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ASPIRE: An Acronym for Better Web Practice

Sometimes interesting things happen on Twitter. Last week Scott Jehl proposed ASPIRE as an acronym for the practices we should follow as web designers and developers. From the resulting blog post: Great websites should aspire to be: Accessible to folks with varying cognitive and physical abilities and disabilities Secure and reliable for storing, manipulating, and transferring information Performant on average devices […]

The post ASPIRE: An Acronym for Better Web Practice appeared first on MOR10.




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The Best Free Zoom Backgrounds to Make Your Video Conferencing More Fun

If you’re a remote worker, you may have plenty of experience with video conferencing as a way to communicate with clients, team members, or other colleagues. But with millions of additional...

Click through to read the rest of the story on the Vandelay Design Blog.




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Google Ranking Factors 2020: Facts and Myths

Google’s ranking algorithm continues to get more and more complex, and the Ranking Factors 2020: Facts and Myths infographic from Link-Assistant tries to break through some of the misinformation that’s out there.

It seems a little while ago that Google hinted at having 200+ ranking factors. Though in fact, it happened in the year of 2009, and we are heading to 2020 now.

Google has drastically evolved over the past ten years. Today, neural matching — an AI-based method — processes about 30% of all searches, and Google can recognize concepts behind keywords. They have introduced RankBrain, mobile-first indexing, and HTTPS. As we need to adapt to changes and find ways to get atop of SERPs, the topic of ranking factors remains as fresh as ever.

So let's have a look at what ranking factors to consider in 2020, and what ranking myths to leave behind.

I have mixed feelings about this infographics design:

Good:

  • It’s a concise summary of very complex information that’s laid out in the more detailed, full article.

  • The infographic is a handy reference sheet and great for use in social media as promotion for the article.

  • Clean arrangement that’s easy to read from top-to-bottom

Bad:

  • Almost all text.

  • Not that there’s much data that could have been visualized with charts, but some visual design elements would have made the infographic easier to read and more enticing to readers.

  • Text URL to the article! When the infographic gets shared, how are readers supposed to find the article when it’s not linked??? Put it in the footer on the infographic!




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How Does Impeachment Work?

With Impeachment in the news every day lately, Curtis Newbold (The Visual Communication Guy) put together a handy explanation infographic, How Does Impeachment Work? A FREE downloadable PDF is also available from his website.

Considering the recent news of the House launching an official impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, it seemed worthwhile to create an infographic that describes the impeachment process.

Many Americans falsely assume that the term “impeachment” means automatic removal from office. That isn’t the case. The term “impeachment” simply means that someone in a high-ranking federal position has been found to have committed a crime or act of treason or bribery that seems serious enough to send that person through trial. If impeachment occurs, only then will the Senate conduct a trial and vote on conviction and removal from office.

As you can see in the graphic, “impeachment” simply means officially charging someone in public office of misconduct or legal wrongdoing. The term and process can be used for many different federal officials, not just the President of the United States. Impeachment does not mean that the person is necessarily guilty. But it does mean that they have been officially accused of some wrongdoing and that the House of Representatives feels there is enough evidence to at least do an investigation.

Here is a quick review of how the process works:

This is a great use of infographics. Take a complicated subject, and try to make it understandable to your audience. Notice that I said “understandable” not “simple”. The main goal of data visualization and infographics is to clarify information, but it is often mis-characterized as simplifying information.

This design still has too much text explanation for my taste. He goes into more details in the blog post that accompanies the infographic, so I think the infographic design could remove more of the explanatory text and draw people to the full article.




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Beards and Face Masks from the CDC

Back in 2017, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published this infographic on the Facial Hairstyles and Filtering Facepiece Respirators to help men understand that beards can make facemasks ineffective. With the daily news about the Coronavirus (Covid-19) bordering on panic, this infographic has resurfaced, and is being widely republished.

NOTE: The CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from COVID-19.

From the CDC FAQ:

Does the CDC recommend the use of facemask to prevent COVID-19?

CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19. You should only wear a mask if a healthcare professional recommends it. A facemask should be used by people who have COVID-19 and are showing symptoms. This is to protect others from the risk of getting infected. The use of facemasks also is crucial for health workers and other people who are taking care of someone infected with COVID-19 in close settings (at home or in a health care facility).


From the original CDC blog post on November 2, 2017:

The month of November is full of fun, interesting, and thought-provoking observances. November is National Raisin Bread Month, Historic Bridge Awareness Month, and Inspirational Role Models Month among so much more. November is also the host month to campaigns like No-Shave November and Movember. Campaigns such as these are working hard to raise money for important causes such as cancer research, education, and awareness. These increasingly popular campaigns are a great way to demonstrate your support … unless you need to wear a tight-fitting respirator for your job.

