Marcel Sobieski Interview - the Man Who Goes Against the Wind

A while ago, we thought about starting a series of interviews with people who have  succeeded in WordPress. From developers, to designers, bloggers, influencers, marketers, and everyone whos doing interesting things with WordPress in one way or the other. Today, the first interview is finally out.There are 10 questions in total, the same for everyone. We hope this will make the whole series fun, and that well see a range of different perspectives on common WordPress-related issues. But this is not only strictly business. We also want to outline the personalities of our interviewees. Thats why youre going to find a handful of off-topic questions too.So, lets break the ice! Welcome to the very first interview in our  new Pirate Interviews series.Marcel Sobieski interview The CEO of TeslaThemesThe WordPress market is pretty much saturated at the moment, but TeslaThemes still made its way to becoming a profitable project over the years. It is a theme shop that delivers high-quality and stunning designs, bundled with all sorts of cool features.A curious thing to notice about Marcel, the CEO, and his team is that they dont provide free themes or, theyve built only one free theme to date. Their business is based on premium products only. Its been 3 years since TeslaThemes was born. And at the time of writing, they have 60 awesome themes in their catalog.The CEO position at TeslaThemes is not the only thing that Marcel is doing. Hes also the CEO at Red Sky Moldova, which owns Greedeals.com and WPMatic.io, and from 2006 to 2010 he held a COO and CEO positions for a Swiss and a Liechtenstein IT Company, all headquartered in Chisinau, Moldova, his home city.That being said, Marcel Sobieski is the man who always flew against the wind, as he describes himself. How did his theme shop survive in the competitive WordPress market of today? Lets find out:When and how did you start working with WordPress? Is there an interesting story here?Marcel Sobieski:Im in IT since 200 6 and the first three years I was managing a Swiss software company based in Chisinau, Moldova. We were focused on mobile payments and mobile platforms, working close with mobile operators. We were pretty much enterprise and did not know a lot of things about pure multimedia startups, design or B2C at that time.Nevertheless, one day we invited to an interview a web designer that we wanted to attach to a project for a Swiss client. He came to the meeting and rejected the offer, mentioning that he rather came to see a new company and touch the market instead of getting a job. He was a designer at a well established WordPress Theme Club up to today and money did not matter much. It was the first connection Ive had with these restless guys from the WP world. From that very moment I knew, we will return to this topic. And we did, in 2011. The year when our, at that time, flagship project Filestube.com started to shake under the major legislation changes of ACTA and SOPA regulations.What do you think youd be doing right now if WordPress didnt exist?Marcel Sobieski:Hard to say. We might joke that we would write it in the office with the team, but thats not the case. Definitely Id still be in the IT ecosystem, work with bright minded guys and colleagues. Would probably be in the mobile app industry, and this is also one of the directions we will take in a year from now. And would travel, and ride my bicycle.Whats your technique for staying productive throughout the day?Marcel Sobieski:There is an endless list of factors that distract us every day. From your daily Facebook notifications to concrete server issues, or a pissed off customer from hell, and you have to handle them all, no matter how. My case is a bit different because Im juggling from one project to another. We run simultaneously 3 successful startups in one office, with the same team. Somehow my the day is divided into clusters, dedicated to each project, to every issue, from product management to customer satisfaction and business development. This way I rarely get bored, being always refreshed and stimulated by my colleagues ideas and activity. In fact, this is the best team Ive ever managed to get in one company, a brilliant squad. But what keeps me and my team productive are actually the great results we see every day, from all over the world in these 3 projects.What keeps me and my team productive are actually the great results we see every day.How do you define being successful?Marcel Sobieski:At first, I would think about the cash we generate every month. Obviously, money talks and is a reliable criterion of your business success, maybe the biggest, although we should look at YouTubes or Twitters quarterly financial reports. In these two cases, the term success is not extrapolated into cash. Besides the financial profitability and constant offers to get acquired, we quantify our success in other metrics as well. Like having customers from 235 countries, like regular visits fro m North Korea, Afghanistan or Yemen, like excited testimonials our clients send us, like being well-known everywhere you go on this planet with the project we do, like respect and appreciation