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Friday, April 19, 2019

A politicized Federal Reserve could wipe out retirees, and Trump acts tempted

Fareed Zakaria has a credible op-ed in the Washington Post today regarding the tendency for right-wing (or maybe left-wing too, like Chavez) populist politicians to try to bring their central banks under partisan control.

He discusses particularly Trump, and his desire to appoint “loyalists” to the Federal Reserve, as well as Erdogan in Turkey.  In India, the national bank as “raided” to buy votes.

The article notes that this practice by politicians can be very dangerous to savings of retirees.

Monday, April 15, 2019

Tax day, and the "meta-moral" problem with the way state tax deductions work now

It’s a bit late on tax day, but the issue of how Trump’s tax law affects “blue states” by reducing the maximum state tax itemized deduction to $10000.  It was always true that you had to choose between income or sales taxes.  Here is a typical write-up.

Because there is no personal exemption but a larger standard deduction, many people loose “opportunity” from the change with respect to the state tax issue, and this will affect people in high state tax states, like New York and California.

I am in Virginia. HRBlock computed my federal tax assuming the standard deduction (without exemption) which now was more than the itemized deductions I had been claiming.

But it did not consider the state income tax, because the state hadn’t been computed yet.

So I may have been overcharged after all.

On the other hand, I underpaid the estimated tax this year because I did not expect an unusual gain on one bond fund in mom’s estate because of an unusual way it was handled.

I don’t know whether it will be worth my time to redo this.

I’ll talk to a financial institution to prevent this problem again.
It is very easy to pay overdue taxes electronically by HRBlock from your checking account.

Virginia now says that people with AGI’s over a certain amount must pay estimated taxes electronically.  I had never noticed that before.  I’ve already done 1Q 2019 by mail.

Tuesday, April 02, 2019

Sudden bond maturities tied to SP-500 can lead to surprising tax bills

I do my taxes on HRBlock, and I typically copy PDF’s of all my 1099’s from financial institutions into a typical directory in Windows.

This year, on one of the banks (Suntrust), I almost missed a 1099-B on the last page. It showed a bond fund maturing and showing an amazing $21000 long term gain since 2014 based on a $75000 basis.

The bond was tied to the SP500, which was near one of its max points the day it matured.
This possibility exists, although it’s unusual.  But typically investment accounts roll over the instruments and purchase something else. That could go down. It’s a good idea for a retiree to be told about this and put it in cash.

This year, the standard deduction swallows the personal exemption and in my case, the same deductions I took last year.  I don't like to stretch things by trying to add deductions.  This year real estate taxes are much lower after moving to a condo.


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Scotty Mounting Bracket For Scotty Downrigger Mdls 1080-1116

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Scotty 1023 Tilt-up Mounting Bracket for Scotty Downrigger Models 1080-1116. Extra mounting bracket for all Scotty tilt-up downriggers. Also used as the exclusive mounting bracket for the Scotty 2500 Line Puller.

Condition : This item is brand new, unopened and sealed in its original factory box.

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Research Methods

Research Methods

Release Date: Each January, May and September

The Research Methods module is compulsory for anyone wishing to complete an MSc or MRes. It provides a framework for developing your research skills in the context of your own research question, and as such is generally, but not always, the last taught module taken. The BioInnovation Wales team will match you up to a tutor and to an academic supervisor whose research field is in your area of interest. Your tutor and academic supervisor will then guide you as you develop your ideas.

Alongside evolving your own research ideas, you will develop skills in:

  • Research design
  • Scientific literature reviews
  • Looking at the wider context of your research
  • Ethical considerations in research
  • Statistics
  • Evaluating and planning data collection

The module will culminate with you designing a research proposal, in collaboration with your employer and supervisor, which you can use as the basis of your dissertation.

Tutors Name
Dr Neil MacKintosh


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Contact us for instant answers.

We invite you to experience the Birchwood difference. Fill out the form to the right and a representative will contact you with more information.

New Month, New Direction for Mortgage Rates

Mortgage rates dipped for the second consecutive week in May after weeks of steady increases in March and April, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

Good News, Bad News From Pending Home Sales Data

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) Pending Home Sales Index reported contract signings fell 1.2% year-over-year in March, making March the 15th straight month of annual decreases.

2019’s Improved Housing Outlook

he housing market in 2019 may be stronger than originally predicted, according to a recent report from The site’s updated 2019 housing forecast indicates a shift in the economic outlook. A higher home price growth of near 3 percent, stronger homes sales and a slower pace of monetary tightening may lead to lower mortgage rates of 4.5 percent by the end of the year.

Home Sales in Spring off to a Slow Start

The spring homebuying season in 2019 is off to a slow start despite home sales climbing almost 29% in March compared with February according to data from the latest RE/MAX National Housing Report.

Removal of public records has little effect on consumers’ credit scores

Today we released the latest quarterly consumer credit trends report , this time focusing on the removal of civil public records from consumer credit reports.

Home Searches Speed Up

Homebuyers are spending less time looking for homes in 2019, compared to previous years, according to a study by Redfin.

Three Trends That Will Shape the Mortgage Market

The government-sponsored enterprises' (GSEs') move towards single security, the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA's) credit box changes, and the supply of homes available for sale are three trends that will likely shape the mortgage market in 2019 and beyond, according to the Urban Institute's latest Monthly Chartbook.

Reaping the Benefits of Falling Mortgage Rates

Homebuyers are likely to see affordability increasing this spring buying season. According to the latest Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, mortgage rates moved lower by 0.4 points compared with last week to 4.28 percent. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage during the same period a year ago stood at 4.45 percent.

Healthy Season Ahead for New Home Sales

The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly announced the new residential sales statistics for January 2019 on Thursday. According to the report, the sales of new single‐family houses in January 2019 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 607,000—which is 6.9 percent below the revised December rate of 652,000 and is 4.1 percent below the January 2018 estimate of 633,000.

Freddie Mac Forecasts Changing Trends in Origination

The decline in mortgage rates, that fell at the start of 2019 after peaking last fall, is likely to provide some welcome relief to the housing market, according to Freddie Mac's latest monthly forecast.

Connect with us:

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WWII Barrage Balloon Sites

proper brummie kid
I lived in Abbey Road Erdington and well remember the barrage balloon situated on the allotments by Brookvale Park. One night we had the usual air raid which was over by about 3 am. We went back to bed and dropping off to sleep and suddenly heard a most unusual swishing noise. I was scared stiff and dashed into my parents room. We then saw the sky was lit up with a searchlight and looking out of the bedroom window saw this barage balloon that had broken loose coming towards our house with all it's wires trailing. We don't know where it finished up but next morning found the hauser wire which held it in place was now lying the full length of Abbey Road draped over all the tops of the trees which lined our road. No knowing what damage it would have caused had it landed on top of all the houses.

New Member
My dad James Butler was in France in 1940 with the RAF, I think he was part of a barrage balloon unit. He came out via Boulogne and served at Castle Bromwich for the rest of the war. Does anyone have information on birmingham units in France or where I could research them


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2020-02-24 20:05 NCEA Level 3 Calculus. Browse past exams and view tutorials here. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority owns the copyright in all highschool level examination material reproduced here and has consented to the reproduction of the examination material. 2012 Differentiation 2012 Integration 2012 Real and Complex Numbers 2011 Conic Sections

Thousands of Catholic educators expected to gather for professional development opportunities, connect with others, acquire new knowledge and grow in faith. The NCEA 2017 Convention& Expo will take place in St Louis, Missouri from April 18 20, and in 2018, the Convention& Expo will be held from April 3 5 in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information visit click HERE. ncea level 3 differentiation 2019

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Health and Physical Education (HPE) is an action-oriented subject that inspires students to implement and evaluate their own and others’ strategies to maximise the health and wellbeing of those in their communities, including themselves. HPE allows students to first gain an understanding of the biophysical, psychosocial and environmental determinants of relevant health concerns through their analysis of primary and secondary health-related data.


