changes color,” he said.

“Right now the redbuds are out. The magnolias came out two weeks ago and then they started to fall. It changes the landscape dramatically, especially based on whether it’s a morning light or afternoon light or evening light, whether it’s cloudy, whether the sun’s peeking through clouds and highlighting a few individual leaves. I find that super fascinating.

“That’s how I can look at the same boring tree at different times of year, at different times of day, and find something interesting to photograph.”

While his scenic designs create an immediate visual impact and help tell the story swirling around the actors, Farrar was a lighting designer before he became a scenic designer.

It wasn’t love at first sight. He took a light design course in college, but didn’t “get” it.

“It’s really difficult to wrap your head around it,” he said.

His aha moment came when he was running lights for an operetta in college.

“I just had these little faders in front of me so I could raise certain lights up and down. And the music was happening in front of me and I thought, ‘I control this whole little universe. I can make things completely disappear. I can sculpt things from the side, I can make things feel totally different — just like music can — just based on how it’s lit.’ And then I finally started to understand how the lighting hooked things together,” he said.

From there, his interest in lighting soared.

“I absolutely love lighting,” he said. “I think it’s probably given me more joy than anything else, just because I can go for a walk someplace and just the way the lighting changes as the clouds come in or out, or as the time of year changes and the angle of the sun changes, I really enjoy seeing that — and that’s what got me into photography.”

While his design work is a collaborative process with the director and other production team members, the ideas begin flowing as soon as he starts reading a script. With the flamenco dance company in New York, he might start working on a show two years in advance. With Theatre Cedar Rapids, the lead time is generally six months to look at the season overall, and four months to “get things going” on a particular show, he said. The lead time is about two months for Riverside Theatre shows, which have shorter rehearsal periods.

He begins thinking about the theater spaces, the text that the audience never sees, the show’s technical demands, and the scale in relation to the human body. He still likes to do some of his design work by hand, but computers and the 3D printer he has in his basement workshop have made the process much quicker for creating the drawings and scale models for each show.

He also enjoys the variety and challenge of moving between the small space inside Riverside Theatre and the large space inside Theatre Cedar Rapids, as well as the theaters at Grinnell College and Cornell College in Mount Vernon, as well as the theaters in New York and the touring venues that have housed his designs.

Ultimately, the goal of scenic design “is always about the storytelling,” he said.

“There’s a version of a show that exists in a script, if there is a script. Assuming it has a script, there is a scaffolding for that show in the script, and then there’s a version of the show in the director’s head, and then there’s a version of the show that’s performed in my head as I read the script. So there’s all these different versions.”

If the show is a musical, the choreographer brings in another idea, and the musical score adds another element. Sometimes Farrar knows the music very well, but other times, he doesn’t.

“Hopefully, I can integrate that well if I listen to the music while working on the show — not usually when I’m reading the script, but while I’m drafting the show. I’ll listen to the music to get a sense of how the show wants to move.

“Integrating all these different versions of the show — the text, what’s in my head, what’s in the director’s head, what’s in the choreographer’s head, the role the music plays — and then you synthesize all those elements, and then you find out how the show wants to move in the space it has. And how a show moves is one of the most important things to me. ...

“You get a sense that the show becomes this conscious element that wants a certain thing, and will reveal those things over time.”

And time is something he has right now.

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com

CEDAR RAPIDS — Like other members of the United States House, the “new normal” for Rep. Dave Loebsack involves a lot of time on the phone and in video conferences.

Although the Senate returned to Washington this past week, the House may not return to the Capitol until mid-May. As representatives work from their districts, many face the same challenges as their constituents who are working from home via various phone and video meeting platforms.

“They’re clunky, difficult, frustrating at times,” the 2nd District Democrat said after a 90-minute Energy and Commerce Committee teleconference meeting, “but we can get a lot of things done that way without necessarily going into Washington. It’s not the same by any means ... but I think we can get a lot of our work done that we have to get done even though were not there.”

If there’s an upside to the telecommuting downside, it’s that the poor connections, dropped calls and sometimes spotty internet signals highlight an issue Loebsack has been working on — Congress and the country need better broadband connectivity. A member of the Communications and Technology subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over telecommunications issues, Loebsack also serves as a co-chair of the Rural Broadband Caucus.

In one meeting, Loebsack said, a fellow committee member was unable to ask questions because the Wi-Fi signal at his home outside of a southwestern city was so poor.

“So I think we’re going to make some progress” convincing congressional colleagues of the need to connect all Americans to reliable and affordable broadband internet, Loebsack said.

“In times like these, when families are at home, millions of K-12 students do not have access to the high-speed internet needed to take classes and complete their assignments online,” he said in an announcement with House Majority Whip James Clyburn and others of a House Democratic plan to connect all Americans to high-speed internet.

