Podcasts about Adobe Acrobat

In this episode of ChaxChat, hosts Chad Chelius and Dax Castro delve into document accessibility with a focus on real-world challenges and professional development. This episode highlights tools and strategies that bridge the gap between aesthetics and functionality. Working in MS Word, Powerpoint and Adobe Acrobat. Using the Microsoft accessibility checker. Qualitative VS quantitative. And of course Koi Talk.

Log4J Scans for VMWare Hyhbrid Cloud Extensions An attacker is scanning various login pages, including the authentication feature in the VMWare HCX REST API for Log4j vulnerabilities. The attack submits the exploit string as username, hoping to trigger the vulnerability as Log4j logs the username https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Scans%20for%20VMWare%20Hybrid%20Cloud%20Extension%20%28HCX%29%20API%20(Log4j%20-%20not%20brute%20forcing)/31762 Patch Tuesday Fallout Yesterday's Apple patch may re-activate Apple Intelligence for users who earlier disabled it. Microsoft is offering support for users whos USB printers started printing giberish after a January patch was applies. https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/11/ios-18-3-2-apple-intelligence-auto-on/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/status-windows-10-22h2#usb-printers-might-print-random-text-with-the-january-2025-preview-update Adobe Updates Adobe updated seven different products, including Adobe Acrobat. The Acrobat vulnerability may lead to remote code execution and Adobe considers the vulnerablities critical. https://helpx.adobe.com/security/security-bulletin.html Medusa Ransomware CISA and partner agencies released details about the Medusa Ransomware. The document includes many details useful to defenders. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa25-071a Zoom Update Zoom released a critical update fixing a number of remote code execution vulnerabilities. https://www.zoom.com/en/trust/security-bulletin/ FreeType Library Vulnerability https://www.facebook.com/security/advisories/cve-2025-27363

Greetings,I bring you this episode out of the frustrations of what Adobe has done with their Acrobat product and how agressive their Creative Cloud monitoring systems has gotten. Even you when you done the right thing and purchased your software!So I will provide a great and powerful PDF Editor alternative that will do everything you do with Adobe Acrobat.I also share alternative to Microsoft's Office Suite (Office 365) and a solution for Data Recovery.Let's get in to it! Enjoy! Support the show

Adobe Acrobatで「AIアシスタント」が利用可能に　契約書の比較やファイル横断検索で業務効率化　月額680円から。　アドビは2月12日、PDFドキュメントアプリ「Adobe Acrobat」の日本語版において「Acrobat AIアシスタント」のサービスを開始した。長文PDFファイルの自動要約や複数文書の横断検索、契約書の差分チェックなど、ビジネス文書の取り扱いを効率化する機能で、有償提供となる。料金は以下の通りで、Acrobat本体の有料サブスクリプションとは別契約となる。

We have four great guests on this week's fresh episode of Tech It OutTo “kick” things off, Verizon has made a huge investment in the wireless infrastructure in New Orleans ahead of Super Bowl LIX. We're joined by Leo Perreault, VP of Network Engineering and Operations at VerizonTech expert Amber Mac is also in the house! She talks with us about Safer Internet Day coming up on February 11 – and the simple things you can do to better safeguard your family onlineSpeaking of cybersecurity, Hiya is on the program to share the latest scams you need to know about, plus they discuss its new smartphone app. We're joined by Alex Algard, CEO of the anti-fraud companyFinally, tech lifestyle expert Mario Armstrong drops in to share the latest AI features baked into Adobe Acrobat that helps to simplify and summarize PDF contractsThank you to Visa and SanDisk for your partnership on Tech It Out

En este episodio del podcast, reflexiono sobre las aplicaciones y servicios digitales que uso en mi día a día, compartiendo por qué creo que merecen la pena. Hablo de sus aplicaciones prácticas en mi vida personal y profesional, desde el entretenimiento con YouTube Familiar y Tivify, hasta la productividad con Office 365 Familiar y la seguridad que me ofrece Norton. También exploro cómo herramientas como Adobe Acrobat y Canva me ayudan a gestionar proyectos creativos, mientras que Google One garantiza el almacenamiento seguro de mis datos. Además, comento cómo Memrise ha sido clave en mi aprendizaje de idiomas y cómo Booksnap me facilita la organización y el acceso a mis libros y documentos digitales. Si estás pensando en invertir en alguna de estas plataformas, aquí te cuento mi experiencia y cómo pueden facilitarte la vida."

En este episodio del podcast, reflexiono sobre las aplicaciones y servicios digitales que uso en mi día a día, compartiendo por qué creo que merecen la pena. Hablo de sus aplicaciones prácticas en mi vida personal y profesional, desde el entretenimiento con YouTube Familiar y Tivify, hasta la productividad con Office 365 Familiar y la seguridad que me ofrece Norton. También exploro cómo herramientas como Adobe Acrobat y Canva me ayudan a gestionar proyectos creativos, mientras que Google One garantiza el almacenamiento seguro de mis datos. Además, comento cómo Memrise ha sido clave en mi aprendizaje de idiomas y cómo Booksnap me facilita la organización y el acceso a mis libros y documentos digitales. Si estás pensando en invertir en alguna de estas plataformas, aquí te cuento mi experiencia y cómo pueden facilitarte la vida."

Starting today's conversation, Nathan and Scott discuss practical takeaways from recent conferences, including Scott's experience at the AFP Kindleberger Forum, where he saw firsthand how AI can empower small nonprofits with limited resources. They also explore the unique advantages smaller organizations have in adopting AI, given their agility and innovative potential. They propose forming nonprofit AI clubs to foster collaboration and share knowledge within the sector.  The two delve into the growing integration of AI in everyday tools, such as using AI to summarize PDF documents and leveraging ChatGPT's new features for greater efficiency. They share personal anecdotes, like Nathan using ChatGPT to translate in real-time, illustrating AI's potential to streamline tasks. The conversation also touches on ethical considerations, with a thought-provoking discussion on balancing human values and AI's impact on relationships. Emphasizing responsible adoption, Nathan and Scott close with a call to action for the fundraising community to embrace AI thoughtfully, as they believe it can amplify missions and support professional growth in powerful ways.    EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [03:06] Takeaways From Recent Conferences  [04:34] Challenges and Opportunities for Small Nonprofits  [09:38] AI Integration and Everyday Use   [12:59] Advanced Features of ChatGPT   [20:54] The Blend of Human and AI   [24:43] Conclusion and Call to Action  TIPS AND TOOLS TO IMPLEMENT TODAY  Use ChatGPT for quick content creation, brainstorming, and outreach templates.  Use tools like Adobe Acrobat's AI to quickly summarize reports or articles.  Start or join an AI club within your nonprofit community to exchange ideas and best practices.  Participate in AI and fundraising events to stay updated on trends and tools.  Don't just use AI—make it part of your long-term strategy to amplify mission impact.  Try features like Canvas, voice mode, or in-depth searches to enhance productivity.  Small nonprofits can often implement AI faster—begin with basic tools, then expand as needed.  Utilize AI translation in real-time to bridge language gaps with donors or volunteers.  Educate teams on ethical AI practices and consider the social impact of AI decisions.  Encourage feedback and share your AI experiences with others in the fundraising sector for collective learning.  RESOURCES Scott Rosenkrans on Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/scott-rosenkrans  Nathan Chappell on Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/nathanchappell/ 

eSignature - verwendest du digitale Unterschriften, um Genehmigungsprozesse zu erleichtern und zu vereinfachen? Microsoft hat jetzt mit der SharePoint eSignature Variante eine weitere Möglichkeit ins Rennen geworfen und wir stellen dir diese, sowie AdobeSign und DocuSign vor. Ebenso klären wir die Frage, ob du alle drei gemeinsam verwenden kannst.

From Baku, Azerbaijan...A tech tip about some features in Adobe Acrobat you may have overlooked.Some concise advice about how to deal with marital stress when you aren't on the same page as your spouse regarding time and investment in your practice.+++00:00 Location Update01:07 Tech Tip07:33 Concise Advice14:04 Wrapping up

In this episode, hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little discuss Microsoft's new AI-enhanced search tool, Deep Search.  Then, they review Google's major list of AI announcements. In the last big story this week, Mark and Steve talk about how photography has changed in the digital age.  Don't miss this week's Tip of the Week, where Mark and Steve provide valuable insights into Building Better Prompts using the role-goal-task-format prompting style.  The rapid-fire segment covers recent developments in AI image generation, including free access to OpenAI's DALL-E and Midjourney. The hosts also examine OpenAI's safety measures and Elon Musk's controversial AI tools.  Blending expert analysis and practical advice, this podcast equips listeners to navigate the exciting world of AI in genealogical research and beyond. AI In the News:  02:57: Microsoft Bing's Deep Search: Microsoft introduces Deep Search, a new feature competing with Perplexity, offering enhanced search capabilities. 13:27: Google's AI announcements: Google unveils several AI-powered features for Android phones, including voice assistants and image analysis tools. 24:14: Have we entered the post-photography era? The hosts discuss how AI is transforming photography and its implications for genealogists and family historians.  Tip of the Week:  33:55: Building Better Prompts: Role, Goal, Task, Format: The hosts explain a more effective method for crafting prompts when working with AI, emphasizing the importance of clear goal-setting.  RapidFire:  42:35: OpenAI's DALL-E free access: DALL-E image generation tool available to free-tier users, expanding access to AI-generated imagery. 44:36: Midjourney's web platform launch: Midjourney releases a more accessible web-based platform for its image generation tool, offering a free trial. 46:01: OpenAI's safety scorecard: OpenAI releases a safety scorecard, detailing its efforts to ensure responsible AI development and usage. 50:22: Elon Musk's AI tools release: X launches new AI tools with fewer restrictions, raising ethical concerns and discussions. Resource Links Microsoft Bing Deep Search: https://www.bing.com Perplexity AI: https://www.perplexity.ai Google Gemini: https://gemini.google.com OpenAI ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com Google Pixel phones: https://store.google.com/category/phones DALL-E: https://chat.openai.com Midjourney: https://www.midjourney.com/imagine X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com Grok AI: https://grok.x.ai International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies: https://www.iajgs.org Adobe Acrobat: https://www.adobe.com/acrobat.html Zoom: https://zoom.us  Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Genealogy, Family History, Technology, Digital Photography, Search Engines, Voice Assistants, Image Generation, Prompt Engineering, AI Ethics, Mobile Computing, Research Methods, Microsoft Bing, Google Gemini, OpenAI, DALL-E, Midjourney, Elon Musk, Deep Search, Screen Awareness 

In this week's episode, we chat with Wolfgang about the struggle of making it in showbusiness, the importance of embracing a system's genre conventions, and the deployment of feminine appeal. Spoiler warning for Jaws in this one? And, to a lesser extent, The Young and the Restless. Disclaimers that we're not actually sponsored by Adobe Acrobat and Jake is not actually 5'6.  Here's the Beginning Idol system that Wolfgang is sharing with us. Here's Wolfgang's own Itch page. And, because we mention Eric a few times, here's Eric's actual real-life band.We talk about the Dallas TTRPG a little bit, so here's the Flashlight where we try to play Dallas.This week's PC intro comes from Sonne, who builds travel guides to the best (and worst) places in the multiverse. Thanks Sonne! If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You can also get episodes right from the source at our RSS feed. If you enjoy Campaign Spotlight, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For more on the show, including links to all our social media, visit our website.  

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: patent process problems, published by bhauth on July 15, 2024 on LessWrong. The current patent process has some problems. Here are some of them. patenting is slow The US Patent Office tracks pendency of patents. Currently, on average, there's 20 months from filing to the first response, and over 25 months before issuance. That's a long time. Here's a paper on this issue. It notes: The USPTO is aware that delays create significant costs to innovators seeking protection. The result? A limiting of the number of hours an examiner spends per patent in order to expedite the process. As such, the average patent gets about nineteen hours before an examiner in total, between researching prior art, drafting rejections and responses, and interfacing with prosecuting attorneys. Plainly, this allotment is insufficient. A patent application backlog means it takes longer before work is published and other people can potentially build on it. It also means a longer period of companies having uncertainty about whether a new product would be patented. examiners are inconsistent Statistical analysis indicates that whether or not your patent is approved depends greatly on which examiner you get. This article notes: Approximately 35% of patent Examiners allow 60% of all U.S. patents; and approximately 20% of Examiners allow only 5% of all U.S. patents. Perhaps applicants and examiners should both be allowed to get a second opinion from another examiner on certain claims. But of course, this would require more examiner time in total. This situation might also indicate some problems with the incentive structure examiners have. patents take effort A lot of smart people who work on developing new technology spend an enormous amount of effort dealing with the patent system that could be spent on research instead. Even if the monetary costs are small in comparison to the total economy, they're applied in perhaps the worst possible places. There are many arcane rules about the format of documents for the patent office. Even professional patent lawyers get things wrong about the formatting and wording, and that's their main job. LLMs do quite poorly with that, too. Even I've made mistakes on a patent application. The US patent office does do most things electronically now. Its website is at least technically functional. Considering that it's a US government agency, I suppose it deserves some praise for that. However, I'd argue that if correctly submitting documents is a major problem and even professionals sometimes get it wrong, that's a sign that the format is badly designed and/or the software used is inadequate. For example, their website could theoretically remind people when required forms in a submission are missing. Currently, the US patent office is trying to migrate from pdf to docx files. Maybe that's an improvement over using Adobe Acrobat to fill pdf forms, but personally, I think it should accept: markdown files git pull requests for amendments png diagrams that use solid colors instead of monochrome shading I used to say Powerpoint was bad and maybe companies should ban it, and business-type people explained why that was really dumb, and then Amazon did that and it ultimately worked well for them. The problem Amazon had to solve was that most managers just wouldn't read and understand documents and long emails, so when banning Powerpoint, they had to make everyone silently read memos at the start of meetings, and they lost a lot of managers who couldn't understand things they read. At least the US patent office people have the ability to read long documents, I guess. international patents are hard If you get a patent in the US or EU, that's not valid in other countries. Rather, the PCT gives you up to 30 months from your initial application to apply for patents in other countries, ...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: patent process problems, published by bhauth on July 15, 2024 on LessWrong. The current patent process has some problems. Here are some of them. patenting is slow The US Patent Office tracks pendency of patents. Currently, on average, there's 20 months from filing to the first response, and over 25 months before issuance. That's a long time. Here's a paper on this issue. It notes: The USPTO is aware that delays create significant costs to innovators seeking protection. The result? A limiting of the number of hours an examiner spends per patent in order to expedite the process. As such, the average patent gets about nineteen hours before an examiner in total, between researching prior art, drafting rejections and responses, and interfacing with prosecuting attorneys. Plainly, this allotment is insufficient. A patent application backlog means it takes longer before work is published and other people can potentially build on it. It also means a longer period of companies having uncertainty about whether a new product would be patented. examiners are inconsistent Statistical analysis indicates that whether or not your patent is approved depends greatly on which examiner you get. This article notes: Approximately 35% of patent Examiners allow 60% of all U.S. patents; and approximately 20% of Examiners allow only 5% of all U.S. patents. Perhaps applicants and examiners should both be allowed to get a second opinion from another examiner on certain claims. But of course, this would require more examiner time in total. This situation might also indicate some problems with the incentive structure examiners have. patents take effort A lot of smart people who work on developing new technology spend an enormous amount of effort dealing with the patent system that could be spent on research instead. Even if the monetary costs are small in comparison to the total economy, they're applied in perhaps the worst possible places. There are many arcane rules about the format of documents for the patent office. Even professional patent lawyers get things wrong about the formatting and wording, and that's their main job. LLMs do quite poorly with that, too. Even I've made mistakes on a patent application. The US patent office does do most things electronically now. Its website is at least technically functional. Considering that it's a US government agency, I suppose it deserves some praise for that. However, I'd argue that if correctly submitting documents is a major problem and even professionals sometimes get it wrong, that's a sign that the format is badly designed and/or the software used is inadequate. For example, their website could theoretically remind people when required forms in a submission are missing. Currently, the US patent office is trying to migrate from pdf to docx files. Maybe that's an improvement over using Adobe Acrobat to fill pdf forms, but personally, I think it should accept: markdown files git pull requests for amendments png diagrams that use solid colors instead of monochrome shading I used to say Powerpoint was bad and maybe companies should ban it, and business-type people explained why that was really dumb, and then Amazon did that and it ultimately worked well for them. The problem Amazon had to solve was that most managers just wouldn't read and understand documents and long emails, so when banning Powerpoint, they had to make everyone silently read memos at the start of meetings, and they lost a lot of managers who couldn't understand things they read. At least the US patent office people have the ability to read long documents, I guess. international patents are hard If you get a patent in the US or EU, that's not valid in other countries. Rather, the PCT gives you up to 30 months from your initial application to apply for patents in other countries, ...

Hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little discuss Steve's recent AI course for genealogists at GRIP and the rapid pace of learning and practical applications for genealogy. They examine the industry-wide effects of Apple's focus on AI privacy and security, including at OpenAI. The launch of Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet is a major advancement, offering huge improvements for genealogical research. This week's Tip of The Week emphasizes the value of using AI for small, repetitive tasks. They also cover new industry-wide initiatives for identifying AI-generated images, updates to Adobe Acrobat's AI features, and the growing global interest in AI for genealogy.Timestamps:Family History AI in the News00:43 - Steve's Update on "AI from Basics to Breakthroughs" at GRIP (Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh).06:42- Apple Intelligence's industry Impact on privacy and security in AI.08:59 - Claude 3.5 Sonnet is a significant development in AI.Tip of the Week:15:26 - Six Minutes Over Silver Bullets.AI Rapid Fire17:53 – A new consortium, led by Adobe, is helping identify AI-generated images.19:43 - Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant Update allows multiple documents to be analyzed or summarized simultaneously.22:09 – The Global Impact of AI on the Family History Community24:06 – Tout FiniResource Links: National Genealogical Society https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/GRIP (Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh) https://www.gripitt.org/Apple Intelligence https://machinelearning.apple.com/OpenAI https://openai.com/Claude 3.5 Sonnet (by Anthropic) https://www.anthropic.com/Google Gemini https://ai.google/Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/features/ai-assistant.htmlOntario Genealogical Society https://ogs.on.ca/Society of Australian Genealogists https://www.sag.org.au/Genealogy and Artificial Intelligence Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogyandaiFamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/Ancestry https://www.ancestry.com/MyHeritage https://www.myheritage.com/Tags:Genealogy, Family History, Artificial Intelligence, AI in Genealogy, Genealogy Research, AI Education, Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh, GRIP, National Genealogical Society, DNA Analysis, Document Transcription, Historical Photographs, AI Models, Privacy and Security, Safe Super Intelligence Inc, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Genealogy Technology, Pedigree Charts, AI Tools, Adobe AI Consortium, Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant, International Genealogy, Ontario Genealogical Society, Society of Australian Genealogists, AI Applications in Genealogy

Copilot+ PC Launch Chaos, Recall Delay, Windows 11 Updates Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/886 Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT30

Copilot+ PC Launch Chaos, Recall Delay, Windows 11 Updates Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/886 Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT30

Sichere dir jetzt Adobe Acrobat und verzichte auf den Papierkram: https://adobe.ly/3WeMyMj Bist auch du vom Twitter/X-Datenleck betroffen? Jetzt checken und nicht Deine Chance auf Schadensersatz verlieren: https://wbs.law/twitter-check (WERBUNG) Vor ein paar Jahren haben wir schon einmal ein Video mit der Fragestellung gemacht, was genau Anwälte dürfen und was nicht. Doch seitdem gab es ein paar spannende neue Entwicklungen. Außerdem verrate ich euch ein paar neue Dinge, die wir Anwälte nicht dürfen. Zum Beispiel, ob ich den gegnerischen Anwalt einfach so „fetter Anwalt“ oder „Rumpelstilzchen“ nennen darf. RAK Köln: https://www.rak-koeln.de/fuer-anwaelte/zulassung/ § 154 StGB: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__154.html § 114 FamFG: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/famfg/__114.html § 78 ZPO: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/zpo/__78.html § 43 BRAO: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/brao/__43b.html ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ WBS.LEGAL sucht dich! Du bist auf der Suche nach einem attraktiven, spannenden und anspruchsvollen Job? Dann bewirb dich bei uns und komm in unser Team. Bei WBS.LEGAL arbeitest du im Herzen der Medienhauptstadt Köln und bist im Berufsleben immer am Puls der Zeit – garantiert. Hier unsere offenen Stellenangebote: https://www.wbs.legal/karriere/#jobs Was erwartet dich bei uns? Hier bekommst du weitere Infos: https://www.wbs.legal/karriere/. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Rechtsanwalt Christian Solmecke Christian Solmecke hat sich als Rechtsanwalt und Partner der Kölner Medienrechtskanzlei WBS.LEGAL auf die Beratung der Internet-, IT- und Medienbranche spezialisiert. So hat er in den vergangenen Jahren den Bereich Internetrecht/E-Commerce der Kanzlei stetig ausgebaut und betreut zahlreiche Medienschaffende, Web-2.0-Plattformen und App- Entwickler. Neben seiner Tätigkeit als Rechtsanwalt ist Christian Solmecke vielfacher Buchautor und als Gründer der cloudbasierten Kanzleisoftware Legalvisio.de auch erfolgreicher LegalTech-Unternehmer. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Virtueller Kanzlei-Rundgang: https://wbs.law/rundgang Startet euren Rundgang in 3D und 360° durch die Kanzlei WBS.LEGAL (inkl. YouTube- Studio) ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Social-Media-Kanäle von WBS.LEGAL Wir freuen uns, wenn du uns auch auf unseren weiteren Social-Media-Kanälen besuchst und uns dort folgst. Jeder unserer Kanäle steht für sich und bringt dir garantiert einen Mehrwert. ▬Instagram und TikTok▬ Auf unserem erfolgreichen Instagram- und TikTok-Kanal recht2go räumen wir täglich mit Rechtsirrtümern auf und präsentieren dir rechtliche Lifehacks. Mit recht2go bist du immer auf dem Laufendem und bekommst deine tägliche Dosis Alltagsrecht. Kurz, knackig und immer auf den Punkt. Folge uns auf auf Instagram und TikTok und du kannst vor deinen Freunden mit neuem Wissen glänzen. ➥ Instagram: https://wbs.law/recht2go ➥ TikTok: https://wbs.law/recht2goTikTok ▬Facebook▬ Auf Facebook sind wir inzwischen schon alte Hasen, denn seit Jahren informieren wir dich dort täglich über aktuelle Rechts-News. Gerne kannst du uns dort auch eine Anfrage als private Nachricht schicken. Schau vorbei! Hier der Link: ➥ https://wbs.law/facebook ▬X / Twitter▬ Erfahre als Erster, wenn es wichtige Rechts-News gibt. Knackige Statements zu aktuellen Themen bekommst du auf unserem X-Account (ehemals Twitter)! Hier der Link: ➥ https://wbs.law/twitter ▬Podcasts▬ Du bist unterwegs, unter der Dusche oder hörst einfach gerne Podcasts? Dann haben wir etwas für dich: Höre die Tonspur unserer Videos täglich auf Spotify, Soundcloud und iTunes. So bleibst du immer aktuell! Hier die Links: ➥ https://wbs.law/spotify ➥ https://wbs.law/soundcloud ➥ https://wbs.law/apple ▬Unser Zweitkanal▬ Unseren weiteren YouTube-Kanal „WBS – Die Experten“ kennst du, oder? Wenn nicht, dann unsere dringende Empfehlung: Schau rein! Denn hier erfährst du immer donnerstags ausführlich alle wichtigen Infos zu unseren Rechtsbereichen – präsentiert von einigen unserer Top-Rechtsanwälte. Ob Medienrecht, Urheberrecht, Markenrecht, Social-Media

Copilot+ PC Launch Chaos, Recall Delay, Windows 11 Updates Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/886 Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT30

Copilot+ PC Launch Chaos, Recall Delay, Windows 11 Updates Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/886 Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT30

Copilot+ PC Launch Chaos, Recall Delay, Windows 11 Updates Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/886 Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT30

Copilot+ PC Launch Chaos, Recall Delay, Windows 11 Updates Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell For full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/886 Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT - code TWIT30