Don’t despair! We will not completely ruin your plans to compete for facial hair bragging rights. But we’re going to have to get creative about it…

I do love that the CDC is using infographics to spread valuable information in a fun, easy-to-digest way that informs people using visual explanations. They also specifically call out the designer of the beard and moustache vector art they used from ShutterStock, fredrisher




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COVID-19 #Coronavirus Infographic Data Pack

COVID-19 (aka Coronavirus) has obviously been a hot topic recently, especially within the media. But how dangerous is this new virus?

The Covid-19 #Coronavirus Infographic Data Pack on Information is Beautiful gathers the current data around the world (version above is from March 31, 2020) and makes the virus more tangible to understand. The infographic makes comparisons to other diseases when it comes to incubation times and number of deaths, as well as reporting who is dying from it.

Created by David McCandlessOmid KashanFabio BergamaschiDr Stephanie StarlingUnivers Labs

From Information Is Beautiful:

We made an infographic of the best COVID-19 / Coronavirus charts floating around, plus some of our own – all with the latest data

We’ll plan to keep it updated every few days.

They have also made all of their data accessible with a Google Sheet link: bit.ly/COVID19-DATA

With so many good and bad COVID-19 charts being published at a frantic pace, I can appreciate the design and effort here to gather some of the best data and the best visualizations together in one place.




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Santa Fe National Forest Spared From Fracking

WildEarth Guardians Press Release Federal Court Overturns Leasing of Lands to Oil and Gas Industry SANTA FE, NM — In a victory for New Mexico’s air, climate, and water, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico today … Continue reading




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‘Warning Bells Going Off’ as NOAA Forecasts Entire Great Barrier Reef at Risk of Coral Bleaching and Death

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “This is a wake-up call,” says one Australian marine biologist. “Given sea temperatures usually increase as we get towards March, this is probably conservative.” Delivering yet another “wake-up call” after recent studies have shown that … Continue reading




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‘A World Without Clouds. Think About That a Minute’: New Study Details Possibility of Devastating Climate Feedback Loop

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “We face a stark choice [between] radical, disruptive changes to our physical world or radical, disruptive changes to our political and economic systems to avoid those outcomes.” As people across the globe mobilize to demand … Continue reading





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Human Activity Increasing Rate of Record-Breaking Hot Years

American Geophysical Union (AGU) Press Release A new study finds human-caused global warming is significantly increasing the rate at which hot temperature records are being broken around the world. Global annual temperature records show there were 17 record hot years … Continue reading




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‘Utterly Terrifying’: Study Affirms Feedback Loop Fears as Surging Antarctica Ice Loss Tripled in Last Five Years

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “The most robust study of the ice mass balance of Antarctica to date,” scientists say, “now puts Antarctica in the frame as one of the largest contributors to sea-level rise.” Scientists are expressing alarm over … Continue reading



  • Climate & Climate Change
  • Climate Change ET
  • Antarctic
  • Antarctic ice sheet
  • Antartic ice loss
  • sea level rise

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‘A World Without Clouds. Think About That a Minute’: New Study Details Possibility of Devastating Climate Feedback Loop

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “We face a stark choice [between] radical, disruptive changes to our physical world or radical, disruptive changes to our political and economic systems to avoid those outcomes.” As people across the globe mobilize to demand … Continue reading




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‘Warning Bells Going Off’ as NOAA Forecasts Entire Great Barrier Reef at Risk of Coral Bleaching and Death

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “This is a wake-up call,” says one Australian marine biologist. “Given sea temperatures usually increase as we get towards March, this is probably conservative.” Delivering yet another “wake-up call” after recent studies have shown that … Continue reading




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‘A World Without Clouds. Think About That a Minute’: New Study Details Possibility of Devastating Climate Feedback Loop

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “We face a stark choice [between] radical, disruptive changes to our physical world or radical, disruptive changes to our political and economic systems to avoid those outcomes.” As people across the globe mobilize to demand … Continue reading





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12 symptoms of a back-to-front design process

Everyday consumer products continue to frustrate people. The failure of companies to fully embrace UX is partly to blame, but there is also another reason -- one that is seldom discussed. Consumer product companies pay too much heed to their retail customers and, in so doing, they prevent the development team from getting first-hand knowledge of end users.




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Transitioning from academic research to UX research

Doing UX research in a university is very different to doing UX research in a business setting. If you're an academic making the leap, what are the main differences you need to keep in mind?




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What is cognitive load and why does it matter in web and interface design?

