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void-kissed · 1 year

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chaining cherry blossom to clover (Clio/Aria)

Clio being chosen for the Dandelions means she gets to avoid the approaching Keyblade War, and Aria vows to find a way to join her in the new world despite not also being chosen. Despite the road ahead not being clear, a very special gift is given, one which would come to be the key to the two reuniting later down the line. (1974 words)

This is my first piece of selfship writing for my new blog, and also my first piece of selfship writing for my (current) newest romantic selfship with my OC, Clio! I hope that anyone who wants to read it enjoys doing so, as I definitely enjoyed writing it ^-^

Tag list: @sunlight-ships | @artificervaldi | @hirael | @thatslikesometaldude (to be tagged in what I make, please see this post!)

Comments on and reblogs of my work are always okay, and appreciated, but are by no means required!

(Document transcript under the readmore:)

When the Dandelions began to be chosen, the Sapphires were one of the first parties whose members were approached, to the surprise of approximately none of them.

After all, although the group’s existence and purpose did not become widely known for some time, it seemed logical in retrospect that the party which once collected more Lux than any other in the Anguis Union (save for one) would harbour many Keyblade wielders with powerful light; wielders who were therefore wanted, wielders who were valued, wielders whose identities - their bonds to their parties and their Unions - would all be cast aside as they would be made Dandelions, made into Dandelions.

As war’s shadow loomed ever closer over Daybreak Town, tensions slowly but surely rising up to boiling point, the Sapphires found themselves being able to count more than one of their wielders in the ranks of the Dandelions - the ranks of the few who had been chosen from all others to survive the world’s end, leaving the rest of the people they had known to simply fall and be lost in the senseless combat that fate would have them march towards.

“So they want you as well, do they?”

Aria’s casual question that she already knew the answer to reignited the spark in her girlfriend’s eyes as the two sat together by the sunset-lit fountain one evening.

“Yes!” came Clio’s reply, in a light voice that shone with much of her typical positive temperament. “I really can’t say I saw it coming, but it feels like such an honour, you know?”

“I can only imagine it must.”, Aria smiled, though her own tone was comparatively much more subdued. “After all, so few individuals have been selected for such an important role.”

“Mmm! Yeah, that’s.. a really good point..” Clio’s excitement had softened and dissolved somewhat as she picked up on her girlfriend’s quietness. It was easy for her to tell when something was up with Aria, based on subtle details like the way her catlike ears were slightly downcast, or how her wings were subconsciously tilted to face the floor; it had gotten to the point where she couldn’t help but feel slightly surprised when others said that Aria was almost impossible to read, and tended to blame it on things like her cold way of speaking, or the mask that she wore across the lower half of her face.

“..What’s wrong, Ari?”

“I.. it’s nothing.” she tried to insist.

At this, Clio shifted closer towards her on the fountain’s edge, reaching forwards to place a comforting hand on Aria’s shoulder. “Are you sure? I don’t wanna pry if it’s not something you want to talk about, but if something’s up, then it isn’t good to keep it locked up in your heart or anything.“

Careful not to shake Clio’s hand away in the process, Aria shifted, drawing her legs up to lean them on the edge of the fountain. Her wings were now being held outwards slightly to better improve her balance, ensuring she would not go toppling backwards into the fountain.

“It’s.. more that I don’t know how to word it properly without sounding mean..?” she tried to explain. She was looking away at this point, and her left hand was absentmindedly toying with the ribbon of her hairpin, while her right hand held her legs.

“Huh? How so?” Clio asked her. “..What, d’you think I shouldn’t have been picked or something?”

“What? No, it isn’t that at all!” she clarified quickly, finally turning to look at Clio’s now-worried expression. Her own eyes carried surprise; she would never doubt Clio’s worth like that.

“It’s of no surprise to us that you were selected, because you possess such strong light. But you’re not arrogant with it like so many others of similar strength seem to end up being - in fact, I would say you’re the only person with such bright light that I feel so comfortable being around like this.” she admitted. “So, in many ways, you’re perfect for this.”

“Aww, that’s really kind of you to say!” she replied, worry fading away with relative ease and becoming relief. “But, uh.. What is it, then? If I can ask that?”

“Of course you can ask that.” Aria stated plainly. “It’s just.. If you go with the Dandelions, I won’t be permitted to come with you.”

“Why not? I’m.. sure they’d let me bring you with me!” Clio tried to smile further and be reassuring, but the way her voice faltered slightly indicated she was not entirely confident in her statement.

“..Maybe if what they were after were simply strong Keyblade wielders. But they aren’t.” she insisted, turning her head to look down at the ground again. “All they want is light; they’re gathering those whose hearts have strong light inside of them, and leaving everyone else to the chaos that we all know is coming. So, the last thing they would want within their precious ranks is something like me.”

“Oh.. I guess I didn’t think of it like that.” Clio shuffled closer once again, trying to give Aria as much comfort as she could after hearing the “something” and the spite in her tone. “But, if a war really is on its way like they said it was, then surely they’d just want to rescue as many people as they could from it?”

“That would be the sensible way of going about things, but..” She let out a sigh. “Keyblade wielders who have darkness in their hearts are seen by some as weaker, or less trustworthy. Even moreso if those wielders actively try to make use of their natural affinity for darkness, if they happen to have it. It’s.. arguably not entirely misguided, considering the corruptive effect that darkness can have on people’s hearts when too much is present, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who wields the darkness is evil.” Her hand was playing with her hairpin again.

Now it was Clio’s turn to sigh, feeling dejected. “I sure wish more people could actually see that instead of insisting otherwise..”

There was a fairly long pause as the older wielder trailed off, and the pair of girlfriends could only hear the steadily-flowing water from the fountain they were sat on the edge of.

“I mean.. I haven’t technically joined the Dandelions yet.” Clio then stated, taking a moment to lift up the crown of clovers she wore around her head to stop it slipping. “There’s meant to be a meeting pretty soon, but.. I could always just stay here with you instead! At the end of the day, I- I really don’t want to lose you..”

“No.” came Aria’s response, bluntly but not coldly. “You should go with them.”

“Huh? But.. what about you?” she replied. “And everyone else, too - I can’t just leave everyone to suffer while I go with the others!”