Victoria Guido hosts Robbie Holmes, the founder and CEO of Holmes Consulting Group. The conversation kicks off with Robbie recounting his initial foray into the tech world at a small web hosting company named A1 Terabit.net, chosen for its alphabetical advantage in the white pages. This job was a stepping stone to a more significant role at Unisys, working for the state of New York's Department of Social Services, where Robbie inadvertently ventured into civic tech and public interest technology. Robbie shares his career progression from supporting welfare systems in New York to becoming a technological liaison between the city and state, leading to a deeper involvement in open-source solutions. His journey through tech spaces includes developing websites, diving into the Drupal community, and eventually establishing his consulting business. Robbie emphasizes the serendipitous nature of his career path, influenced significantly by community involvement and networking rather than a planned trajectory. Additionally, Robbie gives insights on the impact of technology in public services and his stint with the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), where he contributed to significant projects like vets.gov. Robbie promotes the value of community engagement in shaping one's career, stressing how connections and being in the right place at the right time can lead to unexpected opportunities and career pivots. Follow Robbie Holmes on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbiethegeek/), X (https://twitter.com/RobbieTheGeek), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/robbiethegeek), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/robbiethegeek), or GitHub (https://github.com/robbiethegeek). Check out his website at robbiethegeek (https://about.me/robbiethegeek). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Robbie Holmes, Founder and CEO of Holmes Consulting Group. Robbie, thank you for joining me. ROBBIE: I'm so happy to be here. It's great to talk to you, Victoria. VICTORIA: Yes. I have known you for a long time now, but I don't know everything about you. So, I thought I would start with the question: What was your first job that you ever had? ROBBIE: My first technical job, I ended up working for an internet web hosting company called A1 Terabit.net. And note the A1 because it came first in the white pages. It was a really small web hosting company run by a man named [SP] Maxim Avrutsky. I worked there for about six months before I submitted my resume to an online job forum. That's how old I am. And it ended up in the hands of Unisys, where I eventually worked for the state of New York. VICTORIA: Wow [laughs]. So, what a journey that you've been on to get from starting there, and what a marketing ploy back in the day with the white pages. So, tell me a little bit more about how you went from that first job to where you are today with having your own business in consulting. ROBBIE: Yeah, I wasn't even aware that I was jumping into the sort of civic tech space and public interest technology because the job I ended up with was working for New York State in the Department of Social Services. And welfare is federally funded and distributed to states and then states to localities. And New York City and New York State have a weird parasymbiotic relationship because over 50% of the welfare in New York State goes to the five boroughs in New York City. So, so much of my job was supporting the welfare system within the city, which was run by the human resources administration. So, that just led to this cascade of me, like, getting invested in supporting that, and then eventually jumping over to the other side where I worked for the City of New York. And at that point, I ended up becoming sort of a technology project manager and almost a tech liaison between the city and state. And I was out in the welfare centers, helping get the job centers up to a new application called the Paperless Office System, which was a client-server app that was a wrapper around welfare. All of that ended up leading to me finally making it to the network operation center for the City of New York, where I started replacing expensive solutions like HP OpenView with open-source solutions like Nagios and another open-source solution that provided an interface. And it really opened my eyes to the idea of open source. And I had really paid attention to a lot of open-source operating systems. So, I was kind of just a general tech nerd. And eventually, I started building websites, and that led me to the Drupal community in New York City, which was sort of this cascade that led me to communities. And I think that's sort of a through line for my entire career is I don't really think I ever had a plan. I think my entire career has been this sort of a lucky happenstance of being prepared when an opportunity arose and sometimes being in the right place because of my connections and community. VICTORIA: That's interesting about being involved with the people around you and seeing what problems are out there to solve and letting that lead you to where your interests lie. And then, following that, naturally led you to, like, this really long career and these really interesting, big projects and problems that you get to solve. ROBBIE: Yeah. And I think one interesting aspect is like, I feel I spent a lot of time worried about what I was going to do and where I was going to do it. I don't have a bachelor's degree. I don't have an advanced degree. I have a high school diploma and a couple of years in college. Well, 137 credits, not the right 125 or 124 to have a bachelor's degree. I have enough credits for a couple of minors though, definitely Greek art history, I think mathematics, maybe one more. I just never got it together and actually got my degree. But that was so interesting because it was limiting to what jobs I could find. So, I was in the tech space as an IT person and specifically doing networking. So, I was running the network operation center. I helped, like, create a whole process for how we track tickets, and how we created tickets, and how things were moved along. And, in the process, I started building websites for family and friends. And I built a website for our network operation center, so that way we could have photos to go with our diagrams of the network. So that way, when we were troubleshooting remotely, we could actually pull up images and say, "The cable that's in port six goes off to the router. I think that port is dead. Can we move it to the port two to its right, and I'll activate it?" And that made a really interesting solution for something we weren't even aware we had, which was lack of visibility. So many of the people in the fields were newer or were trying to figure it out. And some of us had really deep knowledge of what was going on in those network rooms and hubs. It led me to this solution of like, well, why don't we just start documenting it and making it easier for us to help when they're in the field? That led me to, like, the Drupal community because I started building sites in the Drupal CMS. And I went to, like, my first Drupal meetup in 2007, and there was, like, five of us around the table. That led to eventually me working for Sony Music and all these other things. But the year before I found my way to the Drupal community, I probably sent out, like, 400 resumes for jobs in the tech space, didn't really get any callbacks. And then, I met the community, and I started attending events, and then eventually, I started organizing events. And then, Sony I interviewed and talked to them a couple of times. And then, a friend of mine became the boss. And she contacted me and was like, "Hey, are you in the market?" And I was like, "I don't know. Why? What's up?" And she's like, "I became Doug." And I was like, "What?" And she was like, "I'm now replacing Doug at Sony. I'm running the team." And I was like, "Yeah, I'm happy to talk." And that was the big transition in my career from IT to sort of development and to delivery, right? Like, when it comes right down to it, is I became the manager of interactive media at Sony Music, which was really a job I landed because I was connected to the community, and running events, and getting to know everyone. VICTORIA: Yeah. And I think it's really cool that you had this exposure early on to what you called civic tech, which we'll get into a little bit, and then you went from the community into a commercial technology space and really getting into engineering with Drupal. ROBBIE: Yeah, it was an interesting transition because what they needed at Sony was sort of somebody who could ride the line between systems engineer, database administrator, and Drupal engineer, and also probably pre-DevOps DevOps person. So, I was responsible for all deployments and all tickets that came in. I was sort of both the technical arm of the help desk. When I joined, there was 24 websites on the Drupal platform, and when I left, there was over 200. And we upgraded it from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 while I was there. So, I was heavily involved in all of those updates, and all those upgrades, and all of the deployments of all the new themes, and all the changes to all these sites. So, what was great was they, I believe, if I understand it correctly, they actually created a role for me out of, like, two or three jobs because they needed a me, and they didn't have a role that existed. So, all of a sudden, they made a manager of interactive media role. And I was able to work there for two years, sort of being what I jokingly say, like, a digital janitor. I used to say that I had, like, an eight-bit key ring in a push broom. And I was always mad at your kids for trying to break my stuff. VICTORIA: [laughs] That's so good. A digital service janitor [laughs]? The connection for me between that and where I met you in the U.S. digital service space [laughs] I feel like there's a lot of parallels between that and where your career evolved later on in life. ROBBIE: Yeah. What's amazing is I did all this early work in my career in civic tech and didn't realize it was civic tech at the time. I just realized what I was doing was providing this huge impact and was value. You know, I spent a couple of years in the welfare centers, and I used to say all the time that the two hardest jobs in the welfare center are the person applying for welfare and the person deciding whether or not that person gets welfare. So, being a technologist and trying to help make that as simple as possible or easier and smooth the edges off of that process was really important. And it really taught me how important technology is to delivering service. And I really never thought about it before. And then, when I was working for Phase2 technologies, I was a director of Digital Services. And I read in a blog post, I believe that was written by Mikey Dickerson, who was the original administrator for USDS, and he talked about HealthCare.gov. And he walked in the door, and he said, "How do you know HealthCare.gov is down?" And I think there was some allusion to the fact that we were like, we turn on the television and if they're yelling at us, we know it's down. And Mikey was like, "We know how to monitor things." So, like, if you don't know Mikey Dickerson, he's the person who sort of created the web application hierarchy of needs in Google. He was an SRE. And his pyramid, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, was all over Google when I was there. I was so impressed with the idea that, like, we aren't talking about how do we solve this problem? We're talking about knowing when there's a problem. And then, if we know there's a problem, we can put some messaging around that. We can say, like, "We're aware," right? Like if the president calls the secretary, the secretary can say, "We know it's down. We're working on it," which is building up political capital. It's a really amazing process that I kept reading this blog post, and I was like, God, that's how I would approach it. And then, I was like, wow, I wonder if I could use my skills to help America, and very shortly submitted an application and was like, well, we'll see what happens. And about six months later, I walked in the door at the VA and was the eighth employee of the Digital Service team at the VA. That was a franchise team of the USDS model. VICTORIA: And can you say a little bit more about what is the U.S. Digital Service and expand upon your early experience there? ROBBIE: Yeah. So, the United States Digital Service was created after HealthCare.gov had its issues. Todd Park had convinced President Obama to reach out to get support from the private industry. And the few of the people who were there, Todd convinced to stick around and start creating a team that could support if there was this kind of issue in the future. I believe the team that was there on the ground was Mikey Dickerson, Erie Meyer, Haley Van Dyck, and Todd. And there was a few other people who came back or were very close at the beginning, including the current administrator of USDS. She has been around a long time and really helped with HealthCare.gov. It's amazing that Mina is back in government. We're very lucky to have her. But what came out of that was what if we were able to stand up a team that was here in case agencies needed support or could vet solutions before these types of problems could exist? So, USDS was what they called the startup inside the White House that was created during the 2014 administration of President Obama. The team started that year, and I joined in May of 2016. So, I would be, like, sort of the beginning of the second team of the VA U.S. Digital Service team. So, USDS supported this idea of tours of duty, where you're a schedule A employee, which meant you were a full-time government employee, but you were term-limited. You could do up to two years of duty and work, and then you could theoretically stick around and do two more years. That was how these roles were envisioned. I think there's lots of reasons why that was the case. But what's nice is it meant that you would come in with fresh eyes and would never become part of the entrenched IT ecosystem. There are people that transition from USDS into government, and I think that's a huge value prop nowadays. It's something that I don't know they were thinking about when the original United States Digital Service was stood up, but it was hugely impactful. Like, I was part of the team at the VA that helped digitize the first form on vets.gov and all the work that was done. When the VA team started, there was a team that was helping with veteran benefits, and they worked on the appeals process for veteran benefits. And I joined. And there was a team that was...eventually, it became dubbed the veteran-facing tools team. And we worked on vets.gov, which was a new front door to expose and let veterans interact with the VA digitally. And over time, all the work that went into the tools and the solutions that were built there, everything was user-researched. And all of that work eventually got brought into VA.gov in what they called a brand merger. So, we took, like, the sixth most trafficked front door of the VA and took all the modern solutioning that that was and brought it into VA.gov, the main front door. So, all of a sudden, there was an identity, a login provided on VA.gov for the first time. So big, impactful work that many people were a part of and is still ongoing today. Surprisingly, so much of this work has now fallen under OCTO, which is the Office of the CTO in the VA. And the CTO is Charles Worthington, who was a USDSer who's the epitome of a person who goes where the work is. Charles was a Presidential Innovation Fellow who helped out in the times of HealthCare.gov and, joined USDS and did anything and everything that was necessary. He interviewed engineers. He was a product person. Charles is one of the most unique technologists and civic tech people I've ever met in my life. But Charles, at the end of the Obama administration and in this transition, realized that the VA was in need of someone to fill the CTO role. So, he came over to become the interim CTO because one of the values of USDS is to go where the work is. And he realized, with the transition, that Marina Nitze, who was the CTO who was transitioning out, there was going to be a need for continuity. So, he came in to provide that continuity and eventually became the full-time CTO and has been there ever since. So, he has helped shape the vision of what the VA is working towards digitally and is now...he was just named the Chief AI Officer for the agency. Charles is a great person. He has successfully, you know, shepherded the work that was being done early by some of us into what is now becoming a sort of enterprise-wide solution, and it's really impressive. VICTORIA: I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, I think there's a perception about working for public service or for government, state or federal agencies, that they are bureaucratic, difficult to work with, very slow. And I think that the USDS was a great example of trying to really create a massive change. And there's been this ripple effect of how the government acquires products and services to support public needs, right? ROBBIE: Yeah, I would say there's a couple of arms of the government that were sort of modernization approaches, so you have the Presidential Innovation Fellows, which are the equivalent of, like, entrepreneurs and residents in government. And they run out of...I think they're out of the TTS, the Technology Transformation Service over at GSA, which is the General Services Administration. But the PIFs are this really interesting group of people that get a chance to go in and try to dig in and use their entrepreneurial mindset and approach to try to solve problems in government. And a lot of PIFS work in offices. Like, Charles' early team when he first became the CTO included a lot of Presidential Innovation Fellows. It was basically like, "Hey, the VA could use some support," and these people were available and were able to be convinced to come and do this work. And then, you have the Presidential Management Fellows, which I think is a little bit more on the administration side. And then, we have 18F and USDS. The United States Digital Service is a funded agency with an OMB. And we were created as a way to provide the government with support either by detailing people over or dropping in when there was a problem. And then, 18F is an organization that is named because the offices of GSA and TTS (Technology Transformation Service), where it's housed, are on the corner of 18th Street and F in DC. And 18F is sort of like having a technology or a digital agency for hire within the government. So, they are full-time employees of the government, sort of like USDS, except government agencies can procure the support of that 18F team, just like they would procure the support of your company. And it was a really interesting play. They are fully cost-recoupable subcomponent of TTS, which means they have to basically make back all the money that they spend, whereas USDS is different. It's congressionally funded for what it does. But they're all similar sibling organizations that are all trying to change how government works or to bring a more modern idea or parlance into the government. I used to say to people all the time that at USDS, you know, we would set a broken bone say, and then we would come back around and say, like, "Hey, does your arm hurt anymore?" The idea being like, no. Be like, "Cool, cool. Maybe you should go to the gym, and you should eat better." And that would be, like, procurement change. That would be, like, changing for the long term. So, all the work I was doing was building political capital so we could do better work in changing how procurement was done and then changing how the government delivered these things. So, what was awesome was, like, we used to have these fights at USDS about whether or not we were a culture change or we were firefighters. And I think the reality is once we're involved, culture changes happen. The bigger question is, are we going to be there for the long haul, or are we only there for a shorter period of time? And I think there are reasons why USDS teams had both plays. And I think it really is just two different plays for the same outcome. VICTORIA: Yeah, that makes sense. And to pivot a little bit, I think, you know, our audience, we have clients and listeners who are founders of products that are aimed at making these, like, public service needs, or to give some examples, like, maybe they're trying to track Congressional voting patterns or contact information for different state representatives, and they're trying to navigate this space [laughs]. So, maybe you can give some advice for founders interested in selling their products to government agencies. What can they do to make it more appealing and less painful for themselves? ROBBIE: I wouldn't consider myself a procurement expert, but at USDS, the procurement team called themselves the [SP] procurementati. And I was a secret member of the procurementati. I often was the engineer they would call to evaluate statements of work or sometimes be on technology evaluation panels. And it was fun to be a part of that. Things that most companies don't realize is government agencies will put out things like request for information or sources sought in the government space. And this is a way for industry to influence how government tries to solve problems. If you are trying to go after government work and you're only responding to an RFP, you're probably behind in your influence that you could have on the type of work. So, you'll see if a procurement seems to be, like, specifically focused on an approach, or a technology, or a framework, it's probably because some companies have come through and said, "I think this would probably solve your problem," and they gave examples. So, that's one way to be more connected to what's going on is to follow those types of requests. Another is to follow the money. My wife is this amazing woman who helped write The Data Act and get it passed through government. And The Data Act is the Data and Transparency Act. And that led to her heading over to treasury and leading up a team that built USAspending.gov. So, there is a website that tracks every dollar, with some exceptions, of the funding that comes out of Congress every year. And what's great is you can track it down to where it's spent, and how it's spent, and things like that. For education purposes, I think that is a really good thing that business and growth people can focus on is try to see and target where competitors or where solutions that you've looked at have gone in the past. It's just a good set of data for you to take a look at. The other piece is if you're creating a solution that is a delivery or a deliverable, like a SaaS solution, in order for something to be utilized in the government, it probably needs to be FedRAMP-approved, which is a process by which security approvals have been given so that government agencies have the green light to utilize your solution. So, there's tons of documentation out there about FedRAMP and the FedRAMP approval process. But that is one of those things that becomes a very big stopping point for product companies that are trying to work in the government. The easiest way to work your way through that is to read up on it a bunch, but also find an agency that was probably willing to sponsor you getting FedRAMP approval. Most companies start working with a government agency, get an exemption for them to utilize your product, and then you get to shape what that FedRAMP process looks like. You start applying for it, and then you have to have some sort of person who's helping shepherd it for you internally in the government and accepting any issues that come along in the process. So, I guess FedRAMP approval is one that's a little complicated but would be worth looking into if you were planning on delivering a product in government. VICTORIA: Right. And does that apply to state governments as well? ROBBIE: So, lots of state-related and city and locality-related governments will actually adopt federal solutions or federal paradigms. So, I think in the state of California, I think FedRAMP as one of the guiding principles for accepting work into the state of California, so it's not consistent. There's not a one-to-one that every state, or every city, or every locality will pull this in. But if you are already approved to be a federal contractor, or a federal business, or a federal product, it's probably going to be easier to make your way into the local spaces also. VICTORIA: Right. And as you said, there's plenty of resources, and tools, and everything to help you go along that journey if that's the group you're going for [laughs]. Mid-Roll Ad: When starting a new project, we understand that you want to make the right choices in technology, features, and investment but that you don't have all year to do extended research. In just a few weeks, thoughtbot's Discovery Sprints deliver a user-centered product journey, a clickable prototype or Proof of Concept, and key market insights from focused user research. We'll help you to identify the primary user flow, decide which framework should be used to bring it to life, and set a firm estimate on future development efforts. Maximize impact and minimize risk with a validated roadmap for your new product. Get started at: tbot.io/sprint. VICTORIA: So, kind of bringing it back to you, like, you're saying you want those partnerships within the government. You want someone advocating for you or for your product or your service. Drawing that back to what you said earlier about community, like, how do you form a community with this group of people who are in the state, or federal government, or civic tech spaces? ROBBIE: Yeah, I think it's an interesting problem because so much of it feels impenetrable from the outside. Most people don't even know where to start. There are organizations out there that are pretty good community connections, an example I would give is ACT-IAC. It is a public-private partnership where people from within the government, experts in their fields, and people in the private industry who are experts in their fields will be together on community boards and engaging in panels. And so, it's a really nice way to start connecting those dots. I have no direct affiliation with ACT-IAC. But if they'd like to give me my own account, that would be great. But it is one of those organizations I've seen be successful for people trying to find their way into a community that is a little harder to find. I think, also, so much of the community engagement happens at conferences and around...so, like, if you're in the healthcare space, this last month, you've had multiple conferences that I think were really great for people to get to know one another, you know, an example is ViVE. It just happened out in LA, which is a little more on the private sector health space, but still, government agencies were there. I know that the Department of Veterans Affairs had people there and were on panels. And then, HIMSS is another conference that takes place, and that just took place down in Miami. And in Miami, HIMSS happened and a whole bunch of other social community events took place. So, I'm close with a thing called the Digital Services Coalition, which is 47 companies that all try to deliver good government based on the Digital Services Playbook that was created by USDS that lives at playbook.cio.gov and the way that they try to accomplish this work. And that organization, while they were in Miami, hosted a happy hour. So, there's a lot of connections that can be made once you start seeing the players and getting to know who's around. So, it's a little bit about trying to find your way to that first event, and I think that will really open up everything for you. Within a week or two, I was at an International Women's Day event at MetroStar, which is a really great company that I've gotten a chance to spend some time with. And then, I was at an event for the Digital Services Coalition talking about open source in government. So, there's a lot of stuff out there for you to be a part of that isn't super cost-prohibitive and also doesn't take a lot once you start to open the door. You know, once you peek around that corner and you find some people, there's a lot more to be done. VICTORIA: Yeah. And you touched on something at the end there that wants me to bring up some of the advantages you can have being a small business, a minority-owned business, or woman-owned business, or veteran-owned business, so thinking about how you can form those connections, especially if you have one of those socio and economic set-asides that you might want to consider if they're looking to work with the government as well. ROBBIE: Yeah. Those socioeconomic set-asides include small businesses, woman-owned small business. I think it's Native and Alaskan 8(a), which is historically underrepresented and service-disabled veteran-owned. So, there are also sub-communities of associations, like there's the Digital WOSB, the digital Women-Owned Small Business alliance that was founded by Jess Morris from Pluribus Digital, and a bunch of other companies in the Digital Services Coalition. I believe she's the president of the Digital WOSB right now. That is a sub-community of women-owned small businesses that are trying to connect and create a community that they can support one another. And that's just one example of the type of connection you can make through those types of socioeconomic set-asides. But once you have those official socioeconomic set-asides, it will allow you to get specific contracts engagements in the government that are not allowed or available for others. So, the government procurement process will have some amount of these specific socioeconomic set-asides that need to be hit. Like, 8% of all procurements need to go to this and 10% of all procurements need to go to this. So, I think the VA is probably one of the most effective at hitting any of the socioeconomic set-asides, specifically related to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. So, if you happen to be a person of color and you found a business and you are female presenting, right? You may have 8(a) woman-owned small business. If you also happen to be a veteran and you're service-disabled, all of those things stack. You don't just get to have one of them. And they can be really effective in helping a business get a leg up and starting out and trying to help even the playing field for those communities. VICTORIA: Yeah. What I really appreciated about my experience working with Pluribus Digital, and you, and people who had had that experience in the U.S. Digital Services, that there is this community and desire to help each other out and that you can have access to people who know how to move your product forward, get you the connections that you need to be competitive, and to go after the work. So, I love encouraging people to consider civic tech options. And maybe even say more about just how impactful some of it can be. And what kind of missions are you solving in these spaces? ROBBIE: Yeah, I often try to remind people, especially those who are heading towards or considering civic tech, there are very few places in this world that you can work on something that can impact millions of people. Sure, I was lucky enough. I have tons of privilege. I worked at a lot of wacky places that have given me the access to do the type of work that I think is impactful, but very little has the kind of impact. Like, when I was interviewed by Marina Nitze as, my last interview when I joined USDS, she sent me an email at the end of it and said like, "Everything was great. I look forward to working with you. And remember, every time you commit code into our GitHub, you'll be helping 8 million veterans." And then, she cc'd Todd Park. And Todd was the CTO of the U.S., and he responded back within a minute. Todd is one of the most busy people. It was amazing to me how fast he responded. But he was like, "Lemme tell you, as somebody who can talk on behalf of our president, our country needs you." And those kinds of things they're hard to comprehend. And then, I joined the Digital Service team at the VA. And one of the first things that I got to support was the 10-10EZ. It's the healthcare application for veterans. And before I got there, it was a hosted PDF that we were trying to replace. And the team had been working for months to try to build a new, modern solution. What it was is it was, like, less than six submissions were happening a day because it only worked in Adobe Acrobat, I think it was 6.5 and below, and Internet Explorer 8.5 and below. And if you think about the people that could submit utilizing that limited set of technologies, it was slowly becoming homeless veterans who were using library computers that had not been upgraded. So, there was a diminishing amount of value that it was providing. And then, on top of it, it was sort of lying to veterans. If the version of the Adobe Acrobat was out of date, or wrong, or too new, it would tell them to upgrade their browser. So, like, it was effectively not providing any value over time. We were able to create a new version of that and that was already well on its way when I joined, but we were able to get it out the door. And it was a React frontend using a Node backend to talk to that SOAP API endpoint. Within the first week, we went from 6 submissions a day to 60 submissions a day. It's a joke, right? We were all 10x developers. We were like, "Look at us. We're killing it." But about three years later, Matt Cutts came to a staff meeting of USDS, and he was the second administrator of the USDS. And he brought the cake that had the actual 10-10EZ form on it, and it said, "500,000." And he had checked with the analytics team, and there were over 500,000 submissions of that form, which means there are 500,000 possible veterans that now may or may not have access to healthcare benefits. Those are big problems. All of that was done by changing out one form. It opened up the world. It opened up to a group of veterans that no one else was able to do. They would have had to go into a veteran's office, and they would have had to fill it out in paper. And some veterans just don't have the ability to do that, or don't have an address, or don't have a...so, there are so many reasons why having a digital form that worked for veterans was so important. But this one form that we digitized and we helped make modern has been submitted so many times and has helped so many veterans and their families. And that's just one example. That's just one form that we helped digitize. But now the team, I mean, I'm back in the VA ecosystem. There's, like, 2,500 people in the general channel in the office of the CTO Slack organization. That's amazing. There's people there that are working all day, every day, trying to solve the same problems that I was trying to solve when I got here. And there's so much work being done to help veterans. But that's just one example, right? Like, at USDS, I know that the digital filing for the free version of your tax form, the IRS e-file Direct, just went live. That was something that USDS had been working on for a very long time behind the scenes. And that's going to impact everybody who submits their taxes. These are the kind of problems that you get to work on or the scope of some of the problems if you work in these types of organizations, and that's really powerful. It's the thing that keeps drawing me back. I'm back supporting the VA again through some contracts in my business. But it's funny, like, I was working for another agency. I was over working at DHS on an asylum project. And a friend of mine kept telling people to tell me, "Man, veterans need you. If only there was another one of you to help us over here, that would be great." And eventually, it led to me being like, well, veterans need me. I'm going to go back to the VA. And that was my second tour at USDS at the Department of Veteran Affairs. And now I'm back there again. So, it's a very impactful place to work. There's tons of value you can provide to veterans. And, to me, it's the kind of work that keeps bringing me back. I didn't realize just how much I was a, like, impact junkie until I joined USDS, and then it really came to a head. I cannot believe how much work I've gotten to be a part of that has affected and supported those who get benefits and services from the federal government. VICTORIA: [inaudible 33:47] impact junkie. That's funny. But yeah, no, thank you for sharing that. That's really interesting. Let me see if you could go back in time to when you first started in this journey; if you could give yourself any advice, what would you say? ROBBIE: Yeah, I think I spent so much time being nervous about not having my degree that I was worried it was going to hinder me forever. And it's pretty amazing the career I've been able to thread together, right? Like, you know, I've hit on a few of them already. But, like, I started with a small web hosting company, and then New York State in the Department of Social Services, then New York City in the Human Resources Administration, Sony Music, Zagat Survey, Google, Johnson & Johnson, IDT telecommunications, Phase2 technologies, where I got to work on an awful lot of problems in lots of awesome places like NBA.com, and Major League Soccer, and Bassmaster. And then, the United States Digital Service where I got to work on things supporting the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security over at ADA.gov in DOJ. I helped them out. And I worked over at USDA helping get Farmers.gov off the ground. So, everything on my left leg, tattoo-wise, is something that changed my life from my perspective. And I have a Drupal tattoo on the back of my leg. I have a DrupalCon. So, anytime somebody said "Drupal" anywhere near a USDS person, I would magically appear because they would just be like, "Oh, Robbie has that Drupal tattoo." So, I got to work on a lot of dot govs that eventually landed or were being built in Drupal. So, I got to support a lot of work. And it meant that I got to, like, float around in government and do a lot of things that others didn't get to do. When CISA stood up, which is the office of security inside of DHS, it's one of the newest sub-communities or subcomponents, they built DHS SchoolSafety.gov, which is a cross-MOU'd site. And I got to sit in and help at the beginning of that because of my Drupal background. But it was really fun to be the person who helped them work with the vendors and make sure that they understood what they were trying to accomplish and be a sort of voice of reason in the room. So, I did all of that work, and then after that, I went and worked at Pluribus Digital, where I got a chance to work side by side with you. And then, that led to other things, like, I was able to apply and become the director of Digital Services and software engineering for my local county. So, I worked for Prince William County, where I bought a house during the pandemic. And then, after that contract ended, I had already started my own business. So, that's led to me having multiple individual contracts with companies and so many people. I've gotten to work on so many different things. And I feel very lucky. If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it's just, take a breath. Everything's going to be okay. And focus on the things that matter. Focus on the things that are going to help you. Focus on community. Focus on delivering value. Everything else will work itself out. You know, I joke all the time that I'm really good at providing impact. If you can measure my life in impact and value, I would be a very rich man. If you can measure it in money, I'm doing all right, but I'm never going to be yacht Robbie, you know, but I'm going to do okay. VICTORIA: Oh my god, yacht Robbie. That's great. So, just to recap, everything's going to be okay. You never know where it's going to take you. And don't be limited by the things that you think, you know, make you not enough. Like, there's a lot of things that you can do out there. I really like that advice. ROBBIE: And I think one last piece is, like, community matters, if you are a part of communities and you do it genuinely, how much that will impact your career. I gave a talk from Drupal NYC to the White House and beyond. And I talked through my entire resume and how everything changed when I started doing community engagement. When I went to the Drupal community in New York City and how that led to Sony, and that led to Zagat, which led to me getting acquired by Google, like, these things all cascaded. And then, when I moved to the DMV, I was able to join here and continue supporting communities, which allowed me to bring people into the local civic tech community from the local DC tech community. So, so many of the best USDS engineers, and designers, and product people I was able to help influence to come to government were people I met in the community or the communities I helped support. You know, I was an early revivalist of Alexandria Code and Coffee. It was a community that was started and then wavered. And then, Sean McBeth reached out to the community and said, "Do we want to help and support getting it off the ground again?" And I immediately said, "Yes." And then, that led to my friends at BLACK CODE COLLECTIVE wanting to create a community where they could feel safe and connected and create a community of their own. And then DC Code & Coffee started. And from there, Baltimore Code & Coffee kicked off. And it's just really nice that, like, it doesn't matter where I've been. All these things keep coming back to be a part of community and help support others. And you will be surprised at how much you get back in return. I wouldn't be the person I am today in my community. I wouldn't have my career if it wasn't for the people who started and helped shepherd me when I was starting out. And I feel like I've been trying to do the same for people for a really long time. VICTORIA: I love that. That's what I say, too, when people ask me for advice on careers and how to grow. And my biggest piece is always to go out and meet people. And go to your community, like, look and see what's happening. Like, find people you like hanging out with and learning from. And just that should be the majority of your time probably if you're trying to figure out where to go with your career or even just, like, expand as a person sometimes [laughs]. Robbie, I was going to ask; you mentioned that you had bought a house in Virginia. One of my other warmup questions was going to be, what's your favorite thing to put on the grill? ROBBIE: My house in Virginia definitely gets a lot of use, especially in the spring and the fall. I'm a big fan of team no extreme when it comes to temperature. But during those time periods, my grill is often fired up. My favorite is probably to make skirt steak on the grill. I'm a huge fan of tacos, especially made out of skirt steak. I'm in all day. That's one of my favorites. I also love to smoke. I have a smoker because I'm a caricature-esque suburban dude. I'm going to live into all of the possible things I could have. But I've had a smoker for a long time, and I love making sort of poor man's burnt ends. It's one of my favorite things to make. But you got to have some time. That's the kind of thing that takes, you know, 14 hours or 16 hours, but it's really fun to take advantage of it. A quick thing I love to make is actually smoked salmon. It takes longer to brine it than it usually does to smoke it. But it is one of the nicest things I've made on my smoker, you know, fresh pesto on a piece of salmon is pretty awesome, or everything bagel. Everything with the bagel seasoning is a pretty fun way to smoke some salmon. VICTORIA: Wow, that sounds so good. I'm going to have to stop in next time I'm in Virginia and get some [laughs] and hang out. Do you have any questions for me? ROBBIE: I'm excited to see where you've gone and how you've gotten here. I think this is such a cool job for you. Knowing who you are as a person and seeing you land in a company like this is really exciting. And I think you getting to be a part of this podcast, which we were joking about earlier, is I've been listening to probably since it started. I've been a big fan for a long time. So, it's cool to be here on this podcast. But it's also cool that my friend is a part of this and gets to be a part of this legacy. I'm really excited to see where you go over time. I know my career has been changing, right? I worked in government. Before that, I did all kinds of other stuff. Nowadays I have my own business where I often joke I have sort of, like, three things I offer, which is, like, consigliere services. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Robbie on your executive team without having to pay them an executive salary? You know, another one is like, you know, strategy and mentoring, but these are all things I know you do also, which I think is cool. But I've been working on contracts where I support companies trying to figure out how they modernize, or how their CTO can be more hands-off keyboard, or how their new director of business development can be more of a technical leader and taking on their first direct reports. So, I just enjoy all those aspects, and I just think it's something that I've watched you do in the company where we worked together. And it's always fun to see what you're working on and getting a chance to catch up with you. I feel like you're one of those people that does a really great job of staying connected. Every once in a while, I'll get a random text message like, "Hey, how you doing?" It always makes me smile. I'm like, Victoria is a really good connector, and I feel like I am, but you're even better at it on the being proactive side. That's how this all came about, right? We caught up, and you were like, "Why don't you come on the podcast?" So, that's really exciting. VICTORIA: Well, thank you, Robbie. Yeah, I think that's one of the great things about community is you meet people. You're like, "Oh, you're really cool. And you're doing cool stuff all the time. Like, how can I support you in your journey [laughs]? Like, what's up?" Yeah, for me, it was hard to actually leave DC. I didn't, you know, really think about the impact of leaving behind my tech community, like, that network of people. It was pretty emotional for me, actually, especially when we finally, like, stopped doing the digital version [laughs]. And I, like, kind of gave up managing it from California, which was kind of funny anyways [laughs]. Yeah, so no, I'm grateful that we stayed in touch and that you made time to be here with us today. Is there anything else that you would like to promote? ROBBIE: You know, just to remind you, you've done a great job of transitioning into where you are today, but anybody can do that, right? Like, before I moved to the DC area, I was in New York, and I was helping to organize JavaScript events. And I started looking at the DC area before I moved down here. And I found the DC Tech Community. And I found the Node School DC GitHub organization and reached out to the person who had ownership of it and said I wanted to help and support. I looked at this the other day. I think I moved on May 8th, and then, like, May 11th, when I walked in the door, somebody was like, "Are you new?" And I was like, "Yeah, I just moved here." And they were like, "Oh, from where?" And I was like, "New York." And they were like, "Are you that guy who's been bugging Josh about running Node school events?" I was like, "Yeah." And like, they were planning an unconference at the end of the month. And they were like, "Would you like to run a Node school at that unconference?" Like, 27 days later. So, it was amazing that, like, I immediately, like, fell from the New York Community where I was super connected, but I went out of my way to try to, like, see what the community looked like before I got there. And I was lucky enough to find the right people, and immediately I joked...I think I wrote a blog post that said like, "I found my new friends. By, like, going from one community to another, gave a person who was in his 40s a chance to meet new people very quickly." And it was pretty amazing, and I felt very lucky. But I did spend a little bit of energy and capital to try to figure it out because I knew it was going to be important to me. So, I think you've done a really good job. You've helped launch and relaunch things that were going on in San Diego and becoming a part of this connection to more people. I think you and I have a very similar spirit, which is like, let's find a way to connect with humans, and we do it pretty effectively. VICTORIA: Well, thank you. That really boosts my confidence, Robbie [laughs]. Sometimes, you show up to an event you've never been to before by yourself, and it's like a deer in headlights kind of moment. Like, oh God, what have I done [laughs]? ROBBIE: Oh, and the last thing I need to mention is I also have a podcast. I have my podcast about film. It's called Geek on Film. I used to record it with my friend, Jon. He's a little busy right now. But I used to pitch it as a conversation show about the current films that were going on. Now, it's one lone geek's ramblings about what he just saw. It's a great podcast for me because it gives me an opportunity to think a little more critically about film, which is one of the things that I probably have almost enough credits to get a minor in. But I absolutely love cinema and film in general. And it's given me an opportunity to connect with a lot more people about this subject and also to scratch the itch of me being able to create something around a community and around a thing I really love. VICTORIA: That's super cool. Yeah. You're top of mind because I also like films. I'm like, what's Robbie up to? Like, what's the recommendations, you know [laughs]? Do you have a top film recommendation from the Oscars? Is that too big of a question? ROBBIE: So, the one I will say that didn't get enough spotlight shined on it was Nimona. So, I'm a huge fan of the Spider-Man movies. I think Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse are both masterpieces. But Nimona is an animated film that was picked up by Netflix, and it is amazing. I don't know that I laughed or cried or was more moved by a film last year. And I don't know that it gets enough credit for what it was. But it did get nominated for best-animated film, but I don't know that enough people paid attention to it. Like it may have gotten lost in the algorithm. So, if you get a chance, check out Nimona. It's one of those beautiful, little gems that, if you travel down its story, there's all these twists and turns. It was based on a webcomic that became a graphic novel. One of the production companies picked it up, and it wasn't going to see the light of day. And then, Netflix bought its distribution rights. There's going to be a great documentary someday about, like, Inside Nimona. But I think the movie itself is really charming and moving, and I was really impressed with it. So, that was the one that got me, like, just before the Oscars this year, where I was like, this is the little animated movie that could, in my opinion. It's so charming. VICTORIA: I will definitely have to check that out. Thank you for giving us that recommendation. ROBBIE: Totally. VICTORIA: Final question. I just wanted to see if you had anything to share about being an advisory board member for Gray and for Hutch Studio. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? ROBBIE: Yeah. So, Gray Digital was founded by a friend of mine. We met through United States Digital Service. And his organization...I had been supporting him for a while and just being behind the scenes, talking to him and talking through business-related issues. And it was really nice. He offered to make me an official advisory board member. It was a great acknowledgment, and I really felt moved. There's some great people that are supporting him and have supported him. They've done really great work. Gray is out there delivering digital services in this space. And I think I was really lucky to be a part of it and to support my friend, Randall. Hutch is different. Hutch is an organization that's kind of like if you think about it, it almost is a way to support entrepreneurs of color who are trying to make their way into the digital service delivery space. Being an advisory board member there has been really interesting because it's shaping how Hutch provides services and what their approach is to how to support these companies. But over the last year, I've convinced the person who's running it, Stephanie, with a couple of other people, to open the door up or crack the door so we could talk directly and support the individual companies. So, it's been really great to be a Hutch advisory member to help shape how Hutch is approaching things. But I've also been a part of, like, many interview processes. I've reviewed a lot of, like, [inaudible 48:01] who want to join the organization. And I've also created personal relationships with many of the people who are part of Hutch. And, you know, like, you know me personally, so you know I run a Day of the Dead party. We'll just party at my house every year. I have a huge amount of affection for Mexican culture and, in general, the approach of how to remember people who are a part of your life. So, this is, like, the perfect way for me to bring people together at my house is to say, like, "Hey, my dad was awesome. What about your family? Who are your people?" What's really nice is that has given me an opportunity to host people at my house. And I've had Hutch company owners at my house the last couple of years and the person who runs Hutch. So, it's a really great community that I look at that is trying to shape the next emergent companies that are helping deliver digital services across the government. And it's really fun to be early on in their career and help them grow. Again, it seems silly, but it's the thing I care a lot about. How do I connect with people and provide the most value that I can? And this is a way I can provide that value to companies that may also go off and provide that value. It's a little bit of an amplifier. So, I'm a huge fan of what we've been able to accomplish and being a part of it in any way, shape, or form. VICTORIA: Well, I think that's a really beautiful way to wrap it up. ROBBIE: Really glad to catch up with you and be a part of this amazing podcast. VICTORIA: Yeah, so much fun. Thank you again so much. It was great to be here with you today. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on thoughtbotsocial@vguido. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

