Wallpaper For Ipad 2022: Compilation Of Wicked Designs

As I try to do ever couple of months or so, I am bringing you the latest in iPad Wallpaper design. There is never a shortage of new wallpaper for iPad to drool over. In this post you will see iPad wallpaper designs ranging from really creative and cool to just down right wicked. I […]

Create an HD Video Player With HDR Tech

What Is HDR and Why Does It Matter

Streaming technology has improved significantly, giving rise to higher and higher video resolutions from those at or below 480p (which are known as the standard definition or SD for short) to those at or above 720p (high definition, or HD for short).

The video resolution is vital for all apps. Research that I recently came across backs this up: 62% of people are more likely to negatively perceive a brand that provides a poor-quality video experience, while 57% of people are less likely to share a poor-quality video. With this in mind, it's no wonder that there are so many emerging solutions to enhance video resolution.

Debugging the Perplexing – Don’t Panic!

In the 10+ years, I’ve spent in software development, I’ve formulated a law of debugging: “The perplexity of a software bug and the simplicity of its probable cause are positively correlated”. Put simply, the more confounding and “impossible” a bug appears to be, the likelier it is that the underlying reason for the bug is not some nightmare compiler edge-case or hardware problem, but rather something that’s actually quite simple. Below are two cases that demonstrate the law in action.

Case #1: Python

My go-to example for this used to be an error in a Python project that took almost an entire day to resolve. Below is a (highly simplified) representation of the code in question:

Employee Monitoring Policies Starter Guide: Learn the Basics

Employee monitoring is a tricky topic. From questions of ethics and legality to whether or not employee monitoring is beneficial, there’s a lot to unpack. If you’re considering implementing tools to track your employees’ productivity and safety at work, you’ve come to the right place. This guide will show you why you need an employee monitoring policy—and what to keep in mind as you create one.

What is Employee Monitoring?

Employee monitoring can look different from one company to another, and employers keep track of their employees for a variety of reasons. But there are three key goals that employers tend to look at when deciding whether to implement a monitoring plan. When done right, employee monitoring helps companies:

  • Prevent unsafe or illegal situations
  • Increase productivity
  • Boost employee wellbeing

That said, there are downsides to employee monitoring. Employee surveillance and monitoring can cause employees to feel that their employers don’t trust them, create extra costs for employers, and put a company at legal risk. 

The most important action to take if you plan to use workplace monitoring is to create an employee monitoring policy. This document should disclose an employer’s intent to monitor employees, lay out when and where employees can expect privacy and where they cannot, and define how the company is adhering to all local, state, and federal labor laws.

Screenshot of Business in a Box's privacy in the workplace policy template.
An example of an employee monitoring policy template from Business in a Box.

Before you can create an employee monitoring policy, it’s important to understand what employee surveillance looks like.

Types of Employee Monitoring

Back before the digital revolution, employee monitoring was simple. Employers watched their employees in the workplace to assess performance, listened to customer complaints and praises, and kept track of labor using time cards. 

A lot has changed. 

Thanks to the evolution of electronics, monitoring employees is easier than ever before. Some would say it’s too easy and that excessive monitoring can have serious drawbacks for employers and employees alike. 

Let’s take a look at the most common forms of employee monitoring, along with their benefits and pitfalls. 

Video Surveillance

It’s difficult to find a store, restaurant, or even a house without at least a few security cameras installed. While cameras are less common in office spaces, they can help prevent crimes like theft and sexual assault—and provide evidence to help prosecute such crimes when they do occur.

But there are important rules employers must follow when using video cameras to record employee activity. 

First, you must have a legitimate reason why monitoring employees using a video camera matters to your business. Security, investigative processes, and time and motion studies are all legitimate business reasons.

If you’re considering using video cameras to monitor your employees for any work-related reason, there are several key points to consider. 

First, recording audio without employee consent may violate federal wiretapping laws. It’s okay to require that consent as a condition of accepting a job, but you still need to obtain it first. 

Second, cameras should be easily visible to employees. If they are hidden in any way, you must have a really good reason for this—and be prepared to back it up in court. And you should never record audio or video in a space where an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a bathroom, changing room, or locker room. 

