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https://artiosluxe.com/pages/about-us
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Luxury has a new address and we couldn't be happier to welcome you into our world.
Artios - A Luxe Label launched 2022 as VVS General Trading’s first, exclusively digital, luxury e-commerce site, Artios is home to Products collected & curated from all around the world. From fashion and beauty to lifestyle and homeware, Artios boasts the widest range of top tier designers throughout the Middle East & Asia. Exclusive capsule collections from local and international designers of the highest caliber can be found within our carefully curated edit.
We are proud to house some of the industry’s top insiders at Artios. Scouring the globe for leading trends, our expert team reports on the latest fashion updates, coveted insider information and exclusive interviews for you to read and shop.
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https://www.highrocklanding.com/masterplan
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Master Plan /
Planned Area Development
Health City Cayman Islands received the first-ever approval for a Planned Area Development (PAD) in the Cayman Islands in 2013.
The approval of the PAD sets the development standards specifically for High Rock Landing, replacing the general standards.
The customized PAD allows for the development to be tailored to the unique nature of all the various land uses. It also provides for maximum flexibility in the phased development as building locations and uses can be easily modified to fit a developer’s requirements.
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https://tf.wiki/en/basic/models.html
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Model Construction and Training¶
This chapter describes how to build models with Keras and Eager Execution using TensorFlow 2.
Loss function of the model:
Optimizer of the model:
Evaluation of models:
Object-oriented Python programming (define classes and methods, class inheritance, constructor and deconstructor within Python, use super() functions to call parent class methods, use __call__() methods to call instances, etc.).
Multilayer perceptron, convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks and reinforcement learning (references given before each section).
Python function decorator (not required)
Models and layers¶
In TensorFlow, it is recommended to build models using Keras (
tf.keras), a popular high-level neural network API that is simple, fast and flexible. It is officially built-in and fully supported by TensorFlow.
There are two important concepts in Keras: Model and Layer . The layers encapsulate various computational processes and variables (e.g., fully connected layers, convolutional layers, pooling layers, etc.), while the model connects the layers and encapsulates them as a whole, describing how the input data is passed through the layers and operations to get the output. Keras has built in a number of predefined layers commonly used in deep learning under
tf.keras.layers, while also allowing us to customize the layers.
Keras models are presented as classes, and we can define our own models by inheriting the Python class
tf.keras.Model. In the inheritance class, we need to rewrite the
__init__() (constructor) and
call(input) (model call) methods, but we can also add custom methods as needed.
class MyModel(tf.keras.Model): def __init__(self): super().__init__() # Add initialization code here, including the layers that will be used in call(). e.g., # layer1 = tf.keras.layers.BuiltInLayer(...) # layer2 = MyCustomLayer(...) def call(self, input): # Add the code for the model call here (process the input and return the output). e.g., # x = layer1(input) # output = layer2(x) return output # add your custom methods here
tf.keras.Model, we can use several methods and properties of the parent class at the same time. For example, after instantiating the class
model = Model(), we can get all the variables in the model directly through the property
model.variables, saving us from the trouble of specifying them one by one explicitly.
Then, we can rewrite the simple linear model in the previous chapter
y_pred = a * X + b with Keras model class as follows
import tensorflow as tf X = tf.constant([[1.0, 2.0, 3.0], [4.0, 5.0, 6.0]]) y = tf.constant([[10.0], [20.0]]) class Linear(tf.keras.Model): def __init__(self): super().__init__() self.dense = tf.keras.layers.Dense( units=1, activation=None, kernel_initializer=tf.zeros_initializer(), bias_initializer=tf.zeros_initializer() ) def call(self, input): output = self.dense(input) return output # 以下代码结构与前节类似 model = Linear() optimizer = tf.keras.optimizers.SGD(learning_rate=0.01) for i in range(100): with tf.GradientTape() as tape: y_pred = model(X) # 调用模型 y_pred = model(X) 而不是显式写出 y_pred = a * X + b loss = tf.reduce_mean(tf.square(y_pred - y)) grads = tape.gradient(loss, model.variables) # 使用 model.variables 这一属性直接获得模型中的所有变量 optimizer.apply_gradients(grads_and_vars=zip(grads, model.variables)) print(model.variables)
Here, instead of explicitly declaring two variables
b and writing the linear transformation
y_pred = a * X + b, we create a model class
Linear that inherits
tf.keras.Model. This class instantiates a fully connected layer (
tf.keras.layers.Dense`) in the constructor, and calls this layer in the call method, implementing the calculation of the linear transformation. If you need to explicitly declare your own variables and use them for custom operations, or want to understand the inner workings of the Keras layer, see Custom Layer.
Fully connection layer in Keras: linear transformation + activation function
Fully-connected Layer (
tf.keras.layers.Dense) is one of the most basic and commonly used layers in Keras, which performs a linear transformation and activation on the input matrix . If the activation function is not specified, it is a purely linear transformation . Specifically, for a given input tensor
input = [match_size, input_dim] , the layer first performs a linear transformation on the input tensor
tf.matmul(input, kernel) + bias (
bias are trainable variables in the layer), and then apply the activation function
activation on each element of the linearly transformed tensor, thereby outputting a two-dimensional tensor with shape
tf.keras.layers.Dense contains the following main parameters.
units: the dimension of the output tensor.
activation: the activation function, corresponding to in (Default: no activation). Commonly used activation functions include
use_bias: whether to add the bias vector
bias, i.e. in (Default:
bias_initializer: initializer of the two variables, the weight matrix
kerneland the bias vector
bias. The default is
tf.glorot_uniform_initializer1. Set them to
tf.zeros_initializermeans that both variables are initialized to zero tensors.
This layer contains two trainable variables, the weight matrix
kernel = [input_dim, units] and the bias vector
bias = [bits] 2 , corresponding to and in .
The fully connected layer is described here with emphasis on mathematical matrix operations. A description of neuron-based modeling can be found here.
Many layers in Keras use
tf.glorot_uniform_initializerby default to initialize variables, which can be found at https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/glorot_uniform_initializer.
You may notice that
tf.matmul(input, kernel)results in a two-dimensional matrix with shape
[batch_size, units]. How is this two-dimensional matrix to be added to the one-dimensional bias vector
[units]? In fact, here is TensorFlow’s Broadcasting mechanism at work. The add operation is equivalent to adding
biasto each row of the two-dimensional matrix. A detailed description of the Broadcasting mechanism can be found at https://www.tensorflow.org/xla/broadcasting.
Why is the model class override
call() instead of
In Python, a call to an instance of a class
myClass(params)) is equivalent to
myClass.__call__(params) (see the
__call__() part of “Prerequisite” at the beginning of this chapter). Then in order to call the model using
y_pred = model(X), it seems that one should override the
__call__() method instead of
call(). Why we do the opposite? The reason is that Keras still needs to have some pre-processing and post-processing for the model call, so it is more reasonable to expose a
call() method specifically for overriding. The parent class
tf.keras.Model already contains the definition of
call() method is invoked in
__call__() while some internal operations of the keras are also performed. Therefore, by inheriting the
tf.keras.Model and overriding the
call() method, we can add the code of model call while maintaining the inner structure of Keras.
Basic example: multi-layer perceptron (MLP)¶
We use the simplest multilayer perceptron (MLP), or “multilayer fully connected neural network” as an example to introduce the model building process in TensorFlow 2. In this section, we take the following steps
Acquisition and pre-processing of datasets using
Model construction using
Build model training process. Use
tf.keras.losesto calculate loss functions and use
tf.keras.optimizerto optimize models
Build model evaluation process. Use
tf.keras.metricsto calculate assessment indicators (e.g., accuracy)
Basic knowledges and principles
The Multi-Layer Neural Network section of the UFLDL tutorial.
“Neural Networks Part 1 ~ 3” section of the Stanford course CS231n: Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition.
Here, we use a multilayer perceptron to tackle the classification task on the MNIST handwritten digit dataset [LeCun1998].
Data acquisition and pre-processing with
To prepare the data, we first implement a simple
MNISTLoader class to read data from the MNIST dataset.
tf.keras.datasets are used here to simplify the download and loading process of MNIST dataset.
class MNISTLoader(): def __init__(self): mnist = tf.keras.datasets.mnist (self.train_data, self.train_label), (self.test_data, self.test_label) = mnist.load_data() # MNIST中的图像默认为uint8（0-255的数字）。以下代码将其归一化到0-1之间的浮点数，并在最后增加一维作为颜色通道 self.train_data = np.expand_dims(self.train_data.astype(np.float32) / 255.0, axis=-1) # [60000, 28, 28, 1] self.test_data = np.expand_dims(self.test_data.astype(np.float32) / 255.0, axis=-1) # [10000, 28, 28, 1] self.train_label = self.train_label.astype(np.int32) # self.test_label = self.test_label.astype(np.int32) # self.num_train_data, self.num_test_data = self.train_data.shape, self.test_data.shape def get_batch(self, batch_size): # 从数据集中随机取出batch_size个元素并返回 index = np.random.randint(0, self.num_train_data, batch_size) return self.train_data[index, :], self.train_label[index]
mnist = tf.keras.datasets.mnist will automatically download and load the MNIST data set from the Internet. If a network connection error occurs at runtime, you can download the MNIST dataset
mnist.npz manually from https://storage.googleapis.com/tensorflow/tf-keras-datasets/mnist.npz or https://s3.amazonaws.com/img-datasets/mnist.npz ,and move it into the
.keras/dataset directory of the user directory (
C:\Users\USERNAME for Windows and
/home/USERNAME for Linux).
Image data representation in TensorFlow
In TensorFlow, a typical representation of an image data set is a four-dimensional tensor of
[number of images, width, height, number of color channels]. In the
DataLoader class above,
self.test_data were loaded with 60,000 and 10,000 handwritten digit images of size
28*28, respectively. Since we are reading a grayscale image here with only one color channel (a regular RGB color image has 3 color channels), we use the
np.expand_dims() function to manually add one dimensional channels at the last dimension for the image data.
Model construction with
The implementation of the multi-layer perceptron is similar to the linear model above, constructed using
tf.keras.layers, except that the number of layers is increased (as the name implies, “multi-layer” perceptron), and a non-linear activation function is introduced (here we use the ReLU function activation function, i.e.
activation=tf.nn.relu below). The model accepts a vector (e.g. here a flattened
1×784 handwritten digit image) as input and outputs a 10-dimensional vector representing the probability that this image belongs to 0 to 9 respectively.
class MLP(tf.keras.Model): def __init__(self): super().__init__() self.flatten = tf.keras.layers.Flatten() # Flatten层将除第一维（batch_size）以外的维度展平 self.dense1 = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=100, activation=tf.nn.relu) self.dense2 = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=10) def call(self, inputs): # [batch_size, 28, 28, 1] x = self.flatten(inputs) # [batch_size, 784] x = self.dense1(x) # [batch_size, 100] x = self.dense2(x) # [batch_size, 10] output = tf.nn.softmax(x) return output
Here, because we want to output the probabilities that the input images belongs to 0 to 9 respectively, i.e. a 10-dimensional discrete probability distribution, we want this 10-dimensional vector to satisfy at least two conditions.
Each element in the vector is between .
The sum of all elements of the vector is 1.
To ensure the output of the model to always satisfy both conditions, we normalize the raw output of the model using the Softmax function (normalized exponential function,
tf.nn.softmax). Its mathematical form is . Not only that, the softmax function is able to highlight the largest value in the original vector and suppress other components that are far below the maximum, which is why it is called the softmax function (that is, the smoothed argmax function).
Model training with
To train the model, first we define some hyperparameters of the model used in training process
num_epochs = 5 batch_size = 50 learning_rate = 0.001
Then, we instantiate the model and data reading classes, and instantiate an optimizer in
tf.keras.optimizer (the Adam optimizer is used here).
model = MLP() data_loader = MNISTLoader() optimizer = tf.keras.optimizers.Adam(learning_rate=learning_rate)
The following steps are then iterated.
A random batch of training data is taken from the DataLoader.
Feed the data into the model, and obtain the predicted value from the model.
Calculate the loss function (
loss) by comparing the model predicted value with the true value. Here we use the cross-entropy function in
tf.keras.lossesas a loss function.
Calculate the derivative of the loss function on the model variables (gradients).
The derivative values (gradients) are passed into the optimizer, and use the
apply_gradientsmethod to update the model variables so that the loss value is minimized (see previous chapter for details on how to use the optimizer).
The code is as follows
num_batches = int(data_loader.num_train_data // batch_size * num_epochs) for batch_index in range(num_batches): X, y = data_loader.get_batch(batch_size) with tf.GradientTape() as tape: y_pred = model(X) loss = tf.keras.losses.sparse_categorical_crossentropy(y_true=y, y_pred=y_pred) loss = tf.reduce_mean(loss) print("batch %d: loss %f" % (batch_index, loss.numpy())) grads = tape.gradient(loss, model.variables) optimizer.apply_gradients(grads_and_vars=zip(grads, model.variables))
Cross entropy and
You may notice that, instead of explicitly writing a loss function, we use the
sparse_categorical_crossentropy (cross entropy) function in
tf.keras.losses. We pass the model predicted value
y_pred and the real value
y_true into the function as parameters, then this Keras function helps us calculate the loss value.
Cross-entropy is widely used as a loss function in classification problems. The discrete form is , where is the true probability distribution, is the predicted probability distribution, and is the number of categories in the classification task. The closer the predicted probability distribution is to the true distribution, the smaller the value of the cross-entropy, and vice versa. A more specific introduction and its application to machine learning can be found in this blog post.
tf.keras, there are two cross-entropy related loss functions
tf.keras.losses.sparse_categorical_crossentropy. Here “sparse” means that the true label value
y_true can be passed directly into the function as integer. That means,
loss = tf.keras.losses.sparse_categorical_crossentropy(y_true=y, y_pred=y_pred)
is equivalent to
loss = tf.keras.losses.categorical_crossentropy( y_true=tf.one_hot(y, depth=tf.shape(y_pred)[-1]), y_pred=y_pred )
Model Evaluation with
Finally, we use the test set to evaluate the performance of the model. Here, we use the
SparseCategoricalAccuracy metric in
tf.keras.metrics to evaluate the performance of the model on the test set, which compares the results predicted by the model with the true results, and outputs the proportion of the test data samples that is correctly classified by the model. We do evaluatio iteratively on the test set, feeding the results predicted by the model and the true results into the metric instance each time by the
update_state() method, with two parameters
y_true respectively. The metric instance has internal variables to maintain the values associated with the current evaluation process (e.g., the current cumulative number of samples that has been passed in and the current number of samples that predicts correctly). At the end of the iteration, we use the
result() method to output the final evaluation value (the proportion of the correctly classified samples over the total samples).
In the following code, we instantiate a
tf.keras.metrics.SparseCategoricalAccuracy metric, use a for loop to feed the predicted and true results iteratively, and output the accuracy of the trained model on the test set.
sparse_categorical_accuracy = tf.keras.metrics.SparseCategoricalAccuracy() num_batches = int(data_loader.num_test_data // batch_size) for batch_index in range(num_batches): start_index, end_index = batch_index * batch_size, (batch_index + 1) * batch_size y_pred = model.predict(data_loader.test_data[start_index: end_index]) sparse_categorical_accuracy.update_state(y_true=data_loader.test_label[start_index: end_index], y_pred=y_pred) print("test accuracy: %f" % sparse_categorical_accuracy.result())
test accuracy: 0.947900
It can be noted that we can reach an accuracy rate of around 95% just using such a simple model.
The basic unit of a neural network: the neuron 3
If we take a closer look at the neural network above and study the computational process in detail, for example by taking the k-th computational unit of the second layer, we can get the following schematic
The computational unit has 100 weight parameters and 1 bias parameter . The values of of all 100 computational units in layer 1 are taken as inputs, summed by weight (i.e. ) and biased by , then it is fed into the activation function to get the output result.
In fact, this structure is quite similar to real nerve cells (neurons). Neurons are composed of dendrites, cytosomes and axons. Dendrites receive signals from other neurons as input (one neuron can have thousands or even tens of thousands of dendrites), the cell body integrates the potential signal, and the resulting signal travels through axons to synapses at nerve endings and propagates to the next (or more) neuron.
The computational unit above can be viewed as a mathematical modeling of neuronal structure. In the above example, each computational unit (artificial neuron) in the second layer has 100 weight parameters and 1 bias parameter, while the number of computational units in the second layer is 10, so the total number of participants in this fully connected layer is 100*10 weight parameters and 10 bias parameters. In fact, this is the shape of the two variables
bias in this fully connected layer. Upon closer examination, you will see that the introduction to neuron-based modeling here is equivalent to the introduction to matrix-based computing above.
Actually, there should be the concept of neuronal modeling first, followed by artificial neural networks based on artificial neurons and layer structures. However, since this manual focuses on how to use TensorFlow, the order of introduction is switched.
Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)¶
Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is an artificial neural network with a structure similar to the visual system of a human or animal, that contains one or more Convolutional Layer, Pooling Layer and Fully-connected Layer.
Basic knowledges and principles
Convolutional Neural Network in UFLDL Tutorial
“Module 2: Convolutional Neural Networks” in Stanford course CS231n: Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition
“Convolutional Neural Networks” in Dive into Deep Learning
Implementing Convolutional Neural Networks with Keras¶
An example implementation of a convolutional neural network is shown below. The code structure is similar to the multi-layer perceptron in the previous section, except that some new convolutional and pooling layers are added. The network structure here is not unique: the layers in the CNN can be added, removed or adjusted for better performance.
class CNN(tf.keras.Model): def __init__(self): super().__init__() self.conv1 = tf.keras.layers.Conv2D( filters=32, # 卷积层神经元（卷积核）数目 kernel_size=[5, 5], # 感受野大小 padding='same', # padding策略（vaild 或 same） activation=tf.nn.relu # 激活函数 ) self.pool1 = tf.keras.layers.MaxPool2D(pool_size=[2, 2], strides=2) self.conv2 = tf.keras.layers.Conv2D( filters=64, kernel_size=[5, 5], padding='same', activation=tf.nn.relu ) self.pool2 = tf.keras.layers.MaxPool2D(pool_size=[2, 2], strides=2) self.flatten = tf.keras.layers.Reshape(target_shape=(7 * 7 * 64,)) self.dense1 = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=1024, activation=tf.nn.relu) self.dense2 = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=10) def call(self, inputs): x = self.conv1(inputs) # [batch_size, 28, 28, 32] x = self.pool1(x) # [batch_size, 14, 14, 32] x = self.conv2(x) # [batch_size, 14, 14, 64] x = self.pool2(x) # [batch_size, 7, 7, 64] x = self.flatten(x) # [batch_size, 7 * 7 * 64] x = self.dense1(x) # [batch_size, 1024] x = self.dense2(x) # [batch_size, 10] output = tf.nn.softmax(x) return output
Replace the code line
model = MLP() in previous MLP section to
model = CNN() , the output will be as follows:
test accuracy: 0.988100
A very significant improvement of accuracy can be found compared to MLP in the previous section. In fact, there is still room for further improvements by changing the network structure of the model (e.g. by adding a Dropout layer to prevent overfitting).
Using predefined classical CNN structures in Keras¶
There are some pre-defined classical convolutional neural network structures in
tf.keras.applications, such as
MobileNet. We can directly apply these classical convolutional neural network (and load pre-trained weights) without manually defining the CNN structure.
For example, we can use the following code to instantiate a
MobileNetV2 network structure.
model = tf.keras.applications.MobileNetV2()
When the above code is executed, TensorFlow will automatically download the pre-trained weights of the
MobileNetV2 network, so Internet connection is required for the first execution of the code. You can also initialize variables randomly by setting the parameter
None. Each network structure has its own specific detailed parameter settings. Some shared common parameters are as follows.
input_shape: the shape of the input tensor (without the first batch dimension), which mostly defaults to
224 × 224 × 3. In general, models have lower bounds on the size of the input tensor, with a minimum length and width of
32 × 32or
75 × 75.
include_top: whether the fully-connected layer is included at the end of the network, which defaults to
weights: pre-trained weights, which default to
imagenet(using pre-trained weights trained on ImageNet dataset). It can be set to
Noneif you want to randomly initialize the variables.
classes: the number of classes, which defaults to 1000. If you want to modify this parameter, the
include_topparameter has to be
weightsparameter has to be
A detailed description of each network model parameter can be found in the Keras documentation.
Set learning phase
For some pre-defined classical models, some of the layers (e.g.
BatchNormalization) behave differently on training and testing stage (see this article). Therefore, when training this kind of model, you need to set the learning phase manually, telling the model “I am in the training stage of the model”. This can be done through
or by setting the
training parameter to
True when the model is called.
An example is shown below, using
MobileNetV2 network to train on
tf_flowers five-classifying datasets (for the sake of code brevity and efficiency, we use TensorFlow Datasets and tf.data to load and preprocess the data in this example). Also we set
classes to 5, corresponding to the
tf_flowers dataset with 5 kind of labels.
import tensorflow as tf import tensorflow_datasets as tfds num_epoch = 5 batch_size = 50 learning_rate = 0.001 dataset = tfds.load("tf_flowers", split=tfds.Split.TRAIN, as_supervised=True) dataset = dataset.map(lambda img, label: (tf.image.resize(img, (224, 224)) / 255.0, label)).shuffle(1024).batch(batch_size) model = tf.keras.applications.MobileNetV2(weights=None, classes=5) optimizer = tf.keras.optimizers.Adam(learning_rate=learning_rate) for e in range(num_epoch): for images, labels in dataset: with tf.GradientTape() as tape: labels_pred = model(images, training=True) loss = tf.keras.losses.sparse_categorical_crossentropy(y_true=labels, y_pred=labels_pred) loss = tf.reduce_mean(loss) print("loss %f" % loss.numpy()) grads = tape.gradient(loss, model.trainable_variables) optimizer.apply_gradients(grads_and_vars=zip(grads, model.trainable_variables)) print(labels_pred)
In later sections (e.g. Distributed Training), we will also directly use these classicial network structures for training.
How the Convolutional and Pooling Layers Work
The Convolutional Layer, represented by
tf.keras.layers.Conv2D in Keras, is a core component of CNN and has a structure similar to the visual cortex of the brain.
Recall our previously established computational model of neurons and the fully-connected layer, in which we let each neuron connect to all other neurons in the previous layer. However, this is not the case in the visual cortex. You may have learned in biology class about the concept of Receptive Field, where neurons in the visual cortex are not connected to all the neurons in the previous layer, but only sense visual signals in an area and respond only to visual stimuli in the local area.
For example, the following figure is a 7×7 single-channel image signal input.
If we use the MLP model based on fully-connected layers, we need to make each input signal correspond to a weight value. In this case, modeling a neuron requires 7×7=49 weights (50 if we consider the bias) to get an output signal. If there are N neurons in a layer, we need 49N weights and get N output signals.
In the convolutional layer of CNN, we model a neuron in a convolutional layer like this.
The 3×3 red box in the figure represents the receptor field of this neuron. In this case, we only need a 3×3 weight matrix with an additional bias to get an output signal. E.g., for the red box shown in the figure, the output is the sum of all elements of matrix adding bias , noted as .
However, the 3×3 range is clearly not enough to handle the entire image, so we use the sliding window approach. Use the same parameter but swipe the red box from left to right in the image, scanning it line by line, calculating a value for each position it slides to. For example, when the red box moves one unit to the right, we calculate the sum of all elements of the matrix , adding bias , noted as . Thus, unlike normal neurons that can only output one value, the convolutional neurons here can output a 5×5 matrix .
In the following part, we use TensorFlow to verify the results of the above calculation.
The input image, the weight matrix and the bias term in the above figure are represented as the NumPy array
b as follows.
# TensorFlow 的图像表示为 [图像数目，长，宽，色彩通道数] 的四维张量 # 这里我们的输入图像 image 的张量形状为 [1, 7, 7, 1] image = np.array([[ [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 1, 0, 1, 2, 1, 0], [0, 0, 2, 2, 0, 1, 0], [0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 1, 0], [0, 0, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0], [0, 2, 1, 1, 2, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0] ]], dtype=np.float32) image = np.expand_dims(image, axis=-1) W = np.array([[ [ 0, 0, -1], [ 0, 1, 0 ], [-2, 0, 2 ] ]], dtype=np.float32) b = np.array(, dtype=np.float32)
Then, we build a model with only one convolutional layer, initialized by
b 4 ：
model = tf.keras.models.Sequential([ tf.keras.layers.Conv2D( filters=1, # 卷积层神经元（卷积核）数目 kernel_size=[3, 3], # 感受野大小 kernel_initializer=tf.constant_initializer(W), bias_initializer=tf.constant_initializer(b) )] )
Finally, feed the image data
image into the model and print the output.
output = model(image) print(tf.squeeze(output))
The result will be
tf.Tensor( [[ 6. 5. -2. 1. 2.] [ 3. 0. 3. 2. -2.] [ 4. 2. -1. 0. 0.] [ 2. 1. 2. -1. -3.] [ 1. 1. 1. 3. 1.]], shape=(5, 5), dtype=float32)
You can find out that this result is consistent with the value of the matrix in the figure above.
One more question, the above convolution process assumes that the images only have one channel (e.g. grayscale images), but what if the image is in color (e.g. has three channels of RGB)? Actually, we can prepare a 3×3 weight matrix for each channel, i.e. there are 3×3×3=27 weights in total. Each channel is processed using its own weight matrix, and the output can be summed by adding the values from multiple channels.
Some readers may notice that, following the method described above, the result after each convolution will be “one pixel shrinked” around. The 7×7 image above, for example, becomes 5×5 after convolution, which sometimes causes problems to the forthcoming layers. Therefore, we can set the padding strategy. In
tf.keras.layers.Conv2D, when we set the
padding parameter to
same, the missing pixels around it are filled with 0, so that the size of the output matches the input.
Finally, since we can use the sliding window method to do convolution, can we set a different step size for the slide? The answer is yes. The step size (default is 1) can be set using the
strides parameter of
tf.keras.layers.Conv2D. For example, in the above example, if we set the step length to 2, the output will be a 3×3 matrix.
In fact, there are many forms of convolution, and the above introduction is only one of the simplest one. Further examples of the convolutional approach can be found in Convolution Arithmetic.
The Pooling Layer is much simpler to understand as the process of downsampling an image, outputting the maximum value (MaxPooling), the mean value, or the value generated by other methods for all values in the window for each slide. For example, for a three-channel 16×16 image (i.e., a tensor of
16*16*3), a tensor of
8*8*3 is obtained after a pooled layer with a receptive field of 2×2 and a slide step of 2.
Here we use the sequential mode to build the model for simplicity, as described later .
Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)¶
Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) is a type of neural network suitable for processing sequence data (especially text). It is widely used in language models, text generation and machine translation.
Basic knowledges and principles
Recurrent Neural Networks Tutorial, Part 1 – Introduction to RNNs
“Recurrent Neural Networks” in Dive into Deep Learning。
RNN sequence generation: [Graves2013]
Here, we use RNN to generate Nietzschean-style text automatically. 5
The essence of this task is to predict the probability distribution of an English sentence’s successive character. For example, we have the following sentence:
I am a studen
This sentence (sequence) has a total of 13 characters including spaces. When we read this sequence of 13 characters, we can predict based on our experience, that the next character is “t” with a high probability. Now we want to build a model to do the same thing as our experience, in which we input a sequence of
seq_length one by one, and output the probability distribution of the next character that follows this sentence. Then we can generate text by sampling a character from the probability distribution as a predictive value, then do snowballing to generate the next two characters, the next three characters, etc.
First of all, we implement a simple
DataLoader class to read training corpus (Nietzsche’s work) and encode it in characters. Each character is assigned a unique integer number i between 0 and
num_chars - 1, in which
num_chars is the number of character types.
class DataLoader(): def __init__(self): path = tf.keras.utils.get_file('nietzsche.txt', origin='https://s3.amazonaws.com/text-datasets/nietzsche.txt') with open(path, encoding='utf-8') as f: self.raw_text = f.read().lower() self.chars = sorted(list(set(self.raw_text))) self.char_indices = dict((c, i) for i, c in enumerate(self.chars)) self.indices_char = dict((i, c) for i, c in enumerate(self.chars)) self.text = [self.char_indices[c] for c in self.raw_text] def get_batch(self, seq_length, batch_size): seq = next_char = for i in range(batch_size): index = np.random.randint(0, len(self.text) - seq_length) seq.append(self.text[index:index+seq_length]) next_char.append(self.text[index+seq_length]) return np.array(seq), np.array(next_char) # [batch_size, seq_length], [num_batch]
The model implementation is carried out next. In the constructor (
__init__ method), we instantiate a
LSTMCell unit and a fully connected layer. in
call method, We first perform a “One Hot” operation on the sequence, i.e., we transform the encoding i of each character in the sequence into a
num_char dimensional vector with bit i being 1 and the rest being 0. The transformed sequence tensor has a shape of
[seq_length, num_chars] . We then initialize the state of the RNN unit. Next, the characters of the sequence is fed into the RNN unit one by one. At moment t, the state of RNN unit
state in the previous time step
t-1 and the t-th element of the sequence
inputs[t, :] are fed into the RNN unit, to get the output
output and the RNN unit state in the current time step
t. The last output of the RNN unit is taken and transformed through the fully connected layer to
The code implementation is like this
class RNN(tf.keras.Model): def __init__(self, num_chars, batch_size, seq_length): super().__init__() self.num_chars = num_chars self.seq_length = seq_length self.batch_size = batch_size self.cell = tf.keras.layers.LSTMCell(units=256) self.dense = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=self.num_chars) def call(self, inputs, from_logits=False): inputs = tf.one_hot(inputs, depth=self.num_chars) # [batch_size, seq_length, num_chars] state = self.cell.get_initial_state(batch_size=self.batch_size, dtype=tf.float32) # 获得 RNN 的初始状态 for t in range(self.seq_length): output, state = self.cell(inputs[:, t, :], state) # 通过当前输入和前一时刻的状态，得到输出和当前时刻的状态 logits = self.dense(output) if from_logits: # from_logits 参数控制输出是否通过 softmax 函数进行归一化 return logits else: return tf.nn.softmax(logits)
Defining some hyperparameters of the model
num_batches = 1000 seq_length = 40 batch_size = 50 learning_rate = 1e-3
The training process is very similar to the previous section. Here we just repeat it:
A random batch of training data is taken from the DataLoader.
Feed the data into the model, and obtain the predicted value from the model.
Calculate the loss function (
loss) by comparing the model predicted value with the true value. Here we use the cross-entropy function in
tf.keras.lossesas a loss function.
Calculate the derivative of the loss function on the model variables (gradients).
The derivative values (gradients) are passed into the optimizer, and use the
apply_gradientsmethod to update the model variables so that the loss value is minimized.
data_loader = DataLoader() model = RNN(num_chars=len(data_loader.chars), batch_size=batch_size, seq_length=seq_length) optimizer = tf.keras.optimizers.Adam(learning_rate=learning_rate) for batch_index in range(num_batches): X, y = data_loader.get_batch(seq_length, batch_size) with tf.GradientTape() as tape: y_pred = model(X) loss = tf.keras.losses.sparse_categorical_crossentropy(y_true=y, y_pred=y_pred) loss = tf.reduce_mean(loss) print("batch %d: loss %f" % (batch_index, loss.numpy())) grads = tape.gradient(loss, model.variables) optimizer.apply_gradients(grads_and_vars=zip(grads, model.variables))
One thing about the process of text generation requires special attention. Previously, we have been using the
tf.argmax() function, which takes the value corresponding to the maximum probability as the predicted value. For text generation, however, such predictions are too “absolute” and can make the generated text lose its richness. Thus, we use the
np.random.choice() function to sample the resulting probability distribution. In this way, even characters that correspond to a small probability have a chance of being sampled. At the same time, we add a
temperature parameter to control the shape of the distribution, the larger the parameter value, the smoother the distribution (the smaller the difference between the maximum and minimum values), the higher the richness of the generated text; the smaller the parameter value, the steeper the distribution, the lower the richness of the generated text.
def predict(self, inputs, temperature=1.): batch_size, _ = tf.shape(inputs) logits = self(inputs, from_logits=True) # 调用训练好的RNN模型，预测下一个字符的概率分布 prob = tf.nn.softmax(logits / temperature).numpy() # 使用带 temperature 参数的 softmax 函数获得归一化的概率分布值 return np.array([np.random.choice(self.num_chars, p=prob[i, :]) # 使用 np.random.choice 函数， for i in range(batch_size.numpy())]) # 在预测的概率分布 prob 上进行随机取样
Through a contineous prediction of characters, we can get the automatically generated text.
X_, _ = data_loader.get_batch(seq_length, 1) for diversity in [0.2, 0.5, 1.0, 1.2]: # 丰富度（即temperature）分别设置为从小到大的 4 个值 X = X_ print("diversity %f:" % diversity) for t in range(400): y_pred = model.predict(X, diversity) # 预测下一个字符的编号 print(data_loader.indices_char[y_pred], end='', flush=True) # 输出预测的字符 X = np.concatenate([X[:, 1:], np.expand_dims(y_pred, axis=1)], axis=-1) # 将预测的字符接在输入 X 的末尾，并截断 X 的第一个字符，以保证 X 的长度不变 print("\n")
The generated text is like follows:
diversity 0.200000: conserted and conseive to the conterned to it is a self--and seast and the selfes as a seast the expecience and and and the self--and the sered is a the enderself and the sersed and as a the concertion of the series of the self in the self--and the serse and and the seried enes and seast and the sense and the eadure to the self and the present and as a to the self--and the seligious and the enders diversity 0.500000: can is reast to as a seligut and the complesed has fool which the self as it is a the beasing and us immery and seese for entoured underself of the seless and the sired a mears and everyther to out every sone thes and reapres and seralise as a streed liees of the serse to pease the cersess of the selung the elie one of the were as we and man one were perser has persines and conceity of all self-el diversity 1.000000: entoles by their lisevers de weltaale, arh pesylmered, and so jejurted count have foursies as is descinty iamo; to semplization refold, we dancey or theicks-welf--atolitious on his such which here oth idey of pire master, ie gerw their endwit in ids, is an trees constenved mase commars is leed mad decemshime to the mor the elige. the fedies (byun their ope wopperfitious--antile and the it as the f diversity 1.200000: cain, elvotidue, madehoublesily inselfy!--ie the rads incults of to prusely le]enfes patuateded:.--a coud--theiritibaior "nrallysengleswout peessparify oonsgoscess teemind thenry ansken suprerial mus, cigitioum: 4reas. whouph: who eved arn inneves to sya" natorne. hag open reals whicame oderedte,[fingo is zisternethta simalfule dereeg hesls lang-lyes thas quiin turjentimy; periaspedey tomm--whach
Here we referenced https://github.com/keras-team/keras/blob/master/examples/lstm_text_generation.py
The working process of recurrent neural networks
Recurrent neural network is a kind of neural network designed to process time series data. To understand the working process of RNN, we need to have a timeline in our mind. The RNN unit has an initial state at initial time step 0, then at each time step , the RNN unit process the current input , modifies its own state , and outputs .
The core of RNN is the state , which is a vector of fixed dimensions, regarded as the “memory” of RNN. At the initial moment of , is given an initial value (usually a zero vector). We then describe the working process of RNN in a recursive way. That is, at the moment , we assume that is known, and focus on how to calculate based on the input and the previous state.
Linear transformation of the input vector through the matrix . The result has the same dimension as the state s.
Linear transformation of through the matrix . The result has the same dimension as the state s.
The two vectors obtained above are summed and passed through the activation function as the value of the current state , i.e. . That is, the value of the current state is the result of non-linear information combination of the previous state and the current input.
Linear transformation of the current state through the matrix to get the output of the current moment .
We assume the dimension of the input vector , the state and the output vector are , and respectively, then , , .
The above is an introduction to the most basic RNN type. In practice, some improved version of RNN are often used, such as LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network, which solves the problem of gradient disappearance for longer sequences), GRU, etc.
Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL)¶
Reinforcement learning (RL) emphasizes how to act based on the environment in order to maximize the intended benefits. With deep learning techniques combined, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is a powerful tool to solve decision tasks. AlphaGo, which has become widely known in recent years, is a typical application of deep reinforcement learning.
You may want to read Introduction to Reinforcement Learning in the appendix to get some basic ideas of reinforcement learning.
Here, we use deep reinforcement learning to learn to play CartPole (inverted pendulum). The inverted pendulum is a classic problem in cybernetics. In this task, the bottom of a pole is connected to a cart through an axle, and the pole’s center of gravity is above the axle, making it an unstable system. Under the force of gravity, the pole falls down easily. We need to control the cart to move left and right on a horizontal track to keep the pole in vertical balance.
We use the CartPole game environment from OpenAI’s Gym Environment Library, which can be installed using
pip install gym, the installation steps and tutorials can be found in the official documentation and here. The interaction with Gym is very much like a turn-based game. We first get the initial state of the game (such as the initial angle of the pole and the position of the cart), then in each turn t, we need to choose one of the currently feasible actions and send it to Gym to execute (such as pushing the cart to the left or to the right, only one of the two actions can be chosen in each turn). After executing the action, Gym will return the next state after the action is executed and the reward value obtained in the current turn (for example, after we choose to push the cart to the left and execute, the cart position is more to the left and the angle of the pole is more to the right, Gym will return the new angle and position to us. if the pole still doesn’t go down on this round, Gym returns us a small positive reward simultaneously). This process can iterate on and on until the game ends (e.g. the pole goes down). In Python, the sample code to use Gym is as follows.
import gym env = gym.make('CartPole-v1') # Instantiate a game environment with the game name state = env.reset() # Initialize the environment, get the initial state while True: env.render() # Render the current frame and draw it to the screen. action = model.predict(state) # Suppose we have a trained model that can predict what action should be performed at this time from the current state next_state, reward, done, info = env.step(action) # Let the environment execute the action, get the next state of the executed action, the reward for the action, whether the game is over and additional information if done: # Exit loop if game over break
Now, our task is to train a model that can predict a good move based on the current state. Roughly speaking, a good move should maximize the sum of the rewards earned throughout the game, which is the goal of reinforcement learning. In the CartPole game, the goal is to make the right moves to keep the pole from falling, i.e. as many rounds of game interaction as possible. In each round, we get a small positive bonus, and the more rounds the higher the cumulative bonus value. Thus, maximizing the sum of the rewards is consistent with our ultimate goal.
The following code shows how to train the model using the Deep Q-Learning method [Mnih2013] , a classical Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithm. First, we import TensorFlow, Gym and some common libraries, and define some model hyperparameters.
import tensorflow as tf import numpy as np import gym import random from collections import deque num_episodes = 500 # 游戏训练的总episode数量 num_exploration_episodes = 100 # 探索过程所占的episode数量 max_len_episode = 1000 # 每个episode的最大回合数 batch_size = 32 # 批次大小 learning_rate = 1e-3 # 学习率 gamma = 1. # 折扣因子 initial_epsilon = 1. # 探索起始时的探索率 final_epsilon = 0.01 # 探索终止时的探索率
We then use
tf.keras.Model` to build a Q-network for fitting the Q functions in Q-Learning algorithm. Here we use a simple multilayered fully connected neural network for fitting. The network use the current state as input and outputs the Q-value for each action (2-dimensional for CartPole, i.e. pushing the cart left and right).
class QNetwork(tf.keras.Model): def __init__(self): super().__init__() self.dense1 = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=24, activation=tf.nn.relu) self.dense2 = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=24, activation=tf.nn.relu) self.dense3 = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=2) def call(self, inputs): x = self.dense1(inputs) x = self.dense2(x) x = self.dense3(x) return x def predict(self, inputs): q_values = self(inputs)
Finally, we implement the Q-learning algorithm in the main program.
if __name__ == '__main__': env = gym.make('CartPole-v1') # 实例化一个游戏环境，参数为游戏名称 model = QNetwork() optimizer = tf.keras.optimizers.Adam(learning_rate=learning_rate) replay_buffer = deque(maxlen=10000) # 使用一个 deque 作为 Q Learning 的经验回放池 epsilon = initial_epsilon for episode_id in range(num_episodes): state = env.reset() # 初始化环境，获得初始状态 epsilon = max( # 计算当前探索率 initial_epsilon * (num_exploration_episodes - episode_id) / num_exploration_episodes, final_epsilon) for t in range(max_len_episode): env.render() # 对当前帧进行渲染，绘图到屏幕 if random.random() < epsilon: # epsilon-greedy 探索策略，以 epsilon 的概率选择随机动作 action = env.action_space.sample() # 选择随机动作（探索） else: action = model.predict(np.expand_dims(state, axis=0)).numpy() # 选择模型计算出的 Q Value 最大的动作 action = action # 让环境执行动作，获得执行完动作的下一个状态，动作的奖励，游戏是否已结束以及额外信息 next_state, reward, done, info = env.step(action) # 如果游戏Game Over，给予大的负奖励 reward = -10. if done else reward # 将(state, action, reward, next_state)的四元组（外加 done 标签表示是否结束）放入经验回放池 replay_buffer.append((state, action, reward, next_state, 1 if done else 0)) # 更新当前 state state = next_state if done: # 游戏结束则退出本轮循环，进行下一个 episode print("episode %4d, epsilon %.4f, score %4d" % (episode_id, epsilon, t)) break if len(replay_buffer) >= batch_size: # 从经验回放池中随机取一个批次的四元组，并分别转换为 NumPy 数组 batch_state, batch_action, batch_reward, batch_next_state, batch_done = \ map(np.array, zip(*random.sample(replay_buffer, batch_size))) q_value = model(batch_next_state) y = batch_reward + (gamma * tf.reduce_max(q_value, axis=1)) * (1 - batch_done) # 计算 y 值 with tf.GradientTape() as tape: loss = tf.keras.losses.mean_squared_error( # 最小化 y 和 Q-value 的距离 y_true=y, y_pred=tf.reduce_sum(model(batch_state) * tf.one_hot(batch_action, depth=2), axis=1) ) grads = tape.gradient(loss, model.variables) optimizer.apply_gradients(grads_and_vars=zip(grads, model.variables)) # 计算梯度并更新参数
For different tasks (or environments), we need to design different states and adopt appropriate networks to fit the Q function depending on the characteristics of the task. For example, if we consider the classic “Block Breaker” game (Breakout-v0 in the Gym environment library), every action performed (baffle moving to the left, right, or motionless) returns an RGB image of
210 * 160 * 3 representing the current screen. In order to design a suitable state representation for this game, we have the following analysis.
The colour information of the bricks is not very important and the conversion of the image to grayscale does not affect the operation, so the colour information in the state can be removed (i.e. the image can be converted to grayscale).
Information on the movement of the ball is important. For CartPole, it is difficult for even a human being to judge the direction in which the baffle should move if only a single frame is known (so the direction in which the ball is moving is not known). Therefore, information that characterizes motion direction of the ball should be added to the state. A simple way is to stack the current frame with the previous frames to obtain a state representation of
210 * 160 * X(X being the number of stacked frames).
The resolution of each frame does not need to be particularly high, as long as the position of the blocks, ball and baffle can be roughly characterized for decision-making purposes, so that the length and width of each frame can be compressed appropriately.
Considering that we need to extract features from the image information, using CNN as a network for fitting Q functions would be more appropriate. Based on the analysis, we can just replace the
QNetwork model class above to a CNN-based model and make some changes for the status, then the same program can be used to play some simple video games like “Block Breaker”.
Keras Pipeline *¶
Until now, all the examples are using Keras’ Subclassing API and customized training loop. That is, we inherit
tf.keras.Model class to build our new model, while the process of training and evaluating the model is explicitly implemented by us. This approach is flexible and similar to other popular deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch and Chainer), and is the approach recommended in this handbook. In many cases, however, we just need to build a neural network with a relatively simple and typical structure (e.g., MLP and CNN in the above section) and train it using conventional means. For these scenarios, Keras also give us another simpler and more efficient built-in way to build, train and evaluate models.
