Thread: Looking at China illuminates just how nascent the US “influencer stack” is. While the US continues to debate whether influencer marketing is even effective, China has an entire industry of influencer incubators who work end-to-end to turn individuals into big businesses. These influencer incubators do everything from selecting and grooming talent, managing and growing social profiles (including teaching how to apply makeup, pose, and livestream), to helping their talent launch their own brands and e-commerce stores. Like VC firms that pool risk among different startups, these incubators–which take a cut of influencers’ sales–work with dozens or hundreds of influencers, though much of their revenue comes from the top few who gain massive traction. These incubators can be extremely lucrative. The Hangzhou-based incubator Ruhan Holdings, which manages about 50 influencers, surpassed $158M GMV in 2017. Its biggest star is Zhang Dayi, a fashion blogger who signed with Ruhan in 2014. Under Ruhan’s management, Zhang Dayi’s Weibo account grew from 250K to 4M+ followers in the first 18 months. Her Taobao store–for which Ruhan manages all of the design, manufacturing, logistics, customer service, and inventory–is often among the top 10 grossing on the e-commerce platform. . Her 2016 earnings: over $46M There are hundreds of such incubators in China, managing thousands of influencers. The recipe involves a combination of Weibo for growing social influence, Taobao for e-commerce, and a network of local manufacturers for producing products. Contrast this with the dearth of turnkey options for US influencers today: While top influencers like Kylie and Rihanna have access to resources to help launch their own product lines, the mid- and long-tail of influencers are neglected by existing solutions. Influencers in the US today have to do the complicated, fragmented work involved in bringing their own products to market–including finding designers or cosmetic chemists, manufacturers (potentially in other countries), logistics providers, and other parts of the value chain. Part of the reason for the gap between the influencer ecosystems in China and the US is proximity to manufacturers, and social platforms and marketplaces that make it easy for influencers to promote and sell products. In the US, while Instagram enables users to build a following, it lacks features to help them monetize that audience–like easily linking out to stores/products, integrated purchasing, or direct follower monetization. If the past few years were about brands & retailers turning to influencers as a new marketing channel, the next few years will be about influencers bypassing 3rd party brands/retailers entirely, spurred by new platforms that let influencers take charge of their own monetization. That could take the form of launching their own branded products, monetizing fans directly, or something else. With consumer affinity for influencers only growing, I’m bullish on the future of companies in the “influencer stack.” Would love to chat with any entrepreneurs who are working on this! Originally published as “ " Tweetstorm: The “influencer stack” and China’s influence incubators

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Companies are increasingly spending money on cyber security. However, attackers are launching more sophisticated cyber attacks that are hard to detect, and businesses often suffer severe consequences from them. In the first half of 2019 alone, data breaches exposed nearly . This is why it is imperative for businesses to empower themselves with the knowledge of how strong their cyber security is, what potential vulnerabilities exist, and how those risks can be mitigated. 4.1 billion records Performing a cyber security risk assessment helps organizations strengthen their overall security. The primary goal of a risk assessment is to determine what the critical assets are and if a threat exploits those assets, how much it would cost to mitigate those risks and to protect your assets from a breach. How can you perform a cyber risk assessment? In order to perform a cyber security risk assessment, you need to consider three factors: Importance of the assets at risk Severity of the threat Vulnerability of the system But before we dive into how to perform a cyber security risk assessment, let’s understand what a cyber security risk assessment is. What is a Cyber Security Risk Assessment? A cyber security risk assessment is the fundamental approach for companies to assess, identify, and modify their security protocols and enable strong security operations to safeguard it against attackers. It also helps to understand the value of the various types of data generated and stored across the organization. Without determining the value of your data, it is quite difficult to prioritize and assign resources where they are needed the most. In a cyber security risk assessment, you also have to consider how your company generates revenue, how your employees and assets affect the profitability of the organization, and what potential risks could lead to monetary losses for the company. Once you have identified all this, you should think about how you could enhance your IT infrastructure to reduce potential risks that might lead to financial losses to the organization. Furthermore, a cyber security risk assessment helps inform decision makers and support proper risk responses. Most C-suite executives and higher management professionals don’t have the time to delve into the minute details of the company’s cyber security operations. A cyber security risk analysis serves as a summary to help them make informed decisions about security for their organization. There are several ways you can collect the information you need to start your risk assessment process: Review documentation. Interview data owners, management, and other employees. Analyze your infrastructure and systems. How to Perform Cyber Security Risk Assessment? To begin cyber security risk assessment, you should take the following steps: Step 1: Determine Information Value Most organizations don’t have a large budget for security risk assessments, especially small-to-medium businesses (SMBs), so it’s best to limit your scope of assessment to the most critical business information. Spend time to define a standard for determining the importance of information and prioritizing it. Companies often include asset value, business importance, and legal standing. Once you have created a standard and it is embedded in your organization’s cyber security risk analysis solution, use it to categorize information as minor, major, or critical. Here are some questions that you can ask to determine information value: How valuable is this information to competitors or attackers? If this information is lost, could you recreate the information? How long would it take? What would be the associated costs? Are there any financial or legal penalties associated with losing or exposing the information? Would losing the information impact the company’s day-to-day operations? What would be the financial damage of the data being leaked or stolen? What would be the long-term impacts of the information being lost completely or exposed? Would it cause reputational damage? How could you recover from it? Step 2: Identify and Prioritize Assets The first and most important step to perform a cyber security risk assessment is to evaluate and determine the scope of the assessment. This means you have to identify and prioritize which data assets to assess. You may not want to conduct an assessment of all your employees, buildings, trade secrets, electronic data, or office devices. You need to work with the management and business users to create a comprehensive list of all the valuable assets. Some assets could be valuable because they largely impact your company’s revenue, while others could be valuable because they ensure data integrity to your users. Once you have identified crucial assets for the assessment, collect the following information: Data Purpose Criticality Software Functional requirements Information flow Interface End-users Hardware Information security policies Information security architecture Network topology Technical security controls Physical security controls Environmental security Information storage protection Support personal Step 3: Identify Threats Once you have identified and prioritized assets that are crucial to your company, it is time to identify threats that could impact your organization. A threat can be defined as an occurrence, individual, entity, or action that has the potential to harm operations, systems and/or exploit vulnerabilities to circumvent the security of your organization. There is a wide range of threats that could impact an enterprise ranging from malware, IT security risks, insider threats, attackers, etc. Some of the most common threats that affect every organization in one way or another include: : Leakage of sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII) like customers’ personal information, credit card info, passwords, other important details could lead to loss of brand reputation and negatively impact your customer relationships. These data leaks could occur due to poor configuration of cloud services, insufficient security policies in place, or weak authentication. Data leaks : Often, authorized users misuse their access to information and cause data breaches. These threats pose a great risk to companies as they could have devastating impacts including decreased brand reputation and loss of revenue. According to the by the Ponemon Institute, the average cost related to insider threats incidents is $8.76 million. Insider threats 2018 Cost of Insider Threats study : A cyber attack might cause unexpected service disruptions which could lead to loss of reputation and revenue, which can cause your customers to switch to one of your competitors. Service disruption Step 4: Identify Vulnerabilities A vulnerability is a weakness that could be exploited to cause data breaches or other cyber attacks. How can you identify vulnerabilities? There are several ways to identify vulnerabilities: Audit reports Vulnerability analysis Vendor data Software security analyses Incident response teams The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) vulnerability database A vulnerability could be as simple as the absence of a patch in an operating system, but an attacker could leverage this and conduct a major data breach. To fix these software-based , ensure that you have proper patch management via automated forced updates. In addition, make technical recommendations to address physical vulnerabilities in case an attacker attempts to exploit your organization’s computing system or keycard access. security vulnerabilities Step 5: Calculate the Likelihood and Impact of Various Scenarios on a Per-Year Basis Now that you have identified information value, assets, threats, and vulnerabilities, the next step is to calculate how likely these cyber risks are to happen and their impacts if they occur. Think about what protects your assets from these vulnerabilities, what the chances are that these threats might impact your assets multiple times, and how you can mitigate these risks. For instance, imagine you have a database that stores all of your customers’ sensitive information such as credit card details, contact numbers, usernames, and passwords. If this sensitive information is leaked, you could find your organization’s name in the media, which would have a drastic impact on your reputation and market valuation. Not only that, but you could also face hefty penalties and fines for non-compliance with information security standards and for being unable to protect your customers’ data. You expect that such a breach is unlikely to occur because you are already compliant with the security standards set by security agencies like Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard ( ). PCI-DSS Remember that compliance with security standards can only protect your data so far. Proper mitigation and cyber security defense strategies have to be in place to secure your data from attackers. Ultimately, it depends on what information security protocols you follow and how you combat data breaches when they take place. Step 6: Prioritize Risks Based on the Cost of Prevention vs Information ValueUse risk level as a basis to determine what actions should be taken to mitigate those risks. Here is how you can categorize your risks: : An urgent and significant threat to the organization and risk mitigation should be done immediately. High : A viable threat to the organization exists, and risk mitigation should be done within a specific period of time. Medium : Threats have a low impact on the assets, but may pose some issues later to the organization. Consider enhancing information security policies or deploying specific security software to address these threats.You have now determined the value of the asset and whether a risk is critical or normal that can be dealt with easily. Low You have to understand that if it costs more to protect an asset that has little to negligible impact on your organization, it may not make much sense to invest heavily into protecting it. However, remember that not all assets could lead to monetary losses, but also damage your company’s reputation, so it’s important to consider this as well. Step 7: Document Results in Risk Assessment Report Develop a risk analysis report which describes the value, risk, and vulnerabilities for each threat. Make sure that you also add the likelihood and impact of occurrence and mitigation recommendations. This will help management make informed decisions about policies, procedures, and budgets. It is essential to the credibility of your entire risk assessment that the final document captures all the necessary information that you have collected throughout the assessment. Having a cohesive risk analysis report also enables the assessor to communicate clearly with responsible individuals and stakeholders, helping them understand how these risks were discovered, and what they have to do to contribute to their mitigation. A clear and cohesive risk analysis report helps establish guidelines and rules that provide answers to what vulnerabilities and threats could cause reputational damage and financial loss to your business, and how they can be mitigated. Step 8: Implement and Monitor Security Controls Now that you have your cyber security risk assessment report ready, implement and monitor security controls to minimize or eliminate the possibility of a vulnerability or threat. You can implement controls through technical means, such as software or hardware, intrusion detection mechanisms, automatic updates, two-factor authentication, or encryption or through non-technical means such as physical mechanisms like keycard access. Ensure continuous monitoring of these security controls to check whether or not they are performing as per requirements. Implementing security controls is not a one-step process where you can just install and forget them. You have to monitor these controls to ensure optimal performance. Takeaways Remember, your organization might have the best security policies in place, but with the constantly changing cyber security threats, you need to stay abreast of the latest threats that might attack your organization. It is important for businesses to understand that a risk assessment can help them prevent breaches, avoid penalties and regulatory fines, and safeguard their valuable data. At Cypress Data Defense, we can help your business perform a cyber security risk assessment to mitigate risks and improve your security posture.

