Month: August 2021

Whether you’re looking for an exciting new career change, or simply want to boost your earning potential, learning Google DevOps and blockchain development is one of the most lucrative skills you can have right now. In fact, the average salary for a blockchain developer in the U.S. is $154,550 a year, while the average Google DevOps salary is a massive $213,000 annually.

If you like the sound of those figures, we have some even better news: right now, you can train in those in-demand specialisms in your own time, from anywhere with The Google DevOps & Blockchain Developer Bundle, a complete elearning bootcamp that is on sale for $29.99 right now. With eight different courses included in the bundle, that works out to less than $4 a course.

Throughout the training, you’ll learn essential skills for some of the fastest-growing specialism in tech today over the course of more than 30 hours of hands-on training.

For example, in the course DevOps Fundamentals, you’ll learn why DevOps is so essential today, as well as learning all the basics and best practices of the industry. Then, you’ll be set up with training for a variety of in-demand industry certifications, including Google Cloud Platform Certification Training, Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect training, and Certified Kubernetes Application Developer training, to name a few.

The courses in this bundle are taught by ITU Online Training, which has specialized in providing on-demand online IT training since 2012 and has taught over 650,000 students, over 200 companies, and over 50 public entities. In the process, it has picked up a ton of industry awards, including the Best in Biz Awards and the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards.

Take the first step to becoming a six-figure blockchain developer today with The Google DevOps & Blockchain Developer Bundle, on sale now with 96% off, for $29.99 (regular price $792).

Whether you want to take your electronics skills to the next level or want a fun new project to impress your friends with, ESP32 is ideal. The powerful microcontroller is an excellent choice for electronics projects as not only does it integrate with several hardware components and cloud services, but it also has Bluetooth and WiFi functionality, and an accessible IoT module design well suited to beginners – plus, it’s more affordable than other microcontroller kits, like Arduino boards.

The training to learn ESP32 is even more affordable right now, too. That’s because we’ve found The Ultimate ESP32 Course Bundle on sale for just $49.99 – that’s a 75% discount off the regular price of $200. With four hands-on courses and a master eBook included in this bumper bundle, that works out to less than $10 per course or book.

With this bundle, you’ll get more than 35 hours of expert tuition to teach you everything you need to know to hone your electronics skills and start turning your ideas into actual platforms, right away. You’ll also get lifetime access to it all, so you can learn at your own pace and return to refresh your skills whenever you like.

You’ll start with the course ESP32 for Busy People, where you’ll get a complete intro to what ESP32 is and its various modules, before using the ESP32 GPIOs to work with simple components like LEDs, as well as drive peripherals like displays, sensors, and motors.

Later, in the course MicroPython with the ESP32, you’ll take your skills to a higher level by using MicroPython with the ESP32 to program gadgets that include displays, motors, switches, and communications.

Every course in this masterclass is taught by Peter Dalmaris, an electrical and computer engineer with a Ph.D., and the founder of Tech Explorations, which specializes in teaching electronics fans to make their own awesome gadgets. As well as a “couple of Masters” (no big deal), Dalmaris has also earned a highly impressive 4.6/5 instructor rating from his previous students.

Take the first step to becoming an electronics master today with The Ultimate ESP32 Course Bundle, on sale with 75% off now for $49.99 (regular price $200).

Ever feel like you just don’t know what to watch next? Not sure which streaming platform to sign up to for the best selection of movies? Or, perhaps you feel like you’ve literally watched all of Netflix over the past year.

The secret to never being short of an epic new show to watch is with innovative new apps and online tools, like the SelectTV streaming app, which gives you easy access to a massive library of shows, movies, and live TV, all in one place. With this, you can also forget the high prices you’d expect from signing up to a ton of TV services, as today we’ve found a bundle of a lifetime subscription to SelectTV, plus a lifetime subscription to VPN Unlimited on sale for just $99 – that’s an 85% discount off the regular price of $677.

With this top-rated bundle of tools, you’ll be set with incredible TV, movies, and live events to watch for life.

The SelectTV Streaming App, usually $478.80, organizes all of the web’s entertainment into the world’s most comprehensive digital media guide – giving you easy access to more than 500,000 different movies and TV shows. This innovative guide is essential for streaming online, as it searches, updates, and manages over 2 million video links every day. The result? Less time searching and more time watching.

