I have a program which show reports of students i habe multipile dropdown lists in my page and what the supervisor do is selecting what he wants to show first " for example students who live in usa " /ps i have multi dropdown lists /then my program show him all records in database of these filters .. but my query is not working what i do is
"Select * from students as s where" +"(" + address.length ==0+"||" +address.includes('s.adr') "
Notes ;
Address.length ==0 because i want to all the records in case of the supervisor did not choose country and and wanted all countries in th DB ,,,,
Also note that addres is array containig all the countries that supervisor choose
What i am doing wrong here and how can i vorrect it
In April 2021 Microsoft announced a new version of its IDE – Visual Studio 2022 – while also announcing that the IDE would be 64-bit. We've been waiting for this for so long – no more 4 GB memory limitations! However, as it turned out, it's not all that simple...
By the way, if you missed it, here's a link to the announcement post.
Scroll shadows are when you can see a little inset shadow on elements if (and only if) you can scroll in that direction. It’s just good UX. You can actually pull it off in CSS, which I think is amazing and one of the great CSS tricks. Except… it just doesn’t work on iOS Safari. It used to work, and then it broke in iOS 13, along with some other useful CSS things, with no explanation why and has never been fixed.
So, now, if you really want scroll shadows (I think they are extra useful on mobile browsers anyway), it’s probably best to reach for JavaScript.
I’m bringing this up now because I see Jonnie Hallman is blogging about tit again. He mentioned it as an awesome little detail back in May. There are certain interfaces where scroll shadows really extra make sense.
Taking a step back, I thought about the solution that currently worked, using scroll events. If the scroll area has scrolled, show the top and left shadows. If the scroll area isn’t all the way scrolled, show the bottom and right shadows. With this in mind, I tried the simplest, most straight-forward, and least clever approach by putting empty divs at the top, right, bottom, and left of the scroll areas. I called these “edges”, and I observed them using the Intersection Observer API. If any of the edges were not intersecting with the scroll area, I could assume that the edge in question had been scrolled, and I could show the shadow for that edge. Then, once the edge is intersecting, I could assume that the scroll area has reached the edge of the scroll, so I could hide that shadow.
Clever clever. No live demo, unfortunately, but read the post for a few extra details on the implementation.
Other JavaScript-powered examples
I do think if you’re going to do this you should go the IntersectionObserver route though. Would love to see someone port the best of these ideas all together (wink wink).
Deciding to start your own business is exciting. But it can be a bit overwhelming for new entrepreneurs, especially if you’re unfamiliar with startup costs.
Running out of cash is one of the top reasons why startups fail. That’s why it’s so crucial to understand your startup costs from the beginning—allowing you to budget accordingly.
This guide will teach you everything you need to know about business startup costs.
What Are Business Startup Costs?
Business startup costs are the expenses incurred as you’re launching a new business. Everything from incorporation fees to computers, office chairs, insurance, and more all fall into this category.
Some business startup costs are one-time fees, while others are recurring charges that you need to budget for throughout the duration of your business.
The Basics of Business Startup Costs
Obviously, startup costs will vary based on business type and industry. But the following section will cover the most common types of business startup costs for the majority of businesses. Just be aware that not all of these will necessarily apply to you.
Business Formation Fees
If you’re forming a legal business entity, like an LLC or corporation, you need to pay various fees to officially form your startup.
The exact costs will vary based on your state of formation.
For LLCs, expect to pay an initial state filing fee between $50 and $300. Corporations can be a bit more expensive, as some states charge upwards of $700 for the initial fillings.
There’s lots of paperwork that must be filled out correctly and filed with the appropriate agencies to ensure the state recognizes your business. So most of you will benefit from using a business formation service.
These online services make it much easier to start a business, as they handle all of the paperwork and filings on your behalf. However, this convenience comes at an added cost, as you’ll need to pay a fee to the formation service as well.
Depending on your entity type, additional things you’ll need during the formation process include:
EIN (employer identification number)
Operating Agreement
Articles of Organization
Articles of Incorporation
Meeting Minutes
Corporate Bylaws
You can get an EIN for free directly from the IRS. But many startups choose to get this from the business formation service, which will incur an additional fee.
Registered Agent
Unless you’re a sole proprietor operating without a formal business entity, all 50 states require businesses to appoint a registered agent. Technically, you could be your own registered agent, but we strongly advise against that.
A registered agent must be physically present during business hours at the listed address in order to receive service of process and important government correspondence.
For example, if you get sued, the paperwork will be delivered to your registered agent and accepted on your behalf.
If you’re the registered agent for your own business, then you’ll always need to be available during normal business hours—which isn’t realistic for everyone. Furthermore, it can be embarrassing to be served with a lawsuit or legal process in front of employees or customers. So many business owners prefer that it happens elsewhere.
Even if you don’t have an office, you can avoid someone knocking on your front door by using a registered agent service. On average, this will cost you about $100 or $150 per year.
Insurance, Licenses, and Business Permits
Launching a startup without insurance is scary. If something happens, you could be on the hook for a lot of money—so getting properly insured needs to be at the top of your priority list.
Common types of business insurance for startups include:
General Liability Insurance
Commercial Property Insurance
Professional Liability Insurance
Workers’ Compensation Insurance
Commercial Auto Insurance
Commercial Umbrella Insurance
Product Liability Insurance
Business Interruption Insurance
These costs will vary by business type and other factors. But you can usually save some money by bundling insurance coverages with the same provider.