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When EMV card processing is discussed, one confusing usage of terminology is Online vs Offline. They mean different things in different context. Online vs Offline - Payment Channel The most obvious usage is to describe through which channel the payment is done. Offline payments refer to, generally, where the card is present at the time of payment, usually inserted (Chip), swiped (Magnetic stripe), tap (contactless) at the payment terminal. Loosely, offline payments are Card Present (CP) payments. Sometimes they are also called in-store payments, in-person payments, etc., but vending machine is offline payments where no store or person are present. Online payments refer to Card Not Present (CNP) transactions. E-commerce payments, whether on merchant's web sites, or in merchant's mobile apps, are majority of online payments. However, long before e-commerce existed, phone orders, catalog orders are also online. They are also called keyed transactions, because a physical card is not present to merchant, instead, the card number, expiration date, and security code need to be "keyed" in. What about Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay? When they are used to tap payment terminals, they are offline (CP) transactions; when they are used for in-app purchases, they are online (CNP) transactions. What is the significance to distinguish offline and online transactions? For consumers, nothing much. For merchants, foremost, the fees are different - because Card Present transactions bear less risks than Card Not Present, the fees are lower. Also for merchants, fraud liability generally is on merchant side for online transactions, except with Three-Domain Security (3DS) authenticated transactions; for offline transactions, generally issuers are liable for fraud, except those who are still only accepting magnetic stripe cards or don't follow guidelines. Online vs Offline - EMV Card Authentication Method (CAM) EMV uses cryptography to authenticate the card, in other words, the card is not a authentic and not a counterfeit. There are 2 ways a card is authenticated: online and offline. Online CAM When an EMV card is provisioned and manufactured, a symmetric key is securely embedded in the chip on the card. This key is used to generate a cryptogram on top of various data elements of the transaction (including a unpredictable random number) using 3DES. This cryptogram is called Authorization ReQuest Cryptogram (ARQC), and is passed all the way to issuer. Issuer, possessing the same symmetric key specific for the issued card, regenerates the ARQC itself and matches the ARQC generated by the card. This is called Online card authentication, as it requires issuer to authenticate the card and this process must be online. Similarly, a card can authenticate the issuer and the world (network, terminal). This is done through ARPC, which is a cryptogram generated by issuer when sending the response to terminal. The terminal sends ARPC to the chip, and chip authenticates it. Offline CAM Card authenticity can be verified offline, too. By definition, symmetric key cryptography won't work for offline authentication, because the dependent parties in this case are card and terminal, not including issuer. Therefore, RSA public key crypto is used. There are 3 methods used in Offline card authentication: SDA, DDA, CDA. Static Data Authentication (SDA) Certification Authority (in this case, likely the card network, such as Visa, Mastercard) uses its key to encrypt and sign the issuer's key, the result is Issuer Public Key Certificate (IPKC, tag 0x90). Issuer also uses its own issuer key to encrypt and sign a piece of static application data, called Signed Static Application Data (SSAD, tag 0x93). Both IPKC and SSAD are embedded in the chip. private public private A terminal is deployed with Certification Authority's keys, this is the responsibility of acquirers. For the terminal to authenticate card using SDA, it uses Certification Authority's key to decrypt and signature-verify IPKC to get Issuer's key; it then uses Issuer's key to decrypt and signature-verify SSAD. public public public public Dynamic Data Authentication (DDA) SDA can authenticate that a card is not altered, but it doesn't validate if a card is not a counterfeit. In addition, SDA can't prevent skimming because SSAD is static for every transaction. For these reasons, SDA is not used widely any more. DDA stores Card (ICC) Key Certificate in addition to Issuer Public Key Certificate, and it stores Card (ICC) Key as well. In addition to Static Application Data (as used in SDA), card provisioning uses Issuer Key to encrypt and sign Static Application Data and Card Key into the ICC Public Key Certificate (tag 0x9F46). Public Private Private Public The terminal sends Dynamic Data Authentication Data Object List (DDOL) to the card, the card uses the Card (ICC) key to encrypt and sign the DDOL values to generate Signed Dynamic Application Data (SDAD), and returns SDAD to terminal. private The terminal restores Issuer Key the same way as in SDA, then uses it to decrypt and signature-verify Card (ICC) Key. Then it uses ICC Key to decrypt and signature-verify SDAD. Public Public Public DDA uses 3 layers of key pairs to verify integrity: CA, Issuer and card. Combined Data Authentication (CDA) CDA is a combination of DDA and application cryptogram generation. As we know, cryptogram is used in ARQC which requires online authentication. CDA requires the signature to include cryptogram, and guarantees cryptogram isn't corrupted. One thing to note is online and offline authentications are not mutually exclusive. While there is only 1 offline authentication method used per transaction, most of the time, both offline and online authentications are checked for the transaction. Online vs Offline - PIN Cardholder Verification Method (CVM) Outside USA and Singapore, majority of EMV credit cards deployments use Chip-and-PIN, such as in Europe and Canada. In USA, PIN-debit and PIN-prepaid use Chip-and-PIN, while credit cards use Chip-and-Signature. PIN verification can be online and offline. The PIN can be stored in the chip, and therefore, offline verification is possible (and fast). The complexities of offline PIN verification are: How to sync PIN to card if PIN change or block is done without the card? Communication between PIN Pad and Card needs to be secure and encrypted, or a skimmer can steal PIN. Terminals when performing Online PIN verification sends PIN to Issuer encrypted, and issuer confirms or rejects the PIN. Online PIN verification is actually not new to EMV. In magnetic stripe world, for example, PIN-debit has been verified online. Note that PIN verification in contactless use case is always online. Contactless exchanges data and authentication at the very beginning of the tap and takes about one second, after which, card/device can be moved away from terminal, therefore, offline PIN verification doesn't make sense. Online vs Offline - Authorization EMV card transactions support offline authorization. When it was first deployed in Europe, to combat unstable communication between terminal and acquirer. Furthermore, for lower amount, lower risk transactions can be done offline without obtaining authorization from issuers and networks, if issuers support it. Issuers also can control the limits (what's the value of transactions, how many offline transactions before it must go online) by embedding those parameters in the EMV chip. In USA, most credit, debit and prepaid card transactions require online authorization. References: EMV Book 1 EMV Book 2 EMV Book 3 EMV Book 4 Video by Smart Card Aliance EMV 101: Fundamentals of EMV Chip Payment Previously published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/overloaded-online-vs-offline-emv-card-processing-kenny-shi/

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If you are a Java programmer and are wondering what to read to improve your knowledge of Java or , then you have come to the right place. become a better Java developer In this article, I am going to share some of the best Java books ever written. These books have withstood the test of time, becoming more and more relevant as the years go by. It doesn't matter if you read them now or plan on reading them later, you will always have a lot to learn and that's why I think they are the greatest Java books of all time. Personally, I am a big fan of reading books. I have hundreds of books and eBooks in my library. When I was a kid, I read a lot of comics, particulary Raj Comics and Diamond Comicds. If you remember, , who was one of my favorite characters because of the scientific theme in his stories and how he usually defeats his more powerful enemies without any superpower and just by using his intelligence, acumen, and simple knowledge of scientific facts. Super Commando Dhruv My passion for books continued when I became a programmer. The first Java book I read, apart from textbooks in college, was . This book completely changed my knowledge of Java and understanding of object-oriented programming. Head First Design Pattern Until then, I didn't understand the real use of the interface. To me, they look useless, because you can't write code to do anything there. But, after reading the book, I realized how awesome they are in terms of reducing the coupling between different parts of your program. From that point, I have read many mostly related to Java. Today, I am going to share the . Even if some knowledge is out-dated, most of the stuff you learn will help build upon your knowledge and a lifetime career. programming books, 10 best Java books that every Java developer should read 10 Books Every Java Programmer Should Read Without further ado, here is my list of some of the most popular and important books for Java programmers. If you have been doing Java programming for 2 to 3 years, then it's a good chance that you have read these books already. But, if you haven't, now is the best time to read them. I am 100% sure that You will not regret investing your time and money on these books because what you will learn is worth much more than and last for years to come. 1. Effective Java There should not be any surprise here. by Joshua Bloch is hands down best Java book ever. This is a definite must-read book for Java programmers of any experience level. You will learn so much about Java and its API then you could imagine. Effective Java The fact that Joshua Bloch himself is the author of several key Java classes and API, like java.lang and , is enough reason to read this book. Along with that, his writing style is also fantastic. Java Collection framework You can read this book on a beach, while traveling, or just at your desk. It's awesome. There is no doubt that you would emerge as better Java programmer after reading this book. And the best thing is that a is available now, which covers Java 7, 8, and 9. There cannot be a better time to read this book. new edition of Effective Java 2. Clean Code Another timeless classic for Java programmers is . As the title suggests, it teaches you to write better code, which is such a difficult thing to learn. Clean Code To be honest, it's easy to learn Java, but difficult to write better Java code which uses strong and that's where this book helps. OOP principles Similar to Joshua Bloch, Robert C. Martin, also known as Uncle Bob, is an excellent author and shares a lot of his experience as a software developer, teaching you various programming techniques and practices that help a lot in your day-to-day job as a programmer. If you follow Clean Code, there is also a course on Pluarlsight called By Cory House which effectively complements this book. Clean Code: Writing Code for Humans Btw, you would need a Pluralsight membership to get access this course, which cost around $29 per month or $299 annually ( ). 14% discount If you don't have , I encourage you to get one because it allows you to access their 5000+ online courses on all latest topics like front-end and back-end development, machine learning etc. Pluralsight membership It also include interactive quizzes, exercises, and latest certification material. It's more like Netflix for Software Developers and Since learning is an important part of our job, Plurlasight membership is a great way to stay ahead of your competition. They also provide a without any commitment, which is a great way to not just access this course for free but also to check the quality of courses before joining Pluralsight. 10-day free trial 3. Java Concurrency in Practice Multithreading and concurrency is an essential part of Java programming. There is no better book than Brian Goetz's to learn and master this tricky topic. Java Concurrency in Practice Even though the book only covers Java 5, it's still relevant and must-read books for any serious Java developer. Some of you may find that some of the sections are a bit difficult to understand, especially sections 3.5.1 through 3.5.6, And if that's the case, I suggest you go through the course by Dr. Heinz Kabutz. This will help you to better digest and comprehend those topics. Extreme Java --- Concurrency Performance 4. Head First Design Patterns Good knowledge of OOP and design patterns are important for writing any Java application. is the best book for learning to do that. Head First Design Patterns As I have said before, this was one of the first books I ever read on Java, apart from textbooks. After reading this book, I was very impressed. This is the book that taught me and how you can change runtime behavior of a class without touching the already tried and tested code. why Composition is better than Inheritance You might think that it's just another old book, but you don't need to worry, an updated copy that covers was released a couple of years ago. Java SE 8 If you are serious about learning design patterns in Java, this is the book you should read! The course on Pluralsight is also a nice resource to get yourself familiar with essential design patterns in Java and object-oriented programming. You can follow that course along with this book to get the best of both the worlds. Design Pattern Library 5. Spring in Action Sorry, but I have to include one Spring book, , in this list of classic books for Java programmers. Spring is the most popular Java framework ever and this is the best book to learn about the Spring framework, but --- to be honest --- this book is much more than a Spring book. Spring in Action After reading the , I realized so much about Java and writing better code that I can't begin to explain. 4th Edition of this book The books take a topic, e.g. JDBC, and explain where JDK went wrong and how Spring corrects that mistake, e.g. SQLException, a one-size-fits-all exception that says something is wrong but not exactly what is wrong or how to deal with that. Like Josuha Bloch and Uncle Bob, Craig Walls is another great author and you will learn much more than just Spring by reading this book. Great news is that now the is also available, one of the books in my reading list. 5th Edition of Spring in Action Btw, if your goal is to learn Spring, I also suggest you join a great online course like along with this book. You will learn quickly and better than many developers, who tries to learn by self. Spring Framework 5: Beginner to Guru 6. Test Driven Automation testing is an important skill. For developers, it all starts with unit testing. Java has been blessed to have the JUnit from the start, but just knowing the library doesn't make you a professional programmer who can write tests. It takes much more than knowing a unit testing library, like or , and that's where this book helps. If you are serious about code quality and writing unit, integration, and automation test, is the book to read now. JUnit Mockito Test Driven If we talk about libraries, JUnit and Mockito are must for any Java developers. If you are not familiar with them, I suggest you go through this along with the above book to master the art of unit testing in Java. JUnit and Mockito Crash Course 7. The Definitive Guide to Java Performance Another aspect of becoming a better Java developer is knowing about JVM, Garbage collection, and performance tuning. Though there have been several good books on this topic, e.g. by Binu John and Charlie Hunt, by Scott Oaks is my favorite. Java Performance The Definitive Guide of Java Performance Even though it only covers until JDK 7, you will learn a lot about performance tuning and in general, which totally justifies the time and money you will spend on this book. JVM You can also join course on Udemy to learn some practical tips to improve performance of your Java application. Java Multithreading, Concurrency & Performance Optimization 8. Head First Java How many of you started learning Java by reading this book? Well, I did. Just after I came to know about , I also found this book, , and I really enjoyed reading it. I learned a lot of Java concepts and many of my misconceptions were also corrected. Head First Design Pattern Head First Java Though many feel this is an out-of-date book, I still feel its a great book for anyone just starting with Java because of its unique style and content. You can easily learn about , , and changes on other versions once you know Java by reading this book. Java 8 Java 9 Java 10 Btw, If you like online courses and looking for some of the best Java courses to start your journey then on Udemy is simply the most up-to-date and the best course to start with. The Java MasterClass 9. Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design Here is another "Head First" book in the list of the greatest Java books. Yup, they are simply awesome. form a trilogy of the "Head First" books for Java programmers, like , , and . Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design Head First Java Head First Design Patterns Head First OOAD It actually complements by explaining the techniques of object-oriented programming and design. Head First Design Patterns The most important technique that I learned from this book was coding for interfaces and how to encapsulate what changes. This book simply changed how I write Java code. If you like courses, by Steve Smith on Pluralsight is great and you can follow that along this book for better understanding of object-oriented design principles. SOLID Principles of Object-Oriented Design 10. Java: A Beginner's Guide If you ever need a comprehensive Java book, this should be it. Even though the title says , it's one of the most complete books for learning Java. Java: A Beginner's Guide Sir Herbert Schildt has also done a commendable job in keeping the book up-to-date, like the 7th Edition of this book now covers Java 9. Though, I don't know how he is going to keep this book up-to-date going forward, since Java's new 6-month release cycle which started with Java 10. Btw, they have released a supplement to cover . I think that would be the way going forward. JDK 10 new features There you go! These are some of the best books for Java programmers. If you are a passionate Java programmer, there is a good chance that you have already read most of these books. But, if you haven't, then this year may be just the right time to read these books. They are absolutely awesome. You can choose the latest version of the book wherever possible, like or the Effective Java 3rd Edition 7th Edition of Java: A Beginner's Guide . Other to Explore Articles You May Like The 2020 DevOps RoadMap 10 Things Java and Web Developer Should Learn in 2020 10 Testing Tools Java Developers Should Know 5 Frameworks Java Developers Should Learn in 2020 10 Advanced Java Books for Experienced Programmers 10 Essential skills to become a software developer in 2020 10 Algorithms Books Every Programmer Should Read 50+ Data Structure and Algorithms Questions 10 Advanced Spring Boot Courses for Java Developers 10 Free Courses to learn Spring Boot in 2020 7 Courses to learn Microservices in Java with Spring Boot My favorite courses to learn Spring Boot Closing Notes Thanks, You made it to the end of the article ... Good luck with your Java Programming adventure. It's certainly not going to be easy, but by going through these books, you will get some useful experience. If you like this article, then please share with your friends and colleagues, and don't forget to follow on Twitter! javinpaul P.S. --- If you like online courses and looking for some of the best Java courses to start your journey then The Java MasterClass on Udemy is the best course to start with. All the best with your learning.

