We are a company from God's Own Country ? working on Shopify\n\nWe are minimalists, bootstrapped, profitable and in it for the long term\n\nOur products are already being used by 1000s of E-Commerce stores \u0026 D2C brands globally!\n\nFun Fact: If you've ever bought from D2C brands using Shopify, chances are you might have seen those Beautiful and Professional Invoices we created! Aiming to be #1 player on this space similar to Sufio \u0026 Order Printer

Final Apps

finalapps

If you are a content creator, the chances are you have come across stretched, shrank, non-centered or pixelated images after the posting of your material. Those are mostly caused due to uploading images with a low resolution or inappropriate aspect ratio. Visual material gets the most attention and is one of the main criteria that creates the professional impression about your work, therefore it is especially important to get right. Nothing can be worse than a well-written blog with a poorly formatted cover image, for example. During this month I came up with a solution, that allows you to forget about all the technical issues with resolutions and aspect ratios. In this article, we will review it. 💻 The project is live at: cropper.madza.dev 💾 The code is available at: GitHub repo This project was built specifically as an entry for the and hackathon. It was an awesome experience since the participation motivated me and I came up with a product that could hopefully benefit others as well. Hashnode Netlify How do resolutions and aspect ratios relate? 👀 I'm sure you already know the definition for both of them: Image resolution describes the image size as the number of pixels it contains. It is expressed by width versus height, such as "1920x1080". The aspect ratio of an image is the proportions of its width to its height, and is expressed with two numbers separated by a colon, such as "16:9". If the resolution is known, you can calculate the aspect ratio. Another way around, if the aspect ratio is known you can scale up the image up and down till it reaches a certain resolution. The headaches for content creators 🤯 The recommended resolution for uploads is often hidden. Sometimes the sites include a note below the upload button, but still, for the custom resolutions, we have to find the right aspect ratio first and then use 3rd party tools to scale it up or down. Some sites try to solve this by using the crop tools on the upload step, but even if they do, you might still end up getting a pixelated image after upload since only the correct aspect ratio is set and no information about the recommended resolution is provided. On top of all that, different sites might use different image processing techniques. If the uploaded image does not provide the required aspect ratio, it might get positioned to fit the width or height of the parent container. Manually using browser dev tools to inspect image resolutions, calculating their ratios, and using external tools like or to crop images would not be the most efficient way to go. GIMP Photoshop Creating dozens of resolution templates in would probably not be the best solution, also. Canva We should focus on content creation itself. Resolutions and aspect ratios should be the last things we worry about. That's why I created . CropScore How does CropScore work? ✨ calculates the score (since the name) of how well the real-time crop will fit for the target use. All you have to do is drag and see the magic. CropScore The app provides commonly used image presets from some of the most popular sites associated with content creation. Once the preset is selected, the correct aspect ratio is locked in, and the resolution can be further changed depending on the score. The CropScore component ⚛️ When the user drags the crop window, the gives the user a fit score, that describes the level of the match between the crop window and target use in the percentages. CropScore For example, if the recommended resolution to upload (provided by the target site) is 1600x840 and your current crop window size in the app is 800x420, then the crop score will be 50. Obviously, you are aiming for 100, although near values should work as well since sites mostly display the actual image in lower resolution. Recommended resolution is often set higher since it allows making layout changes that might require displaying images in higher resolution in the future. What about custom sizes?