Many of you will also need seller’s permits and licenses to operate. Things like health permits, zoning permits, liquor licenses, land-use permits, and reseller’s licenses all fall into this category. Most of these will require renewal fees on an annual basis.
Labor and Payroll Costs
Whether you’re hiring employees, working with contractors, or a combination of the two, labor must be taken into consideration when you’re budgeting startup expenses.
In addition to salaries and hourly wages paid to employees, you’ll also need to consider the costs associated with your employee benefits packages. I’m referring to things like health insurance, 401(k) plans, life insurance, and other potential perks that you might offer your employees.
You’ll also need to pay a fee to your payroll service provider. And don’t forget about payroll taxes.
Some of you can get away with running things on your own at the very beginning, which can help you save some money on labor and payroll. But most businesses require employees to scale.
Website Costs
Every business in today’s day and age needs to have a digital presence. This all starts with a website.
Common costs associated with starting and running a website include:
Domain name registration
Web hosting
Design fees
Maintenance
SSL certificate
Content delivery network (CDN)
Site security
You can save some money by using a website builder and bundle lots of these costs into a single plan. Most of you won’t need a web designer either, as you can just customize a professionally-made template.
It’s also cost-efficient to lock in long-term rates on web hosting. This is an ongoing fee that you’ll have to pay for the lifetime of your website. But lots of web hosting providers offer rock-bottom rates to new websites if multiple years of hosting are paid upfront.
Legal and Professional Services
Many startups require help from professional service providers. It really depends on your business type and expertise.
For example, investing in a lawyer or an online legal service can help you save money long-term on the potential costs associated with non-compliance. Accountants can help you evaluate your tax obligations and financial records.
Some of you may even decide to hire a third-party consultant to help you with things like online marketing or something along those lines.
Other Miscellaneous Startup Costs
Again, startup costs obviously vary based on the business type. Coffee shops and restaurants will incur different costs than dry cleaners or florists.
But here are some common costs that your startup might need to prepare for:
Office and retail space
Storage and warehouses
Inventory
Business cards
Utilities
Internet and phone service
Computers, tablets, desk phones, cell phones, and other electronics
The list goes on and on. Even if you don’t need all of these things on day one, you’ll likely need them eventually.
Some of the small stuff adds up quickly. Don’t forget about things like toilet paper, soap, mops, brooms, and other cleaning supplies. You might even need a refrigerator, microwave, and coffee maker for the employee break room.
3 Solutions to Help Manage Business Startup Costs
Getting a credit card for your business should be at the top of your to-do list. This will make it much easier for you to manage your startup costs.
#1 — Chase Ink Business Unlimited
The Chase Ink Business Unlimited credit card is an excellent option for startups. There’s no annual fee, and the card allows you to earn an unlimited 1.5% cash back on your purchases. If you spend $7,500 on qualified purchases within three months of opening your account, you’ll get a $750 cash back bonus.
Chase also offers new cardmembers 0% APR for the first 12 months of opening an account. So you can pay for startup costs on credit without incurring interest fees.
#2 — Capital One Spark Classic
Not every entrepreneur has a great personal credit score. If you fall into this category, you might have a hard time getting approved for a business credit card. The Capital One Spark Classic card is perfect for building credit, and it’s easy to get approved.
With no annual fee, you can still earn unlimited 1% cash back on your business purchases. You’ll also benefit from free employee cards, fraud coverage, alerts, payment flexibility, and other great perks from Capital One.
#3 — American Express Blue Business Cash
The American Express Blue Business Cash credit card lets you earn 2% cash back on purchases up to $50,000 per year, then 1% on all other purchases. Cash back rewards will automatically be credited on your statement, so there’s no need for you to manually redeem anything.
Amex offers 0% intro APR on purchases for the first 12 months of opening an account. Another cool part of this card is expanded buying power—giving you the freedom to spend beyond your credit limit. There’s no annual fee, and Amex offers a $500 statement credit after you spend $5,000 within the first six months of opening an account.
3 Tricks For Business Startup Costs
Apply these three quick tips and tricks to help keep your startup costs as low as possible:
Trick #1: Create a Budget
So many first-time entrepreneurs make the mistake of launching a business without a budget.
But this can be fatal if you’re not careful. As you can see from all of the different costs we covered already, startup costs can add up quickly. If you’re just swiping your credit card without sticking to a budget, you’ll run out of cash before you know it.
To be effective, the budget needs to cover a period of time beyond your official start date. You’ll want to have a three-month, six-month, and one-year budget as well.
A budget forces you to be a bit more decisive with how your money is spent. For example, you might ultimately decide to hold off on hiring a marketing consultant or buying the leather couch for your office. Things like liability insurance and website security are far more important.
Be aware that unexpected costs will come up during the startup process. So have some room in your budget for emergencies and unplanned expenses.
Trick #2: Secure Financing Before Expenses
Whether you’re raising money from outside investors, getting a loan, or opening a line of credit, it’s in your best interest to get your financing in order before the startup costs kick in.
In most circumstances, you’ll need the business entity formed before you can officially apply for a credit card or open a line of credit under the company’s name. So some of these startup costs must be paid upfront.
But having a full understanding of your financial situation from the beginning will make your life much easier as you’re navigating the waters of startup costs.
In some cases, you might be able to get interest-free financing for the first year of a new credit line. This is definitely something you’ll want to take advantage of before your business is cash-flow positive. Just make sure you account for the interest rates whenever you need to start making payments.