Third, each state has different laws regarding video recording in the workplace. Make sure you understand and follow your state’s laws.

Monitoring Software for Computers

Whether it’s food service drivers who use GPS to navigate to customers’ homes or office workers creating reports on company-issued laptops, computers fortify today’s workforce. They can easily be surveilled using monitoring software.

Monitoring software provides employers with a way to make sure their employees are staying on the job during their paid work hours. A geofence can keep drivers from making unnecessary pitstops, for example. Social media blockers can help employees avoid the temptation of Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and other time sucks.

The best employee monitoring software encourages employees to work more productively without alienating them. 

Time Doctor is one of our favorite monitoring software services for this very reason. This product operates on the assumption that employees are well aware of the many distractions their laptops offer—and that many employees want help staying focused. 

Screenshot of Time Doctor's time management system.
Time Doctor helps employees and employers track time management.

Whether an employee is working from home or from inside the office, monitoring software like Time Doctor helps them stay on task. For example, if an employee can’t resist the temptation to check Facebook when they’re supposed to be working, Time Doctor will send an alert to help them get back to work.

Time Doctor and other monitoring software services tend to track things like team chats, time, web and app use, breaks, work email, and attendance. They can also enable employers or employees to take screenshots and screen recordings. 

Features like this can get tricky, as some studies show that remote employees resent these monitoring methods—and that they may even refuse job offers from companies that use them. 

Trust is key here. If you decide to use screen recordings or screenshots, express your reasons to employees and take the time to listen to any questions they have. Above all, make sure you’re following the privacy laws that apply to your company.

Sometimes, it’s in your company’s best interest to deploy silent software monitoring measures. Unfortunately, data theft is a real concern. If you regularly handle sensitive data, you don’t want that data getting stolen—whether by someone inside your company or someone on the outside. 

Monitoring software like InterGuard helps secure your data against internal cyber attacks and data theft while remaining compliant with data laws. 

Screenshot of InterGuard's safety and secure features described.
When you need an extra layer or two of security, monitoring software like InterGuard can help.

Telephone Monitoring 

When employees work in a call center or regularly interact with clients using employer phones, telephone monitoring can help ensure the quality of a call. Some forms of call monitoring include recording calls, listening in on live calls, and jumping in to help agents when a call is headed south. 

Talkdesk is one of our favorite call monitoring services because it provides call barging and live monitoring, but it also allows supervisors to give feedback on specific points in the call. 

Screenshot from Talkdesk's website showing an example employee's dashboard with their activity data on screen with add comment feature also shown.
Talkdesk helps employers monitor employee phone calls with the goal of improving employee performance and customer experience.

As with every other type of employee monitoring, call surveillance is best done under the direction of a clear and comprehensive employee monitoring policy.

Biometric Monitoring 

Biometric technology is booming in both personal and workplace-related use. We use facial recognition to unlock our iPhones and press our fingerprints into time clocks to track work hours. These biometric advances undoubtedly make life more streamlined, but they can have downsides. 

Employers appreciate that fingerprinted clock-ins help reduce time theft, for example, but employee advocates worry about what else the personal data—a person’s fingerprint—might be used for. 

In recent years, some employers have encouraged the use of biometric screenings and fitness watch-based health initiatives to improve employee health and wellness. But this data, critics argue, can also pave the way for discrimination if employers use the data to inform health insurance coverage decisions. 

If you decide to utilize a biometric tool of any kind—like UKG’s TouchFree ID for punching in or company Fitbits to encourage healthy practices—make sure you: 

  • Present this information to your employees in written form
  • Disclose what the data will be used for
  • Obtain employee consent in writing
Screenshot from UKG's website showing face recognition with clock-in system. Feature descriptions on page as well.
UKG’s face recognition clock-in system adds a layer of security and convenience to the punch-in process.

While few states currently have laws addressing biometric monitoring, regulations are gaining ground. Illinois, Texas, and Washington all have laws regulating the use of biometric information. Other states are poised to follow suit.

Stay out of any legal issues by following the steps above—and keeping the data private once you have it.

Steps to Creating an Employee Monitoring Policy

The first step toward creating an employee monitoring policy is to enlist the help of your company’s lawyer or an online legal service like LegalZoom. Tell your attorney how and why you plan to monitor your employees. 