Use Keras Sequential/Functional API to build models¶
The most typical and common neural network structure is to stack a bunch of layers in a specific order, so can we just provide a list of layers and have Keras automatically connect them head to tail to form a model? This is exactly what Keras Sequential API does. By providing a list of layers to
tf.keras.models.Sequential(), we can quickly construct a
model = tf.keras.models.Sequential([ tf.keras.layers.Flatten(), tf.keras.layers.Dense(100, activation=tf.nn.relu), tf.keras.layers.Dense(10), tf.keras.layers.Softmax() ])
However, the sequential network structure is quite limited. Then Keras provides a more powerful functional API to help us build complex models, such as models with multiple inputs/outputs or where parameters are shared. This is done by using the layer as an invocable object and returning the tensor (which is consistent with the usage in the previous section). Then we can build a model by providing the input and output vectors to the
outputs parameters of
tf.keras.Model, as follows
inputs = tf.keras.Input(shape=(28, 28, 1)) x = tf.keras.layers.Flatten()(inputs) x = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=100, activation=tf.nn.relu)(x) x = tf.keras.layers.Dense(units=10)(x) outputs = tf.keras.layers.Softmax()(x) model = tf.keras.Model(inputs=inputs, outputs=outputs)
Train and evaluate models using the
evaluate methods of Keras¶
When the model has been built, the training process can be configured through the
compile method of
model.compile( optimizer=tf.keras.optimizers.Adam(learning_rate=0.001), loss=tf.keras.losses.sparse_categorical_crossentropy, metrics=[tf.keras.metrics.sparse_categorical_accuracy] )
tf.keras.Model.compile accepts three important parameters.
oplimizer: an optimizer, can be selected from ``tf.keras.optimizers’’.
loss: a loss function, can be selected from ``tf.keras.loses’’.
metrics: a metric, can be selected from
fit method of
tf.keras.Model can be used to actually train the model.
model.fit(data_loader.train_data, data_loader.train_label, epochs=num_epochs, batch_size=batch_size)
tf.keras.model.fit accepts five important parameters.
x: training data.
y: target data (labels of data).
epochs: the number of iterations through training data.
batch_size: the size of the batch.
validation_data: validation data that can be used to monitor the performance of the model during training.
tf.data.Dataset as data source, detailed in tf.data.
Finally, we can use
tf.keras.Model.evaluate to evaluate the trained model, just by providing the test data and labels.
Custom layers, losses and metrics *¶
Perhaps you will also ask, what if these existing layers do not meet my requirements, and I need to define my own layers? In fact, we can inherit not only
tf.keras.Model to write our own model classes, but also
tf.keras.layers.Layer to write our own layers.
The custom layer requires inheriting the
tf.keras.layers.Layer class and overriding the
call methods, as follows.
class MyLayer(tf.keras.layers.Layer): def __init__(self): super().__init__() # Initialization code def build(self, input_shape): # input_shape is a TensorShape object that provides the shape of the input # this part of the code will run at the first time you call this layer # you can create variables here so that the the shape of the variable is adaptive to the input shape # If the shape of the variable can already be fully determined without the infomation of input shape # you can also create the variable in the constructor (__init__) self.variable_0 = self.add_weight(...) self.variable_1 = self.add_weight(...) def call(self, inputs): # Code for model call (handles inputs and returns outputs) return output
For example, we can implement a fully-connected layer on our own with the following code. This code creates two variables in the
build method and uses the created variables in the
class LinearLayer(tf.keras.layers.Layer): def __init__(self, units): super().__init__() self.units = units def build(self, input_shape): # 这里 input_shape 是第一次运行call()时参数inputs的形状 self.w = self.add_weight(name='w', shape=[input_shape[-1], self.units], initializer=tf.zeros_initializer()) self.b = self.add_weight(name='b', shape=[self.units], initializer=tf.zeros_initializer()) def call(self, inputs): y_pred = tf.matmul(inputs, self.w) + self.b return y_pred
When defining a model, we can use our custom layer
LinearLayer just like other pre-defined layers in Keras.
class LinearModel(tf.keras.Model): def __init__(self): super().__init__() self.layer = LinearLayer(units=1) def call(self, inputs): output = self.layer(inputs) return output
Custom loss functions and metrics¶
The custom loss function needs to inherit the
tf.keras.losses.Loss class and override the
call method. The
call method use the real value
y_true and the model predicted value
y_pred as input, and return the customized loss value between the model predicted value and the real value. The following example implements a mean square error loss function.
class MeanSquaredError(tf.keras.losses.Loss): def call(self, y_true, y_pred): return tf.reduce_mean(tf.square(y_pred - y_true))
The custom metrics need to inherit the
tf.keras.metrics.Metric class and override the
result methods. The following example re-implements a simple
SparseCategoricalAccuracy metric class that we used earlier.
class SparseCategoricalAccuracy(tf.keras.metrics.Metric): def __init__(self): super().__init__() self.total = self.add_weight(name='total', dtype=tf.int32, initializer=tf.zeros_initializer()) self.count = self.add_weight(name='count', dtype=tf.int32, initializer=tf.zeros_initializer()) def update_state(self, y_true, y_pred, sample_weight=None): values = tf.cast(tf.equal(y_true, tf.argmax(y_pred, axis=-1, output_type=tf.int32)), tf.int32) self.total.assign_add(tf.shape(y_true)) self.count.assign_add(tf.reduce_sum(values)) def result(self): return self.count / self.total
LeCun, L. Bottou, Y. Bengio, and P. Haffner. “Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition.” Proceedings of the IEEE, 86(11):2278-2324, November 1998. http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/
Graves, Alex. “Generating Sequences With Recurrent Neural Networks.” ArXiv:1308.0850 [Cs], August 4, 2013. http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.0850.
Mnih, Volodymyr, Koray Kavukcuoglu, David Silver, Alex Graves, Ioannis Antonoglou, Daan Wierstra, and Martin Riedmiller. “Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learning.” ArXiv:1312.5602 [Cs], December 19, 2013. http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.5602.
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design
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https://www.gulzar.pk/
| 2023-12-10T12:42:39 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679102469.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20231210123756-20231210153756-00670.warc.gz
| 0.950808 | 519 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__83073231
|
en
|
Khaddi fabric as a famous fashion material in the recent times has been evolved from traditional wear to Indo-western wear. The handloom khaddi like kamalia khaddar is gaining huge popularity across the borders to cater to the rising demands of traditional clothing for all occasions. For the more royal look, Gulzar.pk ensures premium khaddi online shopping experience.
The class and elegance you can have by wearing quality khaddar from Gulzar.pk in any season is beyond comparison to any other material. Gulzar.pk is a hub of kamalia khaddar collection. As a people’s trusted source for quality kamalia khaddar, we bring you the handloom khaddi. You can buy your preferred khaddar type, be it winter khaddi, handicraft khaddi or goli khaddi to mention a few.
The grandeur of kamalia khaddar for men in different fabric varieties, patterns and colors is simply matchless. Undoubtedly the winter khaddi is growing as a ravishing trend amongst men of all ages, especially youth. The natural fabrics in multiple variations and exclusive kamalia khadar colors have now become the popular demand of clothing as well as Pakistan fashion industry. Buy kamalia khaddar online at affordable rates to make your own fashion statement.
Great value, affordable price and perfect quality which I was looking for. Plus, the fast delivery as committed.
Definitely a great recommendation for my people to buy khaddar from here. The variety is too awesome besides the excellent quality and rates.
They serve what they claim. I am happy buying the very first time online and that’s from Gulzar.pk. The khaddar quality is awesome.
Wow, the most amazing experience I ever have had with any online brand. Everything is so perfect as expected from the stuff quality to price and quick delivery.
M. Zeeshan Hussain
I received my parcel exactly the way it’s shown in the pictures. I am loving the cloth quality. Thanks Gulzar.pk.
Noman Nasir Natt
Kamalia, this was my first ever experience wearing KHADDAR, and it's absolutely awesome. The fabric is awesome and the best thing is the price is reasonable. I am really happy with my purchase and surely recommend you all to buy. cheers.
My first experience is pretty good. fabric was awesome. delivery on time.
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design
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https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/aye-myint-i-want-burmas-youth-to-know-the-value-of-our-heritage.html
| 2023-02-01T22:12:50 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499953.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20230201211725-20230202001725-00447.warc.gz
| 0.973042 | 496 |
CC-MAIN-2023-06
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-06__0__150451646
|
en
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[gallery type="slideshow" ids="105876,105875,105874,105872,105873,105870,105871,105869,105868,105867,105866"] MANDALAY — On Tuesday, the day of his 86th birthday, veteran Mandalay artist Aye Myint launched a showcase of his traditional Burmese designs at Mandalay Hill Art Gallery, attracting both fresh and more seasoned artists and art goers. The gallery, opposite the hill’s famous figure of two white lions, was filled with colorful pieces by the artist, mostly featuring scenes from the Jataka tales. Accompanying the artwork were frames embedded with images of Burma’s currency and stamps adorned with pictures of the late General Aung San, some of which were designed by Aye Myint in the 1970s. Aye Myint is widely known for his old-fashioned designs, as his work is largely inspired by styles found in ancient stone carvings and murals dating back to the sixth century. After being expelled from Magwe Division’s Wazi, site of Burma’s national mint, Aye Myint moved to Rangoon to take up a job designing for a Buddhist literary magazine. Most of his artwork from this 11-year period was also on display to show milestones in his career. Today, at 86, Aye Myint has held onto his enthusiasm for designing—he is currently a consultant for a traditional weaving academy in Amarapura, Mandalay Division, and helps with the restoration efforts of the ancient Shwe Nan Daw Palace Monastery. Perhaps above all, the venerated artist’s wish for young people is to carry on learning about traditional Burmese art, even in the face of rapid cultural change. “We’re witnessing developments in many sectors, in culture as well. I want Burma’s youth to know the value of our heritage,” Aye Myint said. “We should preserve our culture.” Aye Myint’s exhibition will run at the Mandalay Hill Art Gallery, open from 9am to 9pm, until Feb. 6, and it is free of charge to anyone wishing to enjoy traditional Burmese art.
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design
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https://fannybergeron.com/en/properties/for-sale/bungalow-on-one-floor/saint-jean-sur-richelieu-saint-luc/M13293444/
| 2023-12-06T13:29:12 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100599.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20231206130723-20231206160723-00184.warc.gz
| 0.889637 | 340 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__213790223
|
en
|
Bungalow - 388 Rue des Bruants, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu
Discover the epitome of modern living in this meticulously crafted 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom residence. Built in 2017, this home seamlessly blends contemporary design with functionality, offering a harmonious living experience.
As you step inside, natural light floods the spacious living room, creating a warm and inviting atmosphere. The expansive kitchen, a focal point of the home, boasts modern finishes and ample space for culinary enthusiasts. From here, elegant glass doors lead to a stunning patio, creating a seamless indoor-outdoor flow, perfect for entertaining guests or enjoying a quiet evening under the stars.
The four bedrooms are generously sized, providing comfortable living spaces for the whole family. The large bathrooms not only offer a touch of luxury but also include a convenient bonus laundry space, making daily chores a breeze.
Step outside into your own private oasis--an expansive outdoor area featuring a lush grass section and an inviting above-ground pool. The entire space is enclosed by a thoughtfully designed fence, ensuring both privacy and safety. It's the ideal setting for summer gatherings, barbecues, or simply unwinding in the sunshine.
This residence is strategically located, with proximity to schools, the picturesque ""des Bruants"" park, and a sports complex. Enjoy the convenience of easy access to public transportation, making commuting a breeze.
In summary, 388 Rue des Bruants is not just a house; it's a modern sanctuary that combines style, comfort, and practicality. Schedule your visit today and imagine the possibilities that await in this exceptional home. Your dream lifestyle begins here.
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design
|
https://dasamarine.com/marine-type-approved-fire-detection-system/
| 2023-10-01T19:50:08 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510924.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001173415-20231001203415-00784.warc.gz
| 0.938329 | 577 |
CC-MAIN-2023-40
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-40__0__110187452
|
en
|
The main difference between an approved marine-type fire detection system and a non-approved type lies in its design, construction, and compliance with specific safety standards and regulations for marine environments.
Marine-approved fire detection systems are specifically engineered to meet the unique challenges and hazards of maritime settings, while non-approved systems might not have undergone the rigorous testing and certification required for marine applications. Here are the key distinctions:
Marine environments are subject to various international and national regulations set forth by organizations like the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and local maritime authorities. Approved marine-type fire detection systems are designed and tested to meet these regulations, ensuring that they adhere to strict safety standards for marine vessels.
Durability and Reliability
Approved marine-type systems are built to withstand the harsh conditions of marine environments, including exposure to saltwater, humidity, vibration, and temperature fluctuations. These systems are more rugged and reliable compared to non-approved systems that might not be designed to withstand such conditions.
Testing and Certification
Marine-approved fire detection systems undergo comprehensive testing and certification processes to ensure their effectiveness in detecting fires accurately and quickly. Non-approved systems might lack this level of testing and certification, leading to potential safety gaps.
False Alarm Mitigation
Marine environments can be prone to false alarms due to factors like engine heat, humidity, and salt particles in the air. Approved marine-type systems are designed to minimize false alarms in these conditions, while non-approved systems might not have such specialized features.
Integration with Maritime Systems
Marine-approved systems are often designed to integrate with other maritime safety systems, such as fire suppression systems, navigation equipment, and alarm systems. This integration enhances overall vessel safety and emergency response.
Installation and Maintenance
Approved marine-type systems typically come with installation guidelines tailored to marine vessels. Maintenance procedures are also designed to accommodate the unique challenges of maritime environments, ensuring that the system remains operational and effective.
Marine-approved systems come with documentation that demonstrates their compliance with relevant safety standards and regulations. This documentation can be important for regulatory inspections, insurance purposes, and other compliance requirements.
Manufacturers of approved marine-type fire detection systems often have expertise in maritime safety regulations and vessel requirements. They understand the nuances of marine environments and design their systems accordingly.
The key distinction between marine-approved and non-approved fire detection systems is the level of design, testing, and certification that the former undergoes to ensure its suitability for use in maritime environments.
Marine-approved systems provide a higher level of safety, reliability, and compliance with marine safety standards compared to non-approved systems that might not be specifically designed for the unique challenges of maritime settings.
|
design
|
https://www.storefactory.se/en/produkt/kylahov/
| 2021-04-18T20:38:18 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038860318.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20210418194009-20210418224009-00402.warc.gz
| 0.90567 | 115 |
CC-MAIN-2021-17
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2021-17__0__247779209
|
en
|
|Dimensions||20 × 20 × 0.5 cm|
Light grey potholder with a faux leather loop at one corner. Proudly display your pretty potholders in groupings with the towels and apron in our Kvarnåsen series. You can stick with the same colour, or mix and match to suit your own style and personality.
The fabric is 99% recycled material. Recycled materials have been manufactured from textiles that have been collected and recycled in a process that reduces both energy and water consumption by 30-50%.
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design
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http://shvintech.com/Amazon_Web_services.php
| 2020-03-28T19:59:03 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370493120.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20200328194743-20200328224743-00317.warc.gz
| 0.918183 | 251 |
CC-MAIN-2020-16
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2020-16__0__5993194
|
en
|
ShvinTech offer end-to-end services to the businesses to build, scale, optimize, and manage cloud solutions on the AWS platform. Whether it be your first AWS application development or migration to AWS for the first time, we deliver innovative solutions and transform experience into the products that you expect.
We are a team of experienced AWS professionals, intended to provide you the best services in time. Our team consists of AWS certified professionals, experienced to work on the AWS platform. At ShvinTech, you get industry experts to develop and refine your cloud strategy,Migrate applications, manage solutions to maximize your investment with AWS services, and to get support on an ongoing basis.
AWS Cloud Migrations :
Our AWS Consultants will audit your existing infrastructure to get an understanding of the nuances of your current stack and come up with a design and strategy to implement your AWS cloud migration.
AWS Cloud Infrastructure Design & Strategy :
Our AWS Infrastructure Design & Strategy Engineers use proven design patterns to ensure we are creating an infrastructure that can easily be maintained, is scalable and secure to meet the demands of your organization. We will design your infrastructure to be 100% codified & automated, making it less error prone, more reliable and stable.
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design
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https://www.peninsulapropertiesmi.com/post/smart-investments-top-5-home-updates-with-the-best-return-on-investment
| 2024-02-29T22:21:03 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474853.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20240229202522-20240229232522-00470.warc.gz
| 0.908103 | 603 |
CC-MAIN-2024-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-10__0__108338003
|
en
|
When it comes to updating your home, it's not just about enhancing your living space—it's also about making smart investments that yield a substantial return. In this blog post, we'll explore the top five home updates that not only elevate your lifestyle but also offer the best return on investment (ROI). From curb appeal to energy efficiency, these strategic updates strike the perfect balance between aesthetics and financial value.
*1. Kitchen Remodel: The Heart of Value Enhancement
The kitchen is often considered the heart of the home, and it's no surprise that a well-executed kitchen remodel can significantly increase your home's value. Focus on quality materials and timeless designs that appeal to a broad audience. Consider upgrading countertops, appliances, and fixtures to create a modern and functional space that stands the test of time.
*2. Bathroom Renovation: Luxury and Efficiency
Bathrooms are another high-impact area for potential buyers. A bathroom renovation can offer a luxurious feel while incorporating energy-efficient fixtures. Consider installing a low-flow toilet, energy-efficient lighting, and modern, water-saving faucets. A spa-like atmosphere combined with eco-friendly features is a winning combination.
*3. Curb Appeal: First Impressions Matter
The exterior of your home creates the first impression, influencing a potential buyer's perception. Enhance curb appeal by investing in landscaping, a well-maintained lawn, and an inviting entrance. Updating the front door, adding a fresh coat of paint, and installing outdoor lighting are cost-effective ways to boost your home's exterior allure.
*4. Energy-Efficient Windows: Sustainability and Savings
Energy efficiency is a top priority for modern homeowners. Upgrading to energy-efficient windows not only enhances your home's sustainability but also provides long-term cost savings. Opt for double or triple-pane windows with low-emissivity coatings to improve insulation and reduce utility bills. This update appeals to eco-conscious buyers and adds value to your property.
*5. Smart Home Technology: A Modern and Marketable Touch
In the digital age, smart home technology is a desirable feature for homebuyers. Invest in a smart thermostat, security system, or lighting control system. These upgrades not only add convenience to your daily life but also increase the perceived value of your home. Potential buyers are often willing to pay a premium for a home equipped with the latest in technology.
These top five home updates go beyond aesthetics; they are strategic investments that offer a significant return. Whether you're enhancing the functionality of your kitchen, creating a spa-like oasis in your bathroom, boosting curb appeal, investing in energy-efficient windows, or incorporating smart home technology, these updates not only elevate your lifestyle but also position your home as a valuable asset in the real estate market. Make thoughtful choices, and watch your home's value rise with these savvy investments.
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design
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https://jabalaka.com/181-2/
| 2019-05-27T03:47:21 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232260658.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20190527025527-20190527051527-00523.warc.gz
| 0.95526 | 174 |
CC-MAIN-2019-22
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2019-22__0__68553160
|
en
|
Jabalaka LTD is a professional 3D/2D graphics studio. The company was established in 2015. Its founders – Lyubomir Todorov and Magdalena Simeonova, are both passionate artists with years of experience in the field of CGI and traditional art.
Both artists graduated as a 3D interactive designers in Amsterdam, Netherlands, which helped them bring their services on whole new level.
Lyubomir has strong background in advertisement and is passionate game designer.
Magdalena has more than 5 years of experience as a 2D animator and character designer.
The name of the studio originates from Bulgarian folklore, which fascinates and inspires the team.
Our artists have the right skill set to breath life into your ideas in any dimension or media you desire.
We can provide high quality art with competitive pricing.
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design
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https://hanosi.com/pages/about-us
| 2023-10-03T13:36:59 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511106.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20231003124522-20231003154522-00461.warc.gz
| 0.931547 | 344 |
CC-MAIN-2023-40
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-40__0__135496946
|
en
|
Welcome to the world of Hanosi, where warmth meets innovation. We began our journey with one simple aim – transforming how you prepare your firewood. Our founder, an avid outdoors enthusiast with a background in engineering, faced the challenge of kindling wood for his fireplace. Seeing the inefficiencies of the manual process and the lack of innovative tools in the market, the idea of Hanosi was sparked. A brand that stands at the intersection of tradition and modernity, offering tools that make kindling a convenient, safe, and enjoyable process.
What We Do
At Hanosi, we have dedicated ourselves to developing the most reliable, effective, and easy-to-use wall-mounted kindling splitter. Our commitment to quality ensures every Hanosi splitter is designed to be user-friendly, durable, and environmentally responsible.
Our wall-mounted kindling splitters represent a perfect blend of traditional craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology. Each piece is designed with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring that it doesn't just do the job but enhances your overall experience. We believe in creating products that aren't just tools but an extension of the cozy ambiance you create in your home.
Our mission at Hanosi is to be more than a brand. We aspire to be a catalyst for change in the way we consume and utilize our resources. Our commitment to sustainability guides us in everything we do, from product design to packaging and distribution.
Join us in our mission to bring warmth, convenience, and sustainability to every home. Explore our products and learn more about our story. Here's to a cozier, greener future!
|
design
|
https://par3tournamenthousing.com/eva1873/
| 2023-09-28T11:01:05 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510387.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20230928095004-20230928125004-00102.warc.gz
| 0.967022 | 344 |
CC-MAIN-2023-40
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-40__0__18668466
|
en
|
Beautiful executive home located in the prestigious gated golf community of Champions Retreat. This home was designed for entertaining and luxury living. As you enter, you will notice the custom foyer floor flanked by a traditional Georgian designed dining room and an inviting study with gas fireplace and bourbon bar. The great room has a 70” TV, gas fireplace, ample seating, and access to the covered porch. Additional living space is off the kitchen with another 65” TV in the keeping room. The kitchen comes equipped with a 48” gas range, double ovens, and a separate walk-in pantry with an additional refrigerator. The breakfast room has a fireplace and room for 9 with seating at the kitchen island. There is a wine room with available wine storage and a wet bar with sink and separate ice maker. Upstairs has a theater room with leather reclining seats, a large sofa, 120” screen, and surround sound. There are a total of 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms in this 6,500 square foot home. The master bedroom and one guest bedroom are located on the main floor. A second master bedroom and 3 additional large bedrooms are located upstairs. Each bedroom has its own private bathroom. One bedroom also contains a home gym. The covered back porch was designed to be an extension of the comforts of the interior of the home. You will find an outdoor kitchen, two TV’s, large ceiling fans, infrared heaters, and comfortable outdoor seating. The backyard has additional entertaining spaces around the pool including a dining table, firepit, lounge chairs, and a sitting area overlooking the pool and waterfalls. Spend your week at Champions Retreat and enjoy this beautifully designed home!
|
design
|
http://www.santafetonia.com/about/
| 2018-11-21T08:37:11 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039747369.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20181121072501-20181121093653-00039.warc.gz
| 0.938212 | 511 |
CC-MAIN-2018-47
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2018-47__0__206676279
|
en
|
Tonia has long been respected for her intelligent integration of architecture and interior design. Her design philosophy in both traditional and modern settings combines antiques from all continents with a poetic sensuality, blending old and new to create harmonious interiors. Her ability to combine antique European and Asian architectural details with contemporary lines, her use of exceptional objects and rich textiles, and her impeccable sense of color have made her one of the most sought-after interior designers working today. Most importantly, Tonia wants her clients to have comfortable and soulful interiors that express their unique spirit and bring a source of nourishment to their daily lives.
Since founding her firm in Santa Fe over 20 years ago, Tonia has designed an extensive number of distinctive projects throughout the country, including the most elegant urban residences, casual weekend retreats, noted residential developments, and innovative Santa Fe homes.
Tonia continues to be a major force in the design community of Santa Fe. Her work was recently on the cover of Su Casa Magazine, and is frequently featured in such publications as the Santa Fean, Trend Magazine, and Dream Homes International. Her interiors are featured in two coffee-table design books: Spa Living and Japanese Style, and her work has been showcased on the Home and Garden TV network.
The variety of styles in which she works reflects Tonia's eclecticism, and her authentic and welcoming interiors are inspirational treasure troves. A Chinese porcelain vase with an Italian table, or a Spanish relic atop a Burmese trunk. . . unusual objects combine to create a new sensibility. From the rustic charm of a Mexican Casita or the traditional warmth of a New Mexican Pueblo or Territorial home, to the classic elegance of a Spanish Colonial Hacienda or the modern allure of a Chicago Art Deco luxury apartment, Tonia's creations are perfectly in tune with the architectural character and history of each space.
Her interiors often inspire serenity, as in her creation of a peaceful mountain retreat or the design of a Japanese tearoom. "An important goal in designing a home for my clients is creating sanctuary, providing an environment to replenish not only the body but also the heart. Beauty elevates the human spirit, and combining beauty with comfort and timeless simplicity can a create an oasis of calm where the stresses of life can drop away.”
"Every project I undertake is an ongoing collaboration with my clients. We share this fascinating journey of discovery and creation together."
|
design
|
https://webwordsearch.com/blog/how-to-create-word-search-in-canva/
| 2023-12-02T05:09:39 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100327.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202042052-20231202072052-00651.warc.gz
| 0.865013 | 763 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__190551190
|
en
|
How to Create a Word Search Puzzle in CanvaBy Artjom,
Canva is a popular design tool that makes it easy to create professional-looking graphics and visuals.
In this guide, I will show you how you can create a beautiful Word Search puzzle with Canva in just 5 minutes!
1. Create A4 Document
Head to canva.com and make an account, or log in if you already have one. Canva offers a free plan that will be enough for our needs, so you don't need to spend a cent!
On the dashboard page, click Create a design in the top right corner of the screen. In the dropdown menu, select A4 Document in the suggested templates list. You can also choose a custom size if you wish, but I will stick to A4 because it will work nicely if you want to print out the puzzle later.
2. Create Letter Grid
Let's start making our puzzle by adding a grid - the essential part of any word search puzzle!
In the menu on the left, go to the Elements tab, look for the Table button right under the search field, and select the first table template.
You should now see a table appear on the canvas. It's a 3x4 table, rather small for a word search puzzle. Let's add more rows and columns. Ensure the table is selected, and then hover your cursor over the top left edge. You should see two + signs appear, one for the rows and another one for the columns. I will make the table 14x14.
Resize the table to be a perfect square by dragging it from the bottom right corner and moving your mouse around.
Center the table by clicking Position > Align to page > Center
3. Write Down the Words
Now let's write down the words for our puzzle. Let's go with the Pets topic and list some common pet animals.
In the menu on the left, go to the Text tab and select Add a little bit of body text.
In the text field that appeared on the canvas, enter your desired words one by one, starting a new line.
You can adjust text size and color in the settings panel at the top.
4. Fill in the Letters
Now that we have our grid and words ready, time to start assembling the puzzle!
Start filling the grid with the words. Remember that you can cross the words with each other or place them diagonally. This can make puzzles more fun and interesting to solve.
When all words are in, fill in the blanks with random letters, and you are all set!
5. Add Images (Optional)
You can add some images to make your puzzle more exciting and memorable. Luckily, Canva makes this process trivial.
In the left menu, select the Elements tab and search for an image you want to add to your puzzle. I will look for an image of a cat because our puzzle is about pets.
When you find the image you like, drag it to the canvas and position it where you want. Beautiful!
6. Download or Print
Now that your puzzle is ready, it's time to share it with others!
At the top right corner, go to File > Download. A popup will appear where you can select an image format and tweak settings. If you'd like to print out the puzzle, select File Type > PDF Print.
And that's how in just 6 simple steps, you can make an original, well-designed Word Search puzzle. I hope you found this guide helpful!
Also, check out our Word Search Maker online tool that automates the process of creating Word Search puzzles and makes it quick and effortless.
|
design
|
http://shop.marlinsfurniture.com/killareny-counter-height-table-with-butterfly-leaf-5381-835/dp/22950
| 2018-06-18T13:35:29 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267860557.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20180618125242-20180618145242-00553.warc.gz
| 0.809275 | 133 |
CC-MAIN-2018-26
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2018-26__0__109867899
|
en
|
Combining style reminiscent of the Arts & Craft movement with modern touches, the Killarney counter height dining table is an elegantly simple anchor for the dining room. The Killarney features an on-trend counter height table with a butterfly leaf that will accompany four to six ladderback counter height non-swivel stools. Combining the finishes of a distressed black base and an antique espresso top make the Killarney ideal for special occasions and daily dining. The Killarney is constructed of hardwood and wood composites. Some assembly required.
Dimensions: 54D x 54W x 36H 18" Leaf extends to 54"W
|
design
|
http://renewsydney.org/renew-leichhardt-project-call-out/
| 2019-03-21T15:28:57 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202526.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20190321152638-20190321174638-00508.warc.gz
| 0.916843 | 387 |
CC-MAIN-2019-13
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2019-13__0__205615343
|
en
|
Renew Leichhardt Project Call Out
Expression of Interest are now open for new Renew Leichhardt participants till the December 14th 2015.
Renew Leichhardt is an initiative of Leichhardt Council and affiliate member of Renew Australia. Renew Leichhardt is seeking Expressions of Interest from artists, designers, photographers, printmakers, architects, milliners, jewellers, publishers, animators and all creative enterprises in between to revitalise empty spaces in the Leichhardt Multiplicity. (Balmain, Rozelle, Leichhardt, Parramatta Rd)
Are you a creative enterprise and unique ventures looking for new opportunities? Are you ready to try your hand at retail / get out of the home office and work in a dynamic environment with likeminded enterprises? Renew Leichhardt may have an opportunity for you! We are looking for new creative and community projects to present to property owners and real estate agents.
The Expression of Interest seeks to attract creative entrepreneurs, makers and social entrepreneurs able to open at least 6 days per week, have at least 2 people in the enterprise/project to do so and are established in their ideas, projects and activation methods.
We are looking for creative shops, galleries, studios, or collaborative workspace to present to owners in the Leichhardt Multiplicity.
Selected participants will be given temporary rent-free access to an assortment of retail and office spaces, made available thanks to the support of the Leichhardt Municipal Council, and various private property owners.
You could be part of a growing creative movement to promote local economic, cultural and community development, the arts and creative industries across Australia
The “Renew” model
You get 30 days rent free – then, if the space hasn’t leased, you get another 30 days, and so on. A great way to test the market and try new things!
|
design
|
https://lakeplacid2019.com/creating-a-casino-theme-for-your-event/
| 2024-04-14T01:58:13 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296816863.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20240414002233-20240414032233-00201.warc.gz
| 0.933119 | 1,433 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__56733381
|
en
|
When planning a casino-themed event, it is important to pay attention to the details in order to create an authentic and immersive experience for your guests. Start by choosing a color scheme that reflects the glitz and glamour of a real casino, such as red, black, and gold. Incorporate elements like playing cards, dice, and poker chips into your decor to set the mood.
Consider hiring professional dealers to run the games and provide a realistic casino atmosphere. You can rent casino tables for popular games like blackjack, poker, and roulette to give your guests a variety of options to play. Don”t forget to provide play money or chips for guests to use during the event, so they can experience the thrill of gambling without the risk of losing real money.
To enhance the overall experience, consider adding entertainment such as a live band or DJ to keep the energy high throughout the night. Offer themed cocktails and appetizers to keep guests satisfied as they enjoy the games and socialize with one another. By paying attention to the details and creating a cohesive casino theme, you can ensure that your event is a memorable and enjoyable experience for all who attend.
Choosing the Right Decorations
When it comes to choosing the right decorations for a casino, there are a few key factors to keep in mind. First and foremost, you”ll want to consider the overall theme and atmosphere you”re trying to create. Are you going for a classic, glamorous feel, or something more modern and sleek?
Next, think about the colors and materials you want to incorporate. Rich, deep colors like red, black, and gold are often associated with casinos, while materials like velvet, leather, and metallics can add a touch of luxury.
Don”t forget to consider the layout of the space and how the decorations will fit in. You”ll want to create a cohesive look that flows well from one area to the next, so take some time to plan out where each decoration will go.
Finally, don”t be afraid to get creative with your decorations. Think outside the box and consider unique elements like custom signage, themed props, or interactive displays to really set the scene and make your casino stand out.
By keeping these tips in mind and putting some thought into your choices, you can create a stunning and memorable atmosphere for your casino that will leave guests feeling like they”ve stepped into a high-end, exclusive establishment.
Selecting Casino Games to Include
When selecting casino games to include in a casino, it is important to consider the preferences of the target audience. Different players may have different preferences when it comes to the types of games they enjoy playing. Some players may prefer classic table games like blackjack and roulette, while others may be more interested in slot machines or video poker. By offering a variety of games that cater to a range of preferences, casinos can attract a wider audience and keep players entertained.
Another factor to consider when selecting casino games is the popularity and profitability of each game. Some games may be more popular among players than others, leading to higher revenues for the casino. By including popular games in the casino”s lineup, operators can increase their chances of attracting and retaining players. Additionally, games with higher house edges can be more profitable for the casino, so operators may choose to include a mix of games with varying house edges to maximize profitability.
Lastly, casinos should also consider the overall atmosphere and theme of the casino when selecting games to include. Some games may be more fitting for a luxury casino experience, while others may be better suited for a more casual or laid-back environment. By choosing games that complement the casino”s overall theme and atmosphere, operators can create a cohesive and immersive gaming experience for their patrons.
Planning Entertainment for Guests
When planning entertainment for guests at a casino, it is important to consider the diverse preferences and interests of your audience. Whether your guests are looking for high-energy music and dancing, or a more low-key atmosphere with live music or comedy shows, it is crucial to offer a variety of options to cater to all tastes.
One popular entertainment option at casinos is hosting themed parties or events. Whether it be a retro-themed night with classic games and music, or a glamorous red carpet event with VIP treatment, themed parties can create a fun and memorable experience for guests.
In addition to live music and themed events, casinos can also offer interactive entertainment options such as casino games tournaments, magic shows, or interactive game shows. These types of entertainment can engage guests and create a lively and interactive atmosphere.
When planning entertainment for guests at a casino, it is also important to consider the logistics of the event. This includes scheduling entertainment at times that are convenient for guests, ensuring that there is adequate seating and space for all attendees, and providing clear information about the entertainment options available.
Overall, offering a diverse range of entertainment options, including live music, themed events, interactive entertainment, and considering logistical factors, can help create a fun and memorable experience for guests at a casino.
Creating a Customized Menu
When it comes to creating a customized menu for your casino, it”s important to consider the preferences and dietary restrictions of your guests. Offering a variety of options can help ensure that everyone has something delicious to enjoy. Consider including a mix of traditional casino favorites, as well as healthier options for those looking for lighter fare.
One way to create a customized menu is to work with a catering company that specializes in casino events. They can help you design a menu that reflects the theme of your casino and caters to the tastes of your guests. Be sure to consider any special requests or dietary restrictions when planning your menu, such as gluten-free or vegetarian options.
- Include a mix of traditional casino favorites
- Offer healthier options for guests looking for lighter fare
- Work with a catering company specializing in casino events
- Consider special requests and dietary restrictions
Setting Up a Photo Booth
Setting up a photo booth at a casino event can add an extra element of fun and entertainment for guests. To start, choose a location that is easily accessible and visible to all attendees. Consider setting up the photo booth near the entrance or in a high-traffic area to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to take photos.
Next, make sure to provide a variety of props and backdrops to enhance the photo-taking experience. Consider incorporating casino-themed props such as oversized playing cards, dice, and feather boas for guests to use in their photos. Additionally, choose backdrops that match the theme of the event, such as a red carpet backdrop for a glamorous casino night.
Finally, don”t forget to promote the photo booth to ensure that guests are aware of its presence. Use signage, announcements, and social media to inform attendees about the photo booth and encourage them to take advantage of this fun activity. By following these tips, you can create a memorable and enjoyable experience for guests at your casino event.
|
design
|
https://inventive.media/
| 2017-09-21T12:00:35 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818687766.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20170921115822-20170921135822-00683.warc.gz
| 0.917393 | 1,252 |
CC-MAIN-2017-39
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2017-39__0__199428073
|
en
|
Hello, I’m Andy Cowles, founder of Inventive.media, an international design consultancy.
My passion, as both creative and content director, has always been to design for the audience first. In over 20 years of directing some of the world’s biggest media brands, I have seen that understanding people and how they relate to content is the key to creating successful business outcomes.
Wherever they are, strong brand stories need clarity, consistency and compelling ideas behind them. My mission is to create impact, build trust and deliver engagement that really makes a difference.
I love to work with progressive businesses committed to growth. Current clients include Cisco PLC, Ascential PLC, Centaur Media PLC, Time Inc. Bauer Media and Phaidon. Full-time roles have included editorial development director of Time Inc. UK, global creative director of Ink Global, creative director of Mademoiselle for Condé Nast and art director of Rolling Stone in NYC.
The enormous range of audiences I’ve worked with has shown me that identity is key to understanding how and why people connect with content. It’s not who you think you are, but who you want to be that counts. In short, how an audience feel about a brand is always more important than what they know.
I take great care over brand documentation, the key to making sure stakeholders are engaged throughout. I embed early and iterate quickly – maintaining momentum and ensuring learnings from every project are fully retained within your organisation.
Good design is good business, and always has been. My 360° approach and attention to detail delivers to Steve Jobs’ view; ‘The interface is the product’. Expect brilliant logos, outstanding typography and robust templates.
I have a strong record in new product development. I’ve designed twelve successful launches in both print and digital along with over thirty major brand reinventions, winning multiple awards along the way.
The Economist, Time Inc., Bauer, Future plc, DC Thomson, The Media Briefing, The PPA and Reed Business have all commissioned design training. Every brief is different, so every course is individually created.
‘Andy brings a laser focus and bold thinking to the task of better sales and happier readers. He delivers the triple benefit of graphic power, editorial intelligence and superb management of the strange creatures known as editorial staff.’
‘One of the best-known and most highly-regarded Creative Directors in our entire industry. I trust him like I do few others to get the job – any job – done to the highest standards.’
‘An extraordinary creative talent, Andy is also versatile – able to work in fashion, celebrity, food, shelter and news with skills spanning print, digital, mobile and video. ‘
‘Andy Cowles is a creative and commercial genius, the magic star dust we needed.’
‘Thank you so much for such a brilliant session. The team are still talking about it and we continue to use material from it to this day.’
‘After many years in the industry it’s become a less frequent event for me to see talks that are as enlightening and as engaging as yours yesterday. So thank you!’
‘We hired Andy to help us transition Farmers Guardian from tabloid to news magazine. He lived the project; our team loved working with him and learned a lot. The feedback to our new look has been overwhelmingly positive.’
‘Andy fixed all our logo development problems and many more. He gave us lots of options and listened to everything we said. He ‘got us’ as a business instantly, so the process was short, to the point and on budget.’
‘Andy empowered and guided the major players on the team so they can, and are, continuing the project’s evolution’
‘Andy Cowles had arrived, the brilliant designer of Q magazine.’
Keynote presentation on content trends at the Marketforce 2017 annual conference. More short videos of this talk can be see here.
Keynote presentation on content trends at Belgium’s annual publisher conference.
Keynote presentation on audience behaviour and cover trends.
Curator of UK’s biggest magazine conference. Co-ordinating over 60 separate speakers across six stages
Host of an all day 2015 PPA festival content stream focussing on digital trends, apps, mobile, freemium, vlogging, social sharing, digital watermarking, and more.
Sold out workshops at The Media Briefing’s International conference in both Spring and Autumn 2015 and 2016.
Keynote presentation at the 2015 editorial conference: ‘How to get more emotional engagement with your digital audience’.
Host of the 2016, 2015 and 2014 multi-platform content stream.
Keynote presentation at the 2015 PPA Independent Publisher conference.
Keynote presentation at the 2015 editorial conference.
Guest speaker at the 2014 session of The Future Of Publishing.
Presentation at the 2014 PPA Conferences in both London and Edinburgh.
Keynote speaker at the Content Marketing Association’s 2014 breakfast briefing on digital design trends.
BSME Mark Boxer Award
BSME Launch of The Year for Know Your Destiny
BSME Launch of the Year for Pick Me Up
PPA Designer of The Year
PPA Title of The Year for Empire
SPD Silver medal for illustration for Rolling Stone
SPD 20 Merit awards for Rolling Stone
D&AD Chair of Judges for editorial design
PPA Final judge for the publishing awards
PPA Final judge for the PPA independent publishing awards
PPA Scotland final Judge for the PPA Scotland awards
Final Judge for Immediate Media’s internal awards
Final judge for the BSME New Talent Awards
Managing and judging Time Inc. editorial awards between 2007 and 2013. Co-presented the ceremonies with Omid Djalili, Rob Brydon, Connie Huq and others.
|
design
|
https://fencingprosperth.com.au/colorbond-fencing
| 2023-12-01T10:14:59 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100286.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20231201084429-20231201114429-00754.warc.gz
| 0.953528 | 380 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__127778940
|
en
|
If you’re looking for a premium fence material that offers you all of the many things that you expect from a fence, you’ve come to the right place. At Fencing Pros Perth, we are proud to offer our customers one of the best fencing materials available today and that’s COLORBOND®.
There are numerous valid reasons for choosing COLORBOND® steel fencing for your home or your business and each is just as important as the others. They include:
The fact is that, with COLORBOND® fencing, it’s an easy task to bet the exact look that you’re going for in your yard or around your business property. But, at Fencing Pros Perth, we know that it’s not just how amazing it looks but how it performs as well that matters. This type of fencing can do the job that it’s meant to do with ease while still looking good. In addition, it can make your life a lot easier due to its low-maintenance properties. It always looks good without you having to devote any time to it. So, it’s a win-win – good looks, excellent performance, and very low maintenance.
All COLORBOND® colours available have been inspired by the beauty of Australia. They range from light to dark, subtle to bold, and cool to warm. Take your pick. You can choose a colour that will help your fence to blend with your home or business. And, once you have chosen the perfect colour, you can start choosing your fence and gate design, personalising it if you wish with the addition of post caps, slats, and/or lattice. The 14 colors include:
So, contact us today to find out more about COLORBOND® steel fencing to get a free quote.
|
design
|
https://pixmellow.com/products/rustic-love-lightroom-presets-for-mobile-and-desktop
| 2024-04-13T17:02:19 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296816820.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20240413144933-20240413174933-00450.warc.gz
| 0.864936 | 348 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__31908584
|
en
|
Rustic Love Lightroom Presets for Mobile and Desktop
Instant Digital Download
Discover the perfect look for your photos with Rustic Lightroom Presets that easily edit and enhance photos by applying one of these beautifully crafted ones. From subtle shades to vibrant colors, you can instantly transform your photos with just one click. Enjoy a unique editing experience with Rustic Love’s powerful tools and achieve stunning results in no time. Unleash your creative potential with Rustic Love now!
Get the perfect look for your photos with this Lightroom Presets! With this Rustic Lightroom Presets easily apply beautiful effects, tones, and textures to create stunning images in just a few clicks. Whether you're a beginner or a professional photographer, these presets will make your photos look amazing in no time! Take your photography to the next level with these presets and create unforgettable memories.
One-click automated Lightroom presets
Easily editable effects
Included In The Download :
18 XMPLightroom presets
18 DNG Lightroom presets
Lightroom mobile presets
Lightroom desktop presets
Adobe Lightroom CC
Adobe Lightroom Classic CC
Compatible with both Mac & PC
Compatible with mobile (iPhone and Android)
All our products are digital downloads. They are available for downloading immediately after purchase. After you complete the payment you will immediately have the option to download the product(s) from the final purchase page and you will also receive a download email shortly after.
|
design
|
https://dead-squared.en.uptodown.com/windows
| 2019-03-27T01:15:37 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912207146.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20190327000624-20190327022624-00020.warc.gz
| 0.970201 | 207 |
CC-MAIN-2019-13
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2019-13__0__174845585
|
en
|
As soon as you start the game, you'll find yourself trapped in a maze-like complex full of monsters, which you will have to blow to pieces if you want to survive. Luckily, you will start the game with a pistol and a machine gun... and with the possibility of creating many more weapons.
Dead Squared not only has 'cell shading' graphics that are similar to those of Borderlands, but it also shares the possibility of getting tons of different weapons. You just have to go to an object creation bank and start rifling through the objects in your inventory in order to create new weapons.
Though most of the rooms are very similar, the complex design is random, so you'll never play the same game twice. In addition, each time you kill enemies you'll gain experience to improve your character.
Dead Squared is a first person action game with role-playing aspects, and it has amazing graphics. The best thing about it is that this free game includes enough content to let you play for hours.
|
design
|
https://www.techstyler.fashion/post/discussing-the-tensions-between-fashion-technology-and-sustainability-with-vanessa-friedman
| 2022-05-29T02:08:56 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652663035797.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220529011010-20220529041010-00221.warc.gz
| 0.958192 | 1,472 |
CC-MAIN-2022-21
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2022-21__0__78297183
|
en
|
Discussing the tensions between fashion, technology and sustainability with Vanessa Friedman
Before meeting Vanessa Friedman, I considered the perspective she could lend on the tension between designers’ ability to create freely and the need to choose sustainable materials. Is there a conflict? Does working with sustainable fabrics limit designers? What new technologies excite her? What does she think of ‘wearables’? I posed these questions and more to her, considering her answers in the context of the the wider fashion industry.