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Blackburn News - Your Local News Network

Midwestern Ontario Sports

Schedule for Tuesday, March 25th

NHL St. Louis at Toronto, 7 p.m. Phoenix at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m. Los Angeles at Washington, 7 p.m. N.Y. Islanders at Carolina, 7 p.m. Buffalo at Montreal, 7:30 p.m. Ottawa at Florida, 7:30 p.m. Detroit at Columbus, 7:30 p.m. Dallas at Chicago, 8 p.m. Colorado at Nashville, 8 p.m. San Jose at Edmonton, 9:30 p.m. […]

The Attack Lose to the Soo

The Owen Sound Attack dropped a 5-3 decision to the Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds last night at the Lumley Bayshore.  The Hounds lead the O-H-L playoff series 2-1. Owen Sound outshot the Greyhounds 38-32 but a three minute stretch in the second period was the difference. The game was tied to that point but Sault […]

Scores from Monday, March 24th

NHL N.Y. Rangers 4 Phoenix 3 (OT) Los Angeles 3 Philadelphia 2 Montreal 2 Boston 1 (SO) Ottawa 4 Tampa Bay 3 (SO) Dallas 2 Winnipeg 1 Calgary 2 San Jose 1 (SO) OHL Sault Ste Marie 5 Owen Sound 3 (Sault Ste Marie leads the series 2-1) Saginaw 7 Erie 6 (Erie leads the […]

Lucknow Runner Competes on World Stage

Lucknow native Julie-Anne Staehli was 7th in the FISU cross country race held in Uganda. The World University championship was on Saturday and Staehli completed the 6 km course in 21:31:34.  The top three finishers came from Uganda, with the four to six spots claimed by Japanese competitors.  The first place time was 20:33:77. There […]

Schedule for Monday, March 24th

NHL Phoenix at N.Y. Rangers, 7 p.m. Los Angeles at Philadelphia, 7 p.m. Montreal at Boston, 7:30 p.m. Ottawa at Tampa Bay, 7:30 p.m. Winnipeg at Dallas, 8:30 p.m. San Jose at Calgary, 9 p.m. OHL First Round Playoffs Sault Ste Marie at Owen Sound, 7:00 p.m. (Series tied 1-1) Erie at Saginaw, 7:11 p.m. […]

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The Wingham Ironmen fell to the Penetang Kings in Game 3 of the Schmalz Cup Quarter-Final.


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Home Articles Combating Business Email Compromise with Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence
Articles - Email Marketing - January 5, 2020

Combating Business Email Compromise with Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence

Email is a tad over 40 years old: back then no one probably imagined that even though it was meant to be a convenient and ubiquitous form of digital communication – it would also be used for anomalous activity like phish, spam, fraud etc. Judging the lonely and disenfranchised for being lured into a romance scam is unjustified. Though it wasn’t originally created with built-in security protocols, the assumption an employee is also an email fraud detection expert is unrealistic. Email scams were – and are still real!

Email security began to emerge as a risk management issue about a decade ago: back then security companies simply tried to build thicker “security walls”. Yet the approach was adequate until email scammers became wiser and began to evolve anomalous tactics. Email is (still) an important form of communication used today – even with the rise of texting, instant messaging, Slack, etc. Irrespective of its popularity, there’s still some lack of proper email authentication. This is why email is still abused by – and still vulnerable to – abuse.

Attacks contain malicious URL links & attachments, spam, viruses – as well as scattershot credential phish attacks … these all send malicious stuff to unwitting victims. A great example is an unsuspecting Paypal phish e-mail message!

The tech industry responded by creating ‘secure email gateways’ (SEG) – focused on stopping attacks by looking for abusive “content” in email … based on ‘fingerprints’, heuristics, data intelligence, machine learning, and more. The premise behind this security technology was to identify what “bad” email looked like – and in turn protect companies, consumers, you name it. As a result, an entire technology architecture was mapped and evolved.

Cybercriminals continuously try to figure out ways to ‘sneak around’ these technologies by coming up with new attack techniques to look legitimate amongst trillions of “good” emails. Yet the tech industry stays on par with advanced threat protection solutions that leverage malware sandboxes and new forms of dynamic analysis – still with the intent to counter & identify bad actors. But note: bad actors continuously emit threat tactics to evolve with the e-mail security industry.

Next-gen attacks continue to be sophisticated by using identity deception techniques and become more targeted. These attacks include spear phishing, business email compromise (impersonation of an executive, trusted vendor etc), an email account takeover, etc.

A compromised account is an ultimate form of identity deception where a scammer sends from (and manipulates) the owner’s actual mailbox. The attacker can see everything in the email account owner’s inbox and that access gives the attacker context to craft authentic-looking emails directing people to ‘unknowingly’ do stuff like divert payroll information, transfer funds via wire, etc. Ultimately, the attacker can monetize the email account owner’s inbox – or even move within an organization to execute a data breach.

Throughout 2019, such attacks rose by about 35 percent, making the use of compromised accounts a fast-growing impersonation technique. When an attacker compromises an internal account at a business organization he/she can spread malicious emails, move from employee to employee within the org to either execute a data breach, attack vendors & suppliers, and vice versa.

Winning the battle waged by scammers…

Read The Full Article

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All the new features for enterprise and developers from WWDC explained

Posted by Julien Ott on Jun 14, 2019 5:03:10 PM

Apple on Monday upgraded the OSes that power its devices during its WWDC developer conference. And Appaloosa was there! One week after WWDC, it's time to sum up what we learned so far:

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Stichting EcoSafe is a Dutch foundation for the safe-keeping of the funds that are necessary for the maintenance of hardwood plantations. In July of 2006, together with Johan Ockels, I created a website for the Foundation. Johan was responsible for the organization of the whole process. This went very smooth and the website ended up being an emblem of simplicity and clarity. That’s why I wanted to blog a bit about it now, even though there are a few things that I’d probably end up doing different if I were to start from scratch. [There’s actually a disturbing number of things for which this is true, I’m coming to notice.]

File structure

Like with most websites, I started with creating an SVN repo so that I wouldn’t have to be afraid of ever losing anything.

The file structure was pretty standard:

  • a css dir for stylesheets;
  • img for images;
  • inc for shared PHP and mod_include stuff and for AJAX partials;
  • jot for to-do’s and other notes;
  • and js for JavaScript files and libraries.

Possible file structure improvements

If I were to redesign this file structure, I’d collapse css, img and js into one directory called layout, because these are typically things that require the same robots.txt and caching policy. Also, it is meaningless to organize things by file extension. If you want to sort something by file extension, use ls -X (or ls --sort=extension if you’re on GNU).

Server-side includes

The site would be so simple that I felt that any type of CMS or content transformation would be completely unnecessary. Instead, I decided to rely on Apache’s mod_include and just use a few partials for repeating page elements such as the left sidebar containing the logo and the menu.

Also, because I didn’t need to transform the HTML files, I decided I could use good ol’ HTML 4 instead of XHTML 1 (which I’d have to send to the browser with the wrong mime-type anyway).

This is the HTML for

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "">

    <title>Contact EcoSafe</title>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/style.css"></link>

Your email to EcoSafe kan be sent to the following address:
      .
      Or, alternatively, you can fax us at +31 50 - 309 66 58.

About this website

For comments and/or suggestions concerning this website,
      you can direct an email message at:
      .

Alternative language selection

Alternative language selection

I use  to include the repeating parts.  has several advantages over  in that it allows for content-negotiation, execution of dynamic content etc., but here the only place were it holds an advantage is in the inclusion of /inc/alt-lang.phtml. alt-lang.phtml is a messy PHP script that figures out which language variants of a page are available and displays a selection of alternative language versions (variants with a language different from the current).

SSI and caching

Without the XBitHack directive set to full, all content handled by mod_include is sent without a Last-Modified header. However, I don’t want to use XBitHack at all, because I don’t want just any executable file to be handled by mod_include; that just too much of a … hack.

If I were to do something similar now, I’d use some kind of (sed) substitution to pre-process the includes locally so that more of what I end up uploading is simple static content. The dynamic part of the included PHP script, I would simply replace with JavaScript.

Visual design

As you can see in the HTML example, there’s hardly anything layout oriented in the HTML source. This is good, and means that I have to touch only the CSS for most minor and major lay-out modifications. (It is a pipe-dream to think that you only need to change the CSS to make the same HTML page look however you want as long as that HTML is rich enough in meaning, but for a site with pages of such simple structure, it’s a dream that comes pretty close to reality.)

I’m not much of a designer, but I think design is overrated anyway. Actually, I think that most website suffer from too much design.

The EcoSafe logo

The EcoSafe logo

To start the design, I got a logo made by Huite Zijlstra. Because the logo was pretty big and didn’t look good scaled down, I decided to put it at the left of the content area instead of at the top. This would still leave enough room for the menu (which actually takes less space horizontally than the logo).

For the color scheme, I just picked a few colors from the logo. As always, the base of the scheme would be black text on a white background for maximum readability. The print version hardly uses any colors.

@media screen {
body            {:;  }
*               {:;             }
a:link          {: #585;              }
h1              {: #880;              }
h2              {: #888;              }
strong          {: #a62;              }
#menu li a      {: #660;              }

I wanted an underline below the level 1 and 2 headings. Because I didn’t like the effect of text-decoration:underline (too thick for
s, too dark for
s and different from browser to browser) and because border-bottom was set too far from the text, I made two simple PNG images that I could repeat-x along the bottom edge.