Trick #3: Look For The Fastest Path to Cash
Your startup won’t be perfect on day one. The sooner you accept this, the faster you’ll be able to generate some revenue.
For example, let’s say your startup is entirely web-based. You’re selling goods, services, ads, or something else from your website.
Spending six months trying to design the perfect website is a waste of time. There are tools out there that you can use to launch a website in less than an hour. If that site isn’t up and running, you’re just digging yourself into a hole of startup costs without generating cash to pay for it.
Regardless of your industry or business type, look for the fastest way to start making money. I’m not saying you should cut corners, do anything shady, or put out a sub-par product. But focusing on perfection instead of cash can cause your business to go bankrupt before it has a chance to take off.
What to Do Next
Now that you have a firm grasp on business startup costs and what they entail, it’s time for you to take control of your expenses.
Put your startup costs on a credit card. This makes it easier to manage your budget, and you can earn some great rewards for your spending as well. We have a complete guide on the best credit cards for startups that will help you find the best option for your business type.
In addition to using a credit card for everyday spending and ongoing business expenses, a loan or line of credit can help you with bigger purchases. Check out our guide on the best business loans for more information.
Apache Airflow has gained a lot of traction in the data processing world. It is a Python-based orchestration tool. When I say "Python-based" it is not just that the application has been developed using Python. The directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) — Airflows term for workflows — are also written as Python. In other words, workflows are code. Many of the popular workflows tools like Informatica and Talend have visual tools that allow developers to lay out the workflow visually. As Airflow workflows are Python code, we are able to visualize the workflow only after uploading it. While this is an acceptable situation, in some cases, it can become problematic because Airflow refuses to load the workflow due to errors. Additionally, during development, it is difficult to visualize all the connections mentioned in Python code.
Every day, the ProgrammableWeb team is busy, updating its three primary directories for APIs, clients (language-specific libraries or SDKs for consuming or providing APIs), and source code samples.
Salt Security, an API-security services provider, has announced the results of a new study performed by Salt Labs, the company’s threat detection and education branch. This research outlines API vulnerabilities that stem from what the company calls a “misimplementation of Elastic Stack.”
Ahmad Shadeed documents a bonafide CSS trick from the Facebook CSS codebase. The idea is that when an element is the full width of the viewport, it doesn’t have any border-radius. But otherwise, it has 8px of border-radius. Here’s the code:
One line! Super neat. The guts of it is the comparison between 100vw and 100%. Essentially, the border-radius comes out to 8px most of the time. But if the component becomes the same width as the viewport (within 4px, but I’d say that part is optional), then the value of the border-radius becomes 0px, because the equation yields a negative (invalid) number.
The 9999 multiplication means that you’ll never get low-positive numbers. It’s a toggle. You’ll either get 8px or 0px and nothing in between. Try removing that part, resizing the screen, and seeing it sorta morph as the viewport becomes close to the component size:
Why do it like this rather than at a @media query? Frank, the developer behind the Facebook choice, says:
It’s not a media query, which compares the viewport to a fixed width. It’s effectively a kind of container query that compares the viewport to its own variable width.
The Prairie State is an excellent place to start an LLC.
Illinois has major cities like Chicago, industrial areas, natural resources, land for agricultural productivity, and seemingly endless opportunities.
The LLC entity structure is a popular choice for new businesses in Illinois.
But if you’re a first-time entrepreneur and you’ve never formed a new business, the LLC formation process in Illinois can be a bit intimidating.
Fortunately, we’ve simplified the entire process into just five easy steps.
The Easy Parts of Starting an LLC in Illinois
Forming an LLC in Illinois helps separate your personal assets from the business. This limits your liabilities and debts if the company gets sued or owes money to lenders.
Compared to a sole proprietorship, LLCs have some potential tax advantages as well. You can take the default pass-through taxation for LLCs or choose to be taxed as an S corp.
If you’re deciding between an LLC and a corporation in Illinois, your Illinois LLC will have fewer compliance requirements than a C corp. Unlike a corporation, LLC earnings aren’t subject to double taxation. It’s also worth noting that LLCs in Illinois pay a lower personal property replacement tax compared to their corporate counterparts.
Lots of entrepreneurs get hung up on the LLC formation process. They’re intimidated by the paperwork, filing, and requirements. While it may seem like a lot to comprehend, it’s actually fairly simple—especially if you’re using an LLC formation service in Illinois.
Online business formation services like ZenBusiness make it easy for anyone to start an LLC in Illinois.
Here’s how it works. Start by answering a few questions about yourself and the business. From there, ZenBusiness will take your information and fill out the appropriate LLC formation paperwork on your behalf.
Then they’ll file those forms directly with the Illinois secretary of state office.
ZenBusiness also offers registered agent services, operating agreement templates, EINs, annual report service, and worry-free compliance—all backed by a 100% accuracy guarantee.
With plans starting at just $49 plus Illinois state filing fees, it’s an exceptional value for LLC formation.
The Difficult Parts of Starting an LLC in Illinois
Starting an LLC in Illinois does come with a handful of challenges.
Compared to LLCs in other states, the initial $150 filing fee is on the higher end of the spectrum. There’s also a $75 annual renewal fee to consider. But these are fairly marginal in the grand scheme of things, so don’t let these small costs discourage you.
Similar to a sole proprietorship, LLCs in Illinois are subject to self-employment taxes by default. You’d need to change your tax status to S-election to modify this structure.