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Chatbots are on a rise and are rapidly becoming one of the most important assets for businesses these days. From SMBs to Fortune 500 companies, almost every business is investing in chatbots to establish stronger communication and offer the best customer support service. As per a recent analysis by , the chatbot market is projected to rise from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion by the year 2024 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.7%. This massive projection rate justifies the hype built around chatbots and gives a clear idea of their future importance. Business Insider Intelligence To begin with, creating a chatbot for your business may seem daunting. Coding, or hiring a professional chatbot developer for this job may be your first thought. However, thanks to technological advancements, there are many chatbot builder tools and software out there in the market that can help you build and integrate chatbots into your website and mobile apps easily and efficiently. You may find minor differences in the features and capabilities of these different platforms, but their end objective is the same. By leveraging these platforms, you can easily create chatbots for a variety of business purposes without writing even a single line of code. Before we go ahead and discuss the top 10 chatbot builders of 2022, let’s shed some light on what chatbot builders are, and how they can benefit a business. What is a Chatbot Builder? A chatbot builder is a platform or a tool that allows businesses to create chatbots for websites and mobile apps in a matter of minutes that too with absolutely no coding skills. Whether you are a beginner, a professional or just a startup, chatbot builder is the perfect solution for making advanced chatbots without any prior technical knowledge. Benefits of Chatbots for Businesses Listed hereunder are some lucrative benefits of chatbots for businesses – Improved sales and customer service Better customer engagement Round the clock business presence Increased lead generation, qualification and nurturing Time and cost saving Enhanced team productivity; and much more. Now that you know the benefits of chatbots for businesses and have a basic understanding of chatbot builders, it’s time to reveal the 10 best chatbot builders that can help you improve your customer service and satisfaction. Here is the list of top 10 AI chatbot builder for business: Appy Pie Chatbot Quriobot Spectrm Bot Libre Kore.ai Flow XO Wit.ai BotKit Morph.ai ChatterOn 1. Appy Pie Chatbot The no-code app development leader, Appy Pie is at the top of this list of best chatbot builders because of its easy to use interface, multitude of next generation features and affordability. You can easily build great chatbots using Appy Pie Chatbot platform and take your business to new levels of excellence. Listed below are some of the pros and cons of the chatbot builder Appy Pie: Pros No coding required to build and integrate chatbots to websites and mobile apps Multilingual support Live chat takeover Hassle free contacts and leads management Bot analytics Integration with Google Sheets and multiple other 3rd party apps Great customer support Cons Limited design customization options Limited app integrations Freemium platform 2. Quriobot The second on the list is Quriobot. An easy to use chatbot builder, Quirobot lets businesses create chatbots for Facebook Messenger and websites. You can even integrate the chatbots created with Quirobot on your preferred landing page. Listed hereunder are some of the pros and cons of this popular chatbot maker: Pros Drag and drop interface Flexible design for companies of any size User-friendly chatbot builder Pre-built templates Easy API integrations 60-day money back guarantee Cons Limited integrations at this time Complex interface for beginners Poor customer support 3. Spectrm Spectrm is the third most popular chatbot builder on the list. Using Spectrm, businesses can build world-class chatbots and turn conversations into insights and revenue. Chatbots built using this chatbot creator software can perform multiple tasks such as appointment scheduling, feedback collection, lead qualification and distribution, and much more. Listed below are the pros and cons of Spectrm: Pros Intuitive and easy to use conversation builder Powerful tools to create chat flow with customization possibilities Helpful customer support team Great onboarding Easy integration with Facebook and websites Cons Limited customization options Complex bot analytics Tool tends to be bit slow sometimes 4. Bot Libre The open source chatbot and artificial intelligence platform, Bot Libre comes fourth on this list of chatbot builders. Bot Libre features a simple interface, which makes it easy for businesses and individuals to create their own automated chatbots in a few minutes. Listed here are a few of the pros and cons of Bot Libre: Pros Create multiple chatbots for the web, and social media without any programming Dedicated customer support Easy to use and nice interface Cost-effective Lots of handy features Cons Takes time for new users to understand the platform Small user base Freemium plans 5. Kore.ai Kore.ai is the fifth chatbot builder on this list. An all-in-one chatbot platform, Kore.ai allows users to design, create, train, test, and analyze AI and NLP-powered chatbots in minutes. Listed here are some of the pros and cons of this enterprise-grade, end-to-end conversational AI-powered chatbot platform: Pros Build simple chatbots quickly without any coding Proprietary NLP engine Multiple deployment models Helpful customer support Various domain support Cons Less business channels Slow updates to the platform No live agent transfer 6. Flow XO The sixth on this list of chatbot builders is Flow XO. A powerful automation product, Flow XO allows businesses to make incredible chatbots for websites, applications and social media platforms. Some of the pros and cons of this smart chatbot builder are listed hereunder: Pros Zero coding skills required to build amazing chatbots Pre-built chatbot templates Drag and drop editor Easy integration with third party apps Cons Complicated building process Lacks proprietary technology No live chat transfer option 7. Wit.ai Another free chatbot builder, Wit.ai comes seventh on this list. Using Wit.ai, you can easily develop text or voice based bots for your desired messaging platform, without any hassle. Listed below are some of the pros and cons of this chatbot builder software: Pros Open-source platform Easy to deploy chatbots on Facebook Messenger SDKs for iOS, Node.js, Python, Ruby Multi language support Third party app integrations Cons Lacks required slot or parameter feature Unclear webhook integration Limited predefined reusable domains 8. BotKit The eighth on this list of chatbot builder is BotKit. A leading developer tool, BotKit allows you to create chatbots, apps and custom integrations for many renowned messaging platforms. Part of the Microsoft Bot Framework, BotKit works efficiently with Microsoft LUIS AI and any other NLP engine of your choice. Listed hereunder are the pros and cons of BotKit: Pros Multiple plugins for different chat platforms like Slack, Facebook Messenger Easy to use chatbot interface Quick deployment of bots Open source product Cons Limited options for developers working in Node.js Freemium plans Poor customer support 9. Morph.ai Morph.ai secures the ninth position on this list of chatbot builders. A chat-based marketing automation tool, Morph.ai allows businesses to build chatbots for WhatsApp, Facebook, website and more. Using it, you can develop rich chat experiences, run multiple lead generation campaigns, automate follow-ups and much more. Listed below are some pros and cons of this chatbot maker: Pros Create chat flows without any coding Easy to use interface Economical chatbot maker Good customer support Easy deployment Cons Glitches in trial account Difficulties in creating multiple conversations Limited features 10. ChatterOn Last, but not the least, is ChatterOn. A no-code chatbot builder, ChatterOn allows anyone with no technical skills to build a great chatbot for their business or personal use in less than 5 minutes. Some of the pros and cons of this chatbot builder include the following: Pros Pre-built chatbots Visual flow editor Easy deployment of chatbots No coding needed to build chatbots Cons Difficult bot testing Limited features Poor customer support Chatbots are great for automating basic communications, but their effectiveness completely depends on the platforms on which they are built. You can find hundreds of chatbot builders in the market but this list of top 10 chatbot builders can help you save your time in finalizing the best one for your needs. So don’t wait, leverage this list of top 10 chatbot builders, find the one that works best for you, and build your own chatbot in no time.