Then, to really take your entertainment experience to the next level, you’ll pair it with a lifetime subscription to VPN Unlimited, which would usually cost $199 alone. With a robust VPN by your side, you’ll be able to bypass region restrictions and enjoy total internet and streaming freedom, unlocking international streaming services and sites forever. In addition to unrestricted content, VPN Unlimited will also allow you anonymous browsing, with totally secure online activity – keeping your private information protected, even when using public Wi-Fi.

VPN Unlimited also comes extremely highly recommended. It has won the PC Mag award for Top VPN, the Editor’s Pick Award by Software Informer and has been named Laptop Review Pro’s Best VPN for Laptop. Users love it too, with an impressive 4.3/5 stars on TrustPilot.

Start streaming unrestricted content for life with The SelectTV + KeepSolid VPN Unlimited Lifetime Subscription Bundle, on sale with 85% off now for $99 (regular price $677).

Hellbender premiered at the Fantastia Intl. Film Festival, and will stream on Shudder in early 2022.

From Carrie and The Craft to Ginger Snaps and Jennifer’s Body, coming-of-age horror has a rich tradition of turning girls into mesmerizing monsters. We might shriek at their vicious impulses, but amid their tales of teen angst, changing bodies, and craving boys, blood, and popularity, we see an unnerving reflection of our own stories. Making its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival, Hellbender is a ruthlessly witchy offering that walks in these footsteps while carving a homespun path of its own.

Hellbender is the latest feature from the Adams family, a mother-father-daughter(s) team that’s been making movies in truly indie fashion since 2013’s Rumble Strips. They are the cast and crew of their works. For the previous films, mother Toby Poser and father John Adams shared writing and directing duties, while daughter Zelda Adams co-starred alongside them. In 2019, they broke through with the festival favorite The Deeper You Dig, a lean and mean ghost story now available on Shudder. Little wonder, then, that Shudder has already acquired this ambitious follow-up, which bumps Zelda up to co-writer/co-director for a story about a girl gone wild as hell.

Shot on location in the Catskill Mountains, Hellbender centers on a mother-daughter duo who lives simply and happily, deep in the woods. Homeschooled Izzy (Zelda Adams) is an obedient girl, who eats a foraged dinner of twigs and berries without complaint and relishes rocking out at home with her mother (Toby Poser) in their titular band. However, as Izzy grows, she begins to itch for the wider world that her mother forbids. Then, a lost hiker (John Adams) sparks a ravenous curiosity in Izzy that urges her to explore not only the lands beyond their property line, but also a family heritage full of dark secrets and seductive power.

Like the heroines of horror who have come before her, Izzy walks a dark path with a mix of apprehension and exhilaration. The Adams family reflects this intoxicating rush of emotions with a cool but saturated color palette that makes the green of the woods almost violently bright against the dark tree trunks and splashes of blood. The cinematography balances wide shots underscoring isolation with close-ups that relish in little details of her discoveries, like a shiny pair of pink barrettes, a wriggling worm, and a hand splitting open to eject a magical key. The songs of Hellbender (written and performed by the whole family, including Zelda’s sister Lulu Adams) provide much of the soundtrack, expressing Izzy’s emotions with a thrillingly sneering ‘90s girl rock vibe. In the edit, slow motion and digital punch-ins are employed to punch up the excitement of an elicit hangout that might seem tame to others, but is life-changing for Izzy. Regrettably, these editing tricks feel a bit amateurish in execution, as do a few of the practical effects. Still, some less-than-seamless stop motion here and haphazard effects there don’t detract much from what the Adams built together.

More than a coming-of-age story, Hellbender is a mother-daughter drama that achieves a balance between both sides. While Izzy understandably searches for friends, identity, and meaning, the nightmare for her mother is not just the fear of losing her little girl to the independence of adulthood, but also being powerless to prevent Izzy from making the same mistakes she did in her impetuous youth. John Adams’ sound design gives voice to her growing worries through eerie backwards whispers and a score that sounds like violins being played by lead pipes. Most bombastically, this mother is tormented by clamorous visions of doom, exploding with surreal imagery and giallo-reminiscent bursts of color and sound that intrigue and unnerve.