When discussing whether she perceives sustainability being at odds with unlimited creativity in fashion design, Vanessa told me “Fashion has always had that tension – sometimes it’s about pricing, sometimes its more practical restrictions, like the need for two armholes and a place for your head… that creates discipline for designers and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Sustainability is part of the challenge of design”. She believes that when you are making something that is functional, which fashion is, you have to wrestle with the egregiousness of the product you are making. Her standpoint is one of sustainable materials posing a challenge, rather than being a problem.
Vanessa cites the possibility that aesthetics may be shaped by the advance of new materials, smart textiles and new fibre composites – cellulosic and animal fibre blends, for example – as a huge opportunity. If such advances could result in less seams required and ultra light materials, like those used by Moncler who are “making warm coats that can by smushed into a tiny ball for carry on”, then all these advances are exciting. “Designers should embrace these challenges and opportunities as a chance for them to think differently – It should be something they look forward to”.
I am curious to know whether (and when) Vanessa sees a future where the discussion on sustainability becomes a part of the high profile seasonal fashion discourse during fashion month, taking place in New York, Paris, London and Milan, where she sits front row in her capacity as the Fashion Director and Chief Fashion Critic of The New York Times. “In my dream world, you don’t need a Copenhagen Fashion Summit that’s all about sustainability – this is not a discourse that is combined with a mainstream event because it is a mainstream event and it is part of best practice – period”. Her take on the sustainability message is “we can talk about it or not talk about it. You don’t want to be an eco brand, you just want to be a brand that happens to be sustainable. It shouldn’t be the thing that sets you apart, it should be the thing that makes you part of the general conversation”.
It’s Vanessa’s opinion that using sustainability as a sales tool and part of the brand message, has an upside and a downside. The upside is the point of differentiation which can attract consumers, while the downside is that it puts the brand in a different niche for other consumers. She reflects on Vogue’s former “eco or green design section of the magazine where they would feature a different designer every month… You don’t want to be there – you want to be with Gucci, you want to be with Vuitton”. Reflecting on her comment, it seems to me that sustainability shouldn’t be a consolation or an optional brand choice – it should be quietly integrated into all fashion brands.
Moving onto the subject of textiles and manufacturing, I asked Vanessa if she has seen any ‘game-changing’ developments emerging. She highlights 3D printing and manufacturing to order, thereby eliminating stock and production processes (that have long and complicated supply chains) as the most exciting. “If you can produce a garment in a very short amount of time to order for someone, you will change everything”. Vanessa is thinking of the likes of 3D printed shoes and advances in digital knitting. It is her opinion that the biggest change for fashion as a result of advances in technology is going to be in the production process, rather than “the accessory that tests your heart rate… To me, the really exciting opportunity is in how you manufacture”. Evidence in the form of the Adidas Speedfactory and the mass customisation by NIKEiD support her comments, as do the advances in digital knitting that have led to a complete transformation of the entire footwear industry through the creation of Flyknit and Adidas Ultra Boost, amongst many other digitally knitted products with simplified supply chains, local manufacturing and short lead times.
Image: Adidas Ultraboost
When I asked Vanessa which designers or brands that she feels are doing exciting things fusing tech and fashion she is of the leaning that there is a giant gap in this area. She defines it as “A problem that no-one has quite figured out, between technology companies that can make gadgets, and they are trying to make them ‘fashiony’ – and fashion companies that make fashion and are trying to make them ‘techy’. You need a third point of the triangle, which is someone who is going to figure out how to meaningfully combine the two”. Enter a number of innovative cross-disciplinary labs and incubators emerging for the express purpose of making this happen, including Plug and Play and Mira Duma’s Fashion Tech Lab.
On the subject of ‘wearables’, Vanessa pulls no punches: “I think ‘wearables’ is the most ridiculous word I have ever heard – everything is a ‘wearable’ – my jacket is a ‘wearable’ and it has no tech in it at all. I don’t think ‘wearables’ has figured out what it is yet. It’s a catch all word for techy gadgets you wear, but that’s not really a sector”. To a degree, we may be talking semantics here, but based on the abandoned Fitbit and Google Glass, amongst others, it’s true that the gaping divide between where tech provides clever capabilities and fashion provides aesthetics and desirability to create life-enhancing products, remains wide.
Image top: Google Glass Image bottom: Fitbit
Reflecting further on the state of wearables, Vanessa reminisces about the iPhone and iPod “changing the way that everybody interacted with music”. She says that in contrast, “there has been nothing like that with fashion – no wearable has achieved that”. Considering the outcome of our discussion and my questions about sustainability playing a bigger role in fashion, it seems that to Vanessa’s mind, there is a tension between fashion and tech, but not between fashion design and sustainability.
As I wrap up this article, an invitation to the launch of Nadi X by Wearable X – the first Wearable yoga pant to ‘communicate with the user to ‘aid alignment’, hits my inbox. Perhaps our ‘Wearable’ future is about to take a new life-enhancing turn towards the perfect fusion? Stay tuned for the verdict.
|
design
|
https://piccolo.click/
| 2021-12-02T02:53:03 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964361064.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20211202024322-20211202054322-00524.warc.gz
| 0.932548 | 537 |
CC-MAIN-2021-49
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2021-49__0__17945798
|
en
|
Piccolo features a custom Othello AI engine, designed to be fast, challenging and customizable. The AI's default Level 1 difficulty can be beaten by beginners, while its Level 8 difficulty is likely to challenge even top Othello masters around the world. Designed from scratch, the Piccolo AI engine is sure to give seasoned Othello players a new type of opponent to play against, with often surprising and creative strategies.
Polished User Experience
Piccolo features a native user experience designed for iOS and macOS. A modern design lets you focus on the game, with helpful move indicators, the ability to undo moves, and automatic game saves between every move in case you close the app by mistake or your phone's battery runs out. Multiplayer play is supported both locally and online.
Piccolo features a variety of beautiful themes to customize and breathe fresh life into your Othello experience. Othello veterans might enjoy sticking to the Classic theme, while others might prefer the handsome Seasoned Wood theme, the adorable Sailor Moon theme or even the Persian Spray theme, inspired by traditional Iranian ceramics. Additional themes designed by guest artist Aline Corrêa are also available, giving you access to an Othello game on top of an alligator lake, inside an ancient castle, next to Egyptian Pyramids, and more!
Cute iMessage Stickers!
Send cute “chibi”-style iMessage stickers to your friends with Piccolo's bundled iMessage Sticker Pack! Featuring 36 custom illustrations drawn by anime artist Erica Li, the stickers feature Piccolo's adorable mascot in different relatable situations.
No Ads, No Tracking
Unlike a majority of games on the App Store today, Piccolo has no terms you need to accept before playing. Piccolo will never show you a single ad, and will never track you. The app is entirely a labor of love for the game of Othello, made by players for players.
Available in 20 Languages
Thanks to contributions from players around the world, Piccolo has been translated from English into Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese. No matter where you are, Piccolo's interface will be easy to understand.
|
design
|
http://www.datablueprints.com/index.php/sports-clubs-organizations
| 2017-04-29T11:23:03 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917123491.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031203-00479-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz
| 0.90003 | 436 |
CC-MAIN-2017-17
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2017-17__0__250961252
|
en
|
Most sports organizations require the same common core functionalities in their public website, those being:
- The standard suite of site pages, ie. About us, Contact us, etc.
- The typical utilities, ie. document downloads, link management, photo gallery, etc.
But for all of the site requirements clubs have in common, there are just as many utilities and site features requested that make one sports website different from the others.
At Data Blueprints, we use content management system (CMS) technologies to lay a framework for your website so that no matter what features and utilities you request down the road, those special requests and customizations are easy to implement. We understand that each customer is different, and the uniqueness of your sports organization must be reflected in the design of the website.
And the added benefits of using a CMS to build your sports website is that you can delegate the maintenance of your website to authorized staffers … the coaches can update the team pages, the registrar can update the registration pages, and the communications officer can post the latest news. Our content management solutions provide you with easy tools to edit your website anytime, from anywhere.
When you've exhausted your patience with the cookie-cutter team sports solutions that are packed with unwanted advertisements and are so limited in terms of functionality and design, call Data Blueprints for a sports website that’s a custom fit.
Features of our sports-related website solutions include, but are not limited to the following:
- Easy editing of content by authorize staff.
- Multiple site pages dedicated to a variety of content needs.
- News postings.
- Contact Us utilities for the varied parts of your organization.
- Custom site colors and graphics specific to your organization.
- Shared calendaring.
- Link management.
- Sponsor displays.
- Photo Galleries.
- Global site search utility.
- Call-out boxes for special content, such as field conditions or game cancellations.
- Site pages dedicated to dynamic content, such as field directions provided by Google Maps.
- Document management so that site visitors can download important forms.
|
design
|
https://www.deco-sun.pl/en/collection/top-line-vertical-blinds
| 2023-12-02T12:45:56 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100399.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202105028-20231202135028-00511.warc.gz
| 0.941613 | 218 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__14033740
|
en
|
Top-Line vertical blinds is an exclusive brand of verticals for a demanding client. They apply as a cover in stylish interiors, modern architecture or in large glazed areas. Big windows and walls made of glass, allow to have constant contact with the surrounding, but unfortunately they don’t provide the sense of intimacy, sunlight and looks from the outside. For that reason, Vertical blinds have become an amazing solution for modernist architecture. Their main asset is the aesthetic effect and possibility of regulating the amount of sunlight coming inside the room. The available range of colours will satisfy even the most demanding client. Top-Line vertical blinds are also used as a room divider. Another useful advantage except for the possibility of rotating the lamels, is moving them to the left or right side and also from inside. It makes them functional and easy to use. Vertical blinds can be mounted horizontally or at an angle. Their rails have a straight shape, but can also be curved on the dimension. The rail is available in colours such as: white, silver and black.
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design
|
https://mareada.com/pages/marea-da
| 2023-12-04T17:00:36 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100531.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20231204151108-20231204181108-00508.warc.gz
| 0.849852 | 116 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__282020690
|
en
|
Inspirados en la naturaleza, somos una marca que desea proveer joyeria única que resalte tu belleza. Seguimos la marea.
At Marea-Dá, we are inspired by our island’s nature, which is reflected in the designs of our jewelry. Our pieces are carefully crafted to capture the essence of the natural beauty that surrounds us. We believe that jewelry is a form of self-expression, and our designs are meant to help you express your individuality and style.
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design
|
https://pinkchalkstudioshop.com/
| 2024-03-04T14:14:54 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947476452.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20240304133241-20240304163241-00471.warc.gz
| 0.912879 | 106 |
CC-MAIN-2024-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-10__0__1970881
|
en
|
Pink Chalk Studio Pattern Collection
Pink Chalk Studio
Welcome! I'm Kathy Mack - designer of Pink Chalk Studio sewing patterns. I find enormous joy in designing fun-to-make sewing projects that walk you through the construction process step-by-step with lots of illustrations. Pink Chalk Studio patterns have been road tested by sewists of all experience levels and through my teaching in real life classes. Sewing should be fun and a well written pattern supports that experience!
Love, Joy and Happy Sewing!
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design
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http://newvinylplotter.com/en/24-graphtec-ce6000-60-plus-vinyl-cutter-plotter-free-delivery-3.php
| 2021-09-24T11:26:35 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057524.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20210924110455-20210924140455-00673.warc.gz
| 0.866199 | 720 |
CC-MAIN-2021-39
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2021-39__0__82519184
|
en
|
24 Graphtec CE6000-60 PLUS Vinyl Cutter/Plotter FREE DELIVERY
24 Graphtec CE6000-60 PLUS Vinyl Cutter/Plotter. Graphtec Pro Studio design & cutting software for Windows & Mac. The Graphtec CE-6000 PLUS has 450 gf of downforce pressure for cutting very thin films such as window tint all the way up to the toughest sand-blast mask and reflective materials. The new PLUS models are fast. It has a max cutting speed of 39 in/sec (in all directions) for quick output of intricate cut jobs. Reliable long length tracking up to 196.85 inchs long. The built-in front control panel provides complete parameter control including eight preset cutting conditions, as well as advanced features like tangential control mode, down force offset, pen up speed, blade wear monitoring and more. With a 25 pin RS-232C or the High Speed USB 2.0 control interface, the CE6000 Plus Series is compatible with legacy computer systems as well as the latest PCs available now and for several years to come. Dual tool configuration and easy switching between cutting and plotting. The pen carriage holds both a plotting pen and a blade at the same time to enable easy switching between plotting and cutting operations. Four sets of user-specified setup parameters are retained in memory for instantaneous recall. The pen is for plotting and detailing graded patterns with seams, text, notches, Grain direction, etc. Innovative features include maximum cutting speeds of 39 ips and with a maximum cutting force of 450g.
It also features an easy to use menu navigation system with eight groups of preset conditions which facilitates instantaneous recall of pre-programmed job-specific plotter setups. Each CE6000 comes standard with: floor stands (except for the 15" CE-6000-40), Rear media roll rack with new media brake (60" and 120), Graphtec Studio Software, Cutting Master Plug-In, plus Graphtec's ARMS (Automatic Registration Mark Sensor) system.
ARMS 5.0 LED sensor contour cutting for print & cut graphics scans faster and more accurately through optimizing your cropmark placement in the software. ARMS is an abbreviation for Advanced Registration Mark Sensing system, which uses sensors to detect registration marks and performs the AXIS ALIGNMENT. It is able to adjust received contour cutting data in the cutting plotter to align with the printed image.
It enables to significantly improve productivity in the Print & Cut applications that makes stickers or decals. The new CE-6000 PLUS model includes.
Software can drive multiple cutters simultaneously. Software automatically auto-detects any cutter once plugged into USB port. Stand Included with 24" and 48" models (Not available with 15 model).
Adobe Illustrator (PC and Mac). The item "24 Graphtec CE6000-60 PLUS Vinyl Cutter/Plotter FREE DELIVERY" is in sale since Wednesday, October 21, 2020. This item is in the category "Business & Industrial\Printing & Graphic Arts\Plotters & Wide Format Printers". The seller is "metamorphosedigitaldepot" and is located in Miami, Florida. This item can be shipped worldwide.
- Product: Vinyl Cutter
- Modified Item: No
- California Prop 65 Warning: NA
- Type: Vinyl, HTV
- Country/Region of Manufacture: Japan
- Material: Vinyl
- Brand: Graphtec
- Model: CE6000
- Custom Bundle: No
- MPN: CE600060
|
design
|
https://rapidsites.com.au/
| 2019-03-20T01:03:56 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202188.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20190320004046-20190320030046-00176.warc.gz
| 0.930919 | 175 |
CC-MAIN-2019-13
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2019-13__0__9818606
|
en
|
Highly skilled in back and front-end coding languages, Responsive Design, CMS & Ecommerce frameworks and a range of database systems – we will deliver an end-to-end solution that will exceed your expectations.
The look & feel of your website is just as important as the technical foundations behind it. We will work with you to create the design style you want – from corporate to cutting edge, we have you covered.
Many businesses find it challenging to succeed in the complex digital space – we will work directly with you to help you understand, create and deploy a business & marketing strategy that will deliver results within your budget.
If you have specific online functionality in mind – we can help you scope, source & develop your idea into reality. Our strategic focus always put the end user first and we will help you deliver a user experience that will get results.
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design
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http://www.yokamo.com/photoshop/bullet-holes-template-psd/
| 2014-03-12T19:52:48 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394023865238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305125105-00077-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz
| 0.870714 | 295 |
CC-MAIN-2014-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2014-10__0__47763143
|
en
|
Bullet Holes Template [PSD]
Bullet holes PSD graphic designed in high resolution. You can now download 4 bullet holes styles template in Photoshop PSD format presented on wood, paper, glass and stone. By using this bullet holes PSD file you could design a creative mobile application for example. Applications and games are just a small portion of what you could do with this bullet holes template PSD file. The combinations and uses are endless. Just put your own creative juices into action and produce an outstanding artwork.
It’s a good idea to use this bullet holes template as a starting point for creating a pattern or a brush. It will be much easier for you to have a brush based on this bullet holes template. This way you will create your artworks faster and easier.
The bullet holes template PSD file contains fully layered elements. The designer made sure that even a newbie in web design could work with this bullet holes template. All of the layers and groups are named in the PSD file.
The bullet holes template PSD comes in a tiny file size. It’s just 1,71 mb!
This bullet holes template PSD file is suitable for:
- Game designs.
- Mobile applications.
- Website templates.
- Print projects.
File Format: PSD
File Size: 1.71 MB
Number of Items in Set: 4
Author: Free PSD Files
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design
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https://kunsthal.gent/en/exhibitions/endless-exhibition
| 2023-09-26T12:53:32 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510208.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20230926111439-20230926141439-00078.warc.gz
| 0.93679 | 559 |
CC-MAIN-2023-40
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-40__0__277442904
|
en
|
Endless Exhibition, 2018 – ∞
Materials and dimensions variable
Endless Exhibition is a curatorial-manifesto-as-artwork by Prem Krishnamurthy. Building on his long work as a designer, writer, exhibition maker, and founder of P!—the “Mom-and-Pop-Kunsthalle” that first existed in New York City from 2012–2017—the artwork surveys the overproduction, mass consumption, and fleeting attention span of the contemporary art world. To redefine the stakes of exhibition making, Endless Exhibition proposes a simple temporal play: starting today, every exhibition, art fair, and biennial mounted should be permanent, remaining on view forever.
A performative, polymorphic work—incarnated in texts, images, PDF presentations, lectures, publications, audio and video documentation, contractual agreements, and even whole exhibition programs and institutional formats—Endless Exhibition poses timely questions of space, waste, labor, and future histories. At the same time, it challenges the supposed autonomy of discrete artworks, fulfilling, in Krishnamurthy’s own words from a 1999 notebook entry, “[Principle] 5: reappearance of the project—the project should never be ‘done’—it should always invite addition, rethinking, recontextualizing…”
In 2019, Kunsthal Gent acquired the piece as part of its inaugural institutional framework, “Kunsthal as City.” In this context, it accrues layers of architecture and programming to construct an ongoing archaeology. Instantiating itself over time, Endless Exhibition rehearses new approaches to changing the global art ecosystem by rewriting its rules.
Prem Krishnamurthy is based in Berlin and New York. He is a partner and director of the multidisciplinary design practice Wkshps. Previously, he was a founder of the design studio Project Projects, winner of the Cooper Hewitt’s National Design Award. He serves as co-Artistic Director of FRONT International 2021, the contemporary art triennial in Cleveland and Northern Ohio. As an independent exhibition maker, he was an Artistic Director of the inaugural Fikra Graphic Design Biennial, Ministry of Graphic Design, and has curated exhibitions internationally including at P!, the acclaimed "Mom-and-Pop-Kunsthalle" that he founded in New York’s Chinatown in 2012. He has written for numerous catalogues and magazines and has edited books with Berkeley Art Museum, Cabinet Books, Duke University Press, Paper Monument, and others. His first book, the experimental memoir/monograph/manifesto, P!DF, was published by O-R-G in 2017.
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design
|
https://kpclarchitecture.com/a-loft-conversion-staircase-solution/
| 2020-03-30T23:48:55 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370497309.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330212722-20200331002722-00240.warc.gz
| 0.924732 | 611 |
CC-MAIN-2020-16
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2020-16__0__82370509
|
en
|
A loft conversion can drastically add up to the value of your house. Even though loft conversions are usually done to add more space to the house, they differ from one house to another. One of the vital requirements of loft conversion is adding a staircase for safe access. Commonly, staircases take up a huge amount of space. So, it is essential to find out a way to space-saving stairs for a loft conversion for both aesthetic and practical sense.
If you are planning for a new staircase for the newly added floor in your building, there are several Building Regulations to consider. Adding a new floor requires a new staircase. While you can use a fixed ladder in some cases, the majority of conversions need stairs. You have to consider the following regulations when installing stairs to your loft:
- A fixed staircase is a must to provide safe access
- Space saver stairs may be used, only for single room lofts
- Maximum steepness pitch of staircase maybe 42 degrees
- The staircase can provide minimum headroom height of 1.9m
- All the risers must be equal
- For a drop of more than 600mm, a handrail must be provided
Space Saver Stairs
One of the most popular types of loft staircase is space-saving stairs. They allow the optimization of the available space in small houses. With the use of alternating treads, which provide a deep step, space saver stairs provide comfort and safety. According to the building regulations, this type of stairs can only be used for lofts with only one habitable room.
Regulations for Space Saver
There are limitations on where you can use a space saver staircase. As I mentioned before, this staircase can be used only for a single room or a room with an en-suite. This type of staircase must have a handrail or a wall-rail on at least one side. It cannot be used as a replacement for a regular staircase.
Takes less Room
As space saver stairs take alternate steps, they take up a lot less room. Therefore, you can use each of your foot for each step alternately while taking the flight of the stairs. This way, you can also finish your steps twice as quickly. Although these are not considered as the safest means of escape. So, you must check with your building regulations first. Your builder will ask you whether you want the left or right foot first. People usually go for their strongest foot.
Stairs over the existing ones
As space-saving staircases are extremely regulated by the building control, there are other options you can use instead. Placing the loft stairs over the existing staircase will ensure that you have enough headspace and also it will minimize the floor space that the stairs will take.
Make the staircase in another room
If you do not have enough space above your existing stairs, you can always take the stairs in a spare bedroom or any other unused space. This will reduce the inconvenience that the staircase will cause.
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design
|
https://www.electronic-info.eu/2023101001/congatec-welcomes-ratification-of-com-hpc-1-2-spec
| 2024-04-22T02:17:16 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296818072.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20240422020223-20240422050223-00099.warc.gz
| 0.862424 | 500 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__203972757
|
en
|
congatec welcomes ratification of COM-HPC 1.2 specification, introducing COM-HPC Mini
congatec – a leading vendor of embedded and edge computing technology – welcomes PICMG’s ratification of the COM-HPC 1.2 specification, which introduces the COM-HPC Mini form factor. This new specification provides high-performance capabilities in a small form factor, measuring only 95 mm x 70 mm. Even devices with limited space can now benefit from the superior bandwidth and interface offerings of COM-HPC, including PCIe Gen 5 and Thunderbolt.
COM-HPC establishes itself as the most scalable Computer-on-Module (CoM) standard, covering a wide range of applications from small form factor designs to edge server designs. This simplifies the design-in process and enables the creation of complete product families with reduced engineering efforts. COM-HPC modules support not only specific processors like x86 or Arm but also FPGAs, ASICS, and AI accelerators, making it a comprehensive standard for developing innovative applications based on the latest embedded and edge data processing technologies.
Christian Eder, Chairman of PICMG's COM-HPC Working Group and Director of Market Intelligence at congatec, expresses his enthusiasm for the COM-HPC standard: “COM-HPC offers the highest performance, bandwidth, interfaces, and scalability compared to other computer-on-module standards and with COM-HPC Mini, engineers can now leverage all this on a real small form factor for space constrained embedded and edge computing designs.”
congatec is committed to supporting the adoption and implementation of the COM-HPC Mini specification, enabling customers to bring their solutions to market quickly. As a leading provider of embedded computing solutions, congatec also continues to develop and deliver products that align with the latest industry standards.
For more information about congatec and its COM-HPC ecosystem, please visit: https://www.congatec.com/en/ecosystems/com-hpc-ecosystem
The specification of congatec’s fist COM-HPC Mini module can be found here: https://www.congatec.com/en/technologies/com-hpc-mini/
The official PICMG COM-HPC page can be found here: https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-hpc/
|
design
|
https://oxfordhalf.co.uk/?p=10
| 2024-04-18T01:34:59 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296817184.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20240417235906-20240418025906-00537.warc.gz
| 0.916536 | 767 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__25957615
|
en
|
A home is not merely a physical structure; it is a sanctuary where memories are made, and lives are nurtured. It is a space that reflects our personalities, comforts us after a long day, and provides shelter from the outside world. However, as our lives evolve, so do our needs and preferences. This is where the transformative power of home renovation comes into play. Whether it’s updating a single room or undertaking a complete overhaul, home renovations have the potential to enhance our lives and create spaces that truly resonate with who we are.
Creating Personalized Spaces
One of the most significant advantages of home renovation is the ability to customize your living space according to your unique tastes and requirements. Every individual has different preferences when it comes to aesthetics, functionality, and design. A renovation allows you to turn your vision into reality by tailoring every aspect of your home to suit your needs.
For instance, if you are a passionate cook, a kitchen renovation can transform a lackluster cooking area into a chef’s dream, complete with state-of-the-art appliances, ample storage, and a layout optimized for efficiency. Similarly, a bedroom renovation can turn a bland sleeping space into a cozy haven, incorporating elements such as custom-built closets, lighting fixtures, and a soothing color palette.
Enhancing Comfort and Functionality
Home renovations offer the opportunity to improve the comfort and functionality of your living space. Many older homes may lack the modern conveniences and energy-efficient features available today. By upgrading heating and cooling systems, insulation, and windows, you can create a more comfortable environment while reducing energy consumption and utility bills.
Renovations can also address practical issues within the home. For example, adding an extra bathroom or expanding an existing one can alleviate morning congestion and enhance convenience for large families. Additionally, creating an open floor plan by removing walls can foster better flow and connectivity between living areas, promoting interaction and enhancing the overall livability of the space.
Increasing Property Value
Home renovations are not only an investment in your present enjoyment but can also yield substantial returns in the future. When executed thoughtfully, renovations have the potential to increase the value of your property. Upgraded kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoor spaces are particularly sought after by potential buyers and can significantly boost the resale value of your home.
However, it’s important to strike a balance between personalization and broad appeal. While it’s crucial to create a space that aligns with your preferences, keeping certain design elements versatile and timeless can help attract a wider pool of buyers down the line.
Emotional Well-being and Personal Growth
Beyond the physical changes, home renovations can have a profound impact on our emotional well-being. Our living environment directly influences our mood, productivity, and overall happiness. By creating a space that resonates with our personalities and meets our needs, we can cultivate a sense of peace, contentment, and inspiration.
Moreover, embarking on a home renovation journey can be a transformative experience in itself. It provides an opportunity for personal growth, decision-making, and creative expression. The process of envisioning, planning, and witnessing the transformation of your home can instill a sense of accomplishment, pride, and ownership.
Home renovations have the power to go beyond superficial changes, allowing us to create spaces that truly enhance our lives. From personalized aesthetics and improved functionality to increased property value and emotional well-being, the benefits of home renovation are undeniable. By investing in our homes, we invest in ourselves, creating a sanctuary that reflects our identity, supports our needs, and inspires us to thrive. So, whether it’s a minor update or a major transformation, the transformative power of home renovation is an opportunity worth embracing.
|
design
|
http://www.rbmwebsolutions.com/2015/03/12/its-repackaging-guardian-commercial-benefits-guardian-relaunch/
| 2023-02-06T23:22:44 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500365.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20230206212647-20230207002647-00071.warc.gz
| 0.947174 | 1,704 |
CC-MAIN-2023-06
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-06__0__72015592
|
en
|
Relaunching a news site that receives 107 million monthly unique visitors is an incredibly daunting task, particularly when that process involves changing not only the front and back ends of the site, but the entire philosophy around what a news site should be as well. The enormity of that change isn’t lost on the Guardian’s director of digital strategy Wolfgang Blau, who acknowledges that such a radical redesign puts an onus on an audience to remain loyal through the change as much as it puts on the publisher:
«In this industry you expect a launch dip because this is not a redesign, this is a completely rebuilt information architecture, different section structure. It’s not a repackaging of something, it’s a new Guardian.»
But the Guardian’s approach to the redesign – entirely in the open, taking over 100,000 pieces of feedback from beta users, a staggered roll-out in the United States and Australia – has so far mitigated the initial impact of the relaunch, with traffic stats in the US where it was first launched barely altering.
But while improving the user experience while keeping the audience on-side is paramount, the new design is also aimed at making it easier to monetise the Guardian online.
The redesign is built on a modular structure, which Blau says allows it to better serve its audience as a breaking news site even as it reduces the distance between ads and ecommerce offerings:
«The longer we thought about the theme the more we realised that we weren’t really sure what a homepage should be these days… Of course we knew [we are a breaking news site] but when we took a look at our old site we realised our old home page was not doing a very good job at making it really easy for you to really scan the news agenda before you then move onto most non-news journalism the Guardian can offer you. This is one editorial reason we came up with this very modular structure.
«We call them ‘containers’ or ‘modules’, but what we liked about the terminology of containers is their compatibility no matter where you put them.»
The modular structure is all in service of better reflecting the user journey on a breaking news site like the Guardian. Noting that a third of visits to the Guardian’s old site contained at least one visit to the homepage, whether that was where the user landed or not, Blau says the new colour-coding of comment pieces, news articles, reviews etc. is a more intuitive way for the user to discover the content they actually want.
And since the modular nature of those containers allows for the insertion of ads in-line without breaking user flow, it should have a positive effect on the revenue those ads bring in.
David Pemsel, the Guardian’s deputy chief executive, explains how the redesign offers benefits to advertising partners even as it distinguishes the Guardian’s premium nature from its rivals:
«On the macro level the industry rewards dwell time, engagement, brand loyalty etc. I suppose in the sea of programmatic the Guardian has an obligation to ensure it provides the most enriching and the most engaging environment, which this clearly is.
«This is a proof point particularly to the clients that we talk to about our role in the world, about being a premium publisher. Coupled with that, when you talk to an agency or client about that they then are straight into ‘show me the real estate we can have’. Because we can be quite precious. We can sort of say ‘we’re editorial led, therefore you’ll get the boxes you’re given’, whereas actually now this is far more integrated and far more intuitively right than it’s even been before.»
That real estate includes in-line MPUs with the option for visually appealing parallax scrolling and interactive banner ads that work just as well in terms of display viewability across all platforms. Moreover, that focus on streamlining the site to improve the user journey allows for better ecommerce opportunities. Pemsel says:
«In addition to display revenue we have an ecommerce business whether it be books or it be travel. It’s fair to say it also felt like pretty basic badging on the site, so even though you might have some fantastic editorial around travel the placement of our ability to monetise that did feel slightly awkward and sometimes the positioning would be wrong. Whereas here it’s much more seamless, so you can read an article and then very easily go and transact on a holiday.»
As for the still-developing question about the dismantling of the Chinese wall between editorial output and advertising, Pemsel notes that the Guardian does not use the term ‘native’, instead preferring to consider the content on Guardian Labs as ‘sponsored by’ content that is clearly labelled. That labelling is crucial to maintaining the premium Guardian audience’s trust and, says Blau, handily reflects what that audience already wants:
«One experiment that was eye-opening for us was the regular ad spaces in the article body, the MPU, there was a discussion early on should we label them or not? And we said, like everything, let’s just test it, A/B test it from morning to evening. And the clickthrough rate when we had the label ‘advertisement’ above the MPU was significantly higher. Our readers really like that and click more often, so we’re not worried at all about direct vicinity of commercial-editorial elements, quite the opposite.»
Pemsel is bullish on the commercial benefits of the relaunch, expressing his belief that it benefits all of the Guardian’s varied revenue streams:
«Some of the ideas we have been developing in Guardian Labs, the Unilever deal, the EE, they are very rich and beautiful content experiences that were somewhat lost in the site before, and now we’ve been able to bring them out and they’re far more discoverable.
«It demonstrates the diversity of our revenue whether it be from global, ecommerce, Guardian Labs, the display formats, and obviously events and membership.»
The back-end of the new site has been similarly streamlined, to allow for quick and easy adjustment of the containers on the home page and within articles. The decision is driven by the Guardian’s recognition that as a breaking news site it provides a service that its old home page simply wasnt delivering. As a result, news items and ads can be slotted in and out, in different territories and whenever necessary.
It also has benefits for individual journalists at the Guardian, who can now access that CMS from anywhere, and who can include video content much more easily that ever before. Blau says:
«Video is just a hygiene thing, where just so many functions weren’t there, and we’ve overhauled the video player tremendously. The whole idea is noone in the building should need more than 30 minutes [of training] to be able to publish.»
Everything about the relaunch from the open nature of its development to the revamped back end has flowed from the Guardian’s desire to reinvent itself as a breaking news destination with an intuitive user journey. As part and parcel of that, the container system developed for the relaunch has in turn fine-tuned its commercial viability to better reflect the needs of its audience and establish it as a premium destination for advertisers. While nothing can be taken fro granted in digital publishing, Pemsel believes the long-term benefits of the relaunch will become evident in time:
«We have to say, in the UK we talk about being the largest cross-platform quality news brand. You have to match that with our commercial opportunity as well as your editorial stance.
«Sometimes one can find yourself talking about that to an advertiser or media agency and they feel like you’re slightly naive to think you can go up against the advent of huge programmatric trading desks. But at the same time we have an obligation to say we have an incredibly valuable audience.»
|
design
|
http://www.girlsgorunning.com/moncler-logo-polo-shirt-men-clothingmoncler-bady-jacketoutlet-store-p-471.html
| 2018-02-24T23:53:07 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891816068.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20180224231522-20180225011522-00086.warc.gz
| 0.894546 | 109 |
CC-MAIN-2018-09
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2018-09__0__140661881
|
en
|
this white moncler polo shirt is from the brand's new season collection. a refreshing update on a wardrobe staple, the piece has been crafted from a soft and lightweight cotton and features an eye-catching triple logo adornment on the left side. cut for a semi-relaxed fit, the piece features short sleeves, a front button fastening and a pointed collar. style yours with anything from jeans to chino shorts for a classically elegant take on day dressing.
designer style id: 191831880084673
|
design
|
http://grasshoppergamewear.com/
| 2017-10-23T11:18:25 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187825900.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20171023111450-20171023131450-00390.warc.gz
| 0.940225 | 305 |
CC-MAIN-2017-43
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2017-43__0__70344159
|
en
|
We are the manufacturer and can provide you with...
1. Better LeadtimesWant your custom sublimated hockey jerseys fast? 100% of our operations are in Southern California, which allows us to guarantee completion of your order within 14 business days. So when you are in need of a set of custom jerseys for next weekend's game or tournament, you can relax and know that Grasshopper Gamewear will get it done!
2. No MinimumsNeed to order a fill in for a couple new players or want us to create a truly one-of-a-kind item just for you? No problem.
3. Better Fit & FeelOur jerseys and pants are constructed of industry leading fabric resulting in more comfortable near weightless function and feel. Our pattern designs were developed by players and coaches with years of experience on the hockey rink. From material selection right down to custom stitching, Grasshopper jerseys are built to outperform the competition. In fact, the North American Roller Hockey Championships, (NARCh) have selected Grasshopper Gamewear as their Official Gamewear Sponsor.
4. Better Print QualityGrasshopper Gamewear’s design team is available to create a truly unique and custom dye sublimated uniform for your team. Our facility, located in Santa Ana, California, features the latest state-of-the-art printing and sublimation machines designed specifically for athletic apparel. Our equipment produces the highest resolution available, equaling photographic quality.
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design
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https://meatfighter.com/yoshiscookiebot/
| 2024-02-29T05:19:56 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474784.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20240229035411-20240229065411-00503.warc.gz
| 0.91247 | 1,799 |
CC-MAIN-2024-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-10__0__68900184
|
en
|
[ About | The Game | Details | Download | Run ]
In this article, I describe how I created a bot that plays Yoshi’s Cookie, the tile-matching puzzle video game for the NES.
In the video below, watch the bot complete normal mode and the ending that follows.
Next, check out the bot finishing off expert mode and the subsequent finale.
Yoshi’s Cookie provides two different game modes:
In 1-player mode, the player completes stages that progressively increase in difficultly:
In versus mode, 2 players compete against each other in split-screen:
The bot is designed for 1-player mode. If you launch it during the title screen, it will play through all the stages from the first to the last. Or you can intermittently start and stop it on any stage to enable it to complete a section.
In 1-player mode, the playfield consists of a rectangular matrix populated with various cookies. And the objective of each stage is to completely clear the playfield. The player accomplished that task by repeatedly forming rows/columns consisting exclusively of the same cookie type; completed lines are automatically removed, shrinking the matrix. However, new rows/columns that slowly fall from the sides cause the matrix to grow upon contact. If the width/height of the matrix reaches 8, it’s game over.
The player controls a cursor that’s used to rotate individual rows/columns. A rotation consists of shifting all the cookies within a line by 1 space in either direction. The cookie that get pushed off the edge of the matrix wraps around to the other side, filling in the gap created by the shift.
The rotation mechanic makes the playfield topologically resemble a torus. Rotating rows is analogous to toroidal motion along the tube and rotating columns is analogous to poloidal motion around the tube, or vice versa.
In the lower-right of the frame, the game displays how many lines of each cookie type were completed by the player. Each completed line is indicated by a glowing red bulb. When the player achieves 5 red bulbs for the same cookie type, he’s rewarded with a Yoshi Cookie.
A Yoshi Cookie acts as a wild card that can be used to clear lines of any other cookie type.
Interestingly, the Yoshi’s Cookie Instruction Booklet erroneously describes a slightly different behavior:
Perhaps a last-minute design change resulted in that mismatch. In fact, the hint that appears in the instruction booklet for the SNES version correctly explains, “When you complete five lines of one type of cookie you will get a very special YOSHI COOKIE! This cookie can be used as a wild card to help complete any type of cookie line.” Whatever the case, as you’ll see below, Yoshi was right about the “special message from Mario.”
The 1P menu allows the player to choose the starting round, which normally goes up to 10. And each round consists of 10 stages. However, upon completing the tenth stage of round 10, the end credits roll and the sequence culminates with these two screens:
In rounds 11 and up, Heart, Flower, Diamond, Check and Circle cookies are respectively replaced by Super Mushroom, Boo Buddy, Goomba, Jumpin’ Piranha Plant, and Bloober cookies. Yoshi Cookies are still available upon completing 5 lines of the same type. But, as an added challenge, each stage begins with a Green Koopa Troopa Shell cookie. And only one Shell exists throughout the entire stage. The only way to eliminate it is to pair it up with a Yoshi Cookie, completing a line of length 2.
In recognition of beating round 10, the game swaps Music Type A with a new tune. Listen in to the Round 99 video above to experience it.
The bot constructs lines in much the same way that a human player does. It builds them incrementally using a greedy algorithm, making locally optimal choices at each stage. That compromise was employed due to the immense size of the solution space; an exhaustive search to compute the globally optimal way to manipulate the playfield is not feasible in real-time.
I’ll explain how the algorithm does this through an example. In the matrix below, the algorithm is in the process of building row 1. Three Hearts are already in place and three spaces remain:
The first step is to move the cursor to the column containing the nearest space:
Next, it locates the nearest Heart outside of row 1, which happens to be directly beneath the cursor. Since the Heart is within the same column, all it needs to do is to rotate the column to get the Heart into position:
With the Heart in position, the cursor advances to the column containing the nearest space. When accounting for wraparound, the nearest space is in column 0. The cursor moves there by taking 1 step right:
Anytime that the algorithm measures a distance, moves the cursor, or rotates a row/column, it always considers wraparound to exercise the minimal cost option.
As before, it locates the nearest Heart outside of row 1. And this time the target is on row 4. Since its not within the cursor’s column, the cursor moves to that row:
Next, it rotates row 4 until the Heart is within column 0:
Then it rotates column 0 to get another Heart into position:
Once again, the algorithm moves the cursor to the column containing the nearest space:
As seen twice before, it locates the nearest Heart outside of row 1, which is directly beneath the cursor. Since the Heart is within the same column, all it needs to do is to rotate the column to get the Heart into position. In this case, the optimal way to do that is to take advantage of wraparound by shifting the Heart down 2 steps:
That completes the line. But how does the bot know which line to build?
For all cookie types, the bot simulates building all possible rows and all possible columns. A line can be built if there are at least the line-length number of cookies of a given type—and/or Yoshi Cookies—on the playfield. It scores all the lines that can potentially be built and then it goes with the one with the highest score. The score depends on 3 factors:
In comparing potential lines, when the points are equal, the one with the fewest steps wins out. Regarding balance, when rows take priority, columns aren’t even considered, and the other way around.
While building a line using the greedy algorithm discussed above, it is possible to inadvertently clear other lines. And such unintentional clears may even trigger chain reactions. During simulation, clearing any lines will cause the greedy algorithm to halt, at which point it will evaluate the score. Meaning, even if the result was accidental, it may potentially be a valuable discovery and its treated as such.
The greedy algorithm is applied at the start of the stage and at any time the matrix size changes. The latter happens after clearing lines and after falling rows/columns make contact with the matrix. A falling line may make contact mid-build. In that case, the current line construction ceases, the greedy algorithm executes with the modified matrix, and the bot runs with the new results.
In general, the contents and the locations of the falling lines are ignored until contact with the matrix except when they benefit the elimination of the Green Koopa Troopa Shell in rounds 11+. When the matrix has been reduced to a single row/column containing a Shell, the bot will rotate that line to pair up the Shell with a falling Yoshi Cookie when available:
The bot often successfully reduces the matrix to the point that no additional cookies can be eliminated. When that happens, the bot holds down gamepad button B to make the falling lines drop faster. The game does not reward the player for doing so with bonus points. But it diminishes idle time.
While the bot can detect and execute patterns much faster than human players, it’s not perfect. Success varies with the cookies drawn by the RNG. Luckily, the game provides infinite continues. And the bot plays on unfazed by losses. Checkout some of the videos of its gameplay at the top of this page.
The bot uses the Nintaco API to manipulate CPU Memory, to assert gamepad buttons and to receive frame rendered events. All memory addresses were discovered through exploration with the Nintaco Debugging Tools and the information has been added to the Data Crystal ROMhacking.net wiki. In the source, they appear as constants within the Addresses interface.
The .zip contains:
Copyright © 2019 meatfighter.com
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design
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https://morrellproperty.com.au/property/77-jemalong-street-duffy/
| 2024-02-22T11:18:26 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947473738.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20240222093910-20240222123910-00534.warc.gz
| 0.918553 | 350 |
CC-MAIN-2024-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-10__0__134823236
|
en
|
Stunning private retreat
House Sold - Duffy ACT
This light and airy townhouse is situated moments from Duffy shops, and yet retains a quiet and peaceful ambiance of a low-traffic loop street. Private courtyards to the front and rear are fully landscaped and ready for you to enjoy sunny days with your morning coffee and newspaper.
Upon entering the home itself you are presented with a serene and spacious living area that flows effortlessly through to the open plan dining room and the outside living spaces. The kitchen is enviable and boasts a gas cooktop and island bench with an adjoining separate meals area. With direct access to the double car garage, bringing in the groceries is a breeze. The lower floor is also equipped with a large laundry offering additional storage space, and a powder room for your convenience.
Upstairs you will be delighted with the three generous bedrooms which spill out on to a private balcony. Each boasts built-ins and the fully renovated bathroom also offers a full separate bath.
This home has been lovingly renovated and you won’t need to spend a cent. With designer touches throughout this multi-level beauty, you’ll feel like you’ve come home at the very first inspection.
* Moments from Duffy shops
* Quiet, peaceful location
* Two lovely landscaped courtyards
* Designer touches and multi-floor layout
* Three generous bedrooms with robes
* Gas stovetop for precision cooking
* Ducted gas heating
* Two car garage
* Perfect landscaping
* Generous cupboards and a converted roof space with copious storage
* Move right in
- 3 bed
- 1 bath
- 2 Parking Spaces
- 2 Garage
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design
|
https://dallasfootballfan.com/product/leighton-vander-esch-dallas-cowboys-nike-vapor-limited-performance-jersey/
| 2023-03-30T21:01:17 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949387.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20230330194843-20230330224843-00378.warc.gz
| 0.80458 | 182 |
CC-MAIN-2023-14
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-14__0__206195477
|
en
|
Leighton Vander Esch Dallas Cowboys Nike Vapor Limited Performance Jersey
- Fit: Men’s Nike Limited Jerseys fit true to size. We recommend ordering one size larger than you normally wear for a looser fit or up two sizes if you plan on layering underneath the jersey.