Successful design manages cognitive load. Cognitive load is a technical term for “mental effort,” more specifically it’s the total amount of mental effort required for a given task. Completing any task requires some level of mental effort. This includes learning new information, analyzing stimuli, and working with short and long-term memory. Mental energy which has […]

The post What is cognitive load and why does it matter in web and interface design? appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.




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Astra Pro with Gutenberg Review – Practical Application

At 3.7 Designs we have an array of strategies we use to solve business problems. For example, when it comes to redesigning a website we might recommend recommend a completely custom design that starts with a design discovery engagement. Typically this process can take three to six months with ample time upfront to research the […]

The post Astra Pro with Gutenberg Review – Practical Application appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.




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Call to Action Marketing Strategy

In the past I’ve written about the importance of having a separate call to action for each stage of the buyers journey. In this article I’m going to expand on that concept and outline how to identify a strategy for each of these calls to action. First I’ll summarize why you need to have a […]

The post Call to Action Marketing Strategy appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.



  • Psychology of Design
  • Strategy and Planning
  • Web Design

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My Nostalgia is back with Streets of Rage 4

My Nostalgia is back with Streets of Rage 4

abduzeedoMay 06, 2020

I grew up playing video games. My first console was the Atari 2600. The games were quite primitive, literally a few pixels on the screen moving. Remember, that was the 80s. In the 90s my brother and I got the Sega Mega-Drive (Genesis in US). It was a massive improvement in graphics. A 16bit console, whoah! There are incredible games, however the one that marked was Streets of Rage. I remember seeing some kids playing at this shop and I was blown away. I wanted to play it. We got the game a few weeks later and we used to play it all the time. The soundtrack was phenomenal. Fast-forward a few years and the second installment was released. Everything was better. Graphics, music. My love for the franchise was renewed till this day. I have both games on my phone and tablet.

Last week Streets of Rage 4 was released. The long awaited release for me since I learned it was in the works. I got it for the Switch and have been playing every single day and my expectations, which were very high, were met. The game is awesome. The pixelated graphics are no longer. The creators of the series decided to adopt a hand drawn clean look and it works really well. The graphics are beautiful, the scenarios have that 80s gritty look and are full of details. The music doesn’t disappoint either. I’ve been actually listening to the soundtrack on Spotify. 

As you can see, I am a fan and this game deserves a feature here on Abduzeedo.

Streets of Rage

Streets of Rage, known as Bare Knuckle (ベア・ナックル Bea Nakkuru) in Japan, is a trilogy of beat 'em up games developed and published by SEGA in the 1990s.

Famously known for its non stop action and electronic dance influenced music - scored by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima - the series has gained the status of cult classic throughout the years. It is considered one of the best beat 'em up series of all time. After many years, Axel and Blaze are finally picking up the fight where they left.

Featuring hand-drawn visuals from the team behind 2017’s gorgeous Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap remake, Streets of Rage 4 builds upon the classic trilogy’s gameplay with new mechanics, a fresh story and a gauntlet of dangerous stages with a serious crime problem. Streets of Rage 4 recalls classic gameplay but it stands as an entirely original arcade-style romp thanks to the expertise of Guard Crush Games and Dotemu.

Whether players gang up with a friend or clean up the city solo, Streets of Rage 4 is a skull-bashing, chicken-chomping delight all set to a thumping soundtrack sure to get your blood pumping.

Screenshots

Making of




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Intercellar - Accidental Anomalies of Particle Wallpapers

Intercellar - Accidental Anomalies of Particle Wallpapers

AoiroStudioMay 07, 2020

Intercellar is a series of free wallpapers designed 'by accident' by Crtomir Just. I mentioned 'accident' because 'the images are the results of errors in particle simulations'. I think they are super stunning and crispy. We took the liberty to share Crtomir's entire collection and their 'download links'. You can download the 8K wallpapers, this feature is a reminder of what we used to do back in the days. We are definitely living in different times but it's always a nice reminder to remember what we were made of.

These images are the results of errors in particle simulations. While accidentally trying to scrub through the timeline, the otherwise predictable simulation explodes and is forced to take strange turns by blindly filling the gap between missing frames.

About Crtomir Just

Crtomir is an art director and 3D artist based in Murska Sobota, Slovenia, his work slightly shifted and it’s plain awesome. Make sure to follow his work on Behance and store.

 

 

 

 

 




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Monochrome beach

From Ølberg Strand. Taken with iPhone 11 Pro wide-angle and given some Lightroom fixes for sky effect.




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Using Funds from Disability Compensation and the GI Bill for Going Back to School

Receiving service-related disability compensation does not interfere with the funds veterans receive from the GI Bill, explains Adam.