@media screen {
h1 {:('/img/h1-border-bottom.png'); }
h2 {:('/img/hx-border-bottom.png'); }

The menu is very simple. The markup is part of inc/left-side.en.html for the English version and inc/ for the Dutch version:

cat inc/left-side.en.html

Start page

For plantations

For investors

History

How it works

Cost structure

Cost calculator

Contact

The EcoSafe menu (in English)

The EcoSafe menu (in English)

As is customary, I started by removing all the default list styles and made the anchors behave as block-level elements. I used the big O from the logo for bullets in the list (using background-image instead of list-style-image because the latter gives unpredictable cross-browser results and doesn’t make the bullet clickable).

#menu {
 : 2em;
 : 2em;
 : 0;
#menu li {
 : 0;
#menu li a {
 : 30px;
 : #660;
#menu li a:hover,
#menu a {
#menu a:hover {
 : #787800;

JavaScript menu item activation

To add the active class to the currently active list item (
), I used a client-side solution using JavaScript. After all, it’s proper use of JavaScript to enhance your user interface with it (as long as, as many would say, it isn’t required for the UI to function (as it is in the Cost Calculator)).

// menu.js
var menu = document.getElementById('menu');
var anchors = menu.getElementsByTagName('a');
var locationHref = window.location.pathname.toString();
for (i = anchors.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
  a = anchors[i];
  aHref = a.href;
  // Does this menu item link to the current page?
  // We find out by looking if the window location contains the URL in the anchor
  // or the other way arround. The reason to look at both is content-negotiation.
  // It's also true if the location is just '/' and we're looking at the anchor of
  // the 'start' page.
  if ( (locationHref === '/' && a.rel === 'start') ||
       (locationHref !== '/' && ( locationHref.indexOf(aHref) !== -1 ||
                                  aHref.indexOf(locationHref) !== -1 ) ) ) {
    a.parentNode.className = 'active';

I actually just fixed a long-standing bug that was caused by me not being able to fully rely on HTTP language negotiation for the selection of the appropriate language variant, which made me change all links from being language-neutral to including the language in the link target (e.g.: http:///history became http:///history.en and http:///, the problem with this being that, instead of being able to link to link to http:/// (, I had to link to http:///index.en or http:///, making it more difficult to detect the active anchor if we’re requesting the home page through http:/// instead of on of its language-specific URLs.

The JavaScript rested on the assumption that by reverse iterating through all the anchors in the menu and thus processing the link to http:/// as last, I’d know that I had struck the home page and wouldn’t need to worry that any of the links contain a slash. (I don’t know if I intended it to work this way, but it sure seems to me now that the only way this could ever have worked was as an apparent side-effect of the looping order; the SVN logs seem to agree.)

I could have solved this by redirecting all requests for http:/// to the appropriate variant. Maybe I should have (to avoid duplicate content). Instead I chose to add a rel="start" attribute to the links to the home page, as can be deduced from the JavaScript above. (To resolve the duplicate content issue, I could also add a canonical link to the header of the two language variants.)

Anyway, all this brings me to the messy subject of content negotiation.

Content and language negotiation

The EcoSafe website would be bi-lingual (English and Dutch) from the onset. Initially, I wanted to use language negotiation to the extend of having completely language-neutral URLs. For example: http:///cost-calculator instead of http:///cost-calculator.en and http:/// In the end, you can make this work properly in the browser with the help of a cookie, but it’s still a pipe-dream because nothing else will work if you do not also offer another navigational path to the different variants. Maybe, we’ll revisit this topic for a later experiment.

Content-type negotiation is almost effortless with Apache thanks to mod_negotiation. If, like me, you despise to have .html, .htm, .xhtml, .phtml, .pxhtml. .sxhtml, .php, .xml in your URL (I actually used all of these at some time or other), you only have to make sure that MultiViews is in your options.

I’ve configured SSI by means of the following instead of a “magic mime-type”:

AddType         text/html       .shtml
AddHandler      server-parsed   .shtml
AddCharset      UTF-8           .shtml
AddOutputFilter Includes        .shtml

For PHP I couldn’t do the same because my web host was still at Apache 1.3. Otherwise, the following should have worked equally well for PHP:

# This doesn't work with Apache 1.3
AddType        text/html       .phtml
AddHandler     php-script      .phtml
AddCharset     UTF-8           .phtml

Configuring language priority is easy with Apache:

Integrating PHP and SSI

The integration of PHP with all the weirdness that I had configured and created around SSI took some figuring out. Luckily, PHP offers a virtual() function that works roughly the same as mod_include's . Here’s an example:

  <?php virtual('/inc/left-side.en.html'); ?>
  <?php $uri = '/cost-calculator.en.phtml'; include('inc/alt-lang.phtml'); ?>

In retrospect, it’s pretty much bullshit to use it. I could have just as well require()d the partials (which I actually did for the alternate language selection), but I probably started out using virtual on a more generic URL without language and content-type selection in it.

406 handling

Because I deployed on Apache 1.3 and the ForceLanguagePriority directive was only introduced with Apache 2.0.30, I had to write an ugly hack to avoid visitors getting 406 errors. To that end, I added a 406 handler to my .htaccess file:

LanguagePriority en nl
ForceLanguagePriority Prefer Fallback # This doesn't work with 1.3
ErrorDocument 406 /error-406.php # Luckily, this does

error-406.php is a PHP file that figures out the available variants based on $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']. Then, it simply picks the first one (which works because, accidentally, that’s the one I’ve given priority using the LanguagePriority directive as well), outputs a 200 OK header instead of the 406, and virtual()s the file of the variant. The code looks somewhat like this:

$filenames = glob(basename($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . ".*");
$filename = $filenames[0];
apache_setenv('DOCUMENT_URI', "/$filename");
header('HTTP/1.1 200 OK');
EcoSafe Cost Calculator

EcoSafe Cost Calculator

EcoSafe Cost Calculator results

EcoSafe Cost Calculator results

The Cost Calculator

The EcoSafe Cost Calculator is some of the least neatly contained and most procedurally oriented PHP code I’ve ever produced while knowing full well what I was doing. It does almost everything it does in global scope. Yet, it does it well.

The thing is designed as a dynamic web page rather than a web application. What I mean by this is that it’s simply two pages (one for English and one for Dutch) using PHP among a number of pages using SSI. In an application, it’s usual to have just one ‘view’ that is the same for all languages, but here I chose to put the different language versions in different language pages and then include everything reusable (and language-neutral) from within these files.

Most of the actual processing and calculating is done in inc/costs-functions.php. (The part about gotos is a joke. (Labeled blocks would have been quite sufficient. 😉 ))

<?php # costs-functions.php - Stuff that's includes by cost-calculator.{nl,en}.phtml
 * Just remember that this code was never meant to be general purpose or anything.
 * So, relaxeeee and keep your OO-axe burried where it belongs.
 * Oh, if only PHP would support GOTO's ... Sigh ...

The rest of the file is just a whole lot of processing of form data and turning it into something that can be easily traversed for display to the user. There are even the function calls without arguments doing all their work on globals. These are actually only added to make it clearer em a piece of code is doing. And—I must say—after a few years it’s still remarkably clear to me what each part of the code is doing. There’s no deep, confusing nesting structures or anything. There’s just a whole lot of very simple code.

Some simple AHAH increases form interactivity

Users of the calculator can add any number of plantings and locations. When the user decides to add a planting or a location, the onClick event triggers the execution of addExtraPlanting() or addExtraLocation(). Here’s how addExtraPlanting() looks:

function addExtraPlanting() {
  lang = document.documentElement.lang;
  new Ajax.Updater(
    'plantings', '/inc/planting.' + lang, {
      method: 'get',
      insertion: Insertion.Bottom

Ajax.Updater comes from the Prototype JavaScript framework.

Here’s what inc/planting.en.phtml looks like. The same file is also included in a loop to rebuild the form’s state after submitting.

  <input name="num_hectares[]" type="text" size="5" value="<?php echo $num_hectares ?>" />
  hectares have been planted in
  <select name="plant_years[]"><?php require('planting_options.php') ?></select>
  (x)

I think that I’ve gone into small enough detail by now to get to the conclusion. Also showing the contents of planting_options.php would be pushing it. Ah, well…

if ( !isset($this_year) ) $this_year = intval(date('Y'));
if ( !isset($plant_year) ) $plant_year = $this_year;
for ($i = $this_year; $i >= $this_year - 20; $i--)
  echo "<option" . ($i == $plant_year ? " selected='1'" : "") . ">$i</option>\n";

(Yesterday, I couldn’t resist the temptation of turning this into a simple file to require() instead of the function definition it was. I think it’s funny to refactor something to remove encapsulation.)