- Material: 100% Polyester
- Dri-FIT ® technology wicks away moisture
- Nike Dry fabrics move sweat from your skin for quicker evaporation – helping you stay dry, comfortable and focused on the task at hand
- Mesh side panels for extra breathability
- NFL shield at collar
- Satin twill woven jock tag
- Short sleeve
- Stitched tackle twill name, numbers
- Tailored designed for movement
- Machine wash, tumble dry low
- Tagless Collar
There are no reviews yet.
|
design
|
https://advanticom.com/our-expertise/communication-services/
| 2020-05-25T10:33:53 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347388427.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20200525095005-20200525125005-00499.warc.gz
| 0.931674 | 476 |
CC-MAIN-2020-24
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2020-24__0__166835323
|
en
|
Robust, voice solutions that bring together collaboration and conversation with global flexibility and seamless integration.
While businesses are increasingly transitioning to BYOD (bring your own device) and remote work arrangements, IT departments are feeling the pressure of how to handle this influx with constrained resources and budgets. Advanticom understands how to work within those parameters while delivering a customized telephone solution that successfully delivers business communications and aligns with the strategic vision of the organization.
Since 2006, Advanticom has substantial experience in designing data centers and physical cabling plants, both inside and out. Led by an RCDD, the highest certification in cabling, Advanticom has been able to design, install, optimize, and easily manage cable plants. Advanticom also has dedicated experts to handle the cabling, connections that are needed to connect the phone equipment within your business. We take the time to understand the layout and any potential interferences before executing. The Advanticom engineers will then efficiently run the cables to all necessary locations including individual desktops, closets, equipment rooms or other facilities.
Imagine having access to technology that can fundamentally change the way your business communicates? VoIP technology has no boundaries on location, can support any device, and is easy to install, use and troubleshoot allowing a stress-free implementation. Advanticom’s Voice over IP solution delivers a phone system leveraging the internet for a flexible and can customized to support your strategic communication plans. Advanticom also offers PBX (Private Branch Exchange) telephony solutions which provide a private telephone network that can be used both internally and externally with a comprehensive list of available features and the ability to maintain full control over this system. Advanticom has been an innovation leader in the integration of voice technologies into business processes. We have clients whose voice implementations increased profits several times over the cost of the new system.
Advanticom will not just sell you a phone system, but instead brings forth solutions that integrate a variety of components that will help you to be successful and remain competitive. We aim to integrate tools such as instant messaging, VoIP, and chat features to enable all users a consistent interface and complete mobility. We want to deliver the best in class technology that supports business growth, increased productivity, and a unified, system-wide communications platform.
|
design
|
http://s825330259.websitehome.co.uk/charter-in-scotland
| 2024-04-15T10:25:05 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296816954.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20240415080257-20240415110257-00592.warc.gz
| 0.94994 | 768 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__96289371
|
en
|
from 1,795 GBP
Perhaps you have just passed your Day Skipper qualification, or you simply want to take friends or family away for a holiday with a difference. If so, ‘Kitmar’ is your answer. Bareboat yacht charter in Scotland gives you the freedom to go to places not accessible by car, at the pace that you want. See the dramatic coastline from the water at your leisure.
Kitmar can be sailed short or single handed and is very easy to manage as she has in mast reefing. There is also a good sized teak deck, cockpit and electric windlass – all of which will make your sailing a little bit easier.
from 1,995 GBP
The freedom to see the beautiful and dramatic coastline from the water at your leisure. Charter our Jeanneau Sun Odyssey, which has eight berths, four cabins, two double cabins in the aft, one bunk and a spacious double cabin in the forepeak with two bathrooms and a generous sized saloon. There is plenty of space to have friends who can join you on your adventure!
On deck there is an ample sized cockpit. In mast reefing with brand new sails in 2018 and electric windlass will make your sailing a little bit easier. If the weather gets a little ‘Scottish’, ‘Jon Boy’ is equipped with a sprayhood to shelter your crew.
from 2,995 GBP
Designed by the award winning Rob Humphreys, the Elan Impression 434 is a joy to sail and easy to handle whether in the confines of the marina or on the open seas. The Elan 434 is designed for a safe, first class sailing performance and swift passage making. This together with her spacious cockpit, well planned deck layout and roomy, comfortable interior make her the ideal yacht for cruising the West Coast of Scotland
from 2,045 GBP
Introduced in 2002, the Bavaria 38 was designed for Bavaria by J & J Design as an update to their earlier Bavaria 37. She is a modern high-volume cruising yacht and is considered one of the best family cruising yachts engineered to handle a variety of conditions in control and total comfort. The designers have maximised the interior volume to create a roomy and comfortable cockpit that features attractive solid wood trim and veneered surfaces. ‘Yachting Monthly’ reviewed the design in a boat test in the Dec 2002 issue, reporting that she was “light on the helm and rewarding to sail”.
from 2,045 GBP
Offering comfort and performance, the Beneteau 393 is a well behaved and easy to handle yacht, a class leader in the 40 foot range of cruisers. She is an ideal yacht for bareboat or skippered charter. A beautiful sailing boat, ideal for yacht charter. The saloon and cabins are very light and airy, benefiting from the large number of portholes and hatches throughout. Three double berth cabins with the forward cabin having en-suite heads. Large, well protected cockpit and good access around the deck of this Beneteau Oceanis 393.
from 2,495 GBP
This 44-foot yacht stands out for the space there is on board – it can accommodate up to 8 people. The Bavaria 44 is comfortable and easy to manoeuvre without compromising on navigation performance or power. It is the ideal yacht for going on a cruise with friends or family. This German-made yacht has enjoyed great success with charter companies and proudly boasts of using the best materials, fixtures, and fittings. The large cockpit and the clear decks provides great access to every part above and below deck this yacht makes full use of the generous beam.
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design
|
https://www.hkma.gov.hk/eng/news-and-media/press-releases/2010/07/20100720-4/
| 2022-12-08T02:05:51 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711232.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20221208014204-20221208044204-00789.warc.gz
| 0.922253 | 1,277 |
CC-MAIN-2022-49
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2022-49__0__173433121
|
en
|
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the three note-issuing banks (Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited and Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited) announced today (Tuesday) the issue of the 2010 new series Hong Kong banknotes.
Consistent with the current series, the new series will consist of five denominations, each adopting the same colour scheme. The designs of HK$1,000 and HK$500 were unveiled today, and these two denominations will be put into circulation in the last quarter of 2010 and early 2011 respectively. Further public announcements will be made nearer the time when the new notes are to be put into circulation. The design of the remaining three denominations, HK$100, HK$50 and HK$20, will be unveiled around the middle of next year.
The new banknotes have incorporated state-of-the-art security features, the locations of which will be the same across all five denominations. The five more important key features are:
People with visual impairments will find the new banknotes easier to use as Braille and tactile lines have been added to help them differentiate the denominations. A new note measuring template, sponsored by the HKMA and the three note-issuing banks, will be made available through voluntary agencies serving the visually impaired community.
"For the past 6 years Hong Kong has seen a continuous decrease in counterfeit rate. Currently there is less than 1 piece of fake note in every 1 million pieces of notes in circulation. We should not be complacent and must ensure that we are staying ahead of counterfeiters. There is a need to revamp the design of our banknotes and introduce latest available security features to minimise the risk of being counterfeited," said Mr Norman Chan, Chief Executive of the HKMA.
"We have used state-of-the-art security designs and also plate-making and printing technology to enhance the anti-counterfeiting capability and recognisability of the new notes. The new notes also incorporates enhanced accessibility features to facilitate visually impaired people to differentiate the denominations," Mr Chan added.
The new banknotes have been approved by the Financial Secretary and are printed by Hong Kong Note Printing Limited. The designs of the notes are individual note-issuing banks' responsibilities.
Mr Benjamin Hung, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited, said, "Standard Chartered's new series of banknotes are a continuing evolution of the design theme first unveiled in the 1980s - refreshed and refined to incorporate the latest world-class security features specified by the HKMA. The reverse side of the new notes celebrates Chinese inventions and their influence on modern security technology. With almost 150 years of experience as one of Hong Kong's note-issuing banks, Standard Chartered is delighted to continue its contributions towards the ongoing development of our city's financial sector."
Mr Peter Wong, Chief Executive of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC), said, "HSBC is the largest note issuer in Hong Kong and our banknotes are the most commonly seen in the city. Our new series of banknotes reflect some of the important occasions that the people of Hong Kong celebrate every year. To illustrate the unique culture of Hong Kong, the spiritual home of HSBC, our in-house designers have incorporated into the new series the images of local celebration activities, Chinese calligraphy and auspicious Chinese patterns. It is also the first time that images of Hong Kong people have been included in the design of the whole series of HSBC's banknotes."
Mr He Guangbei, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited (BOCHK), said, "The front panels of BOCHK's new notes will have a fresh but familiar look as we continue to use the two symbolic images - the bauhinia and the Bank of China Tower, with a brand-new design. The back panels feature beautiful natural scenery, highlighting the unique and majestic side of Hong Kong. We hope the designs of the new note series will help promote the natural wonders as well as significant landmarks of Hong Kong. As a responsible corporate citizen, we endeavour to increase environmental awareness of the public and contribute to the sustainability of society through the design of the new series, making "The Pearl of the Orient" even shinier and brighter."
All existing banknotes continue to be legal tender. They will continue to circulate along the new banknotes and will be gradually withdrawn from circulation when they become unfit for circulation.
The HKMA will launch an extensive education programme to raise public awareness of the new banknotes. Seminars will be conducted for banks, retailers and money changers; and special outreach seminars will be arranged for centres for the elderly and people with visual impairments. Exhibitions will be held in different districts in Hong Kong to let people view and feel the new banknotes before the notes go into circulation (see schedule of exhibitions at Annex). An interactive online-learning programme is available on the HKMA website at http://www.hkma.gov.hk, and leaflets illustrating the new security features are available to the public at the HKMA office, branches of the note-issuing banks and District Offices.
For further enquiries please contact:
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
Tel: 2878 1802
Tel: 2878 1213
Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited
Head of Media & Government Relations
Tel: 2820 3036
Senior Corporate Affairs Manager
Tel: 2820 3837
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
Head of External Affairs, Group Communications (Asia)
Tel: 2822 4930
Senior Corporate Communications Manager, Group Communications (Asia)
Tel: 2822 4992
Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited
Chief Corporate Communications Manager
Tel: 2826 6159
Senior Corporate Communications Manager
Tel: 2826 6133
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
20 July 2010
|
design
|
https://www.alarshadgroup.com/product/adult-ahram/
| 2024-04-13T03:21:12 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296816535.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20240413021024-20240413051024-00223.warc.gz
| 0.931853 | 486 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__122334825
|
en
|
Arshad’s Adult Ahram is meticulously designed for pilgrims embarking on the sacred journey of Hajj or Umrah. Crafted with simplicity and comfort in mind, these two pieces of plain, white, seamless cloth serve as the essential attire for spiritual worship during the pilgrimage.
Simple and Seamless: Made from high-quality, plain white cloth without stitching, ensuring simplicity and adherence to traditional attire requirements for Hajj and Umrah.
Comfortable Fabric: Crafted from soft and breathable fabric, providing comfort during various rituals and prayers throughout the pilgrimage.
Generous Sizing: Designed in sizes suitable for adults, ensuring ample coverage while maintaining ease of movement during the rituals.
Easy-to-Wear: Tailored for convenience, the two-piece cloth is easy to wrap and wear, facilitating a hassle-free experience during the sacred journey.
Versatile Use: Suitable for both Hajj and Umrah, adhering to the dress code required for these spiritual pilgrimages.
Arshad’s Adult Ahram serves as the essential attire for pilgrims undertaking the sacred journey of Hajj or Umrah. Comprising two plain, white, seamless pieces of cloth, these garments are meticulously designed to provide simplicity, comfort, and adherence to the traditional attire guidelines.
Crafted from high-quality, plain white fabric without stitching, the Ahram ensures conformity with the attire requirements for Hajj and Umrah. The soft and breathable fabric offers comfort and ease during the various rituals and prayers performed throughout the pilgrimage.
The generous sizing of the Ahram is tailored for adults, ensuring ample coverage while allowing ease of movement during the rituals. Its straightforward design allows for easy wrapping and wearing, facilitating a hassle-free experience during the pilgrimage journey.
Arshad’s Adult Ahram is versatile, suitable for both Hajj and Umrah, complying with the prescribed dress code for these spiritual pilgrimages. It embodies simplicity, tradition, and comfort, providing pilgrims with the essential attire needed for their sacred journey.
Arshad’s Adult Ahram is an essential garment designed to fulfill the dress code requirements for the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages. Offering simplicity, comfort, and adherence to tradition, these seamless and plain white garments ensure pilgrims can perform their rituals with ease and focus during this sacred journey.
|
design
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https://constellation.network/creative-agency-squared-is-the-only-bulgarian-winner-awarded-in-communication-design-at-this-years-copy
| 2024-02-24T17:02:10 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474541.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20240224144416-20240224174416-00264.warc.gz
| 0.962579 | 561 |
CC-MAIN-2024-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-10__0__107081269
|
en
|
Creative agency Squared is the only Bulgarian winner awarded in communication design at this year's
Squared is the only Bulgarian creative agency awarded in communication design at this year's edition of A'Design Award & Competition. On July 20, the laureates were officially awarded during a glamorous gala ceremony in the city of Como, Italy, where Squared was awarded with two design awards.
The creative agency's Joy of Playing project received a bronze award, which is awarded for very good design demonstrating excellence. The award is for the brand identity and overall communication of the children's toy brand Balin. The agency developed both the brand's visual identity and the actual designs of the toys, which are then brought to life in a series of illustrations. The project is also a finalist in the product design, toys category.
Squared's second awarded project, Enable Change, achieved the prestigious A'Design Award. The agency has another finalist in the communication design category as well.
"This international recognition means a lot to us. When our projects receive such a good response, we are confident that we are on the right path. I believe that this is also a source of pride for our clients, whose brands have been honored on the world stage for communication design," commented Yana Okolijska, Creative Director of Squared.
The project Joy of Playing will be presented at an international design exhibition in Italy. The exhibition is expected to tour other countries around the world. A' Design Award & Competition is one of the most significant and prestigious events in the field of design and innovation. This year's competition entries were carefully evaluated by a 227-member jury that brought together prominent academics, influential journalists, established design professionals and experienced entrepreneurs from around the world. 2,022 winners from 115 countries were honored.
A' Graphic Design Award aims to highlight the excellent qualifications of the best graphic designs and greatest graphic design concepts worldwide. The A' Design Accolades are organized and awarded annually and internationally in multiple categories to reach a wide, design-oriented audience. The ultimate aim of the A' graphic Design Competition is to create a global awareness of good design. More info could be found at https://competition.adesignaward.com
SQUARED is an independent creative studio working internationally focused on design, art direction, and content creation for advertising. Located in the city of Sofia, and counting with a small but restless team of creatives SQUARED is able to drive businesses anywhere in the world, surprising with unbounded creativity, bold ideas, and quality executions of the highest international caliber.
To learn more, visit: A' Design Award and Competition - Profile: Yana Okoliyska (adesignaward.com)
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design
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https://www.russellshvac.com/article/quality-home-comfort-award-contracting-business-magazine
| 2022-06-26T11:08:42 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103205617.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20220626101442-20220626131442-00736.warc.gz
| 0.956235 | 887 |
CC-MAIN-2022-27
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2022-27__0__79880928
|
en
|
- Residential Heating & Cooling
- Plumbing Services
- Electrical Services
- Commercial HVAC Services
- Home Efficiency Services
CLEVELAND, OH – Russell’s Heating & Cooling located in Chesapeake, VA, has received a Quality Home Comfort Award from Contracting Business magazine, Highlights of the award, designed to create awareness of the critical of the critical role heating/ventilation/ air conditioning (HVAC) contractors play in the creation of quality homes, appear in the July 2003 issue of the monthly, national magazine. Russell’s will receive the QHCA award in September at Comfortech, a national event, to be held in Dallas, Texas.
Russell’s was honored for the installation of the comfort system in a 4,000 square foot home in the Hampton Roads waterways region of Virginia. Russell’s, one of five winners in the nation, won first place in the New Construction category, up to 4001 square feet. The award is based on outstanding design, the use of the newest technology, and top quality installation practices.
Homeowners Tom and Ann wanted a system that would keep them cozy during their region’s damp winters and cool during the hot, humid summers. They were also particularly interested in radiant heat. “We had radiant heat in the kitchen and bathroom in our previous home, and it was so comfortable,” says Ann. “It also seems like such a ‘healthy’ type of heat, because dust is never blown around.” After doing extensive research on the Internet, the couple decided they wanted a radiant system to heat their entire home.
However, radiant heat isn’t too common in their region because of the mild winters, and finding a contractor well-versed in radiant was a bit of a tall order. After contacting a radiant heating manufacturer’s representative, the couple was put in touch with Russell’s Heating and Cooling, since 1977, Russell’s serves the residential service and replacement market in the Hampton Roads/Tidewater area of Virginia.
Also included in the system design was the use of a constant fresh air exchange system. “ This home is built so well that the air inside will not have much opportunity to mix with fresh outside air. I was concerned about the air quality of the home, and the only way to bring in fresh air was to use an exchanger system,” says Buddy Smith, president of Russell’s. “If we didn’t bring in outside air then all the indoor pollutants would build up in the home, and would eventually make our clients sick.”
Since moving into their new home, Tom and Ann have been thrilled with their comfort system. Not only are their utility bills lower than in their former home, they are more comfortable than they ever imagined. Their praise extends to Russell’s, as well. “Throughout the entire process, Russell’s Heating and Cooling paid such close attention to all the details,” says Tom. “They are a first class company, and we recommend them to our friends, family, and associates.”
And for Russell’s Heating and Cooling, a Quality Home Comfort Award is nice, but there’s no better reward than satisfied customers.
Contracting Business is a monthly, national business publication written specifically for heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration contractors. The mission of the Quality Home Comfort Awards is to promote excellence in comfort system design and installation and create awareness of the broad range of comfort systems available today through quality HVAC contractors. It’s a program that recognizes a true commitment to quality by contractors, builders, and manufacturers alike.
Penton Media (NYSE: PME) is a leading, global business-to-business media company that produces market-focused magazines, trade shows, and conferences, and Web sites. Penton’s integrated media portfolio serves the following industries: Internet/broadband; information technology; electronics; natural products; food/retail; manufacturing; design/engineering; supply chain; aviation; government/compliance; mechanical systems/construction; and leisure/hospitality. For more information, visit www.penton.com.
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design
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http://thepotpourri.com.my/potpourri-design-and-features.html
| 2022-08-12T14:56:13 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00556.warc.gz
| 0.882002 | 1,650 |
CC-MAIN-2022-33
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2022-33__0__155603644
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en
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THE FIRST IMPRESSION OF THIS CONTEMPORARY RESIDENCE SETS FASHIONABLE LIVING DESIRES ALIGHT.
The two main entrances to this residence are marked by modern archways and a 2-storey security centre, uplifting the aesthetic value of the security
facilities. The entire development is ringed by a buffer of greenery, and running parallel to this lush belt is predominantly a 24’-wide internal road with 2-lane ingresses and egresses. This spacious and appealing design concept makes driving both a pleasure and a scenic adventure.
The entire perimeter of the development is fenced with an 8' anti-theft boundary, and each residential tower drop-off is shielded with an extended 10’-tall perimeter wall designed to complement the ambient greenery. This provides a two-fold benefit: increased security
and privacy, as well as a canvas for designer landscaping.
THE DIVERSE ARCHITECTURAL FACADES LEADING TO THE POTPOURRI’S LOBBY ADD A TOUCH OF UNEXPECTED DRAMA. THE IMPACT OF HIGH CEILINGS AND A DESIGNER-CRAFTED LOBBY INTERIOR CREATES AN INSTANT IMPRESSION THAT IS TIMELESSLY CHIC.
Inside, a 3-tier security system controls access through entry points, the car park lift lobbies, as well as lift control panels that allow access to the resident’s designated floor. Every unit has an audio-video intercom that not only provides direct communication to the security centre, but also gives residents the convenience of identifying guests on the video stream from the comfort of their own homes.
Fully embodying the concept of plug-and-play, The Potpourri is built with a fibre optic backbone, enabling residents to upgrade their technology quickly and easily in the future.
MODERN WITH A TOUCH OF WHIMSY, THE FACILITIES DECK IS A SHOWCASE OF INNOVATIVE DESIGN.
Podium walkways link the various facilities scattered on the recreational level, giving you a different living experience. A myriad of sky facilities such as the Sky Lifestyle Lounge, the Sky Audio-Visual Lounge and the Sky Lounge with Pool are intertwined to add a sense of continuity and cohesion, creating a synergy between facilities and landscape that heightens and enhances the vibrancy of the development.
AN INVOCATION OF BEAUTY THAT REVITALISES THE SOUL, THE VIEWING GALLERY ABOVE THE POOL DECK REDEFINES THE MEANING OF ART APPRECIATION.
On the facilities podium, a 50m lap pool glitters cool blue on a hot day, while the fully-equipped gym is a healthy diversion for the active.
Ripple & Splash
BE IT HYDROTHERAPY OR RECREATION, A MULTITUDE OF SHADED POOLS FULFILL WHAT THE BODY AND MIND YEARN FOR.
Organic and fluid in shape, the pools flow across the facilities podium with cabanas dotted alongside. Lazing and idling are the right things to do.
THE COMPOSITION OF CANOPIED TREES, HEDGES, LINEAR STONES, SCULPTURAL BENCHES AND SPLASH POOLS CREATES AN INTERACTIVE GARDEN WITH EXCITING LANDFORMS AND VISUAL DRAMA.
Over 40% of The Potpourri is embraced by lush landscaping, spanning over 3 acres of the entire development footprint. This generous allocation envelops residents in luxuriant surroundings, evoking a feeling of calm and serenity upon stepping foot into the enclave.
THE LUXURIOUS POTPOURRI CLUBHOUSE IS OUTFITTED WITH A VARIETY OF SPORT FACILITIES AND ACTIVITY ROOMS THAT KEEP YOUR RECREATIONAL VIGOUR ALIVE.
Upon entry on the ground floor, residents are greeted by the dining lounge, kitchen and residents’ lounge. Two levels up are the badminton courts, multi-purpose hall, management office, kindergarten and nursery, while up on the rooftop, a landscaped garden is the perfect place to hang out with friends and family. This multi-level clubhouse is also linked by bridges that connect directly to the Main Facilities Podium, easing accessibility for residents.
THE ACT OF WORKING OUT IS ELEVATED TO NEW HEIGHTS IN THE POOL-FRONT GYM, WHERE EXERCISE IS INVIGORATING AND THE VIEW, IMPRESSIVE.
A sunken tennis court is surrounded by greenery, keeping it cool and shaded the whole day through.
A FEAST FOR THE SENSES, THE WOK PAVILION IS A SHOWPIECE OF LIFESTYLE AND LEISURE THAT DEMONSTRATES AN ARTISTIC FLAIR.
Ideal for gatherings, parties and celebrations, the Wok Pavilion hosts outdoor kitchen space and an organic garden with fruits and vegetables to encourage appreciation for nature and cooking. Designed to stimulate social activities, the Wok Pavilion area is a lush and modern setting that promotes quality interactions among like-minded people.
The residences are interspersed with gardens and playgrounds designed to channel social activities, evoking a modern yet holistic lifestyle that encourages more quality family interaction time.
THE POTPOURRI IS DESIGNED FOR FULL IMMERSION IN AN OUTDOOR LIFESTYLE.
The wealth of parks and recreational facilities provide space for wholesome activities, while the strip of alfresco cafes, restaurants and bars satisfy the urban need to entertain and unwind.
THE BRIDGE LOUNGE, WITH ITS ATTRACTIVE RANGE OF FACILITIES, IS THE PINNACLE OF AN ELEVATED LIFESTYLE.
Residents are free to mingle and converse with one another after dinner, host gatherings with family and friends, or simply enjoy the beautiful skyline with a loved one. A mini Sky Audio-Visual Lounge is also located here for a convenient movie night without leaving The Potpourri.
Sky Audio-Visual Lounge
THE SKY LOUNGE OFFERS A PRIVATE GARDEN, A POOL, PLUS THE BEST VIEW OF ARA DAMANSARA, AN UNDENIABLY MAGNETIC DRAW.
Deck chairs line the pool, while ample space is given to those who wish to throw private parties or get-togethers amidst a glittering backdrop of the city skyline.
The Potpourri is a collection of modern residences that interweave elements of “live, work & play” to create a sustainable living environment. Sitting on prime land in the hip and trendy township of Ara Damansara, The Potpourri is footsteps from Citta Mall and is conveniently linked to surrounding areas like Damansara, Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam and Subang Jaya via roads, highways and public transport.
Residences are tailored to suit the modern family, with floor plans ranging from studio to 3+1 bedroom units. Anchoring the development is a luxurious facilities podium and sky facilities complemented by a vast landscaped deck for leisure and recreation activities. The Potpourri will also host retail outlets and a clubhouse, which are open to residents and their guests.
This sustainable and innovative development will set a new benchmark for homes classified as serviced apartments with contemporary design as it offers an integrated work and play environment, as well as unique architectural elements to create a landmark that residents can truly call home.
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design
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https://equestics.com/blog/web-basics/aspect-ratios-image-optimization/
| 2021-05-11T01:50:11 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991553.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20210510235021-20210511025021-00172.warc.gz
| 0.946497 | 2,004 |
CC-MAIN-2021-21
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2021-21__0__137275267
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en
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When working on a website build, typically some or all of the images for the project are “provided by the client.” This is one way to save some money on the project and in some cases, you are the only one who could effectively find them. Whether it’s product images, photography of your facility and employees, at some point you’re almost certainly going to be asked to come up with some images.
If you aren’t familiar with graphics and all that stuff – it can get a bit confusing. Optimizing images? Aspect Ratio? JPG or PNG? What the heck are they talking about?
In these examples, I’m going to be using WordPress as our guide – most of the time, we use WordPress as the platform for our clients because it is flexible, efficient (if you know how to set it up), and scales well to nearly all needs. About one in every three sites on the web uses this platform. Many of these concepts will work well for other platforms as well, though.
What Are Aspect Ratios and Why Are They Important?
In technical terms, the aspect ratio is the comparison of the width and the height. Using television as an example, old TV sets before the era of HDTV had an aspect ratio of 4:3. No matter how big the screen, the height of the screen is 0.75 (3/4) of the width. If your screen was 12 inches across, it would be 8 inches tall. 16 inches across would have a height of 12 inches. Wikipedia has a bunch more technical information available about aspect ratios, too.
If you’ve watched an older television show on your HDTV (which is typically at a 16:9 aspect ratio) you are familiar with the black bars on either side. This is because if the image was zoomed in to fit the width of the screen, portions of the top and bottom would be cut off. In some cases you can set the image to “stretch” to the full width to match the aspect ratio of your television set, but then you end up with everyone looking like they’ve put on a few pounds and everything in the image is wider than it normally would be. You could also set them to “zoom” in and loose the black borders, but the tops of everyone’s heads and their feet get chopped off.
In most web projects, it’s not so much which aspect ratio you choose as it is about being consistent with them once they are chosen. If you are inconsistent, you end up with the same sort of situation we described with the televisions above. You can work around it a little bit, but it invariably means that there is going to be extra white space or cropping out of portions of the image.
In some cases, such as the header image on this site, cropping happens no matter what when it comes to converting things to mobile. If we left it so the whole image was visible, the height would be very small and the image would be hard to see. By understanding how images are cropped or scaled when switching between different devices, we can come up with a plan on how to choose the images.
Inconsistent aspect ratios are especially noticeable when trying to lay things out in a grid like with your product listings or blog posts page. In order to make the columns all fit the width, you end up with a bunch of ugly white space around everything if your aspect ratios aren’t the same.
WordPress and your designers can sometimes come up with some tricks to fool the eye and make this less noticeable – but there are sacrifices to be made in such cases. For example, in the image here, option “E” would almost certainly need to be cropped in order to make things lay out nicely. Much of the top and bottom of the image would need to be scrapped. Meanwhile, image “F” would likely need to be cropped on the left and right to fill the space appropriately and not end up so small that you couldn’t see it.
Optimal Image Sizes
Once you’ve come up with the aspect ratio (or sometimes multiple ratios will be chosen for different sections of the site) you have to consider how big things are. Smaller images are faster to download, but larger images look better on a big screen. The trick is finding the right balance.
If you have a good quality digital camera (or even a nice cell phone) the pictures that come off it can be HUGE – 4000 pixels across or more. For printing images, this is great, but for the web, it’s overkill. Even the highest setting on most desktops isn’t typically set to anything larger than 2000 pixels wide.
If the images you’re going to be using are for a grid layout and will never be seen full screen sized, then making them larger than they need to be on a large screen is a waste, too.
WordPress helps us a bit in this area by creating multiple versions of each image when you upload it. If you click the image here, you’ll see that it scales up and you can see it full sized, but if you never click it – it only downloads a smaller version of itself to save bandwidth and make the downloads go faster.
As a general rule of thumb, I always suggest to clients that the largest version of the image should be no more than 1600 pixels wide. This is large enough to cover the width of most screens (and it doesn’t blur out too much on larger ones). Once optimized, it’s a fairly decent download size and you still get some great quality.
In most graphics editing programs, there are several ways to save the images – and a number of different formats that you can save them in.In most graphics editor programs, you will see a “Save for Web…” option under the “File” menu. From there, you can select the type of image (see “Image Formats” below) and the settings. Some will provide a preview.
- DPI (Dots Per Inch): For print, we typically see a number of around 200 dots per inch. On the web, we typically use 72dpi. Adjust this number to 72. You’ll get good enough qualify for the web and not have a lot of wasted pixels that won’t ever get rendered.
- Compression Levels (Image Quality): Typically (for JPG files, especially) you have some options for compression levels or image quality. Compression Level is typically a “low to high” scenario with low levels being better quality, but larger download sizes. Image Quality is the same thing, but backwards. High quality means lower compression levels. It can be a number from 1 to 100 or sometimes it will use words like “low,” “high,” “very high”, etc. The idea here is to pick something around the 60-80% range -a fair trade off between compression levels and quality.
Notes on Compression Levels: If your image has text and/or crisp straight lines in it, you will want a lower compression level/larger file size. Compression “blurs” things slightly, so the more compression you add, the more blur. Most images that are photographs without crisp lines can be compressed at a much higher level before you notice the blurring effect kicking in.
Though there is a new format of web images called “webp” which has amazing compression levels but it is not fully supported in all graphics editors yet. These can be a great choice if you have the ability to work with them. If not, you have two more traditional choices along with a third for special circumstances.
- JPG (or JPEG): This is the standard format for normal images without transparency.
- PNG: Portable Network Graphics file format supports transparency so you can see “through” portions of the image to what is behind it. This format is larger than JPG images, but is useful for logos or other graphics with a background that has been removed.
- GIF: These files are very large and only support 256 colors. They can still be handy to use once in a while if you have an image with some animation going on. Typically you won’t be saving images in this format, though.
Still Confused? What now?
Graphic design is a complex skill. It’s not just art, but a lot of technical information all mixed in, too. In fact, I run into situations when dealing with highly trained graphic designers from the print world who have trouble wrapping their heads around some of the various differences between print and web design. It’s not easy, but it can be learned.
In some cases, though – especially if a slick and consistent look and brand message are important to you, it might be worth your time to pay a professional to crop, scale, and optimize your images. It can seem pricey on the surface, but once you’ve tried it a few times, you can see that it takes a good eye, careful planning, and a knowledge of the tools you’re working with to make it all come together.
Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be posting more here at Equestics to help those who want to save the money and take the time to learn more about the basics of image optimization and prepping things for the web. I’m talking to various graphic designers now in hopes of getting them to contribute some articles to help you, as well.
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design
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http://ispex.nl/en/techniek/spex/
| 2023-12-02T14:15:27 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100427.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202140407-20231202170407-00646.warc.gz
| 0.908489 | 932 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
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webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__96990079
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en
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The Spectropolarimeter for Planetary EXploration SPEX is designed to measure aerosol and cloud particles in atmospheres of planets within our solar system. The instrument is, among else, able to find the number densities of particles within the atmosphere, to detect the size distribution, and determine chemical properties, such as refractive index. In order to achieve this, SPEX directly measures the (intensity) spectrum and the degree of polarization for visible light.
In order to measure the degree of polarization, SPEX uses a completely new technique, which is developed by members of the iSPEX team (Snik, Karalidi, & Keller(2009)). In stead of temporal modulation or spatial modulation, techniques described in the polarimetry page, SPEX uses the technique which we call spectral modulation. An extensive, technical description on spectral modulation can be found on the SPEX site of SRON.
The modulated spectrum
Whenever the light is unpolarized, SPEX will measure a regular spectrum, as if it was nothing more than a spectrograph. This unmodulated spectrum is shown in the left plot of the image above. The upper band shows a color spectrum, similar to what we would see with our eyes. The graph below plots the light intensity against the color, or wavelength. The wavelengths of the graph roughly correspond to the colors in the upper band.
However, as soon as the light becomes polarized, the spectrum is superimposed with a synusoidal pattern, as shown in the right plot of the above picture. Dark and bright areas interchange one another across the spectrum. We call this a modulated spectrum, where the synsoidal pattern is the modulation.
The amplitude of the synusoidal pattern is an indication of the fraction of light that is polarized. Completely polarized light will thus have a maximum amplitude to the modulation, which can be recognized for its minima reaching the zero intensity line. The opposite, where the light is fully unpolarized shows no modulation at all, i.e. the normal spectrum. Any degree of polarization between 0 and 1 (between completely polarized and unpolarized) yield a modulation with a shallower modulation.
The direction in which the light is polarized can also be determined from the modulated spectrum. Change in this direction will cause a (phase)shift of the synusoidal pattern across the spectrum.
SPEX optical design
The SPEX concept consists of four basic elements, briefly described below.
1: quarter wave plate
The quarter wave plate is not the most fundamental element. Some polarization directions (or angles) are even left completely unaffected. The purpose of this waveplate is to change the linear polarization for specific polarization angles into circular polarization. This is needed to make sure that the (initial linear) polarization angle will be modulated by the next element, the multi-order waveplate.
The effect is that incident light that is polarized in any random direction will always be modulated by the multi-order waveplate.
2: multi order waveplate
This element is primarily responsible for the spectral modulation. Different from the quarter wave plate is that the phase shift (change of polarization) depends on the color (wavelength) of the light.
In other words, the change in polarization angle caused by this waveplate is different for each wavelength. This causes a difference in polarization angle between two separate wavelengths of 90º.
Conceptual drawing of the SPEX optical design. Of the incident horizontally polarized beam (indicated by the arrows), only certain colors keep this horizontal polarization, while the polarization angle of other colors is transformed by the multi order waveplate into vertical polarization. Only vertically polarized colors are transmitted by the polarizer.
Similar to the other polarimetric methods, finally, a polarizer is used.
As we described in the caption of the conceptual drawing above, the polarization angle of one wavelength can be perpendicular to the polarization angle of another wavelength. When the latter angle is exactly aligned with the polarization axis of the polarizer, this color will be fully transmitted, while the first color will be fully blocked by the polarizer, because it’s polarization angle is perpendicular to the polarizer.
Since the modulation of the light beam is spectral by nature, we can only observe it after we look at each color seperately. That is why the SPEX concept needs a spectrograph at the end of the light path. The modulation of the light that is caused by the previous elements can then be seen in the spectrum that is created and measured by this spectrograph.
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design
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https://support.piazza.com/support/solutions/articles/48000986379-students-custom-top-bar-colors
| 2024-02-22T01:25:24 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947473598.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20240221234056-20240222024056-00509.warc.gz
| 0.867826 | 218 |
CC-MAIN-2024-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-10__0__103497315
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en
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Customizing the Color of Your Top Bar
For those students who utilize Piazza for multiple courses, you can quickly and visually differentiate between your classes by customizing the color of your top bar. These custom colors will only be visible to you and will not change the top bar color for your peers and instructors.
1. In your Piazza Q&A account, your header bar color can be customized by navigating to the color bar menu illustrated below:
2. Once pressed, you will be offered a suite of colors to choose from:
3. Once a color is selected, you should see your top bar color change instantaneously:
4. Navigating to another course will display that courses' selected top bar color:
Additionally, for those who have multiple Piazza courses, an efficient way to change any course's top bar color can be found through Account/Email Settings:
On the resulting page you will be able to see all your Piazza courses and will be able to adjust the top bar color for each accordingly under Class & Email Settings:
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design
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https://bsharpentertainment.africa/joburg-ballet-launches-dance-wear/
| 2021-05-11T06:06:08 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243991904.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20210511060441-20210511090441-00192.warc.gz
| 0.945056 | 490 |
CC-MAIN-2021-21
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webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2021-21__0__175857953
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en
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Joburg Ballet is striking out in new and exciting directions, including the launch of a line of dance and fitness wear designed and produced by the dancers, management and staff of the ballet company which will be launched on 26 November.
Entitled Made to Move, the Joburg Ballet dancewear line is available from Joburg Ballet’s online shop at www.joburgballet.com/merchandise with proceeds going to the #SupportJoburgBallet fund to help the company through the COVID-19 crisis.
Commenting on the Made to Move line, Joburg Ballet artistic director Iain MacDonald applauded ballet mistress Lauren Slade who launched and developed the project in partnership with wardrobe mistress Yolanda Roos and the dancers of Joburg Ballet.
“This is a unique project which we don’t think any other ballet company has undertaken,” said Iain MacDonald. “Every dancer in Joburg Ballet has designed for the Made to Move label, resulting in a spectacular collection by dancers for dancers. Drawing inspiration from a multitude of sources, the dancers have succeeded in creating an exceptional range of dancewear.”
Ballet mistress Lauren Slade added: “At a time when our traditional, established way of connecting with our public – through live performances in the theatre – has not been available to us for most of 2020, the Made to Move project is a new way for Joburg Ballet to stay linked to the public. It has also allowed our dancers, every one of whom has designed for Made to Move, to tap into an entirely new creative process. And to give Made to Move a very personal stamp, each unique design carries the name of the dancer who created it.”
Lauren Slade praised wardrobe mistress Yolanda Roos for her “wizardry and skill in turning the dancers’ designs into truly sensational dance and fitness wear, translating their imagination into reality.”
The full range of Made to Move designs, modelled by the dancers, can be viewed in the Joburg Ballet Online Shop on the ballet company’s website at www.joburgballet.com/merchandise
In addition to photographs, the Shop also provides written descriptions of every item in the range, a few words from each dancer on what inspired them as well as prices, payment and delivery information.
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design
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https://www.shayhayashi.com/heuristic-evaluation-save-my-spot-lifelabs
| 2023-10-04T22:22:20 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511424.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20231004220037-20231005010037-00327.warc.gz
| 0.920648 | 1,097 |
CC-MAIN-2023-40
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-40__0__91385421
|
en
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As a project at BrainStation, I conducted a heuristic evaluation and created improved designs of the Save My Spot! mobile app (iOS version 2.3.5) by LifeLabs to improve the usability for British Columbians within existing design constraints.
Collaboration Tools (Slack, Google Docs, FigJam)
LifeLabs is a Canadian-owned company that has been providing laboratory tests to over a million Canadians every year for more than 50 years. Save My Spot! is an app by LifeLabs created to reduce wait times for customers without an appointment. However, usability issues within the app add difficulty for users in the booking process.
Studies have shown that it takes less than a few seconds for visitors to form an important first impression of an app. One study found that 94% of visitors would reject a website or app, or even mistrust a company based on its design-related aspects like clutter, poor error prevention, and inconsistency, which affect user engagement long-term. Source
I used Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics to examine the interface and judge the app's compliance with the recognized usability principles. Then, we rated each defiance on a scale from 0 (no usability problem) to 4 (usability catastrophe). We used the design prioritization matrix to identify which issues should be redesigned first.
The main and only task flow of this app is checking-in to a LifeLabs. This main task consists of subtasks including:
Here are 4 examples of the Heuristic Evaluation:
The app allows users to make false or unwanted decisions. Without proofreading, users can check-in with the wrong information with no warnings.
To add an error message when users enter an invalid phone number and to grey out the ‘Check In’ button when invalid entries exist.
There are no "emergency exits" to leave the unwanted state. This may result to users pulling a "no-show" and affecting wait time accuracy.
Add a secondary button that allows users to cancel their booking.
For small screens, the primary button is usually located on the right side while the secondary is on the left. Users may accidentally cancel their check-in as their thumbs naturally tap the right.
Place the secondary button, 'Cancel', on the left and 'Done' on the right.
There is no address in the pin after the confirmation. Therefore, users must rely on recall when they see the map to see the address of their check-in location.
Maintain the LifeLabs lab location name on the pin and make the check-in location visually significant.
Design Prioritization Matrix
Since I did not have access to LifeLab's official UI library, I built my own with existing elements, components, and branding within the app. I used screenshots of the app and Figma to trace UI components and used various plugins, such as Redlines, to build a functional UI library.
For elements and components that LifeLabs did not already have, I took inspiration from the the LifeLabs website and everyday apps such as Google Maps. This allowed me to work off of existing mental models to make the features understandable.
Created smaller map pins for both check-in and appointment-based LifeLabs for the zoomed out map state
Added an autocomplete feature with suggestions based on the shared GPS location
Redesigned map pins to ensure consistency and relevancy of information.
Added a filter feature to only show locations that have a check-in option, as well as locations open now and appointment only.
Hid the location hours in a toggle list & used icons to balance negative space
Organized each section to look consistent
Added an error message and visual indicator when users enter invalid information& button to check-in is greyed out
Added a cancel button to allow users to cancel their booking in the event of a mistake, providing an exit.
Added a clear visual indicator of checked-in confirmation and simplified instructions.
Added a confirmation card at the top of the map to provide a visual cue of checked-in status and location.
Added a clear visual indicator of checked-in status and simplified instructions when lab location is tapped.
It was important to refer back to the existing UI library when building new screens to create consistency within the app. I often had to remind myself that this exercise is about usability and not branding so all efforts should go towards improving the usability of the app.
Working in a partnership required constant communication and organization. Before starting the project, it was helpful to outline expectations and standards (such as naming systems) to set us off on the right foot.
I would like to conduct usability test with LifeLabs patients to ensure that the new UI changes did not negatively affect usability or raise new concerns.
Since the Save My Spot! app has a wide range of users and level of technology fluency, I would like to create a 'What's New' modal or onboarding tutorial for new and returning users. This way, the new features can be smoothly be adopted by LifeLabs patients.
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design
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https://blog.magicapi.com/uncategorized/api-first-revolution-transforming-your-saas-into-a-profitable-api-centric-business-3/194/
| 2024-04-15T01:45:20 |
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The API-First Revolution is reshaping the Software as a Service (SaaS) industry by prioritizing the development and integration of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) at the core of business strategies. This paradigm shift towards an API-centric business model is not just a technical change but a strategic one that can lead to increased profitability and market differentiation. In this article, we will explore how companies can transform their SaaS offerings into profitable, API-centric businesses by embracing the API-First approach, designing APIs for extensibility and scalability, effectively monetizing APIs, marketing their API-centric solutions, and navigating the challenges of API adoption.
- Adopting an API-First strategy can significantly enhance a SaaS business’s flexibility, scalability, and potential for innovation.
- A well-designed API that emphasizes extensibility and scalability is crucial for long-term success and can serve as a foundation for a thriving ecosystem.
- Monetizing APIs requires careful consideration of pricing models, the creation of an API marketplace, and efficient management of API usage and billing.
- Effective marketing of an API-centric SaaS involves identifying the target audience, creating comprehensive API documentation, and employing strategies for evangelism and advocacy.
- While API adoption presents technical and cultural challenges, these can be overcome by ensuring backward compatibility and actively seeking and incorporating user feedback.
Embracing the API-First Approach
Defining API-First Strategy
An API-First strategy prioritizes the development of APIs at the outset of a project, rather than as an afterthought. This approach ensures that APIs are treated as first-class citizens throughout the software development lifecycle. API-First is about planning for growth and integration from the very beginning, making it easier to connect with other systems and applications in the future.
- Design Phase: Start with a clear API specification.
- Development Phase: Build the API before the application.
- Testing Phase: Test the API independently of the application.
- Deployment Phase: Release the API with comprehensive documentation.
By adopting an API-First strategy, businesses can create a flexible foundation that allows for easier expansion, quicker iterations, and a more seamless integration experience for developers and partners.
The shift to an API-First strategy can be transformative, but it requires a cultural change within the organization. It’s about more than just technology; it’s a mindset that values external integrability as much as internal functionality.