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10 On-Page SEO Factors You Should Consider [2019]

When you want to succeed in the organic search engine results today, you have to focus on your website and learn what you should do to optimize it. There are many factors that can help you with that, form the technical, off-page, and on-page. All these factors and parts of a website require updating and […]

Original post: 10 On-Page SEO Factors You Should Consider [2019]

The post 10 On-Page SEO Factors You Should Consider [2019] appeared first on Daily Blog Tips.




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Best Alexa Skills That Will Actually Surprise You

Technology has changed the way we live. A few decades back, we couldn’t even imagine making a video call to a person sitting in another corner of the world. With every technological advancement, mankind is treading towards greater development. From smart gadgets to machines, every invention has leveraged the human lifestyle.  There’s no doubt in […]

Original post: Best Alexa Skills That Will Actually Surprise You

The post Best Alexa Skills That Will Actually Surprise You appeared first on Daily Blog Tips.




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Create your own bulk actions

Including version 4.6 it was quite difficult to add custom bulk actions to the WordPress admin pages. In version 4.7 […]




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How Coal Country Is Cleaning Up Its Act

By Mason Adams Yes! Magazine A program in eastern Kentucky is retraining miners in industries that help mitigate the environmental impacts of mining on communities. Like many men raised in eastern Kentucky, Frank Morris spent a chunk of his working … Continue reading




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Federal Watchdog Backs Reinstating Ousted Vaccine Expert

A federal watchdog is recommending that ousted vaccine expert Rick Bright be reinstated while it investigates whether the Trump administration retaliated against his whistleblower complaints when it removed him from a key post overseeing the coronavirus response, Bright's lawyers said Friday.




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Everything I Know In One Place

It was surreal to sit down at the mic and record this show after spending the last few years (5 a.m. mornings, late, late nights, and many long weekends hunkered down) writing a book that I’m proud and beyond excited to share with YOU and the world.  It’s called CREATIVE CALLING and it’s officially available for pre-order TODAY! In this episode, you get the little sneak peek at the book (yes, I read a little from it) and a little background on why I needed to write it.  After all, life isn’t about “finding” fulfillment and success – it’s about creating it. Creativity is a force inside every person that, when unleashed, transforms our lives and delivers vitality to everything we do. Establishing a creative practice is therefore our most valuable and urgent task – as important to our well-being as exercise or nutrition. The good news? Creativity isn’t a skill—it’s a habit available to everyone:  beginners and lifelong creators, entrepreneurs to executives, astronauts to zookeepers, and everyone in between. It’s only through small, daily actions that we can supercharge our innate creativity and (re-)discover our personal power in life. Everything you need is inside you right now. Whether your ambition is a creative career, completing a creative […]

The post Everything I Know In One Place appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




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Finding Stillness in a Fast Paced World with Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday is described by the New York Times as popularizing stoicism, a philosophy of personal ethics which has been practiced by Kings, presidents, artists, writers, and entrepreneurs. His career started at 19 when he dropped out of college at 19 to work with author Robert Greene. Today, he’s a NYT Bestselling author, with 9 books under his belt, including his latest book: Stillness Is the Key which hit #1 on its first week. In this episode: Stillness isn’t a monk-like existence only reserved for the enlightened. Stillness is the idea of being still in a chaotic world and where our best work will come from. Ryan’s personal habits and process during the creation process to find stillness and it doesn’t include meditation. How to say no and build a practice around managing your time. Enjoy! FOLLOW RYAN: instagram | twitter | website Listen to the Podcast Subscribe   Watch the Episode  This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top […]

The post Finding Stillness in a Fast Paced World with Ryan Holiday appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




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Harmony > Balance with Jason Calacanis

Today we’re going back to San Francisco with myself and Jason Calacanis on stage during my tour stop for my book Creative Calling. Jason is an investor and long time host of the This Week in Startups podcast. And, of course, Jason wastes no time in our conversation. He goes right to the heart of the matter by getting into failure, venture capitol, knowing when to quit, and when to push through. Enjoy! FOLLOW JASON: facebook | twitter | website Listen to the Podcast Subscribe   This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts — Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.