In addition to the tax requirements, you’ll also need to follow all guidelines for LLCs in Illinois to remain in good standing with the state. I’m referring to things like annual report filing, employee reporting, workers compensation insurance, business licenses, renewals, and more. It’s easy to lose track of these requirements when you’re running a business.
While forming an LLC in Illinois is easy, you still have plenty of hard work ahead of you.
This will obviously vary based on business type and industry. But most LLCs need to find office space, buy equipment, hire employees, and start attracting customers. This is much easier said than done.
Step 1 – Name Your Illinois LLC
Starting an LLC in Illinois all begins with finding the right name.
You can’t just pull this name out of thin air. In addition to the name requirements for an LLC in Illinois, you’ll also want to ensure that the name is brandable and works well for your business type.
Follow Illinois State Guidelines For LLC Names
Each state has its own unique rules and regulations for LLCs. Illinois law has specific guidelines that all LLCs must follow when choosing a name.
The complete guidelines can be found on Publication C334 – Guide for Organizing Domestic Limited Liability Companies in Illinois. But here’s a summary of the highlights:
Names must contain the words Limited Liability Company (can be abbreviated as LLC or L.L.C.).
Names cannot contain the words Corporation, Corp, Incorporated, Inc., Ltd., Co., Limited Partnership, or LP.
Names must be distinguishable from others in the secretary of state database.
Words that imply insurance, assurance, or banking are prohibited unless permitted by the Secretary of Financial and Professional Regulation.
LLCs must contain the word “trust” if the purpose is used to accept and execute trusts.
Make sure you give the publication an in-depth review before you land on a name for your Illinois LLC.
Run a Business Name Search
Next, you need to make sure another business in Illinois isn’t using the name you want to register. There are a couple of different ways to approach this step.
Although this can be a bit of a challenge since Illinois requires your name to be clearly distinguishable from another business name. So if your name is only off by a letter or two, you might not find a hit on this resource.
If you’re using an LLC formation service like ZenBusiness, they’ll automatically check the name’s availability against the Illinois state database.
ZenBusiness also offers a business name reservation service for just $50. This is ideal for those of you who have a name you like, but you’re not quite ready to proceed with the rest of the LLC formation process just yet.
You can also reserve an LLC name in Illinois on your own using Form BCA 4.10. Business names can be reserved for up to 90 days in Illinois.
Check the Name’s Availability For Other Purposes
Assuming your business name meets Illinois state guidelines and it’s available to register in the state database, there are a few other places you should check before making things official.
Most new businesses in Illinois will also need a website. So you should check to see if your desired domain name is available, assuming you want the domain to match your LLC name.
If the name is already registered and not available to buy for a reasonable price, you should probably brainstorm another name. Names are a dime a dozen, so don’t invest a ton of money into buying a domain if you can avoid it.
I also recommend checking the USPTO database for federal trademarks. If another business has trademarked the name, you’ll want to make sure that you’re not in breach of their trademark. This is also an important step for the long-term scalability of your business if you eventually plan to register a trademark on the name.
Don’t forget to check and see if the social media handles and profiles associated with your LLC name are available. This can pose a problem for marketing and branding purposes if someone else is using that name.
Running a quick Google search on your proposed LLC name is always a good idea too. Avoid names that have a poor history and unfavorable media attention, even if those stories have nothing to do with your business.
Step 2 – Appoint an Illinois Registered Agent
According to Illinois state law, every domestic and foreign LLC must maintain a registered agent at all times. The agent may be a natural person who resides in the state. It can also be a legal entity that’s licensed to transact business in the state of Illinois.
The registered agent’s office must be a physical street address—a PO box alone is not acceptable.
That’s because an Illinois registered agent must be able to accept service of process and official government correspondence on behalf of your LLC. The agent must be available in person during normal business hours for this type of correspondence.
Being Your Own Registered Agent in Illinois
Technically, you can be your own registered agent in Illinois as long as you’re a state resident. But I typically advise against this.
First of all, this would require you to be available in person during all normal business hours. While nobody will be checking in on this day-to-day, you could land yourself into some compliance trouble if government correspondence can’t be hand-delivered.
It’s also really embarrassing for business owners if they’re served with a lawsuit in front of employees and customers.
For those of you running a business from your home, that address will become part of the Illinois state public records if you act as your own registered agent. Most people prefer to avoid this.
Using a Registered Agent Service in Illinois
It’s much easier to appoint a third party as your registered agent in Illinois. If you’re using ZenBusiness to form your Illinois LLC, it makes sense to use them as your registered agent as well.
The registered agent service starts at $99 per year. This includes standard registered agent duties, online document access, and expert support. ZenBusiness also offers worry-free compliance with its registered agent service if you opt for the Complete Coverage package—starting at $149 per year.
Step 3 – Draft and File Your LLC Formation Paperwork
Now it’s time to officially form your LLC in Illinois. This step will make everything official.
You can file all of the paperwork on your own directly with the secretary of state office. But using an LLC formation service will make your life much easier. ZenBusiness will ensure the accuracy of the paperwork and file everything directly with the Illinois secretary of state on your behalf.
Articles of Organization
To register an Illinois LLC, you need to complete and file Form LLC-5.5 – Articles of Organization. There’s a $150 filing fee associated with this application, which you’ll need to pay whether you’re filing on your own or using a formation service.