In our previous episode, we talked about getting the most from the software you already pay for and use, especially those Microsoft tools. Now, we're going deeper into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and how these tools help you be more productive and profitable. Don't be scared, be ready.  AI enhancements and tools are already incorporated into the latest versions of your current office software. Remember when some were wary of early word processors, later hard drives, and eventually cloud services and document sharing? We learned to overcome those fears and master the advances. AI is no different. Look at your paid versions of Adobe Acrobat. If you have an online subscription, or the latest desktop version, you may already have an AI assistant. Learn to use it for contract and document review, document summaries, information consolidation for quick email distribution, and even reformatting.  Zoom offers AI “note taking” and post-meeting summaries (even a takeaway “to do” list for each participant). So does Microsoft Teams. How about turning a Microsoft Word document into a PowerPoint? Hear how we learned to stop worrying and love the AI. Questions or ideas about solo and small practices? Drop us a line at NewSolo@legaltalknetwork.com   Topics: AI isn't going anywhere. The technology is weaving its way into products you already pay for and use. Learn how to take advantage. Computer software advances are nothing to be afraid of. Increase productivity, cut repetitive tasks, and free yourself.   But AI isn't magic, and it isn't as smart as you. Learn to build guardrails and know where you can't fully trust it. A hammer is a great tool, but it won't build a house. AI won't run your practice, but it can help. Resources: Adobe Acrobat AI Microsoft Copilot, “Announcing Microsoft Copilot, Your Everyday AI Companion” Copilot for Microsoft Edge Microsoft Copilot Microsoft 365 Microsoft 365 AI Tools And Applications Microsoft OneDrive Zoom AI PC Guide, “What Is ChatGPT And What Is It Used For?”   Previously on New Solo, Adam Alexander, “AI And The Evolving Security Threats (And Protections)”