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10 Best AI Chatbot Builder for Your Business in 2022

The concept of came about in the 17th century—unsurprisingly—around the same time as Even way back then, We, The People, sensed this was probably a shit idea. Policing Capitalism. Thanks, Wikipedia : “Due to public fears concerning the deployment of the military in domestic matters, [Robert Peel] organised the force along civilian lines, rather than . To , the uniform was deliberately manufactured in blue, rather than red which was then a military colour… paramilitary appear neutral "...To distance the new police force from the initial public view of it as a new tool of government repression, Peel publicised the so-called , which set down basic guidelines for ethical policing: Peelian principles Every police officer should be issued a warrant card with a unique identification number to assure accountability for his actions. Whether the police are effective is not measured on the number of arrests but on the deterrence of crime. Above all else, an effective authority figure knows trust and accountability are paramount. Hence, Peel's most often quoted principle that ’” ‘The police are the public and the public are the police. It’s taken the general “public” a good few decades to start seeing through the 'protect-and-serve' policing lie. Why? You guessed it! Capitalist White Supremacy. And this is where it all gets a bit sticky, because you can’t talk about what’s happening in the States right now without talking about the tangled web of thorns that is , and really Policing and Prisons Capitalism, White Supremacy. But let’s take a step back and return to the question that probably brought you here: “Surely all cops can’t be bastards?” Look, this is difficult programming to uninstall. I’m still there some days. I get it. Here's a small sampling of Police Brutality Facts and Statistics. In 2019 alone, American police shot and killed 1,310 civilians. ( ) source By MARCH 2020, that same count was on 228 civilians killed by police officers in the U.S., and is currently being reported as 425 humans killed by cops so far this year. ( ) source At least 40% of police officer families in America experience domestic violence. ( ) source In 2019, black Americans in the US were close to three times more likely to die from police encounters than white Americans. Black Americans were also nearly one-and-a-half times more likely to be unarmed before their death. In 2019, 24% of all police killings were of black Americans, when just 13% of the U.S. population is black – an 11-point discrepancy. ( ) source ( ) Cops in America are indicted (aka formally accused or charged with a crime) in less than 1% of their killings of human beings, but the indictment rate for Citizens is 90%. source In 2019, within the 485m² (1,255 km²) metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, police killed a record number of 1,814 people. In at least half of the 48 police killings analyzed by The New York Times, the deceased were shot in the back at least once, according to autopsy reports, immediately raising questions about the imminent threat required to justify such killings. ( ) source Back in 2016, it was that in Venezuela, a police officer kills a person every 1.5 hours. ( ) estimated source In South Africa, it’s that police officers killed at least 436 people between 2017/8. ( ) estimated source In Nigeria, it’s that police officers killed at least 841 people in 2018. ( ) estimated source In Bangladesh and Pakistan in Asia, police officers killed over 1,000 people between 2017/8, with more Pakistanis dying in incidents described by law enforcement agencies as “encounters” than in gun violence or in suicide attacks in 2017. ( , ) source source Sure, anybody can scroll through the and pick out a few shocking-sounding statistics from “struggling” countries. on Wikipedia List of killings by law enforcement officers by country page But, remember that even, and especially, in the super-first world, , pointing to (a) people are ignoring social distancing mandates and personal fears around Covid-19 infection to show up in the thousands in solidarity against police brutality the fact that a massive number of these police vs. people “encounters” are happening, and likely not being reported, in the world. (b) everywhere A millennium found that “the majority of American police officers believe: study conducted by the National Institute of Justice to determine police attitudes toward the abuse of their own authority “At times their fellow when making an arrest,” officers use more force than necessary “It is not unusual for ,” and officers to ignore improper conduct by their fellow officers “Community-oriented policing reduces or has no impact upon the potential for police abuse.” “In addition, the survey finds race to be a divisive issue for American police. In particular, and about the effect of community policing on the potential for abuse.” black and nonblack officers had significantly different views about the effect of a citizen’s race and socioeconomic status on the likelihood of police abuse of authority If there’s a voice in your head right now mumbling something incoherent about how “the real problem isn’t the police though… it’s the system… it’s the minimum wage… it’s the ideologies… it’s the Trump supporters.... It’s just people from difficult backgrounds being given too much power…” Yes. Correct. You are right. The "real problem" is probably the industrial/capitalist system in which laws are made to protect property, not people, poor people are hired to enforce those laws, and criminality is a socially constructed, slavery-based paradigm designed to protect the interests of the ruling class. It is, however, important to understand that , or the public interest, or your personal safety. the repressive laws the police force are designed to enforce have very little to do with morality if America’s police force is there to serve and protect the public, why was it so difficult for them to prosecute millionaire sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, but so (very nearly, and for so very long) easy for them to get away with murdering an unarmed man (men, women, children, people...) in plain sight? Ask yourself: Most of us live in law systems. repressive The alternative to a , according to French sociologist , would be a repressive law system Emile Durkheim restitutive law system. Where Repressive Law reflects a solidarity that , Restitutive Law reflects a solidarity that . ( .) implies that individuals resemble each other implies differences amongst individuals source Some places, like the Netherlands, have made attempts at somewhat more and approaches to criminality by incorporating practices into their prison systems, . restitutive individualized rehabilitative with great success “Since 2014, , turning into temporary asylum centres, housing and hotels. The country has , at 54.4 per 100,000 inhabitants. According to the justice ministry’s WODC Research and Documentation Centre, the number of prison sentences imposed fell from 42,000 in 2008 to 31,000 in 2018 – along with a two-thirds drop in jail terms for young offenders. Registered crimes plummeted by 40% in the same period, to 785,000 in 2018.” 23 prisons [in the Netherlands] have been shut Europe’s third-lowest incarceration rate The massive drop in crime and incarceration rates is largely attributed to the , which provides people who are struggling to ‘play by the rules’ (for reason) with proven psychological and mental health treatment programmes, under the support and guidance of highly qualified professionals⁠—as opposed to sending these to think about what they’ve done in a locked room alone, and then releasing them, ignored and entirely unhelped, some arbitrary amount of time later. Dutch rehabilitation programme known as TBS whatever human beings You’ve heard of the rule of expectations, right? How and make decisions? people tend to behave and make decisions based on how you expect them to behave Some of you might have heard something similar, along the lines of "expectations are preconceived resentments." Whichever way you choose to reconcile this idea for yourself, it’s a nice one to chew on if you’re serious about understanding Let me know what comes up for you in the comments. why Policing Should Not Be Necessary. As to let’s return briefly to the ‘Father of Social Science’ and ”: how Policing Should Not be Necessary, his rather quaint theory around “Dynamic Density” and a resulting “Organic Solidarity “In sociology, dynamic density refers to the combination of two things: population density and the amount of social interaction within that population. Émile Durkheim used the term to explain why societies transition from simple to more complex forms, specifically in terms of the within that society. division of labor He suggested that it required both an increase in population and an increase in the frequency of social interaction to form more specialised occupations, which then leads to a new type of society. People in this new type of society are less independent and more reliant on each other and therefore develop what he called organic solidarity, where people no longer are bound by the same morality and sense of purpose. Critics suggest that it is not a testable hypothesis, and nor does it follow logically that dynamic density would cause this new type of solidarity, supposing it actually existed.” While he was spot on about us getting too big to be united by the same “morality and sense of purpose”, Durkheim's prediction around that resulting in an increased ability to live and work together with respectful deference to each other’s beliefs, preferences, habits and behaviours, seems to have been a little optimistic. Instead, where we have to fight tooth and nail to repeal the archaically repressive laws our police force are trained to enforce (using excessive force), we now live in a system that intentionally divides and oppresses us, while billions are being spent fighting battles for basic human rights to be recognized by law. If it wasn’t so desperately sad, it’d be hilarious: from to to to to , , and - and, quite frankly, we’re being treated like small children who don’t know what’s good for them. (India) adultery (literally even New Zealand now) cannabis (the latest to legalize being Costa Rica) LGQBT marriage (widespread in America) anti-trans legislation environmental lawsuits here there everywhere we’re being denied things we are entitled to for our survival, in favour of corporate and commercial interests, And which apparatus is the first line of defence for those who’d like to keep things that way? The Police. “Remember that Legality has nothing to do with morality, it has to do with power [and control]. Policing is a violent, anti-black, settler institution that originated as slave patrols. Their primary mandate is to protect property and to militarily enforce white supremacist capitalism. They are doing their jobs as they are trained and paid to do. - and that’s why we fight for police and prison ” - criminality defined and enforced by a violently racist/capitalist/settler colonial empire is an inherently oppressive political construct. Instead of billions being invested into policing/carceral apparatus, it should go into our communities (free housing, free healthcare, free mental healthcare, free accessible transit, education, job creation!). You can’t fix what isn’t broken abolition. @vrye (emphasis and parenthesis my own) But… but... what will we do with all the rapists and the murderers!? but perhaps we could start by ceasing to elect them as , , , , , , etc.? This might sound crazy: Presidents Presidents Presidents Representatives MPs Senators And... what about after that? Well, that brings us right back to my least favourite C-word. (source) “Asking the question ‘ ?’ is to ask the question ‘ ?’” what are alternatives to policing what are alternatives to capitalism - Luis Fernandez, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University In , Fernandez rightly points out that imagining a world without police is less scary when you think about for a minute and whatsoever. this great article realise how much of your life happens quite safely without any police involvement “Most of our communities already exist without policing. Most of our human interactions are already outside of the purview of police officers. Most of the social relationships between people do not require police intervention.” This hits home for me especially, having grown up and regularly had the firsthand displeasure of engaging with . one of the most mismanaged police forces in the world South Africa’s police ranking system —albeit with less “efficacy”—and, since January 2000, an embarrassing number of successive police commissioners have been unable to complete a single term in office, with most of them being implicated in and charged with misconduct. still mirrors the system used by the apartheid government (red flag, anybody?) Suffice it to say: in an emergency, I would call every neighbour on my street—and/or my Great Uncle who lives in Canada—before I resort to calling the same Police Service I was once brainwashed enough to believe existed solely to protect me. source: Down By Law: A Demographic and Geographic Analysis of Those Killed by Police So again we ask, why are protestors fed up enough with the gross incompetence and flagrant abuse of power of this institution to be calling for the abolition of the whole thing? Because the police are not incompetent. , because policing is very successfully doing what it was designed to do: We can’t ‘fix’ policing exactly Protect capitalist interests. Protect property. Protect rich white men in power. Exploit labour for minimum wage and then wonder why that same labour loots a Target at the first opportunity. (Or was that the white supremacists using these protests to live out their purge fantasies? Whichever camp you prefer to counter-productively "blame", the root causes of this 50-state strong rage-storm are blooming from the same steaming pile of shit.) If #ACAB makes you uncomfortable, it might time to check your attachment levels RE: your things. In other words: it’s time for all of us to ask ourselves just how much we’re willing to sacrifice to right the systemic wrongs we say we’re now committed to addressing. Are you really ready to take a look at your relationship with capitalism? In a landmark ruling for the concept of restorative justice in 1995, Canada addressed systemic discrimination in their policing and prison systems. Bill C-41 came into effect in 1996 and contained Criminal Code Section 718.2(e), which was intended to counter the disproportionate rates of incarceration of Indigenous people, and : reads “A court that imposes a sentence shall also take into consideration the following principles: ... (e) that are reasonable in the circumstances should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders”. all available sanctions other than imprisonment The practice enabling this legislation emphasises mediation, conversation, and reconciliation, over severe punishment, and goes by many names: restorative justice; peacemaking circles; rehabilitation and reintegration; non-hierarchical dialogue between community, victim, and offender… The correlation between in indigenous communities and in industrialized, capitalist societies, is not easily ignored. restorative justice repressive law As if to emphasise that bizarre legal distinction, Canada’s landmark legislation originally excluded indigenous people residing in urban (capitalist) areas, but is now in their ongoing effort to address this “enormously complex” (?) issue; as a result of recognizing: revisiting this policy “the roles played by in the overrepresentation of Indigenous people. Significantly, the Supreme Court of Canada’s judgment supported the idea – contrary to the view of the British Columbia trial court judge – that Indigenous people in , as well as in reserve communities and more remote and isolated areas, should be considered under s. 718.2(e).” poverty, marginalization, and systemic discrimination urban areas In legally recognizing restorative justice for all, regardless of your place of residence, Canada is paving the way for all of us – including those of us living in deeply entrenched capitalist societies – to recognize the more that: humane and community-centric idea and that it is harmful to both personal relationships and to communities. The process takes the holistic context of an offence into consideration, including moral, social, economic, political, and religious considerations.” “crime is a violation of one person by another, rather than an act against the state, At this point, the argument might be coming into your mind. “yeah, that sounds nice and all, but it’s just sooo unrealistic...*” And let’s talk about being unrealistic*, for a moment. What’s unrealistic is demanding change without discomfort. What’s unrealistic is expecting a revolution without a willingness to sacrifice. What’s unrealistic is asking people to end centuries of systematic exploitation, violence, and murder using “peaceful protest.” What’s unrealistic is calling a silent protest “unpatriotic” when a man takes a knee during a little sing-song session, and then condemning people for burning shit down to the ground one year later when nothing's changed. What’s unrealistic is heartwarming propaganda in mainstream media of cops kneeling down next to protestors for a photo opportunity, an hour before dowsing those same people in tear gas. What’s unrealistic is looking at cops and seeing the bastard brainchild of a white supremacist, capitalist ideology, sustained to protect only products, property and the billionaires who own both of the above; and not, to protect, in any way shape or form, “the people.” not —as Canada, the Netherlands and communities around the world are fighting through the complexity to prove to us—is a world in which we all choose to put before property and profit, and abolish the police and prison systems in favour of a more humane, community-centric approach to crime and rehabilitation. What's less unrealistic people Opinions expressed are all, of course, entirely my own and in no way representative of anybody else's. If, after reading this, or ' still makes you feel uncomfortable, I’m looking forward to engaging with you in the comments. #ACAB, FTP, 1312, Fuck 12'