The articles of organization in Illinois must include:
Name of the LLC
Principal place of business
Effective date (must be within 60 days of filing)
Name and address of your Illinois registered agent
Purpose of the business
Dissolution date (if applicable)
Name and address of LLC manager or managers (if it’s a manager-managed LLC)
Name and address of the officer filling out the form
It typically takes between seven and ten business days to process the paperwork in Illinois. If you’re using ZenBusiness, they can help expedite the filing for an additional fee. This service is included in the higher-tier formation packages.
Operating Agreement
Illinois does not require LLCs to file a copy of the operating agreement with the state. But it’s highly recommended that you create one of these documents, especially if you’re working with multiple members and managers.
Your operating agreement is a legally binding document that outlines the management structure and governing rules for your LLC.
An operating agreement template comes standard with all ZenBusiness LLC formation packages.
Step 4 – Open New Business Accounts
Next, you need to put yourself in a position to operate as a business entity in Illinois. There are a couple of different accounts you need to open right away to make this possible.
Get an EIN
Technically, an EIN isn’t an account. But you’ll need this number to open other accounts, and it’s required for federal tax purposes and state taxes in Illinois.
EIN stands for employer identification number. It’s also known as a TIN (tax identification number) or just Tax ID. You’ll have the option to get an EIN from ZenBusiness when you’re going through the formation process.
This is free with the Pro and Premium formation plans. Alternatively, you can get an EIN directly from the IRS.
Business Banking
Once you have an EIN, you should open a business checking account. You likely won’t be able to open an account without your EIN.
If you plan to accept credit cards, you’ll also need to research a merchant account provider.
This provider can assist you with credit card terminals, virtual terminals, online payment processing, and everything else you need to accept credit cards and debit cards. In some cases, you can get your business banking and merchant account services under one roof from a single provider.
Step 5 – Prepare For Illinois Taxes, Compliance, and Employer Obligations
Now that you’ve officially started an LLC in Illinois, you need to prepare for the future. Make sure you remain in good standing with the state by complying with all tax laws, licensing rules, and employer obligations.
The exact requirements vary by business type and industry. Here are some examples of steps you might need to take.
Register with the Illinois Department of Revenue
Check to see if you need any Illinois business licenses
Purchase workers compensation insurance as soon as you hire your first employee
Report new hires to the Illinois Department of Employment Security within 20 days of hiring
Calculate and pay unemployment taxes
File an annual report
ZenBusiness’s top-tier registered agent service comes with worry-free compliance. They’ll help you with annual filings and state compliance to ensure you remain in good standing with the Illinois secretary of state.
Implementing a forum into your WordPress website is an easy and effective tool for engaging site users. Even if you have a private Facebook group and a hyper-engaging twitter feed, discussion forums have a leg up on social media in a few key areas. A forum keeps visitors on your site, allows you to control […]
Almost all version control systems (VCS) have some kind of support for branching. In a nutshell, branching means that you leave the main development line by creating a new, separate container for your work and continue to work there. This way you can experiment and try out new things without messing up the production code base. Git users know that Git’s branching model is special and incredibly powerful; it’s one of the coolest features of this VCS. It’s fast and lightweight, and switching back and forth between the branches is just as fast as creating or deleting them. You could say that Git encourages workflows that use a lot of branching and merging.
Git totally leaves it up to you how many branches you create and how often you merge them. Now, if you’re coding on your own, you can choose when to create a new branch and how many branches you want to keep. This changes when you’re working in a team, though. Git provides the tool, but you and your team are responsible for using it in the optimal way!
In this article, I’m going to talk about branching strategies and different types of Git branches. I’m also going to introduce you to two common branching workflows: Git Flow and GitHub Flow.
Part 3: Better Collaboration With Pull Requests Coming soon!
Part 4: Merge Conflicts
Part 5: Rebase vs. Merge
Part 6: Interactive Rebase
Part 7: Cherry-Picking Commits in Git
Part 8: Using the Reflog to Restore Lost Commits
Teamwork: Write down a convention
Before we explore different ways of structuring releases and integrating changes, let’s talk about conventions. If you work in a team, you need to agree on a common workflow and a branching strategy for your projects. It’s a good idea to put this down in writing to make it accessible to all team members.
Admittedly, not everyone likes writing documentation or guidelines, but putting best practise on record not only avoids mistakes and collisions, it also helps when onboarding new team members. A document explaining your branching strategies will help them to understand how you work and how your team handles software releases.
Here are a couple of examples from our own documentation:
master represents the current public release branch
next represents the next public release branch (this way we can commit hotfixes on master without pulling in unwanted changes)
feature branches are grouped under feature/
WIP branches are grouped under wip/ (these can be used to create “backups” of your personal WIP)
A different team might have a different opinion on these things (for example on “wip” or “feature” groups), which will certainly be reflected in their own documentation.
Integrating changes and structuring releases
When you think about how to work with branches in your Git repositories, you should probably start with thinking about how to integrate changes and how to structure releases. All those topics are tightly connected. To help you better understand your options, let’s look at two different strategies. The examples are meant to illustrate the extreme ends of the spectrum, which is why they should give you some ideas of how you can design your own branching workflow:
Mainline Development
State, Release, and Feature Branches
The first option could be described as “always be integrating” which basically comes down to: always integrate your own work with the work of the team. In the second strategy you gather your work and release a collection of it, i.e. multiple different types of branches enter the stage. Both approaches have their pros and cons, and both strategies can work for some teams, but not for others. Most development teams work somewhere in between those extremes.