An attorney will be able to help you understand the laws you must follow before you can even decide what monitoring methods to use. They can also help you draft an employee monitoring policy or point you in the direction of a suitable template. 

Screenshot of Legal Zoom's lawyer web page.
LegalZoom is a wallet-friendly way to get live assistance from a lawyer when you need it.

You can find employee monitoring policy templates on sites like Template.net. What we love about this template is that it outlines the reasons for monitoring in detail.

Screenshot of a privacy and employee monitoring policy from template.net.
A detailed employee monitoring policy can help build trust between you and your employees.

In general, an employee monitoring policy should include the following sections: 

  • Introduction: explains why you plan to use monitoring tools, which software services you’ll be using, and what benefits these monitoring practices will bring to both the employer and the employee
  • Scope: outlines who the monitoring policy applies to—for example, in-house employees but not independent contractors
  • Outline of Monitoring Systems: a brief overview of the types of monitoring you’ll be using, when you will be using it, and whether or not it will be used for remote work
  • Data Collection: explain why you will collect data, what type of data you will collect, how long the data will be stored, and what the company will do with the data
  • Legality: explain how you are adhering to all the laws that apply to your company
  • Signature and Date: a signature represents that an employee is in agreement with the employee monitoring policy as stated in the document

If the policy ever changes at any point in time, alert your employees, create an updated policy, and give employees the updated paperwork to read and sign if they agree.

And remember to show your attorney the employee monitoring policy to ensure you comply with all the laws relevant to your company. 

Is an Employee Monitoring Policy Right For You?

Yes. If you plan to monitor employees in any way, then we absolutely recommend implementing an employee monitoring policy. 

A policy like this helps your company enjoy the benefits of monitoring while reducing the risk of legal or ethical violations that can land you in boiling water. 

But there are additional benefits to employee monitoring policies to think of, too: 

  • They help set employee expectations for work quality in a way that is open and honest, empowering employees to meet and exceed company standards.
  • They set privacy expectations for employees, so they won’t assume they have privacy on company computers, for example—even if they choose to use the devices for personal reasons.
  • Obtaining informed consent for your monitoring practices helps prevent ill feelings toward your company—no one likes to be spied on, and uninformed monitoring can land you on the wrong side of the law.
  • They ensure that you’re adhering to the relevant data and privacy laws.
  • They help create an ethical, transparent company culture.

It’s true that you’ll need to put in a bit of work to create an employee monitoring policy. But it’s worth doing the work now to avoid problems down the road.

Final Thoughts About Employee Monitoring Policies

Monitoring your employees, whether they’re working remotely or in the office, can bolster productivity, help ensure safety, and promote well-being. But employers must take care not to abuse the monitoring of employees, both for ethical and legal reasons. And if you’re going to monitor your employees, we recommend doing so in a way that fosters trust—not ruins it.

An excellent way to avoid issues related to employee surveillance is to implement an employee monitoring policy. These types of policies keep your company ethical and transparent. They help your employees provide informed consent, leading to a healthier—and more productive!—workplace environment. 

There’s no better time than now to make employee monitoring policies a part of your employee management system and onboarding process.

Saving smartphone fingerprint id in mysql

Hello! I have created a project on Android studio, and i use java as langage, i want to create a biometric system with fingerprint, what i mean is that i want to use android fingerprint device to get fingerprint id and store it in MySQL with some personal informations, so anyone can help me please
Thanks in advance

C#: can’t install webview2 package

When I try to install webview2 package from nuget I get this output:

Retrieving package 'Microsoft.Web.WebView2 1.0.1418.22' from 'nuget.org'.
Adding package 'Microsoft.Web.WebView2.1.0.1418.22' to folder 'C:\Users\pc\Desktop\VS 2015 projects\dbtest\packages'
Added package 'Microsoft.Web.WebView2.1.0.1418.22' to folder 'C:\Users\pc\Desktop\VS 2015 projects\dbtest\packages'
Install failed. Rolling back...
Package 'Microsoft.Web.WebView2.1.0.1418.22' does not exist in project 'webview2'
Removing package 'Microsoft.Web.WebView2.1.0.1418.22' from folder 'C:\Users\pc\Desktop\VS 2015 projects\dbtest\packages'
Removed package 'Microsoft.Web.WebView2.1.0.1418.22' from folder 'C:\Users\pc\Desktop\VS 2015 projects\dbtest\packages'
Executing nuget actions took 2,42 sec
Failed to add reference to 'Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Core'.
DLL-bestand is niet geregistreerd. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8002801D (TYPE_E_LIBNOTREGISTERED))

But it doesn't say why it can't install.