“Just because they don’t want me there doesn’t mean I won’t go there, clover.” she stated, very matter-of-factly. “If you’re with them, then I’ll just find a way to make it to you. And it’ll be easier to do that if you go with them, because not only will they then be easier to find, but I can be more certain of your safety while I hunt for them.”

“You really think you can follow them..?” she wondered.

“Yes.”

“..How?” she then asked. “I mean, I definitely reckon you could do it, but.. You sound surprisingly sure about it. A lot more than I would be, in your shoes.”

“..It’s because of this.”

For the third time that evening, Aria’s hand found her hairpin, but this time it was much more deliberate - she reached up above where the ribbon ends hung and carefully brought her fingers around the cherry blossom flower in its centre, running her thumb across its large, soft petals.

“..Your hairpin?” Clio asked.

“Yes.” she repeated. “If you’ll have it, then.. Please take this with you when you go with the rest of the Dandelions. Take it as a promise, and a sign - if it’s with you, then the rest of me can follow. And I will follow, somehow, even if we don’t quite know the method yet. I will find a way to be with you, no matter what it takes. Whether I’m a Dandelion or not.”

A brief moment passed as Clio’s eyes became glittery with tears.

“Aww, you’re going to make me blush, Ari! That’s so sweet of you to say, I.. I don’t think I know what to say! Of course I’ll take it, if you’re okay with giving it to me!”

She smiled. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.”

Using her right hand as well to ensure none of her hair got unnecessarily caught, Aria carefully moved her hands into position, her dark red nails that Clio had painted for her working their way to where the cherry blossom grew from. She then took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tugged as hard as she could bring herself to pull. Despite bracing for the action, she still let out an involuntary hiss as she did this, wincing and shutting her eyes much more tightly as the pale pink flower came sailing away from her head with the force.

Keeping her right hand pressed against the left side of her head to try and lessen the intensity of that awfully sharp pain she now felt, she tried desperately to stop tears forming in her eyes, before all of a sudden becoming aware that a strong hand was pressing into her back, gently but firmly, just below her wings.

“I’ve got you.” came Clio’s voice from her right-hand side, before her other hand reached up to clear the tears from Aria’s eyes. “You nearly sent yourself right into the water with how hard you pulled on that.”

“It.. was needed..” she replied, somewhat vaguely. Her head was now tilted to be facing Clio’s more directly, allowing her to see her girlfriend’s supportive if slightly concerned expression. She could feel both her arm and her hand on her back now, giving her confidence that she would not fall backwards even if she wasn’t holding herself upright out of tension.

It was then that Aria realised she had one more thing left to do, so she moved her left hand towards Clio’s right. Resting on her open palm was the flower that once rested in the centre of the hairpin she had never been seen without, the blossom’s five pink petals and two green leaves looking delicate and tender in the sunset’s light. As carefully as if she were handling a baby bird, Clio reached out and tentatively lifted up the flower, making sure not to accidentally damage the petals as she took a closer look before then holding it close to her chest. It seemed to attach itself directly to her jacket once she had decided where it would go.

“..Thank you.” was all Aria could say to fill the silence, her voice just as soft as the flower petals felt to touch. The sharpness of the pain was thankfully becoming somewhat duller and less intrusive with time, and Clio’s gesture of bringing the flower to her heart was something she had treasured immensely.

“Don’t worry, shadow. I’ll keep this safe for you.” Clio declared, now placing her hand on her chest next to the flower. “You’ve just got to make sure you stay safe as well.”

“I will. I trust you, clover.” she replied, shifting to more properly reciprocate her girlfriend’s support with a hug. “No matter what the future holds.. No matter how long it takes.. I will reach you, and we’ll both make it past whatever is coming, in our own ways.”

As the last of the sunlight faded, the pair stayed and cherished this moment in each other’s arms.

#a call from the void #heart of the void #love: crown of clovers (clio)#selfship: of flowers unchained (clio/aria)#wait drat I can’t type aria’s tag on my phone because it needs a desktop apostrophe AND non-breaking hyphen #someone please remind me to fix that in approximately nine hours or so #creations from the void #this post is okay for anyone to reblog as long as my DNI is respected!!#OC F/Os #kingdom hearts selfshipping #..I mean clio is my OC but she’s my OC *for* kingdom hearts so this still at least somewhat counts right?#comments should be enabled on the google doc itself if I’ve done it right!#I recommend reading on the document rather than through the paste under the readmore #but there is also the paste under the readmore if the link does not work #yes I know I said I was going to bed but.. I wanted to finish this #and I did #so now I can sleep except I can’t sleep yet because I need to have a shower #this one might be a bit of an “if you know then you know’’ but hopefully it still holds up alright on its own without knowing that #I can explain what the.. I guess full extent of the significance? is #self‑insert: darkness' champion (aria)#selfshipping

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kriskebob-blog · 6 years

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Day 1, Part 1: Me vs. the grocery store

Hi again. It was really nice to hear from some of my friends and family in response to my post last night! I’m really excited to know that some people are down to read my long-ass posts about plants. I’ve also had several people offer me cookbook suggestions or even offer to have me plunder their own stash. Thanks for being my enablers, guys! (No seriously, thank you, I love you all sm.) Also, I can now reveal that my grandma texted me this morning to confirm she did indeed read my first post to its end. She’s the best!!!! This blog is rapidly evolving into a dual-purpose food/my grandma fan page and I can’t be sorry for it.

So it’s Friday afternoon as I write this but the day I’ll be writing about is actually Wednesday. Can you tell it took me a little while to get going with the actual blogging part of this project? Anywho, I woke up Wednesday and after taking some time to wake up with a coffee, I flipped open my shiny new How Not to Die cookbook to the pages with the 2-week meal plan. I scanned the lists of recipes, already nervous. There were so many listed for every single day. I’m used to preparing dinner each night and eating leftovers for my lunches. For years my tried-and-true breakfast almost every single day has been two hard-boiled eggs and a piece of toast. So I’m really only used to having to prepare a fully involved meal once a day. You wanted to do this, I reminded myself. You have the summer off. You have the time! Trying to calm my nerves, I opened up the notes app on my laptop and began typing the names of the suggested recipes. There are no page numbers referenced on the meal plan pages, which would have made things a lot easier, just sayin’, Dr. Greger! I found the recipes and opened the grocery list Google Doc I’ve shared with my husband since we moved in together. I started typing up a shopping list.