As is usual when looking at old code, I see many things that I’d do (even just a little) different today, but I saw a surprising number of solutions that I actually still like now that I see them back after three years. Removing some of the remaining warts probably won’t do much good besides the masturbatory satisfaction it could give me. (It’s likely that the website won’t live much longer, making such extra attention very undeserved.) But, nevertheless, I’ve enjoyed blogging about it now to recoup the whole experience and to at least look at what I’d do different now and what I learned in the meantime.

Some links

    1 Comment ( Add comment / trackback )

    1. (permalink)
      Comment by Rowan Rodrik
      On June 5, 2013 at 11:21

      The Foundation has been disbanded a couple of years ago. For my private local archive, I created a Git copy of the full Subversion project history following the instructions in an article by John Albin.


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Utility Gloves from Carhartt

Almost everyone that’s ever done any kind of work with their hands has owned a good pair of utility gloves at one time or another. Good for working on just about anything at any time of the year, they’re worn by everyone from lumbermen to brick masons. Carhartt is usually the most popular brand of utility gloves among such professionals. Made from materials like cotton duck, suede cowhide and durable pigskin, utility gloves from Carhartt are extremely comfortable, durable and attractive.

Over the years I’ve found Carhartt’s leather utility gloves to be about the best. They stand up well to the everyday wear and tear that comes with working on a construction site. You can use them to carry cinder blocks, push wheelbarrows full of concrete, lay brick, and landscape. I also use my leather utility gloves from Carhartt to split and stack wood for the wood-stove in my basement.

If you think you might find yourself working in wet conditions, you might want to consider picking up a pair of Carhartt’s waterproof utility gloves. Made from durable pigskin with a waterproof, breathable liner, these utility gloves are perfect for anyone living and working in such areas as the Pacific Northwest. They also feature retro-reflective tape for increased visibility, in case you’re working on a road crew or something similar.

These are only a few of the utility glove options offered by Carhartt, and taking a few minutes to check out Carhartt’s entire selection would probably go a long way in determining which pair works best for you. If you’re a woman, for instance, you may want to take a gander at Carhartt’s utility gloves for women. They have a spandex back and an adjustable wrist closure that guarantee a comfortable fit. Another great thing about these utility gloves is the fact that they come with a gel pad in the palm for added impact protection.

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4 Reasons You Need Digital Customer Portals in Debt Collection

Posted by John on Feb 6, 2020 3:03:00 PM

In Collections Technology, Debt Collections Agency

Continuing with our Technology in Debt Collection series, one of the most successful digital touch points (or tools) in the digital customer journey in debt collection we’ve discovered has been our customer portal, myCRS

In general, portals provide customers with a single point of access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to important information such as online payments, account management and regulatory policies.

In the past 12 months, we’ve seen an increase of 122% in traffic to the platform and as this number continues to rise it has provided us with valuable insight into the changing habits of our clients’ customers.

To sign-up to our monthly newsletter Click Here

In this blog, we explore the top four reasons you need to partner with a DCA that will offer state of the art personalised customer portals for your debtors.

  1. Customers want them

  2. They’re self-servicing

  3. They’re user-friendly

  4. They allow focus

Let’s take a look under the ‘hood’…

1. Customers want them

In many industries, the customer and their experience are becoming the main drivers behind business strategy, and in an industry where the customer is king, it’s never been more important to provide them with what they want.

The on-demand world in which we live has meant we don’t have the patience to wait for things and modern technology has provided us with solutions to execute instantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year on desktops or mobile devices such as tablets, laptops and smartphones.

myCRS-loginIn debt recovery, customer portals are quickly becoming the communication preference of choice as it offers access to manage debt at a convenient time and place.

Portals like myCRS are in demand because it empowers the customer offering them to take control of the debt and find a solution that works for them. Our data suggests that for the customer it is no longer ‘nice to have’ portals, they’ve now become a must.

2. They’re self-servicing

One of the strongest benefits for our clients’ customers is they know they can fully self-serve online through their customer portal, without the need of ever having to speak to a member of staff on the phone.

For many customers, this helps by offering them a way to keep all relevant information, like transactions and compliance policies in one place, controlled and managed by them. It also offers customers the opportunity to avoid the anxiety of discussing personal debt with another human.

What our customers say:

“This is so much easier to use than phoning. I suffer from anxiety and the thought of having to phone someone to sort something like this out really worries me, but doing it online just takes the pressure off”.

3. They’re user-friendly

Customer portals have become increasingly user-friendly. By keeping the customer at the centre of all decision making, our myCRS is simple to navigate and with the inclusion of chatbots and live chat with customer services representatives, meaning any roadblocks uncovered are generally removed easily.

Happy young couple calculating bills at home

As well as being a resource for customers to retrieve important data like policies or transactional history, portals offer the ability to pay off their debt in full, create a payment arrangement that works for them and inform us if there is the involvement of a Debt Management Company. This allows for a seamless working partnerships between all stakeholders.

4. They allow focus

Customer portals can also offer brilliant by-products; helping reduce waste and allowing staff to focus on what’s best for the customer. Once data has been gathered and where needed, human support can be offered, teams can work towards targeted outcomes that work for all stakeholders.

This is especially important when customer portal technology identifies vulnerable customers. Having the ability to flag and then redirect vulnerable customers to the correct support team is an integral part of inclusive customer experience strategy making sure the customer is kept at the forefront of decision making.

Final words from CRS

The technology revolution is here, and it’s because of this that a ‘New breed of DCA’ is emerging. One which recognises that traditional collections techniques, and a one-size-fits-all approach, are outdated, ineffective and sometimes noncompliant.

We have focussed on bringing together the finest technology, processes and people to help develop our industry-leading customer portal myCRS.

myCRS allows us, on your behalf, to build trust by gifting customers the responsibility of controlling their accounts. They can view historic statements, transactional history, set up payments and complete income and expenditure calculations.

We also trace and map digital customer journeys, helping us to spot ‘abandons’ which allows us to signpost and navigate the customers towards further support.

Want to know more? Here's our Tech & Services brochure Download Here


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Press Enter / Return to begin your search.

How & Where to Get Your Drone Racing Fix

If you're looking for an obvious example of how drone technology has captured the imagination of the public, there's only one sector to focus on: The rapidly emerging drone entertainment scene. You've probably seen plenty of coverage of Intel's awesome light shows, but the true box office hit on the horizon is first person view (FPV) drone racing.

Depending on who you ask, FPV racing started as a way to pass the time for a small community of hobbyists in either Australia or France. It was around long before camera drones were mainstream - so much so that keen flyers had to build their own racers from DIY kits and spare parts.

In recent years what used to be an underground scene has gained a huge amount of attention. And it's easy to see why: This is a sport that combines the best of a number of disciplines. It’s gaming, virtual reality, competitive racing and DIY drone making all at once. That’s a heady concoction for any tech lover, so it’s no surprise the sport has taken off in such a short space of time.

Driving that momentum is a number of organizations staking a claim to be recognized as the official platforms for FPV racing nationally and internationally. These include the International Drone Racing Association (IDRA), MultiGP and the Drone Racing League (DRL). Each has benefitted from exposure from broadcasters including NBC and ESPN, but one is leading the way in terms of investment, hype and end product: DRL.

F378500E-B9C8-4EE6-9B86-76F80FE78534 Image courtesy of Drone Racing League

Where to watch drone racing

One problem with drone racing is that it lacks certain ingredients to be a successful spectator sport. It's thrilling when you've got the headset on and you're immersed in the race, but from the outside things are happening so fast that it can be difficult to keep track of.

DRL has done more than any other organization with respect to that issue. After raising over $20m and heavily investing in the latest in FPV technology, the Drone Racing League is now airing in cleverly edited clips on ESPN in the US and Sky Sports in Europe. These shows feature interviews with pilots, slow-motion replays, access to the live feed that the pilot sees and much more.

Now in its second season, DRL is taking FPV racing on the road. As well holding races in Miami, Atlanta and New Orleans, the 2017 season will culminate with events in Munich and London.

Coverage of the second race of the season, Atlanta Aftermath, starts Tuesday June 27th at 8pm EST on ESPN2. And there's much more FPV action on the same network through until the end of July.

How to get started in the world of FPV drone racing

With more and more people taking part and watching the sport, becoming a professional FPV pilot is now a genuine opportunity providing you've got the skills - Just ask British teenager Luke Bannister, who led his team to a $250,000 win at the Drone World Prix in Dubai last year.

Whether or not you're not in it for the big bucks, it's easy enough to get involved. There are three things you're going to need: an RC controller, an FPV headset and, of course, a drone. Having some friends to race against wouldn't be a bad idea either!

Experienced, competitive pilots will often tinker with their drone or even build it from scratch. For beginners, your best bet is to buy a ready to fly (RTF) or a bind 'n' fly (BNF) model. These will get you off the ground as soon as possible, and plenty are available for under $500.

For the RC controller and headset there are also plenty of options. Most professionals swear by Fat Shark's FPV goggles, while a reliable controller can be bought for under $100.