Cloud Migration Methodology – Top 6 Methodologies Explained

Cloud migration methodology is a high-level plan that is constructed in order to transfer data and applications from an existing on-premise server to the cloud server. Since data is what makes a company valuable these days, it is important that we have a good migration plan to move the data. 

In this article, we will be taking a look at the different challenges risks, and approaches of migration in cloud migration. 

Employee Incentive Program Starter Guide: Learn the Basics

When you want to keep your employees engaged and motivated with an employee incentive program, 15Five can help you track it. You can try 15Five for 14 days with a free trial account.

When employees feel that they have value and that management appreciates them, production tends to be better. Incentivized employees tend to be more willing to stay with the company rather than constantly job hopping. There are multiple subscription software packages you can choose from to streamline and simplify the incentivization process.

The 5 Best Software Packages for Employee Incentive Programs

Through employee engagement software, you, as a business owner or as a human resources manager, can give employees a voice. These software packages deliver surveys and information that help management determine which incentives are most important for employees. Our list of the best employee engagement software packages can help you begin your research.

What Are Employee Incentive Programs?

Screenshot of 15five's employee incentives high fives feature dashboard.
15Five has an easy-to-use, beginner-friendly user interface.

Employee incentive programs are ideas the company implements to give employees a chance to earn extra benefits. These benefits go beyond the salary and other parts of their employment packages, like health insurance, paid vacation, and paid sick days.

Benefits that are part of an employee incentive program can include tangible benefits, such as extra days off or gift certificates. They also can include things like recognizing an employee of the week or positively reinforcing certain actions at work. For example, 15Five offers digital “high fives” that teammates can give and receive to highlight excellent work and attitude.

Rather than focusing on the accomplishments of an individual, some employee incentives can reward a department or the entire company. If the team hits its sales goal for the quarter, perhaps management can pay for a catered lunch. Such incentives can involve fun activities, too, like a casual dress workday or an employee night out at the local ballpark.

Do Employee Incentive Programs Actually Work?

According to McKinsey & Company, incentive programs, especially financial incentives, have both short-term and long-term benefits. 

In the short term, such incentives lead to rapid employee performance improvements. This can be helpful when the company is implementing a new area of focus or when a major transformation is occurring.

In the long term, employees tend to feel valued when participating in incentive programs. When they receive monetary rewards through the incentive program, they tend to job hunt less often. Companies have an easier time retaining top employees with a combination of competitive employment benefits and incentive programs.

Some of the overall benefits of either individual- or team-based employee incentive plans include:

  • Greater productivity and level of motivation
  • Higher morale
  • Higher level of engagement with team members
  • Higher level of holding each other accountable
  • Better results in meeting deadlines and hitting goals
  • Greater sense of loyalty to the company and the team

Incentives for employees as part of these programs should be different from providing office perks for your employees. Office perks can involve consistent things like free coffee or donuts on Fridays, regardless of company performance. Incentive programs should be special benefits that show extra appreciation for a job well done.

Deciding Whether to Start an Employee Incentive Program

Screenshot from 15Five showing the "create a new objective" screen and various functions to create an objective.
15Five lets you lay out specific, actionable objectives and track status as you go.

If you start an incentive program, it’s important to take it seriously. Management needs to be on board with the program so it receives the funding and attention required to make it work as intended. If the program isn’t receiving support from management, employees will figure it out pretty quickly, and they won’t take it seriously.

Consider the budget you want to deploy to the program. Does the company want to try a one-time expenditure to fund a short-term program? Or are you ready to devote an annual budget to a long-term employee incentive program?

Think about what you want to accomplish with the program. Will the employee incentive program involve meeting long-term goals as something designed to be permanent? Does your business need special incentives during busy times, such as at the end of the fiscal year, to hit goals? Or do you need something in between?