Benefits of API-Centric Architecture
Adopting an API-centric architecture offers a multitude of benefits that can significantly enhance the value proposition of a SaaS business. Increased agility and faster time-to-market are among the most compelling advantages, as APIs allow for rapid iteration and deployment of new features. This architectural approach also fosters innovation by enabling third-party developers to build upon the platform, creating an ecosystem of applications that can drive additional revenue streams.
- Cost Efficiency: By reusing APIs across different parts of the application, companies can reduce development costs.
- Scalability: APIs facilitate the scaling of applications by allowing services to be easily integrated or modified.
- Flexibility: An API-centric approach provides the flexibility to integrate with a multitude of other services and platforms.
Embracing an API-centric architecture not only streamlines internal development processes but also opens up new business opportunities by making it easier to partner with other companies and enter new markets. The strategic value of APIs extends beyond technical benefits, positioning companies to better adapt to changing market demands and customer needs.
Case Studies: Successful API-First Transformations
The shift to an API-first approach has been a game-changer for many SaaS companies, enabling them to unlock new revenue streams and foster innovation. Salesforce, for instance, attributes over 50% of its revenue to APIs, demonstrating the transformative power of this strategy. Similarly, Twilio has built a highly successful business around its communication APIs, which are now integral to countless applications.
- Salesforce: Over 50% of revenue from APIs
- Twilio: Communication APIs central to business model
Embracing an API-first approach not only enhances the flexibility and reach of a SaaS platform but also allows for the creation of an ecosystem where third-party developers can contribute and innovate.
Other notable examples include Stripe for payment processing and Shopify for e-commerce, both of which have seen significant growth by enabling third-party integrations through their APIs. These cases illustrate the potential of APIs to extend the capabilities of a platform and to create a community of developers around it.
Designing Your API for Extensibility and Scalability
Principles of RESTful API Design
Designing a RESTful API requires adherence to key principles that ensure the API is efficient, flexible, and user-friendly. Uniform Interface is one of the fundamental principles, which dictates that the API should provide a consistent way of accessing and manipulating resources. This includes using standard HTTP verbs and returning predictable resource representations.
- Statelessness: Each request from the client to the server must contain all the information needed to understand and complete the request. The server should not store any session state.
- Client-Server Separation: The client application and server application should act independently of each other, allowing both to evolve separately without any dependency.
- Layered System: The API should be structured in layers, with each layer having a specific function. This can improve scalability and security.
- Cacheable Responses: Whenever possible, responses should be defined as cacheable to improve client-side performance.
By focusing on these principles, developers can create APIs that are not only robust and performant but also stand the test of time in terms of maintainability and future growth.
Ensuring API Security and Compliance
In the API-centric business landscape, security and compliance are non-negotiable. As APIs expose business functionalities to external developers and applications, they become a potential vector for security breaches. To mitigate these risks, it’s essential to adopt a robust security framework that encompasses authentication, authorization, encryption, and regular security audits.
- Authentication: Verify the identity of users and services accessing the API.
- Authorization: Ensure users have permission to perform actions or access data.
- Encryption: Protect data in transit and at rest from eavesdropping or tampering.
- Security Audits: Conduct regular assessments to identify and rectify vulnerabilities.
By embedding security considerations into the API design and development process, organizations can create a secure and compliant ecosystem that fosters trust among users and partners.
Compliance with industry standards and regulations, such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS, is also critical. It not only protects users’ data but also shields the company from legal and financial repercussions. Establishing clear policies and procedures for data handling, privacy, and security will help in maintaining the highest standards of compliance.
Leveraging API Gateways for Management
API gateways serve as the critical linchpin in managing the traffic between clients and services, offering a centralized point of control for routing, authentication, and monitoring. They enable fine-grained access control and provide valuable analytics that inform business decisions.
- Centralized Authentication & Authorization
- Rate Limiting & Throttling
- API Version Management
- Analytics & Usage Reporting
By abstracting the complexity of microservices and backend systems, API gateways simplify the developer experience, making it easier to consume APIs. They also facilitate the implementation of changes and updates without disrupting the client applications.
The use of API gateways allows for the seamless scaling of API operations, accommodating an increasing number of API calls without compromising performance. This ensures that as your SaaS grows, your API remains reliable and efficient, fostering a positive developer experience and customer satisfaction.
Monetizing Your API
API Pricing Models
Choosing the right pricing model is crucial for the success of your API-centric SaaS. The goal is to strike a balance between value for your users and profitability for your business. Various models can be adopted, each with its own set of advantages.
- Pay-As-You-Go: Users are charged based on the amount of API calls or data consumed. This model is transparent and aligns costs with usage.
- Tiered Pricing: Offers different levels of access or features at set price points. It encourages users to upgrade as their needs grow.
- Freemium: Provides basic API functionalities for free, while premium features are locked behind a subscription. This can attract a larger user base and convert them over time.
- Subscription: Users pay a recurring fee for access to the API, which can ensure a steady revenue stream.
It’s essential to consider the competitive landscape and customer expectations when setting prices. Your pricing strategy should be flexible enough to adapt to market changes and user feedback.
Building an API Marketplace
An API marketplace serves as a centralized hub where API providers can offer their services and API consumers can discover and integrate these services into their own applications. Creating a successful API marketplace involves more than just listing your APIs; it requires a strategic approach to attract both providers and consumers.
- Define your niche: Focus on a specific industry or type of service to attract a targeted audience.
- Ensure API quality: Rigorously test APIs to maintain a high standard that will instill trust in your marketplace.
- Provide clear documentation: Offer comprehensive and user-friendly documentation to facilitate easy integration.
- Implement robust search and discovery: Make it simple for users to find the APIs they need with effective search functionality.
By fostering a community around your API marketplace, you encourage collaboration and innovation, which can lead to the development of new and exciting use cases for your APIs.
Remember, the key to monetizing your API through a marketplace is to understand the needs of your potential users and to provide them with valuable tools that solve their problems. This will not only drive traffic to your marketplace but also build a loyal user base that relies on your platform for their API needs.
Managing API Usage and Billing
Effective management of API usage and billing is crucial for maintaining a profitable API-centric business. Accurate tracking and transparent billing practices are essential to ensure customer trust and satisfaction. By implementing usage quotas and rate limits, businesses can provide scalable services while protecting their systems from overload.
- Usage Quotas: Set limits on how much a user can consume your API to prevent abuse and ensure fair access.
- Rate Limits: Implement restrictions on the number of API calls within a certain timeframe to maintain performance.
- Billing Cycles: Establish clear billing periods and communicate any changes promptly to users.
It’s important to provide users with real-time access to their usage data, enabling them to monitor their consumption and adjust their usage patterns accordingly.
Choosing the right tools and platforms for managing API usage and billing can streamline operations and reduce administrative overhead. Consider integrating with established billing systems or developing custom solutions tailored to your API’s specific needs.
Marketing Your API-Centric SaaS
Identifying Your Target Audience
Understanding who will benefit most from your API is crucial to the success of your API-centric SaaS. Identifying your target audience involves analyzing potential users based on their needs, technical capabilities, and the value they seek from your API. This process not only informs your marketing strategy but also guides the development of features and support systems.
- Developers and technical teams looking for integration capabilities
- Businesses seeking to enhance their services with your API’s functionality
- Entrepreneurs and innovators who require a reliable API for new products
By pinpointing your target audience, you can tailor your API’s features, documentation, and support to meet their specific requirements, ensuring a better user experience and higher adoption rates.
Once you have a clear picture of your audience, segment them into categories such as industry, company size, and use case. This segmentation allows for more personalized marketing efforts and can lead to more effective communication and higher conversion rates.
Creating Effective API Documentation
Effective API documentation is the cornerstone of a successful API-centric SaaS. It serves as a guide for developers to understand and integrate your API seamlessly into their projects. Good documentation can significantly reduce the learning curve and foster a positive developer experience.
- Start with a clear overview of what your API does.
- Include a quick start section to help developers make their first API call.
- Provide detailed explanations of each endpoint, including parameters, request and response formats.
- Use examples to illustrate common use cases.
- Ensure that the documentation is easily navigable with a logical structure.
Remember, your API documentation is not just a manual; it’s a marketing tool that can showcase the capabilities and ease of use of your API.
Consistently updating the documentation to reflect changes in the API is crucial. It’s also beneficial to provide interactive elements, such as API explorers or sandboxes, which allow developers to test endpoints directly within the docs. This hands-on approach can help developers understand the potential of your API more effectively.
Strategies for API Evangelism and Advocacy
In the realm of API-centric SaaS, evangelism and advocacy are pivotal for driving adoption and fostering a community. To effectively promote your API, consider the following strategies:
- Engage with developer communities: Participate in forums, contribute to open-source projects, and attend hackathons to showcase the capabilities of your API.
- Host workshops and webinars: Educate potential users about your API by providing hands-on experiences and live demonstrations.
- Create compelling use cases: Illustrate the power of your API through real-world scenarios that resonate with your target audience.
By consistently delivering value and maintaining open channels of communication, you can cultivate a loyal following that will champion your API to others.
Remember, the goal is to create a narrative around your API that emphasizes its ease of use, reliability, and the innovative solutions it enables. Tailor your message to address the specific needs and pain points of your audience, and always be ready to listen to their feedback and adapt your approach accordingly.
Navigating the Challenges of API Adoption
Overcoming Technical and Cultural Hurdles
The journey to an API-centric business model is often fraught with technical and cultural challenges. Adopting an API-first approach requires a shift in mindset from viewing APIs as mere tools to seeing them as core products. This paradigm shift can be difficult for organizations accustomed to traditional software development practices.
To facilitate this transition, consider the following steps:
- Educate and train your team on the importance and benefits of APIs.
- Foster a culture of collaboration between developers, product managers, and stakeholders.
- Implement agile methodologies that support iterative API development and feedback.
- Encourage internal use and dogfooding of your APIs to promote understanding and refinement.
It’s crucial to establish a clear vision and roadmap for API adoption that aligns with business goals. This ensures that technical advancements go hand-in-hand with creating value for the company and its customers.
Addressing the cultural aspect involves promoting an API-centric mindset across the organization. This can be achieved by highlighting successful use cases and actively involving various departments in API-related projects. By doing so, APIs become a shared asset that everyone is invested in, smoothing the path towards a successful API-first transformation.
Maintaining Backward Compatibility
Maintaining backward compatibility is crucial for ensuring that existing users of your API are not disrupted by new updates. It is a commitment to your user base that their integrations will continue to function as expected, even as your API evolves. To achieve this, consider the following strategies:
- Semantic versioning: Use a clear versioning strategy to communicate changes. Major versions indicate breaking changes, while minor and patch versions should not affect existing functionality.
- Deprecation policy: Clearly communicate the lifecycle of API versions and provide ample notice before deprecating old versions.
- Thorough testing: Implement automated tests to ensure new changes do not break existing functionality.
When introducing new features, it’s essential to add them in a way that does not obligate users to change their current implementations. This often involves providing new endpoints or parameters while keeping the old ones operational.
By adhering to these practices, you can foster trust with your users and encourage the adoption of new features without forcing them to undertake significant refactoring efforts.
Gathering and Incorporating User Feedback
In the API-first world, user feedback is the compass that guides the evolution of your API offerings. Actively seeking and meticulously analyzing feedback is crucial for continuous improvement and ensuring that your API meets the evolving needs of developers and end-users.
- Surveys and Questionnaires: Regularly distribute these to gather structured feedback.
- Community Forums: Monitor and engage with users in dedicated forums or on social media.
- Direct Communication: Encourage open channels for users to report issues or suggest enhancements.
- Analytics: Use API usage data to infer where users are encountering difficulties or require additional features.
By establishing a systematic approach to collecting and acting on user feedback, you can foster a community of loyal users who feel invested in the success of your API. This not only improves the API itself but also enhances user satisfaction and retention.
Remember, feedback is not just about identifying what’s wrong; it’s also about recognizing what’s right. Celebrate the successes and make sure to reinforce and build upon the features that users love. This balance between addressing pain points and amplifying strengths is key to a thriving API ecosystem.
The API-First Revolution is not just a trend; it’s a strategic shift that can significantly enhance the value proposition of SaaS businesses. By embracing an API-centric approach, companies can unlock new revenue streams, foster innovation, and create a more flexible, scalable product offering. The journey towards becoming an API-centric business involves careful planning, a deep understanding of customer needs, and a commitment to continuous improvement. As we’ve explored throughout this article, the benefits of this transformation are manifold, offering a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. For SaaS providers looking to stay ahead of the curve, the API-First Revolution presents an opportunity to redefine their business models and pave the way for a future where integration, collaboration, and adaptability are key to success.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an API-First strategy and how does it differ from traditional software development?
An API-First strategy prioritizes the design and development of APIs at the outset of a project, rather than as an afterthought. This approach ensures that APIs are treated as first-class citizens, leading to more robust, scalable, and flexible integrations. Traditional software development often focuses on building the application’s user interface and internal features before considering API development.
What are the key benefits of adopting an API-centric architecture for SaaS businesses?
An API-centric architecture offers numerous benefits, including the ability to easily integrate with other systems, foster innovation through third-party developers, scale more efficiently, and potentially open up additional revenue streams. It also allows for greater agility in responding to market changes and customer needs.
Can you provide examples of companies that have successfully transformed into API-centric businesses?
Companies like Twilio, Stripe, and Shopify are prime examples of successful API-centric transformations. They have built their platforms with APIs at the core, allowing them to easily expand their offerings and integrate with a wide range of third-party services.
What are some best practices for designing RESTful APIs for extensibility and scalability?
Best practices for RESTful API design include using HTTP methods appropriately, leveraging status codes, providing meaningful error messages, implementing versioning, and ensuring the API is stateless. Consistent naming conventions and a focus on resource-oriented design also contribute to API extensibility and scalability.
How can SaaS companies effectively monetize their APIs?
SaaS companies can monetize their APIs through various pricing models, such as pay-per-use, subscription-based access, freemium models with premium features, or even revenue sharing with developers who build on their platform. It’s important to align the pricing model with the value provided and the target market’s expectations.
What are some strategies for marketing an API-centric SaaS product?
Marketing an API-centric SaaS product involves identifying the target audience, creating comprehensive and user-friendly documentation, engaging in API evangelism to build a developer community, and leveraging success stories and case studies. It’s also crucial to provide robust support and actively seek feedback from users.
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http://westeureka.weebly.com/blog/freshwater-tissue-co-deadlines-a-complete-list
| 2019-04-23T18:46:37 |
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October 13, 2010 The date they can start discharging into the Ocean.
February 19, 2011 Submit a revised best management plan (BMPP) to identify measures that the Discharger will take to minimize discharges of BODs and TSS.
December 16, 2010 Provide financial assurances for funding design and construction of the wastewater treatment plant.
December 16, 2010 Submit preliminary project proposal, including a description of the treatment technology selection process.
January 10, 2011 Submit complete application to the County of Humboldt to secure permits for the wastewater treatment plant.
January 10, 2011 Submit complete application to the North Coast Unified Air District for an Authority to Construct Permit for the wastewater treatment plant.
March 16, 2011 Award engineering and design contract for the wastewater treatment plant.
September 12, 2011 Complete 60% level specifications and design drawings.
February 7, 2012 Submit final specifications and design drawings to the Regional Water Board.
April 6, 2012 Issue bid packages for construction contract.
June 6, 2012 Award construction contract.
July 5, 2012 Commence construction of the treatment plant.
October 29, 2013 Complete construction of the treatment plant
January 23, 2014 Full operation of the treatment plant in compliance with permit limits and performance tests.
February 27, 2014 Submit final drawings and results of performance tests.
January 31, 2011 Review monitoring data and conduct initial technology evaluation for dewatering of water treatment plant solids.
March 14, 2012 Characterize the settling properties of the treatment plant solids for final evaluation of dewatering technologies.
June 12, 2012 Conduct onsite pilot testing.
August 9, 2012 Submit workplan of implementing compliance solution.
November 8, 2012 Submit complete applications for permits necessary to implement compliance solution.
March 7, 2013 Complete and submit engineering design specifications for compliance solution.
May 8, 2013 Award contract for the installation and construction of the compliance solution.
September 5, 2013 Complete construction of the compliance solution.
October 10, 2013 Achieve full operation of the compliance solution and compliance with NPDES permit effluent limits following start-up and initial performance tests.
Interim Limitations for TSS in effect until October 10, 2013.
Until October 10, 2013 they shall maintain compliance with effluent limitations for suspended solids...
The complete cease and desist order is available on the North Coast Regional Water Quality Board website.
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https://thetravelingfreelancers.com/2019/11/03/10-fundamental-pieces-you-need-to-include-in-your-freelancer-website/
| 2021-01-18T07:38:49 |
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Every Beginner Freelancer Website Should Include These 10 Basic Fundamental Building Blocks
You’ve made the decision to start your own website because you know in the long run, your business will be more profitable.
Designing your website and creating your blog is a very exciting and fun step in your business plan.
At least it should be! Building a website can be challenging if your not quite sure what to do or where to start.
No fear! Follow this link to read 4 easy steps you can take today to get your blog up and running in no time.
A little recap of how to set up your first website:
Create a domain name
Register your name with a hosting site
Design a website
We are going to talk about step number 3 – designing your website. Specifically, about 10 essential fundamental building blocks your freelancer website needs.
Ready to start creating? Lets Go!
Website Building Block #1: Your Logo
Your freelance business needs a logo because it is a visual representation of your brand. Often a logo is the first impression your clients have, so its important your logo is memorable.
Your logo should be:
There are a few ways you can design your logo:
1.Design Your Logo By Hand
Make a brief sketch of your logo, then use an online platform like Canva to bring your image to life. Canva is great because its free, online, and customizable. To help your creative process you can use Canva’s templates and upload your own images, fonts, and graphics.
To use Canva first go to Canva.com and search for logo.
Second, pick out a template to structure your logo design.
Customize your template with the endless elements Canva offers. From images, photos, charts, illustrations, and fonts Canva has it all.
To download your template, click the download button on the right. Select the file type you would like and Canva will download your first design for free. They offer a 30-day free trial for new users!
After going through a series of questions, Tailor Brands will generate a logo for you. The logo is customizable. Just click the “customize” button and you will be able to edit the image, color, font, and size.
When you are happy with your logo, you will need to purchase. We recommend just a basic plan which comes with the PNG of your logo. However, one benefit of the premium plan is the business card generator!
3. Hire A Freelance Graphic Designer
You can list your job on Upwork or Freelancer and let various graphic designers pitch their services. In addition, you can search for a freelancer on Fiverr. Personally, I hired a freelancer on Upwork and loved the results. There are a few things to remember when hiring a freelancer.
Check Their Portfolio: Peruse their past work to have an idea of the extent of their skills and knowledge.
Check Their Testimonials: See what previous clients say regarding communication, timeliness, and attention to detail. The last thing you want is a freelancer to ghost you in the middle of your project or design your logo incorrectly.
Check Out Their Website: I recommend only hiring freelancers with a personal website because it provides a greater understanding of their personality.
Read Their Pitch Carefully: Look for spelling and grammar mistakes that could indicate a lack of detail. Make sure the tone is professional and they use the lingo of their trade.
Set Clear Deadlines and Expectations: Make sure both of you understand the project’s length, cost’s, and final result.
Where you place your logo on your website is largely up to you. We recommend you put your logo on your landing page, portfolio, hire me pages, and professional email. More details on these pages soon. Keep reading!
Website Building Block #2: Your Blog
Your freelancer website should absolutely have a blog. If you are not convinced why you should have one I have a more in depth article explaining why your freelancer business needs one.
Your blog will be the key stone of your content marketing strategy. The content you create helps establish your brand, build a loyal following, and ultimately sell services or products.
Website Building Block #3: Your About Me Page
Disclaimer alert: your about me page is not really about you!
Though your about me page should have a professional photo of you, it should not have a long story about how you became a freelancer, your life struggles, or your dreams, etc. Bluntly, clients really don’t care about your life’s details. What they do care about are the services you will provide them.
Your about me page is really your “Elevator Pitch Page.”
An elevator pitch is a brief sales pitch that succinctly sums up why someone should hire you. Here are my steps to creating a stellar elevator pitch:
Address the consumer’s problem upfront
Offer a solution to the consumer’s problem
Briefly describe your solution
Close with a call to action
Here is the very first elevator pitch on my writers website:
Creating content for your blog is time consuming hard work and you’re not getting anywhere fast.
I have a solution – let me help you!
Hi, I’m Demeris, a professional freelance writer, photo editor, and web designer with over three years of experience. I create content for your websites, businesses, and social media accounts.
My content is creative, professional, and most importantly, it converts by increasing traffic and engagement. Ultimately, my content generates more leads, sales, and money for you.
Email me today to receive a quote on your next project.
BOOM. The sales pitch address my audience’s pain points – its hard work to create content when you have little to no time. Then I offer a solution – I can help because I offer content creation services. I express my skills and value – my content will make you a profit. Finally I ask my consumer, to take action – email me.
Here is a screen shot of our current about me page, broken down visually for you.
PRO TIP: Place your call to action in a button or link, that will link your about me page to your connect page so your clients have a clear way to contact you.
In sum, your about me page should have three things:
A Professional Photo of You
Your Elevator Pitch
A Call to Action Button or Link
Next, you will use the elevator pitch template to design your “Hire Me” page.
Website Building Block #4: Your Hire Me Page
Your hire me page is really just a “Resume Page.”
Like your about me page, your hire me page should be formatted like an elevator pitch, with additional details about your skills and experiences.
The structure of your hire me page should go like this:
Confront consumer problem
Offer a solution
Your brief intro
Descriptions of your services
List of relevant skills & knowledge
Describe how your skills will be valuable
List of experiences, projects, and awards
Proof of your work
A call to action
Here is an example of our current hire me page visually broken down for you. The order of the images correspond with the order of the placement on our website.
Your hire me page is the page that clients will read the most. We recommend putting extra work into this page and editing it via these guidelines:
User Experience: Make sure the page looks clean. All your headers and fonts match, your photos are high resolution, and all the links work properly.
Spelling and Grammar: Make sure there aren’t typos or grammar mistakes. Typos look unprofessional and easily indicate to a client your lack of detail.
Your as Detailed as Possible: Statistics are very persuasive. Inject them wherever you can. You boosted a clients social media following? By how much?
Once you create a hire me page, you need a page of proof to back up your claims. Hence, your portfolio and testimonial pages!
Website Building Block #5: Your Portfolio & Testimonials Page
Your portfolio and testimonial pages are the proof of your skills. Clients will look at the quality of your portfolio and decide if your skills and expertise are relevant to their project.
Your portfolio should include the following:
Your name and logo at the top of the page
Images and written descriptions of your skills
Names of previous employers and clients
A list of relevant skills
Education and Certificates
Call To Action Button
You can display your portfolio however you like but we recommend making all your projects easy to skim through. A grid or stacked layout works great for a portfolio. Check out a snippet our portfolio for an example:
One of the strengths of having your own website is your portfolio. All of your work is organized into one easy place clients can reference when you apply for jobs or pitch your services. Say a client reads your portfolio, likes your work, and believes you would be a good fit for his job, what does he do next?
He tries to contact you, so you definitely need a connect or contact me page for clients to reach out to you.
Website Building Block #6: Your Connect Page
You readers and clients need a way to contact you if they want to leave feedback, write a testimonial, or hire you.
To do this you must create an email form and link it to you freelancer email. I will briefly show you how to do this in Squarespace and WordPress.
For WordPress we believe Caolan O’Connor’s Mailchimp Sign Up Form For WordPress video is perfect for beginners. Watch this video to learn how to set up mail chip email services and connect it you WordPress account:
Once you have your connect form set up, readers and clients will be able to communicate with you through your email. Make sure to check your freelancer email daily and respond to questions within 24 hours. Good communication is key to building rapport with your followers and clients.
Website Building Block #7: Your Landing Page
A landing page is the first page, readers “land on” when they visit your site. In marketing terms a landing page is a “lead generator page” and its sole purpose is to turn traffic into followers and leads. A landing page is a must have to start building your audience and landing more clients faster.
How do landing pages convert traffic?
Well designed landing pages convert because they are a visually stunning first impression of your business. Landing pages with images and videos elicit an emotional response in readers, which influences them to take action. Testimonials and logos of brands offer immediate proof that a company is established or a professional is experienced. Furthermore, landing pages are specifically designed with one target audience in mind. Headlines, images, and call to actions are geared to help a specific consumer take action.
How do you design a landing page?
A landing page has these key elements:
Your Service or Product
Call to action
Sign Up Form
Read further and follow these steps to create your first simple but effective landing page.
1. Write A Catchy Headline
A short one sentence tagline about your services or products.
2. Briefly Describe Your Attributes
Similar to an elevator pitch your attributes should touch on pain points, features, and benefits of your services and products.
3. Include A Picture Of Your Service Or Product
If you are offering your service we recommend including a picture of you performing your service. If its your product then a picture of your course, ebook, etc. You images should be high resolutions, clean, and precise. Nothing looks worse than pixilated images!
4. Create A Call To Action Button With Incentive
Make it easy for readers to convert to potential customers or leads by including a “sign up” form on your page. Remember it is all about the customers, so you need to include an incentive. Incentives could be a free course or book, discounts to your products, or a free quote.
Your call to action is the highlight of your landing page. Make it front and center of the stage and remove any distracting buttons or images from around it. Make it pop with catchy colors and designs.
5. Add A Navigation Bar
You want to direct consumers to the rest of your website. You can do this by including your navigation bar. However, you do not want your nav bar to distract from your call to action. Minimize your bar or put it at the bottom of the page.
6. Make It Simple
There is no need to go crazy with designs on your landing page. You want your page to be as transparent as possible for customers. Make sure your sign up form is obvious, your photos are high resolution, and all your buttons work.
We really like Neil Patel’s landing page template and its a perfect guideline for beginners:
If you are struggling to design your landing page you can also use templates and optimizers to make sure your landing page is maximizing conversions. Unbounce, Landingi, and Leadpages are all great online tools and resources to help you build a killer page.
Website Building Block #8: Your Newsletter Sign-Up Form
You may think that emailing is dead, but in fact email marketing is the corner stone to many successful business’s marketing plans. Approximately 3 billion people world wide use email to communicate, thats about half of the worlds population! Most of your readers are using email, so you should be using email to communicate with them.
Email marketing works because it is:
Personal to your reader
Directs your audience to new content
Subtly markets your new content
Encourages readers to buy
An email newsletter is a versatile tool which keeps you connected to you readers. In addition, you readers continue to receive value in the form of fresh content not found on your blog. Your email list is your golden egg because they are people who have “opted-in” to receive your content. Readers that “opt-in” are much more likely to become loyal followers, buy products, and share your content because they see your value and choose to consume your content.
Not quite sure how to set up an email newsletter campaign with Mailchimp? No worries we got you covered!
1. Set up your newsletter campaign with MailChimp. Check out this video from Wiyre:
For Squarespace, you must add Mailchimp into the form itself, no plugins required. Watch this video for Squarespace:
Once you create your newsletter and understand how to add an email form to your site, then you want to add the newsletter form to your site!
Place your newsletter form at your footer of all your blog posts and the side bar of your website! You want readers to obviously see your newsletter form when they are browsing your site so they can easily sign up to receive your email content.
Website Building Block #9: Your Social Media Links
Social media makes distributing content easier than ever before. In minutes you can upload your content and platforms will automatically share it to potentially thousands of viewers at no work or cost to you.
Similar to email marketing, social media allows you to connect with customers. An established social media presence gives you authority. Today savvy customers take time to look up brands on social media like Facebook and Instagram. When your social media pages are empty, you will immediately look illegitimate and readers will bounce from your page.
Start building an online presence today with Facebook and Linkedin. Once you have your accounts, link your social media pages to you website to encourage readers to follow you on other channels as well. Put you social media links and logos in your footer, side bar, and contact pages.
Website Building Block #10: Your Design
Keep your first website design simple. You mantra is, “less is more.” Not only do you save yourself a lot of time and confusion, you make it easier for your readers to browse your site. User experience (UX) is all about how a page looks, feels, and functions. Lets break these down further:
Looks: People are visual consumers. A simple but eye catching design encourages users to dig deeper.
Feels: Your page should be a pleasurable experience to use. Easy and intuitive designs elicit positive reactions.
Functions: All of your buttons, links, and animations need to work to establish credibility and trust.
To start, keep your designs and color palates simple. White space is your friend when writing blog posts. All your images should be high resolution and clear. Make sure that all your buttons, links, and forms work properly.
As you grow, you can slowly reformat your website with more animations and pages, but initially resist the urge to bite off more than you can chew.
Owning your own website and creating your own blog is empowering! The creative process of designing and customizing your blog is exciting and very rewarding.
We leave you with this final idea – ultimately your website is a business tool. Keep your audience in mind while putting your website together. Include elements that in the long run bring in more clients for you such as a logo, landing page, hire me page, connect, about me, newsletter sign up, and social media links.
Lastly, don’t get too caught up in the fine details. A simple but functional site is more powerful than a complicated and non-functional site. Get your website up and running and start pumping out content to fill your pages!
Do you need any help creating one of these essential elements for your freelance website? Let us know we would be happy to help.
|
design
|
http://www.romanticbedroomsdesigns.blogspot.in/
| 2013-12-13T02:51:16 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386164834476/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204134714-00053-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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CC-MAIN-2013-48
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2013-48__0__33315832
|
en
|
Monday, 5 March 2012
A bedroom is a place where we go to unwind and relax away from all the demands that modern life puts upon us. Therefore when looking at a bedroom interior design should take time to careful plan just what you want in order to achieve a tranquil and peaceful haven away from modern living. Remember a bedroom is the most personal room to you in your home as it is a room where you can relax and dream.
Beds, when not in use, can be disguised in a variety of ways:
Convertible chair- and sofa-beds are sold in their thousands and are extremely popular, but be aware that some seating comfort may be compromised by the bed mechanism.
The fold-away type which emerges, ready-made, from a wall cupboard is easy to erect and is unobtrusive when not in use.
A fold-up camp bed is cheap and useful for visiting children, but may not offer sufficient comfort for an adult. There is also the problem of housing the bed when it is not in use.
A day bed is for many the most satisfactory solution. When dressed with bolsters during the day, it provides useful seating and can be handsomely draped for decorative impact. Bedding may be contained within drawers beneath the divan or in a separate blanket box or chest.
If your need is to provide for two guests, one of the best solutions is a bed with collapsible legs which slips beneath a second bed when not required.
Lighting in this dual-purpose room needs to be carefully thought through if it is to serve both uses adequately. Incorporating free-standing lights such as table lamps and standard lamps will allow you to make swift minor adjustments to your arrangement. Always ensure that there is some form of lighting which can be switched from the bedside.
A wash basin in a guest room is a boon, giving independence to the guest and relieving pressure on a family bathroom। A nearby radiator could have a temporary rack attached for holding towels and a folding screen might be employed to hide the basin when it's not in use.
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design
|
http://www.katieedgettdesign.com/
| 2013-05-24T11:29:24 |
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| 0.955464 | 196 |
CC-MAIN-2013-20
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|
A fine artist. A problem solver. Put the two together, and you get a graphic designer. It isn't just about making things look pretty or following the lastest trend. Being a graphic designer means, first and foremost, solving a problem through visual communication. Designers should be thought of as mentors and consultants to clients to help them get their message out to a particular audience. The client knows the story best. A graphic designer's job is to listen, and help them tell it.
Design begins at the concept, development, and thinking process of a project. Working together, an idea formulates. Inspiration can come from anywhere, from a humble gum wrapper to a mighty billboard. Design is a part of our daily lives. And everyone is a part of the process to design the world around us.
I'd love to help you tell your story. Take a look at my portfolio of work and if you like what you see, please contact me.
|
design
|
http://wirelesstvheadphones.ovh/focal-utopia-audiophile-headphones-review/
| 2019-10-17T21:43:13 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986676227.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20191017200101-20191017223601-00161.warc.gz
| 0.923005 | 1,534 |
CC-MAIN-2019-43
|
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|
en
|
I get despatched rather a lot of headphones. A lot so, that it’s uncommon that I get actually excited a couple of new pair of headphones. That, nevertheless, occurred after I received a bundle from Focal — a bundle that I knew included the Focal Utopia headphones.
The Focal Utopia headphones are imagined to be one of the best of what Focal can provide in a pair of headphones — and it’s an bold endeavor. Focal is understood for its high-end gear, however it clearly has to significantly impress to warrant the value tag of an eye-watering $4,000.
In fact, given the premium supplies and high-tech design, they might be definitely worth the cash — and we’ve had the enjoyment of placing them to the check over the previous few weeks to search out out for ourselves.
Focal has been constructing high-end audio merchandise for many years now, and it reveals. Externally, the headphones are constructed with lovely metallic silver accents, gentle but robust leather-based, and a premium look all through. Focal even makes use of carbon fiber for a super-strong body — and whereas we might by no means advocate utilizing these as headphones you are taking out and about, a robust construct helps be certain that the headphones final for years of day-to-day use and the unintentional drop every so often. Be aware: we didn’t drop-test the Focal Utopia headphones, and we advocate being extremely cautious if you find yourself getting your palms on them.
Whereas some like a number of coloration, I respect what a glossy black construct can provide. Whereas the headphones do have a number of silver accents within the type of the Focal brand on the ear cup and a silver speaker grill, aside from that, these headphones are black-on-black — and it’s lovely.
All the things else concerning the headphones screams premium too. The cables are thick and professional-grade, and it terminates in a Neutrik 1/4-inch plug. There’s loads of gentle padding within the ear cups and underneath the headscarf, and that padding is roofed with lambskin leather-based.
The design of those headphones extends underneath the hood. The large-ticket function right here is the beryllium drivers, that are mounted barely off-center and deep into the ear cups, in an try to supply a wider soundstage. We’ll get into how they fare a bit of later within the overview, however even with the driving force design the ear cups aren’t overly thick. They’re massive, to make sure, however not unnecessarily so.
Finally, once you’re spending such an enormous sum of cash on a pair of headphones, you need them to sound superb — however an amazing design helps too. The Focal Utopia headphones look costly — and so they’re constructed with clearly premium supplies too.
The gentle padding, lambskin leather-based, and delightful construct efficiently makes for a snug listening expertise — which is nice information contemplating the truth that as soon as you set these headphones on, you gained’t need to take them off. All of the tech underneath the hood does make for a heavy pair of headphones, and these are available in at 490 grams, or a bit of over 17 ounces, and that may be felt — however not as a lot as you’d count on.
Regardless of the heavy weight, we had been capable of hearken to music on these headphones for hours on finish, so don’t let the burden put you off an excessive amount of. Coupled with the soft-feeling leather-based and good quantity of padding, and you’ve got a reasonably comfy match certainly.
On to the primary occasion — the sound high quality. Let’s get the apparent out of the best way: the Focal Utopia headphones sound unbelievable. Coupled with a Feliks Audio Espressivo amplifier and at occasions an Audio Technica vinyl participant, the headphones ship an ultra-wide soundstage, superbly pure frequency response, and a ton of element. Audiophiles, take notice — in the event you’re on the lookout for arguably the best-sounding pair of headphones you’ll find, the Focal Utopia headphones might be it.
Normally once we overview shopper headphones we take a look at bass, midrange, and high-end individually, however there’s virtually no level in doing that right here — these headphones do all of it properly. It’s nonetheless value a shot although — the bass response is punchy and fast. Some headphones react a bit of slower to the low finish, however these headphones don’t actually fall into that lure — which is an efficient factor. Bass response can be very pure. It’s not excessive, as shopper headphones would possibly are likely to get, however it’s nonetheless clear-sounding and detailed.
The phrase “detailed” could develop into a theme right here. The midrange boasts loads of readability, with a natural-sounding heat to the low-mids and a sure air to the high-mids that’s uncommon to search out within the headphone world.
The high-end completes the image. Transient response on the Focal Utopia headphones is unbelievable, whereas the imaging is extraordinarily exact. The headphones have the uncanny means to ship dynamics with ease — quiet, sloppy, laid-back jazz piano sounds simply nearly as good on these headphones as a rock observe that’s been lower to hell and again in recording.
The open-back design helps make for a extra pure really feel too. These headphones are constructed to be loved at house, with out a lot exterior noise, so don’t count on to have the ability to take these out in public.
Ultimately, the Focal Utopia headphones sound effortlessly unbelievable. Frequency response is tuned to close perfection, whereas the soundstage is big and the element is nearly unmatched.
So the Focal Utopia headphones are arguably an ideal pair — however there’s one different breathtaking factor about these headphones, and that’s the value. Are the value it? Effectively, for many, no — however these headphones aren’t constructed for many. For the suitable individual, the Focal Utopia headphones are completely value shopping for. In the event you’re an audiophile wanting arguably the best-sounding headphones on the planet, and are prepared to spend money on a good headphone amp and high-quality audio, then we advocate the Focal Utopia headphones with out hesitation.
There’s no surprises right here — the Focal Utopia headphones are one of many few pairs of headphones to get the Headphone Evaluate Gold Medal. These are additionally the primary pair of headphones to get an ideal rating in sound — and that’s not one thing we do frivolously.
|Frequency response||5Hz – 50kHz||Energetic noise cancellation
|Driver dimension||40mm||Noise attenuation||Unknown|
|Sensitivity||104dB||Earpad materials||Reminiscence Foam|
|Complete harmonic distortion
|Rated enter energy
|Most enter energy
||No||Cable size||3m (9.8ft)|
|
design
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https://thewildmedia.com/stranger-things-svg/
| 2023-06-02T08:12:16 |
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| 0.865884 | 1,884 |
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|
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|
Top 5 Free Stranger Things SVG Bundle Download – 2023. If you’re a fan of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, you’re probably already familiar with the iconic imagery associated with the show – from the alphabet wall to the glowing lights of the Upside Down.
But did you know that you can incorporate these elements into your own crafting projects with Stranger Things SVGs?
What are Stranger Things SVGs?
For the uninitiated, SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. Essentially, an SVG file is an image that is made up of mathematical equations, rather than pixels like a JPEG or PNG. This means that SVGs can be resized infinitely without losing resolution or becoming pixelated.
In the context of Stranger Things, SVGs are digital files that feature elements from the show, such as characters, logos, and quotes. These files can be used to create custom merchandise, such as t-shirts, mugs, and phone cases, as well as for home decor projects like wall art and pillows.
Why Use Stranger Things SVGs?
There are several reasons why Stranger Things SVGs have become so popular among crafting enthusiasts:
- Personalization: By using Stranger Things SVGs, you can create truly unique and personalized items that reflect your love for the show.
- Cost-effective: Compared to buying officially licensed merchandise, creating your own using SVGs can be a more affordable option.
- Versatility: SVGs can be used for a variety of crafting projects, from vinyl decals to embroidery designs.
- Nostalgia: For fans of the show, incorporating Stranger Things elements into their crafting projects can be a fun way to revisit their favorite moments from the series.
Where to Find Stranger Things SVGs?
There are many websites that offer Stranger Things SVGs for download, both free and paid. Here are a couple of websites I personally use:
Pro Tip: When searching for SVGs, be sure to use specific keywords related to Stranger Things, such as “Eleven SVG” or “Demogorgon SVG,” to narrow down your results.
Where to get Stranger Things SVG Bundle for Free
There are tons of websites offering Stranger Things SVG bundles for Free. Some are with limitations or with special terms and conditions of use whereas others are completely Free to use without any limitation. As I said above, make sure to check the licensing terms while downloading any such file from a website offering such SVGs for Free.
Here is the list of Free SVG websites I visit frequently:
How to Use Stranger Things SVGs for Crafting?
Once you’ve downloaded your desired Stranger Things SVG, you can use it in a variety of crafting projects. Here are some ideas to Stranger Things SVGs for Clothing and Accessories:
- Create custom t-shirts with your favorite characters or quotes.
- Personalize your backpack or tote bag with a Stranger Things logo or icon.
- Design your own enamel pins or patches featuring elements from the show.
Stranger Things SVGs for Home Decor
- Use an SVG to create a wall decal of the alphabet wall.
- Make a pillow featuring your favorite character or quote.
- Create a custom doormat with a Stranger Things design.
Stranger Things SVGs for Business and Marketing
- Incorporate Stranger Things elements into your company’s branding for a fun and unique twist.
- Use an SVG to create promotional items to give away at events, such as stickers or buttons.
- Create custom packaging for your products featuring Stranger Things designs.
Stranger Things SVG Bundles for Extra Savings
- Many websites offer bundles of multiple Stranger Things SVGs at a discounted price, allowing you to get more designs for less.
- Look for bundles that feature a variety of characters and elements to maximize your options.
Free Stranger Things SVGs You Can Download Today:
- Some websites offer free Stranger Things SVGs for download, such as SVG & Me and Love SVG.
- Be sure to check the license terms of any free SVGs you download to ensure they can be used for commercial purposes. SVGHouse, SVG4K, SVGCrush are among Free SVG download sites where you can download Stranger Things SVGs for free.
How to Customize Your Own Stranger Things SVGs
- Use design software such as Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape to modify existing SVGs or create your own from scratch.
- Experiment with different colors, fonts, and layouts to create a truly unique design.
Creating Stranger Things-Inspired Merchandise for Sale
- If you’re interested in selling your Stranger Things-inspired creations, be sure to research copyright laws and obtain any necessary licenses.
- Consider selling your items on platforms such as Etsy or Redbubble.
Stranger Things SVGs for Parties and Events:
- Use an SVG to create custom invitations for a Stranger Things-themed party.
- Make decorations such as banners and centerpieces featuring Stranger Things elements.
- Create party favors such as keychains or magnets using Stranger Things SVGs.
Top Stranger Things Characters I use to Feature on my SVG files:
Stranger Things SVG Color Schemes and Fonts:
- The show’s color palette features shades of red, yellow, and black, as well as neon accents.
- Fonts used in the show’s logo include Benguiat and ITC Benguiat.
- Consider using similar fonts and colors in your own designs for a cohesive look.
Tips and Tricks for Using Stranger Things SVGs:
- Be sure to size your SVG appropriately for your project before cutting or printing.
- Test your design on scrap material before committing to the final product.
- Consider layering multiple SVGs for a more complex design.
Final Words: My Opinion
Stranger Things SVGs are a fun and versatile way to incorporate elements from the hit Netflix series into your crafting projects. With a wide range of designs and applications, there’s no limit to what you can create. Whether you’re a fan of Eleven, the Demogorgon, or the Upside Down itself, there’s a Stranger Things SVG out there for you. Happy crafting!
Can I use Stranger Things SVGs for commercial purposes?
It depends on the license terms of the specific SVG. Some may allow for commercial use, while others may not. Be sure to read the license terms carefully before using an SVG for commercial purposes.
How do I resize an SVG?
SVGs can be resized using design software such as Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape. Simply select the object and adjust its dimensions as desired.
What file formats do Stranger Things SVGs come in?
Stranger Things SVGs typically come in SVG file format, but may also be available in other formats such as PNG or JPEG.
Can I sell merchandise featuring Stranger Things SVGs?
If you plan to sell merchandise featuring Stranger Things SVGs, it’s important to research copyright laws and obtain any necessary licenses. Some SVGs may be licensed for commercial use, while others may not be.
Where can I download free Stranger Things SVGs?
There are many websites that offer free Stranger Things SVGs for download, such as SVG & Me and Love SVG. Be sure to check the license terms of any free SVGs you download to ensure they can be used for commercial purposes.
How can I use Stranger Things SVGs in my business or marketing?
Incorporating Stranger Things elements into your company’s branding can be a fun and unique way to stand out. Use Stranger Things SVGs to create promotional items such as stickers, buttons, or packaging for your products.
Can I modify existing Stranger Things SVGs?
Yes, you can modify existing Stranger Things SVGs using design software such as Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape. This allows you to customize the design to your liking and create a truly unique product.
What are some popular Stranger Things color schemes and fonts?
The show’s color palette features shades of red, yellow, and black, as well as neon accents. Fonts used in the show’s logo include Benguiat and ITC Benguiat. Consider using similar fonts and colors in your own designs for a cohesive look.
What are some popular Stranger Things characters to feature on SVGs?
Some of the most popular Stranger Things characters to feature on SVGs include Eleven, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, Hopper, Joyce, Steve, Max, and Robin.
Where can I sell my Stranger Things-inspired merchandise?
If you’re interested in selling your Stranger Things-inspired creations, consider selling them on platforms such as Etsy or Redbubble. Be sure to research copyright laws and obtain any necessary licenses before selling your products.
Read More: Top 10 Must-Watch Netflix shows
Visit our contact page for any further help.
|
design
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http://www.clnonline.com/archives/designingarchives/2003/designing0308-2.html
| 2022-01-16T19:52:29 |
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|
The industry as seen by top designers.
