Proof point: years ago, Ms. Northern had an idea to combat the dropping graduation rate at Raines.

“I had the idea to start with the end in mind,” Ms. Northern says, her careful cadence of words drawing her audience in. “So we held a baccalaureate at the beginning of the school year. We ordered the caps and gowns for everyone. I don’t care if they were an F student or a C student—they all had a cap and gown. Then we marched.

“Guess where I was during the ceremony?” Ms. Northern asks India.

“Where?” India says.

“Behind the video camera,” answers Ms. Northern, grinning.

“Of course you were, Ms. Northern,” India says. “Of course you were.”

That year, the graduation rate saw the uptick that the administration and Ms. Northern were hoping for.

*****

India was the kind of student that teachers want to duplicate, according to Ms. Northern. “If you gave her a project, she would see that project through from beginning to end. Then, she’d talk the other students into believing that they could accomplish it as well.”

And now, she’s pleased that India has come back, proud that she’d consider what Raines and the people who’ve been a part of her life have done to help her.

“She’s not only looked back, but she’s embraced her history,” Ms. Northern says. “And for that, I am so proud.”

Since junior high school, India dreamed about going to a four-year college. She had her mother’s unwavering support, and they would do whatever it took to get her there, but India would have to figure out the steps. No one in her family had done it before.

“That’s one of the struggles I think can be intrinsic to some kids coming from single-parent homes like I did,” India explains. “Maybe they’re dependent on food stamps or government assistance. Maybe they have to work while in college, whereas somebody else can just focus on going to school. They just have different challenges than some people would. They need help to figure out that path.”

That’s where Ms. Northern stepped in.

One of the larger segments of this week’s Nintendo Direct was given to Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which is now planned to arrive on the system this summer following a minor delay. The Direct promised that a limited edition would make its way to retail but didn’t show it off, so here’s a look at how the bundle will likely appear when it arrives.

The European version will come with a physical copy of the game (that box won’t be final design, don’t worry), a steelbook, a fancy outer casing, an artbook, a pin badge set featuring the three houses, and some songs from the game’s soundtrack on a USB stick. We’re not sure why they’ve opted for a USB over a nice little CD, but there you are.

In North America, you can expect a similar bundle, albeit with a CD rather than a USB stick. The pin badges have also been replaced with a calendar.

This bundle will hit stores on the same day that the game launches, 26th July. The Direct segment revealed information about the game’s three house setup, showing off some lovely portions of gameplay along the way.

Will you be snapping up the limited edition bundle? Let us know if you’re looking forward to this one in the comments.

Explore how to use Microsoft Threat Protection to transform digital security for education organizations while enabling IT teams to combat modern phishing attacks.

It’s every educational institution’s goal to successfully get students to graduation and prepare them for the future—and it’s a lot of work. The last thing busy school administrators and faculty want to worry about is the digital security of their classroom technology.

Adopting technology that is easy to use and functions seamlessly allows IT administrators to focus on addressing the needs of their organization and securing the digital infrastructure in and outside of the classroom. With limited school budgets and already hardworking school staff, it’s important to develop a technology strategy that is easy to implement and enhances their work in the classroom while providing administrators peace of mind. And in today’s digital-first world, a big part of that peace of mind includes reliable digital security.

Essential security challenges facing today’s education organizations

More organizations each year are realizing the value of having strong digital security measures in place. The cost of cybercrime to the global economy is projected to be $8 trillion by 2022.

Education organizations face their own unique set of challenges when it comes to data security. For example, the high visibility and public nature of most education organizations means that valuable information is more readily available to potential bad agents. The date for a school’s new location opening, plans for a new university-wide technology initiative, important dates for student FAFSA processing, are all at risk. In addition, a potential bad actor can often view organizational leadership and staff online to identify key employees to target directly. For education organizations, data breaches could compromise bank account information and result in thousands of dollars in stolen stipends or paychecks, or could lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost technology.

One of the most common kinds of security breaches comes in the form of phishing attacks. These malicious cyberattacks present low risk for bad actors combined with the possibility of very high reward. As cyberattacks become more advanced, technology to successfully combat them must do the same.

