Category Archives: Mind Uploading

Coimbatore, July 2:

On the surface, the going seemed calm with dealers in textiles, particularly the smaller establishments, making a note of every sale in the bill book, instead of scribbling the amount on piece of paper, which neither the customer nor the seller used to maintain in the past.

There was a note of surprise as some inquisitive, regular buyers at such shops, preferred a discount, not an invoice, even as the shopkeeper thrust the bill into the pack.

Mukesh, proprietor of Mukesh Textiles, said his auditor had advised him to charge 5 per cent GST on every sale from July 1. There is no clarity on the rates. It will take some time, this is just a beginning, he said.

Elsewhere, a dealer in electrical goods and spare parts continued with his earlier practice of selling spares without raising a bill.

Most establishments on that stretch of Nanjappa Road in Coimbatore are dealers in electrical goods, pumps and motors and hardware products such as pipe fittings. A majority of them do not even maintain a register of the inventory.

It would be just impossible to take stock of the goods here. In any case, the turnover is less than 20 lakh, said a dealer in electrical goods and spare parts.

Bigger corporates though seem better prepared, but big or small, every businessman is hoping the government to be lenient to the mistakes during the initial stages of GST implementation.

K Ilango, past chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry, Coimbatore, said he is clueless over several aspects of the Act, but top of the mind recall is reverse charge.

Section 9(4) of the GST Act is the most complicated and difficult one to comprehend. This section deals with reverse charge and incidentally no one talks of this, he said, adding, We have not gone deeper into uploading and stuff like that. There is bound to be some hiccups.

V Sundaram, president, Codissia, also felt that the government should not penalise traders for mistakes.

(This article was published on July 2, 2017)

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Business community seeks clarity on aspects of GST - Hindu Business Line

Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), the information-technology backbone of India's new tax regime, is a data-storage behemoth. Nearly 80 lakh businesses will upload details and carry out transactions on the network. After Aadhaar, India has seen such a large scale of IT operations in GSTN.

GSTN, a not-for-profit private limited company, has 51 per cent equity of five private institutions -- HDFC Bank Ltd (10 per cent), HDFC Ltd (10 per cent), ICICI Bank Ltd (10 per cent), NSE Strategic Investment Corporation Ltd (10 per cent) and LIC Housing Finance Limited (11 per cent).

The central government has 24.5 per cent equity in the GSTN, whereas state governments, two Union territories and empowered committee of state finance ministers together hold another 24.5 per cent stake in it. India's leading IT company Infosys is managed service provider of GSTN.

With nearly 80 lakh users, 1.2 lakh transactions in a second and 320 crore transactions in a month, GSTN needs to have a mind-boggling capacity. It has designed its system so that it can handle 60,000 users per second. It can increase the capacity if the traffic increases.

"To size the system, looking at an average of 127, we took 3 times that, 400, as the average number of invoices. Multiplied by 80 lakh tax payers, it gives you 320 crore invoices per month. We planned for storage which was double of this requirement," GSTN chairman Navin Kumar said in an interview to a business magazine.

GSTN is opening the facility for upload of invoice data from July 16. To facilitate uploading, it has given an an Excel-based offline utility. "They can download this on their computer and they can keep adding the invoice data on that Excel and this tool will import this upload this to our system. The tool can handle 19,000 invoices in one go. It takes 17 seconds. For a medium enterprise with 50,000 invoices in a month, we are going to suggest that you upload every week," Kumar said.

Won't a system that receives so much traffic remain down often? Kumar says out of nearly 80 lakh taxpayers, 66 lakh have been able to come on the website, register and submit the application and get their provisional IDs. This has proved that the system is efficient enough to handle mega traffic.

GSTN is prepared to handle increase in traffic. At present, the capacity is for nearly 80 lakh users but it can be expanded about 5% every year, considering that the number of taxpayers might increase at that rate.

With such a mammoth user base and so many transactions in a month, GSTN needs to have robust technological infrastructure to handle billions of transactions. Even small glitches can mean major disruptions.