When the transmission of COVID-19 slows, the need for high-speed internet connectivity will remain as well as the need for Congress to provide incentives for internet service providers to close the “broadband gap” by extending service to the las mile in rural areas and eliminate what he called “internet deserts” that exist in cities.

The plan calls for an investment of $80 billion over five years for internet infrastructure and another $5 billion over five years for low-interest financing of projects.

With more reliable connectivity, Congress could consider remote voting at times like this when members don’t want to gather in Washington. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been cool to the idea, but Loebsack thinks members are “more open” to voting remotely.

“But we have to make sure that it’s completely secure, that the system can’t get hacked, and that votes are recorded properly,” he said.

Remote voting may be a may be a generational issue, “but I think this is doable.”

“I’m not making that prediction, but I would not be shocked if we move in that direction, especially the longer this (isolation) goes on,” Loebsack said.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

BIG NEWS: My custom Lightroom presets are now available and 50% off for a limited time with discount code HOLIDAY50. Link in profile!

This collection includes two styles (Everyday and Clean) that I use to edit every shot on this feed. I can’t wait to see what you all do with them! Stay tuned to my upcoming tutorials on how to put the presets to good use. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

Lights, camera, action. ????
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A few more days left to get 50% off my custom Lightroom presets! Link in profile. (at Toronto, Ontario)

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

This might as well be a Herschel ad. ???? (at London, United Kingdom)

Four days from now I’ll be boarding a one way flight to San Francisco to take on the next evolution of my role at @shopify. Leaving the city that I’ve called home my entire life and the people who have defined everything I am was one of the most uncomfortable decisions I’ve ever had to make. But this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve chased discomfort in my career.
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I wrote about my ongoing pursuit for discomfort this morning in hopes of inspiring others to do the things that scare and challenge them this year. You can find the link in my profile.
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Happy 2017! ????
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????: @jonasll (at San Francisco, California)

Even light exercise can counter the damage of stroke in survivors, a new study suggests.

For the first time, it seems, the entire world knows what it’s like to live inside my head.

For the first time, it seems, the entire world knows what it’s like to live inside my head.

It happens less frequently these days but there are times when we need to accommodate for a HTTP request timing out. The service could be down, under heavy traffic, or just poorly coded, or any host of other issues. Whenever I need to simulate a long HTTP request, I use a bit of PHP to […]

The post How to Simulate Long HTTP Requests appeared first on David Walsh Blog.

How many of you love wasting hours of time making the same basic edits to a lot of photos? Anyone? No? Well, that’s understandable. None of us like doing menial repetitive tasks and it’s no different when editing images — even for those of us who enjoy the editing process. The good news is that Lightroom has a handy tool Continue Reading

The post How to Use Lightroom Presets- A Handy Guide appeared first on Photodoto.

WordPress is an ideal platform for building your own portfolio, blog, or eCommerce site. It’s packed with all the basic tools you need to build a professional-looking site. Plus, it has tools that can take your web-building skills to an even higher level. Get even more impressive results or add features to a website that […]

The post Need Help Choosing the Right Plugin for Your Website? Check These Options appeared first on WebAppers.

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.

UPDATE: After spending an extensive amount of time with the HTC One we have added our thoughts regarding the handset’s battery life. Click here to find out what we reckon. The HTC One is the latest Android handset from the Taiwanese manufacturer and is aimed firmly at the flagship end of the market, featuring a … Continue reading HTC One Review: Top Of The Premium Pops? →

By David Suzuki with contributions from Senior Editor Ian Hanington David Suzuki Foundation In 2012, North Carolina’s Coastal Resources Commission warned that sea levels there could rise by a metre over the next century. The warning was based in part … Continue reading →

Stephen Hawking, a world-renowned scientist who recently passed away, had a brilliant mind that was trapped inside a paralyzed body, and I could not stop thinking about how the opposite is often the case with traumatic brain injury.

The State – Sort of – of HTML5 Audio Scott Schiller discusses the high level of hype around HTML5 and CSS3. The two specs render ”many years of feature hacks redundant by replacing them with native features,” he writes in an insightful blog. Blogging, he says: CSS3’s border-radius, box-shadow, text-shadow and gradients, and HTML5’s <canvas>, Read the rest...

WinJS is a JavaScript framework for Windows 8, and David Rousset uses it here to create a quick RSS reader. He shows how in a tutorial series. This first article shows the way to build a welcome screen that employs WinJS ListView control. Blend and CSS3 are employed. The second tutorial shows work on the Read the rest...

Former host of MTV Headbangers Ball, Riki Rachtman, called into the show to share memories of Headbangers Ball, working at...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #538 – Bush Did Mayhem with Special Guest Riki Rachtman appeared first on Metal Injection.