Transformative approach to modern digital security with Microsoft Threat Protection

Microsoft’s cutting-edge cybersecurity solution, Microsoft Threat Protection (MTP), is designed to enhance data protection with a smarter, more comprehensive technology strategy. Powered by the cloud and built on Azure and Microsoft 365, MTP uses machine learning and other digital innovation to improve how the system recognizes and prevents phishing attacks. Rather than relying on a singular, siloed security solution, MTP leverages capabilities and insights from a collection of Microsoft solutions. For example, MTP runs on Microsoft 365’s all up security solutions stack to maximize its security offerings and ensure world class protection. The system can also expertly identify and consider comprehensive attack signatures, including location, specific behaviors, and recognizable patterns. As a result, MTP acts as a smart security tool that is versatile and agile enough to successfully combat even the most calculated phishing attacks.

One of the most valuable parts of the Microsoft Threat Protection software is its education and learning component. Because of its machine learning technology, the system has the capacity to evolve as the threat evolves—rather than building a whole new security measure each time a new threat arises. IT leaders and administrators can use the cloud-powered technology to learn how to adjust and develop the MTP solution to best fit the security needs of their specific organization. IT experts can take ownership of the overall tech strategy for their team to gain valuable insights into modern phishing trends. So, in addition to leveraging a cutting-edge digital security solution, education organizations can also empower and grow the skills of their in-house IT team.

Powering a secure organization with a better enabled IT team

Enabling IT teams to focus their energy and efforts on securing the classroom is top-of-mind for school administrators and IT leaders in education. Ensuring valuable personal data and digital interactions are secure and protected across technology platforms is critical. While phishing is estimated to have originated in the mid-1990s, this kind of data breach will likely be around well into the future—and education organizations need to be prepared. With Microsoft Threat Protection, IT decision makers and school administrators can feel more confident their technology infrastructure is being protected. And with the system’s strategic technology, education organizations can also benefit from IT staff that leverages relevant insights to expand their skills, grow their knowledge, and better protect their investments.

To learn more, register for the webcast and download the full infographic with more details.

Mainframes are, and will continue to be, a bedrock for industries and organizations that run mission-critical applications. In one way or another, all of us are mainframe users. Every time you make an online transaction or make a reservation, for example, you are using a mainframe.

According to IBM, corporations use mainframes for applications that depend on scalability and reliability. They rely on mainframes in order to:

• Perform large-scale transaction processing (thousands of transactions per second)
• Support thousands of users and application programs concurrently accessing numerous resources
• Manage terabytes of information in databases
• Handle large-bandwidth communication

Often when people hear the word mainframe, though, they think of dinosaurs. It’s true mainframes have aged, and one challenge the mainframe community faces is that they struggle to attract fresh developers who want to use latest and shiniest technologies.

Zowe milestones

Zowe, a Linux Foundation project under the umbrella of Open Mainframe Project is changing all that. Through this project, industry heavyweights including IBM, Rocket Software, and Broadcom came together to modernize mainframes running z/OS.

Read more at The Linux Foundation

The next batch of amiibo for the Super Smash Bros. line available today from all good retailers. Joining the roster are Piranha Plant, King K. Rool, and Ice Climbers, all of which will look rather lovely on your gaming shelf. Heck, you might even want to use the NFC functionality and train them up to be a formidable fighter. We won’t judge you if you just want to admire them for their looks alone, of course.

If you didn’t pre-order these, worry not. Various retailers are still taking orders today; below are your best bets for securing these potentially rare (one day, at least) amiibo.

Please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale which helps support the site. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.

Piranha Plant amiibo

The Piranha Plant is an enemy in the Super Mario series with a round head and a mouthful of teeth that will pop out of a pipe when you least expect it. This one is a bit of a shock inclusion to the Smash line-up!

King K. Rool amiibo

King K. Rool is the leader of the Kremling Krew, who he repeatedly orders to steal Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong’s Banana Hoard. He also likes kidnapping Kong Family members while he’s at it. A nasty piece of work, but a fine amiibo for your shelf!

Ice Climbers amiibo

The Ice Climbers, Popo and Nana, are the stars of the NES game Ice Climber. These adventurers are equipped for even the coldest climates, and will make a fine addition to your amiibo collection.

amiibo stock has vastly improved since the scary early days, where literally no one’s orders were safe, but if you’re 100% sure that you want these figures it’s definitely worth getting your order in now, just in case.

Again, at the time of writing, King K. Rool and Ice Climbers are also available from Amazon UK for £14.99 each should you want or need a different option.

Make sure to let us know in the comments if you decide to snap these up!