This was more than 48 hours ago at this point, but luckily I did stop to write down some initial thoughts. I shall share them with you now, verbatim:

How the f@#! am I going to buy everything we need for all this? How will it fit in my fridge? Will I spend literally all day prepping all of this? Am I even going to be able to find everything I need for these recipes?

...

16 recipes compared to my normal 4, MAYBE 5. Eating this way is obviously the vanity project of the wealthy wtf

...

It’s only two weeks. I can spend 2374623645 dollars on food for just half a month right? right?? It’s normal to spend money on hobbies? Gah

...

What the hell is date sugar?

...

I am definitely using vanilla extract instead of buying a giant vanilla bean Fresh turmeric? Where would even sell that? Ground sounds just fine to me

I noted that I began this process at 8:55. At 9:21 I wrote:

I give up… because I can already tell I’m going to be buying WAY too much produce to fit into my crisper drawer. The original plan had been to stock up enough stuff to carry me through until Monday but I can see now that’s just not going to be realistic at all. I’ll stock up on enough stuff to get me through to Friday night. I don’t want to grocery shop on the weekend if I can help it. I’ll just go again on Friday. Then I’ll probably have to go again on Monday, maybe Tuesday if I’m lucky. That’ll be three grocery store stock-ups in one week. I wanted a hobby, didn’t I?? Time to go back and redo my list to only reflect recipes for the next three days then.

I put a break in my recipes list. Alright. That brings me from 16 recipes to 8. Feels much more manageable. I look at the huge list of ingredients I amassed on my Google doc and decide it’d be easier to just delete it and restart from scratch than go through and try to remember what I now do and don’t need. 9:30.

9:45 - done. Still a LONG list. This is only for 2 days plus a dinner. But to be fair I did include stuff for a couple of desserts.

I’m a tad concerned by how none of these recipes call for ANY salt.

I was more than a tad concerned, actually. But I had my mission lined out. It was time to head to Big Y.

Of the common local grocery store chains in Connecticut, Big Y is probably the nicest one. My husband and I used to frequent Stop & Shop but we stopped because the produce kind of sucked and anyhow the set-up of Big Y is a lot more appealing. I drove on over to the Ellington Big Y, hopeful that I’d be able to find the majority of the items I needed, but also aware that I’d probably end up at Whole Foods later that day.

I’d been so focused on getting together my massive shopping list and hustling out to the store that I hadn’t attended to my basic personal needs with as much care as usual. I realized two things almost immediately as I crossed the parking lot: I kinda had to pee, and I was also sort of thirsty/hungry. Should I get a lemonade or something from the cafe? I wondered briefly then decided against it. I’d be fine til I got home, surely.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the produce section. I bagged up two heads of lettuce and an even bigger head of red kale. I bought the biggest container of baby spinach they had and then also the biggest bag of regular spinach. Cilantro and parsley. Scallions. And that was just from the greens section! I was already tired by the time I got to the natural foods section, and I had only shopped for stuff whose location I already knew.

I spent some time figuring out which seeds/nuts I needed that Big Y sold by the weight. It’s a really convenient and cool system, except the stupid sticker-printing machine is sort of finicky. I must have spent a solid ten minutes before I had the correct amount of almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, etc. Okay. Now I needed to look for some stuff that I genuinely had no idea where exactly it might be. I knew they likely were somewhere in this natural foods section, I just didn’t know where. Stuff like hemp hearts and nutritional yeast (sounded gross but it was called for in quite a few recipes). I found them eventually. Cool. Now I needed canned tomatoes and beans, but Dr. Gregor really wanted me to be sure I bought cans without a BPA liner. Seriously? Was that really going to be the thing that would make or break if I lived to see 100? But I didn’t want to half-ass the Dr. Gregor lifestyle. It was only for two weeks, after all. After way too much time studying the shelves of tomatoes and beans, I ended up with two cans of diced tomato that cost twice as much as the brand I normally purchased... and the same exact generic brand of beans I normally went for, because none of the beans at Big Y seemed to be BPA free. Whatever. I was hungrier and grumpier by the minute. I wanted to stuff something into my mouth full of sugar and gluten and whatever other chemicals were out to kill me, stat. Almost done. Just had to find frozen okra (vegan gumbo, y’all! Stay tuned), and also miso. I wasn’t too worried about the miso. Big Y has a decent Asian foods aisle... one that I paced up and down at least four times before accepting that they didn’t seem to have miso. They also didn’t have date sugar, a key ingredient to a no-bake brownies recipe I wanted to try. I have a major sweet tooth (can you tell?) and the idea of two weeks without chocolate bars or ice cream was something I refused to entertain without some sort of chocolate dessert option. Okay. No miso, no date sugar. I also hadn’t been able to find “whole wheat tortillas - no salt added” anywhere in the store. So, I’d be going to Whole Foods. I had figured as much.

I checked out with a whopper of a bill and tried not to die too much inside at the fact that this was only two and a half day’s worth of groceries. After all, I had needed to stock up on several crunchy hippie type pantry items I hadn’t already owned. Thank god I already had a pretty sizable spice collection or my bill would have been even higher. I tried not to think of how this wasn’t even everything on my list. Not only did I still need to go to Whole Foods, but I needed to go to the farm stand.

Shout-out to Johnny Appleseed’s Farm in Ellington. Sam and I love them, and they love us back! Okay, they love Sam back because he told them once that he had gone onto Google and fixed an incorrect listing stating they were permanently closed. They really love Sam for that. They have no idea who I am unless I walk in with him. But that’s okay. Every late July through October, Sam and I buy as much of our produce as possible from Johnny Appleseed’s. I stopped over there to load up on tomatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, and an ungodly amount of zucchini. The woman ringing me out seemed amused. “Lots of squash,” she commented. “What’re you cooking?” I stared at her, trying to remember. The recipe planning I’d done only a couple hours ago already seemed such a blur. “Zoodles,” I managed finally. “You know, like when you try to pretend you’re eating pasta but it’s actually vegetables?” She chuckled and nodded. “You make your own sauce from scratch too?” “Usually,” I told her, feeling a sudden pang of longing for a nice meaty bolognese. Wow, I really wasn’t going to be cut out for this meatless life for long. I told her goodbye and got into my car. It was sweltering outside and 10x worse inside my black interior car. I now definitely needed to pee and I was starving. Home couldn’t come fast enough.