We kicked things off with an update on Rob's marijuana abstaining, or lack thereof. We then spend a good amount...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #540 - Eight Iota Ripper with Kenny Hickey of SILVERTOMB / TYPE O NEGATIVE appeared first on Metal Injection.

I was asked to close out WordCamp Vancouver with a short 20 minute keynote on something interesting. After some thought, I put together a list of 10 trends I see in the web community and where we are headed in the immediate future. 0. The Future Keeps Arriving In my +15 years working on and with the […]

The post Where We Go From Here: 10 Thoughts on the Immediate Future of the Web appeared first on MOR10.

Some of the problems we work on as UX researchers are simple and are easily solved by getting users in front of our product. But other problems can be complex and it's hard to know how to start solving them. In situations like that, a simple 2x2 diagram can cut through the 'what ifs', the 'how abouts' and the edge cases and provide a simple way of looking at the problem. Here are 10 examples of 2x2 diagrams to simplify UX research discussions.

Are you a logical individual? Do you carefully consider all options before making a decision? Are opinions shaped primarily through facts and reasoning? If you answered yes to these questions, you’d be wrong. We are all emotional beings, and our emotions are the root cause of our thoughts and behaviors. Our logical, conscious thoughts simply […]

The post Fight or Flight: Which Emotion Does Your Website Evoke? appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.

Designer Spotlight: Burnt Toast

For the first time, it seems, the entire world knows what it’s like to live inside my head.

Prizes: Grand prize winner X100V camera from our main sponsor Fujifilm, worth $1,700.00 A cash prize of $5,000.00 Category Winner Prizes: Every category winner will [...]

The post 2020 Spotlight Awards appeared first on Photocompete.

The Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump's reelection campaign have doubled their litigation budget to $20 million, Politico reported Thursday. RNC chief of staff Richard Walters told Politico that the GOP is prepared to sue Democrats "into oblivion" by spending "whatever is necessary" to prevail in legal fights against its rivals leading up to the November election.

Winterlichter Palmengarten Jan 2016

As I stated in my Best of 2017 post, I didn’t get to take many photos this year – which also multiple times throughout the year made me think: why am I paying so much money for Lightroom for how […]

May is here! And even though the current situation makes this a different kind of May, with a new routine and different things on our minds as in the years before, luckily some things never change. Like the fact that we start into the new month with some fresh inspiration. Since more than nine years already, we challenge you, the design community, to get creative and produce wallpaper designs for our monthly posts.

Aputure’s been coming pretty thick and fast on the announcements lately, and now they’ve announced their new Light Storm 60D daylight and 60X bi-colour adjustable focusing LED lights. As the name suggests, these are 60 Watt LEDs, and everything is built inside the head, meaning there’s no external control unit to have to deal with. […]

The post Aputure announces new LS-60D daylight and LX-60X bicolour LED lights appeared first on DIY Photography.

Are there still folks among you who, like me, prefer handwriting to typing? If you’re in this group, you’ll love this new feature on Google Lens. The app now lets you scan your handwritten notes, copy them, and paste them straight to your computer. I gave it a spin, and I bring you my impressions […]

The post Google Lens now copies handwritten text and pastes it straight to your computer appeared first on DIY Photography.

DJI has announced their new Matrice 300 RTK “flying platform” (big drone) and the Zenmuse H20 hybrid camera series, to provide “a safer and smarter solution” to their enterprise customers. The M300 RTK, DJI says, is their first to integrate modern aviation features, advanced AI, 6-direction sensing and positioning, a UAV health management system and […]

The post DJI’s new Matrice 300 RTK drone offers a ridiculous 55-minutes of flight time and 2.7kg payload appeared first on DIY Photography.

The Godox SL series LED lights have proven to be extremely popular due to their low cost. Two of the models in that range, the SL150 and SL200 have seen a Mark II update today, according to an email that Godox has been sending out today. One of the features of the new SL150II and […]

The post Godox’s new SL150/SL200 Mark II LED lights offer fanless “silent mode” operation appeared first on DIY Photography.

In cite{CC} the authors, investigating a model of population dynamics, find the following result. Let $Omegasubset mathbb{R}^N$, $Ngeq 1$, be a bounded smooth domain. The weighted eigenvalue problem $-Delta u =lambda m u $ in $Omega$ under homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions, where $lambda in mathbb{R}$ and $min L^infty(Omega)$, is considered. The authors prove the existence of minimizers $check m$ of the principal positive eigenvalue $lambda_1(m)$ when $m$ varies in a class $mathcal{M}$ of functions where average, maximum, and minimum values are given. A similar result is obtained in cite{CCP} when $m$ is in the class $mathcal{G}(m_0)$ of rearrangements of a fixed $m_0in L^infty(Omega)$. In our work we establish that, if $Omega$ is Steiner symmetric, then every minimizer in cite{CC,CCP} inherits the same kind of symmetry.