🗜️ With you are not limited to just predefined values for common image types. In fact, the sky is the limit once you need some customization options beyond that. CropScore In the Custom panel, the users are allowed to draw any crop window sizes they want. The crop window is flexible in both the X and Y-axis. Users are able to enter the specific resolution and aspect ratios. The input validation is provided, so if the user enters configurations that can't be performed on the image, the warning message will be shown. Users can also lock in specific resolutions and aspect ratios. This way the drag window will always preserve the width and height proportions the initial drag area had. Just type it in, lock it and then drag it to whatever resolution you want. In the custom mode, the App will calculate the CropScore based on the image width returning the following formats: SD (Standard Definition), HD (High Definition), FHD (Full High Definition), and UHD (Ultra High Definition), since there is no recommended resolution to compare against. Image manipulation 🕹️ Thanks to the UI below the canvas, the user has full control over both the image itself and the crop area that is created on top of it. The variety of action buttons provides the functionality to drag, move, zoom, rotate, transform and reset. All of those can be especially useful if a precise crop is required and it can not be performed on the image on the initial load. To preserve the maximum flexibility options for the users, the crop window is movable in both the preset and custom modes. The user is able to achieve centered crops thanks to the helper grid system. Downloading the Image 💾 Once you are done with making adjustments, it's time to download the image. You can choose between JPG and PNG formats. The final image name will have "-cropped" concatenated at the end of the original name, so you can easily know which image is processed via . CropScore Use on any device Need to get the image cropped on the fly? No problem! All the desktop functionality is fully available on both tablets and mobile as well: Features list 📋 Image upload - Supported formats .JPG and .PNG Presets - Currently there are 33 presets from 10 commonly used platforms Custom mode - User is allowed to switch to custom resolutions Ratio lock - User can lock any custom aspect ratio Input validation - Informative warning messages for invalid inputs Move tools - User can move the image around Zoom tools - Zoom the image in or out to get the precise crops Rotate tools - Rotate image clockwise or counter-clockwise by 45-degree increments Transform image - Swap image on X or Y axis Helper grid - Providing help for centering Resolution data - Updated in real-time as you resize the crop window Crop score - Real-time crop score of the fit for the target use Image preview - The user is allowed to preview the crop Reset - Reset image and crop windows as they were when the image was uploaded Download - Download the image in .PNG and .JPG Responsive - Use it on any device The tech stack I used 🛠️ - React application framework NextJS - For core cropper functionality React-cropper , - For the icons Flaticon React-icons - For the components Chakra UI - To host the code GitHub - To deploy the project Netlify , - For linting and code formatting ESLint prettier - For custom subdomain (configured on Netlify) Namecheap Who would benefit from CropScore? 👍 was designed keeping the content creators as the main target audience in mind. It should be especially useful for those who cross-post the content across different platforms. CropScore Though, thanks to its customization options, it can be efficiently used by others, too. Future plans to improve 🔮 Currently the supported platforms are , , , , , , , , and . In the future I might add other sites recommended by the users. Hashnode DEV Medium Hackernoon Twitter LinkedIn YouTube Pinterest Facebook Instagram My aim is to track the future layout changes of the sites, that might affect the use of image resolutions and aspect ratios, as well as add the newly introduced media types. Final notes 🙌 is an open-source project and the code is available on the .  The feature requests are welcome. The project is under the terms of . CropScore GitHub repository MIT license I'm glad I had a chance to create a utility that community can benefit from as well. Customization opinions for users are among their main priorities, and as a result, there are more different image types to upload. Hashnode Also, thanks to for this opportunity! Before this Hackathon, I had already hosted there and would recommend it for anyone looking for an easy to configure and effective solution for deploying their apps. Netlify multiple projects Building projects have always been my passion and it gives me pleasure to help and inspire people. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! Connect me on , and ! Twitter LinkedIn GitHub Visit my for more projects like this! Portfolio Also Published Here