from our competitors and big fishes from the WP market. Like being able to inspire other youngsters or professionals to achieve even more, like seeing the astonishment on many faces when they find out that actually, we are TeslaThemes. These things, most of the times, matter more and make you feel both proud and humble about our success.What do you like to do when youre not WordPress-ing?Marcel Sobieski:Traveling and riding my bicycle. These are 2 of my passions. The more exotic the country I visit, the better. From Cuba to the Philippines, anytime and with excitement. I was lucky enough to ride my bicycle there as well. Im fortunate to spend my free time with my friends and family and my lovely girlfriend. In my spare time, I will always consider making some plans, both for our office and my personal life.What do you wish more people knew about WordPress?Marcel Sobieski:That WordPress is not easy anymore. Its a myth that in a couple of minutes you will have your website up and running. It used to be like that back in the day, but not now. In the same time, we want people to know that WordPress makes their lives so much easier if they choose a quality theme and partner with a strong theme club for the support.That way, they can save a lot of cash by using WP, and they can scale their websites with opulent and exuberant features, effects and plugins. My advice is to find a reliable and professional support provider, otherwise, alone, most probably, they will not be able to make it through.Exactly for this reason, seeing all these years so many users struggling hard to keep their themes alive the way they have imagined, we decided to help them and launched a new service WPmatic. Which is a 360-degrees 1-on-1 support and development center for any WordPress issue (includin g issues with themes).WordPress is not easy anymore.Whos doing things that are just cutting-edge and incredible in the WordPress space right now?Marcel Sobieski:Hard to say. Like seriously! Most of the players in the WordPress industry today think more about the money rather than leadership. How to make more cash, how to optimize work and save money again. So do we, everybody does, but there must be a significant room left for research and development, new intuitive frameworks for our moms and dads, for those who are not developers; smart and cool plugins; a different design layout trend. The market is tired of the general and boring templates: header, slider, about us, team and footer. Go to ThemeForest; all the themes are the same, nothing special, just a plastic theme multiplied. Everyone copies the most popular themes, changes the color and voila, ready to go. Its hard to mention a flagman, though there are some serious guys in the business. The first that come to my mind are Te slaThemes, WPZoom, MHThemes and ThemeIsle. I see soul and logic from these providers.Describe the WordPress community in one word.Marcel Sobieski:Crowded and at times overloaded. WordPress today feeds a lot of people, from Iraq to the US. Some of us made a fortune with WordPress. I cant imagine the world without it. We see so many new players entering this market every day and this makes us happy, cause competition develops and makes our lives better. But we still must think very seriously about my previous answer about solid and serious RnD and uniqueness when launching a new theme to the market, otherwise, we will totally compromise the WP core values.Whats the main threat to WordPress these days? Other platforms like Ghost, or maybe things like Squarespace?Marcel Sobieski:No external threats. WordPress itself is in a wonderful position as of today. The only real threat comes from within. It is about the bad quality that a lot of theme providers deliver in the run for earnings. Th ere is an ocean of WordPress themes on the internet that sincerely are useless, done without a logic, without a robust framework, just for the sake of sales, and people buy them, install them and get instantly pissed off and disappointed, a total mess and no support, and what happens? They move to Medium, they move to Ghost or any other nice, clean and intelligent platform. And I understand them. Every theme provider needs to bring quality, uniqueness, and usefulness to people. Many theme clubs think and work more to add intelligent tools to force their users to buy a theme, instead of convincing them with superb features, wonderful design and marvelous chromatic.The only real threat comes from within. It is about the bad quality that a lot of theme providers deliver in the run for earnings.What are your recommendations for a WordPress novice?Marcel Sobieski:Not to stay hungry and not to stay foolish. 🙂 But to eat good in the morning, and be vertical in his or her position, and persevere to bring something good, to be useful to the world, and be appreciated by those who use his or her artworks. Not to run for money, it will pop-up at the right time. Quality and usefulness are most important, plus add some luck on top.Those are indeed some golden tips from Marcel. I hope they will come in handy when youre working on your next WordPress project. What do you think about what Marcel Sobieski shared in this interview?