As you'll know if you've watched any drone racing before, pilots are faced with tricky courses and plenty of obstacles. Once your drone is up and running, why not try and recreate some of these as part of your practice?

Feel like you're ready to test yourself against other pilots? Here's a state-by-state list of local leagues and meetups for you to join.

Drone racing is certainly one way to get comfortable behind the controls and improve your skills. If that wasn't enough to inspire your inner pilot, check out our post on reasons you should become a drone pilot.

Tags: Drone Industry Drone Pilots Drone Racing Drone Uses Just for Fun Drones
Malek Murison
Malek Murison

Malek Murison is a technology journalist based in London who covers drone industry news and product reviews for DroneLife. He's written features for the Financial Times and words for some of the drone world's most exciting startups.

Recent Posts


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The Angels thoughts on Listening

When I asked the Angels what they wanted me to write a blog about this morning, they promptly said, Listening.  So I settled in to listen to what they had to say about Listening.

“You are connected to all that is in every conceivable way, but it is through listening that you can appreciate the connection most deeply.  By this we mean not so much attention to sounds made or voices raised or external noise but the kind of listening that happens deep within you.

This kind of listening requires considerable determination.

Yes, you can hear the voice of God within in the most noisy and crowded circumstances, but that takes a lot of practice.  It is much easier to carve out quiet and solitude then build a trail to your heart in this peace and stillness.

Why does this stillness matter?

You exist in a most complicated structure of infinite possibility, yet few paths lead where you truly want to go. By seeking stillness you eliminate a lot of choices that would clutter your life. When you disentangle from the world’s broadcast, you peels back layers obscuring truth.

People often find there is grace in circumstances that takes them into a time of enforced stillness. For Molly, the time of breaking her arms forced her into a time of stillness.  In a recent blog she mentioned that during her recovery from these injuries she felt whole even when literally broken.  This was because more time in stillness had swept her into deep communion with her soul.

Constraints of illness or injury often bear fruit, because an external focus is no longer possible.  The only road open at such a time is the road within and the practice of listening to what is going on “in there”.

Not only is stillness important but time for stillness matters too.  Some things cannot be rushed.

Inner listening takes you deep into knowing what truly matters to your soul.  As you return to this sacred well of inner Divinity time and time again, the messages get refined and repeated.  That “off the wall” guidance you got the first couple of times you listened, keeps coming back to you again and again.  This can build your confidence in intuitions that seem unexpected or peculiar.

So much of who you truly are and what you are meant to do is against the grain of the cultures you exist in so, yes, we stand by the word peculiar and remind you that peculiar is not wrong. Peculiar is just distinct from the prevailing behaviors of your culture.

Messages repeated in the quiet space of attentive listening bolsters your own determination to follow this inner guidance.  Let yourself blossom in the stillness.  Let yourself blossom in the listening.  Give yourself time to unfurl and drink deeply of your eternal and timeless self.

Don’t feel that you need to share your inner knowing until you have given it time to  settled within you in stillness. How often have you shared a precious realization with someone not ripe for this wisdom only to feel defeated by skepticism or disinterest?  Let yourself drink fully from your inner listening.  Let yourself rest in all you know in this quiet still pool of inner oneness.

This is where we meet you, but more importantly, this is where you meet yourself, your infinite, beautiful, wise, loving and most precious true self.”


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Elbow Grease

Monday, September 14, 2015

Dish soap, wood polish, glass cleaner, laundry detergent, or simply soap and water--these are my preferred cleaning products when I have a dirty house. Sometimes, however, another element is essential: elbow grease. Maybe it’s the best cleaner there is.

Although elbow grease sounds like an amazing and mysterious cleaner, it isn’t a thing at all. It is, literally, an idiom for hard physical work, especially vigorous polishing or cleaning. It is a humorous reflection of the fact that some tasks can only be achieved by hard effort and human energy, contrasting with the idea that there should be some special oil, tool or chemical product to make the job easier.

- I couldn't get the spots off of the mirror until I applied some "elbow grease".
- After using some car wax and a lot of "elbow grease", Frank's Ford Fiesta looked brand new.

Elbow grease is a rather old term, dating back to England in the 1600s, meaning sweat or effort, most likely work done by the lower classes. Not anymore. Everyone has elbow grease but the supply depends on you.

1 comment:

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Tag: National Public Radio
NPR Blows a Chance to Teach Sound Economics

This week, thanks to the Independent Institute, I was interviewed by NPR’s Marketplace for a piece on Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on goods that come from China. (It’s the first story for the January 3 show here at 2:44.) The interviewer wanted to look back at the effects of the Reagan administration’s...
Read More »

How Socialism is Destroying Baseball in Venezuela

Spring is around the corner, which means the 2016 Major League Baseball season starts soon. Baseball has long been an international game, but more so today than ever. On opening day last year, 230 players on the 25-man rosters and inactive lists were born outside the 50 U.S. states, or 27 percent of the...
Read More »

Will Layoffs be based on Diversity?

In recent weeks, the USA Today and National Public Radio have crowed that this recession is different: most of those losing jobs were men (and predominantly white). This is “encouraging” according to these news outlets. Why is it good? Because a majority of the workforce is now made up of women; and blacks have...
Read More »

  • Catalyst
  • MyGovCost.org
  • FDAReview.org
  • OnPower.org
  • elindependent.org


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Category Archives: Events

Happy Halloween!

The spookiest time of the year is upon us, which means it’s time to grab your buckets of candy, start work on the scariest costume imaginable, and prepare for an epic night of debauchery. JibJab is celebrating with not one, not two, but three brand new eCards, including a hair-raising rendition of “I Will Survive” […]

The Sweet Sounds of JibJab

You already know that at JibJab we are funny, artistic and technology savvy…but did you know we are amazing singers as well? We didn’t either, until our recent karaoke jam session! We gathered on a Friday afternoon to bond by belting out our favorite Celine Dion and Billy Joel songs. We had a great time singing, laughing and making […]

COOLHAUS Wagon Wednesday!

This Wagon Wednesday was super special for all of us JibJabbers because we received a visit from the amazing ice cream sandwich creators, COOLHAUS! We LOVE ice cream – it keeps us motivated while we create sweet eCards, like our Valentine’s Day collection. Like some of our other fun wagons, we had a chance to sample […]

Philip Vose Wins Hollywood Loopdeloop!

A couple weeks ago we asked you to submit your best loops for the first edition of the Loopdeloop animation challenge in the United States. We ended up receiving a whopping 58 submissions! Last night we held a screening of all the loops in the heart of Hollywood at Dim Mak Studios. Everyone had an amazing […]

Beauty is Embarrassing

Our team of artists, technologists and business people strive to be creative and innovative.  Recently, to gain inspiration we watched the documentary, Beauty is Embarrassing, a film about the creative path that Wayne White and his wife, Mimi Pond, have chosen to take in life.  The documentary follows Wayne through his trials and tribulations of doing what he loves for […]

Evan and Gregg speaking at Silicon Beach @ USC!

Evan and Gregg (brothers & co-founders of JibJab) will be giving a keynote speech this afternoon at the Silicon Beach Conference @ USC! They will share their insights on technology, entrepreneurism, and introduce our new brand for kids and parents, StoryBots. Their speech is titled “13 Years in The Dumbest Business in the World, and Still Going.” Students […]

Ben & Jerry’s Stopped By!

After reading about the Ben & Jerry’s truck tour in LA, the JibJab team instantly got on Twitter to ask them for some free Ben & Jerry’s!  They stopped by last week to share with us their new Greek Frozen Yogurt. We took a break and escaped to the parking lot to try out their flavors: […]

Silicon Beach Town Hall

Last night we participated in an awesome local event called The Emergence of Silicon Beach, a Venice Town Hall that was hosted by the Venice Neighborhood Council and the Venice Chamber of Commerce. We were one of the twenty-five companies in the showcase portion of the event and had a great table set up to meet the members […]


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Buck Redpoint Folders
Buck Knives Redpoint Folders
These are great, inexpensive folders which come with a “deep pocket” pocket clip, have a great opening system. There is a wheel at the end that you can easily flip with your forefinger to open the blade. The button on the handle is the lock- so simply move it to release the blade to close it. they are lightweight, comfortable to hold and easy to carry. What’s not to like?
Here are some specifications from BUCK:
Blade: 2 3/4″ (7.0 cm) drop point blade, partially serrated, 420HC stainless steel
Length: 4 3/8″ (11.1 cm) closed
Weight: 2.9 oz. (82.2 g)
Handle: All-Weather Grip, thermoplastic handle with rubber overmold, includes Utility Arch™ with integrated bottle opener
Made in China


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External Sharing is EASY with SharePoint Online

SharePoint Online makes sharing your content externally easy. But the tricky part is, ensuring you have the proper level of security and set up for external users.