Of course, before I could eat my lunch I had to go through the battle of trying to fit all of this produce into my refrigerator. Even with the clearing out of the usual cartons of eggs and older produce that I’d tossed earlier that morning, it was definitely a game of Tetris trying to fit all of the extremely perishable items I’d just purchased into my fridge. I didn’t even entertain the thought of trying to fit all the vegetables in the crisper. Just to fit them in the fridge itself was an accomplishment. Thank god I hadn’t been quite stupid enough to try to buy enough groceries to last us through Monday. Dear lord, I was really going to have to go back in two days and do this again? You chose this, you chose this I sang to myself repeatedly in my head as I grabbed the container of my last non-vegan meal for two weeks: zucchini turkey meatballs, romano cheese, and marinara sauce over spaghetti. It was damned good. This is still healthy, isn’t it? Do I definitely have to give up cheese, Dr. Gregor?

Now came the time for my final real dessert of the next two weeks. Something I end up binging on far too often when Sam leaves me at home unsupervised for too long: Aurora honey nut granola with chocolate chips mixed in. It’s so good!!! And I definitely went especially overboard that day knowing it was my last sugar binge for awhile.

Alright. It was time to head to Whole Foods. The closest one to me is in Glastonbury and a solid 25 minute drive away. The air felt heavy and oppressive as I headed out into the heat. Ominous dark clouds hung low in the sky. I could feel the nasty air pressure in the depths of my sinuses. Blah. Almost done, I told myself. The parking lot at Whole Foods was mobbed. Why are so many people out on a random Wednesday afternoon, I grumped to myself as I narrowly avoided running over a perfectly nice young family (sorry, strangers!!) and found myself a spot. I walked inside and immediately started rubbing my arms up and down. It was freezing. One thing I love about Big Y is that they keep a lot of their refrigerated items behind doors. I forget how cold other grocery stores are.

I don’t go to Whole Foods very often. I knew where the ethnic condiments were but had no clue where I might find “whole wheat tortillas, no salt added.” I wandered the entire length of the store twice over and finally found a small selection. They really didn’t have much to offer in the way of wraps. Too many carbs for the Whole Foods shopping crowd, I guess? I settled for normal whole wheat tortillas that did indeed have salt as an ingredient. What do you want me to do, Dr. Gregor? I’m only one person. I at least then found the date sugar no problem. Okay. Cool. Only the miso left.

I wandered into the Asian condiments aisle... and essentially repeated the same pacing act I’d done at Big Y, except I went back and forth even more times because I had a hard time processing that Whole Foods wouldn’t have what I needed. I mean, they’ve got some weird stuff there! They have like 5 different brands of ghee! Miso sounded like such a basic Asian condiment to me. We’ve all heard of miso soup, no? But it was nowhere to be found. Ugh. Fine. I’ll go to the Asian market in East Hartford. It’s not that far from here anyways, I tried to reassure myself. I could feel a sugar crash hitting my bloodstream. I wanted a juicebox and a nap.

I checked out and made my way to Je Mart. I wandered up and down their aisles and couldn’t seem to find miso there either. It finally occurred to me that I was obviously missing something here. Like I really should have done at Big Y in the first place, I pulled out my phone and Googled “Where do I buy miso in the store?” Within 5 seconds I realized I’d been looking in the wrong spots of the stores the entire time. Miso isn’t a bottled or jarred condiment like Sriracha or curry paste. It’s actually sold in plastic tubs in the refrigerated section. Look near the tofu, the infinite wisdom of the Internet advised. I turned around and what do you know, literally right behind me was the refrigerated section with the tofu. And within five seconds I spotted it: a tub of miso!!! I grabbed at it ecstatically and scanned the label. Was this the white miso that Dr. Gregor had specifically demanded? It didn’t specify, but it looked pale enough for me. And it was only $5 for a pretty decent sized tub. I handed my money gleefully to the cashier and went on my way. Finally.

I got home and put away my new purchases. It was about 2:20pm and I was beyond exhausted. I really shouldn’t have eaten that much granola, I thought morosely as I flopped onto the couch. I wanted to rewatch Forks Over Knives (it’s on Netflix!). If I started now it would end right around 4, a good time to start trying to actually prepare some of the meals I’d worked so hard all the day just to shop for.

I’m not saying that I napped for the entire documentary because I definitely didn’t. I remember some parts of it. But can I guarantee I didn’t nap at all? No, no I cannot.

This was another long post, so obviously I’m going to need to give us all a break and stop here before going on to Part 2, in which I’ll finally talk about cooking and eating these recipes. These first couple of posts have really just been a lot of exposition, I promise I’m going to get to the meat of the plot soon! (pun intended)

For now, here’s a picture of the miso I drove all over the state searching for before finally acquiring for the very reasonable price of $5 (fyi - Big Y does have miso but it’s red miso and it’s $7 so I guess all’s well that ends well):

#food blog #food writing #veganism #healthy cooking #plant based #whole foods #still bad at tags

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sheminecrafts · 4 years

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Google’s budget Pixel 4a addresses its premium predecessor’s biggest problem

The Pixel line has always felt like more of an underdog product than one should reasonably expect from a corporation as massive as Google. After years of partnerships and Nexus devices, when Google finally did enter the smartphone market in earnest, it found itself attempting to chip away at an already mature category — an even more difficult feat when most of that competition is already running your operating system.

In an important sense, the Pixel line’s differentiator may actually be its lack of flash — something that draws a sharp contrast from industry leaders like Samsung, Apple and Huawei. If phones were cars, it would be a reasonable sedan — competent, well-priced and no one is making comments when you drive it up to the PTA meeting. Through much of this, however, Google seems to have struggled to find an identity.

Top members of Google’s Pixel team have left the company

Sales have been mediocre. It’s the sort of thing that has less than zero effect on Google’s bottom line at the end of the day, but the company clearly has grander ambitions. The division recently underwent a seismic shift in management with the exit of division head Mario Queiroz and camera wizard Marc Levoy. It was, seemingly, a sign that Google is set to blaze a new path for its mobile line, which could ultimately make the Pixel 4 and 4a the last of their kind.