FINDING THE BEST DESIGNER FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Some practical suggestions.
by Lynda Musante and Tracia Williams (August, 2003)
One question we heard over and over at the July ACCI show was,
"I've met so many designers here, how do I know which one will
be right for my business?"
There are a few things you can count on. To be successful in this
marketplace for the long-term, you need experienced designers who
have been in this industry for several years and have a knowledge of
product successes and failures. Also, they have worked hard to
create a network of relationships they can call on, such as editors
and publishers, while working to build your business. Experienced
designers insure that your needs are met on time, complete with
projects ready for photography with impeccable instructions.
However, as with so many questions, there's no simple or single
answer. Like other consultants, craft designers vary in specialties
and expertise. Before you search for the right designer, you must
decide what your needs are. That way you'll increase the likelihood
of a successful, long-term business relationship.
We'll say it again: Every designer is different. There is no single
standard of measurement for craft design. Some designers only design
with products that are ready for market, while others will work
closely with your staff to develop a product or product line from
concept to launch. There are designers who only work within a
specific technique category such as scrapbooking, while others have
a wide range of skills and work in many different product
categories. Some simply create projects as needed, and others assist
in marketing and/or sales support.
The larger the opportunity you have, the more you will need to
prepare in order to narrow the field of candidates. Here are some
suggestions for starting the process:
Planning: Outline the tasks you wish the designer to execute.
You should have an idea of the time frame required, as well as the
budget you can apply to the efforts. It'll be most time efficient
for both parties for you to present this information to your
candidate prior to any meeting. Then the designer has sufficient
time to assess your project needs and gather examples of past work
for your review. Also, request background information and samples of
Background: Ask the designer about her specialties and
experiences working on a project similar to yours. An experienced
designer will have a portfolio of published work, a brochure with
capabilities outlined, business cards, and business references.
Skill/Knowledge Levels: If you are concerned about the
designer's skill level or experience, ask for preliminary sketches
or low resolution jpegs of a project in progress. Also, ask for
samples of project instructions.
Relationship: Know the type of relationship you want. Will
the designer become an employee? Remain a freelancer to potentially
work with other vendors? Be under contract and not work with other
vendors? Do you want/need exclusivity?
Finances: Know what you're willing to pay and how you wish to
be billed. Openly discuss payment. There are many options, and the
designer may want to know how she would be paid -- hourly, per
project, royalty, or a monthly retainer fee. In most instances, the
least expensive designer is not the best candidate. Experienced
designers may cost more, but they will have a history in the
industry and will be able to apply that knowledge to your business.
Additional Expenses: Who will cover the cost of additional
supplies and shipping expenses? How would you prefer these expenses
be submitted? Will they need to be approved in advance?
Once you believe you've found the right candidate, consider these
Project Needs: Be clear about your goals for the project. Be
precise about WHICH products you want to feature and HOW you want
them featured. For example, if you have a definitive marketing plan
for a product and do not want the product showcased any other way,
you must let the designer know.
Some designers specialize in taking a new product and using it a
completely different way; this may or may not be what you are
looking for. For example, "I do not want our new glass paint
used on any surface other than glass, as we do not want our consumer
On the other hand, experimentation might be exactly what you DO
want: "I want you to take this glass paint that we have
manufactured for several years and see if you can come up with new
uses for it; I am specifically interested to see if it could fit
into paper crafting."
Once they are developed, how will you use the designs? Designs for
different uses require forethought and planning. A knowledgeable
designer will know how best to create a project to suit the specific
business needs, such as:
1. Story boards for use in sales calls. These designs should
showcase the product's versatility and how the product will
integrate with the other products in the buyer's category.
2. Project sheets. Will the design combine an existing
product in your line with a new product release? Or highlight a line
3. Packaging models: Designs need to be eye-catching,
colorful, beginner-level projects showcasing the products
Format: Be sure to provide the designer with the correct
templates, word counts, or guidelines required for any instructional
materials they will create for your business.
Deadlines: Set deadlines for projects; this ensures that
projects will not get pushed aside and stagnate.
As in most business scenarios, clear and constant communication can
mean the success in a design relationship, resulting in a win for
the business and a win for the designer. Great design will inspire
consumers to try your product vs. another.
A Final Note.
The Society of Craft Designers is the only association for
craft designers. Each year SCD sponsors an educational seminar. The
2003 event takes place in St. Louis October 8 - 11. This is a venue
for manufacturers, publishers, editors and designers to network and
conduct business. Visit www.craftdesigners.org/events.htm
for more information.
Note: Any comments or questions? Any suggestions for topics
for future columns? Email Lynda Musante, Nifty Development
Corporation and [email protected]
and Tracia Williams, Tracia & Company, at [email protected].
To read earlier columns, see menu at the top right of this page.
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design
|
http://geoffdyer.com/forewords-afterwords/photography/richard-avedon-photographs-1946-2004/
| 2023-12-09T04:54:22 |
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en
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In August 2007, Denmark’s renowned Louisiana Museum of Modern Art presented ‘Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004’, the first major retrospective devoted to Avedon’s work since his death in 2004. To accompany the exhibition this beautifully produced catalogue was published. Designed by the renowned Danish graphic designer Michael Jensen, and featuring deluxe tritone printing and varnish on premium paper, the book includes 125 reproductions of Avedon’s greatest work from across the entire range of his oeuvre – including fashion photographs, reportage and portraits. It also contains texts by Jeffrey Fraenkel, Judith Thurman, Geoff Dyer, Christoph Ribbat, Rune Gade and curator Helle Crenzien.
Published: Denmark, Louisiana Museum, 2007
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design
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https://www.richmonddoors.co.uk/front-doors
| 2024-03-05T06:11:50 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707948223038.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20240305060427-20240305090427-00094.warc.gz
| 0.892821 | 285 |
CC-MAIN-2024-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-10__0__182352445
|
en
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Richmond Doors bespoke wooden front doors enhance the original character of your home, and bring significant benefits of outstanding durability, security and kerb-appeal.
Every home deserves a Richmond Door.
Richmond Doors are made from FSC-certified Accoya timber.
Acccoya is a process that transforms timber’s chemical structure, rendering it incredibly tough, stable and moisture-resistant.
A Secure Home
We only use the highest quality mortice and latches from well-known brands like Banham and ERA.
Bolts, bars, mortice locks and spy holes can also be built into your door for added security.
Our glaziers can make any kind of panel, from toughened glass and etched, through to leaded stained glass windows.
We offer a wide range of styles and finishes for door knockers, knobs, numbers and letterboxes or we can restore your antique knocker to pride of place on your new door.
A Richmond Door is hand-painted using the very best water-based primers and paints for the ultimate finish and weather resistance.
The Extra Mile
Richmond Doors prides itself on going the extra mile and we always leave your doorway in pristine condition at the end of a project.
We would be delighted to give you a free consultation and survey.
Or call us on 0208 226 6887.
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design
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http://www.tvae.co.za/four_methods.htm
| 2019-02-23T15:39:38 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550249504746.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20190223142639-20190223164639-00466.warc.gz
| 0.883727 | 593 |
CC-MAIN-2019-09
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2019-09__0__11018687
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en
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4 METHODS FOR SATELLITE SIGNAL DISTRIBUTION IN CABLE NETWORKS
The matrix switching system
Pros: Standard DSTV decoders can be used, no special configuration is required.
Cons: Very labour intensive, originally designed for smaller systems. To avoid the many problems typical in the L-Band spectrum, the systems layout for larger systems will be very costly and complex.
This is due to the many active and passive components required in the system and the resulting mismatching and noise. In these high frequencies the transitional losses on all connections increase with time, making such systems unreliable and troublesome. Expansions of such systems (to include additional satellites or new devices such as PVR's) are very expensive and complicated.
One wire IF systems
Pros: Standard DSTV decoders can be used, single cable design and components are more cost effective than matrix system.
Cons: Very difficult to balance signal levels, high losses mean extra amps introducing noise. All amplifiers must include a slope adjustment. In these high frequencies the transitional losses on all connections increase with time. Such systems require a high amount of maintenance.
Digital Conversion Systems
Pros: Ideal for medium to larger systems. As all signals are within the cable spectrum (47 to 862 MHz) signal levels can be maintained without problem. Depending on the component quality (domestic, commercial, professional), the systems are stable and reliable.
These system are software driven (none volatile memory) highly flexible and can be reprogrammed to changing requirements and additional services.
Cons: Require re-converters on the subscriber side and special LO settings. Depending on the decoder software, opposite polarities on the transponders are not necessarily, a problem. As full transponders are converted (minus roll off), large frequency chunks are required out of the available spectrum.
This could be improved if the decoders use self-seeking software. Additional services require adding a converter to the head end for each new transponder.
64 and 128 QAM Transmodulation
Pros: This is the most economic way of transporting large numbers of digital services over cable TV networks.
The transmodulation technique converts the QPSK satellite signal to an 8MHz QAM modulated signal. The software driven, modular Head End System has a re-programmable NIT table and transponder split facility (enables the digital information of one heavily modulated transponder to be split over 2 8MHz channels).
There are no problems in adding additional services from various satellites to the system.
Cons: Requires QAM decoders. Additional services require adding a converter to the head end for each new transponder.
We provide assistance in systems design and on site commissioning, as well as full support of all products sold. For information on our product range call the nearest branch.
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design
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https://www.lawnjohnhtx.com/blog/plant-selection-to-thrive-in-sugar-lands-climate
| 2024-04-19T18:01:50 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296817442.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20240419172411-20240419202411-00360.warc.gz
| 0.912481 | 1,403 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__18560497
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en
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Discover how to choose plants perfectly suited for Houston's unique climate, with Lawn John's expert tips on drought resistance, native species, and seasonal color.
Navigating the challenges and opportunities of landscaping in the Houston area, including Sugar Land, requires a nuanced understanding of the local climate and ecology. The region's distinctive weather patterns, characterized by hot summers, mild winters, and periodic droughts, demand a strategic approach to plant selection. At Lawn John, we specialize in curating landscapes that are not only beautiful but also resilient and sustainable, tailored to thrive in Houston's unique environmental conditions.
Selecting the right plants for Houston's climate goes beyond aesthetic preferences—it's about creating landscapes that are in harmony with the local ecosystem. This approach ensures that gardens are not only easier to maintain but also contribute positively to the environment. By focusing on drought-resistant landscaping, incorporating native plants, and planning for seasonal color, homeowners can enjoy vibrant gardens that enhance their outdoor living spaces year-round.
In the heart of Sugar Land, Texas, where the sun blazes and rainfall can be sporadic, creating a lush, vibrant landscape poses unique challenges. Lawn John, a leader in providing premier lawn care services, recognizes the necessity of adopting drought-resistant landscaping practices to maintain beautiful gardens that thrive in this demanding climate. Embracing xeriscaping principles and selecting the right plants are not just about conserving water; they're about fostering a sustainable relationship with the local environment, ensuring that your garden is not only resilient but also a haven for local biodiversity.
Xeriscaping, a landscaping philosophy designed to minimize water use, is particularly relevant in regions like Sugar Land. The key to successful xeriscaping lies in understanding the soil composition, improving it if necessary to enhance water retention and drainage, and choosing plants that are naturally adapted to dry conditions. Incorporating mulch into garden beds further reduces evaporation, retains soil moisture, and suppresses weed growth, contributing to the overall efficiency of water use in the garden.
Selecting plants for a drought-resistant landscape involves focusing on native species and those adapted to arid environments. Succulents like Agave and Yucca, perennials such as Russian Sage and Lavender, and ornamental grasses, including Blue Grama Grass and Buffalo Grass, are all excellent choices for Sugar Land gardens. These plants not only survive but thrive in hot, dry conditions, requiring minimal supplemental watering once established. Integrating a variety of these plants can create a visually appealing landscape that is both vibrant and water-efficient.
A unique tip from Lawn John for enhancing your drought-resistant landscape is to implement a drip irrigation system. This system delivers water directly to the base of each plant, reducing waste and ensuring that water goes exactly where it's needed. Coupled with a smart irrigation controller that adjusts watering based on weather conditions, this setup can significantly reduce water usage while keeping your garden healthy and hydrated.
As we consider the future of landscaping in Sugar Land, it's clear that drought-resistant practices are not just a trend but a necessary evolution in our approach to gardening. By adopting xeriscaping principles and carefully selecting appropriate plants, homeowners can create sustainable, water-efficient landscapes that stand up to the challenges of the local climate. Lawn John is committed to leading this charge, offering expertise and services that align with these environmentally conscious practices. Our dedication to sustainability, combined with our deep knowledge of local conditions, makes us the ideal partner for creating beautiful, resilient landscapes in Sugar Land.
In the thriving ecosystems of Sugar Land, Texas, native plants offer an array of benefits that extend far beyond their natural beauty. At Lawn John, we understand the significant advantages that native vegetation brings to landscaping projects, from reducing maintenance efforts and conserving water to supporting local wildlife. Leveraging the innate resilience and ecological compatibility of these plants, we can create landscapes that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also environmentally sustainable and beneficial for the local ecosystem.
The use of native plants in landscaping is grounded in their adaptability to the local climate and soil conditions. These plants have evolved to thrive in Sugar Land's specific environment, making them inherently more resilient to the area's weather patterns, pests, and diseases. This natural resilience translates into lower maintenance requirements for homeowners, as native plants typically require less supplemental watering, fertilizing, and pest control than their non-native counterparts. By incorporating these plants into landscaping designs, we can significantly reduce the need for chemical interventions, promoting a healthier and more sustainable garden ecosystem.
In regions like Sugar Land, where the climate can oscillate between periods of intense heat and sporadic rainfall, water conservation is a critical aspect of sustainable landscaping. Native plants, accustomed to the local precipitation patterns, are particularly adept at managing water usage efficiently. Their deep root systems enhance soil structure, improving water infiltration and retention, and reducing runoff. This not only minimizes the landscape's irrigation needs but also contributes to the conservation of valuable water resources, aligning with broader environmental conservation efforts.
One of the most compelling benefits of using native plants in landscaping is their role in supporting local wildlife. These plants provide essential habitats and food sources for a variety of local animals, including birds, bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects. By creating a biodiverse environment that mimics natural ecosystems, native plant gardens can become vibrant hubs of wildlife activity. This biodiversity not only enhances the ecological value of the landscape but also contributes to the overall health and balance of the local ecosystem.
A valuable tip for incorporating native plants into your Sugar Land landscape is to plan your garden in layers. Start with a foundation of native grasses and groundcovers, add shrubs and perennials for mid-level interest, and finish with a canopy of native trees. This layered approach not only creates a visually appealing landscape but also mimics natural ecosystems, providing diverse habitats and resources for local wildlife.
In conclusion, the advantages of using native plants in landscaping are manifold. From reducing maintenance and conserving water to supporting local wildlife, native plants offer a sustainable and ecologically responsible approach to beautifying outdoor spaces. At Lawn John, we're dedicated to promoting the use of native Sugar Land plants in our landscaping projects, helping our clients achieve beautiful, resilient, and environmentally friendly gardens. Our commitment to leveraging the benefits of native vegetation reflects our broader mission to enhance the beauty and sustainability of Sugar Land's landscapes, one garden at a time.
With passion at our core and expertise in every tool, we turn your landscaping visions into vibrant realities. Step into a renewed outdoor space where dreams take root and flourish.
At Lawn John, we believe every green space tells a story. With a blend of artistry and expertise, we craft landscapes that not only beautify but resonate with personal touch. Choose Lawn John and let us write a beautiful chapter for your outdoor haven.Free Estimate
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design
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http://www.saskbirder.com/en/industrynews/43-152.html
| 2023-10-05T02:05:32 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511717.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20231005012006-20231005042006-00273.warc.gz
| 0.907906 | 365 |
CC-MAIN-2023-40
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-40__0__116372648
|
en
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The thermistor will be in an inactive state for a long time; when the ambient temperature and current are in the c zone, the heat dissipation power of the thermistor is close to the heating power, so it may or may not operate. When the thermistor is at the same ambient temperature, the operating time decreases sharply as the current increases; the thermistor has a shorter operating time and a smaller maintenance current and operating current when the ambient temperature is relatively high.
Each thermistor has parameters such as "withstand voltage", "withstand current", "maintaining current" and "action time". We need to choose according to the requirements of the specific circuit and control the parameters of the product. The specific methods are as follows:
1. First determine the maximum ambient temperature of the protected circuit during normal operation, the working current in the circuit, the maximum voltage that the thermistor needs to bear after the operation, and the required operating time and other parameters;
2. According to the characteristics of the circuit or product to be protected, select the thermistor of different shapes such as "chip type", "radial lead type", "axial lead type" or "surface mount type";
3. According to the maximum ambient temperature and the working current in the circuit, select the product specification whose "maintenance current" is greater than the working current;
4. According to the maximum working voltage, select the product series whose "withstand voltage" level is greater than or equal to the maximum working voltage;
5. Confirm that the operating time of the thermistor of this specification is less than the time required by the protection circuit;
6. According to the data provided in the specification, confirm that the size of the thermistor of this specification meets the requirements.
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design
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https://proeuropean.eu/fraunhofer-ise-produces-h2-with-seawater/
| 2023-10-03T14:50:42 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511106.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20231003124522-20231003154522-00533.warc.gz
| 0.922077 | 199 |
CC-MAIN-2023-40
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-40__0__323801868
|
en
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Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE have developed a technical concept and design for a hydrogen generation plant optimized for use at sea. The “OffsH2ore” project aims to define a technically and economically optimized design for an integrated offshore hydrogen production plant using proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis, including the transport of the compressed hydrogen gas to land.
The power supply for the electrolysis comes from an offshore wind farm directly connected to a 500 MW electrolysis platform. The platform can produce up to 50,000 tons of green hydrogen per year. Fresh water for the PEM electrolyser is obtained by desalinating seawater using residual heat from electrolysis.
The produced hydrogen is purified and dried, compressed to 500 bar, and transferred to a transport vessel that can carry up to 400 tons of hydrogen from the platform to the mainland. This concept is independent of the hydrogen transport pipeline and offers flexibility in the choice of location.
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design
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http://danger3crate.wallinside.com/
| 2017-06-23T20:30:16 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128320174.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170623202724-20170623222724-00604.warc.gz
| 0.953392 | 620 |
CC-MAIN-2017-26
|
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en
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Furniture can make up a large portion of your home style. There are a lot more furniture buyers out there than there are smart furniture buyers, though! This article gives you expert advice on the topic.
If you are seeking out old furniture, ensure you examine its underside so that you ensure stability. Furniture looks good on top, but not necessarily underneath. Older furniture can be plagued with things such as rust or even dry rot.
When you're thinking of buying furniture for where you live, you need to think carefully about the colors you're working with. Keep in mind that really bold colors are tough to match. Neutral colors will go with anything; use patterns and bright colors on the accessories instead.
An option that works great for families that eat at dinner tables is buying a type of tile top table. These tables are simple to clean and they are able to be disinfected. There are a lot of options, such as chairs and bench seating, which make them a good idea for busy families.
You should find pieces that offer multiple uses for a home office. For instance, you can use an amoire for storing many different things. When the printer is not in use, the armoire can be closed, keeping things neat.
When purchasing a sofa, make sure that you inspect the frame. You want thicker wood, at least an inch or so. You will have a squeaky couch if the board is thinner. Sit on and more around on any sofa you are considering purchasing.
It is a good idea to choose furnishings that are neutral in color. This will give you a great deal of flexibility in accessories and other items of decor. You can have more choices when you use neutral furniture and they tend to match decor better. Lots of neutral options are available to work with any home plan or decorating style.
The best color choices for living room furniture include neutral colors like tan, ecru, grey or black. When you select neutrals, you can change up the look of everything else, such as picking brightly colored throw pillows, paints and accessories. You can also change things for just a little bit of money.
When buying a sofa that has a pattern you need to ensure that the fabric is aligned correctly. If an item of upholstered furniture is cheap, you may find the pattern askew at the seams. Only choose a piece where the pattern lines up. Don't buy it if the tailoring is poor.
Make sure you plan a specific budget before you go furniture shopping. There are all sorts of prices for similar pieces of furniture. You might end up bankrupt if you aren't prepared. Keeping a figure in your head is a great way to make sure you don't overspend.
Furnishing a house can be a big task, especially if you are not well informed about what to look for and what to avoid. It is important to be armed with the right information before making any solid decisions. Use this resource to help guide you the next time you are shopping for furniture.
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design
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https://www.allisoriginals.com/shop/resin-art-and-gifts/trays/resin-and-dried-flower-tray/
| 2024-04-13T22:06:16 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296816853.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20240413211215-20240414001215-00733.warc.gz
| 0.949874 | 303 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__189346832
|
en
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Introducing a stunning and unique line of our resin and Dried Flower Tray, the perfect addition to any home decor collection. Handcrafted with care, this beautiful tray is made using high-quality epoxy resin and carefully picked, dried and pressed flowers arranged to create a one-of-a-kind design. The vibrant colors of the flowers are perfectly preserved in the clear, glass-like surface of the epoxy, creating a mesmerizing visual effect.
Each tray is unique and varies slightly in design, making it a perfect and thoughtful gift for someone special or as a treat for yourself. It is also ideal for a variety of uses, including as a serving tray for small treats or as a stylish centerpiece on a coffee table or dresser.
The Epoxy Dried Flower Tray is not only a beautiful and functional addition to your home but also an eco-friendly option. The dried flowers used in the design are sourced sustainably and are repurposed to create a stunning work of art.
The tray is easy to care for and clean, simply wipe it down with a damp cloth to keep it looking as good as new. This gorgeous piece is available in size small (7”x11.5”) or large (8”x14”) to suit your needs, so don’t miss out on this opportunity to add a touch of natural beauty to your home decor. Order yours today and enjoy the beauty of nature in your home.
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design
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http://fnppr.com/en/tag/caslon/
| 2023-12-05T01:15:24 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100540.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20231205010358-20231205040358-00093.warc.gz
| 0.951355 | 2,186 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__75653033
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en
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Contrary to what was expected a few years ago, printed books are not about to disappear, so it is best to know how to make them.
Before I was a designer I was already a reader. I did not know the secrets of good typography, but I was aware of the mysterious power of a good story. Books were my favorite objects long before I dreamed that one day I would design them. In fact, I loved books even before I could read them (that smell of ink and paper!), but it was the discovery of reading—that alchemy of letters coming together to reveal words, unravel sentences and tell stories—that transformed THE BOOK into the holy of holies for me. It is still the same today.
“Books were my favorite objects long before I dreamed that one day I would design them..”
When I first learned to read I did not realize that part of the ease with which I turned page after page of my first “grown-up” books, the ones with flowing text and no images, was due to the quality of the typesetting—a light grid with nice leading and kerning, well-planned margins and, above all, good typography.
I still didn’t know that, no matter how well a narrative arc is resolved and how enthralling the characters are, if the book’s layout isn’t good, the reader may be tempted to put it down in the first chapter. Today I’m sure I never finished the copy of “Doctor Zhivago” that sat on my parents’ bookshelf because the font was so tiny and poorly chosen that it created a dense, unpleasant block of text. We can also speculate here that the myriad of Russian patronymics were too much for me, but that didn’t bother me at all when I read a more modern, better-conceived edition of “The Idiot” that lived on the bottom of that same shelf. Was Pasternak a worse storyteller than Dostoievski? Probably, but that’s not the point. What happened was that poor Doctor Zhivago was a victim of bad layout options. And that is saying it all.
“… no matter how well a narrative arc is resolved and how enthralling characters are, if the book’s layout isn’t good, the reader may be tempted to put it down in the first chapter.”
Today, with the huge variety of free and paid fonts available, it can be a challenge to start designing a book. Should we follow the traditional path or be bolder? It is worth remembering that creativity and originality are important, but when it comes to book-design, easy reading should always be at the top of our concerns. So my advice on tackling the intimidating blank page is just this: Don’t reinvent the wheel. If it has been done before and with good results, learn from it, listen to the voice of experience. For classic typesetting, classic fonts. And for me that means serifs. They never fail.
“ …creativity and originality are important, but when it comes to book-design, easy reading should always be at the top of our concerns.”
These are “my” five fonts, the ones I trust and love to use to ensure simple, elegant layouts and optimal reading from the first page to the last. Besides that, they are beautiful. Can we ask for more?
I fell in love with this serif font while still in college. At the time I used it for all my art history essays because it’s a font that provides great readability even in small points. (Yes, I always wrote a lot more than I should…) Besides, for a font that has been around since 1750, it looks very modern and sharp. Baskerville makes beautiful, easy-to-read pages with a nice mix of a traditional/modern feel, making it perfect for works of fiction. I also love to use it for titles, posters and book covers, but it is in typesetting that its excellent qualities stand out. It is available in several typologies but I have never needed more than regular, bold and italic. Keep it simple…
Thank you, John Baskerville!
The classic of the classics, or, since we’re talking about a French font, “La crème de la crème!” Jorge dos Reis, who was my teacher at Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa, and who taught me to love typography, used to say that one can guess the nationality of the font maker based on the design of the font itself. Garamond is a good example of that. When we look at that capital G, the figure of a very French Claude Garamond pops out, with effortless sophistication and loads of charm. And if we consider the italics…“Oh, la, la!”
This was the first font I got used to recognizing as a text block. Most of the books on our shelves are set in Garamond. Go take a peak. And there’s always that nice warm feeling of opening a book set with this font, even if we don’t understand right away why it feels so good. As popular as it is versatile, neutral and of simple beauty, it never lets us down…Great for that 400 page tome, the font is available in six weights in the Adobe Garamond Pro version, so there are no excuses not to use it all the time. That’s what I do.
The 1960’s gave us more than social revolutions, psychedelic patterns and eternal songs. In the field of typography, Sabon means to Jan Tschichold what “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” means to the Beatles. “Rolling Stone” considers Sgt. Pepper’s to be the best album ever cut and I don’t overstate the connection in considering Sabon to be one of the 5 Best Fonts Ever—for book typesetting. After following the New Typography movement coming from Bauhaus, and even becoming one of the greatest representatives of this style, the German typographer Tschichold returned to his origins after reaching the height of his career. He created what is considered to be the most elegant of the Roman style re-inventions. Reminiscent of Garamond, Sabon is considered romantic, feminine, even, and this may be because of the clarity of its modern lines and the sweet reading it provides. Not that women are always clear…or sweet. But you get the idea.
If you have a thick text in hand, Sabon is always a great bet!
If Garamond is the quintessential French font, Caslon is the greatest representative of classic British fonts. Considered the first original English font, it was created in 1722 by William Caslon and was so popular at the time that it crossed the Atlantic and became the font in which the first printed United States Declaration of independence was set. Impressive, right? It has known some less popular periods, but never truly ceased to be used. A great favorite of the Arts & Crafts movement in the nineteenth century, it is still preferred today by many designers who love the solemnity it adds to the text, immediately turning any page into something “serious.” Although not a font that fools around, we can use it without fear because its eighteenth-century class never fails us and has adapted beautifully to the twenty first century. Adobe’s new version (Adobe Caslon Pro) works great in digital media and remains lovely as always. I just used it to design a poetry book’s cover and pages and the layout turned out particularly good.
5. Goudy Old Style
This list already includes French, English and German fonts…now comes the American! There are a lot of Goudy fonts, but here we are talking about Goudy Old Style – perfect for lengthy…and boring texts. This is a modern font, created by Frederic Goudy for the American Type Founders in 1915. Its main feature is being so, so LIGHT! Inspired in the Italian Renaissance, an influence much in vogue in the early twentieth century in the United States, this font is a result of the exhaustive study of sixteenth-century italics, which Goudy loved. Maybe that’s why, even when it’s in the regular version, it always seems to be about to take off… Italics, of course, are beautiful, but I especially love the clear tone of a full-text page. Even with tight leading and kerning, we can easily get a very nice looking text block with that…Old Style feeling! It’s mandatory to use at least once. No wonder the famous Harper’s Bazaar magazine was originally set with this font.
Bonus font: Rongel
And now, if I may, this is an out-of-box choice. Let’s add one more font to the list. First, a confession: I have never used this font myself, but I admire it a lot…from a distance. Rongel, is a font a Portuguese designer, Mário Feliciano, created. I first encountered it in Portuguese editions of Zadie Smith’s books “On Beauty ” and “Swing Time” designed by Henrique Cayate’s atelier and…what shall I say? It was love at first read!! It is a Spanish inspired font full of salero. Solid, elegant and very fun, with whimsical details to discover. It creates bold, attitude-packed, very expressive pages. Yet it never loses sight of that serif font classic tone. I love reading pages set in Rongel…or I really love Zadie Smith. Probably both! I am waiting for the perfect project to try it out. If you’re tempted also get to know it better here:
Now that you know my preferences, why not share yours, too? Which fonts do you like for classic books? Any of these? What book have you read recently with a very good layout? Or, on the contrary, did you give up reading something because it was terrible? How do you choose the right font for each project?
Let’s exchange ideas! 😉
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design
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http://storage.wertle.com/projects/theater.html
| 2019-03-26T22:26:10 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912206677.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20190326220507-20190327002507-00126.warc.gz
| 0.967813 | 340 |
CC-MAIN-2019-13
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2019-13__0__81141499
|
en
|
Involvement in the theater has always been a big part of my life, especially in the areas of props, puppetry, and mask making. Here are a few projects on which I played a significant role.
My senior year of undergrad, I was granted the role of props designer for our production of The Yellow Boat. I designed and acquired all the props, worked with the lighting, set, and costume designers to integrate the theme of the props with the production, and instructed a team of props runners for maintaining items during the run of the show.
My proudest accomplishment on this project was designing and building a small puppet manned by the main character of the show.
For a college production of Caucasion Chalk Circle, I performed as assistant mask maker to build masks for the entire cast. We built a combination of detailed neoprene masks and simple cloth and Sculpt-or-coat masks.
In addition to creating the masks, I also compiled step-by-step instructions and photo reference for our mask building processes. These include rehearsal masks, plaster face positives, and latex/neoprene masks.
To see the process documentation, visit the mask-making section of my personal site.
At the summer stock theater season of the Berkshire Theatre Festival, I was given the responsibility of designing and creating the Neverland Wolves for Peter Pan.
My instructions were to create 5 wolf heads on sticks that could be held by one person, and which had articulated jaws. The rest of the design and implementation was left totally up to me.
For a detailed overview of the process I took to create this prop, please visit its project page on my personal site.
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design
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http://www.vmsinc.com/transportation/
| 2013-05-23T16:33:42 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703592489/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112632-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
| 0.947626 | 226 |
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2013-20__0__112079237
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en
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VMS is the transit industry’s leading resource for quality transportation signs and graphics. We work with our customers as strategic partners to provide attractive, economical and technically sound graphic solutions that are necessary in today’s growing transit industry. Our team of sales consultants is highly trained in the industry’s ever-evolving safety standards. This ensures that the graphics in your vehicles and stations are not only compliant but are also safe and effective in any situation.
VMS can produce transit signs for a variety of different transportation vehicles including railcars, trains, subways and buses. We understand the importance of attractive exterior and interior signage to help identify your authority and aid in safety assistance.
VMS produces HPPL® graphics and markings that are compliant with all APTA and FRA standards. We are able to create unique products including exit signs, exit locator signs, ceiling hangers, window emergency exit signs, low-location exit pat markings and more. These products leave the interior of your vehicles and stations safe and well labeled.
Let VMS help you design and manufacture compliant transportation signs and transit graphics!
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design
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https://www.infallibletechie.com/2013/08/mapreduce.html
| 2023-06-06T23:05:21 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224653183.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20230606214755-20230607004755-00352.warc.gz
| 0.936009 | 289 |
CC-MAIN-2023-23
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-23__0__143044601
|
en
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A MapReduce program comprises a Map() procedure that performs filtering and sorting (such as sorting students by first name into queues, one queue for each name) and a Reduce() procedure that performs a summary operation (such as counting the number of students in each queue, yielding name frequencies). The “MapReduce System” (also called “infrastructure”, “framework”) orchestrates by marshalling the distributed servers, running the various tasks in parallel, managing all communications and data transfers between the various parts of the system, providing for redundancy and fault tolerance, and overall management of the whole process.
The model is inspired by the map and reduce functions commonly used in functional programming, although their purpose in the MapReduce framework is not the same as their original forms. Furthermore, the key contribution of the MapReduce framework are not the actual map and reduce functions, but the scalability and fault-tolerance achieved for a variety of applications by optimizing the execution engine once.
A MapReduce job usually splits the input data-set into independent chunks which are processed by the map tasks in a completely parallel manner. The framework sorts the outputs of the maps, which are then input to the reduce tasks. Typically both the input and the output of the job are stored in a file-system. The framework takes care of scheduling tasks, monitoring them and re-executes the failed tasks.
|
design
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https://magmarock.de/property-development/
| 2023-09-23T07:25:03 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506480.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20230923062631-20230923092631-00108.warc.gz
| 0.924995 | 238 |
CC-MAIN-2023-40
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webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-40__0__305455835
|
en
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Sustainability is the basis of our development concept. This includes the 3 pillars of green development:
A sustainable, more community-orientated concept can generate competitive returns for investors. We only work with those who share our ideals and support a different approach to real estate development.
Our aim is that our sustainable concept delivers the same or higher returns than the current standard development model. Ultimately the sustainable development model should become the new standard.
The industry should become a driver towards a greener future.
We create attractive living environments that withstand the test of time.
Some periods of construction are characterised by good planning and creative design. The results are still enjoyed today. Other periods that lacked these attributes created buildings that blight our landscape and communities for decades.
Our projects have an energy and longevity that will continue to be attractive for future generations.
Healthy collaboration with partners who share our values is essential. Our network includes:
We seek and implement the latest technology and ideas, to re-write the manuscript:
Every project goes through a planning process from the macro-level to the micro-level.
Our values are integrated into each stage.
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design
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https://www.freegpl.com/touchy-wordpress-mobile-menu-plugin/
| 2022-05-24T18:49:44 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662573189.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220524173011-20220524203011-00414.warc.gz
| 0.774131 | 411 |
CC-MAIN-2022-21
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2022-21__0__39966706
|
en
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|Touchy – WordPress Mobile Menu Plugin Free Download|
|Type||WordPress Plugin (Original Zip File, Not Nulled)|
|Name||Touchy – WordPress Mobile Menu Plugin v4.1 Free Download|
|Version||4.1 (Latest Version)|
|Update||11 Aug, 2020|
|Category||Codecanyon WordPress Plugin|
|Selling Platform||Codecanyon (Vendor: BonfireThemes)|
|Download Type||Original Zip File, No Nulled Version, No License Key, No Activation Key, No Registration Key, No Purchase Code, No Crack, Free Download from Google Drive|
Touchy – WordPress Mobile Menu Plugin is a premium mobile menu and header plugin for WordPress. Designed for smartphones, it’s fast, responsive and super comfortable to use. As well as having been tested extensively on different mobile devices, Touchy – WordPress Mobile Menu Plugin also works great on desktop browsers, so if you want you can even use it on a full-fledged desktop site.
Featuring a logo location, quickly accessible call and email buttons, a built-in search function, as well as a back button and multi-level drop-down menu, Touchy – WordPress Mobile Menu Plugin can serve as a Complete mobile navigation and header solution on any WordPress theme. It can even be used to hide your logo / theme menu by class / ID.
In addition, Touchy – WordPress Mobile Menu Plugin is extremely customizable. With a few clicks, you can change the color of any element, change the positioning options, hide any of the menu bar buttons, override button functions, change transparencies, etc., all thanks to to the ridiculously easy to use Realtime Live Customizer integration. You can also use the unstyled widget locations to add call-to-action behavior to your menu, embed content, insert shortcodes, or whatever else you might need. To sum up, you can make it essentially unrecognizable from its default appearance.
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design
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https://yeloo.in/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1647
| 2023-12-01T11:07:46 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100286.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20231201084429-20231201114429-00312.warc.gz
| 0.921251 | 110 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__153770450
|
en
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999KT 20 GMS BANYAN TREE 999.9 SILVER COIN
This coin depicts India's national tree, the Banyan tree and symbolizes longevity and fulfillment of wishes. For centuries, its leaf has been used during worship. The finesse of craftsmanship stands out through the clean lines that give it a 3d quality, and adds value to this fine collectible.
- Availability: Pre-Order
- Model: SSC0002
- Weight: 20.00g
- SKU: SSC0002
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design
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https://www.youjia-china.com/product/agriculture-drone/16l-drone
| 2023-12-06T03:24:52 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100583.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20231206031946-20231206061946-00751.warc.gz
| 0.820887 | 974 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__131809745
|
en
|
The all-new modular design of the Y16 simplifies assembly and accelerates daily maintenance. An IP67 rating provides reliable protection for key components of the drone. A light, yet durable airframe is made of carbon fiber composites and can be quickly folded to 45% of its original size, making it easy for transportation. Both the battery and spray tank are easily swappable, significantly improving the efficiency of power and liquid supply.
Supported by its outstanding flight performance, the Y16 spray tank can carry up to 16 L, and the spray width has increased to 6 m. The spraying system has 1 delivery pumps and 6 high-pressure sprinklers with a maximum spray rate of 3L/min. The Y16 can spray 27.4 acres (11 hectares) per hour. The spraying system also has an all-new flow meter, providing higher precision and stability than conventional flow meters.
The all-new modular aerial-electronics system in the Y16 has IMUs and barometers and adopts a propulsion signal redundancy design to ensure flight safety. The GPS+RTK dual-redundancy system supports centimeter-level positioning. It also supports dual-antenna technology that provides strong resistance against magnetic interference.
Safety with Vision.
Y16 supports HD remote transmission technology which extends its control range to up to 2 km. It also has a wide-angle FPV camera and spotlights that can monitor aircraft operation during the day and at night to ensure flight safety.
Y16 is equipped with anti-ground radar and high-precision RTK. The ground data is transmitted to the mobile APP in real-time. Based on the preset flight height, it automatically senses the crop distance. It supports flat and mountain planning operations and fruit tree operation modes to meet most operation needs. All manual, AB point, and route planning modes are available, and ordinary terrain operations are easily completed.
The PC2400 can balance the two 12S batteries of the drone at the same time. The working modes include fast charging, slow charging, battery storage, and charger housekeeping, so you can charge more worry-free. The LED battery level display interface is simple to operate and has One-button charging operation function to give users a better experience.
The Y16 Intelligent Flight Battery has a capacity of 22,000 mAh. It uses a high-strength rubber case design, which increases the safety of the battery. With the support of battery balancing technology, the power is stronger and the operating efficiency is improved.
|Total weight (excluding battery)||16kg|
|Standard take-off weight||36.8kg|
|Maximum effective take-off weight||45kg（Near sea level）|
|Hovering accuracy (good GPS signal)||EnableRTK：
Horizontal ± 12 cm, vertical ± 12 cm
RTK is not enabled：
Horizontal ± 0.7 m, vertical ± 0.4 m (radar function enabled: ± 0.2 m)
|Hover time||33min（No load）
|Maximum operating flight speed||7 m/s|
|Maximum flight speed||10m/s|
|Maximum wind speed||8m/s|
|Maximum flight altitude||1500m|
|Recommended working temperature||-5℃-50℃|
|Dimensions||1712*1712*600mm（The arms are extended and the blades are folded）|
|Diameter x pitch||30*0.9 inch|
|Maximum working current (continuous)||80A|
|Maximum working voltage||52.2V|
|Maximum light intensity||12 lux@5m Direct shot|
|Job box capacity||16L|
|Atomizing particle size||170 - 265 μm|
|Effective spray width (1.5-3 m from the work)||4-6m|
|High precision radar module|
|Working power consumption||1.5W @25°C|
|Fixed height and ground following||Height measurement range：1 - 30 m
Fixed height range：1.5 - 15 m
Mountain mode maximum slope：35°
|Intelligent flight battery|
|Number of channels||12|
|Signal output||SBUS PWM 12C|
|Limited signal distance (no interference, no blocking)||1.5km|
If you would like to purchase the product, please contact [email protected] or leave your contact details and we will get in touch with you shortly.
|
design
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https://www.floorworld.om/en/colorado-canterbury
| 2023-12-09T14:23:09 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100912.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20231209134916-20231209164916-00709.warc.gz
| 0.914473 | 138 |
CC-MAIN-2023-50
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2023-50__0__106180335
|
en
|
Inspired by the Colorado potato beetle, Colorado Canterbury is a three-strip plank made from the offcuts of large single-strip floors. The result is a unique floor with a striking diversity of wood grains. The 189mm planks are finished in a raw umber hue that looks equally lovely with warm and cool colour schemes. This allows you to mix and match décor while retaining a satisfying harmony in your home. The engineered wood construction combines a hardwood top layer with a supple softwood core, providing an ultra-durable floor. With an impressive 25-year residential warranty, you can rest easy – knowing that the beauty of your floor will last for decades to come.
|
design
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https://bearfoottheory.com/outside-van-sprinter-conversion-tour/
| 2022-05-19T05:38:22 |
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| 0.94931 | 5,333 |
CC-MAIN-2022-21
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2022-21__0__60370674
|
en
|
*Updated January 2021* Back in 2017, I worked with Outside Van, a Portland-based company to build the custom Sprinter Van conversion that I’ve been living and traveling in for the last few years. In this van, I’ve driven over 14,000 foot passes in Colorado, chased powder, camped with my family, leaf peeped in New England, and more. Sprinter van life has been an incredible adventure, and this van has proved itself to be one incredible beast. In this blog post, I give the full tour and also share some updates on the few minor things I’d do differently.
This is actually my second Sprinter Van conversion. I joined the Sprinter Van community back in 2015 when I purchased my first 144” Sprinter Van. I had this first Sprinter Van converted into an awesome mobile tiny home, and traveled from California to Canada in it. During those two years, I learned a lot about how I was using the space. My last Sprinter had a full indoor bathroom, an open aisle all the way to the back doors, and a convertible sofa bed across from the slider door (you can check out the video tour of my first Sprinter Van here). In some cases, it worked – particularly when I was solo on shorter trips. However, I found myself never using the bathroom, wanting a more dedicated workspace, and needing more indoor storage for camping gear and bikes. In addition, I learned a lot about materials, the importance of building light, and having weight properly balanced across the van.
With the knowledge I gained, I decided to sell my first Sprinter and put what I learned into Sprinter Van #2. This time around, I went longer with a 4×4 170” wheelbase (read my comparison with the 144″ here) and hired a Portland-based Sprinter Van conversion company that you may have heard of called Outside Van.
50,000 miles in, I’m still absolutely loving my Outside Van Sprinter Van. Keep on reading for the full tour of my Outside Van Sprinter Van conversion, a review of my experience, and more details about why I decided to switch up my floor plan.
**Make sure to check out my free online course all about van life – The Van Life Roadmap – where I share everything I’ve learned over the last 4 years.
Take a tour of my Outside Van Sprinter Van conversion.
Outside Van YouTube Tour
First, watch this video and get the full inside tour of my 4×4 170″ Mercedes Sprinter camper van.
Sprinter Van Galley
Starting at the slider door when you walk in, Outside Van installed their medium sized galley. I wanted to leave the space open near the door and the galley so Ryan (my boyfriend and I) could be cooking together or brushing our teeth at the same time without having to sneak around each other. The open space by the slide door also leaves room for our dog Charlie so we aren’t tip toeing around him.
>> Read Next: Kitchen Ideas for your Van Conversion
Outside Van’s galley is made of marine grade plywood which is treated so it won’t expand in heat or distort over time. Marine grade plywood is the standard used in boats and is made to withstand a bumpy ride. Outside Van builds their drawers using dovetail construction and are made of bamboo, which is antimicrobial and eco-friendly. All of the drawers have a slow closing mechanism to prevent them from slamming shut.
Overhead cabinet and drawer faces are covered using a high-quality laminate, which gives all of the wood in the van a nice finish while protecting the marine grade plywood underneath. Laminate is lightweight and way more durable than regular wood. I chose a reclaimed look for the overhead cabinets and a deep blue for the galley.
The white galley counter-top is made of a material called avonite. Avonite is an acrylic material, which is lighter than granite and quartz and more durable than corion – the other materials you can make a white counter-top from. The avonite is also very easy to clean, and I love the modern look it gives the van.
The Avonite counter top has held up really well. There is one minor chip on one of the edges, but otherwise, it’s proven to be pretty scratch resistant and very easy to clean. Sometimes I do wish that it wasn’t white as it requires constant wipe down to look clean.