You then can begin setting goals for what you want to accomplish through the employee incentive program. Software like 15Five provides the ability to track objectives that the company has. Have department heads and administrators create a list of goals in 15Five they want to accomplish. Through the list, you then can find some objectives that would fit well within an employee incentive plan.

Take a Survey of Employees

Screenshot from 15Five describing survey features to solicit feedback from employees and those within the organization.
You can send anonymous surveys to get honest feedback from your employees.

Once you decide to begin using an employee incentive program, it’s time to check in with the employees themselves. Employees need to have a say in how the program expects to operate and what the incentives will be.

Part of the reason to begin this type of program is to show employees that the company values them. If company executives put a program in place that has no employee input involved, employees may not receive it well. They may not want to participate if the incentives aren’t of value to them or if they don’t see the importance of the goals.

One of the best ways to find out what kinds of incentives employees would appreciate is through an online survey. One of the strengths of 15Five is how it lets employers create quick surveys and feedback requests for a variety of items. You can use these surveys to learn about items that employees would find important in an incentive program.

Some of the incentive program details about which you can ask your employees for their opinions include:

  • Types of reward-based incentives: Some employees may prefer financial incentives, which would include gift cards. Others may prefer to receive experiences, such as a special catered lunch or a company golf outing at a private club where the boss is a member. It’s important that the employees have a say in the tangible incentives.
  • Types of recognition-based incentives: Recognition incentives can be helpful for encouraging friendly competition among team members. They also can boost morale. Through the survey, you may find that employees prefer digital high fives and points that they can award to each other versus a company outing outside of working hours.
  • Options for continuous programs: Through a survey, you may find that employees like the idea of having a continuous incentive program in place. They may appreciate daily contests or weekly goals that keep them motivated. Others may prefer targeted incentive programs at certain times of the fiscal year when the company needs a boost in performance.

Understand that chances are extremely low that you will receive 100% consensus from the employees. You may find it helpful to narrow the number of choices you give employees within each topic. By having three to five options in the survey, you’re more likely to at least have a majority select one of them versus having 10 to 12 choices and spreading out the answers.

You also could offer multiple incentives if you believe your employees won’t be able to come to a consensus. Perhaps in a large company, one department can work toward one type of incentive while another department has another incentive in mind.

How to Implement an Employee Incentive Program

Screenshot from 15Five showing different filter function.
Easily review answers and compare various types of answered questions from your survey to identify patterns and needs.

When you are almost ready to implement the incentive program for employees, you may want to hold a meeting with representatives from a few different departments. Go over the proposed incentive plan and ask for feedback. You don’t need to have full agreement from everyone at the meeting, but you can receive a general idea about whether the plan needs any tweaking.

After any final adjustments, it’s finally time to introduce the incentive program to employees. If this is a completely new program, you may want to have a big production and buildup, so employees can become excited about the program. You’ll want to put some thought into the introduction, as employee buy-in is important for success in this type of program.

When a new employee comes on board and has a chance to participate in the employee incentive plan, you probably don’t want to have a big production for each new hire. However, if you want to receive the highest level of buy-in from new employees, an explanation of the incentive program should occur as part of the employee onboarding process.

Explain the Program in Detail

Employees need to be able to fully understand the program. Incentive programs like this likely will bring out a high level of competitiveness from some of your employees. They will want to be able to track their progress toward earning incentives. 

The program should be easy to understand. You may want to provide easily accessible documentation that gives employees the ability to calculate their progress. Having detailed explanations of the incentive program also should prevent disagreements and disputes down the road.

Ultimately, everything should be as above board and as clear as possible in setting up the incentive program. You never want employees to feel like the company is hiding something or trying to trick them into working more for an unattainable incentive. Transparency is key.

Allow Employees to Track Their Progress

Screenshot of 15Five compare group function showing example participant data.
15Five lets individual employees track their progress toward various incentives.

As part of introducing as much transparency into the incentive program as possible, consider allowing employees to track their progress through software. You may be able to track progress toward incentives through employee engagement software or through human resources software. 

Not only does giving employees the opportunity to track the progress toward reaching incentives make the program transparent, but it also sparks competition. When employees can see their progress and the progress of their team members, many of them will use these numbers as motivation.