FBI Warning Regarding Phishing, Spoofing and ID Theft

FBI Warning Regarding Phishing, Spoofing and ID Theft The FBI,  the  Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Internet service provider Earthlink have jointly issued a warning on how the growing ranks of Internet crooks are using new tricks called phishing and spoofing to steal your identity. In an FBI press release, Assistant Director of the agencys Cyber Division, Jana Monroe says, Bogus e-mails that try to trick customers into giving out personal information are the hottest, and most troubling, new scam on the Internet. The FBIs Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) has seen a steady increase in complaints that involve some form of unsolicited e-mail directing consumers to a phony Customer Service type of web site. Assistant Director Monroe said that the scam is contributing to a rise in identity theft, credit card fraud, and other Internet frauds. How to Recognize Attack Email Spoofing, or phishing, frauds attempt to make Internet users believe that they are receiving e-mail from a specific, trusted source, or that they are securely connected to a trusted web site when that is not the case. Spoofing is generally used as a means to convince individuals to provide personal or financial information that enables the perpetrators to commit credit card/bank fraud or other forms of identity theft. In E-mail spoofing the header of an e-mail appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Spam distributors and criminals often use spoofing in an attempt to get recipients to open and possibly even respond to their solicitations. IP Spoofing is a technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers, whereby the intruder sends a message to a computer with an IP address indicating that the message is coming from a trusted source. Link alteration involves altering the return address in a web page sent to a consumer to make it go to the hackers site rather than the legitimate site. This is accomplished by adding the hackers address before the actual address in any e-mail, or page that has a request going back to the original site. If an individual unsuspectingly receives a spoofed e-mail requesting him/her to click here to update their account information, and then are redirected to a site that looks exactly like their Internet Service Provider, or a commercial site like ​eBay or PayPal, there is an increasing chance that the individual will follow through in submitting their personal and/or credit information. FBI Offers Tips on How to Protect Yourself If you encounter an unsolicited e-mail that asks you, either directly, or through a web site, for personal financial or identity information, such as Social Security number, passwords, or other identifiers, exercise extreme caution.If you need to update your information online, use the normal process youve used before, or open a new browser window and type in the website address of the legitimate companys account maintenance page.If a website address is unfamiliar, its probably not real. Only use the address that you have used before, or start at your normal homepage.Always report fraudulent or suspicious e-mail to your internet service provider.Most companies require you to log in to a secure site. Look for the lock at the bottom of your browser and https in front of the website address.Take note of the header address on the web site. Most legitimate sites will have a relatively short internet address that usually depicts the business name followed by .com, or possibly .org. Spoof s ites are more likely to have an excessively long strong of characters in the header, with the legitimate business name somewhere in the string, or possibly not at all. If you have any doubts about an e-mail or website, contact the legitimate company directly. Make a copy of the questionable web sites URL address, send it to the legitimate business and ask if the request is legitimate.If youve been victimized, you should contact your local police or sheriffs department, and file a complaint with the FBIs Internet Fraud Complaint Center..