In my last Sprinter Van conversion, I had a permanent two burner propane stove inside the van. In my current van, I opted for an induction instead. The gas stove was a huge pain to clean and it took up a ton of counter space that was otherwise unusable.
I loved being able to cook in the van when the weather was crummy, but as long as the weather is tolerable, I now prefer to do a majority of my cooking outside. In my new Sprinter, I have a one-burner induction stove for morning coffee, very simple meals, and bad weather days. The rest of my cooking, I’m doing outside with a two burner, portable camp stove.
While you need a powerful battery bank and inverter to run an induction stove, they have a lot of benefits. The induction stove in my Sprinter Van heats up and cool down fast, so you aren’t likely to burn yourself. Induction stoves are also easy to clean and safer since you aren’t combusting gas inside the van. One other thing Outside Van did is made the induction stove completely flush with the countertop, so when the stove isn’t on, it basically serves as normal counter space for chopping, etc.
We use this stove way more than we expected, and I’m so glad we installed it. It’s especially useful to be able to cook inside in winter without having to set anything up or when we are stealth camping.
The fridge in my first Sprinter Van conversion was way too small for our needs. In this van, I wanted a larger fridge with enough room to carry a weeks worth of fresh food. I chose a 4.6 cubic foot fridge by Isotherm. Isotherm is one of the premier marine and RV fridge companies, and their fridges are designed to survive shaking, vibration, and rigid movements that you have in vans and boats.
We love the size of our fridge and it functions quite well. My only complaint about this fridge is after about 6 weeks, the freezer starts to ice up and the entire fridge has to be turned off and defrosted. I’m not sure if other fridge styles – like drawer fridges – have the same issue.
For the sink, we have a nice pull-down faucet and a large, round stainless steel under-mount sink. I wanted a sink large enough that would make doing dishes very easy. Outside Van also created a cover that sits flush with the sink and creates a flat surface for additional prep space.
Drawers and Storage
The push locks keep the drawers and cabinets from opening while I’m driving, and Outside Van used a custom powder coat so the push locks match the other metal features in the van.
Lastly, for storage near the galley, there is a large 5’ long overhead cabinet for food and other essentials. I also opted for Outside Van’s overhead cab shelf which adds a lot of additional storage for oddly shaped items.
Sprinter Van Dinette
In my last Sprinter van conversion, my sofa converted to a bed. That meant when the bed was out, I couldn’t set my table up. This became a problem for my working productivity because Ryan and I have slightly different sleeping habits sometimes. I’m an early riser, and it’s the time of day I get most of my work done. Therefore I wanted a dedicated workspace that was always ready to go and didn’t have to be set up and taken down every day.
Behind the galley, Outside Van built me a custom dinette that comfortably seats two people. In my last van, Ryan and I had to sit next to each other on the sofa if we wanted to play a game or eat dinner. In this van, the dinette allows us to sit across from each other, which I prefer and feels more comfortable on my back.
I wanted the bench seats to add a pop of color to the van, so I choose fun fabric made by Sunbrella, which Outside Van uses as it’s stain and fade resistant. The two bench seats have ample storage in them and the bench seats also pull out to make a full lounge that spans the width of the van. It’s very easy to set up and could easily sleep a child or a Great Dane.
The dinette has worked out fabulous for both working, eating, and hanging out. We have never used the lounge and since there isn’t a seatbelt for an extra passenger, I’m not sure it was necessary to have this additional sleeping area. For the upholstery, we’ve removed the covers a few times and washed them in our washing machine. They clean up nice, but we do keep the bottom half covered with a towel since we step on it in order to get up in the bed. Next time, I might use a vinyl type material that wipes clean instead.
The table in the middle is on a Lagun swivel mount and serves as a desk and dining table. It’s 30” long and can be used width or lengthwise. The Lagun mount allows the table to be pushed all the way to one side, making it easier to access the storage underneath the bed. If I want to pull the bench seats out, I can remove the whole table from its mount and place it in a second mount next to the galley.
The table was constructed in-house by Outside Van. I had the idea to have a US map placed on the table top, and not only did they pull it off, but it looks fantastic and is one of my favorite parts of the van.
This Lagun table is awesome. We drive with it in place and have never removed it.
>> Read Next: Get Tips for Planning your Van Layout
Outside Van Sprinter Three-Panel Bed
Next at the rear of the van is Outside Van’s standard three-panel aluminum platform bed that goes all the way to the back doors with Outside Van’s exoskeleton cabinet for clothing storage. The bed has a capacity of 500 pounds and is almost a king-sized bed (we sleep the long way down the van even though the pillow placement suggests otherwise). All three panels are secured to the bed rails via a spring-loaded threaded fastener. The bed panels can also be removed if I was moving, for example, and needed to be able to store bigger things in the back of the van.
Mattress and Bedding
I chose the medium firm mattress with memory foam and added a latex topper for additional comfort. Outside Van’s mattress cover is made from Sunbrella, which is stain resistant, tear resistant, and easy to clean. While we keep ours protected with an additional waterproof mattress cover, I can even take their cover off and throw it in the washing machine.
My comforter for those who are curious is made by Rumpl.
Discover my top 17 must have van life gear essentials.
On the passenger side of the van, I have what Outside Van calls an exoskeleton cabinet which is open with no cabinet face. They put it on the opposite wall as the galley overhead cabinet to help balance out the van’s weight. This style of cabinet is stuffable, removable, modular and more lightweight than traditional cabinets. We use this exoskeleton cabinet to store packing cubes containing all of our clothes.
The open style cabinet has its pros and cons. I like that it’s easy to stuff a jacket in there or quickly grab something. At the same time, unless you are super diligent about putting your clothes away in your packing cubes, it can quickly look messy and unorganized.
Sprinter Van Garage
Underneath the bed is a ton of storage. Right now we have room for two Specialized e-mountain bikes, all of our camping, and outdoor gear, shoes, and even a couple of inflatable stand-up-paddle boards. There is also 25 gallons of water, a Webasto Dual Top Evo 6 for heat and hot water, and a very powerful battery bank.
Everything gets secured in the garage using Mac’s Versatile Tie Down System – basically a version of L Track. Using Mac’s tie-down rings, we cinch all of our bins up using straps so nothing moves while we are driving. The bikes use the same system. We simply take the front wheel off of our bikes, put the bikes in facing the opposite direction so we can get them as tight as possible together, and then mount them to the Mac System using fork mounts. It takes a few minutes to unpack and restore the bikes, but I’m very happy being able to store our electric bikes inside the van to prevent them from getting stolen and to minimize the number of things that are hanging off of the van and causing drag.
We can access the garage via the back doors or from the inside of the van. Outside Van makes a softwall that attaches to the front of the bed frame and drops down to the floor. The middle of the softball has a zippered doorway that you can leave open to get in and out of the garage without having to go outside. We typically just leave this up since we store our shoes right behind the soft wall.
You may be wondering how easy it is to stay organized in here without a robust drawer system. In my Outside Van Sprinter, I opted to keep storage simple. A big drawer system, especially if it’s made of wood, is very heavy and is just another component of the van that you have to worry about breaking if you like to drive off-road. Instead, I wanted to store my gear in lightweight plastic bins and duffel bags. That way it’s easy to pull everything out of the van together in the bins/bags, rather than having to take each individual item out of drawers to transport my stuff in and out of a house. It would be cool to have the bikes on some sort of slider system, but you end up losing a few inches vertically, and we didn’t want our bed any higher.
>> Read Next: How to Fit your Stuff into 100 Square Feet
Sprinter Van Electrical System
My last Sprinter Van had high performing electrical components, and in this van, I opted for many of those same components but a beefier system overall. Running low on power is stressful, and if you drop below a certain point, it can damage your batteries to the point of needing to replace them. We plan on living in the van full-time for 6 months a year, and with electric bikes, my computer, camera, induction stove, the heater, and other electronics, I wanted to never have to worry about running out of power – especially in the winter.
We’ve spent almost two years living full time in this Sprinter van, and we’ve never had to plug in. I’m so happy I went with a robust system that I never have to worry about. Occasionally in winter if we are using the induction stove a lot, we might turn on the van so the alternator sends some additional juice to the batteries. But other than that, this power system has performed great. The technology has changed since my van was built, so next time I might consider Lithium. However, I’ve never had any issues with my AGM batteries, and they are still holding charge as if they were brand new.
I almost doubled my battery bank in my new Sprinter. In my last van, I had 375 amp hours of batteries. In this van, I have 660 amp hours. I opted for AGM batteries because they perform better in cold weather than Lithium Ion, and they are also more cost-effective. The batteries are stored in a cabinet in the garage. The batteries charge off of the solar on the roof, and they are also hooked up to my engine’s alternator, so the batteries are constantly charging while I’m driving.
On the roof, I have 445 watts of solar panels made by Zamp Solar. They are the same brand I had on my last van, and Outside Van uses Zamp because their panels are made right here in the US, and out of the companies they’ve tried, they’ve found their panels to be the highest performing. I have four 80 watt panels and one 125 watt panel. One of my single 80-watt solar panels should cover the consumption rate of the fridge, while the rest run the other things in the van.
>> Read Next: Planning your electrical system for your van conversion
My solar setup on the roof is secured to a custom-made Outside Van roof rack. The rack is very low profile, so you can barely see it from the ground, and it has a walkway down the center of the van that I use to hang out or access the solar panels for cleaning. It’s worked out great as a platform for taking photos too.
The final piece is the inverter. I have a 2000 watt Magnum Pure-Sine Inverter which converts power from the batteries to AC power that I use to run the induction stove and other things that plug into the 110 outlets. I have 6 USB outlets and 6 regular 110 outlets, including two 110 outlets in the garage that we use to charge our e-bikes. In addition to our ebikes, we have a computer, cameras, phones, a blender, a dust buster, and a few other appliances that we charge.
Sprinter Van Temperature Control
I opted against a rear AC in my Sprinter Van conversion. They draw a ton of power, and it didn’t seem necessary. I can confirm now that we made the right decision. We don’t camp in the desert in summer, and when it gets too hot, we flock to higher elevations. Of course, if you plan on living in Florida or Arizona in summer, you may need to plan differently.
Outside Van did do a few things though to keep the interior of the van comfortable, even on hot sunny days.
First, they replaced the front side factory windows with CR Laurence Windows that vent. Next to the bed, we also have small slider windows that open up.
I have two Maxx Fans. One above the galley and one above the bed. They each have a rain sensor and create really nice airflow in the van. Compared to my Fantastic Fan in my last Sprinter Van, the Maxx Fans seem superior.
Insulating Window Shades
All of the window shades in my Sprinter van conversion are made of a ripstop nylon with a layer of closed cell foam in the middle which helps insulate the van from the heat in the summer and prevent warm air from escaping through the windows in the winter. The shades are very simple to put up and take down via the snap buttons and most of the time, we find ourselves driving with them in place to keep the sun out.
The curtain that leads to the front of the van is the same material and has a zippered walkway in the middle. This is one of my favorite things in the van. We leave it hanging up at all time, and I love how easy it is to zip is closed when we want privacy or to insulate the living area from the cab.
For heat in the winter, I have a Webasto Dual Top Evo 6. This equipment produces hot air and hot water and runs of the diesel in your existing diesel tank. Outside Van generally installs these Webasto units inside the van in the garage which improves their performance in the winter versus having them on the outside.
We’ve had our van down to single digits at night, and the van feels toasty warm inside.
>> Read Next: Options for Temperature Control in your Van Conversion
Sprinter Van Plumbing System
In my new Sprinter, I wanted my entire plumbing system contained inside the van, so I don’t have to worry about anything freezing in the winter. It’s a simple streamlined setup and very easy to fill up our water.
I have a 25-gallon water tank inside a cabinet in the garage, alongside the Webasto Dual Top which stores an additional 3 gallons of hot water in the boiler. The BPA-free water tank is permanent, but it can easily be filled using a hose or 5-gallon jugs if I can’t find a spigot with potable water. Water that runs through lines to the sink goes through a three-stage charcoal water filter that ensures the water we are drinking is clean.
For showering, Outside Van does build lightweight indoor showers for those of you who truly need a regular indoor shower…but based my experience with my last indoor shower, I decided this wasn’t a necessity for me or worth the sacrifice in space. For showering, we can quickly hook up a shower hose to the back of the water tank, which allows us to take hot outdoor showers. When we travel in the winter, we’ll have to find other ways to shower – like gyms, community centers, campgrounds, or houses of family or friends.
>> Read Next: 7 Reasons you Don’t Need a Permanent Shower in your Van
In my last Sprinter Van, I had a Thetford portable toilet. It did the trick, but I hated using it for #2 because dumping it was gross. Plus, finding a dump every 5-7 days to empty the toilet was a hassle.
For the first year we traveled in this new Sprinter, we didn’t have a toilet. But now, with wanting to avoid public bathrooms, we carry this foldable Go Anywhere toilet that utilizes wag bags. We prefer go outside and dig a hole following Leave No Trace principles, but when it’s not possible to go outside, we use this toilet. Once you’re done, the bag just goes in the trash can. The bags do get pricey, and I’m not crazy about the plastic waste, but for the occasional use, it’s worked out great for us. The space we save by not having a normal toilet is more than worth it, and I enjoy not having the toilet-related chores
>> Read Next: Best camper van toilet options
Sprinter Van Floor
In my last Sprinter, I found that the dark wood floors looked great, but they were very hard to keep clean. Dirt shows very easily on dark colors and with our dog, all we saw was footprints. The wood also didn’t provide any traction.
The first thing Outside Van does when building their floors is to remove the factory floor. They then build a new floor out of marine grade plywood and adhere a layer of high-density vinyl to the top. This is a slightly heavier than the factory floor, but its a little thicker and way more durable, so there’s no flex in the floor when you place heavy features on it.
In my Outside Van Sprinter, I choose two different types of flooring – both made of a high-density vinyl. In the front, I wanted something that would provide a balance between durability and easiness to clean, which led me to a lighter colored vinyl weave with a hint of black that ties in with other black features in the van like the window shades. Update: The texture in the weave the floor up front actually makes. it quite difficult to clean.
In the back, I chose a diamond plate style vinyl floor, which is one of the most durable floor types you can put in a Sprinter Van. It doesn’t scratch, so it can withstand bins and bikes sliding across it. We’ve found this to be true after years of dragging gear across it.
>> Read Next: A Guide to Floor Materials for your Van
Sprinter Van Walls
One of my favorite features of my last Sprinter Van was the white walls. It made the van feel so bright, open, and airy. Outside Van had never built a van with white walls, so my van is a completely new look for them. They found a synthetic leather product called Sileather that is eco-friendly, VOC-free, easy to clean with a damp cloth, waterproof, and fade proof. It’s perfect for people with dogs, as dog hair doesn’t stick to it. I’ve been really happy with the walls – even bloody mosquitos wipe right up.
Behind the walls, is insulation, a really powerful sound dampening material, and a custom infrastructure that Outside Van has developed to reduce the twisting and flexing of the van interior, making the build more durable. The van is incredibly quiet when I drive. There are no rattles or other noises from the cabinets or other components, making for a very peaceful ride.
>> Read Next: Best Insulation types for your Van Conversion
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design
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https://www.aboutinsider.com/what-to-incorporate-in-an-office-background/
| 2023-12-06T18:29:32 |
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What To Incorporate in an Office Background
If you are using video conferencing software to visit with family and friends, your background may not matter much. However, if you use it for professional meetings or conferences, having the right background can impact your success. These are things you can incorporate into your office background.
Minimalist Plain Zoom
Your first step to creating an office background is to declutter. Remove anything that creates a busy-looking area. Your minimalist plain zoom background shouldn’t have extra furniture, cords, desk accessories, etc.
Move as much out of your camera view as possible. If you do have bookshelves behind you, make sure that everything is put away and they look tidy. If you don’t need it for your presentation, remove it. In fact, a background in one solid color with one focal point, such as a piece of artwork, is often best. In addition, avoid placing your camera where you can see the doorway in the frame.
Incorporate a Logo
When you have cleared out all the furniture and other accessories, you should have a rather blank canvas, especially if you removed those bookshelves. Hopefully, you are starting with a blank wall. Now, incorporate your company logo.
You can size it based on the frame and color of the logo versus the wall. Make sure your logo doesn’t overpower the screen, but make it visible.
Add a Plant
Plants not only pull toxins out of the air, but they give your area a natural, lively look. They also help you feel happy. In the background, they add interest and height. Choose something attractive and interesting, but don’t let it overwhelm the background. If you have trouble keeping plants alive, choose a lifelike artificial plant.
Custom Office Backgrounds
If you cannot clear out your background, you can adopt a custom office background. You can choose from a number of background options and even insert your logo. You also gain more privacy because others on your video call cannot see your home or desk.
Because they are customized, you can also use them to build brand recognition. Those you are meeting with will see that you care about keeping your “meeting room” tidy and ensuring that it reflects your company, encouraging them to trust your brand. In addition, you can choose from many low-cost or free options, so you can create unique backgrounds for your calls.
Pay Attention to the Lighting
Your lighting is important because it can make you and your background look great or not so great. For example, you may choose a ring light, which is a popular choice for many YouTubers, but if you are at a desk, choose a high-color rendering index light. These lights show true color, so you and your background won’t be washed out or off-color during your meetings.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money on a lighting system. Use natural light if you have it, but if you don’t you can find affordable options with great results online.
You can also choose free zoom backgrounds office for important business meetings where you need your attendees to pay close attention. The key is to create a natural-looking background that isn’t cluttered with unnecessary distractions but shows a little personality.
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design
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https://www.xaliglyfada.gr/journal3/blog/post?journal_blog_post_id=15
| 2023-09-28T05:11:16 |
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White and ivory are timeless colors that have been popular in interior design for centuries. These neutral hues are versatile, elegant, and timeless, making them a popular choice for many modern homes. White and ivory are often used to create a fresh and airy look in a room, and they can also be paired with other colors to create a warm and inviting atmosphere.
Handmade modern minimal rugs have become increasingly popular in recent years, as homeowners seek to add a touch of elegance and sophistication to their homes. These rugs are characterized by clean lines, simple patterns, and a focus on high-quality materials. Some of the most popular materials for handmade modern minimal rugs include wool, cotton, and silk, each of which offers a unique texture and feel.
In 2023, the trend towards minimalism in interior design is expected to continue, and handmade modern minimal rugs will play a significant role in this movement. These rugs offer a simple, yet elegant, way to add texture and depth to a room, and they can be paired with a wide range of decor styles to create a truly unique and personalized look. Whether you're looking to create a minimalist space or simply add a touch of elegance to your home, handmade modern minimal rugs are a great choice.
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design
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http://www.mr.kreutinger.com/2013/12/1st-grade-winter-wax-resist.html
| 2024-03-02T16:08:19 |
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The first grade just made some awesome winter inspired art! They did drawings of a snowy landscape and a snowman with a wax resist!
Here's how they did it.
First they drew three circles to represent the snowman.
Then they created trees and mountains for the horizon.
Next they colored in the trees and used a blue crayon to add some shading and value to the snowman. They also used a white crayon to draw snowflakes in the sky that you cannot see... yet!
Last they used a watercolor paint in the sky and mountains. But the white crayon created a wax resist. It was like magic the snowflakes started appearing all over they page!
Here are the finished pieces!
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design
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https://cdn.photo-discovery.fr/selection/schneider/
| 2023-04-01T05:18:50 |
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| 0.956736 | 3,355 |
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Fantasies of a European Lady.
The Stereo-Daguerreotypes of Princess Zinaida Yusupova’s Palace in Saint Petersburg
An outstanding series of ten stereo-daguerreotypes from the early 1860s shows the interiors of a most fashionable palace at 42 Liteyny Avenue in Saint Petersburg, then capital of the Tsarist Empire. The building was owned by Princess Zinaida Yusupova (1810–1893), a descendant of the noble Moscow boyar family, the Narishkins (A). In 1827, while still very young, she had married Prince Boris Yusupov (1794–1849), an important official of the imperial court. The couple bought a palace on the Moika River in 1830 and had it rebuilt and expanded several times. The princess was known for her beauty, intelligence and knowledge of poetry and art, as well as for various affairs and her proximity to Tsar Nicholas I. After her husband’s death, Zinaida had the palace built on Liteyny Avenue and moved there after her only son Nikolai Yusupov (1827–1891), to whom she left the palace on the Moika River, married in 1856. Zinaida Yusupova was one of the capital’s richest aristocrats at the time, and her prominent status in Russian high society is still reflected in her magnificent palace, built between 1852 and 1858 by architect Ludwig Bohnstedt (1822–1885).
The eye-catching two-story building is located on one of the main boulevards of the city center, which runs north-south from Liteyny Bridge to Nevsky Avenue, and is best seen from Belinsky Street, at the end of which it is located (B). On the one hand, the façade, strictly structured with large round-arched windows, is inspired by Italian Renaissance architecture. On the other hand, the façade’s lavish architectural and sculptural decoration – such as columns and pilasters, caryatids, atlantes, putti and vases – is more reminiscent of Baroque architecture. This way, the palace represented the latest fashion: the amalgamation of different stylistic models of past epochs was characteristic of the so-called “eclecticism” in 19th-century architecture. The somewhat imposing décor, however, seems to have suited the princess’s taste rather than the architect’s artistic convictions. A peculiarity of the palace is that its façades are completely faced with stone, unlike most other buildings of this era in Saint Petersburg, where brick walls were plastered and decorated with cheaper stucco. The main façade and all its decorations are carved from light-colored “Bremen sandstone” which was one of the reasons why the palace was considered a culmination of taste and splendor at the time.
Zinaida Yusupova, proud of her new residence, had the palace and its interiors documented in various media. Around 1860, Vasily Sadovnikov (1800–1879) painted the palace in a series of detailed watercolors, and apparently photographs also existed of the building at that time. Highlighted are the preserved stereo-daguerreotypes presented here. Using a camera with two lenses, the interiors were photographed from two slightly different angles side by side on one plate. When these images are looked at through a simple optical device, an illusion of three-dimensional depth is created, and the viewer can be literally immersed in the image.
The ten stereo-daguerreotypes measure 8.5 x 11 cm each and are subtly hand-tinted with dust and watercolor paints. They are mounted under a protective glass plate in a cardboard passepartout covered with gold foil and carrying the imprint of the manufacturing company: “T. SCHNEIDER UND SOEHNE” [T. SCHNEIDER AND SONS]. Also preserved is the original wooden storage box with ten compartments and a sliding lid, and a leather-bound wooden viewing case lined with red velvet. A daguerreotype inserted into this case could be viewed through the integrated fold-out lens plate. This way, the desired perception of spatial depth was easier to achieve and the viewing experience improved.
The Age of the Daguerreotype
The Daguerreotype, first viable photographic method, developed by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851), was introduced to the public in August 1839 at the French Academy of Sciences in Paris and changed the world of imagery forever. Daguerre’s cameras and equipment sold quickly and many enthusiasts learned the profitable technique which made it possible to depict the world in a relatively simple but entirely new and lifelike way. After further technical improvements to the process, even portraits of living people could be taken. To make a daguerreotype, silver-plated and polished copper plates first had to be made light-sensitive with iodine vapor. Then they were inserted into the camera and exposed. Subsequently, the plates were developed using mercury vapor, and finally they had to be fixed in a specific solution.
The daguerreotype soon spread to Russia, and in the 1840s and 1850s, the decades considered the “Age of the Daguerreotype”, many photographic studios opened in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. French, Italian, German, and Russian daguerreotypists worked there, producing mainly single and group portraits. In the 1860s, the daguerreotype, whose primary disadvantage was the non-reproducibility of the resulting unique prints, was rapidly replaced by various negative processes that allowed the photograph to be duplicated.
Trupert Schneider and the Schneider Brothers
In the early 1860s, however, daguerreotypes taken as stereo images were Schneider and Sons’ area of expertise, setting them apart from other photographers. Trupert Schneider (1804–1899), a skilled carpenter from the Duchy of Baden, completely changed his career in his 40s after discovering the technique of the daguerreotype. First, he assisted Joseph Broglie (*1810), an itinerant daguerreotypist from Huningue (Alsace), but soon acquired the necessary equipment to work on his own. From 1848, Schneider and his son Heinrich (1835–1900) traveled as daguerreotypists, undertaking extensive trips to Italy and Austria. In 1856 Trupert’s younger son Wilhelm (1839–1921) joined them and from mid-1858, the brothers traveled on alone, establishing themselves for periods in Hamburg and Berlin, where they mainly portrayed local society. After a two-month stay at home, they returned to work in Berlin and Prussian Silesia in March 1860. Now, for the first time, a “Bilderkästchen” [picture box] and a “Stereoskopkasten” [stereoscope box] – presumably a storage box and a viewing case for stereo-daguerreotypes – are mentioned in their commission book in connection with interior photographs of a building. It is quite possible that the stereo-daguerreotypes were an innovative proposal devised by Trupert Schneider and his sons in view of the threatening decline of the daguerreotype. In this case, the spectacular illusion of three-dimensional depth of stereoscopic images – particularly suitable for the representation of architecture and interiors – could counterbalance the lack of reproducibility of the image. On May 1 1861, Heinrich and Wilhelm Schneider left Ehrenstetten in Baden for Russia, arriving in Saint Petersburg on May 21. After having taken only a few pictures, the bad weather prompted them to travel on to Moscow. Here they spent more than two weeks photographing the Kremlin, the tsar’s residence, totaling around eighty stereo-daguerreotypes. Back in Saint Petersburg, prominent residents of the city posed in front of the camera and the Schneider brothers documented their castles, villas and dachas in great detail. In winter, they were forced to pause for about three months due to the lack of daylight before returning to work in Saint Petersburg and Moscow (C). According to the commission book, they worked in Zinaida Yusupova’s (then Countess Chauveau) palace during their partnership with Carl Hedler, which began in mid-April 1862. After fourteen months in Russia, the Schneider brothers left the country in early August 1862. Only a few years later, now young millionaires, they settled in Krotzingen, where they built a house with a studio and laboratory. They adopted the more modern wet plate and later the dry plate techniques, but at the same time continued to work with daguerreotypes even until 1880. Their legacy has not survived and their photographs are now either lost or dispersed in collections and museums throughout Europe. The few stereo-daguerreotypes held in the collections of the State Russian Museum in Moscow and the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg are all works of Heinrich and Wilhelm Schneider, made in 1861 and 1862, and show mainly interiors.
Stylish Interiors and Colorful Illusions of Depth
The stereo-daguerreotypes of Zinaida Yusupova’s palace show nine locations of its vast premises. All rooms are lavishly decorated with stucco, gilding and decorative painting and equipped with many gas-powered lamps. The princess, who had spent a lot of time in Paris in recent years, had the palace furnished according to the taste of the time, strongly influenced by the eclectic Second Empire style, also known as Napoleon III style. The rooms vary in design depending on their function, creating a kaleidoscope of artistic impressions, historical and literary associations, and resulting in stylistic codes that could easily be deciphered by contemporaries. The architect Andrei Zhukovskii commented in 1859:
The entire furnishing altogether produces a magnificent effect; the most fanciful architectural fantasies of female taste could not be more successfully and more satisfactorily executed; the most exquisite conditions of a European lady’s quarters seem to be fulfilled in perfection in this building.
A first stereo daguerreotype shows the view from below of the impressive red-carpeted staircase leading to the upper main floor (1). The garlanded pilasters, steps and handrail are carved from marble, while the walls and ceilings are decorated with stucco. On the upper floor, the most important halls where the princess would receive her guests, are arranged around the staircase. Two daguerreotypes depict the pink drawing room facing Liteyny Avenue in the northwest corner of the building (2). It features pink fabrics, gilded pilasters, and a large oval mirror above a dark marble fireplace. Two other daguerreotypes show the two adjoining rooms to the east. The image of a smaller drawing room, furnished with light blue upholstered and gilded chairs and a large chandelier, is the least successful of the series (3). The camera was set up slightly inclined and the room is poorly lit, which is why the fireplace next to the door and the painting on the left wall disappear in the dark. The daguerreotype of the following narrow, elongated room, which served as a gallery for paintings, miniatures, majolica and Chinese porcelain, is again well accomplished (4). Thanks to the windows facing the winter garden and the first courtyard the lighting is better here. The picture gallery, where further paintings, portraits and small statues and busts are exhibited, and which is located on the opposite side of the courtyard, can be seen in the following daguerreotype (5). Between the two galleries extends a very particular space, accessible from the main staircase through a glazed door: The winter garden under a sloping glass roof was one of the largest in Saint Petersburg at the time and displays a lush vegetation, clearly visible in another daguerreotype (6). Such winter gardens, which took visitors off to warm and exotic destinations, were very popular at that time in the often winter cold city.
Two other daguerreotypes show interiors, which are probably located on the first floor of the palace. One photograph shows a Renaissance-style room with a stucco ceiling decorated with large painted medallions (7). On one side of the room, a buffet is set up, containing drinking vessels, platters and table centerpieces. The other photograph reveals Zinaida Yusupova’s bedroom (8). It is decorated entirely in blue and white, and not only by coincidence resembles her former bedroom in the palace on the Moika River, The furniture was brought – as well as other fixtures suitable for the princess’s new house – from the Yusupov’s Moika Palace. The last daguerreotype shows the private church, established with the approval of the Synod on the third floor of the palace’s south wing (9). Consecrated in 1861, the church is arranged according to a design by Alexey Gornostaev (1808–1862). It is covered with a dome and vaults and decorated with portraits of saints and scenes from the gospel, as well as gilded stucco decoration and a carved iconostasis.
Zinaida Yusupova spent little time in her palace. In May 1861, she married the much younger officer Charles Chauveau (1829–1889), whom she had met in France, in her palace’s newly completed church. Fallen out of favor with Tsar Alexander II because of the mésalliance, the princess acquired the title of Count Chauveau and Marquis de Serres for her husband and soon left the country. She settled with Chaveau in a chateau in Brittany and spent the years after his death mainly in Paris, without being able to return to her homeland.
A Set of Exceptional Value
The stereo-daguerreotypes of Zinaida Yusupova’s palace are an important heritage in several respects. Since daguerreotypes are very sensitive to humidity and temperature, relatively few have survived to this day. The well-preserved stereo-daguerreotypes of the palace on Liteyny Avenue, each of them unique, are among the few existing Russian photographs by the Schneider brothers. They bear witness to the history of early photography in Russia and to the above-average quality and the distinctive characteristic of the work of Heinrich and Wilhelm Schneider, who were still very young at the time. Another unique fact is that not only the daguerreotypes, but also the original wooden storage box and the viewing case have been preserved. Both the format of the daguerreotypes and the storage box differ from the usual standards and demonstrate the inventiveness and craftsmanship of Trupert Schneider. Originally specialized in manufacturing exclusive small objects such as sewing boxes and jewelry boxes, he later not only produced his own photographic equipment, and also supplied his traveling sons with the necessary wooden boxes and viewing cases for stereo-daguerreotypes. Furthermore, the pictures are historical documents that provide extremely precise information about the housing needs of the nobility of the time and their preferences in interior design. They show a snapshot of the newly built palace of a most important Saint Petersburg lady of the time. Today, some of the depicted interiors are still preserved – albeit without the movable furnishings – but others have long since been lost, among them the church and the winter garden, which had to make way for a theater hall in 1908. For these rooms and for the lost furnishings, the stereo-daguerreotypes are significant and detailed sources that reproduce the palace’s initial atmosphere. Finally, the stereo-daguerreotypes commissioned by Zinaida Yusupova testify to the princess’s enthusiasm for the new possibilities of photography as well as her love for the arts.
Price on request
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design
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https://lettalkedu.com/promoting-inclusive-classrooms-for-students-with-disabilities-strategies-for-education-equality/
| 2023-09-24T07:15:11 |
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How Do I Promote Inclusive Classrooms for Students with Disabilities?
Promoting Inclusive Classrooms for Students with Disabilities: Strategies for Education Equality
Learn effective strategies for creating inclusive classrooms that cater to students with disabilities. Discover how inclusive education promotes diversity, equity, and educational opportunities for all students, fostering an inclusive learning environment.
Things that are found in Inclusive Classroom
Inclusive classrooms are designed to accommodate the diverse needs of all students, fostering a supportive and equitable learning environment. Here are some key elements commonly found in inclusive classrooms:
Inclusive classrooms consist of students with a wide range of abilities, backgrounds, cultures, and learning styles. Students with disabilities, English language learners, and students from various ethnic, socio-economic, and religious backgrounds are welcomed and included.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Inclusive classrooms incorporate the principles of UDL, which provide multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression. Differentiated instruction and materials are utilized to accommodate diverse learning styles and support the individual needs of students.
Individualized Education Plans (IEPs)
Students with disabilities have personalized IEPs that outline their specific goals, accommodations, and support services. IEPs ensure that students receive the necessary resources and adjustments to access the curriculum and participate fully in classroom activities.
Inclusive classrooms often involve collaborative teaching approaches. General education teachers, special education teachers, and support staff work together to provide instruction and support to all students. Collaboration ensures that the diverse needs of students are met effectively.
Assistive Technologies and Supports
Inclusive classrooms may utilize assistive technologies and support to enhance accessibility and accommodate individual needs. These can include assistive devices, specialized software, visual aids, adaptive equipment, and classroom modifications.
Teachers in inclusive classrooms employ differentiated instruction to meet the diverse learning needs of students. Instruction is tailored to individual abilities, providing various levels of challenge and support to promote student success and engagement. Promoting Inclusive Classrooms for Students with Disabilities: Strategies for Education Equality
Positive Behavior Support
Inclusive classrooms implement positive behavior support strategies to create a safe and respectful learning environment. Clear expectations, behavior management plans, and social-emotional learning activities help foster a positive classroom culture.
Peer Support and Collaboration
Inclusive classrooms encourage peer support and collaboration among students. Cooperative learning activities, group projects, and peer tutoring provide opportunities for students to interact, learn from each other, and develop empathy and understanding.
Accessible Learning Materials
Inclusive classrooms ensure that learning materials, including textbooks, worksheets, and digital resources, are accessible to all students. Materials may be provided in alternative formats, such as braille, large print, or audio, to meet the diverse needs of learners.
Sensitivity and Inclusion Education
Inclusive classrooms prioritize fostering sensitivity, empathy, and inclusion among students. Teachers promote discussions on diversity, disability awareness, and acceptance to cultivate a culture of respect and understanding.
By incorporating these elements, inclusive classrooms aim to create a nurturing and empowering educational environment that values and celebrates the uniqueness and abilities of all students.
Ways To Promote Inclusive Classrooms for Students with Disabilities
Promoting inclusive classrooms for students with disabilities requires a concerted effort from educators, administrators, and the entire school community. Here are some effective ways to promote inclusive classrooms:
Provide ongoing professional development and training for teachers and staff to enhance their knowledge and skills in inclusive education. Training can cover topics such as differentiation strategies, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), assistive technologies, and positive behavior support.
Collaborative Team Approach
Foster collaboration among teachers, special educators, related service providers, and families. Regular communication and collaboration help create a unified support system for students with disabilities. Sharing insights, strategies, and progress updates ensures a consistent and inclusive educational experience.
Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and Accommodations
Implement individualized education plans (IEPs) for students with disabilities. Collaborate with students, their families, and specialists to develop IEPs that outline specific goals, support services, and accommodations tailored to their needs. Ensure that accommodations are implemented consistently and effectively.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Incorporate UDL principles into instruction by providing multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression. Use diverse instructional strategies, materials, and technologies that cater to different learning styles and abilities, making the curriculum accessible to all students.
Sensitivity and Disability Awareness
Promote disability awareness and sensitivity among students and staff. Organize awareness campaigns, guest speaker sessions, or disability-focused events to educate the school community about different disabilities, and foster empathy, respect, and understanding.
Peer Support and Social Integration
Facilitate peer support and social integration for students with disabilities. Encourage interactions, cooperation, and mutual understanding among students of all abilities. Implement programs such as peer mentoring, buddy systems, or inclusive extracurricular activities to promote friendships and reduce social isolation.
Accessible Physical Environment
Ensure that the physical environment of the school is accessible and inclusive. Remove physical barriers, and provide ramps, elevators, accessible washrooms, and designated spaces for assistive technologies. Create a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere that accommodates the mobility needs of students with disabilities.
Inclusive Curriculum and Instructional Materials
Develop and implement an inclusive curriculum that represents diverse perspectives and experiences. Incorporate materials and resources that are accessible, culturally responsive, and reflect the diversity of the student population. Use accessible formats, such as braille, large print, or audio, for students with visual impairments.
Parent and Community Engagement
Involve parents and the community in promoting inclusive classrooms. Encourage their participation in school activities, decision-making processes, and parent-teacher meetings. Seek their input and feedback to ensure that their perspectives are considered in creating an inclusive learning environment.
Ongoing Evaluation and Reflection
Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of inclusive practices and make adjustments as needed. Seek feedback from students, parents, and staff to identify areas for improvement. Reflect on the progress and challenges faced in promoting inclusive classrooms and continuously strive for growth and inclusivity.
By implementing these strategies, schools can create an inclusive learning environment that supports the academic, social, and emotional development of students with disabilities, fostering a culture of acceptance, respect, and equality for all learners.
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design
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https://fpganes.blogspot.com/2013/01/luddes-fpga-nes.html
| 2021-07-23T18:22:46 |
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Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was created back in 1985 by the famous Japanese company Nintendo. It was an extremely revolutionary console at its time and was the best selling console for a number of years. I used to play NES a lot as a kid, so I have all those memories of the old games, and had an imminent urge to dig into the inner details of the console to figure out how it worked.
I got myself a Digilent Nexys 3 FPGA development board. It's a ready made FPGA board with built in Flash, RAM, USB programming interface, and power supply circuitry. This is a really quick and easy path into the world of FPGAs. The alternative could be to make the whole PCB from scratch, and that is something I want to learn some day. A guy named Kevtris has done exactly that with his FPGA Game Console.
There are two competing hardware description languages, VHDL and Verilog. I chose to learn Verilog because VHDL seemed unnecessarily verbose while Verilog offered a much more compact syntax.
The NES contains a Ricoh 2A03 CPU, virtually identical to the MOS 6502 CPU, but includes an on chip APU (Audio Processing Unit), while removing some CPU features such as Binary Coded Decimal arithmetic, supposedly to avoid paying patent royalties. Side by side to the CPU is a PPU (Picture Processing Unit), which is responsible for generating a 256x240 sized image. The console has extremely small amounts of memory with today's standards. It has a built in 2kB RAM for the CPU, and another 2kB used by the PPU. Additionally, some carts provided a few kilobytes of extra memory.
Since the CPU uses only a 16-bit address bus, it was common to include mapper chips inside of the cartridge. These are used to implement a mapping (or windowing) mechanism, so the CPU can select which part of the ROM to map into the address space. There exist a plethora of mapper configurations, around 200 different configurations or so. In some cases these were regular discrete logic chips such as 74LS161, while in other cases it was custom made ASICs. In order to support all NES games, I need to implement all those mapper chips too, as the FPGA NES uses an iNES ROM image instead of a physical cartridge.
The NES PPU runs off of a 21.4773 MHz crystal. This frequency was chosen by the original NES designers because it's the frequency used by NTSC video. These are the frequencies I make use of in my FPGA:
- 100MHz: The frequency of the devboard crystal, this gets converted down to 21.4773MHz by the FPGA's built in Digital Clock Manager (DCM) by first multiplying the frequency by 189, then dividing by 220, and finally dividing by 4.
- 21.4773MHz: The internal frequency the FPGA runs on, is used to clock the PSRAM logic, the VGA scanline doubler, ROM loader and some other top level logic.
- 5.37MHz: Generated by dividing 21.4773 by 4. This is frequency the PPU runs at, and every clock another pixel is outputted by the PPU. In my FPGA, I used clock enables to run the PPU only every 4th cycle, to avoid having multiple clock domains.
- 1.79MHz: PPU clock divided by 3. This clocks the CPU. Implemented as a clock enable that's active only every 12th cycle.
Here's a description of the various components that make up the FPGA NES:
Spartan 6 LX16 FPGA Core:
The heart of the board, the Spartan-6 is the programmable chip that runs the NES. It's a pretty advanced FPGA where the basic building block is a 6 input LUT instead of the more commonly used 4-input LUT used in the Spartan-3 series. Here's an FPGA Logic Cells comparison with more info.
The LUT is used to create an arbitrary function of 6 bits of inputs into one bit of output, i.e. 2^6=64 bits of state. These LUTs get interconnected and state is persisted between clock cycles through the use of flip flops, which each keep 1 bit of memory.
16Mbyte Micron Cellular RAM
This is PSRAM, a hybrid of a cheap DRAM and a more expensive SRAM. It still requires DRAM refresh cycles, but all that is happens behind the scenes so I don't need to worry about it. The RAM has an access time of 70ns, meaning that after I put the address out on the bus, I need to wait 70ns before the data is available for me to read. In my RAM logic, I wait 2 cycles (90ns). I timed it so I perform one single byte fetch per PPU clock.
The NES has separate address buses for the CPU (code) and the PPU (graphics). Since I use a single RAM chip, I'm time multiplexing the accesses. The PPU accesses ram only every second clock cycle, i.e. 50% of the time, while CPU accesses every third PPU cycle (33% of the time).
This is a rather mediocre video solution, as it only gives me 3 bits for Red, 3 bits for Green and 2 bits for Blue. This only allows for 4 levels of grayscale, so I can't even represent all NES colors accurately (see the picture). I need to move away from this once I figure out a better solution. I really wish the Digilent board would have used a proper video DAC instead, such as Analog Devices ADV7123.
These are Digilent's own expansion connectors. I created some simple audio circuitry using a 16 bit AD1866 Audio DAC connected to a single supply Operational Amplifier. The Audio DAC has a bit limited voltage range, 1.5V - 3.5V, so the peak to peak voltage after the opamp is only around 1 volt or so. I discovered the hard way by trial and error that I had to connect an electrolytic capacitor in series with the speaker to act as a high pass filter and remove the DC component to get the average voltage down to 0 volts instead of 2.5 volts.
The Digilent USB Interface can also be used as a bidirectional communications channel between the FPGA and a program running on the PC. The only controllers I had were USB SNES controllers, so I hooked the controller up to the PC and have a small program that reads the joystick movements and sends these over the cable to the FPGA.
6502 CPU Core
I wrote my own 6502 Verilog core, it seemed like a fun challenge and was a lot more educational and challenging than just stealing someone else's. The CPU contains an ALU, a set of registers, and a datapath structure that connects these together. Each instruction runs in a variable number of cycles, and a big microcode table controls which muxes and control signals that are active for every cycle of an instruction. There exists a lot of good documentation of how the 6502 worked down to the cycle level.
Interestingly, the 6502 had a bunch of undocumented instructions. These exist because instructions are only partially decoded by a Decode PLA, and the unused opcodes trigger random control signals in the CPU, causing unplanned things to happen. I implemented most of these, except for some very esoteric ones.
APU (Audio Processing Unit)
The NES APU contains 5 tone generators: Two square wave generators, one triangle generator, one noise generator and a DMC (Delta Modulation Channel). These are periodically controlled by the CPU by writing to a few IO registers in the APU. The outputs of these 5 channels are then combined in a way to mimic the audio hardware of the NES, by using a few look up tables implemented on the FPGA's block ram.
Because the sample frequency of the APU is 1.79MHz, and the output frequency of my DAC is much much lower, I need to implement a digital low pass filter to remove the very high frequency components, to avoid aliasing artifacts. I implemented a 767 order FIR filter using one of the FPGA's DSP Multiply and Accumulate units and some block ram. The DSP unit can compute expressions on the form P = P + A * (B + C) in a single clock cycle. The FIR filter runs at 21.4773 MHz, and generates an output sample rate of 1/384th of that (55.9 kHz). Thanks to FIR filters being symmetrical, I only need to perform 768/2 = 384 multiplications per output sample, i.e. exactly one multiplication per clock cycle.
PPU (Picture Processing Unit)
Generates output pixels and VGA control signals so the picture can be output on a standard PC monitor. I use the output resolution 512x480, so I implemented a scanline doubler in the FPGA, so that one PPU pixel becomes a 2x2 pixel on the VGA screen. The PPU implements the NES tile engine, where the screen is made up of a 32x30 8x8 pixel tiles, and there can be 64 sprites each either 8x8 or 8x16 pixels. The PPU aims to be completely cycle accurate, or else there will be glitches in certain games that depend on the exact NES clock timing.
So far I've only implemented a subset of all mappers that exist.
MMC1: Nintendo ASIC, used in Megaman 2, Zelda, Metroid.