Introducing CropScore: An Image Cropper for Content Creators ✂✨

You can jump to any section of the National Aeronautics Science & Technology Priorities here. Appendix 1: Grand Pathways Framework and the Application to Essential Government Functions The Federal Government has prescribed a series of “Essential Government Functions” (EGFs), the complete set of functions of the Federal Government to lead and sustain the Nation. These functions include: • National essential functions (NEF)[21] • Mission essential functions (MEF)/Primary mission essential functions (PMEF)[22] • Emergency support functions (ESF)[23] • Recovery support functions (RSF)[24] • Community lifelines[25] • National critical functions (NCFs)[26] Verifying that the resilience science and technology capabilities identified within the Grand Pathways Framework align to the EGFs is an important part of ensuring that communities all the way from the individual up to the Federal Government can benefit from the proposed Framework. While the EGFs apply primarily to the Federal Government, the Grand Pathways Framework incorporates the intent and purpose of these functions on a broader scale. Instead of building another layer of complication on top of the Grand Pathways Framework, the EGFs can be understood to fold into the Framework. Therefore, it is important to understand how the EGFs align with and complement the societal dimensions and cross-cutting enablers established in the Grand Pathways Framework. These will be addressed more fully in future documentation; however, examples are provided here to demonstrate these alignments. For example, just as the cross-cutting enablers underpin the societal dimensions (i.e., delivering the desired outcome of a resilience community), the NCFs, ESFs, and RSFs enable the NEFs, MEFs, PMEFs, and Lifelines (i.e., the continued delivery of essential functions and lifelines). The NEFs align to the societal dimensions, describing the functions that need to be maintained/restored so that the United States and all of its communities can anticipate or otherwise prepare for and then withstand and evolve from disruption. Ultimately, the NEFs align to the societal dimensions as both are the ultimate goal for the United States and its communities to build resilience as shown in the table below. While there may be additional relationships beyond those shown in the table, these illustrated relationships show strong correlation between the societal dimensions and the NEFs. As the MEFs and PMEFs ensure that each Federal department and agency implements functions required to ensure continued performance of the NEFs, most (if not all) are similarly relatable to the societal dimensions. Just as a resilience community is one that maintains and builds its societal dimensions, a resilient agency is one that maintains its MEFs and PMEFs. Some MEFs and PMEFs could be seen as aligning with cross-cutting enablers, as they also are fundamentally cross-cutting enablers of the NEFs. Additionally, for some departments and agencies, the MEFs and PMEFs align to cross-cutting enablers due to the purpose of the agency. For example, the Department of Education and the Department of Labor have missions that build towards education and employment, which are both cross-cutting enablers. The ESFs, RSFs, and NCFs are the cross-cutting enablers—the building blocks that allow the maintenance of the NEFs/societal dimensions, or outcomes of resilience. The ESFs, RSFs, and NCFs are the capabilities provided by the States/locals/private companies that ensure the MEFs, PMEFs, and NEFs can be accomplished. [21] DHS/FEMA. Federal Continuity Directive 1: Federal Executive Branch National Continuity Program and Requirements (Washington, DC: FEMA, January 2017), p. 3, quoting Obama, PPD-40. Accessed March 20, 2023 [22] DHS/FEMA, Federal Continuity Directive 2, Federal Executive Branch Mission Essential Functions and Candidate Primary Mission Essential Functions Identification and Submission Process (Washington, DC: DHS/FEMA, June 2017), Annex I-1, quoting PPD-40, p. 2. Accessed March 20, 2023. https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/Federal_Continuity_Directive2_June132017.pdf [23] DHS. National Response Framework, Fourth Edition (Washington, DC: DHS, 2019), p. 33. https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/NRF_FINALApproved_2011028.pdf [24] DHS. National Disaster Recovery Framework, Second Edition (Washington, DC: DHS, June 2016), p. 36. Accessed March 20, 2023. https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/national_disaster_recovery_framework_2nd.pdf [25] DHS/FEMA. “Community Lifelines.” Accessed March 20, 2023. https://www.fema.gov/emergencymanagers/practitioners/lifelines [26] DHS/CISA. “National Critical Functions.” Accessed March 20, 2023. https://www.cisa.gov/national-critical-functions [27] National Essential Functions (NEFs) from DHS/FEMA, Federal Continuity Directive 2, Federal Executive Branch Mission Essential Functions and Candidate Primary Mission Essential Functions Identification and Submission Process (Washington, DC: DHS/FEMA, June 13, 2017), accessed December 4, 2020, https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020- 07/Federal_Continuity_Directive-2_June132017.pdf This was originally published in March 2023 on It has been broken-up into bite sized sections, each with unique headlines and AI-generated lead images, in line with the provisions of whitehouse.gov. Creative Commons 3.0.