There are multiple authentication options for sharing your site externally.

You can choose the best option for your organization at tenant/admin level. Then, you can change site collections individually to allow for different levels of sharing per site collection. Note, at site collection level, you can only change the site collection sharing option to be less permissive and not more permissive then the tenant level settings. Therefore, you want to set the tenant level options to be the most permissive level you are willing to allow in any part of your environment. Then you can apply a stricter external sharing policy per site collection.

As a rule of thumb, internal content should be stored in one site collection. While external content should be stored in a separate site collection. There by, reducing the internal content’s risk of exposure to external users. Internal site collections can have external sharing turned off while external sites will have external sharing turned on. This will effectively block external users from accidentally accessing content they shouldn’t.

How do you check or change your organization’s external sharing settings?

Navigate to the SharePoint admin center and then select Sharing from the left navigation.

Options for External sharing in SharePoint Online

Below are the options for external sharing, listed from least to most permissive.

  • Only people in your organization:

    • This option blocks external sharing for your entire organization. Using this option will block any and all external sharing! Rather use a more open policy at tenant level and then you can adjust each site collection’s settings to be more restrictive.
  • Existing Guests:

    • In Active Directory (AD), you can add external users as guest users. This gives IT more control and easy visibility on the external users being allowed access in the organization.
    • To set up an external user in AD, select Add Guest User.
    • A guest user account can be set up using any email address.
      • For O365 accounts, the users will log in with their company’s username and password.
      • For other email accounts (such as gmail), users will need to set up a password.

In addition, the guest user account needs to be added to an appropriate SharePoint permission group in order to access content.

New and existing guests

  • Site members/owners can grant access to users that are not in organization’s Active Directory. The site’s members/owners are free to decide who they will grant access to.
  • Authentication is required. External users need to log in with their email and authenticate with their own credentials.
  • For O365 accounts, users will log in with their company’s username and password.
  • For other email accounts, users will need to set up a password.

  • External users can access the content without authentication. Login is not required. Internal users can simply share a link to any content. Meaning, external users can potentially share and forward the link with anyone outside of the organization. Therefore, you will not know who is accessing the shared data.
  • You can specify additional settings for the anonymous access links by setting an expiration date and the level of access the link can provide.

Note: If an external user accesses a word/excel file and does not have word/excel application, they can view and edit the file via the web browser.

Additional Settings

  1. You can limit external sharing to specific domains. This limits the pool of potential external users to specific 3rd party companies.
  2. Keep external sharing more controlled by requiring the user to access content with the account that it was shared with.
  3. Guests, with the right level of access (Edit, Full Control), can share content just like any other internal user. You can limit their sharing rights, by deselecting the tick box that allows them to share content they don’t own.
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Changing Site Collection Level External Sharing Settings

Once external sharing is set at the tenant level, you can change the settings for the site collections in your organization. Ideally, external users will only be allowed access on a separate site collection.

How can we change a site collection’s external sharing options?

  1. Navigate to the SharePoint Admin center and select active sites from the left navigation.
  2. Select the site collection you want to change the settings for, then select Sharing from the ribbon.
  3. A settings pane will display on the left side of the screen, adjust the settings as needed.

Guest User Experience

Before granting access to Guest users with required authentication, you will want to know what that looks like on their side before rolling it out.

If your organization is requiring external users to be listing in Active Directory, an AD Admin user will need to set up the guest user account. Then, once the user is added in AD, they will get an email that looks like this:

When they select the Get Started button one of the following will happen:

  • For users who already have an O365 account, they will be prompted to sign in using their existing O365 account.
  • For users who do not have an O365 account, they will be asked to set up a password and verify their email.

The user will not have access to any content until they are added to the appropriate SharePoint permission group.

External User will receive the standard SharePoint “share” email when they are given access to a site or file in SharePoint.

If your organization does not require external user to be in Active Directory but authentication is required (option #3 in the external sharing options listed above), the users will need to sign in or created a password from the share email below. They will follow the same set up screens as the registered guest user above.

Happy External Sharing!

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Chu made a very cool post today, and no it isnt about girls! He posted the ticker! Check it out, its really scary!

Well neither Dickson nor I have done a update in quite a while, so here are the latest statistics:

  • We are 6 days away from three months of existence!
  • We have launched Blogosphere Media which has released two radio shows.
  • There are 39 bloggers, who have contributed to 386 posts and 22 articles.
  • People have left 956 comments, and linked to posts 18 times (this number should be WAY higher).
  • The site has had 282,057 hits, a total of 26,121 visitors, and total transfer of 4.11 GB (thanks to Chu and Inge’s damn photos).
  • The most popular day in our history was May 10th, when 629 visitors flooded the site.
  • The busiest time of day is from 11 PM until midnight. The least busy is 6 AM.
  • Korea is the 4th most active country to visit the site.
  • Popular search engine keywords used to find our site include “milk”, “animal”, “hunnies”, “hot”, “snowboarding”, “william”, “asian”, “groban”, “and girls”. Most popular search phrase by a long shot is “milk and cereal asian version”.
  • Roughly 55% of you use Internet Explorer 6, and thanks to me, Lynx cracked our top 10 to contribute 2.37%!

That’s enough for now. Let’s keep it going!

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How to Add MGID Code to Your Blogger or WordPress Website

So, you’ve just received an email confirming that you are registered in the MGID system, meanwhile your account manager is already sending you a customized unit. We’ve created this quick and simple manual so that you can start monetizing immediately. We’ll walk you through the steps to successfully add your codes to your Blogger or WordPress website.

Depending on your WordPress theme, the file that correlates for your article template may be one of the following: single.php, content.php, content-single.php

To add the code under the article, sign in to WP admin and:

1) Open Appearance settings

2) Click Editor

3) Choose the file that correlates with the article template

4) For better CTR, insert the code between </div><! – –  .entry-content – – > and <footer class=“entry-footer”> code lines

5) Click Update

Sidebar ads can be inserted the same way under the article with files named “sidebar.php” or via WordPress admin panel:

1) Open Appearance settings

2) Widgets

3) Drag “text” block to sidebar area

4) Insert text block where you want to see ads

5) Insert ad code into newly added text block

6) Click Save

There are two main ways to add code on Blogger: Google tools or editing HTML code. Please note that with both ways, you need to add CDATA code to avoid Blogger XML parsing errors.

Using Google:

1) Sign in to Blogger

2) In the top left, click the Down arrow

3) Click the blog you want to show ads on

4) In the left menu, click Layout

5) Choose the area you want to place ads and click Add a gadget

6) In the window that appears, under “Basics,” find HTML/Javascript and click Add

7) Do not enter a title!

8) Copy and paste your MGID code into the content section

9) Click Save and check your blog

 You may shift or shuffle the cards regarding the type of ad code and your preferences.

Editing HTML:

You may also add code in Theme.

1) Sign in to Blogger and choose the blog you would like to add code to

2) In the left menu, click Theme

3) Choose option Edit HTML

4) Press Ctrl + F to find <!– Comments –> in your code

5) Place the code above this line

6) Add //<![CDATA[ before the initial script and //]]> before closing one

E.g., so  <script>//<![CDATA[ …   //]]></script>

7) Then click Save Theme and View blog

Browse your dashboard to experiment with types and sizes of your ads. You may also contact your account manager in case you need some unique shapes or sizes specifically for your website.

Stay with us! More useful updates coming soon.


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New Chrome 71 Brings New Opportunities for the Digital Market Players

Stepping up its fight against the internet’s abusive ads problem, Google announced a new ad-blocking version of Chrome 71, which is coming to us this December. But worry not, dear publishers! It’s not that scary after all! In fact, it brings the industry one step closer towards a more positive online experience by eliminating the … Read more

The Low-Down On Revenue Guarantees: Helpful or Harmful?