I do think there’s value in reconsidering its approach to the flagship. But the budget “a” really was Google getting things right at the right time. And the sales reflected that with the Pixel 3a, following a disappointing performance by the 3. The 3a nailed the smartphone zeitgeist in a way that previous Pixels had failed, delivering solid and affordable options as the smartphone-buying public had grown weary of paying $1,000+ for a new flagship.

It was even less flashy than other Pixels, and lacking in horsepower under the hood, but it was custom-built to deliver one of the best and purest Android experiences on the market. Last year’s Pixel 4 got off to a rocky start. The device was solid, but had one extremely important flaw: abysmal battery life. Sales suffered, though Google was reportedly able to make up for a rough start out of the gate due to pretty solid discounts over the handset’s life.

Pixel 4 review: Google ups its camera game

That all brings us to the Pixel 4a, which, most importantly, addresses the 4’s most glaring problem. Battery life is one of those things that rarely gets mentioned in the first sentence or two about a new smartphone. It’s not cool or interesting or new or sexy. But after the honeymoon of the first few weeks or so with a new handset, it can rocket to the top of the most important things about a phone. It’s the sort of thing you tend to only notice when it’s back. And with the Pixel 4, people definitely noticed.

The 4a, mind you, is not a battery powerhouse, but it’s decent. And that, in and of itself, is enough to recommend it over the Pixel 4. At 3140 mAh, the 4a’s battery is nothing to write home about, but it’s a nice improvement over the 4’s 2800 mAh and a slight bump over the 3a’s 3080 mAh. Using the 4a as my regular phone, I was able to get more than a day out of the handset, with the battery finally giving up the ghost around 27 hours after I unplugged it from the charger. That number is going to shrink if you enable the always-on display.

What Pixel 3a tells us about the state of the smartphone — and Google

Inside, the handset sports last year’s Snapdragon 730G (an overlooked version of the 730). There was likely little consideration of the new 765, for reasons having to do with price. For most tasks the processor choice won’t make a huge difference day to day, but it’s certainly noticeable on some key things like shooting photos, which take a few extra moments to process.

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The camera has, of course, long been the centerpiece of the Pixel line. That fact certainly extends to its budget offshoots. The 4a maintains the 3a’s single 12.2-megapixel rear-facing camera, albeit configured into a square camera module à la the 4. Middling camera hardware has always been a strange source of pride for Google.

The company has long insisted that it’s able to provide some of the best mobile imaging by letting on-board computation and software do most of the heavy lifting. And honestly, the results speak for themselves. The Pixel 3a takes some truly excellent photos for a handset at this price point, including low light and zoom.

Hardware does, indeed, still matter. And it’s going to for the foreseeable future. Google, for example, is able to do some really impressive things with the Super Res Zoom feature introduced on the Pixel 3. But without an optical zoom lens, the AI only goes so far when it comes to losing detail.

Same goes for Portrait Mode. Google’s is one of the best in the business. But while it’s most good enough to offer the illusion of bokeh blur, there are still computation limitations of a system that’s designed to guess at an image’s depth of field. Having been switching between the iPhone 11 and Pixel 3a a fair bit in recent days, among other things, I’ve really come to appreciate the close range at which the Google device is able to shoot in Portrait Mode. Both, however, continue to run into some depth issue with more complex subject matter or noisy background. Shooting a chain link fence, say, can create some blurring chaos.

[L-R: iPhone 11, Pixel 4a]

Night Sight, on the other hand, continues to shine in low light.

I recently asked a colleague what drew him to keep purchasing Pixels. His answer, in hindsight, was obvious: software support. Along with the purest version of Android, you know Google is going to continue to deliver its best and most interesting features to the device. That goes a long a way.

Here, it means hits like the company’s impressive Recorder app, which provides live transcriptions. I’m always a little wary of how much to play up the feature. I know as a reporter who does a lot of interviews, it’s a pretty indispensable tool in my daily life. The same could probably go for college kids who attend a lot of lectures. Beyond that, I’m not sure how handy it’s going to be for most folks’ day to day. But I’m excited to see Google continue to build on the app with new features like Google Doc integration and Google Assistant support.

The 4a and 5 will be Google’s first 5G-enabled Pixels

Other notable software additions include live captioning for phone calls and video calls, which essentially integrates the above technology. Doing so will alert the users on the other end. As Google notes, it’s really only good for conversations between two people. Adding more than that has a way of frying the algorithm in my experience with these services. And for privacy purposes, it will alert the person on the other end when it has been enabled.

At $349, the Pixel 4a starts at $50 cheaper than the 3a and less than half the price of Pixel 4. It also puts it well under budget flagships from the likes of Samsung and Apple. Even with that aggressive pricing in mind, there’s really no measure by which the Pixel 4a is an exciting phone. But it’s one that will get the job done, which is probably the most we can ask of it. Well, that and a headphone jack.

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technicalsolutions88 · 4 years

Link

Top members of Google’s Pixel team have left the company

Pixel 4 review: Google ups its camera game

What Pixel 3a tells us about the state of the smartphone — and Google

[gallery ids="2025622,2025627,2025619,2025620,2025621,2025623,2025625,2025626,2025628,2025629,2025630,2025631,2025632,2025633,2025634"]

[L-R: iPhone 11, Pixel 4a]

Night Sight, on the other hand, continues to shine in low light.

The 4a and 5 will be Google’s first 5G-enabled Pixels

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dizzedcom · 4 years

Text

Top members of Google’s Pixel team have left the company

Pixel 4 review: Google ups its camera game

What Pixel 3a tells us about the state of the smartphone — and Google

[L-R: iPhone 11, Pixel 4a]

Night Sight, on the other hand, continues to shine in low light.

The 4a and 5 will be Google’s first 5G-enabled Pixels

p class=”p1″>Other notable software additions include live captioning for phone calls and video calls, which essentially integrates the above technology. Doing so will alert the users on the other end. As Google notes, it’s really only good for conversations between two people. Adding more than that has a way of frying the algorithm in my experience with these services. And for privacy purposes, it will alert the person on the other end when it has been enabled.