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Capitalism, White Supremacy, Police Brutality: What A Tangle of Thorns

Organizing conferences is hard. Recently, I was chatting with about the manual processes that conference organizers have to deal with. The automation of these processes can save them time and effort as well as improve the conference experience. Inspired from this brainstorm, we ended up creating this tutorial using tools like , , , , and . Nicolas Grenié n8n Typeform Bannerbear Airtable Trello In this tutorial, we’ll store the speaker submissions coming via Typeform to Airtable. Then, the reviewers will do a blind review of the submissions and score them in Airtable. The submissions receiving a score greater than 15 (could be anything else) will be added to Trello for a final review. The workflow will also generate promotional assets for your team and add them to the Trello cards. After the final review, the speakers whose cards will be moved over to the next column, will receive an acceptance email along with the various promotional assets. We’ll accomplish this through three workflows in this tutorial: Workflow 1 — Gathering speaker data for a blind review Workflow 2 — Proposal rating and final review Workflow 3 — Notifying accepted speakers Workflow 1 — Gathering speaker data for a blind review In this workflow, we’ll collect the speaking proposals from Typeform and save them to Airtable. The reviewers will be able to perform a blind review of the submissions in Airtable. Let’s get started with the nodes of the first workflow. I have also submitted on n8n.io, in case you’d like to skim through this workflow. Please note that you’ll still need to configure a couple of things like your credentials as well as the settings of the nodes. You can find information on how to setup n8n in the . Workflow 1 documentation 1. Typeform Trigger node: Get data from Typeform First of all, we need to pull in the new submissions from Typeform. To do that start n8n with the tunnel parameter: n8n start --tunnel Make sure that you don’t forget to add the parameter. Note: --tunnel Add a new node by clicking on the + button on the top right of the Editor UI. Under the section, select the node. Triggers Typeform Trigger You’ll need to create a new form in Typeform, unless you already have one that you’d like to use. I used the Online Event Registration Form Template to get started. I asked the following information in the form: Full name ( ) Short Text Bio ( ) Short Text Email ( ) Email URL of a profile picture ( ) Website Twitter username ( ) Short Text Abstract title ( ) Short Text Abstract ( ) Long Text Now, head back to the n8n Editor UI and enter the credentials for the Typeform Trigger node. You’ll need to enter your access token. You can follow this to generate personal access tokens for Typeform. guide Once you have done that, select your form from the dropdown menu for the field. Clicking on the button would activate the test webhook. Now, if you submit the form, you’ll see the data in the Node Editor. Here’s what my first submission looked like. Form Execute Node Test webhooks (which get created when you click on Execute Node) are active only for 120 seconds. For activating the production webhooks, you’ll have to save and activate the workflow. Remember that the Node Editor won’t show any data flowing through the node with a production webhook. Note: Here’s a GIF of me following the steps mentioned above. 2. Airtable node: Push data to Airtable Head over to Airtable and create a new table. Create the fields for the questions that you asked in Typeform. I added a column named Serial No. (type ) to be the table’s primary field. This is what my table looked like. Autonumber Once you have the table ready, we’ll create the Airtable node on n8n. Go back to the n8n Editor UI. Click on the + button on the top right and select the node. You’ll have to enter the credentials (API Key) for the Airtable API. You can follow this on how to obtain your API Key. Airtable guide Now, we’ll select ‘Append’ as the . For obtaining the Application ID, head over to their and select the correct base. You’ll find the Application ID there. Operation API page Once you enter that, put in the name of the table in the field. For me, it was . Now, click on the button, and it will push all the data that was received by the Typeform node to the specified Airtable. Table Main Execute Node Here’s a GIF of me following the steps mentioned above. A lot of conferences conduct blind reviews to eradicate the unconscious biases of the reviewers. To support that methodology, I went ahead and marked all the columns other than the Abstract Title and Abstract Description as hidden. I added the following additional columns: — This is a column (type ) for the first reviewer (hint: it’s me). Score 1 Number — This is a column (type ) for the second reviewer (it’s my friend John Doe). Score 2 Number — This is a column (type ) which computes the score of the previous two columns. Total Score Formula Here’s what it looks like after I followed the steps mentioned above (I took the liberty of scoring the talks). Workflow 2 — Proposal rating and final review In this workflow, we’ll automate the export of all the submissions which have a total score greater than 15 for a final review on Trello. The workflow will also generate social media assets for the organizers and add them to the Trello card. I have also submitted on n8n.io, in case you’d like to skim through this workflow. Please note that you’ll still need to configure a couple of things like your credentials as well as the settings of the nodes. Workflow 2 1. Airtable node: Pull specific data from the table Create an Airtable node and select the credentials that you entered in the previous workflow. For the field, we’ll select ‘List’. For the and fields, you can enter the same information that you entered in the previous workflow. Operation Application ID Table Here, we only want to retrieve the proposals where the total score was greater than 15. Click on the button under the section, select ‘Filter by Formula’, and enter the following: Add Options Additional Options {Total Score} > 15 Now, click on the button, and it should retrieve the records that we want. Here’s a GIF of me following the steps mentioned above. Execute Node As an exercise, you can add an IF node (instead of using the Filter by Formula option) to segregate the records based on the total score. Sessions with a score greater than 15 will be passed on through the workflow. Sessions (people) with a score less than 15 will be sent an email thanking them for their submission and informing them that this particular session was not accepted as a talk. 2. Bannerbear node: Generate promotional banners for the organizers Bannerbear is a simple REST API that auto-generates social media visuals, e-commerce banners and more. First of all, create a free account. Now, create a new Project. I named mine ‘Speaker Promotion’. Each project in Bannerbear can house many templates. Select an existing template by clicking on the button. Next, select ‘Wikipedia Tutorial’ as your template. Bannerbear Browse Template Library You can click on to open the template designer. I made some edits to the template to make it a bit more customized. It’s also a good idea to rename the layers so that it’s easy to remember which layer points to which piece of information when you are in the n8n Editor UI. Edit Template Before switching back to the n8n editor, click on the button in Bannerbear and copy the . Back in the n8n editor, we will add a Bannerbear node to automate creating variations of our template. Settings / API Key Project API Key In the Bannerbear node, add a new credential and paste the there. Select ‘Cocktail Recipe’ as the from the dropdown. Now, click on the button, select ‘Wait for Image’, and toggle the button to activate it. Since Bannerbear takes a few seconds to generate the image, this option makes sure that the node waits until the image has been created and passes the image URL in the result. Project API Key Template ID Add Field Now, under the section, click on the button. We’ll have to add multiple layers and the corresponding data for that layer. For the field, select the ‘talk title’ layer. In the field, click on the gears icon next to the field, and click on button to open the . Now, select the following variable: Modifications Add Modification Name Text Add Expressions Variable Selector Nodes > Airtable > Output Data > JSON > fields > What's the title of your talk? Similarly, go ahead and add the other modifications as well. While specifying adding a modification for the profile image, make sure to add the expression in the Image URL field and not the text field. Click on the Execute Node button and it should generate the images for you. Here’s a GIF of me following the steps mentioned above. 3. Trello node: Conduct a final review Finally, we want the shortlisted speakers to get added to a column on the Trello board. This will enable the organizers to learn more about the speakers and their experiences and help them make an informed final decision on the sessions. I created a Trello board that looks like the following. In the n8n Editor UI, add a Trello node. For the credentials, you will need to enter the API Key, API Token, and the OAuth Secret. You can obtain all these details from this . page Now, we need to enter the . This is the ID of the list (column) where the new cards will be added. For us, that’s the column. Go to the URL of the current page, add .json at the end of the URL, and press enter. For example, the URL of the Trello board for me is . List ID Shortlisted Sessions https://trello.com/b/HLj5y1gc/conference-cfp I would then add .json at the end of the URL and open . https://trello.com/b/HLj5y1gc/conference-cfp.json Press ‘Ctrl (command) + F’ and look for the phrase ‘Shortlisted Sessions’. Copy the corresponding ID and paste that in n8n. For the name of the card, I added the talk title (using the Variable Selector) and added the following expression as the description of the Trello card. Abstract: {{$node[ ].json[ ][ ]}}