With the ability to track the incentive program through software, employees should never have a question about the deadlines for a short-term program, either. 

Some companies may prefer to post results for the program on a community bulletin board or on a whiteboard in the breakroom to make sure everyone sees it. This may work better for tracking progress toward a team-oriented goal. Placing a notice in the breakroom can encourage employees to talk about the program and brainstorm ideas about how to try to reach the team-based incentives.

You may even want to create a poster in the breakroom that allows employees to mark off progress toward the goal to receive the incentive. Marking daily progress can be a fun activity that encourages team building.

Celebrate Successes in the Incentive Program

When implementing an employee incentive program, the ultimate goal is to encourage employees – and to allow the company – to have more success. When the team or individual employees reach their objectives, it’s important to celebrate this accomplishment.

Holding celebrations of successes can encourage other employees to work toward meeting the goals for the next incentive period. Recognizing successes also shows the employees that the program is real and that it is possible to reach the incentives.

Seeing co-workers receive their incentives or being part of a team that reaches its goals can be a source of pride. Celebrating this accomplishment shows appreciation from management for the hard work of the employees.

Administrators may want to present employees with extra incentives, such as a gift card or another type of prize, in front of the entire company or department. It’s also possible to shoot videos and photos of a company outing that a team earned by hitting its goals. Then post those images to the company’s internal website, so everyone can see the team enjoying the benefits of the incentive program.

Plan Ahead For Discouraging Results

Of course, it is possible that your employee incentive plan does not quite work as intended, and the team doesn’t reach the required objectives. Avoid the temptation to simplify the program in mid-stream or to change the goals to let employees “win” the incentive. The incentives and goals that are part of the program should be challenging, after all.

If you believe the goals were too difficult to obtain in this incentive cycle, you can adjust them for the next cycle to give employees and teams a better chance of hitting them. Just don’t change the rules in the middle of a program, or employees may expect the company to make things easier every time. The program then loses some of its effectiveness.

Final Thoughts About Employee Incentive Programs

It’s an old saying, but it remains true in today’s evolving workplace: Your company is only as strong as its employees. Once you have good employees working for you, keeping them engaged and happy with employee incentive programs is a smart idea. 

Managing and implementing your employee incentive program is easier when using employee engagement software. These software packages not only track the incentives for you, but they also help you query your employees about incentives they would like to have available. 

When your employees feel like they have a voice in the incentive program, they’re more likely to appreciate the incentives they’re receiving. It all leads to more productive employees.

How To Handle Pseudo-Elements in CSS With Selenium?

While performing UI automation testing on a webpage, we all try to work with the web elements such as buttons, texts, etc. Interaction with the WebElements in the DOM is made possible with the help of Selenium locators. However, there are some aspects of a web page that even the locators can’t manage. Pseudo-elements in CSS fall in that category. Without the correct information, these pseudo-elements can be very hard to automate. In this article, we will see how to handle pseudo-elements in CSS with Selenium WebDriver.

Selenium is a powerful automation testing framework for checking complex web pages but pseudo-elements are tricky to automate. Selenium, when used in conjunction with the JavaScriptExecutor interface, helps to automate pseudo-elements. When testing your website, one must also ensure that the webpage functions as expected across various browser and OS combinations. Given that Selenium test automation is a cross-browser and cross-platform affair, you can perform automation tests at scale with the cloud-based Selenium Grid.

How can i make my website rank?

Hi everyone, I have a website where i post contents like music and movies for downloads but my site is not ranking at all and my traffic is as little as nothing. I am not a SEO expert but i did my site SEO myself with Yoast and followed a video tutorial while doing it. please i need assistance on how to optimize my site so i can have traffic on my site and be rewarded for the time i invest in uploading contents on the site

Awesome Demos Roundup #22

Aurora Sphere

by Nemutas

Aristide Benoist portfolio reproduction

by Nam Hai

Iridescence feature of ThreeJS

by 14islands

City Life – Day & Night – Pure CSS

by Josetxu López

CSS Hover Light Card

by Jhey Thompkins

Glow Button

by Aaron Iker

spellcaster

by Arno Di Nunzio

LOTOFPARTICLES

by Marco Ludovico Perego

Bubbles

by saharan

147.