Google’s budget Pixel 4a addresses its premium predecessor’s biggest problem The Pixel line has always felt like more of an underdog product than one should reasonably expect from a corporation as massive as Google.

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siliconwebx · 6 years

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25 Ways Google Drive Can Help Power Your WordPress Business

Google Drive has saved my life (professionally, at least) on any number of occasions. I know that some people are wary of services like Google Drive or iCloud for fear of being locked into a single company’s ecosystem (or walled garden, as they’re usually referred to), but there are a lot of benefits to using Google Drive if you’re running a WordPress business. We use it here at Elegant Themes, and it makes putting things into your hands so much easier.

What is Google Drive?

First off, let’s establish what Google Drive is. Google, the omnipresent power that it is, has created a suite of tools that when put together are called Drive. Included in the (default) suite are

Docs

Sheets

Slides

Forms

Drawings

My Maps

Sites

Pixlr Editor

If that’s not enough for you, just hit Connect More Apps and you are taken to the Chrome/Drive app store where you can integrate as many of hundreds (if not thousands) of first- and third-party tools as you want.

In addition to the apps you have, Drive also functions as a, well, drive. You get a certain amount of cloud storage for free with Drive, and you can upgrade that for a monthly price. With that, you can sync between any number of computers and the cloud to always keep your files up to date. In this way, it works pretty much just like Dropbox.

In many ways, using Google Drive as a primary tool for your WordPress business isn’t so much about the power of the tools themselves, but the flexibility and efficiency that you’re able to achieve with your workflow. The entire suite of tools works together so seamlessly (and with other apps like Slack and Trello and even WordPress itself) that taking advantage of these feature will no doubt increase your company or team’s efficiency. Which will then (hopefully) increase revenue.

So…with all that said, now that we have a foundation of what the platform is, let’s jump into how you can use it to drive your WP business to the next level.

1. Real-Time Collaboration

The biggest selling point of Google Drive in almost all respects is the inclusion of real-time collaboration. You and your team can be in the same document at the same time, making real-time edits. While this may not sound like an out-of-this-world, blow-your-mind feature, it absolutely is. As a member of a team who works a world apart from one another, being able to get on a Google Hangout and work on a post, meeting agenda, or planning document is invaluable.

If your WordPress business specifically relies on content via articles and posts, Google Drive can really speed up your editorial process if done correctly. Instead of sending drafts back and forth between writers and editors, you can be in the same document at the same time, making real-time edits. Even if you use the Submit for Review and Pending status in the WordPress dashboard, being able to work together prevents back-and-forth messages like these:

Editor: Hey, yesterday’s article needs a fix. I set it back to a draft for you.

Writer (half an hour later): Okay, I submitted it to pending again.

Editor: I set it back to a draft one more time because of this other thing.

And so on and so forth. That probably looks familiar to a few of you. Taking advantage of the real-time editing instead of using it for simple document sharing will really power up your business. Especially if all your writers’ permissions are set to “Suggest Edits” instead of editing outright.

2. Live Chat

In addition to the real-time collaboration aspect of Drive, each document has a live chat option if you have more than one person in the doc (or sheet or slide) at a time. You just need to click the chat icon next to the document participants. As people come in and out, they are added to/removed from the chat. I realize that many of you (us included) use Slack or something similar for your team communication, but that shouldn’t keep you from using the integrated chat.

Reason being, it’s more efficient. Keeping Slack open in another tab or as a separate program means you’re always going back and forth. You’re getting separate notifications. And you have to divert your attention from the work you’re doing. If you’re using the chat option, you can toss pertinent links, commentary, and everything right there in the document. And you can search it later and keep the whole conversation in context — which is perfect when you need to go back to a previous project and instead of having to go through thousands of messages archived months and months ago in Slack, you can simply look at the chat archives here.

But what about comments? you may be thinking. And comments are great for anything that is a one-off that may need a single reply and can then be resolved. But if you’re dealing with a discussion, comments are not your friend. Plus, you may get emails about every single comment message, and trying to search through them for to track a single conversation is simply unbearable, even with the comment-thread feature (beside the open chat button).

3. Hangouts

In much the same way that live chat is used, you can do the same thing with Hangouts. Hangouts does have a chat in the window it opens (which is great for meetings, but not so much when collaborating in real time in a document), but you can keep the call open in the background while you work. Again, it’s not any different than another VOIP service or call (Skype, or even Slack calls); however, since it’s integrated into Drive, anyone who’s involved already is just a click away from a video/voice call to collaborate on any given document or project. It’s a quality-of-life inclusion that you can’t fully appreciate until you’ve used it, I think.

4. Slack Integration (Among Others)

Now, I’ve said a lot of stuff that may come across as Slack is great, but…, and knocking the service. That’s not what I mean. So let me say this: Slack is great, but… (haha) Google Drive makes it even better. Really. You can install it to any Slack workspace you want from their app store.

There’s no way all of these features don’t enhance your WordPress business. Sure, they don’t directly tie to WP itself, but they make creating content for WordPress sites much more pleasant. I can’t count the times that I have personally been working on a post, only to receive a Slack notification of a comment, revision, or invitation to edit that was time sensitive far quicker than the automated emails came through (if they came at all, in a few cases).

The same integration is available for Trello and Basecamp and any number of other project management and team communications suites. Google Drive is such a pervasive and ubiquitous tool that you should absolutely take the time to (or have your admin) integrate whatever apps are available to link Drive into your service.

5. Using Google Sheets as a Team Dashboards

Admittedly, I am pretty wary of spreadsheets. They’re functional, but they’re not sexy. Apps…now they’re sexy. When it’s possible to use an app or program to do something that someone suggests a spreadsheet for, I opt for the separate app. But honestly, sometimes having a separate app just isn’t possible. And if you’re trying to keep everything within the same ecosystem (Google Drive in this case), keeping your data in a spreadsheet just makes sense.

Luckily, there’s an addon for Google Drive called Supermetrics. It really supercharges what you can do with Google Sheets, and so that even people like me can get them to perform adequately.