Zelda shoulders her arc impressively, transforming before our eyes from a timid girl to a merciless maneater. (She showed a similar flair for spooky spectacle as the adolescent poltergeist of The Deeper You Dig.) As for Poser, she has an easy screen presence that translates their real-life bond into an enchantment of its own. At points, this is simply a hangout movie, luxuriating in the boundary-breaking pleasures of jamming with your mom or popping psychedelic maggots. Such scenes ground the strange in something familiar and sacred, the cozy and chaotic bond of parent and child. So even as we might root for Izzy to go full baddie — and give us a catastrophe-rich climax — we also hope for this bond to be preserved. This taut tension makes for a finale that, though simple in its construction, proves thrilling and haunting.

More and more arcade fight sticks are going wireless these days, and the PowerA Fusion Fight Stick is another entrant to the space, albeit one that’s made just for Nintendo Switch. While PowerA has a decent reputation for making affordable gaming accessories that can compete fairly well with their more expensive counterparts, the Fusion Wireless Arcade Stick comes in at a $129 price point that sets it up for more of a head-to-head competition in the market. So, let’s see how it holds up.

PowerA Fusion Fight Stick – Design and Features

The PowerA Fusion fight stick is straightforward in its design and has a fairly minimal footprint for an arcade stick. There’s only a small amount of buffer space on either side of the balltop joystick and eight arcade buttons, and there’s reasonable room below to rest your palms. This makes it a fairly compact and portable accessory that fits with the nature of the Nintendo Switch’s hybrid console design.

PowerA has built a solid frame for this fight stick. The top and sides are an incredibly sturdy plastic. The bottom is metal, so won’t be a weak point, and has a rubber foot in each corner for stability. PowerA has gone for a strong color scheme with all black and red, though the large red faceplate can actually be swapped out, with just six screws holding it in place.

For the price, you might expect some higher end components, but PowerA doesn’t advertise what type of hardware it’s using for its joystick or buttons, so it’s a safe bet they’re not Sanwa. The buttons are actually clicky, more akin to the feel of Cherry MX Blue keyboard switches. While that may be an uncomfortable change for some, they at least maintain a more typical Taito Vewlix arrangement.

Beyond the arcade controls, the PowerA Fusion fight stick includes the main Nintendo Switch menu controls as well as a three-way switch to select whether the joystick will act as a left stick, right stick, or D-Pad.

The back edge of the Fusion fight stick is where it gets the most drab. There’s a large compartment to house the included 9.8-foot USB-C cable, but it’s barely big enough to hold the cable bundled up. Even when the cable is plugged into the fight stick, it has to bend so sharply that it presses against the back of the compartment door and barely lets the thing shut. At least PowerA included two small cutouts so the door could be shut while playing, helping keep the cable plugged in.

This back edge also has a power switch to turn on Bluetooth and the Bluetooth pairing button, both of which feel a bit cheap for this price point. Strangely, the Bluetooth pairing button has an indicator light next to it, but the light is there to indicate low-battery and not pairing status. The Fusion’s Bluetooth runs on a pair of AA batteries, though no battery power is required for wired operation.

PowerA Fusion Fight Stick – Gaming and performance

It was a delightful coincidence that my review unit of the PowerA Fusion fight stick should show up the same week my roommate brought home the Switch port of Killer Queen. I dove in to see how the arcade stick held up in the fast-paced arcade game.

The clicky arcade buttons may be a somewhat contentious choice, but they feel great. They do require a bit more travel to reach the actuation point than the switches of most other fight sticks I’ve tested, but they’re also harder to accidentally actuate by just resting my fingers on them.

Whenever I got into head-to-head jousting matches with an enemy queen or powered up drone, I didn’t find that lower actuation point or higher resistance holding me back. I was also able to tap rapidly enough to fly up through the levels. With a wired connection, I also don’t notice any latency. In the heat of battle, I might also fail to notice latency over the controllers alternative Bluetooth 5.0 connection, but navigating menus, the delay of Bluetooth seems to be subtly present.

This is all to say the controller can get the job done, but it’s certainly not exceptional in any way. Worse, it’s held back by the arcade stick’s platform limitations. I reviewed 8BitDo’s arcade stick, and for significantly less it offers wired, 2.4GHz wireless (i.e., latency free), and Bluetooth connectivity. It also uses a rechargeable battery. And, to top it off, it worked on a wide variety of platforms and a simple toggle would actually change the legend next to each button to either Switch or Xbox controls.