Aligning Grand Pathways Framework with Essential Government Functions

The massive $40 million hack of Binance by a scam DeFi project is the most recent reminder that no corner of cyberspace is safe from cyber thieves. With a rise in fraudulent DeFi projects and coins, users are understandably more concerned about data protection and privacy. The increase in data breaches begs the question, can the financial services industry regain control of online data? So far, traditional financial services providers have failed to win the battle against cyber thieves. Unsurprisingly, the decentralized finance industry has become the newest target. Users of DeFi platforms have lost money and data to breaches and fraudulent activities by the platforms themselves. Fraudsters, after all, follow the money. The amount of financial assets flowing into DeFi applications, called DApps, has exploded this year. In DeFi, data privacy invaders may have met their match. Next generation blockchain technology is building smarter security solutions on open, privacy-preserving protocols. Can Open Finance Close Out Bad DeFi Actors? Like DeFi, DeFi fraud is borderless, making data privacy all the more important. In the last few months, regulators froze $2.3 billion in funds of a top 10 crypto exchange for five weeks.  U.S. securities regulators sued a $92 million crypto arbitrage hedge fund for falsifying fund exchange balances. And a Chinese investment site was closed down after investors lost $2.5 billion in a Ponzi scheme. As is often the case, investors were left in the dark about any financial irregularities until access to their financial services or wallets was blocked. The information asymmetry is surprising given the transparency, immutability and traceability of blockchain transactions. All participants — the financial services providers and users — should have access to the same information. Beyond transaction management, financial services on the blockchain has remained a black box. What’s missing from DeFi is synchrony of all financial functions with the transparent public blockchain infrastructure. Fully Transparent and Synchronous Financial Services When all financial functions are placed on smart contracts on the digital ledger, true information asymmetry and transparency will be achieved. The blockchain becomes the financial institution. Imagine an exchange or lender proving its solvency, a fund accounting for all fund flows, or an investor with a universal digital identity reporting credit defaults transparently on the blockchain. This information would be publicly auditable yet confidential at the same time. The blockchain can deliver this more transparent financial services world but currently its full potential is significantly under-utilized. Financial services have no choice but to move to the blockchain if they want to remain competitive. Owing to the transaction speed and lower costs, thousands of major investment funds are moving administrative functions to the digital ledger. Yet until now, financial institutions have been reluctant to place their full operations on the blockchain due to privacy and confidentiality concerns. Findora is one of the new blockchain architectures solving the conflict between openness and privacy to support fully open financial services. The Findora blockchain enables both transparent and confidential financial services on a cryptographically secure financial ledger. Findora employs a three layer protocol to support open privacy-preserving financial services. The NextGen Blockchain Infrastructure Distributed Fully Participative Consensus Layer 1 is the consensus protocol. The financial institution is still vulnerable to corruption if influence is not distributed fairly among the network participants. How many Chinese investors would have agreed to invest in the PonziToken protocol? The protocol scheme was allowed to flourish due to a lack of strong decentralized governance mechanisms to ensure the DApp operated in accordance with the mandate of its protocol. Findora employs a stack of consensus mechanisms to place more governance power in the hands of the financial services users. Its synchrony consensus model reduces the opportunity for corrupt actors to influence the network. The system includes a mechanism to randomly select validators, corruption tolerance to control the maximum number of seats that can be controlled by corrupt validators, and responsiveness so that transaction blocks are confirmed at the speed of the network to provide instant finality. Privacy-preserving Protocols On the blockchain, data ownership and privacy are fundamental individual rights. Public blockchains, therefore, must balance the expectation of transparent, trustless financial services with the need for privacy and compliance. Findora makes publicly audible yet privacy-preserving financial services possible through multi-party computation (MPC) and  specialized zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs). MPC allows multiple parties to compute a function while keeping the data inputs private. ZKP allows a prover to prove to a verifier that information is true — amount X was received — without revealing any further transactional and personal information, like personal income for accreditation on an investment site or credit score to secure a loan. Instead, the prover demonstrates through cryptographic algorithms that a computational statement is true. Findora employs a network of validators to enforce the rules while distributing trust. Validators are chosen through a verifiable random function (VRF) protocol to ensure no undue influence is exerted in the validation process. Employing an adaptive security protocol, a validator announces his election and casts a vote at the same instance in time. These protocols are the basis of Findora’s Passport personal identification system.  Counterparty risk is high in DeFi owing to the high volume of P2P transactions. In the case of the hedge fund recently shut down by the SEC, the manager stole money to pay off a counterparty, a Chinese loan shark. Investors should not only have knowledge of the counterparties they directly do business with, but also the counterparty exposure of the platforms they do business on. A Passport identity can be linked to any ledger address, negating the need for users of financial services to provide personal identity information for each site they sign up for.  To ensure information privacy, the credential is randomized before being added to the identity registry. Financial Service Applications Upon the Findora consensus and privacy layers, any decentralized financial application called Finapps can be built. Any use case is possible with full support for any financial asset — crypto and fiat currencies, equity and debt instruments, derivatives, and so on. Applications built on Findora and their side ledgers are interoperable. One of the innovative financial applications balancing transparency and privacy is the Smart Investment Fund (SIF).  The fund operates off a smart contact where all transactions and money flows can be recorded and tracked. The ZKP and MPC protocols allow both investors and regulators to ensure compliance while maintaining confidentiality. Interoperable DeFi DApps and Coins Blockchain platforms built on Findora are fully interoperable. Interoperable blockchains are unleashing the true power of DeFi, allowing investors to seamlessly trade, lend, and stake tokens while seeking the highest yields across DeFi DApps. For this interoperable environment, Findora has created a new species of digital asset token. Similar to the non-fungible token (NFT) that represents unique digital identifiers for, say,  your digital collectibles in a gaming world, financial services can ascribe unique digital identities to Findora tokens called anchors  through the Smart Asset Framework (SAF) programmable token protocol. Any asset can be tokenized with unique identifiers and tracked. For example: 1. Alice transfers to Anchor Z her security token from Anchor X 2. Anchor Z issues its own security token to Anchor Y 3. Anchor Y issues its own security token to Bob Many technologies are sold before their time. Only three years ago, smart glasses and QR codes were written off as technology failures. Today, both are playing growing and important roles in data authentication and validation in blockchain networks in industrial and commercial applications. Similarly, many early blockchain infrastructures will inevitably be replaced. Findora has set out to build the next generation public blockchain infrastructure to secure the future of secure and confidential decentralized finance.

Stories, News & Mentions about FINALAPPS

Finalapps’s Stories on HackerNoon