Basically, you can set up an entire analytics and monitoring suite for your business using Drive (and even bringing in Google Analytics, too). It lets you have have an at-a-glance rundown of what is going on with your site, SEO, the blog, social channels, and anything else you need to import and look at. This kind of dashboard for your team is not a replacement for a suite for tracking services or their built-in tools, but it works amazingly well for aggregation, analysis, and pinning down improvement areas (not to mention highlighting successes).

6. Sync with Google Photos

Since Google Drive has file storage as a primary foundation of the service, I’d be remiss if I didn’t show you one of the more useful connections to WordPress regarding that. In addition to being able to export backups and large media files from plugins like UpdraftPlus or services like Zencastr, the official Jetpack plugin supports Google Photos media library imports. Again, powering up your WordPress business is about efficiency. Keeping your photos in one place (for free and with unlimited space) and then being able to import them into your WP media library is invaluable.

If you run a WP business, you are probably on the go a lot. You may not even use the same computer or device day by day. Cloud storage is your friend, especially when you don’t know where and when your next hard drive will be coming from. You may work from public computers (raise your hand if you’ve lost something important because you forgot to back it up before your session ended). Plus, how many times have you been told “Sure, you can use my computer. Just don’t download anything at all.”? (That’s a rarity these days, but it still happens.) You might even have to put in whole days of working on your smartphone.

Regardless of why you’d need to keep pics in Google Photos, you should be. And honestly, probably are regardless. So linking the service to WordPress and then being able to import your Google Photos directly into your media library will increase efficiency just enough that you will wonder why you’ve downloaded/uploaded/Recycle Binned images for so long.

Note: Currently you aren’t able to access/import Google Photos from your wp-admin of self-hosted Jetpack-enabled sites. You will need to import those photos from your site at WordPress.com in order to see them on your self-hosted site.

7. Dictate Documents Like a Boss

I sometimes imagine what it would be like to sit back in my office chair (feet up on the desk) and dictate important emails and notes to my personal assistant. I would use cool phrases like “next line” and “new paragraph” as I rattled off a symphony of the english language. Well, with Google Doc’s voice typing functionality, this dream has become reality (kind of). I don’t really sit back in my chair, I have to click a button to start dictating my text, and I have to check the final draft for grammar just to be safe. But at least I still get to use some cool phrases even though I have to say “new line” instead of “next line”. And I find that it is really useful for things other than drafting emails. It is also a convenient way to record notes during client meetings without having to interrupt the flow of conversation with typing. And I sometimes use it to record blocks of text from images or screenshots of content that I need to add to my website.

8. Store and Embed Videos

If you are looking to host your large media files (like Videos) outside of WordPress, Google Drive will allow you to link to those files within your WordPress site. Also, Drive makes it easy to embed videos directly on your website.

Once the video has been uploaded to Drive, open the video in a new window.

Now all you need to do is open the file in a separate window. Open settings again and click the “Embed item” link in the menu.

Copy the embed html code and paste it on your webpage.

9. Google Slides for Webinars (and other presentations)

Webinars are a popular way to educate customers about your product, grow your email list, and, in the end, make more money. But a lot of the webinars I’ve seen have pretty horrible presentations, mostly due to the design of the slides. Google Slides can help ease the pain of designing a template for your webinar slides. And you can just launch the presentation and deliver your webinar straight from Google Drive. Once done, you can easily share your slides with your audience for reference.

You can also easily add Google Slides presentations to your WordPress website.

10. Use Google Forms for things like Contact Forms, Client Questionnaires, and Surveys

Any online business will need a reliable method for collecting and storing important information from their customers. Google Forms offers a convenient platform for creating forms for many different use cases. You can easily embed a Google form to your WordPress website and all the results can be accessed from Google Drive.

A WordPress business could use google forms for many different use cases, including contact Forms or Client Questionnaires for on-boarding.

Google Forms can be a simple yet powerful solution for surveying your visitors for market feedback, employers for happiness levels, customers for reasons they jumped ship. You can even use a survey to improve your website experience. Whatever the reason, you can easily embed a google form on your site or send users to the designated form page on your Drive.

If you want to use another software like Typeform, don’t forget that you can easily create a zap to store all those entries neatly in a Google Sheets spreadsheet.

11. Integrate Docusign with Google Docs

Running a WP business usually means most (if not all) of your meetings take place online. That means contracts, and other important documents, need to be signed electronically. DocuSign is a popular e-signature online service that works with Google Drive. All you need is to get the extension from the chrome web store and you can easily send/share your documents right from Google Drive (or Gmail) and then automatically store them securely in your Drive. Unless of course, you enjoy using a printer, scanner, or fax machine (they do still exist).

DocHub also has another popular extension for editing and signing PDF Documents and Word Documents straight from Gmail.

12. Google Drive File Stream

I don’t know about you, but I like keeping files in the cloud because I hate overloading my hard drive with files which I know are full of things I don’t need anymore and I don’t have time to sort through. But I also like the convenience of being able to search through my files (or cluttered mess) on my computer. The Google Drive File Stream application seems to have provided a way to have my cake (or cloud) and eat (or search) it too. This may seem like a small convenience, but don’t underestimate the annoyance of an overloaded hard drive when running a business.

The Drive File Stream is available with their Business plan and is a step up from their Backup and Sync application which is free for personal plans.

13. Backup Your WordPress Site on Google Drive

There are a ton of solutions/plugins out there for backing up your WordPress website. But, not all of them are free, and those that are tend to store your backups on your server (which can crash). Google Drive does provide a good amount of free storage space (15GB) which can be used to store your backups to a remote location, accessible from anywhere.

You can Create a Drive Backup of your WordPress Website through the use of a WordPress backup plugin like UpdraftPlus – for FREE.

14. Import Blog Posts from Google Docs to WordPress

If you have ever tried to copy content from Google Docs into a WordPress blog post, you may have noticed that things don’t always transfer cleanly. The html gets some additional formatting that you don’t really want. But there are ways to merge the the two effectively. Wordable offers a premium service that allows your to import posts and pages directly from Google Docs with a click of a button (see review here).

There is also free solutions including the WordPress.com to Google Docs Chrome extension and the Mammoth .docx converter plugin.

15. Embed Google Calendars in WordPress

I realize that Google Calendar is not technically Google Drive (all these apps blend together in my mind after a while), but I thought it worth mentioning considering the popularity of calendars for WordPress and and WordPress business.