Tetris 99 is, amazingly, the newest and freshest ‘Battle Royale’ on the block, T-spinning its way into a heated battle against the likes of Fortnite and Apex Legends for world domination. Okay – it might not be in quite the same league as those gaming heavyweights – but it certainly brings an equal amount of fun to the table, and arguably even more challenge.

Facing off against 98 others players in real time is hard and, let’s be honest, the game really isn’t very good at telling you how to play. With that in mind, we’ve been practising like crazy to bring you this super-useful list of tips and tricks. What do the attacks in Tetris 99 do? How do you win? What even are the controls? We’ve got you covered…

The Basics of Tetris (and Tetris 99’s controls)

How To Play

Let’s kick things off with the basics (feel free to scroll on down if you already know how to play the main game). When loading up a game, you’ll see differently-coloured Tetriminos – blocks made up of different shapes – fall from the top of the screen. Your job is to rotate, drop, and carefully place these at the bottom of your screen to create full lines. Doing so clears that line from the board, and you can even clear multiple lines in one go with clever block placement.

In a usual game of Tetris, the aim is to simply survive for as long as possible, or get crazy high scores by clearing lots of lines or getting combos. Tetris 99 changes things up, however, as we’ll find out later on.

The Controls

If you’ve never played a game of Tetris before, or if you’re feeling a little rusty, you’re going to have a pretty hard time learning the basics in Tetris 99. Before jumping into a full match, make sure to memorise these controls:

• A/Y: Rotate Right – This will rotate your current, falling Tetrimino block to the right by 90 degrees.
• B/X: Rotate Left – This will rotate your current, falling Tetrimino block to the left by 90 degrees.
• L/R: Hold – This stores one block for later use, which can then be activated whenever you like by pressing the button again. Perfect for holding back tricky-to-place blocks, or saving an ‘I’ block to slot in at a later time.
• D-Pad Left/Right: Move – This will move your current, falling block to the left or right.
• D-Pad Up: Hard Drop – Pressing up will cause your current block to automatically snap to its destination. Once you’ve moved and rotated your block to where you like, press this to move on quickly.
• D-Pad Down: Soft Drop – Just like the hard drop, except this allows you to manually drop at your own pace.
• Left Stick/Touchscreen: Select target – The left stick and touchscreen allow you to manually pick an opponent to attack during the Battle Royale.
• Right Stick: Switch attack mode – The right stick toggles through the different attack mode options in Battle Royale (explained further down in this guide).

It’s also worth noting that you can switch the left and right stick options around in the settings, should you prefer them the opposite way around.

The ‘Battle Royale’ Twist

In Tetris 99, you’ll be playing against 98 other players in real time. Players can attack each other during the game, sending ‘junk’ lines to an opponent’s screen, and the last one standing after all the mayhem is declared the winner.

There are a surprising number of things to think about here, such as your attack, defence, and keeping an eye on what your opponents are doing. Hopefully, these tips will help you on your way to victory.

How To Send ‘Junk’ Lines

You can send ‘junk’ lines to opponents by clearing more than one line of blocks at a time (or sometimes even with just one if you’ve racked up combos or badges).

Clearing two lines will send one to your selected opponent; clearing three will send two, and clearing four will send four. Generating combos (successfully clearing lines with every block which falls from the top without a break) can add to these numbers.

What Are Badges And How Do They Work?

Badges add multiplier bonuses to your attacks, essentially adding to the number of lines you’ll send over to your opponent. Every time you wipe out another player, you’ll secure a portion of a badge, and you’ll also get any badges they were currently holding, too.

Reddit user Wiwiweb has managed to calculate exactly how these badges work. You can have up to four badges on you at any one time (the brackets below show how many badge portions you’ll need to make up that complete badge, and the attack bonus for owning each badge is shown afterwards).

• 1st badge: (2 badge bits) +25% lines
• 2nd badge: (4 badge bits, 6 total) +50% lines
• 3rd badge: (8 badge bits, 14 total) +75% lines
• 4th badge (maximum): (16 badge bits, 30 total) +100% lines

You can see how many badges you have just below your K.O. count. In this image below, we have one complete badge and are working towards a second.

How To Prevent Attacks

Sometimes, it feels like everyone is attacking you and there’s absolutely no hope in sight. Luckily, there is a way to monitor incoming attacks, and ways to deal with them.

Every attack sent your way will show up in a tall column on the side of your main screen, all as various coloured blocks. These pesky blocks are queueing up to throw themselves onto your main board, and will rise up from the bottom. They’re usually yellow to begin with, but will change to red and then an angry flashing red as time progresses. These colours indicate how soon the enemy lines will enter your screen – flashing red blocks will jump over when you’ve placed your next block.