by ycw

CSS Mechanical Keyboard

by Yoav Kadosh

Gallery Example

by Toshiya Marukubo

Muse 001

by Henry Egloff

tension map

by @3dflashlo

Refraction

by Maxime Heckel

sketch 309

by Ryo Ikeda

ThreeJS Shield Shader

by Francesco Michelini

Physical Particles

by Léon Baudouin

Hologram

by Maxime Heckel

Horizontal Gallery WebGL

by David Heckhoff

Sliderland

by blinry

-border

Portal (CSS)

by Amit Sheen

GLSL Image Transitions

by Michal Zalobny

Invisible

by Nemutas

THREEJS HOLO SIGN

by Francesco Michelini

Spider

by Stranger in the Q

Carla Trail

by Ichitaro Masuda

sketch 294

by Ryo Ikeda

Java game not loading

I am not quite sure why I am getting this error

package tile;

import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import javax.imageio.ImageIO;

import main.GamePanel;
import main.UtilityTool;

public class TileManager {
    GamePanel gp;
    public Tile[] tile;
    public int mapTileNum[][];

    public TileManager(GamePanel gp) {

        this.gp = gp;

        tile = new Tile[42];
        mapTileNum = new int[gp.maxWorldCol][gp.maxWorldRow];

        getTileImage();
        loadMap("/maps/worldV2.txt");

    }
    public void getTileImage() {

            //Placeholder
            setup(0,"grass00", false);
            setup(1,"grass00", false);
            setup(2,"grass00", false);
            setup(3,"grass00", false);
            setup(4,"grass00", false);
            setup(5,"grass00", false);
            setup(6,"grass00", false);
            setup(7,"grass00", false);
            setup(8,"grass00", false);
            setup(9,"grass00", false); 
            setup(10,"grass00", false);
            setup(11,"grass01", false);
            setup(12,"water00", true);
            setup(13,"water01", true);
            setup(14,"water02", true);
            setup(15,"water03", true);
            setup(16,"water04", true);
            setup(17,"water05", true);
            setup(18,"water06", true);
            setup(19,"water07", true);
            setup(20,"water08", true);
            setup(21,"water09", true);
            setup(22,"water10", true);
            setup(23,"water11", true);
            setup(24,"water12", true);
            setup(25,"water13", true);
            setup(26,"road00", false);
            setup(27,"road01", false);
            setup(28,"road02", false);
            setup(29,"road03", false);
            setup(31,"road04", false);
            setup(32,"road05", false);
            setup(33,"road06", false);
            setup(34,"road07", false);
            setup(35,"road08", false);
            setup(36,"road09", false);
            setup(37,"road10", false);
            setup(38,"road11", false);
            setup(39,"road12", false);
            setup(40,"wall", true);
            setup(41,"tree", true);


    }
    public void setup( int index, String imageName, boolean collision) {

        UtilityTool uTool = new UtilityTool();

        try {
            tile[index] = new Tile();
            tile[index].image = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResourceAsStream("/tiles/" + imageName + ".png"));
            tile[index].image = uTool.scaleImage(tile[index].image, gp.tileSize, gp.tileSize);
            tile[index].collision = collision;
        }catch (IOException e){
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    public void loadMap(String filepath) {
        try {
            InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream(filepath);
            BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader(is));

            int col = 0;
            int row = 0;

            while (col <gp.maxWorldCol && row < gp.maxWorldRow) {
                String line = br.readLine();

                while (col < gp.maxWorldCol) {
                    String numbers[] = line.split(" ");

                    int num = Integer.parseInt(numbers[col]);

                    mapTileNum[col][row] = num;
                    col ++;
                }
                if (col == gp.maxWorldCol) {
                    col = 0;
                    row++;
                }
            }
            br.close();
        } catch (Exception e) {