MMC2: Nintendo ASIC. The only game that uses this seems to be Punch Out. It contains some dynamic bank switching to allow for more tiles than normal to be displayed on the screen simultaneously.
MMC3: Nintendo ASIC, used in Megaman 3,4,5, Super Mario Bros 2,3. This mapper features a pretty interesting scanline counter that counts the number of transitions on the address lines. By making some assumptions on the pattern at which the PPU accesses things, an IRQ can be generated to the CPU when a certain scanline is about to be rendered. This is mostly used for split screen effects.
Tepples Multi Discrete Mapper: A single mapper that can be reconfigured to support several different discrete logic mappers. I reuse this code path to implement support for the UxROM, CNROM, AxROM mappers.
Here is a photo of the result:
Spartan 6 LX16 Utilization:
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design
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http://sciencify.net/articles/11/the-evolution-of-fire-safety-in-supertall-buildings
| 2020-10-19T16:11:54 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107863364.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20201019145901-20201019175901-00651.warc.gz
| 0.953608 | 2,760 |
CC-MAIN-2020-45
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2020-45__0__84660070
|
en
|
Tall buildings have always relied on a combination of passive building elements and active fire detection, alarm/notification, and suppression systems to control fire and its effects. What has changed is how we use these passive and active elements and the intended results of these fire safety strategies. This evolution is the result of both advances in structural and fire safety technology, as well as new safety and security threats that make the integrity of the building structure and the ability to evacuate occupants in a timely manner of the utmost priority.
Fifty years ago, the technology available to us to create fire-safe tall buildings was quite basic. Passive protection of the steel structural elements was provided by sprayed-on cementitious or fiber fireproofing materials. These materials were designed to insulate the steel from the heat of a fire and keep the steel below critical temperatures for a prescribed period (usually 3 hours for the structural frame and 2 hours for floors when tested to a standardized fire exposure test). Exit stairs to evacuate occupants from the fire area to areas of relative safety within the building were provided. Firefighting features such as elevators and firefighting water supplies to facilitate fire department response and manual suppression of fires at altitude were developed. Still missing from fire protection strategies were reliable fire detection, alarm and voice communications, and automatic suppression by sprinklers.
The idea that tall buildings would someday be targets for a broad range of malicious attacks was not a consideration for the first wave of tall buildings constructed in the 1960s and 70s in the U.S.
The Post WWII Era
The 1970s witnessed the first, sustained tall building boom in the United States with iconic, tall buildings constructed in Chicago, New York, and other major cities around the country. Most building codes did not include provisions specifically for high-rise buildings. During this time, design practices advanced ahead of codes and standards. Only after significant experience with high rise design and high-rise fires did codes and standards adopt specific high-rise provisions. In those early days, passive elements were more prevalent than active elements. Fire alarm systems were not considered reliable in fire safety design. And, automatic sprinkler systems that, at the time, used thick-walled schedule 40 pipes with screwed fittings that were cut and threaded on-site, were considered too expensive.
The goal of passive elements was to control the spread of fire and to maintain the buildings’ structural integrity during occupant evacuation and manual firefighting operations. Structural systems were primarily structural steel frames with steel deck and concrete floor slabs.
John Hancock Center, Chicago.
The 875 N. Michigan Avenue Building in Chicago, formerly the John Hancock Center, is a typical example of high-rise construction during this period. The building structure consists of a robust structural steel frame where the perimeter structural system carries significant structural load with perimeter diagonal bracing for lateral loads. Although the robust steel structure itself has significant resistance to heat from a fire by virtue of its high thermal mass, spray-applied cementitious fireproofing was also applied to the structure to provide the required fire resistance of 3 hours to the structural frame and 2 hours to the floors.
Exit stairs, elevator shafts, and mechanical shafts were enclosed with fire-rated non-structural drywall or concrete block construction. In those early designs, the building core was typically not a structural element and did not generally contribute to the structural strength or fire resistance of the structure itself. Active firefighting systems were limited to a water supply. In most cases, this included relatively small on-site tanks and heavily relied upon municipal water supplies pumped to upper levels of the building to serve wet standpipe outlets located in each stair for use by fire department personnel. Those services were considered highly reliable, and the need for the building to operate “off the grid” was not a high priority.
Codes “Catch Up”
During the mid-1970s, building regulations in Chicago, New York, and throughout the U.S. “caught up” with the design practices of early tall buildings and mandated specific requirements for tall buildings. The requirements included most of the passive features incorporated into the earlier designs, including structural fire resistance and enclosed egress stairs. At the time, automatic sprinklers, active smoke control systems, and emergency voice communication systems were not required by these codes.
During the 1980s, the U.S. experienced many significant fires in high-rise buildings, including hotels and office buildings. However, none of those high-rise fires resulted in the overall failure of the buildings’ structure. In several cases, there was significant localized structural failure where the localized heat of the fire had compromised the steel structural frame with spray-on fireproofing. As a result of those fires, many of the U.S. codes mandated automatic sprinkler protection for all new high-rises and eventually for most existing high-rise buildings. It is widely held that automatic sprinklers are the most effective way of controlling fire size and therefore controlling heat and smoke from a fire. Sprinkler system technology had also advanced considerably at this time, reducing costs and improving constructability.
The next tall building boom occurred in Asia during the 1990s. Two iconic projects during this timeframe were the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Built contemporaneously, these two projects represent an evolution in the structural design of tall buildings and the associated fire safety strategies of these buildings. In both cases, the buildings were designed by U.S. based design and construction teams, using a combination of local building regulations and international design standards and practices. In terms of both structural systems and fire safety, both projects were quite advanced for their time.
Petronas Twin Towers and the Kuala Lumpur skyline.
Both designs incorporated poured concrete structural cores with composite perimeter super columns and steel and concrete floor assemblies. The early use of high strength concrete enhanced the design efficiency of the core and perimeter columns. This structural system was found to have the advantages of both improved structural efficiency and improved ease of constructability. With the concrete core carrying a significant portion of the lateral loads on the building, the structural system had the advantage of allowing the perimeter to be more open to more glass curtain walls and better views for building occupants.
The concrete cores provide a highly fire-resistant enclosure in the center of the towers, separated from the occupied areas of the buildings where fire is likely to occur. All critical life safety egress stairs, firefighting elevators, and critical risers’ power, fire alarm, fire sprinkler, and smoke exhaust are located within the fire-resistant core, protecting them from fire occurring in the perimeter occupied portion of each floor. The concrete core wall also forms a portion of a fire-rated public corridor system surrounding the core and separates occupied office spaces from the common public exits and core elements.
In the case of the Jin Mao tower, the concrete core contains the emergency egress stairs, firefighting elevator vestibules, passenger elevators and critical fire alarm, emergency communications, smoke extraction, and fire suppression system risers, protecting them from exposure to a fire in the occupied portion of the building. The concrete cores also facilitate safe “refuge” areas required by local building regulations.
In the Petronas Towers, in addition to the emergency evacuation stairs, firefighting elevator vestibules, and critical life safety risers, the concrete cores also contain passenger elevators that can be used in some emergency scenarios to evacuate building occupants from the sky lobby levels. The sky lobbies are designed with limited combustible contents so they can act as safe areas for staged building evacuation during emergencies. The sky bridge has the additional benefit of providing an emergency evacuation route between the towers in case of an emergency affecting the lower portion of one tower.
9/11 Brings Changes
As a result of the events of September 11, 2001, the U.S. National Institutes of Science & Technology (NIST) undertook a series of investigations into all aspects of the design and construction of the World Trade Center towers. The results of these investigations, published in the document “NIST NCSTAR 1 Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers,” includes “areas in current building and fire codes, standards, and practices that warrant revision” including “a list of 30 recommendations for action in the areas of increased structural integrity, enhanced fire endurance of structures, new methods of fire-resistant design of structures, enhanced active fire protection, improved building evacuation, improved emergency response, improved procedures and practices, and education and training.”
The NIST recommendations included changes to structural design standards to prevent progressive collapse, as well as changes to fire endurance of structures, in-service performance of fireproofing materials, redundancy of active fire protection systems, and provision for full building evacuation in response to a wide range of emergency scenarios other than fire.
Many of these recommendations were adopted by model code groups and were incorporated into their building and fire codes. The 2009 International Building Code (IBC) adopted a series of new requirements specific to buildings more than 420 feet (128 meters) in height. These requirements include:
- Reverting to earlier code requirements mandating a fire resistance of the structural frame of 3 hours by removing the allowance for 2-hour ratings on buildings over 128 meters.
- Design of the structure to eliminate the likelihood of progressive collapse
- Impact-resistant construction materials for walls enclosing exits and elevator shafts
- Minimum bonding strength for spray-applied fireproofing materials, so they are less likely to fail in a fire
- Redundant water supply sources and risers for automatic sprinkler systems
- One additional exit stair for firefighters or elevators designed for emergency occupant evacuation
Many of these enhanced features that were incorporated into high-rise buildings on a project-by-project basis were now mandated for all buildings over 420 feet.
2000 to the Present
The design of Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest building, began in 2003 after the events of 9/11, but before the release of the NIST report and the incorporation of the report’s findings into the 2009 IBC. The design does incorporate several features that eventually became part of the 2009 IBC requirements. The design also incorporated some relevant aspects of the local code in conjunction with international codes (IBC) and fire safety enhancements.
Burj Khalifa – currently the world’s tallest building.
Structurally, the use of a reinforced concrete structure incorporating a concrete core, shear walls in each wing, columns, and concrete floor slabs was dictated by the fact that the building is primarily a residential occupancy and the shape of the building is three wings. Because the building is residential, it is highly compartmented by concrete corridor walls and demising walls.
Passive fire protection is achieved primarily by the building’s concrete structure, which acts as a fire-rated enclosure for all exit stairs, firefighting elevators, and evacuation elevators. Critical fire safety system risers are incorporated into the building’s concrete core.
Because of the extensive pace of development in Dubai at the time of construction, the building was designed so that it does not rely on municipal water or electric service during emergency operations. The fire protection water supply is provided from water tanks of 1- or 2-hour capacity located on all mechanical floors. Water supplying automatic sprinklers is fed by gravity to zones below the tanks, so there is no reliance on fire pumps to supply necessary water in an emergency.
Finally, evacuation elevators are incorporated into the design to enable full building evacuation, if needed, based on a broad range of emergency scenarios. Shuttle elevators are operated in “lifeboat” mode to shuttle occupants from sky lobbies to grade.
The Future: Jeddah Tower
Currently under construction in western Saudi Arabia, Jeddah Tower, when complete, will be the world’s tallest building at over 1,000 meters. Structurally, the building is quite similar to the Burj Khalifa, using a fully reinforced concrete structure for most of the building, incorporating concrete core, shear walls in each wing, columns, and concrete floor slabs. Because the building is residential, it is also highly compartmented by concrete corridor walls and demising walls. Passive fire protection is achieved primarily by the building’s concrete structure, which acts as a fire-rated enclosure for all exit stairs, firefighting elevators, and evacuation elevators. Critical fire safety system risers are incorporated into the building’s core.
One of the distinguishing features of the Jeddah Tower is the use of highly protected refuge floors every 20 floors, as mandated by local code. The refuge floors are full floors and, in an emergency, become safe areas for occupants’ evacuating the building. Occupants from the 20 floors above each refuge floor can evacuate their zone of the building using exit stairs to reach the refuge floor below. Each refuge floor is a safe area with minimum connections to other floors and includes independent mechanical systems. During an emergency, they serve as a staging area for elevator evacuation. Shuttle elevators are used to evacuate occupants from refuge floors to grade.
Over the past 50 years, our approach to fire safety in tall buildings has evolved considerably, incorporating new technologies to provide buildings that are protected from a broad range of threats from fire, natural disasters, and malicious acts. As we keep building taller, our strategies and technologies will continue to evolve.■
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design
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https://nyxellate.wordpress.com/
| 2022-07-07T13:51:51 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656104692018.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20220707124050-20220707154050-00039.warc.gz
| 0.923949 | 150 |
CC-MAIN-2022-27
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2022-27__0__48329618
|
en
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Hi there, my name is Nicole Johnson. I’m a digital designer and mental health peer supporter based in Auckland, New Zealand. This wordpress blog is intended to be a live documentation of my year as I set out on a creative journey to complete my digital design degree.
Right now I’m not sure what direction I want to take with my project. My main interests include animation, character design and game development. My interests that are not related to my degree include mental health advocacy, nature, photography, feminism, music and books.
I’ll be working on a personal visual manifesto for my digital technology and design class over the next week.
That’s all for now!
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design
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http://www.thompsonrd.com/Research/abstract.htm
| 2018-01-21T14:52:07 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084890771.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20180121135825-20180121155825-00411.warc.gz
| 0.899752 | 477 |
CC-MAIN-2018-05
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|
en
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The design and analysis of a 1/5-scale model high-temperature superconducting (HTSC) magnet test facility for electrodynamic suspensions (EDS) Maglev is discussed. Although the science of low-temperature superconducting magnets is well developed, high-temperature superconductors present unique electrical and mechanical design challenges for magnetic suspensions. The design, analysis, and test of a scale-model magnetic suspension suitable for electrodynamic suspensions is the topic of this thesis. The test fixture allows low-friction motion of the levitating magnets, simulating the vertical movement of a Maglev train under external disturbances.
A new low-cost, multiple-loop guideway has been built and tested, and resultant lift, drag, and guidance forces have been measured at operating speeds approaching that of an actual high-speed train. These results are compared to predictions based on simple circuit models with good results. Scaling laws have been derived and the circuit models have been used to size a full-scale system.
The test fixture has also been used to validate the concept of lift generation at zero velocity by AC excitation of the main magnet coils. Scaling laws have been applied and predictions made for a full-scale HTSC suspension. Further work in this area may help overcome one of the fundamental limitations of EDS Maglev --- zero levitation force at zero train velocity, requiring a mechanical suspension for slow speeds.
A novel magnetic secondary suspension has been designed and tested, where vertical position has been monitored and damped in operating conditions that mimic actual Maglev train operating conditions. Results from these tests show that it may be possible to design an active secondary magnetic suspension based on high temperature superconductors, thereby removing the cost and additional complexity of a mechanical secondary suspension from the Maglev train design.
Thesis Supervisor: Professor Richard D. Thornton, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems
Thesis Committee: Dr. Yukikazu Iwasa, Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory and Professor Steven Leeb, Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems
Research supported by:
Marc T. Thompson, Ph.D.
Thompson Consulting, Inc.
Copyright © 1998-2008, Thompson Consulting, Inc.
Page created: October 9, 1998. Last modified: October 9, 1998
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design
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https://allriseelevatorcompany.com/ascending-together-a-journey-through-elevator-design-and-innovation/
| 2024-04-21T08:43:04 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296817729.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20240421071342-20240421101342-00628.warc.gz
| 0.919409 | 418 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
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webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__94846639
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en
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A Brief History: The history of elevators dates back thousands of years, with early civilizations employing rudimentary systems of ropes and pulleys to lift heavy loads. However, it wasn’t until the 19th century that elevators truly began to evolve into the sophisticated machines we recognize today. The invention of the safety elevator by Elisha Otis in 1852 paved the way for the vertical expansion of cities and the construction of skyscrapers.
Evolution of Design: Over the years, elevator design has undergone remarkable transformations, driven by advances in technology, safety standards, and architectural trends. From hydraulic systems to traction elevators, engineers have continuously pushed the boundaries of innovation to make elevators faster, safer, and more efficient. Today, cutting-edge features such as destination control systems, regenerative drives, and cloud-connected monitoring have redefined the elevator experience, offering unparalleled convenience and comfort to passengers.
Sustainable Solutions: In an era marked by growing environmental concerns, the elevator industry is embracing sustainable solutions to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Innovations like energy-efficient motors, LED lighting, and regenerative braking systems are becoming standard features in modern elevator designs, helping buildings achieve green certifications and contribute to a more sustainable future.
Accessibility and Inclusivity: Accessibility is a key consideration in elevator design, ensuring that people of all ages and abilities can navigate public spaces with ease and dignity. From tactile buttons and auditory announcements to spacious interiors and wheelchair-friendly entrances, inclusive design principles are shaping the next generation of elevators, fostering greater inclusivity and social equity in urban environments.
The Future of Elevators: Looking ahead, the future of elevators is filled with exciting possibilities. Emerging technologies such as magnetic levitation (maglev) and vertical transportation systems promise to revolutionize vertical mobility, enabling faster speeds, higher capacities, and seamless integration with smart building ecosystems. As cities continue to grow vertically, elevators will play an increasingly pivotal role in shaping the urban landscape and redefining the way we live, work, and commute.
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design
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http://videobull.com/hgtv-design-star-season-7-episode-5-designers-create-fantasy-lounges-for-hollywoods-125th-birthday-party/
| 2013-05-19T19:13:48 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698017611/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095337-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
| 0.894199 | 240 |
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2013-20__0__72160644
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en
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Summary: Designers Create Fantasy Lounges for Hollywood’s 125th Birthday Party – The seven remaining designers must transform a giant event space to throw a party for Hollywood’s 125th birthday. Each designer must create a fantasy party lounge, saluting a different era or style reflected in Hollywood movies. With less than two days to complete their spaces, some designers embrace the design challenge, while others begin to panic under the pressure. On the day of the party, Host and Mentor David Bromstad reveals an intimidating twist on their usual camera challenge: each designer must do a live presentation about their lounge to the crowd of party guests. Attending the party are the Design Panel, Genevieve Gorder and Vern Yip, joined by this week’s special guest, recent inductee into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, CSI star Marg Helgenberger. After the party, the designers return to the Evaluation Studio, where this week’s winning designer is revealed and the least successful designer is sent home
Watch or download HGTV Design Star – Season 7 Episode 5 – Designers Create Fantasy Lounges for Hollywood’s 125th Birthday Party at below links.
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design
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http://www.gordonwoolf.com/web-style-guide/
| 2013-05-24T02:32:01 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132729/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
| 0.9432 | 278 |
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2013-20__0__39073412
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en
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It is several years since I looked closely at the Yale University Press Web Style Guide, now in its 3rd edition. This is an excellent guide to how to create web pages, especially those for such as newspapers and magazines where large amounts of text may be needed.
When I saw it first it concentrated on tables as the means of formatting pages, but since then it has moved on, as has the web, to CSS. The important aspect though is that this guide makes the designer think about the structure of a site, and specifically its usability. Whether you are planning a first web page or upgrading a major site, this is essential reading.
For example, just read what authors Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton have to say to start their chapter on page templates:
Always start your template work with an internal page, because the internal page template will dominate the site. The home page is important, but the home page is inherently singular and has a unique role to play. Your internal page template will be used hundreds or thousands of times across larger sites, and the navigation, user interface, and graphic design of the internal pages will dominate the user’s experience of your site. Get your internal page design and navigation right, and then derive your home and secondary page designs from the internal page template
That’s food for thought for many of us who work on web pages.
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design
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https://www.psychicdesert.com/products/organic-wedding-ring
| 2021-12-03T01:13:48 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964362571.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20211203000401-20211203030401-00317.warc.gz
| 0.958515 | 164 |
CC-MAIN-2021-49
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2021-49__0__71487386
|
en
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The Organic Wedding Ring is made using the most ancient technique of sand-casting. This means that each ring is unique with it's own organic textures created during the casting process. The inside of the ring is polished smooth with a comfort fit. This is a unisex ring that looks great on everyone. It is designed to be an alternative to the regular wedding band but can be worn as an everyday ring also.
The band is 6mm wide.
This ring is available in yellow and white gold.
Each Psychic Desert product is made to order. Orders may take between 4-6 weeks to be completed. Due to the handmade nature of the products, each ring and it's natural gemstone hues may differ slightly to the image pictured. For more information about Psychic Desert jewellery please see our FAQ.
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design
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https://www.laserdentalbd.com/locations/laser-dental/
| 2024-02-23T13:33:32 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474412.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20240223121413-20240223151413-00214.warc.gz
| 0.836178 | 685 |
CC-MAIN-2024-10
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-10__0__143213752
|
en
|
Welcome to LASER DENTAL: Your Premier Hi-Tech Digital Dentistry Experience
At LASER DENTAL, we redefine the art and science of dentistry, blending advanced technology with expert craftsmanship to deliver a unique and unparalleled cosmetic dentistry experience. Our clinic is at the forefront of digital dentistry, where innovation meets precision, ensuring that every smile we create is a masterpiece.
Why Choose LASER DENTAL?
At LASER DENTAL, we harness the power of cutting-edge technology to elevate your dental experience. Our clinic is equipped with the latest Digital Imaging Systems, 3D Scanning, 3D Printing, and CAD/CAM technology, Guided Dental Implants, Digital Smile Design, Laser Treatments etc. This enables us to provide accurate diagnostics, customised treatment plans, and precision in every procedure.
Digital Smile Design
Experience the future of smile makeovers with our Digital Smile Design (DSD) services. Using advanced computer simulations, we craft a virtual representation of your smile, allowing you to preview the final result before any treatment begins. This interactive process ensures that your expectations align seamlessly with the outcome.
Revolutionizing dentistry, 3D scanning employs cutting-edge technology to capture highly detailed images of oral structures. This non-invasive technique enhances diagnostic precision, allowing for more accurate treatment planning. From creating digital impressions for crowns to aiding in orthodontic assessments, 3D scanning minimizes discomfort for patients while maximizing efficiency for dental professionals. Its ability to generate comprehensive, three-dimensional models facilitates a deeper understanding of dental anatomy, ensuring optimal care and personalized solutions. Embrace the future of dentistry with the transformative capabilities of 3D scanning technology.
3D Printing for Dental Prosthetics
Our commitment to innovation extends to the fabrication of dental prosthetics. We utilize 3D printing technology to create highly precise, customized crowns, bridges, and veneers. This not only enhances the durability and fit of the prosthetics but also reduces the time required for their creation.
Say goodbye to traditional dental drills and hello to the precision of laser dentistry. Our clinic employs laser technology for a variety of procedures, ensuring minimal discomfort, faster healing times, and greater accuracy. From gum reshaping to cavity treatment, our laser procedures redefine the standards of dental care.
Expert Cosmetist Dentistry
Led by our specialist cosmetic dentistry team, LASER DENTAL combines the skills of artistic smile design with the precision of digital dentistry. Our specialists have a keen eye for aesthetics, ensuring that every restoration or enhancement not only improves oral health but also enhances the natural beauty of your smile.
Guided Dental Implants
Experience the future of dental restoration with our Guided Dental Implant technology. Our precise and personalised approach ensures optimal placement, enhancing accuracy and minimising discomfort. Trust us for a seamless journey to your confident smile.
Schedule Your Consultation Today
Embark on a journey to a brighter, more confident smile with LASER DENTAL. Schedule your consultation today to experience the future of dentistry. Our commitment to excellence, innovation, and patient satisfaction sets us apart as your trusted partner in achieving the smile of your dreams. Welcome to a new era of dental care – welcome to LASER DENTAL!
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design
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http://softquake.com/mobile-app.php
| 2020-04-04T04:42:19 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370520039.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20200404042338-20200404072338-00480.warc.gz
| 0.900487 | 780 |
CC-MAIN-2020-16
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2020-16__0__215053273
|
en
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Mobile App Development
Smartphones and Tablets have become an integral part of our lives and the apps installed them makes us glued to our devices 24×7. Whether the devices are used by Students or Professionals every now and then someone comes up with a great idea and to bring that idea to life SoftQuake Systems comes into the picture. We discuss, design, develop, test and deploy the apps for you. Providing end to end services helps you in saving lot time, effort and money as everything is available at one place. We ensure that the User Experience is customized as per the different devices available in the market taking care of screen sizes and resolutions. At SoftQuake Systems, we also help you to deploy the apps on different market stores and provide 3 months of continuous support and maintenance free of cost.
CROSS PLATFORM MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
SoftQuake Systems, with its dynamic, capable development and management teams, offers a unique opportunity to its customers to avail of proven, high quality software design, development and testing skills at competitive rates. SoftQuake Systems offers world-class mobile application development services, targeting the Android and iOS Phone platforms.
MOBILE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
Our group of versatile innovation specialists and designers comprehend what it takes to create an effective and beneficial mobile strategy. We’ll work with you to assess, meet and surpass your business objectives. We’ll present to you an innovative and forefront versatile methodology, helping your business stay in front of the pack. Whether you need to grow your client base or incorporate existing frameworks to streamline business forms, SoftQuake Systems will make it work for you.
Design is making a thing so intriguing, that you can’t resist the opportunity to captivate with it. Nothing beats a conceptually pleasing UI/UX. SoftQuake Systems’s mobility developers are adept at –
1. Developing wireframes / mockups 2. Developing UI for different screen sizes 3. Optimized database structures and designs 4. Resolve synchronization issues early in the stage
MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
SoftQuake Systems is one of the leading companies in mobile application development. Our mobility developers are well versed with iOS and Android which forms a key to our innovative application development strategies.
Simplicity is what users rely on while using an app having a smooth user experience. SoftQuake Systems will work closely with you to develop mobile apps that best suits the need of you and end users.
Mobile application development has spread like a wildfire. To effectively use mobile computing, enterprises are now focusing on building their own Mobility Application for wider customer reach. In today’s mobile world everyone wants flexibility and freedom whether employees or customers and enterprises want security and control. SoftQuake Systems will help you create business processes which are more efficient and giving you and your employees access on the go.
MOBILE APPLICATION TESTING
With multiple mobile operating systems and tens of thousands of devices on the market, how can you ensure your app delights your users everywhere, every time? To tackle this issue SoftQuake Systems’s Mobility Testing team uses Automation Tools like TestFlight, MonkeyTalk, Applause etc. which are flexible and powerful testing tools
TOOLS FOR MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
1. IONIC 2. Phonegap
SoftQuake Systems Mobility Developers are well versed with the above tools which enables us to offer services over cross functional multiplatform mobile applications. These tools empower us to gel with the different platforms in accordance to their diverse gimmicks, abilities and behaviour. These tools provides an open source library, a stage which allows the designer to make local applications, spreading over a dazzling scope of OS’ and smartphones.
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design
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http://www.sterlingdistribution.co.uk/lighting
| 2019-06-25T01:31:23 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560627999783.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20190625011649-20190625033649-00129.warc.gz
| 0.968233 | 106 |
CC-MAIN-2019-26
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2019-26__0__176234065
|
en
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Sensio has become the market leader in kitchen lighting, and are always looking to the future. They are proud of their heritage and even prouder of the fact that they will continue to design and develop the most ground-breaking lighting solutions for you. Innovation has always been at the heart of what they do, they don’t just follow the trends - they help set them. From stunningly practical task and convenience lighting to state of the art mood lighting that truly brings a design to life.
View PDF Here
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design
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https://hurom.com.au/products/H100
| 2024-04-21T15:09:28 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296817780.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20240421132819-20240421162819-00269.warc.gz
| 0.935107 | 858 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__8869206
|
en
|
Limited Stock / Free Shipping
Select a colour:
The Hurom H100 Cold Press Juicer is testament to Hurom’s commitment to produce the highest quality juice, whilst utilising the most sophisticated techniques to create a juicing experience that is both easy and enjoyable.
The H100 incorporates refinements designed to enhance your juicing experience. Its fresh, new design aesthetic ensures that it is a statement piece for your kitchen. Its elegant design, available in 2 charismatic colours, will complement any bench top. Its small footprint ensures that it sits neatly alongside your coffee machine or other kitchen appliances.
The H100 incorporates new design specifications which allow for both ease of assembly, as well as cleaning. The 7 degree tilted chamber ensures that every drop of juice leaves the chamber with no waste. The increased width and straight angle of the dual hopper allows for smaller ingredients, such as berries and cherry tomatoes, to be inserted into the juicer more easily. The new and improved strainer set prevents pulp build up and enables quick and easy washing.
The new strainer design consists of an inner strainer and juice strainer. This exceptional new design prevents the buildup of pulp between tiny gaps in the strainer making it the easiest to clean strainer on the market. Simply rinse the new strainer set under running water for 10 seconds and you’re done.
It has never been easier to assemble and disassemble the main body of the juicer with its chamber. Hurom’s new design form fit aesthetic enables both pieces to slot together with ease.
The improved chamber design prevents the buildup of pulp enabling better access for cleaning.
Slide the lift lever up or down to adjust the inner pressure depending upon the firmness of the ingredients being used. Additionally, by raising the lift lever during cleaning it provides wider access to the pulp outlet, making it easier to wash.
A 7 degree tilt at the bottom of the chamber provides a completely hands free pour. The juice leaves the chamber completely without manually having to tilt the juicer, eliminating waste.
The increased width and straight angle of the dual hopper makes it easier and more convenient to insert smaller ingredients, such as a berries and cherry tomatoes.
Guide grooves at the top, bottom and middle of the chamber allow you to simply align the tabs on the juicing strainer for quick and easy assembly.
Cold Pressed Juice retains significantly more enzymes and living nutrients than traditional high-speed juicing as juice is gently squeezed from fruit and vegetables. In addition, there is virtually no separation in your juice which means significantly better tasting juice.
Hurom is the Global Leader in Cold Press Juicers and Slow Juicers having been in business since 1974. Since 2010, Hurom has sold over 9 million juicers into more than 50 countries and Hurom currently holds over 200 technology and design patents, more than any other Cold Press Juicer manufacturer.
Hurom Cold Press Juicers are made in South Korea from only the highest quality components. Not only can they make juice, they can make nut milk, ice-cream, sorbet & smoothies making them extremely versatile. In addition, they are whisper quiet during operation and use up to 80% less power than a 750 watt traditional high-speed juicer. Lastly, Hurom Juicers are super quick, the easiest juicers on the market to clean, and all models in the Hurom Consumer range come with a 10 year manufacturers’ warranty (excludes M100) that is supported right here in Australia.
The motor in all Hurom Consumer Juicers is covered by a 10 year warranty and the remaining parts are covered by a two year warranty.
If Technical Support is needed, please first refer to the FAQs page. If this does not assist you in fixing your issue, please complete the Online Warranty Claim and we will get back to you within 48 hours.
If a particular part fails and your juicer is under warranty, we will usually send out a replacement part however in the unlikely situation where your Hurom Juicer needs service, our Australian service centre is located in Brisbane so help is not far away.
© Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.
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design
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https://fcwebtech.com/our-process/
| 2019-11-19T13:02:44 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496670151.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20191119121339-20191119145339-00352.warc.gz
| 0.904015 | 389 |
CC-MAIN-2019-47
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2019-47__0__118937837
|
en
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BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH
After all, nobody knows your business better than you do. Our agency needs to know you better to plan and build the website what you want. If we are in the same city, let us have a one on one meeting.
DECIDE ON A STRUCTURE
We need to decide on what exact functionalities your website will have and what the end users will need. To build clarity and confidence along the way we need to create a sitemap which can demonstrate the structure and features of your website.
WHICH STYLE OF DESIGN?
It is time to decide which style of design to use on your project and to work with color palettes, typography, and textures. Make sure they are consistent with that style for the entire project.
CREATING A DESIGN PLAN
In this phase, we decide and build on the basic framework and content management. The navigation menu is created using list items and links.
CREATING A WEB DESIGN
By incorporating the outcome of all the above steps, we create a design for your website. Our designers ensure that this final theme is compatible with multiple devices and browsers.
MIGRATING OR IMPORTING YOUR CONTENT
In this step, we migrate your existing blog content and import the fresh content to the newly created design. We tweak the content if it is required and make it free of bugs.
TIME TO LAUNCH YOUR WEBSITE
By this time, the website is tested and assured on quality and put on live mode. So it is ready to bring in new businesses for you.
APPLYING SEO STRATEGIES
We begin to create social media pages for your website and connect them. Submitting your site to the top search engines and applying SEO strategies are part of this step. Your website starts to make an impact on your business with these continuous efforts.
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design
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http://www.golfingmagli.com/2018/12/23/tour-edge-to-launch-exotics-exs-fairway-metal-featuring-flight-tuning-system-technology/
| 2020-03-29T11:04:51 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370494331.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20200329105248-20200329135248-00276.warc.gz
| 0.916026 | 1,445 |
CC-MAIN-2020-16
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2020-16__0__9874513
|
en
|
Tour Edge, Golf’s Most Solid Investment, officially introduces the Exotics EXS fairway metal, featuring a myriad of game-enhancing innovations that has led Tour Edge to market the EXS line with the tagline Pound for Pound, Nothing Else Comes Close.
The loaded-with-technology fairway metals feature a Flight Tuning System (FTS) that includes 11- gram and 3-gram interchangeable weights, Cup Face Technology with Variable Face Thickness (VFT Technology) for an expanded sweet spot, multi-material usage of Carbon Fiber for ideal weight distribution and a new and improved SlipStreamTM Sole for faster clubhead speed through the turf.
The new ultra-premium, high-performance fairway woods will be available worldwide on November 1, 2018.
“The EXS fairway metal is a beautiful and traditional pear shape that we’ve been able to combine with five different integrated technologies,” said Tour Edge President and Master Club Designer David Glod. “Exotics fairways have always been known for its superior performance characteristics and the EXS is no different. In fact, in the independent tests we’ve conducted, it’s going to provide a ton of distance gain and less dispersion to a wider variety of skill levels than ever before.”
The FTSTM Technology allows adjustable sole weights to be moved to two alternate settings; an 11-gram weight in the heel, 3-gram weight in the rear for lower spin, slice-reducing shape and a medium launch and then the 3-gram weight in the heel and 11-gram weight in the rear for medium spin, neutral shape and a higher launch. Additional weight screws can be purchased as a kit that includes 6-gram, 9- gram and 14-gram weights.
The EXS fairway metal head features premium exotic metals; a brand new United States manufactured, high-density Carpenter steel. The hyper-strength strength steel is quench-hardened, a special heating technique that takes 750 degrees to provide an extreme amount of strength while allowing for a thinner face. This cup face design allowed for Tour Edge to make the face thinner than in any previous model for a greater energy transfer. The high- performance hexagonal Variable Face Thickness (VFT) offers multiple levels of thickness that maximize forgiveness from more points on the face, especially in the heel and toe areas.
The aerodynamics in the EXS fairway wood are greatly enhanced by new and improved wider SlipStream speed channels on the sole that create a faster clubhead speed due to smoother turf interaction. The CG location of the EXS is positioned closer to the face for less spin, creating a trajectory that fights wind and increases roll.
An ultra-premium Tensei CK Blue 2G shaft series by Mitsubishi Chemical is the chosen stock shaft for the EXS fairway metal. Extremely light yet extremely stable throughout, the Tensei Blue CK features advanced materials like Carbon Fiber and Kevlar mixed with other lightweight materials that weigh in
the 50-70 gram range depending on flex. A 50-gram weight will be available in Ladies, A-flex and Regular, a 60-gram shaft available in Regular, Stiff and X-flex and a 70-gram shaft available in Stiff and X-flex.
The Exotics EXS fairway metals are available in five different lofts; 13, 15 and 17 degree 3-woods, an 18 degree 5-wood and a 21 degree 7-wood. The 15 degree 3-wood is available in left handed.
The suggested retail price for the Exotics EXS fairway metal is $229.99.
Every Tour Edge club comes with a lifetime warranty and a 30-day play guarantee. For more information, call (800) 515-3343 or visit touredge.com.
Exotics EXS fairway metal Bullet Points
FTSTM (Flight Tuning System) allows adjustable sole weights to be moved to two alternate settings:
• FTS1 11-gram weight in the heel, 3-gram weight in the rear for lower spin, slice reducing shape, medium launch
• FTS2 3-gram weight in the heel, 11-gram weight in the rear for medium spin, neutral shape, higher launch
ü Carbon Fiber Toe creates extreme weight savings re-distributed to optimized positions creating extremely high MOI
ü SlipStreamTM Sole with wider speed channels create an even faster clubhead speed by minimizing turf interaction
ü U.S. Carpenter Steel Cup Face quench-hardened high density steel made thinner for to-the- limit COR
ü Variable Face Thickness delivers legendary Exotics power from more contact points on the face
ü More forward CG reduces spin and adds more power from the face
ü Genuine Tour-preferred ultra-premium Mitsubishi Tensei shaft is extremely light yet extremely stable throughout
*EXS fairway metal Alternate Weight Kit available separately with 6-gram, 9-gram and 14-gram weights
About Tour Edge
In 1986, David Glod founded Tour Edge with a focus on offering golfers with high quality and technologically advanced golf products that were as cutting edge as they were affordable. He is now considered one of the preeminent master club designers in golf club design and has led Tour Edge to be a Top 10 manufacturer in every club category.
Tour Edge products have been put in play on the PGA TOUR, PGA Tour Champions, LPGA Tour and Web.com Tour, as well as European professional tours, and have been in play in every PGA TOUR major event and in Ryder Cup competitions, leading to over 15 wins for players playing Tour Edge products on the PGA Tours.
In 2018 alone, Tour Edge clubs have earned five wins, eight runner-up finishes, 24 Top 5 finishes and over 40 Top 10 finishes on the three PGA Tours.
Tour Edge, an American owned and operated company for more than 32 years, manufactures and sells golf clubs under three distinct brand names: Exotics, Hot Launch and Bazooka.
• Exotics products bring futuristic technologies to the marketplace with tour preferred designs and smaller production runs. Exotics clubs utilize higher-grade, avant-garde materials and manufacturing methods that have led Exotics to establish itself as a leader in quality craftsmanship and to redefine what is possible in golf club performance.
• Hot Launch has forged a name for itself as a producer of high-quality premium game improvement golf clubs from driver to wedge. Hot Launch has proven to provide the greatest custom fit value in golf and includes an unprecedented guaranteed 48-hour custom fit delivery program.
• Bazooka represents the absolute best value available in golf, offering advanced players, beginners, women and juniors the best in playability and affordability.
All Exotics and Hot Launch clubs are hand-built in the United States in Batavia, Illinois and then distributed throughout the world. Every Tour Edge club comes with a Lifetime Warranty and a 30-day play guarantee.
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design
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https://trustmarkjewelers.com/products/14k-yellow-gold-engravable-bar-and-2-5mm-flat-anchor-chain-bracelet
| 2024-04-18T04:55:15 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296817187.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20240418030928-20240418060928-00797.warc.gz
| 0.83074 | 206 |
CC-MAIN-2024-18
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2024-18__0__158338873
|
en
|
Made from solid 14K Yellow Gold, this baby bracelet features an engravable rectangular bar and an anchor chain. The rectangular bar can be engraved with up to 12 characters
The ID plate (name plate) can be engraved on both sides with a recommended length of 12 or fewer characters. We can engrave longer names, just be aware that the font (type) size may have to be reduced to fit the ID plate. Many people opt to engrave an important date (like a birth date) on the back or inside of the face plate.
SPECIAL NOTE: This item is made to order and can take up to 5 business days to ship. Longer engravings may result in smaller font sizes.
Condition: Brand New.Item Weight: Approx. ~2.37 grams.
Chain Style: Anchor/Marina Chain.
Clasp Type: Lobster.
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design
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http://www.cool-clocks.com/84/souvenir-cuckoo-clocks/
| 2017-12-17T11:36:14 |
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948595858.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20171217113308-20171217135308-00477.warc.gz
| 0.970422 | 1,456 |
CC-MAIN-2017-51
|
webtext-fineweb__CC-MAIN-2017-51__0__91597282
|
en
|
The cuckoo clock became successful and world famous after Friedrich Eisenlohr contributed the Bahnhäusle design to the 1850 competition at the Furtwangen Clockmakers School. This style is better known today as a souvenir cuckoo clock.
Bahnhäusle style, a successful design from Furtwangen
In September 1850, the first director of the Grand Duchy of Baden Clockmakers School in Furtwangen, Robert Gerwig, launched a public competition to submit designs for modern clockcases, which would allow homemade products to attain a professional appearance.
Friedrich Eisenlohr (1805–1854), who as an architect had been responsible for creating the buildings along the then new and first Badenian Rhine valley railroad, submitted the most far-reaching design. Eisenlohr enhanced the facade of a standard railroad-guard’s residence, as he had built many of them, with a clock dial.
His “Wallclock with shield decorated by ivy vines,” (in reality the ornament were grapevines and not ivy) as it is referred to in a surviving, handwritten report from the Clockmakers School from 1851 or 1852, became the prototype of today’s popular souvenir cuckoo clocks.
Eisenlohr was also up-to-date stylistically.
He was inspired by local images; rather than copying them slavishly, he modified them. Contrary to most present-day cuckoo clocks, his case features light, unstained wood and were decorated with symmetrical, flat fretwork ornaments.
Eisenlohr’s idea became an instant hit, because the modern design of the Bahnhäusle clock appealed to the decorating tastes of the growing bourgeoisie and thereby tapped into new and growing markets.
While the Clockmakers School was satisfied to have Eisenlohr’s clock case sketches, they were not fully realized in their original form. Eisenlohr had proposed a wooden facade; Gerwig preferred a painted metal front combined with an enamel dial. But despite intensive campaigns by the Clockmakers School, sheet metal fronts decorated with oil paintings (or coloured litographs) never became a major market segment because of the high cost and labour-intensive process, so only a few were produced from the 1850s until around 1870 in both wall or mantel versions, and are nowadays sought-after collector pieces.
Characteristically, the makers of the first Bahnhäusle clocks deviated from Eisenlohr’s sketch in only one way: they left out the cuckoo mechanism. Unlike today, the design with the little house was not synonymous with a cuckoo clock in the first years after 1850. This is another indication that at that time cuckoo clocks could not have been an important market segment.
In December 1854, Johann Baptist Beha, the best known maker of cuckoo clocks of his time, sold two of them, with oil paintings on their fronts, to the Furtwangen clock dealer Gordian Hettich, which were described as Bahnhöfle Uhren (“Railroad station clocks”).
More than a year later, on January 20, 1856, another respected Furtwangen-based cuckoo clockmaker, Theodor Ketterer, sold one to Joseph Ruff in Glasgow (Scotland, United Kingdom).
Concurrently with Beha and Ketterer, other Black Forest clockmakers must have started to equip Bahnhäusle clocks with cuckoo mechanisms to satisfy the rapidly growing demand for this type of clock.
Starting in the mid-1850s there was a real boom in the cuckoo clock market.
By 1860, the Bahnhäusle style had started to develop away from its original, “severe” graphic form, and evolve, among other designs, toward the well-known case with three-dimensional woodcarvings, like the Jagdstück (“Hunt piece”, design created in Furtwangen in 1861), a cuckoo clock with carved oak foliage and hunting motives, such as trophy animals, guns and powder pouches.
By 1862 the reputed clockmaker Johann Baptist Beha, started to enhance his richly decorated Bahnhäusle clocks with hands carved from bone and weights cast in the shape of fir cones.
Even today this combination of elements is characteristic for cuckoo clocks, although the hands are usually made of wood or plastic, white celluloid was employed in the past too. As for the weights, there was during this second half of the 19th century, a few models which featured weights cast in the shape of a Gnome and other curious forms.
Only ten years after its invention by Friedrich Eisenlohr, all variations of the house-theme had reached maturity.
There were also Bahnhäusle timepieces and its derivatives manufactured as mantel clocks but not as many as the wall versions.
The basic cuckoo clock of today is the railway-house (Bahnhäusle) form, still with its rich ornamentation, and these are known under the name of “traditional” (or carved); which display carved leaves, birds, deer heads (like the Jagdstück design), other animals, etc.
The richly decorated Bahnhäusle clocks have become a symbol of the Black Forest that is instantly understood anywhere in the world.
Even today it is a favourite souvenir of travelers in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The center of production continues to be the Black Forest region of Germany, in the area of Schonach and Titisee-Neustadt, where there are several dozen firms making the whole clock or parts of it.
The cuckoo clock became successful and world famous after Friedrich Eisenlohr contributed the Bahnhäusle design to the 1850 competition at the Furtwangen Clockmakers School.
The Chalet style cuckoo clock
The Chalet style originated at the end of the 19th century in Switzerland, and at that time they were highly valued as souvenirs. Indeed, music and jewelery boxes of several sizes as well as timepieces were manufactured in the shape of a typical Swiss chalet, some of those clocks also had the added feature of a cuckoo bird and other automations.
There are currently three basic Chalet styles, named after the different traditional houses depicted: Black Forest chalet, Swiss chalet (with two types the “Brienz” and the “Emmental”), and finally the Bavarian chalet.
Along with the common projecting bird, it may also display other types of animated figurines, examples include woodcutters, moving beer drinkers and turning water wheels. Some “traditional” style cuckoo clocks feature a music box and dancing figurines too.
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design
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