Let’s start with the mainline development and explain how this strategy works.
Mainline Development
I said it earlier, but the motto of this approach is “always be integrating.” You have one single branch, and everyone contributes by committing to the mainline:
Remember that we’re simplifying for this example. I doubt that any team in the real world works with such a simple branching structure. However, it does help to understand the advantages and disadvantages of this model.
Firstly, you only have one branch which makes it easy to keep track of the changes in your project. Secondly, commits must be relatively small: you can’t risk big, bloated commits in an environment where things are constantly integrated into production code. As a result, your team’s testing and QA standards must be top notch! If you don’t have a high-quality testing environment, the mainline development approach won’t work for you.
State, Release and Feature branches
Let’s look at the opposite now and how to work with multiple different types of branches. They all have a different job: new features and experimental code are kept in their own branches, releases can be planned and managed in their own branches, and even various states in your development flow can be represented by branches:
Remember that this all depends on your team’s needs and your project’s requirements. While this approach may look complicated at first, it’s all a matter of practise and getting used to it.
Now, let’s explore two main types of branches in more detail: long-running branches and short-lived branches.
Long-running branches
Every Git repository contains at least one long-running branch which is typically called master or main. Of course, your team may have decided to have other long-running branches in a project, for example something like develop, production or staging. All of those branches have one thing in common: they exist during the entire lifetime of a project.
A mainline branch like master or main is one example for a long-running branch. Additionally, there are so-called integration branches, like develop or staging. These branches usually represent states in a project’s release or deployment process. If your code moves through different states in its development life cycle — e.g. from developing to staging to production — it makes sense to mirror this structure in your branches, too.
One last thing about long-running branches: most teams have a rule like “don’t commit directly to a long-running branch.” Instead, commits are usually integrated through a merge or rebase. There are two main reasons for such a convention:
Quality: No untested or unreviewed code should be added to a production environment.
Release bundling and scheduling: You might want to release new code in batches and even schedule the releases in advance.
Next up: short-lived branches, which are usually created for certain purposes and then deleted after the code has been integrated.
Short-lived branches
In contrast to long-running branches, short-lived branches are created for temporary purposes. Once they’ve fulfilled their duty and the code has been integrated into the mainline (or another long-lived branch), they are deleted. There are many different reasons for creating a short-lived branch, e.g. starting to work on a new and experimental feature, fixing a bug, refactoring your code, etc.
Typically, a short-lived branch is based on a long-running branch. Let’s say you start working on a new feature of your software. You might base the new feature on your long-running main branch. After several commits and some tests you decide the work is finished. The new feature can be integrated into the main branch, and after it has been merged or rebased, the feature branch can be deleted.
Two popular branching strategies
In the last section of this article, let’s look at two popular branching strategies: Git Flow and GitHub Flow. While you and your team may decide on something completely different, you can take them as inspiration for your own branching strategy.
Git Flow
One well-known branching strategy is called Git Flow. The main branch always reflects the current production state. There is a second long-running branch, typically called develop. All feature branches start from here and will be merged into develop. Also, it’s the starting point for new releases: developers open a new release branch, work on that, test it, and commit their bug fixes on such a release branch. Once everything works and you’re confident that it’s ready for production, you merge it back into main. As the last step, you add a tag for the release commit on main and delete the release branch.
Git Flow works pretty well for packaged software like (desktop) applications or libraries, but it seems like a bit of an overkill for website projects. Here, the difference between the main branch and the release branch is often not big enough to benefit from the distinction.
If you’re using a Git desktop GUI like Tower, you’ll find the possible actions in the interface and won’t have to memorize any new commands:
GitHub Flow
If you and your team follow the continuous delivery approach with short production cycles and frequent releases, I would suggest looking at GitHub Flow.
It’s extremely lean and simple: there is one long-running branch, the default main branch. Anything you’re actively working on has its own separate branch. It doesn’t matter if that’s a feature, a bug fix, or a refactoring.
What’s the “best” Git branching strategy?
If you ask 10 different teams how they’re using Git branches, you’ll probably get 10 different answers. There is no such thing as the “best” branching strategy and no perfect workflow that everyone should adopt. In order to find the best model for you and your team, you should sit down together, analyze your project, talk about your release strategy, and then decide on a branching workflow that supports you in the best possible way.
If you want to dive deeper into advanced Git tools, feel free to check out my (free!) “Advanced Git Kit”: it’s a collection of short videos about topics like branching strategies, Interactive Rebase, Reflog, Submodules and much more.
At EZ MOVES Winnipeg, a moving and packing company, we work for a wide variety of clients, including residents, corporations, and service providers, etc. We want our customers moving experience to be pleasant and easy. We advise on how to relocate to a new location more quickly and easily. We bring to you a diverse range of services. Our professional management team and employees work at their hearts as we share a culture that is a fusion of attitude, convictions, and values.
Wondering what types of websites you can create with WordPress?
We are often asked by beginners about what kind of websites they can make using WordPress. Our short answer is ‘almost any type of website imaginable’.
In this article, we’ll show you top examples of types of websites you can create with WordPress.
Getting Started With WordPress
WordPress powers more than 42% of all websites on the internet, which makes it the most popular website builder on the market.
There are two types of WordPress websites. First, there is WordPress.com which is a web hosting company. Then, there is WordPress.org also known as self-hosted WordPress. To learn more, see our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.