Name: {{$node[ ].json[ ][ ]}}

Bio: {{$node[ ].json[ ][ ]}}

Email: {{$node[ ].json[ ][ ]}}

Twitter: {{$node[ ].json[ ][ ]}} "Airtable" "fields" "Please share the abstract of your talk." "Airtable" "fields" "Great, can we get your full name?" "Airtable" "fields" "Please share a bit of information about you." "Airtable" "fields" "And what's your email address?" "Airtable" "fields" "Your twitter handle" It would also make sense to attach the promotional banner that was generated by Bannerbear. Click on the button under the section, and select ‘URL Source’. Click on and select the following in the : Add Field Additional Fields Add Expressions Variable Selector Nodes > Bannerbear > Output Data > JSON > image_url Now, click on the button, and it will create the cards on Trello, ready for the organizers to make their final selection. Here’s a GIF of me following the steps mentioned above. Execute Node Workflow 3— Notifying accepted speakers As an exercise, you can create another workflow with the Trello Trigger node, which starts the workflow when a card gets moved to the list. The workflow can then generate additional promotional banners (for different social media channels) for the speakers to share, as an attachment to the acceptance email. Final Sessions Conclusion In this tutorial, we discussed how to automate the tasks related to the speaker submissions before the conference. You can also automate a lot of manual tasks during and after the conference to save time and improve the conference experience. Which other processes would you automate in your conference or meetup? Which nodes would you use for your workflows? I’d love to check out what you create. Please consider your workflows with the community. sharing In case you’ve run into an issue while following the tutorial, feel free to reach out to me on or ask for help on our 💙 Twitter forum Previously published at https://medium.com/n8n-io/automating-conference-organization-processes-with-n8n-ab8f64a7a520

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Artificial intelligence (AI) – a computer science term that describes machines and computers which mimic such cognitive human functions as learning and problem solving – and machine learning (ML) – the study of algorithms and statistical models that computers use to perform tasks without being given explicit instructions – are undisputedly two of the most transformative technologies to have been developed in recent years. Both have already impacted a whole range of sectors with the scope of their application getting wider and wider every year. Costs getting higher While both AI and ML have already become mainstream technologies in many fields, their use in fighting cybercrime has until now been mainly limited to only some of the largest organizations. However, according to experts, this will now be changing fast. Indeed, we can safely assume that in the coming year’s AI- and ML-based cybersecurity tools will become indispensable almost everywhere, argued Lovlesh Chhabra, Vice President, Membership Platforms, at Verizon Media. The growing costs related to security breaches are one of the main reasons for this. Much as many companies may still be reluctant to invest more in security tools, they may want to consider the damage a failure to secure vital assets entails, added Chhabra who in the years 2011-2017 worked as Director of Product Management – Consumer Platforms at Yahoo where he was responsible for developing the company’s Account Key solution. The solution helped protect Yahoo’s users during a historic breach into Yahoo email accounts. A 2019 report conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by IBM Security found out that . In the US, it stands at almost . For its part, a report released by Juniper Research last year predicts that the global business losses resulting from cybercrime data breaches will increase by nearly 70% over the 2019-2024 period to reach more than USD 5 trillion. Chhabra pointed out that the costs are not only about clean-up expenses but also include brand and reputation damage. the average total cost of a data breach amounts to over USD 3.9 million USD 8.2 million AI battling AI Importantly, the risks related to data breaches are magnified by the fact that malware keeps getting more and more destructive and that cybercrime is today often sponsored by states. What is more, cybercriminals themselves are increasingly often using AI in their attacks with a view to defeating authentication measures and avoiding being detected. All of this means that cybersecurity AI needs to be employed to fend off such advanced attacks. Indeed, studies show that if properly used the latest technologies can significantly lower cybercrime risks and costs. How can they help? First of all, ML can sift through huge amounts of data to identify assets that need to be protected, as well as to find errors in code and other vulnerabilities, Chhabra claimed. He added that AI-based tools can also be useful for fixing bugs. Crucially, AI can be instrumental in enhancing already existing security practices such as authentication methods.

AI, ML Increasingly Indispensable in the Fight Against Cybercrime

Learning is a journey that never ends. At every point in your career, you will keep learning, re-learning, and un-learning. The ability to find answers to problems is key, and these answers can be gotten by either debugging, googling or asking questions. These are skills everyone should learn. While asking questions is great, doing it the wrong or less effective way might lead to many hours of unproductive work. In this article show you how to ask effective questions, become a better googler and hone your problem-solving skills. The Read Search Ask Method freeCodeCamp came up with this amazing method for their students called the method where you can solve your problems efficiently alongside respecting other people’s time, too. Read Search Ask It is expected that you follow these three steps orderly before you ask a question. - the error or documentation Read - Google or Stackoverflow Search - for help Ask 🔬📚 Read your Errors The first step to finding a solution(s) to your problem is to understand the problem itself. Many developers ask questions without understanding the problem. Remember you want to ask questions efficiently and also respect the time of the individual you will be asking. Most often, the answers to your bugs are in the errors itself. It wouldn't be nice to ask questions that you could have solved yourself if you had read the errors itself. One great way to debug your errors is to log the error on your console or terminal and read the errors. Five things can happen at this stage: - You identify the bug - You determine the location of the bug (possible a file or section of your code) - You understand the cause(s) of the bug - You outline possible fixes of the bug - You implement the possible fixes Most often, just this step alone can help you solve your problem and the more you practice this, the better you become at debugging and fixing issues. Some bugs might be more complex than your capacity, and you need to seek external help or resources. Read Documentation Let's assume you couldn't fix your issues from the first step (but you were able to identify the bug at least); then you need to read some documentation. This might not apply to all bugs, but ensure to run your issue through this step before moving to the next. After identifying your bug, it's time to determine the cause and outline possible fixes. Documentation is a set of documents provided on paper, or online, or on digital or analogue media, such as audio tape or CDs. Examples are user guides, white papers, on-line help, quick-reference guides. Paper or hard-copy documentation has become less common. ~ Wikipedia Documentation serves as the official guide of a particular programming language, framework, library or technology. The best place to get the first-hand resource on a specific issue is to check the official help guide of the technology. You might have misconfigured something, installed some wrong package or forgot to import something and to read the docs of the tech responsible for the bug will help you find a fix quickly. Recently I was working on a Gatsby project, and I ran into some console errors and blank white page in production, meanwhile this didn't occur in development. : t.test is not a TypeError function So vague right? After identifying the bug location, reading the docs and trying out several fixes, I discovered that in the gatsby google analytics plugin configuration; I left the array meant to avoid sending pageview hits from custom paths empty. plugins: [
    { : , : { : , : , : , : , : [ ], : ,
      }
] resolve `gatsby-plugin-google-analytics` options trackingId 'UA-XXXXXXXX-1' head false anonymize true respectDNT true exclude '' pageTransitionDelay 0 After 3 hours of reading the error, trying to identify the bug and reading Gatsby docs, I figured that the option had no values in them and removing this fixed my issue since I didn't need to exclude any page after all. exclude[] This shows why you should spend some time debugging. It might take some time; it will be frustrating, the bug might look stupid, the fix might be simple, but it's worth it. The more time you spend debugging, the better you become and the faster you will fix even more complex bugs next time. ~ meme src :) 🔍 Search Now you have read your errors and several docs, but your bug is becoming more complex, it's time to search the web "effectively". One best place to search for solutions to your issues is since it already crawls content from several webpages, dev communities and docs like , , , , , , amongst many others. Google StackOverflow Hashnode FreeCodeCamp News MDN CSS tricks Hackernoon Here are some best Google search tips you can try to get answers better efficiently: - Add a specific domain to channel your search to a particular website and save some time. You can append the to your search, and it'll return only results from that website. site: sitename - Search for specific title and text in specific sites. This will allow your results to include resources related to the title or text keyword you specified. intitle:axe intitle:axe intext:web ui testing intitle:axe intext:web ui testing site:bolajiayodeji.com - Add specific keywords to your search and pull out individual details like file paths. If your bug is related to Python, add it to your search query, if it is related to Objects, add it too. This will streamline the results to a wider range of possible resources related to your bug as there are Objects in just almost every programming language. -  Google automatically omits most non-alphanumeric characters from your queries. Symbols like are not included in your search. You can hence focus on more specific keywords, as discussed above. `!@#$%^&*(){}[]<> - Copy and paste your errors (removing specific information); there is a 99.9% chance that someone else has encountered the same error and has maybe opened some issue or written an article about it. Never underestimate the power of StackOverflow and GitHub issues. - Search within the past few years since programming changes in just some time. This will ensure you don't hit redundant resources. - Reiterate, try different keywords and more general keywords multiple times and open multiple tabs until you find an answer. This might be awkward at first, but as you consistently do this, you'll get better, and with time it will take you less time and tabs to find an answer. 🗨️ Ask Now comes the sought diamond. I would advise, before you ask ANY question, ensure you have completed step 1 and 2. This might be hard, but the earlier you get used to this, the better you grow. I've had people ask me questions, and when I copy and paste their question on Google, the first result answers the question 100%. This doesn't feel great. Most often, I'll have to send the link to them; meanwhile, they could have done this themselves and save me some time alongside increasing their problem-solving skill. Even if your next-door neighbour works at Google, if your Dad is a Software Engineer if your close friend has two years experience than you, try not to ask them questions until you have invested time into finding solutions yourself. This would help you: - Build more self-confidence as you won't need to rely so much on others. (What if that close friend is unavailable to respond to you someday, what will you do?!) - Save the time of whomever you are planning to ask questions. There are tons of developers around the world, and you might not be the only one asking that same person questions. By completing step 1 and 2 first, you are also helping others with lesser experience than you or more complex problems to get answers quickly. - Build your problem-solving, debugging, research and googling skills. These are essential skills that will help you become a better developer. You only master a skill when you consistently practice it, so ensure to practice this regularly and watch yourself grow and master the art. Now you have completed both steps, but you need external help from a mentor, senior developer, team lead, local community, group or friend. How then do you ask questions effectively? - Complete step 1 and ensure you understand the problem already - Complete step 2 so you might at least have gotten some insights into possible causes and solutions of the problem - Now make some your research, you are either asking the question in dev communities like [Stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/) or [Hashnode](https://hashnode.com/) or requesting help from an individual you feel has more experience than you. - Developers answering questions on dev communities are sacrificing their time to help you, help them also by asking "clear and concise questions". You should choose your words deliberately and precisely, constructing your sentences carefully to avoid confusions. From step 1 and step 2, properly draft your questions based on: - The "problem" you have encountered - Your thoughts on what you think might be wrong "based on your research." - Proof of research efforts (Devs would be happier to help you once they see you have made some effort already). Add links to resources you have checked and solutions you have tried already - Be conversant with tools like , , , , and so you can easily provide a link to a snippet of your code, a working project or without having to type so much text. . CodePen CodeSandBox GitHub Gist Repl.it GitHub mimimal reproduction Please try as much as possible not to paste code that is more than one line in chat - Take clean and clear screenshots where necessary. Most often, you can take a snapshot of your console errors for smaller issues. Ensure you don't strain the eyes of whomever you are asking a question. Take specific and clear screenshots related to your error. - Be sure you're asking the right person or community. Don't ask a python related question to someone who knows just Java. Your research from the previous step will help you here. It's also great to bookmark specific communities, individuals or groups where you will regularly ask questions based on how effective their responses have been to you. - Now don't be afraid to ask. I've had my share of toxic responses from people who respond with comments like "this is simple", "come on, google it", "you should know this", and you might have too :(. The internet is a combination of good and toxic individuals who might be or not welcoming. Be confident in yourself, you have done your part by completing step 1 and 2, so ask the question freely. Conclusion You don't need to "know it all", you just need to "know it and know-how and where to find more knowledge." Dear 10x, Senior, "It's Simple", Engineer, please note that you're hurting developers asking questions. I had to battle so much with my self-confidence some years ago, and it took me a while to get over it. There is so much for learners to battle with already (learning, imposter syndrome, and personal issues), please don't add to it, be welcoming, make them feel like they belong here and support them. Your response can intentionally or unintentionally influence someones decision to ask questions freely next time. If you can't or won't be available, you can either not respond at all or respond friendly with feedback. Refer people to your friends if you don't have the capabilities to attend to them, give constructive criticism and ensure you don't leave a question without feedback or impact. Beginner developers need support. Learning to code is hard, especially if you're doing it alone. If you're learning in a traditional classroom, be sure to network with the other students. Do homework together. Discuss the problems. If you're learned online, it's very easy to get discouraged. Find chat spaces with others who are on a similar journey and use that space to encourage one another. Twitter also makes the experts accessible to you (reason #49948 why I love Twitter). Find the experts in whatever it is you're learning and consume their content. Ask them questions if you need to. The key is not to do it alone. ~ Angie Jones The industry is increasing daily; we are all trying to learn and get better at different levels. A lot of developer are supportive and making resources available for consumption. Ensure you are a part of this movement, consume available resources, contribute to these resources and be a helper in any way you can. communities Thank you to all the amazing developers across the globe, creating and sharing contents/ projects, your contribution(s) are the pillars holding the tech ecosystem today. 🙏💙 Quick note, I interview awesome women in tech on the at where I understand the current health of the tech industry, get insights from their personal and career growth, and inspire other women to become better. Read all past interviews , trust me it's worth your time. :) She Inspires Hashnode here Don't spend your entire life waiting for the best time making that move, write that article, build that side-project, apply for that job or ask that question today. The best time is always now!