It is tough being a publisher these days… The line between user experience and revenue generation continues to shrink and as publishers try to strike a balance between the two, ad network competition for their business continually increases due to innovation and market newcomers entering the race. As a publisher, the most powerful indicator of … Read more

4 MGID Tools Vital To Keeping Your Ad Content Facebook Compliant

MGID ad categories

Cycling through our Facebook content compliance series, MGID has given tips on how to improve the quality of copy content and ad placement. Now, we’ve come full circle, bringing us to one of the most integral aspects of Facebook’s new content policies: the ads themselves. MGID has spent several years developing tools to control advertising … Read more

How to start getting payments in MGID through Payoneer

MGID - Publishers payouts through Payoneer

For publishers who wish to receive payments through Payoneer Prepaid Card and Payoneer Bank Transfer, here are the instructions on how to sign up for this payment method. Log in to your account on the MGID dashboard and go to the Payouts page, there сlick on the button “ADD NEW PAYMENT METHOD”. You will see … Read more

6 Do’s And Don’ts Of Proper Ad Placement

As previously outlined in our article on Facebook’s new quality content policies, Facebook is cracking down on not only publishers’ ads on its platform, but also on the websites these ads link to. We will dive into each of these policies, thoroughly explaining how you can stay on the compliant side of these strict guidelines. … Read more

4 Essential Publishing Tips To Meeting Facebook’s New Standards of Content Quality

In an effort to increase content quality and overall user experience, Facebook is cracking down on publishers and the type of content they’re able to share and advertise on the platform. While there were preexisting regulations on low-quality content and ads, Facebook plans to more strongly enforce these policies in the coming months of 2017. … Read more

Why We Love Native Advertising

MGID works hard at its love affair with publishers and advertisers not only because native is predicted to drive 74% of ad revenue by 2021, but also because we believe in native as the best way to win for your brand and a chance to spread awareness of your product or company. We’re passionate about … Read more

Affiliate Marketing: The Beginner’s Guide To Native Advertising

By Charles Ngo One of the most important decisions in affiliate marketing is choosing which traffic source to focus on. There are a ton of places to choose from including adult, Facebook, display, Google, mobile, etc. I wanna talk about a type of traffic that has been getting a ton of buzz the past few … Read more

Interview with Michael Korsunsky, Chief Marketing Officer at MGID

       by Ankush Gupta Dec 05, 2016 1. Could you tell me a little about your background and how you came to be the CMO at MGID? I’ve been working in digital since 2000, and started in a consumer-facing AV/AS space as one of founding members of CyberDefender. I then spent a number … Read more

How to create new MGID mobile ad unit

To create a mobile ad unit for your website, please, log into your personal Dashboard and add a new widget: Add new widget  Choose widget Type  Use default ad layouts (recommended)  to get the code OR Select a custom combination (from 1 to 3) of ad layouts Toaster – ad unit fixed to the bottom … Read more


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Celebration of Grouse at Patrick Mavros in London…

I was flattered to be invited to supply photographs for the Celebration of Grouse event at Patrick Mavros’s London headquarters. The event was the coming together of three friends, Patrick Mavros, Tarquin Millington-Drake of Frontiers Travel and Sir Edward Dashwood of E.J. Churchill with their fine guns.

Two evenings have taken place with one final evening to take place on 12th May sponsored by The Field and Claire Zambuni. All were very well attended and a great evening was had by all.

We are witnessing one of the greatest grouse eras of all time and more people than ever have grown to appreciate the Glorious Grouse and its habitat. May is a critical time on the moor for grouse and visiting waders. It represents new beginnings and is a fitting time to celebrate our passion for this most revered gamebird. In celebration of this, three friends and passionate sportsmen, Tarquin, Patrick and Edward joined forces to honour this extraordinary and triumphant wild creature with an exhibition entitled ‘A Celebration of Grouse’.

The photographs will hang at the Patrick Mavros headquarters at 104 – 106 Fulham Road, London SW3 6HS until the end of May or if you would like to see and/or purchase the photographs on line click here or email Tarquin Millington-Drake at tmd@millingtondrake.com.

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Travel Frequently to Malaysia? Data Roaming in Malaysia Just Got a Whole Lot Cheaper – Here’s Why

data roaming malaysia singtel readyroam

This post was written in collaboration with Singtel. While we are financially compensated by them, we nonetheless strive to maintain our editorial integrity and review products with the same objective lens. We are committed to providing the best recommendations and advice in order for you to make personal financial decisions with confidence. You can view our Editorial Guidelines here.

Whether you’re zipping in and out of JB for a quick bite of some asam pedas, go shopping at Tebrau City, or just planning to get some cheaper petrol, Singaporeans love travelling often to Malaysia. Some of us even spend a day on a 3-hour road trip to and from Malacca, just to get away and enjoy the chicken rice balls and laksa.

Getting in and out of Malaysia by car is relatively convenient, but what can be quite the hassle is getting mobile phone data once you’re across the Causeway. Unless your phone allows you to use multiple SIM cards, chances are you’ll either have to switch off data roaming or trouble yourself to switch SIM cards just to get connected again.

If you’re travelling often into Malaysia, you should consider Singtel ReadyRoam Malaysia, a new cost-friendly and hassle-free plan specially catered for these quick and frequent getaways.

What is Singtel ReadyRoam Malaysia?

ReadyRoam Malaysia is a new roaming service from Singtel that gives you 1GB of data anywhere in Malaysia for 30 days, at just $5. This is the cheapest data roaming plan for Malaysia in the market available now – which means there’s no more need to get a local SIM card and switch to a Malaysian number, and no loss of connectivity once you’re across the Causeway.

Furthermore, ReadyRoam Malaysia remains active for 30 days, which means you can use it for multiple trips within 30 days (even if it goes across 2 months). This is great especially if you’re crossing the border often to eat, shop for groceries and fill up on petrol!

But… isn’t it cheaper to just get a Malaysian SIM card?

Yes, a prepaid Malaysian SIM card would cost you around 10 RM, which comes up to about 3.30 SGD (based on current exchange rates) for 1GB. However, these plans are usually valid for 1 day only, and you would need to top up $3.30 each time you travel. For the same price, you get a 30 day validity with ReadyRoam, meaning you can make multiple trips within the month for $5, and you can enjoy the subsequent GB at the same price of $5/GB.

And just imagine the hassle of having to switch SIM cards every time you enter Malaysia! These little inconveniences that add up. Firstly, there’s the trouble of having to hunt for top up kiosks and having to reload your SIM card constantly to ensure that it doesn’t expire. Secondly, a Malaysian SIM card means you’re stuck with one Malaysian telco, so in areas where the network strength isn’t great, there’s very little you can do about it. ReadyRoam Malaysia allows you to connect to Maxis and Digi, two of Malaysia’s top telcos.

Then, there’s the need to keep your Singapore SIM card safe while in Malaysia. Worst of all – ensuring that you don’t misplace your Malaysian SIM card when you’re back in Singapore. Take it from me – something that small can be easily misplaced and the last thing you want is to buy a new Malaysian SIM card every time you’re headed up North.

Actually, those aren’t the worst things that can happen, they’re just the more likely ones. Some potential inconveniences include being unable to receive One-Time Passwords for online transactions while you’re in Malaysia (because they’re being sent to your Singapore number) or getting scammed by illegitimate SIM card resellers because you can’t tell who the licensed ones are.

TI - desktop

TI - mobile

What about WiFi dongles?

Of course, there is the other alternative to get data in Malaysia, which is a Wi-Fi dongle to share among several members of the travelling party. But what you may not realise is that Wi-Fi dongles often throttle internet speeds after you’ve used up a certain amount of data (usually 500MB) per day, which can get rather annoying as the cap is easy to reach if you’re sharing amongst a few people. With ReadyRoam Malaysia, you’ll never experience such bandwidth throttling. And at $5 for 1GB for a 30-day period, ReadyRoam Malaysia is unbeatable in price and duration against WiFi dongles.

How do I find out more about Singtel ReadyRoam Malaysia?

No other telco makes it that affordable and convenient for customers, especially those who travel frequently across the Causeway. If you’re already a Singtel subscriber, you can subscribe to the plan easily via My Singtel app up to 14 days before you leave the country. You can also activate ReadyRoam Malaysia via *100# when you’re already overseas, but why wait till then?

Find out more about ReadyRoam Malaysia and other Singtel roaming bundles on the ReadyRoam website.

If you are interested to find out more about Singtel products, you can fill up this simple form here.

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FREE SHIPPING on orders over AED 200
Need Assistance? Call: 800 - 697 - 2789

    Valentine’s Day in the UAE: Office Party Decorating Tips

    Posted on February 5, 2020

    Celebrate the Love Month in the UAE. Get everyone in the office all caught up in the love spell in time for your Valentine’s Day office party. When it comes to Valentine’s Party Decorations for your office, here are a few quick February 14th styling ideas that you can follow to jazz up your workplace and make it Valentine’s Day-ready.

    • Nothing speaks of Valentine’s quite like heart-shaped decorations that can add a simplistic yet sweet feel for the most romantic day of the year! Make hearts aplenty as you fill the venue with heart-shaped paper cutouts like these Valentine's Day Glitter Cutouts that you can also stick on the walls of your office. These paper cutouts could come printed, glossy or even glittery.