State of the Art of Behavioural Accounting Research Literature review

State of the Art of Behavioural Accounting Research - Literature review Example Several academic writers and professional institutes have paid utmost attention towards the state of the art of behavioural accounting research wherein the prime intention has always remained focussed towards identifying the research assumptions of the same, which usually imposes considerable impacts on the decision-making procedure of accounting. Contextually, behavioural accounting assumptions help in preventing cognitive limitations in case of accounting and auditing, as it primarily emphasises understanding reasons to biases in the procedure and hence, offers better scope for enhancing transparency therewith. On the other hand, behavioural accounting assumptions also assist business organisations to maximize their expected utilities. Additionally, behavioural accounting theories also help an organisation to attain profit maximization in a more effective manner (Gillenkirch & Arnold, n.d.). According to the viewpoints of Gillenkirch & Arnold (n.d.), the behavioural accounting theory is utilised in preparing internal financial reports. Larger organisations are also involved in using the approach of behavioural accounting with the aim of preparing and disseminating financial information to the potential investors. In alignment with the above context, it can be inferred that behavioural accounting concepts help the global organisations to conduct their respective financial as well as management accounting procedures more accurately. It is therefore worth mentioning that with the assistance of behavioural accounting concepts, modern organisations are able to effectively implement the principles and guidelines of financial (external) auditing functions. This, in turn, supports them to utilise their respective tax accounting mechanisms more accurately (Gillenkirch & Arnold, n.d.). The prime objective of this study is to identify the key assumptions

Labor Relations Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Labor Relations - Assignment Example Such warning will only be valid for 6months and after completion of 6 months; no disciplinary actions can be taken against W based on such warning. Opinion: there is no witness available for W using inappropriate languages or pushing chair towards L. No corroboration is available that confirming the fact that W had pushed the chair towards legs of L. Due to lack of evidences, no strict action can be taken against W. Answer B: According to Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) Article 15 (Discipline/Discharge Procedures), disciplinary actions can be taken against employees only in two conditions such as incompetence or misconduct (University of South Florida, 2013). Disciplinary actions can be taken against particular employee if his/her behavior hurts legitimate interests of employer. Behavior of W has negatively affected legitimate interests of Alternative Calendar Committee (ACC). According to Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) Article 15 (Discipline/Discharge Procedures), as labor union representative, employee has the right to ask for investigatory questioning for any kind disciplinary actions (University of South Florida, 2013). Upon such investigatory questioning, no witness has been found that confirming the fact that W had used inappropriate languages or pushed chair towards L. Based on above justification, W can be convicted on the ground of minor misconduct. Due to lack of evidence s, harsh disciplinary actions cannot be taken against W. Phrases like â€Å"legitimate interests†, â€Å"incompetence†, â€Å"misconduct† and â€Å"investigatory questioning† has helped me as arbitrator to understand context of the case and justify the award being mentioned in the earlier question. For example, â€Å"legitimate interests† phrase helped this arbitrator to justify the ground on which disciplinary actions can be taken against W. Therefore, it can be said that (CBA) Article 15 (Discipline/Discharge Procedures)