In our previous episode, we talked about getting the most from the software you already pay for and use, especially those Microsoft tools. Now, we're going deeper into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and how these tools help you be more productive and profitable. Don't be scared, be ready.  AI enhancements and tools are already incorporated into the latest versions of your current office software. Remember when some were wary of early word processors, later hard drives, and eventually cloud services and document sharing? We learned to overcome those fears and master the advances. AI is no different. Look at your paid versions of Adobe Acrobat. If you have an online subscription, or the latest desktop version, you may already have an AI assistant. Learn to use it for contract and document review, document summaries, information consolidation for quick email distribution, and even reformatting.  Zoom offers AI “note taking” and post-meeting summaries (even a takeaway “to do” list for each participant). So does Microsoft Teams. How about turning a Microsoft Word document into a PowerPoint? Hear how we learned to stop worrying and love the AI. Questions or ideas about solo and small practices? Drop us a line at NewSolo@legaltalknetwork.com   Topics: AI isn't going anywhere. The technology is weaving its way into products you already pay for and use. Learn how to take advantage. Computer software advances are nothing to be afraid of. Increase productivity, cut repetitive tasks, and free yourself.   But AI isn't magic, and it isn't as smart as you. Learn to build guardrails and know where you can't fully trust it. A hammer is a great tool, but it won't build a house. AI won't run your practice, but it can help. Resources: Adobe Acrobat AI Microsoft Copilot, “Announcing Microsoft Copilot, Your Everyday AI Companion” Copilot for Microsoft Edge Microsoft Copilot Microsoft 365 Microsoft 365 AI Tools And Applications Microsoft OneDrive Zoom AI PC Guide, “What Is ChatGPT And What Is It Used For?”   Previously on New Solo, Adam Alexander, “AI And The Evolving Security Threats (And Protections)”

Our 156th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/ Email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekin.ai and/or hello@gladstone.ai Timestamps + links: (00:00:00) Intro / Banter Tools & Apps(00:02:16) OpenAI introduces Sora, its text-to-video AI model (00:13:24) Gemini 1.5 is Google's next-gen AI model — and it's already almost ready (00:24:00) Groq AI model goes viral and rivals ChatGPT, challenges Elon Musk's Grok (00:29:26) Introducing IP Adapters: Create Consistent Game Assets in Seconds (00:31:36) Report: OpenAI working on web search product (00:33:20) Adobe Acrobat adds generative AI to ‘easily chat with documents' Applications & Business(00:34:17) Sam Altman owns OpenAI's venture capital fund (00:38:17) Reddit Signs AI Content Licensing Deal Ahead of IPO (00:41:15) Nvidia reveals its Eos supercomputer for AI processing sporting 4,608 H100 GPUs (00:44:41) Google quietly launches internal AI model named 'Goose' to help employees write code faster, leaked documents show (00:46:24) Chinese start-up Moonshot AI raises US$1 billion in funding round led by Alibaba and VC HongShan amid strong interest for OpenAI-type firms (00:50:06)  AI Computing Firm Lambda Raises $320 Million in Fresh Funding (00:51:01) Exclusive: Ex-Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor and longtime Googler Clay Bavor raised $110 million to bring AI ‘agents' to business Projects & Open Source(00:51:41) BioMistral: A Collection of Open-Source Pretrained Large Language Models for Medical Domains (00:54:33) Nomic AI Releases the First Fully Open-Source Long Context Text Embedding Model that Surpasses OpenAI Ada-002 Performance on Various Benchmarks Research & Advancements(00:57:33) Meta unveils V-JEPA AI model that improves training by learning from video (01:04:51) Chain-of-Thought Reasoning Without Prompting (01:09:45) OS-Copilot: Towards Generalist Computer Agents with Self-Improvement (01:11:40) World Model on Million-Length Video And Language With RingAttention (01:15:00) Amazon AGI Team Say Their AI Is Showing "Emergent Abilities" Policy & Safety(01:17:15) Hackers for China, Russia and Others Used OpenAI Systems, Report Says (01:21:15) House leaders launch bipartisan artificial intelligence task force (01:25:08) Your fingerprints can be recreated from the sounds made when you swipe on a touchscreen — Chinese and US researchers show new side channel can reproduce fingerprints to enable attacks (01:27:05) States are introducing 50 AI-related bills per week (01:28:12) Air Canada found liable for chatbot's bad advice on plane tickets (01:30:26) The FTC warned about ‘quiet' TOS changes for AI training. Here's why it might not be enough Synthetic Media & Art(01:32:13) Sarah Silverman's lawsuit against OpenAI partially dismissed Fun & Miscellaneous (01:36:14) A Visual Guide to Mamba and State Space Models (01:38:00) Scientific Journal Publishes AI-Generated Rat with Gigantic Penis In Worrying Incident (01:40:50) Helen Mirren Rips Up AI-Generated Speech at American Cinematheque Awards (01:41:40) Microsoft's game-changing Super Bowl ad

Microsoft's big Xbox strategy event was exactly what Paul expected it was going to be. Hopefully, this calmed some nerves. Xbox strategy reveal It was going to be about Activision Blizzard originally (nailed it) All first-party games will be in Game Pass on day one (as is the case now) Game Pass will only be on Xbox (whatever "Xbox" means as it's on PC too) The strategy is unchanged: Meet gamers where they are But the best experience is on Xbox (this is like going from "Windows only" to "Windows first" to "Windows best") Portability across hardware platforms is a key part of the strategy - Backward Compatibility, etc. A future generation of Xbox console hardware will offer "the largest technical leap you have ever seen in a hardware generation." Oh, and four games are coming to "other consoles." Windows 11 Microsoft is quietly adding off-ramps to the Insider Program after killing the Magic window with their screwed-up release schedule Canary and Dev - 24H2, same builds. New navigation pane in Widgets - new accessibility setting for low-vision users - that same tired weather experience on the lock screen that is already in stable and seriously kill me now I can't stand this company anymore. Oh, and there are ISOs. Beta - New prompts for that "manage mobile devices" features, updates to Snipping Tool and Notepad (also in RP) Release Preview - We're testing Moment 5 now, so this is a huge update Microsoft fixed a bug that let Edge siphon browser data from other browsers Stardock brings pre-release support for Arm versions of Start11, Fences, and Groupy to new Object Desktop Insider program Google has an answer for those out of support Windows 10 PCs Build 2024 Microsoft confirms that Build 2024 is May 21-23 in Seattle. No word on press invites Microsoft 365 Microsoft will finally unify the Teams clients on Windows and Mac Microsoft is killing Publisher in 2 years and even though no one uses it, people are freaking out AI Microsoft to use Intel Foundry for at least one in-house custom AI chip Now OpenAI is worth over $80 billion, is world's third-biggest unicorn OpenAI announces Sora and... HOLY #$%^ Gemini (formerly Duet AI) comes to all Workspace customers Google brings Gemini down to size with Gemma for free, local use Adobe Acrobat is getting an AI assistant Xbox Game streaming is (probably) coming to all the Xbox games you own More (non-AB) games are coming to Game Pass in February Microsoft goes after Apple's non-compliance DMA compliance in the EU Epic announces a game store for iOS in Europe, will launch this year Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story will release on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch on March 13 Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Androids by Chet Haase App picks of the week: Dashlane, Firefox 123, Bonjourr Cocktail of the week: Sumi - This is a "clasicos Baltra" from the most famous bar in Mexico City. Tanqueray Ten Gin, Violet liqueur, Jasmine syrup, Yuzu, Egg white. Serve in a coupe glass, and garnish with dried flowers. Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Melissa.com/twit

Microsoft's big Xbox strategy event was exactly what Paul expected it was going to be. Hopefully, this calmed some nerves. Xbox strategy reveal It was going to be about Activision Blizzard originally (nailed it) All first-party games will be in Game Pass on day one (as is the case now) Game Pass will only be on Xbox (whatever "Xbox" means as it's on PC too) The strategy is unchanged: Meet gamers where they are But the best experience is on Xbox (this is like going from "Windows only" to "Windows first" to "Windows best") Portability across hardware platforms is a key part of the strategy - Backward Compatibility, etc. A future generation of Xbox console hardware will offer "the largest technical leap you have ever seen in a hardware generation." Oh, and four games are coming to "other consoles." Windows 11 Microsoft is quietly adding off-ramps to the Insider Program after killing the Magic window with their screwed-up release schedule Canary and Dev - 24H2, same builds. New navigation pane in Widgets - new accessibility setting for low-vision users - that same tired weather experience on the lock screen that is already in stable and seriously kill me now I can't stand this company anymore. Oh, and there are ISOs. Beta - New prompts for that "manage mobile devices" features, updates to Snipping Tool and Notepad (also in RP) Release Preview - We're testing Moment 5 now, so this is a huge update Microsoft fixed a bug that let Edge siphon browser data from other browsers Stardock brings pre-release support for Arm versions of Start11, Fences, and Groupy to new Object Desktop Insider program Google has an answer for those out of support Windows 10 PCs Build 2024 Microsoft confirms that Build 2024 is May 21-23 in Seattle. No word on press invites Microsoft 365 Microsoft will finally unify the Teams clients on Windows and Mac Microsoft is killing Publisher in 2 years and even though no one uses it, people are freaking out AI Microsoft to use Intel Foundry for at least one in-house custom AI chip Now OpenAI is worth over $80 billion, is world's third-biggest unicorn OpenAI announces Sora and... HOLY #$%^ Gemini (formerly Duet AI) comes to all Workspace customers Google brings Gemini down to size with Gemma for free, local use Adobe Acrobat is getting an AI assistant Xbox Game streaming is (probably) coming to all the Xbox games you own More (non-AB) games are coming to Game Pass in February Microsoft goes after Apple's non-compliance DMA compliance in the EU Epic announces a game store for iOS in Europe, will launch this year Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story will release on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch on March 13 Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Androids by Chet Haase App picks of the week: Dashlane, Firefox 123, Bonjourr Cocktail of the week: Sumi - This is a "clasicos Baltra" from the most famous bar in Mexico City. Tanqueray Ten Gin, Violet liqueur, Jasmine syrup, Yuzu, Egg white. Serve in a coupe glass, and garnish with dried flowers. Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Melissa.com/twit

Microsoft's big Xbox strategy event was exactly what Paul expected it was going to be. Hopefully, this calmed some nerves. Xbox strategy reveal It was going to be about Activision Blizzard originally (nailed it) All first-party games will be in Game Pass on day one (as is the case now) Game Pass will only be on Xbox (whatever "Xbox" means as it's on PC too) The strategy is unchanged: Meet gamers where they are But the best experience is on Xbox (this is like going from "Windows only" to "Windows first" to "Windows best") Portability across hardware platforms is a key part of the strategy - Backward Compatibility, etc. A future generation of Xbox console hardware will offer "the largest technical leap you have ever seen in a hardware generation." Oh, and four games are coming to "other consoles." Windows 11 Microsoft is quietly adding off-ramps to the Insider Program after killing the Magic window with their screwed-up release schedule Canary and Dev - 24H2, same builds. New navigation pane in Widgets - new accessibility setting for low-vision users - that same tired weather experience on the lock screen that is already in stable and seriously kill me now I can't stand this company anymore. Oh, and there are ISOs. Beta - New prompts for that "manage mobile devices" features, updates to Snipping Tool and Notepad (also in RP) Release Preview - We're testing Moment 5 now, so this is a huge update Microsoft fixed a bug that let Edge siphon browser data from other browsers Stardock brings pre-release support for Arm versions of Start11, Fences, and Groupy to new Object Desktop Insider program Google has an answer for those out of support Windows 10 PCs Build 2024 Microsoft confirms that Build 2024 is May 21-23 in Seattle. No word on press invites Microsoft 365 Microsoft will finally unify the Teams clients on Windows and Mac Microsoft is killing Publisher in 2 years and even though no one uses it, people are freaking out AI Microsoft to use Intel Foundry for at least one in-house custom AI chip Now OpenAI is worth over $80 billion, is world's third-biggest unicorn OpenAI announces Sora and... HOLY #$%^ Gemini (formerly Duet AI) comes to all Workspace customers Google brings Gemini down to size with Gemma for free, local use Adobe Acrobat is getting an AI assistant Xbox Game streaming is (probably) coming to all the Xbox games you own More (non-AB) games are coming to Game Pass in February Microsoft goes after Apple's non-compliance DMA compliance in the EU Epic announces a game store for iOS in Europe, will launch this year Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story will release on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch on March 13 Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Androids by Chet Haase App picks of the week: Dashlane, Firefox 123, Bonjourr Cocktail of the week: Sumi - This is a "clasicos Baltra" from the most famous bar in Mexico City. Tanqueray Ten Gin, Violet liqueur, Jasmine syrup, Yuzu, Egg white. Serve in a coupe glass, and garnish with dried flowers. Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Melissa.com/twit