Through out this article, when we say WordPress, we are talking about self-hosted WordPress websites. We recommend using WordPress.org because it gives you full access to all WordPress functionality out of the box.
We recommend using Bluehost. They are offering a generous discount + free domain name to WPBeginner users. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.
If you just want to play around with WordPress, then you can install it on your computer. Take a look at our tutorials on how to install WordPress on Windows and Mac computers.
That being said, let’s take a look at some of the most popular types of websites you can create with WordPress.
1. Blog or Personal Website
WordPress started out as a simple blogging tool and quickly evolved into a powerful content management system. During the last 18 years, those blogging and personal website components didn’t disappear.
They have become more polished, sophisticated, and powerful. WordPress is still the best blogging platform in the world used by small websites as well as large publications.
Due to its flexibility, WordPress is equally good for a personal blog as well as multi-author blogs. It allows you to create content-rich websites that can be easily grown into a business.
For more details, see our guide on how to start a WordPress blog with step-by-step instructions for a beginner blogger.
2. Business Website
WordPress is the easiest way to build a professional-looking business website. It is so powerful that many big name brands use WordPress to power their websites.
Business owners love its ease of use and flexibility. By using WordPress plugins, you can add social media integrations, optimize your site for search engines, track marketing data, and add any other feature you need.
You can choose from thousands of themes and easily customize the design, all without hiring a web designer.
WordPress with WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It supports top payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe so you can easily accept payments online.
You can use WooCommerce to sell both physical and digital products. It allows you to easily add any type of product to your store, and has tools to manage inventory, orders, shipping, taxes, and more.
Apart from WooCommerce, there are other eCommerce plugins for WordPress like Easy Digital Downloads and MemberPress that can be used to sell digital goods and subscriptions.
4. Membership Website
Membership websites sell subscriptions. This allows you to put some of your content behind a paywall, sell pay-per-view content, or run an online community.
MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin. It comes with powerful access control, subscription management, user management, and integrations with third-party tools and payment gateways.
WordPress can be used to easily sell courses and build an online learning community.
MemberPress Courses is the best WordPress LMS platform to sell online courses from your website. It comes with an easy to use interface to create courses, control access, and sell subscriptions.
Don’t have any products to sell? How about creating a marketplace for other vendors to sell their products online?
WordPress has some incredible plugins that turn your website into an online marketplace. Third-party sellers can then list their own products on your website, and you earn a fee on each order.
WordPress and podcasting go hand in hand. Most popular podcasters on the web are using WordPress for their podcasting websites.
There are several excellent podcasting themes and plugins for WordPress which make the whole process way easier. Plus, you can integrate any podcast hosting service to seamlessly serve files from your own website.
Dropshipping is a type of eCommerce store that doesn’t keep the products in stock. Instead, when a customer purchases a product, the store owner places the order with a third-party vendor who ships the item directly to the customer.
WordPress has some excellent dropshipping plugins that help you easily add third-party products to your website.
Want to make a commission by referring your users to products and services?
WordPress is used by millions of marketers to create highly successful affiliate websites. It has a ton of affiliate marketing tools and plugins that will help you boost your earnings.
You can sign up for individual affiliate programs, or you could create an Amazon affiliate store that relies on just one giant affiliate network.
Want to earn affiliate commissions from thousands of websites offering special discounts on their products and services? Then you can use WordPress to make a coupons site.
With the right plugins, you can easily add coupons to your site. You can control the expiration dates and other details, and your users can even rate and vote for their favorite coupons.
A micro job website is an online marketplace where employers can list tasks or gigs and individuals can apply for them. As the website owner, you can make money by charging a fee on each listing.
Several popular sites like Smashing Magazine, ProBlogger, and others use job boards as an extra source of income. There is a growing demand for niche job boards catering to the needs of a specific industry or specialization.
WordPress allows you easily create a job board where employers can post job listings and professionals can respond to them.
13. Business Directory
Just like job boards, there is an increasing demand for niche business directories on the web. There are some great WordPress business directory plugins which allow you to easily create a business directory.
Want to run your own eBay-like auction website? With WordPress, you can create a fully functional auction website. Users can bid online and make payments, and you get to earn by simply providing a platform for your niche auctions.
You can use your portfolio site to feature your writing skills, showcase your music, embed videos, or display your photography.
WordPress can be used to provide a very sleek and polished user experience for your portfolio site, making it easier for others to browse and learn about your work.
17. Travel Website
WordPress is the perfect platform to make a travel website. You can share your own travels or launch destination guides and build a business upon that.
WordPress is a popular choice among fashion and lifestyle businesses. That’s because it’s easy to create professional-looking website or blog, and you can even sell your own products or affiliate products.
Want to create a website in multiple languages? WordPress has you covered.
Out of the box, WordPress is available in dozens of languages. Plus, it can also be used to create multilingual website using WordPress translation plugins.
Online forums are a popular way to build a community and leverage user generated content to bring more search engine traffic to your website.
With bbPress, you can easily add online forums to your website. bbPress helps you convert your website into an easy to manage forum. Plus, you can still use the same website for other features like a blog, online store, or a business site.
Want to create a knowledgebase or wiki-like website?
WordPress allows you to easily add a documentation or knowledgebase section to your website. This allows you to use a powerful CMS to manage all your content under one dashboard.