    • You may also add a bit of whimsy to your workplace by simply using Valentine’s Day Hanging Heart Decoration or Foil Swirl Decorations. There’s nothing quite like dropping hearts that can help turn any room into a sweet and romantic spot. You can try using Candy Hearts Foil String Decorations or even a Heart Foil Cascade Doorway Curtain to warmly greet and welcome your guests. You may also consider attractive Fluffy Paper Decoration, Round Paper Lanterns or even Valentine Paper Fans that come in bright red of soft pink colors!
    • If you want something easy, you can also take this Valentine Room Decorating Kit that’s got everything you need from swirl decors, foil cutouts to fringe garlands. It’s got what you need to adorn your ceilings, windows and even your doorway!
    • Go for quick, fun and easy office décor that you can assemble in just a matter of minutes! Add cheer to glass surfaces around the workplace – windows, mirrors, glass doors etc with some reusable Window Gel Clings. It’s ideal for any clean, dry, flat and non-tinted glass surfaces.
    • When it comes to Valentine’s Day Table Decorations, you can make it look festive and sweet by using including conversation pieces such as a Tinsel Heart Centerpiece and scattering heart shaped, shiny confetti across the party table. Find your way into your guests’ hearts with this exceptional Valentine’s Table Decorating Kit that has everything you need for your Valentine’s Day table setting.
    • A heart shaped foil wreath or even a wood sign similar to this Valentine's Day Large Glitter Sign is a great way to welcome your party guests. Just hang this conveniently on your front door.
    • Another beautiful detail which you can add to lend inspiration to your Valentine’s Day celebration are paper garlands or banners that serve as the perfect decorative touch to your office just in time for Valentine’s Day.
    • Finally, you may also set an ambiance that’s filled with love with the help of a Valentine Scene Setter. It comes complete with a large poster, a banner with “Happy Valentine’s Day” message and single square cutouts with printed hearts. Scene setters work as ideal photo or party backdrop to fit your Valentine’s Day party theme.

    With a touch of fun and romance, you can shoot your arrow towards all these great and creative Valentine’s Day party office decorating ideas even without Cupid’s lead. Go ahead and let your creativity run wild.

    feature image

    Valentine’s Day in the UAE: The Party Supplies You Will Need to Celebrate

    Nothing says “I love you” quite like heart-shaped designed party supplies ideal for your Valentine’s Day party. Whether you’re planning to host a...
    February 5, 2020
    feature image

    Valentine’s Day in the UAE: Office Party Decorating Tips

    Celebrate the Love Month in the UAE. Get everyone in the office all caught up in the love spell in time for your Valentine’s Day office party. When...
    February 5, 2020


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Nextdoor News

Nextdoor at the Building Resilience through Private-Public Partnerships Conference

Written by #TeamNextdoor

Last week, Nextdoor co-founder and CEO Nirav Tolia joined FEMA Administrator Brock Long in Washington, D.C. to discuss the platform’s role as a critical tool for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.

The seventh annual Building Resilience through Private-Public Partnerships (PPP) Conference convened thought leaders like Tolia from across government and business to develop best practices for a cross-sectoral approach to emergency management. Joined on stage by the CEOs of Ardent Mills and Siemens USA, Tolia was recognized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation for being a standout representative of “executives who emerged as leaders amidst widespread destruction” in the extreme storm season of 2017.

In his remarks, Tolia noted that, in times of crisis, “resilience is a natural function of your ability to know and communicate with your neighbors.” Neighbors often serve as critical first responders in the earliest days of any emergency. This was evident during Hurricane Harvey, when Nextdoor neighbors stepped in to offer medical expertise, rescue neighbors stranded by rising floodwaters, and deliver lifesaving medications. Often unable to contact 911, neighbors turned to Nextdoor. In the first few days of the storm, there was more than an 800% increase in posts, replies, and alerts, and members in Houston sent over 3,000 urgent alerts.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Gmail

From L-R: Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens U.S.; Dan Dye, CEO of Ardent Mills; Nirav Tolia; Brock Long, Administrator of FEMA

Not only did neighbors use Nextdoor to contact each other, they also used it to communicate with more than 120 public agencies in affected areas. In an outstanding example of private-public partnership, the Office of Emergency Management and Sheriff’s Office of Harris County used Nextdoor to share mandatory evacuation orders, flood maps and reservoir status updates with members across the region.

Tolia and FEMA Administrator Long stressed the importance of investing in both neighborhood-level social ties and larger private-public partnerships before disaster hits.

Tolia wrapped up the panel by acknowledging that “it’s an honor to build a technology tool that can literally save lives.”

We’re proud that public agencies and neighbors use Nextdoor to help each other stay safe during emergencies.

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Tag Archives: Ahare Mon

Meet your favourite stars with Ola rides.

Riding with Ola can be a rewarding experience in more ways than one. Get a chance to see your favourite stars such as Ritwick Chakraborty Parno Mitra, Paoli Dam, Anjan Dutta and Mamata Shankar. Also get tickets to the premiere of Ahare Mon.

All you need to to do is, use code AHAMON to take minimum 2 rides between 15th June to 19th June and get a chance to meet the starcast of the film and win premiere passes.

Start riding!

Terms and conditions

  • AHAMON is a zero discount code
  • Valid on Micro, Mini, Prime rides in Kolkata
  • Valid from 15-19 June 2018
  • Winners will be contacted individually
  • Ola reserves the rights to modify/withdraw the campaign


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If you are recovering from a slipped disc, you are probably spending a lot of time in bed resting.

Slipped disc

The bad news is that excessive bed rest weakens your muscles as well as stiffens your joints.

Swimming is the best low-intensity aerobic exercise to rely on if you are becoming stiff from lying in bed and can’t manage to sit up or walk. It is also a great way to ameliorate pain.

Swimming helps to overcome back pain from a herniated disc. Since it is not weight bearing, it puts less stress on the spinal column. It also strengthens the muscles that support the back and neck.

A few tips that you should keep in mind when swimming while recovering from a slipped disc:

  • Start slow:

    Swimming is non-jarring and the buoyancy of the water takes away substantial stress from painful spinal joints.

The key is to start slow. Swim for 10 minutes on the first day and gradually increase that time every day.
  • Backstroke:

    Swimming technique and the choice of stroke can further alleviate some of the pressure. Backstroke is best for slip disc issues as you lay in water in the supine position.

    backstroke for slipped disc

    The water takes most of the pressure by supporting your back.

  • Deep breathing:

    Breathe using your diaphragm to further reduce stress and release pain.

  • Warm pool:

    Swimming in a warm pool helps increase the blood flow to the spinal column and helps in the healing process.

  • Water aerobic classes:

    Sign up for a gentle water aerobics class once the recovery is well underway.

    Image result for water exercises

    Apart from relieving stress, it is a fun way to socialise, get a workout and strengthen the back and core muscles.

Now that we have established that swimming is a great way to overcome pain while recovering from a slipped disc, there are certain things that you need to be mindful about.

These are a few things that increase pain and should be avoided:

  • Not stretching:

    Stretching before getting into the pool is crucial to avoid potential damage that could lead to unwarranted pain.

  • Neck injury:

    If you are swimming freestyle, make sure to slowly roll your head out of the water to breathe and avoid any dramatic movements that could add to the pain.

  • Flip turn:

    A flip turn at the end should be avoided as it requires technique. If you are not conditioned properly this could further injure the neck and back.

  • Overdoing the workout:

    Remember to not overdo the activity. Swimming is a very good way to relieve most of the problems associated with a slipped disc. If taken too far, it can strain a muscle and turn into a nightmare.

An important thing to note is that swimming alone cannot be a remedy to your slipped disc related pain. First, you should get professional help and seek advice from a physical therapist.

Swimming is safe because it is a low impact exercise. So, once advised to resume activity, start swimming gently with low-intensity strokes.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of our Company, partners and other organizations. While any information provided on our blog is true to the best of our knowledge, we do not guarantee the veracity, reliability or completeness of the information presented. Any advice or opinion is purely for information purposes and should not be construed as an alternative to professional advice.

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We Don’t Carry This $1.7 Million Motorhome But…

While RV Wholesalers doesn’t carry Volkner Mobil’s lauded Performance series of motorhomes including the Performance S  that comes with a garage with an electrohydraulic lift that suits everything from a Ferrari to a Mercedes…

We do carry quite a few wonderful Class A and Class C motorhomes that cost far less than the sales tax on this unit does!

Get FREE Camping Tips & Savings!

Be the first to know when we release new camping tips, tricks, hacks and savings!  Just tell us where to send the info as we release it!

SOURCE:  https://www.boredpanda.com/motorhome-garage-volkner-mobil-performance-s/


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The Annihilation of Teanna Trump

This cute brunette slut is brutally bound and fucked rotten in this sexually charged rough sex and bondage video update from Kink.com. Watch her take it deep and beg for more!

To see the full video update, click here!

Hot and Hardcore BDSM Bondage Movie

The always stunning, Dani Daniels, has one of the most extreme submissive scenes ever and the most hardcore SexAndSubmission.com shoot with James Deen to date. She is sexually dominated and mind fucked into an orgasmic oblivion.

Click here to see the entire movie!