When it opened its portal to taxpayer registration in November, it suffered a cyber attack aimed at disrupting services and bringing down the host system. It suffered another cyber attack in which a malware creates a Trojan, which can execute unwanted actions from the user's end. GSTN has put in place systems to prevent malware attacks. It is setting up a hi-tech security monitoring and analytics centre to forewarn on cyber threats and secure the IT system handling over 300 crore invoices a month.

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Here comes India's data behemoth: GSTN will handle 320 crore transactions a month - Economic Times

If youre a loyal reader of Cloudwards.net, you probably know that were always happy to recommend Google Drive as one of the best cloud storage solutions out there. Its free up to 15GB, offers plenty of options and Google Docs is a great word processor, to boot. However, no program is without its quirks, so weve decided to make a guide on how to upload to Google Drive.

Uploading files to Google Drive is generally a very pleasant experience though a bit slow, depending on your connection speed but as with everything Google, there is more than one way to skin a cat. With the web client you can simply drag and drop, the sync folder allows you to mark files and the mobile app (which comes both in Android and iOS flavors) also has a few nifty features.

Besides this upload guide, we also have a more general overview on how Google Drive works, as well as a full Google Drive review. If reading through either of those is too time-consuming, we also offer a nice Google Drive video review, which you can check out below.

Now, without further ado, lets take a look at the many ways in which you can upload files to Google Drive. First off, well start with the web interface, as it will work for anyone, regardless off which operating system theyre rocking and is pretty much foolproof as well.

Once youve set up your Gmail account, all you need to do is click on the apps button in the top right of your browser window and then select Drive.

This will take you to the main Google Drive interface.

Here its a simple matter of picking the file you need from your computer and dragging and dropping it over into Google Drive, like so (click on the image to activate the animation):

Thats really all there is to it, though keep in mind that while a small file (like the image I uploaded above) will only take a few seconds, a larger file will take much longer. Though Google Drive is one of our best online storage for videos, it is by far the slowest of the bunch. If you need something with a bit more speed, you may want to check out our Sync.com review or pCloud review.

Though the method described above is by far the simplest way to upload files to Google Drive, it does involve you looking through your files by hand and then dragging them over one by one for some reason, when you drop multiple files over into the Google Drive interface the upload slows down considerably.

A much less involved process is simply setting up the Google Drive sync folder; youve probably seen the notifications pop up at the top of your browser. Setting up the folder is a piece of cake and not only will your online and offline documents be synchronized, youll also have a handy little backup system set up at the same time (though note that its a very basic one; for a full solution, make sure to check out our best online backup providers).

To set up your sync folder, simply go to the Google Drive download page and hit the big blue button that says download Drive. This will automatically place a Google Drive folder onto your computer, which will look something like this:

97 percent of readers will likely notice that my file system looks nothing like theirs, this is because Im using Linux. Google offers sync folders only for Windows and Mac, with a promise that a Linux version is coming soon (the company has been saying so for over five years, so dont hold your breath, Team Penguin).

Linux users need not despair, however, as there are plenty of third-party solutions available; my favorite is overGrive, which seems to work well and offers a 14-day trial. If you want to keep using it after that period is up, it costs a $5 flat fee.

No matter which operating system youre partial to, however, they all work the same way: you can select which files from Google Drive will be synced into the Google Drive folder on your computer, as well as how often they will sync (again, my interface looks a little different, but not by much):

One youve that set up, all your marked folders in Google Drive will pop up on your hard drive, and any changes made while working either directly in Google Docs or on your local system will carry over to the other.

Its hard to overstate how handy this is, as the main drawback to Google Drive is the necessity to always be online. If, for instance, your Internet is cut off, that would normally mean you have to stop working. By setting up sync, you can keep on going and when the Internet comes back on, the files will simply upload without the need to flip a switch.

The sync process works both ways, so all you need top do is put files into the Google Drive folder and theyll be copied into the cloud automatically. If the drag and drop method is too labor intensive for you, setting up sync is the way to go.

Last but not least, if you own an Android or iOS device you can also easily upload files onto Google Drive. The following instructions are all based off using an Android phone, but the experience is pretty much the same for iPhones.