        }
    }

    public void draw(Graphics2D g2) {

        int worldcol = 0;
        int worldrow = 0;


        while(worldcol < gp.maxWorldCol && worldrow < gp.maxWorldRow) {

            int tileNum = mapTileNum[worldcol][worldrow];

            int worldX = worldcol * gp.tileSize;
            int worldY = worldrow * gp.tileSize;
            int screenX = worldX - gp.player.worldX + gp.player.screenX;
            int screenY = worldY - gp.player.worldY + gp.player.screenY;
            if (worldX + gp.tileSize > gp.player.worldX - gp.player.screenX &&
                worldX - gp.tileSize < gp.player.worldX + gp.player.screenX &&
                worldY + gp.tileSize > gp.player.worldY -gp.player.screenY &&
                worldY - gp.tileSize < gp.player.worldY + gp.player.screenY) {
                g2.drawImage(tile[tileNum].image, screenX, screenY, null);
            }

            worldcol++;

            if(worldcol == gp.maxWorldCol) {
                worldcol =0;
                worldrow ++;

            }
        }

    }
}





public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);

        Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g;

        tileM.draw(g2);

        for(int i = 0; i < obj.length; i++){
            if(obj[i] != null) {
                obj[i].draw(g2, this);
            }
        }

        player.draw(g2);

        g2.dispose();
    }

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot read field "image" because "this.tile[tileNum]" is null
at tile.TileManager.draw(TileManager.java:138)
at main.GamePanel.paintComponent(GamePanel.java:109)

How We Reduced Online Serving Latency From 1.11s to 123.6ms With a Distributed SQL Database

This post tells how a website with a distributed database reduced online serving latency from 1.11 s to 417.7 ms, and then to 123.6 ms. We found that some lessons learned on MySQL could be applied throughout the optimization process. But when we optimize a distributed database, we need to consider more.

The OSS Insight website displays the data changes of GitHub events in real time. It's powered by TiDB Cloud, a MySQL-compatible distributed SQL database for elastic scale and real-time analytics.

Thinking Like a Hacker: Stealing Secrets With a Malicious GitHub Action

About This Series

Last time, a cryptocurrency scammer scanned Android APKs on the Internet Archive and found thousands of leaked Twitter API keys. After that, the scammer invested money into an altcoin and used the leaked API keys to promote the altcoin with hijacked Twitter accounts. The story ended with a classic pump-and-dump that made the crypto scammer millions of dollars at the expense of duped investors.

In this series, we will dissect not just what an attacker can do to get access to credentials, but also what they would do after getting that initial access. We will walk through a different threat scenario in each part of the series and tell stories of malicious hackers that are either true, based on a true incident, or reasonably theoretical.

Edge Computing and How It’s Evolving

Edge computing is an emerging paradigm leading to major transformation in the networking world. The prime advantages that edge computing offers are reduced latency, bandwidth optimizations, and faster processing of data which leads to a better user experience. All depends on how time-critical the application in question is. 

With COVID-19 and the way the work from home culture got popular — streaming applications used for edutech, the collaborative tools, online healthcare, live trainings, and of course the OTT platforms which were a savior for people socially disconnected due to being in home isolation or taking general COVID precautions — the criticality of edge could be very well seen. All these applications could survive these tough times since the networking infrastructures across the world were mature enough to offer really low latency to these applications. Because of this, edge computing played a pivotal role getting content closer to the real user. Edge use cases were no longer confined to public safety, military uses, or manufacturing sectors — edge had a way bigger role to play in the daily lives of people. This wasn't necessarily evident to a consumer directly, but the service providers offering them network or real-world applications had a huge dependency on these emerging networking techniques.

A VLDB 2022 Paper: The Technologies Behind OceanBase’s 707 Million tpmC in TPC-C Benchmark Test

Transaction Processing Performance Council Benchmark C (TPC-C) benchmark test is by far the most credible and authoritative yardstick of the functionality and performance of online transaction processing databases in the database industry worldwide. On May 20, 2020, the TPC published the TPC-C benchmark test results of OceanBase — 707 million transactions per minute (tpmC), with the system costs per tpmC further reduced to RMB 3.98. That was the second TPC-C challenge taken by OceanBase after it hit 60.88 million tpmC on its debut in the benchmark test in October 2019.

At the 48th International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB 2022), a database summit that just ended this September, OceanBase Senior Database Researcher Xu Quanqing presented a paper titled “OceanBase: A 707 Million tpmC Distributed Relational Database System," which introduces the architecture of OceanBase, a distributed database system, and how the TPC-C benchmark test in 2020 was performed.