Aspect of family in the film Pushing Hands Essay Example for Free

Aspect of family in the film Pushing Hands Essay Family has been depicted as one of the most important aspects in a number of films. Notably, many people believe in family as the most useful unifying aspect among various groups. In China, for instance, family is considered to be among the factors that individuals need to hold so dear to them. Various movies have been produced with the aspect of family being given weight in the movies. In addition, the cultural aspect of family has also been seen to be a factor that most individuals consider to be highly imperative in bringing to life the movies in question. This paper seeks to carry out an analytical interpretation of the aspect of family in the film Pushing Hands. In every family, father-to-son relationship is often seen as factor that is quite essential in bringing together the various family members. In addition, when the father and the son are at logger-heads, family unity is at a point of jeopardy and might escalate to highly detrimental scales. Apart from securing a unified family, father to son relationship is always considered a great aspect, especially in Chinese culture. In addition, most parents struggle to ensure that their children do not go against the immortal cultural values that each group is inclined to. Particularly, Chinese parents often want to see their sons embrace the Confucian cultural values even if they are in other countries (Huang, 2000). In line with family relationships between a father and a son, the film Pushing Hands seek to bring to the audience the idea of how westernization has affected family cultural values for the Chinese. Furthermore, the father (Mr. Chu) disagrees with his son Alex on the various family issues and cultural differences between the life in the United States and life in his home town Beijing, China. The film portrays the father son relationship as a cultural factor that should not be taken for granted and as an element that is highly significant in Chinese cultural aspects. As such, the script writer of the film has ensured that the film uses the best characters to bring out the issues of father-son relationship and the elements associated with the cultural differences between those living in the western countries and those living in China. Mr. Chu (Sihung Lung) who is an elderly man has fully devoted the wider portion of his life to the aspect of studying and teaching other learners tai chi in China. As a result of old age and the desire to be closer to his family, he makes up his mind to move in and stay with his son who is in the United States. However, having lived his entire life in Beijing, China, the elderly man finds it hard to cope with the different cultural factors in the United States. On the other hand, his son Alex (Bo Z. Wang) has been living in New York City for quite some time and has partly been affected by western cultural aspects which are totally different from the Chinese way of life and Tai Chi teachings (Hua-feng, 2013).One of the major family challenges that greatly affect the father and the son is the fact that the father arrives in New York without knowing any English word. In addition, the son is highly Americanized that it would be hard for the father to understand him. Besides, Alex has a w ife named Martha (Deb Snyder) who is a writer dealing with the pressure of trying to make sure she publishes her first novel, apart from taking care of her six-year-old kid. Mr. Chu faces the challenge of being totally at odds with a number of American customs and various technological factors. Furthermore, Mr. Chu cannot walk in New York alone as he easily loses his way. Since Mr. Chu is completely dumb on various factors in the American way of life, Martha begins to feel irritated with the fact that she might be taking care of two children. This is because the elderly Mr. Chu has to be taught everything as a child. While staying with his son, Mr. Chu develops a feeling that he has lost his dignity and independence thereby making the relationship between him and the son more challenging. Eventually, the elderly father tries to work things out on his own and look for a job. However, the harder he attempts to fit in the American culture and make New York look like his home, the more unfamiliar he seems to be. The elderly Mr. Chu feels lost in a different culture at a time when his son is feeling at home and has no issues being seen as an Americanized Chinese. The differences in cultural affiliations make the relationship between Mr. Chu and his son extremely difficult (Chan, 2004). The significance of the issues of father to son relationship in a family is highly relevant in the wider cultural context. The complexity in the relationship that is brought by different adaptation techniques to distinct cultures give the audience the most appropriate ways through which culture can be viewed in a wider perspective. The title is highly appropriate as it tries to bring out the facts about pushing an individual to conform to a cultural affiliation that is totally different from their original culture. In the non-aggressive turn of events between the father and the son, it is apparent that cultural fidelity is hard to break, and even if one does break it, it has to take quite a long time. The aspect of cultural conflict is an element that keeps on making various family ties broken hence making it difficult for the individuals involved to foster unity between themselves (Zhang, 2002). In the book From ‘Minority Film’ to â€Å"minority Discourse,’† Screening China, Zhang (2002) asserts that cultural aspects such as ethnicity and race play a major role in ensuring that family ties are kept alive. In addition, he argues that failure to stick to the family ties would lead to cultural conflicts. This cultural conflict is the main element that Master Chu find himself in and creates an internal misunderstanding in his cognitive thoughts. Even though his daughter-in-law totally misunderstood him, making him feel discontent and disgraced, the elderly Chu made sure that his efforts to cope up with American culture were kept alive. When he finally disagrees with his son over alleged mistreatment from the wife, he decides to gracefully have his way and walk out of the house. Consequently, after going his own way, Mr. Chu finds his own niche where he can have no one minding about his inclination to Chinese way of life. In conclusion, family and cultu re have been depicted as some of the most important aspects that need to be considered in learning cultural factors. Besides, culture has been seen as a major defining factor when it comes to association and togetherness. References Chan, K. (2004). The global return of the wu xia pian (Chinese sword-fighting movie): Ang Lees Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Cinema Journal,  43(4), 3-17. Hua-feng, L. I. (2013). Contradiction and Harmony of Family Ideas between China and America Reflected in the Movie, Pushing Hands.  Journal of Yunyang Teachers College,  2, 018.Huang, S. (2000). Ten thousand businesses would thrive in a harmonious family: Chinese conflict resolution styles in cross-cultural families.  Intercultural Communication Studies,  9(2), 129-144. Zhang Yingjin, (2002). â€Å"From ‘Minority Film’ to â€Å"minority Discourse,’† Screening China (73-90) Source document