First, go to the Google Drive app (if you dont have it, get it off the Google Play Store or the App Store). Open the app and youll see a miniaturized version of the Google Drive web interface. Theres a large blue button with a plus icon in the bottom right corner; this is where you need to be, so tap it.

A small menu will pop up, select upload.

This will take you to a file menu, where you can select the folder you leave your pictures, videos or even text messages in and, once tapped, they will upload automatically (though note that there are better ways to backup text messages on Android than this one). Make sure youre on WiFi when you upload files this way, unless you feel the strong urge to pay for extra data this month.

If you want to have more of a sync feeling, like you do by installing a Google Drive folder, the easiest way is to simply take all your notes with Google Docs while on your phone. Optionally, Evernote as well as other note-taking apps will allow you to sync everything you do to Google Drive. Note, however, that third-party apps may have limited functionality in this regard, so make sure to check whether they will play nice with Google Drive before settling for one.

And there you have it: three easy ways in which you can upload files to Google Drive. This fantastic ease of use is the main reason why we at Cloudwards.net use Google Drive to work online and we feel confident to recommend it to pretty much anyone that needs to stay on the go without spending too much money.

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Though when it comes to pure backup and storage there are better alternatives out there, when it comes to online collaboration and productivity, Google Drive is hard to beat. We hope that this guide has helped you figure out this important step, if you have any questions, dont hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you for reading.

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How to Upload to Google Drive - Cloudwards

PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Does your dog make the best faces? You know, those tongue out, eyes closed and grin from ear-to-ear kind of faces? Dogtopia, the nations leading doggie daycare center, is looking to showcase those playful, happy and excited doggie faces in The Most Exciting Day Ever contest for the chance to win a year of free doggie daycare!

Inviting all dog lovers to participate in The Most Exciting Day Ever Contest, Dogtopia is asking pet parents to share their favorite photos of their best furry friends at http://www.dogtopia.com/contest for the puppy-loving community to see. From Wednesday, June 28 to Monday, August 28, pet parents across the US and Canada are encouraged to visit Dogtopias website to vote on which pup has the best most exciting day ever face. The dog with the most votes will receive one year of free daycare at a Dogtopia location.

Were excited to create a platform where pet parents across North America can learn about the benefits of dog daycare and show off their best furry friends, stated Neil Gill, CEO of Dogtopia. At Dogtopia, we make every day the most exciting day ever for our furry guests by socializing, exercising and educating them. This contest is a way for Dogtopia to reward one happy pup with the most exciting year ever in a safe, fun, open-play environment.

With 50 locations across North America, Dogtopia is now the largest provider of specialty daycare in the United States. The brands continual growth and innovation in pet hospitality has been largely recognized, as theFranchise Times recently ranked them as the best franchise to buy in the annual Zor Awards. Additionally, Dogtopia was ranked #215 onEntrepreneurs2017 Top 500 franchises in the US. Building on this momentum, it is excited to expand its footprint into more than 15 new states this year.

To treat your BFFF (Best Furry Friend Forever) to a years worth of free daycare, please enter by uploading a photo of your dog at http://www.dogtopia.com/contest. Participants can visit the Dogtopia website to cast one vote per day the dog with the most votes by August 28 wins! For more information on the Most Exciting Day Ever contest or Dogtopia, please visit http://www.dogtopia.com/contest.

About Dogtopia

Founded in 2002, Dogtopia is an early pioneer and innovator in the pet services industry, offering an experience focused on safety and transparency in the market. With an emphasis on education, exercise and socialization for dogs, pet parents have the assurance of leaving their beloved furry family members in the hands of trained professionals in an environment created with the safety of dogs in mind. Each facility averages between 3,5007,500 square feet and is specially designed to provide dogs and pet parents with the best experience by reducing odors, noise level, illness and accidents. With 50 locations across North America, the brand is now the largest provider of specialty daycare in the United States and will continue expansion by franchising with successful entrepreneurs. For more information, visit http://www.dogtopia.com or http://www.dogtopia.com/contest.