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Ask Better Questions, Get Smarter Answers: A Practical Guide for Devs

In recent years, the payments industry has been actively putting the “Less paperwork” slogan into practice. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, process automation was going full steam ahead, but now the coronavirus seems to make it soar even higher. I spoke to Alexander Kaufher , xpate Head of AML (Anti-Money Laundering Department), to figure out how identity-verification automation is working and why electronic identification will be used for up to 90% of all applications in 5 years. Before and after the pandemic — The payments industry is actively fighting against money laundering and financing of terrorism. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the external circumstances have changed, but the goal of AML is still the same  -to  make sure that the client is not blacklisted. We have to thoroughly check  compliance with legal regulations and be confident that the merchant has the right to provide the declared services. For instance, merchants must have the appropriate license or permission, act in accordance with the requirements of VISA and MasterCard and their transactions must exclusively  comply with the declared activity. Before the pandemic, the whole world used a common procedure for opening an account in a bank or payment system. You had to visit the office with the pack of documents in your hands. It allowed the bank to identify you, check the legitimacy and authenticity of your documents, copy and notarize them. During self-isolation, it  became no longer possible, so the companies are switching to online identification. Before the introduction of social distancing, electronic identification represented approximately 40% of the total number of applications. Now it’s the only way to work with clients Smile for the camera We use the service for electronic identity verification, but in general all similar products work according to the same scheme. During the registration we ask an applicant to take a photo of a passport or ID-card. In just a couple of seconds, the program checks the acquired data for membership in terrorists organizations, applicable restrictions and sanctions lists, the passport’s MRZ-code, expiration date and many other things. After that we ask the person to make a selfie. It helps to compare the biometric data with the passport. The program can easily distinguish an actual person from a photograph put in front of the camera. Moreover, right after turning the camera on, it begins to record a video. So we know that the person is actually taking pictures and does it voluntarily. The service automatically compares the person’s data with the company’s registration documents and  verifies that this person is authorised to sign documents or open accounts. In 3 years fraudsters never managed to deceive this solution. We can say that it is 99% effective, and 1 potential percent is left to supernatural circumstances. Sum&Substance Now, especially during the quarantine period, E-commerce offers a huge advantage. While all the travel is banned, the Internet is the only way to stay afloat, the only opportunity to save business. It was the technology of electronic identification that allowed us to retain all the clients during a difficult period of Covid-19 pandemic. The future is here In my opinion, the only correct way of electronic identification’s development in the future is the creation of a global base of human faces linked with electronic documents. China is one step ahead in it: customers there are to use , where face recognition verifies identity even without your smartphone, so you can show your face, open the door to select the product, and then close it to complete the purchase. goBox smart vending machines In a short while, all the necessary information will be stored in smartphones. A complete departure from paper is ahead. This is great, as it will guarantee that only the exact person can use his or her data as the access to documents and other important information will be denied without face recognition. Eliminating the possibility of bribery is another advantage of electronic identification. A few years ago it was possible in some countries to get a loan using another person’s passport copy – do you remember that?  Electronic identification wouldn’t allow this to happen. In my opinion, a 90% transition to this technology will take place in the nearest 5 years. How do you feel about this scenario? Let me know below.

Why Your Face Will Become Your Main ID

Transitioning into product management can feel like being air-dropped into a war zone. From the moment you hit the ground there are new people and ideas bombarding you from every angle, and everything seems to be on fire. There is no clearly defined way to reach your destination, but you know you can’t just sit there. For most new product managers starting out, this is a critical moment for your career and the habits you build out as a product manager. But…why project managers? That’s a great question! One of the most difficult things about product management is figuring out your responsibilities, and the responsibilities of others. in particular has a high degree of overlap, and it doesn’t help that most companies still view the two roles similarly. Project management I frequently see product people fall into the trap of either doing someone else’s job, or mistakingly spending too much time on tasks that don’t actually help move the product forward. Below I’ll cover some common pitfalls I’ve encountered in my career that lead new product managers to act like project managers. By understanding these pitfalls new product managers will better understand the real value their job is supposed to provide. Pitfall 1 — Never Creating or Owning a Product Vision Let’s start with defining what a product vision is before diving in too deep. is the long-tail goal of what you want to achieve, the ultimate end-state you want your product to be. This can apply to owning an entire platform, all the way down to owning a small feature. More importantly, ! How? Product vision a product vision will always exist, even if you don’t know what it is It’s actually pretty simple, if you’ve never heard or explained the product vision to someone, it’s whatever they perceive it to be. From the day you were hired on as a product manager, your product already had stakeholders (surprise!). Sales has been trying to sell features that haven’t shipped yet, the CEO is selling features you haven’t even heard of yet, and clients were promised all this a year ago. The underlying problem? When there’s not a shared vision, perceived vision leads to perceived product focus, which further devolves into everyone demanding different things for what should be a common goal. This puts a new product manager at a crossroads — do you give into stakeholders and optimize the demands coming in, or is there something else you can do? An existing vision is easy to go along with, even if you know it isn’t the best one to pursue. Especially if the loudest demands are coming from executives or senior leadership. Presenting new info could make it seem like you’re challenging the status quo, which is uncomfortable. So how does this relate to project management? When a product manager loses the ability to identify and unify the company on their long-term vision of a product, you switch from satisfying a problem in the market to meeting specific success criteria (releasing a feature request). This usually ends up with the product person doing a lot of work that never really evolves the product holistically, and ironically still leaves . most stakeholders disappointed More critically what happens if you don’t have a North Star (product vision)? For most new product managers, this leaves them searching for a way to gauge their contribution to the company, which leads to the second pitfall… Pitfall 2 — Mistaking execution for progress People don’t do well with ambiguity, especially if they don’t feel in control of their destiny or purpose. Maybe you were someone like me who started in product by coming in from an operational role with clearly defined responsibilities and scope. Life to this point has had clearly defined goals, but once you become a product manager your days start to look a lot more like this: So what happens? Most people will gravitate toward something that makes it feel like they’re adding to the cause. For product managers without a product vision, this tends to results in some of the following behaviors: Spending your time prioritizing a backlog with tickets older than your professional career (also known as a ) Feature Factor Comparing roadmap software because your roadmap is “too big to display in a meeting” Writing product requirement documents that rival the length of War & Peace What’s the problem? If a project manager delivers a project on-time, as spec’d, and no one uses it — they’ve still done their job of delivering something within a specified time. If a product manager does this, they have failed miserably at their job. Output is a limited-time proxy for progress. If you are a product manager and can write out a feature with the same detail as an engineer, you’re not spending enough time talking to customers or understanding where the market is going. Rearranging your short-term roadmap for the ‘n-th’ time isn’t going to save you from building a product that no one wants. Plus, if you don’t even know the end goal (product vision), how do you even know if you’re going the right way? JIRA So as a new product manager you see the situation you’ve put yourself in and recognize the need to change, but how? The answer is define a product strategy, which brings us to pitfall #3… Pitfall 3 — Treating the product strategy like a voting exercise So product strategy sounds cool, but what exactly is it? is the tactical way a product manager intends to reach their product vision. Unlike product vision, product strategy requires taking into account the limited resources and time a business has to prove a concept. Product strategy is not perfect either, and will likely change over time. The point is that it produces actionable steps to move you toward your product vision. Product Strategy Just like project management, product strategy includes optimizing limited resources to deliver a piece of work. The difference is that a project manager will be judged by their ability to , while a product manager is judged relative to product and company goals. While you share similar constraints, the expected outputs are very different. best deliver a project based on those resources So if a product manager is judged based on company goals, why not simply take the list of requests everyone has and do them in stack-rank order? Sure it may suck, but after a few hours of holding your key stakeholders hostage you should have a nice prioritized list, right? While this may seem innocuous, there are a slew of issues with this. Roger Cauvin has an from a few years ago that highlights some of the key points: excellent post about this Without a unified vision of what is important, feature prioritization becomes horse trading What happens when the list ultimately changes? Now you have to update every single stakeholder because there was no cohesive vision What happens when the most important thing ships and it wasn’t important? How does that affect your relationship with stakeholders at position 2/3/4? The problem? People in your company all have different goals, and siloed goals tend to compete with each other. Voting polls or an attempt to ‘magic formula’ your way to a product via a spreadsheet doesn’t create a better product. In fact, voting sacrifices organizational cohesiveness and product strategy for short-term decision making. A product manager making this mistake will walk away not fully understanding how agreed upon priorities relates to users and products. This is dangerous — if a product manager doesn’t understand why they are building something, neither will the engineers. Sales won’t understand the benefit to their clients, marketing won’t understand how to position it, and the product will ultimately suffer. So now that we’ve gone over 3 pitfalls, how do we address them? Solution 1 — Obsess over the problem you’re solving, not the solution to the problem If a product manager does not properly , it will cascade down to everything else you do. If you build something without understanding what the problem is or who the problem is experienced by, then you’ll build something no one wants. Plus a solution can change over time, even if the problem remains the same. understand the problem they are trying to solve By finding out the true problem(s) a user is experiencing, you create a commonly understood problem the company is collectively trying to solve, vs. a solution to something that may not actually be a problem in the first place. You’ll also find that if the problem is well understood, you don’t need to resort to blind feature prioritization or pet projects. Instead, everything becomes a question of whether something adds or detracts from solving the problem at hand. By doing this, you are able to build toward a vision that will live beyond the scope of any single project. Solution 2 — Communicate in ways that are meaningful to your stakeholders Product management is very much a game of psychology. It’s impossible for a product manager to deliver any kind of product without a team to execute on the vision. Not only that, but you need to unite a diverse group of people with different talents and motivations toward an ambiguous future state (the product vision). But how can someone unify people with different goals towards a common path? One of the simplest and most impactful things that will accelerate your career as a product manager is to . wrote a on this a few years back that I would highly recommend reading. Yes, that means actually going to people, asking them what success looks like for them, and actively listening to what they have to say. Internal stakeholder goals are just as important as external stakeholders because it can affect your ability to deliver the solution to the problem. learn and care about the goals of other stakeholders Paul Jackson great article By understanding a problem, how others understand and talk about the space, and the things they need to be successful, you can start to have conversations with people in a way that is meaningful to them. By showing people you care, you’re giving them a reason to put their trust in you to help them succeed. But how do you go about communicating in ways that people from different backgrounds can understand? As a product manager this means learning the roles of other people in your organization, understanding what’s important to them, and how your knowledge can help them succeed. This can happen in simple way like: Talking through new competitors in the market you’ve done research on to marketing so that they can craft thought pieces Letting the business development team know about new companies you’re excited about so they can start seeking out potential partnerships Telling sales how your product can drive down costs for certain user groups so they have an unique angle on how to position the product As a plus, a well-understood problem combined with a way to translate it to different stakeholders can be crafted into a compelling product vision. This is a powerful way to unify people and drive toward a common overarching goal. Solution 3 — Be ruthless aligning metrics to your product strategy and vision are a disaster almost anytime companies decide to use them, so much so Marty Cagan has even . But why? OKRs at their core are meant as an empowerment technique — here is a company goal, now create your own goals to work toward solving it. OKRs stopped recommending them to companies What they usually become is a free-for-fall for departments to set their own agendas or create like ‘obtain more customers’ or ‘release product x’. This doesn’t come from a bad place, but once again fills the void when there is not a coherent and understandable product strategy in place. At its worst, this can completely blind the business to what success actually looks like! over-obvious goals I chose to pick on OKRs because one of the most important aspects of product strategy is showing stakeholders that you are moving towards some kind of end-state. This boils down to choosing metrics that provide proof that your product strategy is moving you toward your ultimate product vision. This is challenging because it requires thinking of something that is not only measurable, but meaningful. A good metric should always tie into a meaningful future state along your product strategy. For example, if your product vision is ‘create the largest marketplace for authentic luxury sneakers on the planet’: : Increase traffic to the site by 100% Bad metric Your traffic increases but revenue is flat, so the metric may not support a sustainable growth path Why?: : Increase sales on the platform by 15% Better metric Your revenue increases, but customer complaints are up since an increase of counterfeits appeared on the site Why?: Increase sales by 15% while holding complaint rate flat Better still: : This goal not only moves the company forward (revenue), but also accounts for conditions that could skew actual ‘success’ Why? If you can point to a product vision, a product strategy (increase sales), then a metric that ties those together, you will save yourself hundreds of hours a year trying to get people on the same page. In fact, you may even find yourself with free time since you have given people a single coherent framework where they can best apply their skills to work toward a common goal that matters! Product management is a hectic field that often feels like swimming through a sea of possibilities and people pulling you in different directions. It’s important that as product managers we not only understand where to prioritize time, but also how to best unify and rally the people around us to collectively achieve greatness. Hopefully this was helpful to anyone out there, and feel free to reach out or comment below with questions/comments. Thanks for reading!