This article is for anyone struggling with testing cloud services locally, and specifically for people wanting to locally test an API that uses API Gateway and Lambda, with the Serverless framework, on AWS. I was once in desperate need of this knowledge, and my co-worker Joseph Jaffe helped me put this solution into place.
A very popular and quick API solution is using Serverless along with API Gateway and Lambda. If you have never done this before, you can read more about it here. If you already have experience, and are looking for creative ways to locally test, then keep reading. Bonus if you like 🌮🌮!
The Problem
When setting up an API using the Serverless framework, there are important choices to make. Some are extremely important: they can make your life much easier as you build your API, or cause you huge headaches in the future. For instance, when I first started my API, I was setting up each endpoint in its own Serverless project folder. Thus each endpoint had unique URLs. This is bad practice for an API solution that needs one base URL with multiple service points. We changed the solution to have all endpoints in the same Serverless project, and that allowed us to use one extra handy aspect of Lambda — layers. Lambda layers are a way to share code across API endpoints, reducing the amount of repeated code across the API project. You can read more about Lambda Layers here, but I digress. Let’s get back to the problem: local testing!
When you create a new API endpoint, you must deploy the entire API to include the new resource in API Gateway and get the URL for it. Once you have done that, you can deploy individual resources.
Deploying for Serverless takes time. Lots of time. For instance, see these average deploy times for one of our last projects:
Deploying a single endpoint: ~7 seconds 🙂
Deploying full API (~12 resources): ~24 seconds 😔
Deploying Layers (2 layers): ~32 seconds 💀
While these times don’t appear too bad at first glance, imagine trying to quickly and iteratively test out changes in your API. Having each deploy over 1 minute long is a huge time-hog and will kill your momentum. Stretch this over weeks of development and you will see why we all need a solution to test Lambda functions locally.
Our Solution
In order to quickly flush out the obvious errors, we require local testing. In order to test locally, we found that serverless invoke local allows us to do this in the simplest manner. This not only allows us to run Lambda scripts locally, but we can also add breakpoints using Debug Mode in Visual Studio Code. If you have never played with it, Debug Mode in VSC is really helpful.
The most important aspect of local testing is instant feedback. No more waiting around for layers, functions or entire APIs to deploy! Tons of time saved during the initial build and your (patience as well as your) Program Director will love you for it!
Data
The last Serverless API project we worked on stored all the data in JSON files hosted on AWS S3 buckets. You may be reading the data from a database, so you need to make sure you can still access the data while running locally. One way would be to set up the database locally on your machine. Ultimately, every project is unique and requires you to think creatively for a solution that meets your needs.
Environment Variables
In order for us to know if we are running locally or not, we created an environment variable to pass in through our local invocation. The variable is named LOCAL_DEV and is used to check if we should be loading the data from S3 or from a local file system folder, like so:
const data =
process.env.LOCAL_DEV === "true"
? require(`./data/tacos.json`)
: //handle loading/setting the data as you regularly would
Note above that the boolean value of true is in quotes. Environment variables always come through as strings, so be ready to handle this fact of life.
We have a snapshot of the data stored on S3 on our local computers, so when we are in local development mode, we use that local data in order to run and test the code locally.
Additionally, if you are using layers in Lambda, you will need to point directly to the code as opposed to referring to it by name, at the top of your Lambda file:
Once you have all code in place to allow the Lambda function to run successfully locally, then you can try invoking the function. Here is an example invocation of an endpoint called tacos (🌮🌮) that gets all tacos from a food API. Because I ❤️ 🌮🌮. Code for this example can found on Github.
This is copied and pasted from a command shortcut I defined in my package.json file. That command requires you to put literal \ markers in front of all quotes. Here is that command from package.json in its entirety:
The item above says to locally invoke the API endpoint "tacos" (local 🌮🌮 are the best, right?) which gets a set of tacos filtered by whatever query string parameters you send it. Next, let’s look at the second part.
Here is where we can define whatever query string parameters we are passing into the API endpoint. For this example, we pass into the API endpoint all the attributes that describe the taco(s) we are looking for. In our case, we are looking for egg, bacon and cheese tacos on a flour tortilla with Salsa Doña.
Note: Any guess as to where the taco described above (with Salsa Doña) can be found in Austin, Texas, USA? If you know, please respond in the comments!
If you need to test a bunch of parameters, you could save them out in a testing/query.json file(s) so you could do something like:
The third part of the call is for defining any environment variables.
-e LOCAL_DEV=true
This tells our Lambda code very clearly we are running this function locally and to make sure and prepare for that by pulling all resources in locally as well.
Last, I pipe the results into a JSON file.
> output.json
From here I can easily verify if the results are correct or if an error was thrown.
Conclusion
That sums it up! If you didn’t see the link earlier, I have a sample project written up that you can try on your own, using the Serverless framework, the AWS services API Gateway, and Lambda.
Also, if you have ideas on how to make this solution better, or other alternative solutions, I would love to hear about your feedback/tips/experiences in the comments below.
Today I’m very happy to share another websites roundup with you! There is lots to discover and explore, especially when it comes to creative typography usage and color themes. Uppercase letters are hip while soft, fuzzy, blurry shapes and gradients create an interesting “ambient” in some designs.
Hope you enjoy this collection and find it inspirational!
Implementing a forum into your WordPress website is an easy and effective tool for engaging site users. Even if you have a private Facebook group and a hyper-engaging twitter feed, discussion forums have a leg up on social media in a few key areas. A forum keeps visitors on your site, allows you to control […]