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Dogtopia To Award One Lucky Pet Parent with a Year of Free Dog Daycare - Business Wire (press release)

At the writing of this blog, I'mabout to post a video that launches into a bit of a rant (that video is now at theend of this post). But thats enough of the rant. Check the video out below to see the complete rant. Regardless, in watercolor, [Read more]

If you follow my YouTube channel, you may have noticed that I've been uploading Strathmore Workshopvideos over the last couple weeks. These were 4 videos done for their web site last spring (2016) and aired during each week of May. This year, as per [Read more]

Ok, so I just recently posted on Skillshare an extended versionof my latest spontaneous painting with additional commentary.All said, its aboutan hour long and takes you with me through the process ofhow I approach spontaneous landscape painting [Read more]

We all want to improve as artists don't we? Growing as an artist isthe key to more enjoyment and satisfaction as we tread this adventurous but sometimes frustrating path.Practice is a given, but what happens when we get stuck and don't know how to [Read more]

Looking for cool gift ideas for the artist in your family? Or maybe you're the artistjust looking to add a little something to your own Santa's list. Here are a few of my personal picks to keep theartistic inspiration fired up. Art Supply Kits [Read more]

Veterans have servedfor a variety of reasons. For Americans, the reasons usually include the protection or our great nation, propagation of freedom and the dismantling of tyranny. While not all wars have been popular, the men and women who have [Read more]

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Steve Mitchell The Mind of Watercolor Blog

Career fields in the auto care industry include accounting, customer service, engineering, finance, human resources, inventory management, manufacturing, marketing, research and development, retail, sales, sourcing, supply chain, technical support, training, vehicle repair and more.

"When people think of the auto care industry, vehicle repair often comes to mind. The truth is that our industry employs 4.6 million people in a wide variety of exciting career paths," said Courtney Hammer, director, job and career development, Auto Care Association. "If you are looking for your first job or want a career change, setting up a free profile at Auto Care Careers and uploading a resume is the first step toward connecting with hiring managers in this thriving industry."

To learn more, visit http://www.autocarecareers.org or follow Auto Care Careers on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

About Auto Care CareersAuto Care Careers is the premier online career resource center for the auto care industry. A significant sector of the U.S. economy, the auto care industry employs more than 4.6 million people, offering a wide range of career paths from the corporate office through the distribution channel to the repair shop floor. Featuring a robust job board, in-depth resource materials and informative videos, the Auto Care Careers website connects hiring companies with high-quality job seekers. For more information, visit http://www.autocarecareers.org.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/searching-for-a-career--set-up-a-free-profile-at-autocarecareersorg-300480457.html

SOURCE Auto Care Careers

http://www.autocarecareers.org

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Searching for a Career? Set up a Free Profile at AutoCareCareers.org - PR Newswire (press release)

This is embarrassing to admit, but I probably use Amazons Echo speaker to brew coffee more than anything else. Being an insufferable Aeropress snob involves precise timing while juggling a few different tasksmeasuring, preheating, grinding, pouring, plungingso asking Amazons Alexa assistant to set a timer tends to be easier than pulling up an app on a smartphone.

Amazons $230 Echo Show, which launches on Wednesday, is a fine assistant barista, with a touchscreen that can show the seconds running down. But what really sets the Echo Show apart from its screen-less siblings is how its coaxed me into using it as more than just a glorified kitchen timer. Whereas the Echo speaker can be easy to overlook, the Echo Shows persistent display and front-facing video camera have a way of beckoning for your voice commands, ensuring that Alexa doesnt get neglected.

While the original Echo vaguely resembles askinny airport trash receptacle, the Echo Show looks more like a piece of the Aggro Crag, all hard edges surrounding its speaker grille and 7-inch, 1024-by-600 resolution display.

Audio quality is similar to the original Echoloud enough to fill a large room, but lacking the oomph of a premium sound system and subwooferwith one major distinction: The Echo Shows speakers are stereo instead of omnidirectional, so audio becomes a bit muffled when you move behind the device. Ive seen people put their Echo speakers on kitchen islands and bar tops, but the Echo Show might require more deliberation about how to position the screen.