The post Harmony > Balance with Jason Calacanis appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




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Pay Attention to What Ignites You with Jody MacDonald

Imagine this: Your job is good, and safe, but it’s not fueling you anymore. You decide to quit your “real” job and sell all your belongings to live a life of adventure. And just as you are waving your last goodbye, the unthinkable happens and it changes everything. Like most of us, award winning photographer Jody MacDonald didn’t know what her path would be. Yet when her wake up call came, she listened. From train hopping in the Sahara to paragliding in the Himalaya, she’s no stranger to adventure and exploration. Her work blends insightful storytelling, big adventure expeditions and social change in the hopes of promoting the preservation of wild places. Men’s Journal named her “One of the 25 Most Adventures Women in the Past 25 Years and National Geographic said she’s one of the top female adventure photographers pushing the limits. I’ve admired Jody’s work from afar for years. Her life story and career arc is remarkable. It set her on a path to tackle some of the life’s biggest questions and what she has learned is pure gold. In this episode: Why waste your time on things that make you unhappy? What Jody does to tune into […]

The post Pay Attention to What Ignites You with Jody MacDonald appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




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Workplace Revolution with Amy Nelson

Amy Nelson is the founder and CEO of The Riveter. If you’re not familiar with The Riveter, it’s a modern day union of women and their allies. It’s a community, a workspace and resource that supports women in building business and careers. The Riveter has locations all throughout the US and is growing rapidly. I cannot wait for you to hear this story. Amy Nelson practiced corporate litigation for over a decade in New York City and Seattle and worked in politics under several presidents. But it wasn’t until she was a mother that she started noticing something. Conversations no longer were about her career, but how motherhood would impact her career. Why was it not possible to “have it all”: be the best lawyer, the best wife, and mother? Looking for inspiration, she discovered a telling statistic: 43% of highly trained professional women “off-ramp” after having kids. It was then an idea started to form. In this episode we explore: How a bold concept can go from idea to reality. How Amy raised money and grew a national company in 2.5 years Being a vulnerable leader + the emotional journey of exploring and building something new How can we all […]

The post Workplace Revolution with Amy Nelson appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




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10 Breaths Back to Love with Kamal Ravikant

Kamal Ravikant was in a dark place. After four years of pouring his heart, soul, and money into his tech startup, it blew up. He lost everything – including himself. In a moment of desperation, a vow deep within came to the surface: to love himself. Though it was a bit of a foreign concept, he set out to undo the misery in his head through the lens of love. The practice Kamal formed became the self-published book: Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It. It sold over a half a million copies and is now newly expanded. In our conversation Kamal shares his ruthlessly practical way he unwound the negative thoughts and more importantly, made it last. In our conversation we explore: Mindset as a practice, including the 7 minute meditation Kamal uses to break old mental patterns Kamal shares his advice in getting unstuck, including giving yourself time to simply live Our brain is a monkey gone bananas. Pain, joy, loneliness, love are a universal part of the human condition such that no matter our individual circumstance we are all trying to tame it. and much more… Enjoy! FOLLOW KAMAL: instagram | twitter | website Listen to the Podcast […]

The post 10 Breaths Back to Love with Kamal Ravikant appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




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Start in a Place That’s True with IN-Q

Storytelling is one of the oldest art forms. It connects us. Our brains our wired for it. Story is not only a way for us to share and connect with others, but a path to deeper understanding and vulnerability. That’s why I’m very excited to have on the show award winning Poet, Author, and Performer, IN-Q. In addition to his poetry, live performances and storytelling workshops, IN-Q is a multi-platinum songwriter having worked with Selena Gomez, Aloe Black, Miley Cyrus, Mike Posner, and Foster the People. Oprah named him on her SuperSoul 100 list of the world’s most influential thought leaders. He’s been featured all over the place including A&E, ESPN, HBO, and companies such as Nike, Instagram, Spotify, and many more. In our conversation, we get into his new book, Inquire Within. In fact, he reads a bit of it on the show. It’s an awe-inspiring rhythmic exploration of transforming love, loss, and forgiveness into growth. Super excited for you to hear it. We also get into: Developing your own voice by focusing on what’s moving and meaningful for you How to find calm in the chaos Using vulnerability to short-cut and deepen relationships in our lives and much, […]

The post Start in a Place That’s True with IN-Q appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




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TTT in SPAAACE

By now, you’ve probably heard of TTT, our quarterly team events. If you haven’t, you should read all about their history. TTT, or Third Third Thursday, is a time for us to look back and look ahead. Twice a year, all four offices come together for an all-hands, conference-style experience. The other two TTTs are celebrated locally and casually. Each office meets for a round-table discussion followed by a fun activity out of the office.

In these meetings, we discuss team and industry changes and review business health metrics. Additionally, at each TTT, both our President, Andy Rankin, and CEO Brian Williams, directly field questions from any member of our team. At our TTTs we’ve talked about team diversity and tech ethics, celebrated our victories, and worked through our failures. The conversations have sparked new understanding, new initiatives, new processes, and have truly shaped the company over time. We come together in the spirit of “progress, not perfection.”

While each office is unique, and the conversation is tailored to and shaped by each audience, the People Team finds ways to make everyone’s TTT similar, particularly our afternoon activity, so we can bond over shared experiences, even miles apart. This summer, we all tried our hands at ax throwing, and just a few weeks ago each of our offices got to venture into Space.