Microsoft's big Xbox strategy event was exactly what Paul expected it was going to be. Hopefully, this calmed some nerves. Xbox strategy reveal It was going to be about Activision Blizzard originally (nailed it) All first-party games will be in Game Pass on day one (as is the case now) Game Pass will only be on Xbox (whatever "Xbox" means as it's on PC too) The strategy is unchanged: Meet gamers where they are But the best experience is on Xbox (this is like going from "Windows only" to "Windows first" to "Windows best") Portability across hardware platforms is a key part of the strategy - Backward Compatibility, etc. A future generation of Xbox console hardware will offer "the largest technical leap you have ever seen in a hardware generation." Oh, and four games are coming to "other consoles." Windows 11 Microsoft is quietly adding off-ramps to the Insider Program after killing the Magic window with their screwed-up release schedule Canary and Dev - 24H2, same builds. New navigation pane in Widgets - new accessibility setting for low-vision users - that same tired weather experience on the lock screen that is already in stable and seriously kill me now I can't stand this company anymore. Oh, and there are ISOs. Beta - New prompts for that "manage mobile devices" features, updates to Snipping Tool and Notepad (also in RP) Release Preview - We're testing Moment 5 now, so this is a huge update Microsoft fixed a bug that let Edge siphon browser data from other browsers Stardock brings pre-release support for Arm versions of Start11, Fences, and Groupy to new Object Desktop Insider program Google has an answer for those out of support Windows 10 PCs Build 2024 Microsoft confirms that Build 2024 is May 21-23 in Seattle. No word on press invites Microsoft 365 Microsoft will finally unify the Teams clients on Windows and Mac Microsoft is killing Publisher in 2 years and even though no one uses it, people are freaking out AI Microsoft to use Intel Foundry for at least one in-house custom AI chip Now OpenAI is worth over $80 billion, is world's third-biggest unicorn OpenAI announces Sora and... HOLY #$%^ Gemini (formerly Duet AI) comes to all Workspace customers Google brings Gemini down to size with Gemma for free, local use Adobe Acrobat is getting an AI assistant Xbox Game streaming is (probably) coming to all the Xbox games you own More (non-AB) games are coming to Game Pass in February Microsoft goes after Apple's non-compliance DMA compliance in the EU Epic announces a game store for iOS in Europe, will launch this year Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story will release on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch on March 13 Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Androids by Chet Haase App picks of the week: Dashlane, Firefox 123, Bonjourr Cocktail of the week: Sumi - This is a "clasicos Baltra" from the most famous bar in Mexico City. Tanqueray Ten Gin, Violet liqueur, Jasmine syrup, Yuzu, Egg white. Serve in a coupe glass, and garnish with dried flowers. Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Melissa.com/twit

Microsoft's big Xbox strategy event was exactly what Paul expected it was going to be. Hopefully, this calmed some nerves. Xbox strategy reveal It was going to be about Activision Blizzard originally (nailed it) All first-party games will be in Game Pass on day one (as is the case now) Game Pass will only be on Xbox (whatever "Xbox" means as it's on PC too) The strategy is unchanged: Meet gamers where they are But the best experience is on Xbox (this is like going from "Windows only" to "Windows first" to "Windows best") Portability across hardware platforms is a key part of the strategy - Backward Compatibility, etc. A future generation of Xbox console hardware will offer "the largest technical leap you have ever seen in a hardware generation." Oh, and four games are coming to "other consoles." Windows 11 Microsoft is quietly adding off-ramps to the Insider Program after killing the Magic window with their screwed-up release schedule Canary and Dev - 24H2, same builds. New navigation pane in Widgets - new accessibility setting for low-vision users - that same tired weather experience on the lock screen that is already in stable and seriously kill me now I can't stand this company anymore. Oh, and there are ISOs. Beta - New prompts for that "manage mobile devices" features, updates to Snipping Tool and Notepad (also in RP) Release Preview - We're testing Moment 5 now, so this is a huge update Microsoft fixed a bug that let Edge siphon browser data from other browsers Stardock brings pre-release support for Arm versions of Start11, Fences, and Groupy to new Object Desktop Insider program Google has an answer for those out of support Windows 10 PCs Build 2024 Microsoft confirms that Build 2024 is May 21-23 in Seattle. No word on press invites Microsoft 365 Microsoft will finally unify the Teams clients on Windows and Mac Microsoft is killing Publisher in 2 years and even though no one uses it, people are freaking out AI Microsoft to use Intel Foundry for at least one in-house custom AI chip Now OpenAI is worth over $80 billion, is world's third-biggest unicorn OpenAI announces Sora and... HOLY #$%^ Gemini (formerly Duet AI) comes to all Workspace customers Google brings Gemini down to size with Gemma for free, local use Adobe Acrobat is getting an AI assistant Xbox Game streaming is (probably) coming to all the Xbox games you own More (non-AB) games are coming to Game Pass in February Microsoft goes after Apple's non-compliance DMA compliance in the EU Epic announces a game store for iOS in Europe, will launch this year Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story will release on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch on March 13 Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Androids by Chet Haase App picks of the week: Dashlane, Firefox 123, Bonjourr Cocktail of the week: Sumi - This is a "clasicos Baltra" from the most famous bar in Mexico City. Tanqueray Ten Gin, Violet liqueur, Jasmine syrup, Yuzu, Egg white. Serve in a coupe glass, and garnish with dried flowers. Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Melissa.com/twit

Full Transcript We are thrilled to have two leaders and colleagues in the digital document accessibility space on Article 19! They are Chad Chelius and Dax Castro, hosts of the Chax Chat podcast and co-founders of Chax Training and Consulting.  Join Tamman President Marty Molloy and Article 19 Podcast Host Kristen Witucki as they talk with Chad and Dax on a thrilling announcement, the origins of Chax Training and Consulting, and what they anticipate for the future of digital documents and digital accessibility as a whole.  - Chad Chelius is an Adobe Certified Instructor, Trainer, and Expert, he is an  Accessibility Document Specialist (ADS), author, consultant, and has spoken at the InDesign Summit, M-Enabling, CSUN, Tech Access, Creative Pro Week, Adobe MAX, and the Design + Accessibility Summit. As an Adobe Certified Instructor and consultant he teaches and advises on all Adobe print and web products, specializing in InDesign and InCopy workflows, Illustrator, automation, and PDF accessibility using InDesign, Word, and Adobe Acrobat. Dax Castro is an award-winning, Adobe Certified PDF Accessibility Trainer and certified Accessible Document Specialist (ADS) with more than two decades of experience in the marketing and communications industry. He has more than 200 hours of training, is an online influencer, trainer, speaker, and accessibility advocate that pushes the envelope of technology to produce more robust accessible documents. He has spoken at Creative Pro Week, Adobe MAX, Design + Accessibility Summit, CSUN, Assistive Technology Conference, and the SMPS (Society for Marketing Professional Services).

Microsoft's big Xbox strategy event was exactly what Paul expected it was going to be. Hopefully, this calmed some nerves. Xbox strategy reveal It was going to be about Activision Blizzard originally (nailed it) All first-party games will be in Game Pass on day one (as is the case now) Game Pass will only be on Xbox (whatever "Xbox" means as it's on PC too) The strategy is unchanged: Meet gamers where they are But the best experience is on Xbox (this is like going from "Windows only" to "Windows first" to "Windows best") Portability across hardware platforms is a key part of the strategy - Backward Compatibility, etc. A future generation of Xbox console hardware will offer "the largest technical leap you have ever seen in a hardware generation." Oh, and four games are coming to "other consoles." Windows 11 Microsoft is quietly adding off-ramps to the Insider Program after killing the Magic window with their screwed-up release schedule Canary and Dev - 24H2, same builds. New navigation pane in Widgets - new accessibility setting for low-vision users - that same tired weather experience on the lock screen that is already in stable and seriously kill me now I can't stand this company anymore. Oh, and there are ISOs. Beta - New prompts for that "manage mobile devices" features, updates to Snipping Tool and Notepad (also in RP) Release Preview - We're testing Moment 5 now, so this is a huge update Microsoft fixed a bug that let Edge siphon browser data from other browsers Stardock brings pre-release support for Arm versions of Start11, Fences, and Groupy to new Object Desktop Insider program Google has an answer for those out of support Windows 10 PCs Build 2024 Microsoft confirms that Build 2024 is May 21-23 in Seattle. No word on press invites Microsoft 365 Microsoft will finally unify the Teams clients on Windows and Mac Microsoft is killing Publisher in 2 years and even though no one uses it, people are freaking out AI Microsoft to use Intel Foundry for at least one in-house custom AI chip Now OpenAI is worth over $80 billion, is world's third-biggest unicorn OpenAI announces Sora and... HOLY #$%^ Gemini (formerly Duet AI) comes to all Workspace customers Google brings Gemini down to size with Gemma for free, local use Adobe Acrobat is getting an AI assistant Xbox Game streaming is (probably) coming to all the Xbox games you own More (non-AB) games are coming to Game Pass in February Microsoft goes after Apple's non-compliance DMA compliance in the EU Epic announces a game store for iOS in Europe, will launch this year Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story will release on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch on March 13 Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Androids by Chet Haase App picks of the week: Dashlane, Firefox 123, Bonjourr Cocktail of the week: Sumi - This is a "clasicos Baltra" from the most famous bar in Mexico City. Tanqueray Ten Gin, Violet liqueur, Jasmine syrup, Yuzu, Egg white. Serve in a coupe glass, and garnish with dried flowers. Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Melissa.com/twit

I spoke with a law firm consultant about how to select the best hardware and software for law firms. Episode Highlights 03:42 How the Oregon State Bar Professional Liability Fund provides legal malpractice insurance and their range of services 07:11 What firms should be looking at when getting a legal software 12:21 The checklist when doing assessments of your legal software 15:28 Software that law firms should have 17:39 Some of the challenges that come with the integration of various software types 19:32 How lawyers should be managing their tech budget 21:24 Best practices for optimizing software utilization 24:34 How lawyers could benefit from general business platforms not specifically built for law firms like Adobe Acrobat, email systems, and task management software   Episode Resources Connect with Jared Correia jared@redcavelegal.com https://redcavelegal.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredcorreia https://twitter.com/RedCaveLegal www.linkedin.com/in/jaredcorreia/ Connect with Rachel Edwards rachele@osbplf.org https://osbplf.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-edwards-15a4162a 