The display springs into action whenever the Echo Shows camera detects motion. The time and weather appear in the top-left corner, while the bottom half of the screen cycles through Alexa tips, upcoming calendar events, and news headlines. The subtext here is clear: Go on, start talking. Listen to some music. Watch some Amazon Prime video. Ask a question. Call a friend. Get some use out of this device for which you just paid $230.

The Echo Show has some other new ways of ingratiating itself. You can turn its home screen into a digital photo frame, either by uploading a single image through Amazons Alexa smartphone app or by linking to an album in Amazon Prime Photos. The device can also serve as a bedside alarm clock, with just the time displayed over a black background. Amazons interface even includes some cute little touches, such as lyrics for songs on Amazon Prime, and the virtual Newtons Cradle that pops up during the final seconds of a timer.

Fundamentally, though, the Echo Show is still a voice-driven device, with no shortcuts on the home screen to any Alexa functions. At most, the touchscreen provides secondary controls for certain things such as checking off to-do list items, scrolling through Amazon product search results, and adjusting music playback.

The dependence on voice can be frustrating at times. I wouldnt mind, for instance, a way to launch recent music playlists or Amazon Prime video episodes with just the touchscreen, or a control panel for smart home devices. But these limitations do send a message: The Echo Show is an entirely different device than your phone or tablet.

The Echo Shows front-facing camera is more than just a motion sensor. It also supports video chat with other Echo Show devices, and with anyone whos installed the Alexa app on iOS or Android. I tested this briefly with an Amazon representative, which at least proved that the Echo Show can handle video calls smoothly and without major glitches.

But while Amazon positions video calling as one of the Echo Shows key features, Im skeptical about how useful this will be in practice. The Echo Show must be plugged in for power, requiring you to stay in one spot throughout the conversation. My guess in that in most cases, a phone or tablet is going to be more practical. (Desktop PCs make you stay in place, too, but at least you can assume there will be a chair there.)

One notable exception is a feature called drop in, which lets trusted contacts start a video call without any confirmation from the recipient. Audio starts playing immediately during a drop in, and the recipient has about 10 seconds to end the call before video fades into view. In theory this could turn the Echo Show into a frictionless in-home intercom, or a way to keep tabs on elderly relatives, but my brief demo session didnt give me a sense of how well this works.

On some level, I suspect video chat is more about marketing than practicality. Its not available on other Echo devices, so it may help justify the Echo Shows $50 premium in peoples minds even if they seldom use the feature.

The trade-off with that camera is that an all-seeing Alexa device might make some people skittish. But Amazon does offer a long list of assurances that people wont be snooped on: The Echo Shows camera doesnt transmit video for anything other than video chat, and the device only sends audio to Amazons servers when it detects the Alexa wake word, which is processed on the device itself. Amazons drop in feature also requires opt-in consent from each contact, and users can disable the feature entirely or limit it to in-home intercom use. For moments of heightened paranoia, you can just tap a button atop the Echo Show to shut off its camera and microphone.

Its worth noting that when Amazon launched the original Echo in late 2014, it could only answer basic questions, play audio from a few sources, and read the news. Smart home controls, third-party Alexa skills, and more sources of music and news came later through software updates. The Echo Show feels like its in a similar stage of infancy, even though it includes all the Alexa functions that Amazon has built up over the past few years.

Weve yet to see, for instance, how third-party Alexa skills will take advantage of the screen. At the moment, they merely display a transcript of Alexas audio responses, but on the Alexa companion app, theyre also allowed to show an image and complementary text. The Echo Show could allow for similar visuals, and perhaps pave the way for more interactive features such as hyperlinks and scrollable lists. Amazon has already announced that smart home cameras such as the Nest Cam will be able to display a video feed on the Echo Show, so it seems likely that the company will open up the screen to more uses in the future.

It also wouldnt be surprising if Amazon found more uses for the Echo Shows front-facing camera, beyond just video chat and activating the display. Perhaps the motion sensor could trigger smart home devices through a service like IFTTT, or allow for the same selfie-cam capabilities as the mirror-like Echo Look.