Too Many Product Managers End Up as Project Managers

The cyber threat intelligence market is expected to keep growing with new and improved commercial security products and managed security services. As part of these offerings, comprehensive and accurate threat intelligence sources such as domain intelligence are essential in facilitating threat detection, correlation, mitigation, and response. At the very least, domain name records can be compared against information published on a website or shared in an email. A claim of being in business for 10+ years by a potential business partner is indeed assessable by looking at its domain's registration date and age. However, that piece of information takes on a whole new meaning when analyzed together with registrant's details, domain reputation, website category, and other enrichment angles. In this post, we take a closer look at domain intelligence lookups and capabilities that can be used for deeper contextualization as part of cybersecurity operations, law enforcement investigations, and SIEM, SOAR, and TIP platforms. What is Domain Intelligence? Domain intelligence is the process of monitoring and identifying trends and interesting events in domain name registrations and their ownership details using data feeds, APIs, lookup tools, and other consumption models. In cybersecurity, domain intelligence helps detect and take the necessary precautionary measures against domain-related threats, including typosquatting, phishing, business email compromise, and third-party vulnerabilities. Top 8 Domain Intelligence Sources an Organization Can Benefit From We compiled eight domain intelligence sources that can help organizations strengthen their cybersecurity strategies. 1. WHOIS WHOIS information comprises comprehensive domain registration details, including a domain's age, expiration date, registrant details, administrative contact details, and technical contact information. It also returns the list of hostnames that the domain uses. Organizations that don't allow employees to make external API calls can use 's Web-based counterpart, . Those who wish to obtain more detailed results for investigations can subscribe to , which is part of the Domain Research Suite. WHOIS API WHOIS Lookup WHOIS Search 2. Bulk WHOIS Bulk WHOIS is useful for organizations that want to know the WHOIS information of multiple domains or IP addresses at once. With a single query, users can retrieve the WHOIS records of up to 500,000 domains or IP addresses, downloadable in comma-separated values (CSV) format. Like WHOIS API, users can also make bulk WHOIS queries via 's Web-based counterpart, . Bulk WHOIS API Bulk WHOIS Lookup 3. Domain Availability Domain Availability lets users know if a domain name is available for registration or not. When used as part of the Domain Research Suite, users can easily do a WHOIS lookup if a domain is unavailable according to so they'd know its ownership details. Users can also set up domain monitoring so they'd get alerted when the domain is dropped. also has a Web-based counterpart, Domain Availability Lookup, which is ideal for organizations that don't allow employees to make outside API calls. Domain Availability Check Domain Availability API 4. WHOIS History A domain could have a long history that a simple WHOIS search won't reveal. With the help of , users can unveil over ten years' worth of WHOIS ownership details. Users can also rely on , which is part of the Domain Research Suite, or WHOIS History Lookup as alternatives. WHOIS History API WHOIS History Search 5. Domain Research Suite The is a web-based domain intelligence source that includes three of the four WHOIS search tools discussed above—WHOIS History Search, WHOIS Search, and Domain Availability Check. It also includes . Domain Research Suite Reverse WHOIS Search Aside from domain research, the suite also allows users to conduct domain, registrant, and brand monitoring, as it includes Domain Monitor, Registrant Monitor, and Brand Monitor. All these tools practically alert them when domains that satisfy their search terms are registered, updated, or dropped. 6. DNS Lookup and allow users to look into the Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure of a given domain name. Users can retrieve up to 50 different DNS record types, including the domain's corresponding IP address, mail servers, and name servers. DNS Lookup DNS Lookup API 7. Domain Reputation comes in handy when users need to assess a domain's or an IP address's reputation without accessing it. The API gleans data from different domain intelligence sources, including WHOIS records, host configurations, and various malware data feeds, and summarizes findings with a score and main relevant warnings. Domain Reputation Users who can't make external API calls can use its Web-based counterpart, Domain Reputation Lookup. 8. Website Categorization uses machine learning (ML) to retrieve a site's content and meta tags. It then uses natural language processing (NLP) to make sense of the extracted text and assign categories to the website. The service has around 25 categories. And each site can belong to up to three types. For easier access and report sharing, users can rely on Website Categorization Lookup as well. Website Categorization --- Enterprise security can employ the above-cited sources of domain intelligence and others such as and to augment their cybersecurity systems. Although most of them can be used in conjunction with other sources to derive comprehensive insights, some can serve as standalone cybersecurity tools. Typosquatting Data Feed Newly Registered & Just Expired Domains

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“Notebooks” are web applications that run on the browser which basically give you, the user, an interface to a virtual machine that runs an out-of-the-box environment. They are based on the project — an open-source project that brings machine learning development to your browser! No more virtual environment set-up hassle from now on. Which is great news since a lot of developers want to deal only with data science projects and not get derailed from that by needing to configure and set up their computers. Jupyter Notebook By using “notebooks”, you don’t have to set up an environment to begin with. Building machine learning applications now comes out of the box with notebooks. Why They’re Useful :They are useful because they reduce the time that a developer takes to set up his/her environment: install packages, update them to the required versions, and any other network or file-structure configurations that take time to set-up. And all that needs to be done BEFORE jumping into developing the apps themselves. Now, with notebooks, everything is set-up and ready to go in a matter of seconds. Ease of use : Notebooks can be shared easily and built upon incrementally. This allows projects to be worked on in a flexible manner. You don’t need to waste time anymore with getting the latest version of your project and sending in your updated version or dealing with conflicting versions and editing mistakes. It works like a Google Drive document which is being constantly updated (or a Git repository). Collaboration Notebooks are easy ways to bundle and upload to a shareable web page. The tools are evolving, the theory of data science is developing and Jupyter Notebooks now reduces deployment time to a matter of seconds. This makes it an invaluable tool for education platforms which showcase projects and tutorials. Other collaborative online projects can take advantage of this trait and leverage it to its needs. Google has built some tools which make use of Jupiter Notebooks. Portability: Jupyter notebooks were built initially for Python, R and Julia. Those are the most popular languages used in Machine Learning. Python being used in Google’s machine learning framework Tensoorflow and in Facebook’s PyTorch. R and Julia are reputable as well and have been used for a long time. Nowadays, the Jupyter Notebook has extended its reach to many other programming langurages including JavaScript, C++ and Ruby. Multiple Programming Languages: the interface has a modern look and provides many useful controls. Code can also be run one block at a time, which makes debugging easier. Certain subsystems of the notebook server are designed to be extended or overridden by users. This means that the notebooks are customisable. Nice Interface: How Do I Use Them? There is an increasing number of third parties who make use of notebooks on their platforms. , or “Colab” for short, is a product from Google Research. Colab enables users to write and execute python code through the browser. It is especially well suited to machine learning, data analysis and education. Colaboratory is a hosted Jupyter notebook service that requires no setup to use, while providing free access to computing resources. Colaboratory Collaboratory is great for testing some machine learning projects that you found on github. : an joint educational platform and experimentation platform. Users create they’re own solutions and implement machine learning algorithms. The site has numerous “kernels” from which people can investigate how their peers tackled a problem and what they used to optimise their results. This platform is a great hub for community and learning within the machine learning space. Kaggle Sites like Kaggle brings community together making it easy for machine learning developers to learn from each other. : for any private uses (in which you prefer to avoid sharing your work via github or any other public platform) you can spin up your own server that serves Jupyter Notebooks. You can also customise them to fit your project needs or even your own branding! Personal server Being an open-source project, there is always the option of tayloring your own custom Jupyter Notebook-based solution. Conclusion The Notebooks have enabled users to access computing resources and to prototype machine learning agents quickly and without hassle in out-of-the-box environments, reducing the set-up time to 0. It is a huge leap that made it possible for communities to access and tweak their own implementations, improving on one-another and establishing machine-learning development further into the open-source space.

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