No one wants the headache of managing one calendar for your website and another on Google. Thanksfully, adding a Google calendar to your website is pretty simply. Once you customize the calendar within Google Calendar, you can generate an embed code that can be pasted anywhere on your WordPress site. The code is an iFrame which simply means what you see on the website is actually hosted on Google. So styling the calendar will challenging using CSS in WordPress. So if you need more control over the calendar design, you can use a plugin like Simple Calendar.

16. Showcase Google Calendar Events on WordPress with A Plugin

Instead of settling for a Google Calendar embed code, there are WordPress calendar plugins that integrate with Google Calendar to open new doors for customization and display options. Simple Calendar and WP Google Calendar Manager will do the trick. Both make it easy to add Google Calendar events to WordPress

17. Integrating Google Sheets and WordPress

If you are familiar with Google Sheets, you know how easy it is to convert your spreadsheet data into a beautiful chart or graph. It is pretty “mathi-magical” stuff. And there are ways to display these beautiful illustrations of data directly on your WordPress site. You could opt for a WordPress plugin like the Inline Google Spreadsheet Viewer which can turn your Google Sheets data into dynamic spreadsheet, charts, and tables and insert them anywhere on your website (learn how).

Alternatively, you can publish a spreadsheet (or chart) to the web directly from Google Sheets to get an embed code you can paste to your webpage.

18. Use Google Slides to Create Images for WordPress

Not all businesses are lucky to have a skilled graphic designer on hand to create those custom images needed for their website. That’s why there are many options available to bridge the gap between businessman and photo editor for your WordPress images. Google Slides is one of those options.

The great thing about Google Slides is there are wonderful free templates/themes out there that will jumpstart the process of designing your own images from scratch.

All you need to do is design a slide and download it in JPEG or PNG format.

19. Google Meet for Video Conferencing

Google is constantly evolving their communication products. This includes Google Hangouts. Now, Google Hangouts is branching out to include Hangouts Chat to create a more Slack-like experience for your business. And Google Meet (or Hangouts Meet) is becoming a prize fighter in the video conferencing industshery.

So if you have access to G Suite, you may find Google Meet to be just what you need. For $5 a month, you can host up to 25 video callers with some other useful features similar to most of those video conferencing software giants out there. The G Suite Enterprise edition allows you to connect with up to 50 people.

See if Google Meet is the right fit for your business videoconferencing.

20. Search and Access Docs from Email

This one has been around for a while, but if you live on Google Docs the way I do, it is a valuable resource. When composing your many emails from Gmail, you can insert Google Drive files directly from the email interface. Just click the Google Drive icon at the bottom.

Then you can search through all your folders and insert your file either as a link or an attachment.

21. Take Advantage of the Specialized Linking System in Google Docs

Google has some helpful features to help you link to different areas (headers) of your Google Doc. This is a great time saver for combing through large docs containing weekly meeting notes on certain projects. The only think you have to do is make sure you organize your doc with proper headings. Google will take care of the rest. Google has a built it Document Outline display that will turn those headers into a clickable table of contents on the left of your doc. Simply click the view tab and select “Show document outline”.

But sometimes it’s just easier to create another doc instead of having all your info in one long page. Google makes it easy to create links to other documents to speed up the process of accessing related info. It also helps you organize a network of related content.

Just create a link and start typing the name of the doc or folder in the link box. Your documents will start to appear below for easy access.

22. Revision Tracking

When multiple people are working on the same Google Doc, you need to be able to know who made certain changes and when those changes are made. This is crucial for any project manager. Google Docs has the ability to show these revisions based on user and time. Simply click the File tab and select Version history > See version history.

Now you can view all revisions in a left sidebar and click the revision you wish to view.

Now you can work together revisions in a snap.

This revision tracking is also available in Google Sheets, Slides, and Forms as well.

23. Use Google Drawings to Sketch Wireframes and Design Infographics

Google Drawings has an intuitive UI for creating all kinds of helpful illustrations easily. Sure, it doesn’t pack the same punch as Illustrator or Sketch, but it can be useful for sketching wireframe and designing infographics.

Wireframes are useful for sketching out a blueprint of your website before it reaches the design phase. It can save your WordPress Web Design business a lot of time. So if you are looking to save money, Google Drawings can definitely do the trick. It offers all the shapes and text elements you need to create and align your wireframe.

If you want to up the scale of professionalism for your wireframes, there a many free wireframe templates available. A quick google search of Google Wireframe templates should get what you need.

And if you need an infographic to display on your website, Google Drawings can be a simple solution. Your infographic may not go viral or win awards, but it can boost your website with extremely helpful illustrations. And, because you can create charts and graphs based on actual data in a Google Sheet, you can speed up the process of design by inserting those charts created automatically.

24. Connect Google Drive Apps with Other Apps with Zapier

Zapier is a popular online software that allows you to share data between more than a thousand apps you use everyday. And yes, you guessed it. There are a lot of connections (or zaps) you can create with Google Apps. You can even create zaps to connect Google Drive with WordPress to create backups of your posts on a Google text file or log WordPress posts to a Google Sheets spreadsheet. And that is just a few examples. You can even connect different Google apps together and create Google Calendar events from a new Google Sheets spreadsheet row (or Google Form entry).

This kind of integration can automate tasks for your business and save you time and money.

25. Security

Security tends to be a luxury we take for granted until, of course, we don’t have it. Google does seem to take security seriously, building their core security infrastructure into all of their services. Plus, there are ways to make your account more secure with things like 2-step verification.

Google Cloud Storage also seems to have a security model that your WordPress business can trust. I’m not saying it going to be the best fit for your company, but it may be a smart solution for Google fans.

Drive Off Into the Sunset

Chances are that you already use Google Drive in some way for your WordPress business. That’s great, and you probably have seen how much it can help. Hopefully, though, we’ve hit on some ways that you and your team can really get more out of the service. Not everything will work for every one, but as we’ve implemented a lot of these around here at ET, we’ve definitely noticed a difference in how much more work we get done and how much nicer it is to get that work done.

How do you use Google Drive to power your WordPress company? Let us know in the comments!

Article featured image by Andrew Rybalko / shutterstock.com

The post 25 Ways Google Drive Can Help Power Your WordPress Business appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

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