When you have enemy blocks in this column, any ‘junk’ lines you send will actually fight against these blocks, rather than be sent to your opponent. If you see enemy blocks building up, you need to start clearing lines on your screen to clear them out – even clearing single lines delays the enemy block from entering your screen.

If you’re wanting to play defensively, it can help to save a block which can clear lots of lines with the L/R button, before deploying it as soon as your enemy block column starts to fill.

Which Attack Mode Should You Choose In Tetris 99?

As we’ve mentioned several times above, flicking the right stick allows you to choose from four different targetting or attack modes. These different options essentially target a different group of enemies from the other 98 players on your screen. Below, we explain how each of the four modes work and when best to use them – you’ll find that switching between them depending on your situation can often be the best way to play.

K.O.s (Right Stick Up)

The K.O.s option targets those who are currently in danger of seeing their blocks reach the top of their screen. By targetting these players, you theoretically have a higher chance of immediately claiming a K.O. when attacking them with ‘junk’ lines, gaining at least a portion of a badge in the process for multiplayer damage.

The problem is that, sometimes, a player will be wiped out before your ‘junk’ line attacks them, meaning you don’t get the kill or the badge reward. If you’re really wanting to go for kills, this isn’t a bad way to do it, but it can never be 100% reliable.

Badges (Right stick Right)

This option will target the player who currently has the most badges, allowing you steal them all for yourself should you wipe them out.

It’s worth noting that the player with the most badges is likely to be highly skilled, and could well be hard to beat. If they happen to be playing in ‘Attackers’ mode (below), this could also mean real problems for you, as their junk will be sent your way. We’d suggest ignoring this option until you’re feeling confident; switching to this mode towards the end of a battle can be a good way to assert your dominance and become the most powerful player on the field for the final 10 or 20, but it’s not to be used lightly.

Attackers (Right Stick Down)

Ironically, Attackers is probably your best defensive option, and will probably be the best friend of new players who are simply trying to survive for a decent length of time.

This mode targets those who are currently attacking you, and will actually split your attack across each of those players. This means that, by sending ‘junk’ lines their way, you can distract anyone trying to destroy your game and potentially take out multiple opponents at once. As your attack is divided between all of those attacking you, the number of lines sent to opponents will naturally be less per player, however, so getting kills isn’t as likely here.

Randoms (Right Stick Left)

As the name suggests, Randoms appears to select players at complete random. If we’re honest, this mode doesn’t seem all that useful in any scenario, and we’d suggest choosing one of the others (Attackers if you’re just starting out). Your attacks will buzz around from one player to another, hardly ever doing enough damage to completely wipe them out.

Manual (Left Stick/Touchscreen)

By using the left control stick or the touchscreen, you can manually select whichever of the other 98 players you like, sending all of your attacks their way. As you can imagine, this is quite an advanced tactic – keeping an eye on each individual player while clearing your own lines is incredibly tricky.

If you can manage all of this, though, then selecting players can be a good way to go. Perhaps you’d like to wipe out a strong player to claim their lovely badges, or maybe player number 87 just rubs you up the wrong way? If you’re a beginner, we’d ignore this feature for now, but it’s worth bearing in mind as you get better and better.

Tetris 99 Hints And Tips

• ‘Holding’ a long, thin block is always a good tactic if you’re looking to clear loads of blocks in one go, so don’t waste these precious commodities.
• While there’s always the temptation to rush and score as many lines as possible, remember that you’re not going for a score here. Sometimes, especially early on the game when the pressure is off, it pays to take things slowly and build up your blocks so you’re in a good position to clear them out once a long, thin block appears.
• Getting junk dumped on your screen isn’t much fun, but ironically, it can be the key to success. Dumped blocks have a thin gap which can be exploited if you have a long, thin block. It’s possible to send all those junk blocks right back at the person who gave them to you if you’re set to ‘Attackers’ mode.
• When the game speeds up, you need all the time you can get to really think about your next move, so don’t ‘Hard Drop’ pieces if you can help it. Instead, let them fall at their normal speed (which will still be pretty quick at this point) and use that additional second or two to glance at the block that’s coming next (shown on the right-hand side of the playfield) so you can plan where you’re going to place it.
• Switching to your ‘Hold’ piece is a good way to get out of a pickle, especially when the game gets faster. This is because switching to piece – even when your current piece is quite far down the screen – places the ‘new’ piece back at the top of the screen, buying you more time. The catch is that you can only switch to your ‘Hold’ piece once per drop.
• It’s possible to keep rotating your current piece even when it looks like it’s totally dropped – exploit this to get yourself out of tight spots and buy yourself time.