Philosophy of Education Essay -- Philosophy of Teaching Statement

Philosophy of Education School. What is school? School is something where kids go five days a week to learn new things each day. School is where they get a good education so when they get out of college they can go get a high paying job and support their family. Having an education is something that will help you when you get in the real world. Education is something that has helped me to pursue my dream, which is to go to college and get a job as a teacher, which was influenced by my father. In my paper I plan to tell you about my views of nature of knowledge, purpose of education, why education is important, what I want to accomplish as a teacher, what one want the students to accomplish, methods, discipline, and curriculum. Today children are classified into three groups AP , intermediate, and LED. The children are strongly influenced by their environment just as Plato had said. If kids were born with the same intelligence, then we wouldn't have to classify them into three groups. One example to show that Rousseau' s theory was wrong is when I was in second grade and the teacher have us a reading test. The test was to see who could read well enough to move to a higher reading level. Some of us moved and some didn't. If Rousseau's theory was right that every student had the same intelligence, then every kid would have passed the test and moved to a higher reading level. However if kids that weren't read to as a kid are more likely to have lower scores in reading. Knowledge is the particular range of one's information or acquaintance with facts. This is something that is absolute and by that it means it will never change. What you learn can only make you understand life more. Life is knowledge, if you k... ...o think physical education classes can be good for teaching the students the importance of team work. The reason I think Health is important, is because most kids today doesn't know how the body works and don't know how to eat a healthy diet. Health goes right along with P .E. , because in Physical Education I'm promoting physical activity and in Health I'm promoting proper eating habits. It all ties in together on how to have a properly fit and healthy body that can produce a long healthy life. Many of the views that I gave you are similar to the views of Plato's. Many of the views discussed why education is so important in a person's life. Having a education is something that will help you beyond the work force it will help you in life itself. If it wasn't for the education that I have received over the years, I wouldn't be pursuing my dream as a teacher.

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act) Essay

The HIPAA is divided into two sections. Section one seeks to protect the right to continued health insurance cover for employees and their family members in the event of losing their job or shifting to another job (U. S. Department of Labor, 2010). This section also dictates limitations to group health plan benefits, which can be provided to preexisting condition to between 12 and 18 months after enrollment into the plan. However, the act does not impose such restrictions to long term plans provided separately from general health plan. This enables employees and their families to have insurance cover even after losing employment. The other crucial provision of the HIPAA is on patient information privacy (National Institute of Health, 2007). In a move to simplify and improve the efficiency of the use and transfer of health information, the act dictates for the development of rules setting standards for such operations within the health care system. The section also defines various programs for mitigating fraud activities or abuse of power in the system. On privacy, the act gives provisions for the use of disclosure of protected health care information of a patient (National Institute of Health, 2007). This is quite crucial in protecting the right to privacy and confidentiality by a patient. HIPAA also sets new transaction and code sets rule, which defines the standards for health care institutions to file their electronic claims for compensation. In addition, the act has established a security rule, which dictates new safeguard in dealing with electronic protected health information (U. S. Department of Health & Human services, 2003). To ensure effectiveness as well as flexibility of the security rule, it defines both required and addressable specifications for implementing the rule; with the latter being more flexible. Therefore, the HIPAA protects employee health insurance cover after loss of change of job and safeguards protected health information use and disclosure.