Well, sort of.

After a morning meeting, Boulder visited the Fiske Planetarium at CU Boulder.

Durham visited UNC’s Morehead Planetarium.

And since the Smithsonian is refurbishing the Einstein Planetarium, our Falls Church office made our way to the Udvar Hazy center to catch an Imax show and fly a few jets, via simulator.

Each office also got a taste of space food trying Astronaut ice cream, to mixed reviews.

TTTs are more than fun snacks and field trips. They are about finding common ground with colleagues, challenging each other to grow, and re-connecting with folks you don’t work with day-to-day. They are about setting aside time for frank discussion across disciplines and experience levels, and getting outside the office for new perspectives. They are just a little part of what makes Viget so unique.

Are you ready to join us for our next big TTT adventure? It’s Viget20, and it’s going to be a good one. We're hiring.



  • News & Culture

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Our WFH Best Practices

Our first remote office opened in 2007 when a designer and a developer left our HQ office and moved to Durham. Ever since we've been fine-tuning our ability to collaborate across locations. Today, we have team members across the country in our four offices, and we have fully remote employees in Charleston, Kansas City, New York City, Dallas, and Charlottesville.

Because of the coronavirus outbreak, a lot of people recently started working from their homes across the world, the country, and Viget. We wanted to share some of our best practices for being great teammates and doing great work, regardless of locale, and we’d love to hear yours in the comments.

Communicate Often and Write It Down

We want every person at Viget to be informed and connected. We do this in a few ways. We have a company Knowledge Base, which contains critical information including HR policies, office processes, brand guidelines, project resources, etc. We also have a well-organized Google Drive that everyone can access.

My favorite communication tool we use, however, is our Internal Lab Report. Every week, we create a Google Doc with HR updates, birthdays, upcoming events we’re attending, relevant publicity we or a client received, and timely updates on projects, sales, and recruiting. This report allows the entire team to have the same information, regardless of PTO schedules, and it provides a record that can be referenced weeks, months, or years later.

I have also found our Slack habits really helpful. We try to make our availability easily known, mostly via a passive Slack status. We each update our status daily, sometimes multiple times, so people can see if we’re working from home, out of the office for an appointment, in a meeting, or offline for a personal phone call. We also have a few Slack Channels we use very specifically to announce PTO, important announcements, and recently, one that is specific to the updating coronavirus situation.

My work from home station.

Figure Out Your Boundaries

This looks different for everyone and can be an ever-changing target. Understanding your boundaries requires you to be honest with yourself – Are you easily distracted? Can you successfully work in pajama pants? Will your dog actually allow you to get work done? Does working from the couch result in good work, or do you need a designated work spot? For some, working from home requires setting boundaries to ensure the work gets done. For others, working from home requires setting a start and stop times to ensure you don’t overwork yourself.

Viget has a flexible work policy, so many of us work from home fairly often and have gotten our routines set up. As such, we have written about this before! Check out Trevor’s article about working remotely.

Show Your Face

When I first started at Viget, I’d never worked anywhere that used a Google Hangout for nearly every meeting. At first, I was tempted to call into meetings and leave the camera off because I found it exposing. Now, I can’t imagine not using it, and I’ve even embraced it in my personal life with friends and family. I realized the value in face-to-face conversations even in virtual form, the ability to see body language, and the connection you establish when you see each other's faces — even if your hair isn't perfect or you haven't arranged your plants just-so in the view behind you. Whenever possible, use your camera during a meeting. It increases trust, communication, and in my personal-not-backed-by-science-opinion, lightness, which frankly, I think we can all use a bit more of right now.

Here's a screen shot from our Saint Patrick's Day Happy Hour.

Create Shared Experiences

As a company with project teams often distributed across our four locations, cross-office experiences are vital to our culture, and we’ve spent years working to keep our remote offices in sync. A few of our ongoing group activities include a monthly virtual Book Club, our weekly full-team Free Lunch Friday tradition, Donut for Slack, and, of course, our Pointless Weekends.

The current global health crisis now requires almost all of the company to work remote, so we’ve gotten creative with our attempts to increase non-project time together, in order to keep up the vibes we’ve worked hard to create.

What we’ve recently started:

    • Last Weekend this Morning - Monday mornings, we have an optional virtual coffee, where anyone who’d like to chat can join and share the latest gardening lesson or bingeable tv show. It lets us start our week off as we would when we’re all in the office — saying hello to each other.
    • Virtual Happy Hours - We are a company that likes to socialize, and a bit of distance doesn’t stop us. This week, we set up an after-hours Happy Hour for St. Patrick’s Day.
    • Daily Lunch Table- If you’ve ever visited our HQ office in Falls Church, you’ll notice our large kitchen table. We have an informal tradition of gathering around noon to eat together, whether it’s just a couple folks or the whole team. We now do this lunch virtually. So far, we’re mostly taking turns discussing who is eating what, and of course, sharing said recipes.