Hopefully, this guide has helped you to get a decent grip on the game and work towards those tasty victories. If you have any more tips, make sure to post them below in the comment section for other readers to see!

Also, if you’re wanting to learn even more about the game, make sure to check out our Tetris 99 review!

Do you want to know when a new version of your favorite project is released? Do you want to make your job as packager easier? If so, this article is for you. It introduces you to the world of release-monitoring.org. You’ll see how it can help you catch up with upstream releases.

What is release-monitoring.org?

The release-monitoring.org is a combination of two applications: Anitya and the-new-hotness.

Anitya is what you can see when visiting release-monitoring.org. You can use it to add and manage your projects. Anitya also checks for new releases periodically.

The-new-hotness is an application that catches the messages emitted by Anitya. It creates a Bugzilla issue if the project is mapped to a Fedora package.

How to use release-monitoring.org

Now that you know how it works, let’s focus on how you can use it.

First think you need to do is to log in. Anitya provides a few options you can use to log in, including the Fedora Account System (FAS), Yahoo!, or a custom OpenID server.

When you’re logged in, you’ll see new options in the top panel.

Add a new project

Now you can add a new project. It’s always good to check whether the project is already added.

Next, fill in the information about the project:

• Project name – Use the upstream project name
• Homepage – Homepage of the project
• Backend – Backend is simply the web hosting where the project is hosted. Anitya offers many backends you can chose from. If you can’t find a backend for your project, you can use the custom backend. Every backend has its own additional fields. For example, BitBucket has you specify owner/project.
• Version scheme – This is used to sort received versions. Right now, Anitya only supports RPM version scheme.
• Version prefix – This is the prefix that is stripped from any received version. For example, if the tag on GitHub is version_1.2.3, you would use version_ as version prefix. The version will then be presented as 1.2.3. The version prefix v is stripped automatically.
• Check latest release on submit – If you check this, Anitya will do an initial check on the project when submitted.
• Distro – The distribution in which this project is used. This could be also added later.
• Package – The project’s packaged name in the distribution. This is required when the Distro field is filled in.

When you’re happy with the project, submit it. Below you can see how your project may look after you submit.

Add a new distribution mapping

If you want to map the project to a package on a specific distribution, open up the project page first and then click on Add new distribution mapping.

Here you can chose any distribution already available in Anitya, fill in the package name, and submit it. The new mapping will show up on the project page.

Automatic filing of Bugzilla issues

Now you created a new project and created a mapping for it. This is nice, but how does this help you as a packager? This is where the-new-hotness comes into play.

Every time the-new-hotness sees a new update or new mapping message emitted by Anitya, it checks whether this project is mapped to a package in Fedora. For this to work, the project must have a mapping to Fedora added in Anitya.

If the package is known, the-new-hotness checks the notification setting for this package. That setting can be changed here. The last check the-new-hotness does is whether the version reported by Anitya is newer than the current version of this package in Fedora Rawhide.

If all those checks are positive, the new Bugzilla issue is filed and a Koji scratch build started. After the Koji build is finished, the Bugzilla is updated with output.

Future plans for release-monitoring.org

The release-monitoring.org system is pretty amazing, isn’t it? But this isn’t all. There are plenty of things planned for both Anitya and the-new-hotness. Here’s a short list of future plans:

Anitya

• Add libraries.io consumer – automatically check for new releases on libraries.io, create projects in Anitya and emit messages about updates
• Use Fedora package database to automatically guess the package name in Fedora based on the project name and backend
• Add semantic and calendar version scheme
• Change current cron job to service: Anitya checks for new versions periodically using a cron job. The plan is to change this to a service that checks projects using queues.
• Support for more than one version prefix

the-new-hotness

• File Github issues for Flathub projects when a new version comes out
• Create pull requests in Pagure instead of filing a Bugzilla issue
• Move to OpenShift – this should make deployment much easier than how it is now
• Convert to Python 3 (mostly done)

Both

• Conversion to fedora-messaging – This is already in progress and should make communication between Anitya and the-new-hotness more reliable.

Photo by Alexandre Debiève on Unsplash.