I would never suggest buying a tech product in anticipation of unreleased or unannounced features. But even in its current state, the Echo Show succeeds at giving Alexa a stronger presence in the home. Its worth buying over the $180 screen-less standard Echo if you can spare the extra $50 and dont mind the lack of omnidirectional audio. And for Amazon, its a solid foundation for taking its virtual assistant to greater heights.

Jared Newman covers apps and technology for Fast Company from his remote outpost in Cincinnati. He also writes for PCWorld and TechHive, and previously wrote for Time.com.

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Amazon Echo Show Review: The Power Of Alexa, A Touchscreen, And A Camera - Fast Company

JUNE 26, 2017

MEG GARDINER is an American whose suspense novels were first published in the United Kingdom. She came to the attention of many American readers when Stephen King, writing for Entertainment Weekly, called her the next suspense superstar. Gardiners latest novel, UNSUB, is a cinematic thriller revolving around the return of a serial killer, nicknamed The Prophet, to the Bay Area two decades after his last killing and Caitlin Hendrix, the daughter of the cop who never caught him, vowing to bring him to justice.Caitlin takes on a cunning killer who not only terrorized her childhood but also shifted the very course of her life. Shes a narcotics detective pulled into the task force investigation and finds herself racing to decipher his insane ritual of communications and killing. I spoke to Meg Gardiner over email about UNSUB, how she conceived and researched it, and how she wrote such a vivid, high-concept novel.

JEFF ABBOTT: UNSUB asks the dramatic question: What if a killer like the Zodiac returned? How did you come up with this premise?

MEG GARDINER: The premise found me. I grew up in California, where the Zodiac wasnt a theoretical threat. He was a nightmare: a killer who wore an executioners hood, attacked young couples, then bragged about it to the police and media. He taunted the public, wrote still-unsolved cryptograms, and threatened to shoot kids on school buses. He sowed terror.

Then he disappeared. Hes never been identified.

I was haunted by that. And I wondered: If the Zodiac left the stage on his terms somebody so violent, so vicious, so eager to play mind games and hungry for publicity whats to stop him from returning?

That was the genesis of UNSUB.

Its the start of a series featuring investigator Caitlin Hendrix. Did you plan for this to be a series, or did Caitlin seem like she had more story to tell once you started writing?

Both! Caitlin has a will to seek justice shes a cops daughter and has a bone-deep conviction that wrongs need to be put right. She also loves the thrill of the hunt. Theres a world of stories for her to tackle.

Technology how we can use it to both track and evade notice plays a huge role in this book. How did you research these topics?

I could talk about our era of always-on communication, and our thirst to drink from the firehose of social media, and how the human desire to only connect leaves us vulnerable to online attacks. But thats not what you want to know.

Yes, malware exists that allows bad actors to access the camera on your phone and computer, and thankfully I didnt find that out while singing My Heart Will Go On in front of my laptop. If anybody says I did, theyre a liar.

No, I didnt research niche online dating sites by signing up forMime-Mates.com.

Maybe I spent time in online discussion forums, learning whether its possible to mask the signal from an electronic ankle monitor to avoid setting off the alarm if you violate the terms of your probation.Yourprobation. Not mine. I was nowhere near that Waffle House the night of the robbery.

And also for a serial killer who craves attention technology now gives him a platform to bypass the press and the police and directly terrorize the populace. Do you think well see that happen in real-life cases eventually?

If you can imagine it, so can a psychopath.

Picture bot armies swarming the Twitter feeds of people who mention a killer, to threaten them in shocking terms. Or a killer anonymously uploading a video of a murder to YouTube.

Its only a matter of time.

UNSUB has sold to CBS as a TV series. Its a very cinematic book, and I mean that in a good way. How did you approach the action sequences to make the story so visually compelling?

Before I write, I mentally place myself in a scene. I paint a visual canvas for readers, so they can picture the narrative playing field. When we read, the action hits the mind, not the eye. To create a visceral impact like the one we get from watching movies, I concentrate on motion, color, light, and action and reaction. And of course, I throw obstacles in the path of the characters. Thats Plotting 101.