Intimidated by the daunting world of finances, specifically in the voiceover industry? Tag along with the BOSSES as we demystify the intricacies of money management. Our banter-filled conversation is set to shine a light on the critical role of financial discipline, understanding taxes, and the art of investment categorization for your business growth. We provide crucial insights on all things expenses - from domain names and web hosting to the nitty-gritty of audio editing software. We also tackle home studio costs and the relevance of physical inventory for product sellers. And for those lean times, we've got you covered with our practical strategies that ensure you stay on top of your game. 00:01 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VEO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:20 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I'm here with my superpower boss co-host, Lau Lapides. Hey hey. 00:30 Lau. How are you? Hey, I'm fab. How are you? I need to activate my accounting financial superpowers because it is a new year and I've got a business that I want to grow and I need to make some investments and I need to really, I think, get my finances in order. So I think we should talk. I know people hate talking or even thinking about finances. However, I think we need to discuss what could be on the agenda for your business this year and how can you financially prepare.  01:09 - Lau (Co-host) I love that, and if we don't understand our status with our money and we don't have a good relationship with it and we don't have trust with money and we don't know how to treat it, then we will not have financial discipline and therefore not have the cash for the investments we need to make throughout our year. And I speak about that at every level. I mean, if you're making millions, even more so because I know colleagues of mine that are millionaires that are busted by the end of the year because they don't know how to save, they don't know how to spend, they don't know how to invest.  01:43 They're used to being managed by other people, and I think management is wonderful when you're at a certain level, but it can also be a curse and take a lot of that micro management over you and then you're left with like, wow, how do I live life? How do I earn money? What do I do with it?  02:01 - Anne (Host) Absolutely.  02:02 I've always tried to be so independent, just in my life and financially independent as well, and so it really behooves us as business entrepreneurs to understand even if we do let's say, I always talk about my accountant and the best thing I ever did was outsource my accounting but you also need to have an underlying understanding and concept of financials so that you can direct your accountant or also understand where's your money going, because maybe sometimes your accountant I don't know maybe they're taking it or maybe they're putting it in place is that you're not familiar with. So not that I want to infer that there's anything shady going on, but hey, we want to be educated.  02:43 - Lau (Co-host) Yes, I also want people to think let's talk taxes, baby. Oh yes, I am not an accountant, my husband is.  02:50 I do not get into that, but I will say running businesses, as you know, Annie, everything at the end of the day, whether it's quarterly, whether it's annual, you have to put you know one of the first things we say and we're fairly conservative fiscally my husband and I we joke. We say, oh, we just got a ton of money and that's awesome, what are we going to do with it? Put it away. I'm going to say I'm going to put 50% of that away from taxes for the next quarter and I'll say good move.  03:16 - Anne (Host) And I'm so glad that you brought that up. As a matter of fact, for the next three months I have a certain amount of money that is coming out because it might escort. I need to pay myself, and so I need to pay myself. I need to prep. So by the end of the year I'm not going to be paying tons and tons of money and taxes.  03:32 - Lau (Co-host) And has that ever happened to you? Because that happened to us a couple of times. It's devastating.  03:37 - Anne (Host) Gosh, when I first started off in voiceover and I started making money and I wasn't prepared, right At the end of the year I was just like, yeah, I'll do the taxes at the end of the year, put it off, put it off, put it off. And then, ultimately, at the end of the year I was like, oh, my God, I owe. And then it was like, oh, I don't just owe a little, I owed a lot. And then I was audited one year. I'll be very frank in telling you that?  03:58 Not because I mean, I wasn't doing any funny business, but literally sometimes you're a small business, right, and a lot of times if you are making claims, they want to substantiate those claims and make sure that you're doing your taxes properly.  04:12 So it was a random audit. Actually, I was audited twice. I passed both audits with flying colors. As a matter of fact, the last audit they owed me. So it really goes to show that I was prepared, and thank God I was prepared.  04:24 Again, like I said, I don't wait until the very last minute and I don't know if I was intending for this episode to be talking about taxes the whole time, but it all comes down to the end of the year, right when you got to pay your taxes. And so you have to understand, like, where is your money going, where is your investments going, what costs do you have? And I think that's super important, what are your costs and what is your income coming in? And you should be looking at your profit, your PNL statement. What is a PNL statement? I have people like I'm not even sure what a PNL. It's a profit and loss statement. So that is something that you should be familiar with, and if you're not, we're here to kind of talk to you about the basics at least. I'm not a financial advisor. However, I can share my experiences and I can tell you how important it is to be educated and to understand that there will be investments and you need to categorize those investments and you need to categorize your profits.  05:19 - Lau (Co-host) Yes, and at the end of the day, even though we don't want to talk about taxes the entire time, we're not on a barter system. If IRS comes, they're not going to take a cow right. They want money, they want cash. So, just being honest, having integrity about your business, just doing everything by the book, being very careful, having a bookkeeper, having an accounting team having the people you need on your side couldn't be more worth.  05:43 It just couldn't be. But let's talk about money in terms of, like, fixed costs. Putting together your understanding what are my fixed costs versus my movable, shakeable, flexible, variable costs, which do vary month to month? How do you set it up, Annie? When you set that up?  06:01 - Anne (Host) Well, I don't remember which episode it was, but I did touch upon this at one point. In terms of fixed costs, like for running your business, there is the cost of I'm an S corp, so I have to pay a certain amount of money every year right to maintain that license, and so I also have to make sure that things that it costs for me to run my business so not only the cost of the business itself, which I pay to the state or I pay to the federal government I also am paying things that would be like my website, my web hosting right. That is something I pay on a monthly basis. That happens each and every time. So those recurring costs I found to be well managed, number one by my accountant and it's categorized in my system.  06:46 But also I downloaded an app. I pay for this app on a monthly basis called Rocket Money, and Rocket Money will go out and grab all your subscriptions, cause a lot of times you can be subscribed to things that you forget about. This is the new way of doing businesses those subscription models which I pay monthly for my domain names, for my web hosting, which is the place where I host my websites, kind of think what else, my subscriptions to my audio editing software, twisted Wave or Adobe Audition. I also pay Adobe because I have Adobe Acrobat, the Adobe Suite that I pay for. Goodness gracious, this is so much, and I pay for a lot of things too, like my Riverside subscription. Right, this is what we record our podcast on. I pay for my Zoom connection. I pay for gosh, all these backblades, which is my backup system Right.  07:40 - Lau (Co-host) So here's the key, though, annie, is like we're lumping them all together because that's everything that you do every month and in your mind because you've been doing so long. Those are fixed costs, right To a new person coming in for the first couple of years. Some of those may be more variable in cost because, let's say, let's say hypothetically, you're ready to do a blasting service like Constant Contact or MailChimp or VO Boss or VO Boss, but we're blasting things out to your hundreds or thousands of leads, right, and you're gonna pay for that monthly. Now, we consider that kind of fixed because we've been doing that collectively so long. But someone coming in who's fairly new and say, well, can I spend that $40, $50 a month or $90 a month to do that? That's more of a variable cost, because they may or may not feel like I'm at a point where that's gonna be beneficial. I may not have enough leads to do that too. I'll do that in a year and see where I am in a year, but I can't do that with my rent or my mortgage.  08:39 - Intro (Announcement) I have to do that every month.  08:41 - Lau (Co-host) That's a fixed cost right. So that's really interesting for us to just reevaluate every year or every quarter, like what are our variables that we're thinking of as fixed, Like if I think of Google or I think of like storage on?  08:57 - Anne (Host) Zoom, or I think of this. My mind it's fixed. My iPhone, my phone bill for myself, I'm paying on a monthly basis that to me. I consider that a fixed cost. But you're right, I mean, it all comes down to what is it that is necessary to run your business? But, interestingly enough, because most of us are home-based businesses, now, brick and mortar, brick and mortar. Are you paying Brick and mortar as well as I mean, we gotta consider our offices, our home studios, right? Yes, as part of it. So for me it translates into I've gotta pay the mortgage because if I don't have a house or I don't have my home studio, I don't have my studio in my house.  09:33 - Intro (Announcement) You gotta pay.  09:33 - Anne (Host) Your insurance, gotta pay the water bill, gotta pay the internet, oh my gosh internet.  09:37 - Intro (Announcement) Utilities yes, Gotta pay electricity.  09:39 - Anne (Host) Otherwise I'm not gonna have all of that to be able to run my business at home. And you law have a brick and mortar as well, so there's all of that which is considered fixed for you as well.  09:50 - Lau (Co-host) Yes, it is, and that's not to say it can't shift and change. So if I decide to move to a different place, then the costs would shift and change, but they're always there. In other words, they don't really leave, unless the caveat is I'm 22, I'm trying to save money. I move in with my parents. They're gonna pay a lot of those bills for me for a year. I don't have to worry about that. They're gonna let me save money. Okay, that's your caveat. But other than that, when you're in the world, those are now part of our business, because if we don't take care of those, we literally can't run the business.  10:22 - Anne (Host) And, believe it or not, on a very small scale. Right, I have physical inventory because I sell a vocal throat care line and a vocal spray along with my vocal essentials, right? So there's inventory. I need to purchase inventory so that I can create those sprays, also to run that business.  10:41 - Lau (Co-host) And we would have merchandise Exactly that we may wanna take to a conference or we may wanna do a swag bag giveaway at a networking meeting or whatever. That's the inventory you speak of. That is really variable, it's not really fixed, it's still a variable cost. But for us it's important that we continue to do that to promote the business.  10:59 - Anne (Host) Absolutely absolutely.  11:00 - Lau (Co-host) Right, I love this conversation. This is so good. So what happens? I get in trouble. I find that I'm not doing as much voiceover work this month as I see happen Quite often times. People come in, they start crying, they're upset, they're like I might have to get another job. I might have to pull back on my spending. Where do we go first to pull back on that spending? We go to the variables.  11:24 - Anne (Host) Yep, great question. Yeah, absolutely, the variables. I mean, what can I do to save money, number one, or cut down on costs? And again, as your business evolves and as things evolve, everything, that's really important that we take a look at that, gosh, at least I mean I look at that every month, if not more than that. And I know that, especially when things are lean right, you've got more time right. If you've got more time, you've got more time to. Let's take a look at our marketing. Let's take a look at our investments. What are we spending right and what can we cut back on?  11:59 And I know, for me, some of mine was subscriptions that were no longer serving me, right, I was like, okay, well, I guess I don't need that. And then I've got things like I have a Peloton subscription. Am I using it? Because that's a certain amount of money? Am I watching the Discovery channel? Can I cut back on that? Those subscriptions? And in reality, by the way, my cable, and well, I guess, do you call it cable, my streaming, my streaming subscriptions are part of my business because I am researching the market, right, and I'm listening to commercials, I'm seeing what's out there, I'm educating myself on trending sound, trending voices, educating myself as a coach for my students right. So that is considered a business expense.  12:45 - Lau (Co-host) I would add a personalized list to this. So you have your fixed cost, you have your variable, but then you have your very personal expenses. That could be one or the other but if I'm hurting for money and I gotta go skinny one month, I'm gonna go to that personalized list.  13:01 So a very simple example of that is I'll always ask a client. I'll say listen, what are you doing this weekend? What did you do last weekend? Oh, I went to the movies cool. What did you spend on that? Oh, that was 15 bucks great. Did you get any food or drink there? I did. I think that was about 30 bucks great. Did you go out to dinner Super. I think I spent 25 bucks on fast food great. Did you spend on gasoline? Yeah, I think I spent five or six bucks. Add that up. That is the money that can go into your investment piece when you really need the coaching session.  13:32 - Anne (Host) You really need that event. You really need that. Can I skip the Starbucks? I remember that's the biggest thing. Can I skip the Starbucks? I'm gonna skip the Starbucks.  13:38 - Lau (Co-host) And I have to say, annie, I'm not a financial advisor, so I'm not advising you financially. I'm advising you from a logical perspective of saying be careful of saying to yourself, lying to yourself and saying I don't have the money, when really you should be saying let me find the money or create the money Absolutely.  13:59 We used to go under the cushions to find the change and put it in a big jar. Now we can go to what we're spending, what we're actually spending, and find the change in that jar. A Starbucks which we love five, six bucks. A cup of that that I may need to put into my coaching session.  14:17 - Anne (Host) Absolutely Hands down. One of the smartest things I ever did was create that business savings account. And then where are you going to put that business savings account? I literally just moved my business savings account from my bank to a higher yield interest bank and I'll tell you what it made the difference between oh gosh, I might have made gosh my bank was paying me nothing. I was like 0.001. And I think I was making like maybe $5 a year.  14:42 Well, guess what? I'm 5% APY 5%. And when you invest that now, I've made thousands of dollars for this year and then that can be reinvested in my business. So that savings account also is what saved me from when things get lean, when the jobs aren't coming in, when things slow down and then all of a sudden, oh my goodness, what am I gonna do. And it saves you from that panic where you probably do yourself more harm than good with that guttural like oh my God, I am gonna have to like get a job or I'm gonna have to quit.  15:17 Voiceover it's just not working. It's in that panic that I have a lot of people they come to me. I just I can't. I can't invest in a demo, I can't invest in coaching, because I'm just not making it back. And again, that is something that you really do need to understand that there are investments to be made. If you have the money put aside to make those investments right, that makes you feel a whole lot more comfortable and a lot less panicky, whether you're like oh, I said I gotta get out, I can't do this anymore, or you become discouraged, and then it really becomes a whole mental game. And that, I think, is the toughest part about voice acting right Voice acting the acting we can always practice.  15:55 We can hone our skills, we can become better at what we do. But that business sense that when the business is slow, when all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, this isn't working or how do I survive, you go into that like fight or flight kind of mode and really having that nest egg, having that savings account that can be earning interest, having that passive income, all that good stuff, that can be that little pocket of confidence that's what I say that little pile of financial confidence is huge in, I think, growing and pursuing your voice of our business successfully.  16:32 - Lau (Co-host) Yeah, and we all know those of us who have been in business for a number of years it's never what you make. It is never what you make. It is not about gross, it's about net. So it's about what you take home. That is, showing us how you are spending and investing your money, your gross income. And so having that level of sacrifice, of humility and of modesty to understand that just because I want something does not mean I need it or should have it. So if you're willing to sacrifice and give up something, you probably have more shot of building an actual business, because the business has the needs. You don't have the needs as much as the business has the needs.  17:14 And I wanted to say too what you're talking about, which is so important and we're doing that as well as diversification of your money. So not only if it's not making interest, if it's not building wealth for you, then you move it. But here's the thing there's a couple of really important reasons to move the money. Not only does if your bank goes bust. You don't have everything in one pot.  17:34 - Anne (Host) Exactly.  17:35 - Lau (Co-host) You're only insured, too, for a certain amount, right, but also you're literally setting up accounts for yourself that you hopefully will forget about. So you're not spending it, you're not touching it. It's growing, it's working for you, right? So that you don't have this. Don't think of it as like one clump, one lump of something. It's really different pieces that you're diversifying into the world. You may want to invest, you may want to go into the stocks, you may want to do that kind of thing, right? So the point is is like okay, I've got my business, it's great, it's moving in the direction I wanted to move in, but what am I sacrificing? What am I doing to make money and make it grow for me, and how am I treating it? Like? How do I think of money? I hear a lot of people, especially women, talk about money, talk about negotiation, talk about contracts in a really negative light, like in a very heavy way. They are either fearing it, they don't want to talk about money.  18:30 - Anne (Host) I think most of it is fear absolutely Based in fear, and most of it is fear right.  18:34 It's kind of like I don't want to go there, I don't want to talk about it, I want to kind of just go back to something we were talking about in terms of investing and kind of making sure that you have the money to invest in that next piece of equipment, or do I need that new microphone? Do I need? I'm going to give you an analogy and I'm going to be very frank. I have in my clothes closet. I have these little cubby holes for my shoes.  18:59 Now I bought them gosh a long time ago and I think I I don't know if I got them in IKEA, but they're great. They're little cubby holes and you can fit a pair of shoes in each cubby hole, and so I bought a series of them to put around. We have a walk-in closet to put on the floor and my husband has one of the boxes which holds 12, right, and I literally have probably eight. I have 70 cubby holes Okay, 70. Now I made a deal with myself that I would never buy more shoes than could fit in that cubby hole, and so if I wanted to purchase a new pair of shoes, I had to give up another pair of shoes or donate it or sell it on Poshmark or what.  19:34 - Lau (Co-host) Wait a second, annie, I just did some math. Are you saying you have 98 pairs? If you have 12 and you have eight of those right, or 90,? What is that? 96? All right, so I say 70. Should I call?  19:49 - Anne (Host) you a melda now.  19:50 - Lau (Co-host) Should I really name you a melda?  19:51 - Anne (Host) I'm going to say it's 70. I don't know how many boxes there are, so, whatever right, 70. I have 70 holes. I have 70 cubbies.  19:57 - Lau (Co-host) You just have to stay in that denial, stay at 70. Stay at 70.  20:01 - Anne (Host) Now I can't purchase a new pair of shoes until I decide that I'm going to let another pair of shoes go. And if I can't, I'm going to try to sell those shoes. But if I can't, I'm going to donate them right so that they go to someplace. I'm that kind of person where I have to love my shoes right, do you wear?  20:17 - Lau (Co-host) all those shoes? Be honest, do you wear all?  20:19 - Intro (Announcement) Not anymore.  20:19 - Anne (Host) I don't no but I used to right and so, literally, as I've aged a little bit, I mean the heels got to come down a little bit.  20:27 - Intro (Announcement) I can't quite fit in those.  20:28 - Anne (Host) Well, I can't walk in those higher ones anymore, but I still love to look at them. But that is like I feel like your business needs to operate in that way, right, you cannot make an investment more than you have. Like, you should not spend more than you have. I should not have more shoes than cubby holes, right? Because then it starts to look cluttered, it starts to look like a big mess, and so, therefore, I have put myself on a plan, right, where this helps me to. This helps me to manage my shoes, like I would say, manage your finances in the same way, right, you don't want to make investments with money you don't have, right, and you want to make sure that, if you have, how many microphones do you have? Like, you should not have more microphones than places to put those microphones right, okay, all right, I have a term for that.  21:14 - Lau (Co-host) This is from my husband, jeremy, who is actually a controller CFO type accountant his whole life.  21:19 He says listen, and I always hated this, it always made me cringe, it was cringe worthy, but he's so right. And that is don't live above your means. Absolutely Don't live above your means. And he's not only talking about financially, he's also talking about emotionally and spiritually as well. So I have taught myself. My father, who's an entrepreneur, taught me this too. He said buy something, get rid of something. Yes, oh my God, buy something, yes, yes, and not just kick it to the curve, but give it to the right place.  21:47 Give it to the right place, give it to the right place and boy, did that save my day learning how to do that and really learning to let go and learning to move around it. That's really good.  21:57 - Anne (Host) That's really good, for I mean being frugal and being wise financially and also like mentally, like I feel like you can't have too much clutter, because physical clutter turns to be clutter in your head. And I actually took a feng shui course many, many years ago. It was like a six month course. I mean, it was intense.  22:15 - Intro (Announcement) I love it, I love it, you should never put things under your bed.  22:19 - Anne (Host) Don't store things under your bed. Don't store things because it's kind of like clutter anywhere, really like clear out your corners.  22:26 - Lau (Co-host) Clutter anywhere physically means clutter in your head, right so when it comes to your money, you need to compartmentalize it Absolutely. How do you call that when you label it like we would give away key?  22:38 - Anne (Host) Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. What do you call that? We label it. We're Maria Condoing, right Condoing, but that's what it is.  22:44 - Lau (Co-host) It's like knowing what you want to do with each piece of your life financially. Yeah, it's very freeing. There's a very openness to it, there's a breath in there, you know. Yeah, absolutely I love that. I love clearing the financial space.  22:58 - Anne (Host) That's what I like.  22:59 - Intro (Announcement) Clear the financial space.  23:01 - Anne (Host) Especially in the beginning of the year. It's always a great time to do that, to really sit back, and it may be hard. Right To sit back and take a look at where is the money going. How much are you spending? Are you spending more than you're bringing in? But again, like no more shoes than you have cubby holds.  23:18 - Lau (Co-host) And also test yourself, like once you give it away, like let a month go by and test yourself, say what did I give away? Do I even remember what?  23:26 - Intro (Announcement) it was, and I never remember.  23:28 - Lau (Co-host) I never remember the clothes or whatever.  23:31 - Anne (Host) If I haven't thought about it or used it in a year, it's good to go right.  23:35 - Intro (Announcement) It's good to go right. As much as I love it, that's most things.  23:37 - Anne (Host) I'll kiss it and I'll give it away and I'll say this deserves to go to someone. I'll donate it. This deserves to go to someone who will love it as much as I did. Really.  23:46 - Lau (Co-host) And then you're very Native American about it. It reminds me like, take the shoes to the river and just write a note and let them float away. Absolutely you know To someone else's feet. But that's what we need to do, because it makes us open to what is coming, like if you're so cluttered in your financial portfolio you can't invite anything in and allow the money to flow to you like a river right?  24:10 - Intro (Announcement) Oh, I love that you don't want your river to stagnate.  24:12 - Anne (Host) You don't want to block your river Again. No more shoes than cubby holes. Don't block your river with twigs, Just say allow the river of money to flow, I mean we're out of all here. Let's just imagine that financial flow coming to you and manifesting that.  24:28 - Lau (Co-host) Hallelujah and manifesting that Amen. I feel like doing a song right now, but I mean it's like language. If you're scripting, be careful the language you use to describe your money and your financial status. Don't be cheap, don't be dumb, don't be unknowing.  24:46 - Anne (Host) You're not greedy. If you appreciate money and you invited it, you are not greedy. That's like an old one. People say, oh, you're greedy. Although rich people are greedy, they just want more. Honestly, people who are wealthy are some of the most philanthropic people that give.  25:00 - Intro (Announcement) And we've had that discussion before.  25:01 - Anne (Host) But I mean really being rich isn't rich right Money rich, financially rich and spiritually rich.  25:09 - Lau (Co-host) It's all about you allowing the flow and not blocking it right with clutter and paying attention to details, Don't ignore it and don't act like you don't know how to deal with it. It's like treat it as if it's a person and you have a relationship with it. Would you say some of the things you say about money, about the person like, oh, I don't know how to deal with that, I just ignore it and I just let someone else deal with it? I don't think that relationship would go very far. You know what I mean. It's like treat it like a person, in the sense that there's a lot of potential movement and liberation that can come with that and what it represents. It's just symbolic of the kind of life and lifestyle and mindset that you want to have.  25:52 - Anne (Host) Absolutely.  25:53 - Lau (Co-host) And I always say too, you know, someone says to me Law, why do you want to make a lot of money? I've had the executive coaches ask me that and I said the first thing that comes to my mind is because I want to have more money to pay my team members. Yeah, oh, I love that. Yeah, I think in terms of investment, I always think in terms of what can I do with this money? That empowers even more, versus, oh, I'll buy another thing or I'll have another, whatever, I don't really need it. I would rather see it move in directions that can make a lot of people happy and things going on and that can only help your business, because, honestly, I feel like you're in toys.  26:30 - Anne (Host) I think about myself in the corporate world. What does it makes us miserable in the corporate world? Oh God, we don't like our colleagues, we don't like our boss. We're boss. It's a toxic environment. I don't make enough money. Exactly Like, if you think about it, if you're treated well in your environment, if you have employees that you're paying and you treat them well and you appreciate them, they're only going to work that much harder for you and you have to incentivize them to want to work for your business, and that is one way to do that.  26:58 So I love this conversation. Again, it's probably something we could have. 20 episodes on Law, I think we will somehow. I think we will. But speaking of allowing yourself to allow that money to flow, if you have a local nonprofit that's close to your heart and you would like to keep the cycle and keep paying it forward, if you've ever wished you could do more to help them, you can visit 100voiceswhocareorg to learn how and big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl you too can connect and network like bosses, just like law and I. So you guys have an amazing week and let's keep that river flowing. All right, bye, have a great week, bye.  27:40 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, ann Gangusa, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL yeah.  28:07 - Anne (Host) Hey, hey everyone. I don't know why I wasn't ready for that. Take two, Take two, hey everyone. Welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I am here with my super power.  28:26 - Lau (Co-host) Take three.  28:27 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss. Hey everyone, welcome. God, take five, yeah, take 105.   