I crowdsourced some ideas from the Viget team, and here are some noteworthy takeaways:

"In remote meetings, minimize all your other windows and be fully present. It’s easy to allow your attention to accidentally drift if you see a new Slack channel light up, especially if you’re in a larger meeting. Suddenly, you find yourself multitasking. Treat the meeting as if you were there in person: unless you’re taking notes, minimize your other tabs, and give the conversation your full attention."
- Paul Koch

“I try to reach out to more folks I don’t consistently work with. Since there’s less interaction in general, I want to be more intentional about staying connected.”
- Laura Sweltz

“Good habits are hard to form and bad habits are hard to break, and it’s often hard to find the right time to make a change. Most of us are experiencing a disruption to our usual behaviors right now, but that doesn’t have to be entirely bad. Be deliberate now and when this is over, we might all end up with some new work habits worth keeping.”
- Emily Bloom

“I’ve found it helpful to create a physical space similar to the one I had at work. While this isn’t exactly possible, small things like setting up a laptop stand and second screen make it so I’m less likely to get distracted and wander to the couch or kitchen (aka the snack danger zone.).”
- Aubrey Lear

“It’s easy to get stuck in one spot all day, so be proactive about moving around, or creating excuses to do so. Whether that’s making yourself a cup of coffee, eating lunch away from your computer, or going for a quick walk outside for some fresh air. This will help reduce the risk of going stir crazy.”
-Zach Robbins

True to Viget form, our remote work is all about “Progress, Not Perfection.” While remote collaboration is ingrained in our company, we’re looking for opportunities to fine-tune our approach and improve our habits.

We’d love to hear from you: What are your best practices? Lessons learned?




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Scurry: A Race-To-Finish Scavenger Hunt App

We have a lot of traditions here at Viget, many of which you may have read about - TTT, FLF, Pointless Weekend. There are others, but you have to be an insider for more information on those.

Pointless Weekend is one of our favorite traditions, though. It’s been around over a decade and some pretty fun work has come out of it over the years, like Storyboard, Baby Bookie, and Short Order. At a high level, we take 48 hours to build a tool, experiment, or stunt as a team, across all four of our offices. These projects are entirely separate from our client work and we use them to try out new technologies, explore roles on the team, and stress-test our processes.

The first step for a Pointless Weekend is assembling the teams. We had two teams this year, with a record number of participants. You can read about TrailBuddy, what the other team built, here.

The Scurry team was split between the DC and Durham offices, so all meetings were held via Hangout.

Once we were assembled, we set out to understand the constraints and the goals of our Pointless Project. We went into this weekend with an extra pep in our step, as we were determined to build something for the upcoming Viget 20th anniversary TTT this summer. Here’s what we knew we wanted:

  1. An activity all Vigets could do together, where they could create memories, and share broadly on social
  2. Something that we could use in a spotty network at C Lazy U Ranch in Colorado
  3. A product we can share with others: corporate groups, families and friends, schools, bachelor/ette parties

We landed on a scavenger hunt native app, which we named Scurry (Scavenger + Hurry = Scurry. Brilliant, right?). There are already a few scavenger apps available, so we set out to create something that was

  • Quick and easy to set up hunts
  • Free and intuitive for users
  • A nice combination of trivia and activities
  • Social! We wanted to enable teams to share photos and progress

One of the main reasons we have Pointless Weekends is to test out new technologies and processes. In that vein, we tried out Notion as our central organizing tool - we used it for user journeys, data modeling, and even writing tickets, which we typically use Github for.

We tested out Notion as our primary tool, writing tickets and tracking progress.

When we built the app, we needed to prepare for spotty network service, as internet connectivity isn’t guaranteed at C Lazy U Ranch – where our Viget20 celebration will be. A Progressive Web Application (PWA) didn't make sense for our tech requirements, so we chose the route of creating a native application.

There are a number of options available to build native applications. But, as we were looking to make as much progress as possible in 48-hours, we chose one of our favorite frameworks: React Native. React Native allows developers to build true, cross-platform native applications, using some of our favorite technologies: javascript, the React framework, and a native-specific variant of CSS. We decided on the turn-key solution Expo. Expo has extra tooling allowing for easy development, deployment, and debugging.

This is a snap shot of our app and Expo.