Above all, I remember: What counts most is a scenes emotional impact. Action must reveal character, tighten tension, move the story forward, and raise or resolve vital questions. Thrillers can give readers a roller-coaster ride. That ride must be emotional.

A theme throughout UNSUB is Caitlins damaged relationship with her father, who hunted The Prophet during his first ritualized killings. How did the character of Mack Hendrix come about, and what does he say about those left behind after a serial killer has destroyed so many lives?

Police officers who work serial killings can suffer devastating PTSD. Mack Hendrix saw too much, cared too much, and took the case home with him. It broke him emotionally and tore his family apart. The effects of violence ripple and never entirely die out. Decades after a real case is closed, the cops who worked it may still visit victims graves. We owe these investigators our gratitude for facing the worst of humanity on our behalf.

One compelling character in the story is a crime blogger who is obsessed with The Prophet killings; do you think blogs, podcasts, et cetera, have changed the way we learn about famous crimes?

Inevitably. Weve always been fascinated by true crime. These days, instead of reading pulp magazines likeTrue Detective,we listen to Serial and post on the discussion boards onZodiackiller.com.

Humans are curious. Give us an unanswered question, and we hunger for the solution. Give us an unanswered, salacious, or creepy question, and we getFindTheProphet.com, the website Deralynn Hobbs runs in the novel.

On sites like these, amateurs dip their toes into investigative waters. They can build virtual libraries of case information or can defame and endanger people with wild accusations. A crowd-sourced amateur manhunt can veer wildly off track, as happened after the Boston Marathon bombing, when online sleuths wrongly accused an innocent man.

Dont get me started on keyboard cowboys who call out serial killers online, posting their own phone numbers and daring a murderer to meet them in person if hes man enough.

Was it a research challenge to write about a crime case that covers so many jurisdictions? Did it give you thoughts on how jurisdictions should work better together in real-life cases?

The Zodiac killed in Benicia, Vallejo, Napa, and San Francisco. That greatly complicated the investigation. In the novel, I could shape the geography to thwart the investigation as much or little as I pleased. These days, law enforcement agencies often form task forces to combine their investigative power. But city limits, county lines, andWelcome to Arkansasremaina prime reason that some serial killers choose interstate highways as their hunting grounds.

There have been so many serial killer novels, but UNSUB felt fresh and compelling. How did you avoid some of the overused tropes of this kind of story?

I watched every movie and reread every novel I could, telling myself: Been done. Done. Done. Dont do that. Ax? No. Chainsaw? Oh, come on. Killer dresses in a onesie and sucks a pacifier? Maybe next time.

Serial killers fascinate us. We want to understand what drives them sadism, rage, twisted fantasies? We want to believe that if we can decipher their minds and motives, we would be the target who survives an attack.

The antagonist in any story must be powerful, motivated, andindividual.In UNSUB, I created the killers secret world. The Prophet plays mind games and marks his victims bodies with the astrological sign for Mercury. I delved into codes, poetry, and ancient symbolism, as well as modern hacking.

I wanted to create a killer whose goal is powerful, but veiled. Caitlin can only stop him by uncovering that goal. Her relentless pursuit pulls readers along for the ride.

The way the plot unfurls in UNSUB is particularly clever; do you outline in detail before you start, or do you just jump in and work out the interlocking pieces in rewrite?

I brainstorm and outline before I ever write one word of fiction. I never jump in. Ive tried that, and end up floundering. If you ever come upon me trapped in a paper bag, flailing to get out, youll know I threw myself unprepared into drafting a novel.

What is next for Caitlin Hendrix?

The sequel to UNSUB Into the Black Nowhere. Caitlin hunts a slick, charming killer across the western United States, from Austin to Oregon.

Jeff Abbott is the New York Times best-selling author of Panic, Adrenaline, and many other novels.

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Action and Emotion - lareviewofbooks

By Kirk McElhearn, Senior Contributor, Macworld | Jun 23, 2017 4:00 AM PT

It's the little bugs that bug the most.