Our frontend developers were able to immediately dive in making screens and styling components, and quickly made the mockups in Whimsical a reality.

On the backend, we used the supported library to connect to the backend datastore, Firebase. Firebase is a hosted solution for data storage, with key features built-in like authentication, realtime updates, and offline support. Our backend developer worked behind the frontend developers hooking those views up to live data.

Both of these tools, Expo and Firebase, were easy to use and allowed us to focus on building a working application quickly, rather than being mired in setup or bespoke solutions to common problems.

Whimsical is one of our favorite tools for building out mockups of an app.

We made impressive progress in our 48-hour sprint, but there’s still some work to do. We have some additional features we hope to add before TTT, which will require additional testing and refining. For now, stay tuned and sign up for our newsletter. We’ll be sure to share when Scurry is ready for the world!



  • News & Culture

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Cute Collection of 210 User Interface Icons

Did you remember how was your life before Freepik and Flaticon. No I can’t remember the dark ages either. To celebrate this golden times, they are giving away once more an incredible package of 210 User Interface Icons in 3 versions: Flat, filled and lineal.  Download This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License …

Cute Collection of 210 User Interface Icons Read More »




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Freebie: 264 Vector Audio DJ Pack Icons

Icons packs are among the most desirable freebies around. There are several out there, going from a wide array of topics from user interfaces to personal finance. But sometimes you can find some rather unusual but clever additions to the icons universe. This Vector Audio DJ Pack is a nice example, brought to you exclusively …

Freebie: 264 Vector Audio DJ Pack Icons Read More »




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Why Collaborative Coding Is The Ultimate Career Hack

Taking your first steps in programming is like picking up a foreign language. At first, the syntax makes no sense, the vocabulary is unfamiliar, and everything looks and sounds unintelligible. If you’re anything like me when I started, fluency feels impossible. I promise it isn’t. When I began coding, the learning curve hit me — hard. I spent ten months teaching myself the basics while trying to stave off feelings of self-doubt that I now recognize as imposter syndrome.




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Implementing Dark Mode In React Apps Using styled-components

One of the most commonly requested software features is dark mode (or night mode, as others call it). We see dark mode in the apps that we use every day. From mobile to web apps, dark mode has become vital for companies that want to take care of their users’ eyes. Dark mode is a supplemental feature that displays mostly dark surfaces in the UI. Most major companies (such as YouTube, Twitter, and Netflix) have adopted dark mode in their mobile and web apps.




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Join Our New Online Workshops On CSS, Accessibility, Performance, And UX

It has been a month since we launched our first online workshop and, to be honest, we really didn’t know whether people would enjoy them — or if we would enjoy running them. It was an experiment, but one we are so glad we jumped into! I spoke about the experience of taking my workshop online on a recent episode of the Smashing podcast. As a speaker, I had expected it to feel very much like I was presenting into the empty air, with no immediate feedback and expressions to work from.




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An Introduction To React With Ionic

The Ionic Framework is an open-source UI toolkit for building fast, high-quality applications using web technologies with integrations for popular frameworks like Angular and React. Ionic enables cross-platform development using either Cordova or Capacitor, with the latter featuring support for desktop application development using Electron. In this article, we will explore Ionic with the React integration by building an app that displays comics using the Marvel Comics API and allows users to create a collection of their favorites.




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Meet SmashingConf Live: Our New Interactive Online Conference

In these strange times when everything is connected, it’s too easy to feel lonely and detached. Yes, everybody is just one message away, but there is always something in the way — deadlines to meet, Slack messages to reply, or urgent PRs to review. Connections need time and space to grow, just like learning, and conferences are a great way to find that time and that space. In fact, with SmashingConfs, we’ve always been trying to create such friendly and inclusive spaces.




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Watch YouTube’s most informed sock puppet teach you how to shoot with manual exposure

For those who’ve never seen TheCrafsMan SteadyCraftin on YouTube, you’re in for a treat – even if you already understand everything contained within this 25-minute video. For those who have, you know exactly what to expect. I’ve been following this rather unconventional channel for a while now. It covers a lot of handy DIY and […]

The post Watch YouTube’s most informed sock puppet teach you how to shoot with manual exposure appeared first on DIY Photography.





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Non-associative Frobenius algebras for simply laced Chevalley groups. (arXiv:2005.02625v1 [math.RA] CROSS LISTED)

We provide an explicit construction for a class of commutative, non-associative algebras for each of the simple Chevalley groups of simply laced type. Moreover, we equip these algebras with an associating bilinear form, which turns them into Frobenius algebras. This class includes a 3876-dimensional algebra on which the Chevalley group of type E8 acts by automorphisms. We also prove that these algebras admit the structure of (axial) decomposition algebras.