I love iCloud Photo Library. Its brain-dead simple to use (unlike iCloud Music Library), and it ensures that all my photos are in sync on all my devices. Lately, having bought a new camera, Ive been taking a lot of pictures, and Ive been wanting to view them and edit them on my iPad, with Enlight or Affinity Photo, a powerful photo editing app that was highlighted in Apples recent WWDC keynote. But syncing from my iMac, where I import photos, to my other devices can take a long time.

There are a few reasons for this. One is that my upload speed is slow. Since I shoot both RAW and JPEG, Photos has both files in its library for each picture, and together they take up about 25MB. So if I import a bunch of photos, theres a lot of data to upload.

And Photos doesnt let you control its upload, at least not easily. Even after I import photos and delete the ones I dont want to keep, Photos wants to upload them, because theyre in the Recently Deleted album. This album is a good thing, because it means that if you delete a photo, then later decide that you really did want to keep it, you have a month to change your mind. But if I import, say, 100 photos, and keep a half dozen, Photos still wants to upload all these pictures to the cloud, then down to each of my devices. Id rather that Photos not upload the Recently Deleted photos, at least not right away, perhaps deferring them until some time when Im not doing anything on my Mac. Unfortunately, when I import photos from a memory card, Photos immediately starts uploading them, whether I keep or delete them.

Ive found a workaround, but one thats clunky. In Photos preferences, on the iCloud tab, you can pause or resume photo upload. This is especially useful when you first turn on iCloud Photo Library, since there can be a lot of data to upload.

You can pause or resume photo uploads from the preferences.

To keep my bandwidth free, and to not waste time uploading lots of photos I wont keep, I go to the preferences and pause the upload. But if I do it after Ive imported the photos, then delete some or most of the photos, Photos still tries to upload all the pictures, because theyre in the Recently Deleted album.

The only way I can get photos to upload smoothly is to pause the upload in the preferences first, import the photos, delete the ones I dont want, empty the Recently Deleted album, and then turn uploading back on.

Even when Ive done that, its a crap-shoot as to how long it will take for the photos to show up on my other devices. Sometimes its fairly quickly, sometimes it can take more than an hour after Photos on my iMac has finished uploading. And this is just syncing thumbnails; I still need to download files if I want to do anything more than view them in the Photos app.

Now if I really want to work on a photo, there are other options. I can use AirDrop, for example, to send it from my iMac to my iPad. But then Ill have a duplicate. I may have, say, cropped a photo on my iMac, or started tweaking the RAW file in Photos, and if I export it to the Finder, Ill have the original, unmodified file, not one with my changes.

While features like Handoff and Continuity work more or less reliably these days, its a lot harder to have that continuity with Photos. Its not just my limited upstream bandwidth that slows things down, its whatever happens in iCloud that makes syncing lag.

With photos being such an important feature for iOS and Mac users, it would be helpful if this photo syncing was a bit faster. I can sync files to my Dropbox folder and see them immediately on other devices. Why cant Apple do the same?

See the rest here:

iCloud Photo Library's sync need fixing - Macworld

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Weve only just had one patch go live, but Blizzard have released a brand new one into the PTR. This one doesnt have any big character changes, though - its just a couple of rather big quality of life improvements.

Our list of the best multiplayer games is the article for you.

I dont know about you, but I quite fancy having fewer duplicates in my Loot Boxes. I also dont mind the idea of being able to save and easily share my highlight videos on social media. In 4K too!

Heres whats on offer in patch 1.13.

Loot Boxes will now give out drastically fewer duplicates, so you should be able to unlock stuff for your favourite characters more easily. If youre worried about taking a hit in Credits, Blizzard are also upping the Credits earned from Loot Boxes, so you should earn around the same, if not more, under the new system. Of course, the PTR exists to tweak how it works.

With that in mind, all players who log in to the PTR this patch cycle will receive five PTR Loot Boxes. These are standard loot boxes that will only be available on the PTR. Any items earned from Loot Boxes or unlocked via Credits on the PTR will not transfer over to your live account.

The highlights system has received several major updates:

Originally posted here:

Overwatch patch 1.13 brings Loot Box tweaks and highlight video uploading to the PTR - PCGamesN