As memory tagging (MTE) finally comes to a consumer device, we talk about how it may impact vulnerability research and exploit development going forward. Then we get into a few vulnerabilities including a DNS response parsing bug on the Wii U, an Adobe Acrobat bug that was exploited by a North Korean APT, and a CPU bug (iTLB Multihit). Links and vulnerability summaries for this episode are available at: https://dayzerosec.com/podcast/222.html [00:00:00] Introduction [00:00:23] Hexacon 2023 Talks [00:02:48] First handset with MTE on the market [00:24:15] Exploiting DNS response parsing on the Wii U [00:33:11] Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader RCE when processing TTF fonts [CVE-2023-26369 [00:46:18] iTLB multihit The DAY[0] Podcast episodes are streamed live on Twitch twice a week: -- Mondays at 3:00pm Eastern (Boston) we focus on web and more bug bounty style vulnerabilities -- Tuesdays at 7:00pm Eastern (Boston) we focus on lower-level vulnerabilities and exploits. We are also available on the usual podcast platforms: -- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1484046063 -- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4NKCxk8aPEuEFuHsEQ9Tdt -- Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9hMTIxYTI0L3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz -- Other audio platforms can be found at https://anchor.fm/dayzerosec You can also join our discord: https://discord.gg/daTxTK9

Dans l'actu des nouvelles technologies et de l'accessibilité cette semaine : Du côté des applications et du web macOS 14 Sonoma est de sortie, quid de l'accessibilité ? Le bug lié au Panneau Légende est résolu dans iOS 17. iOS 17 : ça coince avec certains dispositifs médicaux. Windows 11 : la grosse mise à jour est disponible avec Copilot IA, la révision de Paint et plus encore. Caractéristiques d'Android 14 : Tout ce que vous devez savoir. Be My AI entre en phase de beta ouverte. Le réseau social de Microsoft LinkedIn ajoute des fonctionnalités d'accessibilité à l'aide de son outils Immersive Reader. Estée Lauder crée un assistant au maquillage pour malvoyants à base d'IA et de réalité augmentée. Le MIT travaille sur une IA qui génère du son plus naturel pour les livres audio. Les nouvelles voix de synthèse vocale de Microsoft sont plus « réalistes et engageantes. Alexa s'enrichit d'une bibliothèque audio gratuite pour les personnes handicapées. IA : Spotify parle de révolution avec cette fonctionnalité. Nouvelles fonctionnalités d'accessibilité pour Adobe Acrobat. Du nouveau côté accessibilité pour la Playstation. Accessibilité pour le futur de la PlayStation 5. Les fonctionnalités d'accessibilité de la PlayStation 5 telles que Copilot et UI haptics sont maintenant disponibles. Foire Aux Questions Cette semaine, une question de Christian à propos des plateformes de podcasts accessibles pour les éditeur de podcasts. Un ancien podcast proposé par Nico sur le service Spreaker. Sur le site cette semaine Fabrice à rédiger un billet court sur les différences principales à noter pour les câbles type USB C, charge rapide ou débit rapide, faire le bon choix. Le coup de coeur de Alain Le service d'État Filigrane facile. Remerciements Cette semaine, nous remercions François, Louis, Murielle, Pascale pour leurs infos ou leur dons. Si vous souhaitez vous aussi nous envoyer de l'info ou nous soutenir : Pour nous contactez ou nous envoyez des infos, passez par le formulaire de contact sur le site. Pour faire un don sur PayPal c'est par l'adresse courte paypal.me/oxytude. Faites vos achats sur Amazon en passant par le lien oxytude.org/amazon, ça nous aide sans augmenter le prix de vos achats. Pour animer cet épisode Alain, Fabrice et Philippe.

We stumbled on to an online design tool that is giving Canva a run for their money. We show you our first impressions about the product and the accessibility features it has and a few ways we might suggest improving it. We also reveal the new EASY way to set the PDF/UA Identifier in Adobe Acrobat. Dax mentions the upcoming guest and their struggles with reading order in PDF documents. Finally, Chad reveals some insights on Form Tags: Before or after the text label?

In this episode we cover the potential risks for remediation professionals concerning the newly released Assembly Bill AB 1757. We also reveal a very important bug in the latest update of Adobe Acrobat. Stick around to hear Chad and I explain the difference between alt-text, actual text and expansion text. Then Chad reveals how to turn off the new switched layout in the latest Acrobat Interface Update. Make sure you listen to the end to hear how Adobe fixes long style names and Chad reveals a tool I never knew existed in Adobe InDesign. He tells how the "Break Link to Style" tool works and when and why you should use it.

Official court audio of the first Virgin Orbit Holdings, Inc. bankruptcy court hearing in Delaware, USA. For more official court audio from this case, go to:Kroll Restructuring Administration and search the free docket for: audio. The PDF file that is Docket Number 73 includes an audio file attachment that can be opened using Adobe Acrobat software. There are instructions in the PDF file.If the content is of interest to you, please consider supporting my efforts to make it available via podcast with a BOOST.

The Mogollon culture was an indigenous culture in the Western United States and Mexico that ranged from New Mexico and Arizona to Sonora, Mexico and out to Texas. They flourished from around 200 CE until the Spanish showed up and claimed their lands. The cultures that pre-existed them date back thousands more years, although archaeology has yet to pinpoint exactly how those evolved. Like many early cultures, they farmed and foraged. As they farmed more, their homes become more permanent and around 800 CE they began to create more durable homes that helped protect them from wild swings in the climate. We call those homes adobes today and the people who lived in those peublos and irrigated water, often moving higher into mountains, we call the Peubloans - or Pueblo Peoples. Adobe homes are similar to those found in ancient cultures in what we call Turkey today. It's an independent evolution. Adobe Creek was once called Arroyo de las Yeguas by the monks from Mission Santa Clara and then renamed to San Antonio Creek by a soldier Juan Prado Mesa when the land around it was given to him by the governor of Alto California at the time, Juan Bautista Alvarado. That's the same Alvarado as the street if you live in the area. The creek runs for over 14 miles north from the Black Mountain and through Palo Alto, California. The ranchers built their adobes close to the creeks. American settlers led the Bear Flag Revolt in 1846, and took over the garrison of Sonoma, establishing the California Republic - which covered much of the lands of the Peubloans. There were only 33 of them at first, but after John Fremont (yes, he of whom that street is named after as well) encouraged the Americans, they raised an army of over 100 men and Fremont helped them march on Sutter's fort, now with the flag of the United States, thanks to Joseph Revere of the US Navy (yes, another street in San Francisco bears his name).  James Polk had pushed to expand the United States. Manfiest Destiny. Remember The Alamo. Etc. The fort at Monterey fell, the army marched south. Admiral Sloat got involved. They named a street after him. General Castro surrendered - he got a district named after him. Commodore Stockton announced the US had taken all of Calfironia soon after that. Manifest destiny was nearly complete. He's now basically the patron saint of a city, even if few there know who he was. The forts along the El Camino Real that linked the 21 Spanish Missions, a 600-mile road once walked by their proverbial father, Junípero Serra following the Portolá expedition of 1769, fell. Stockton took each, moving into Los Angeles, then San Diego. Practically all of Alto California fell with few shots. This was nothing like the battles for the independence of Texas, like when Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission.  Meanwhile, the waters of Adobe Creek continued to flow. The creek was renamed in the 1850s after Mesa built an adobe on the site. Adobe Creek it was. Over the next 100 years, the area evolved into a paradise with groves of trees and then groves of technology companies. The story of one begins a little beyond the borders of California.  Utah was initialy explored by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1540 and settled by Europeans in search of furs and others who colonized the desert, including those who established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormons - who settled there in 1847, just after the Bear Flag Revolt. The United States officially settled for the territory in 1848 and Utah became a territory and after a number of map changes wher ethe territory got smaller, was finally made a state in 1896. The University of Utah had been founded all the way back in 1850, though - and re-established in the 1860s.  100 years later, the University of Utah was a hotbed of engineers who pioneered a number of graphical advancements in computing. John Warnock went to grad school there and then went on to co-found Adobe and help bring us PostScript. Historically, PS, or Postscript was a message to be placed at the end of a letter, following the signature of the author. The PostScript language was a language to describe a page of text computationally. It was created by Adobe when Warnock, Doug Brotz, Charles Geschke, Bill Paxton (who worked on the Mother of All Demos with Doug Englebart during the development of Online System, or NLS in the late 70s and then at Xerox PARC), and Ed Taft. Warnock invented the Warnock algorithm while working on his PhD and went to work at Evans & Sutherland with Ivan Sutherland who effectively created the field of computer graphics. Geschke got his PhD at Carnegie Melon in the early 1970s and then went of to Xerox PARC. They worked with Paxton at PARC and before long, these PhDs and mathematicians had worked out the algorithms and then the languages to display images on computers while working on InterPress graphics at Xerox and Gerschke left Xerox and started Adobe. Warnock joined them and they went to market with Interpress as PostScript, which became a foundation for the Apple LaswerWriter to print graphics.  Not only that, PostScript could be used to define typefaces programmatically and later to display any old image.    Those technologies became the foundation for the desktop publishing industry. Apple released the 1984 Mac and other vendors brought in PostScript to describe graphics in their proprietary fashion and by 1991 they released PostScript Level 2 and then PostScript 3 in 1997. Other vendors made their own or furthered standards in their own ways and Adobe could have faded off into the history books of computing. But Adobe didn't create one product, they created an industry and the company they created to support that young industry created more products in that mission.  Steve Jobs tried to buy Adobe before that first Mac as released, for $5,000,000. But Warnock and Geschke had a vision for an industry in mind. They had a lot of ideas but development was fairly capital intensive, as were go to market strategies. So they went public on the NASDAQ in 1986. They expanded their PostScript distribution and sold it to companies like Texas Instruments for their laser printer, and other companies who made IBM-compatible companies. They got up to $16 million in sales that year. Warnock's wife was a graphic designer. This is where we see a diversity of ideas help us think about more than math. He saw how she worked and could see a world where Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad was much more given how far CPUs had come since the TX-0 days at MIT. So Adobe built and released Illustrator in 1987. By 1988 they broke even on sales and it raked in $19 million in revenue. Sales were strong in the universities but PostScript was still the hot product, selling to printer companies, typesetters, and other places were Adobe signed license agreements.  At this point, we see where the math, cartesian coordinates, drawn by geometric algorithms put pixels where they should be. But while this was far more efficient than just drawing a dot in a coordinate for larger images, drawing a dot in a pixel location was still the easier technology to understand.  They created Adobe Screenline in 1989 and Collectors Edition to create patterns. They listened to graphic designers and built what they heard humans wanted. Photoshop Nearly every graphic designer raves about Adobe Photoshop. That's because Photoshop is the best selling graphics editorial tool that has matured far beyond most other traditional solutions and now has thousands of features that allow users to manipulate images in practically any way they want.  Adobe Illustrator was created in 1987 and quickly became the de facto standard in vector-based graphics. Photoshop began life in 1987 as well, when Thomas and John Knoll, wanted to build a simpler tool to create graphics on a computer. Rather than vector graphics they created a raster graphical editor.  They made a deal with Barneyscan, a well-known scanner company that managed to distribute over two hundred copies of Photoshop with their scanners and Photoshop became a hit as it was the first editing software people heard about. Vector images are typically generated with Cartesian coordinates based on geometric formulas and so scale out more easily. Raster images are comprised of a grid of dots, or pixels, and can be more realistic.  Great products are rewarded with competitions. CorelDRAW was created in 1989 when Michael Bouillon and Pat Beirne built a tool to create vector illustrations. The sales got slim after other competitors entered the market and the Knoll brothers got in touch with Adobe and licensed the product through them. The software was then launched as Adobe Photoshop 1 in 1990. They released Photoshop 2 in 1991. By now they had support for paths, and given that Adobe also made Illustrator, EPS and CMYK rasterization, still a feature in Photoshop.  They launched Adobe Photoshop 2.5 in 1993, the first version that could be installed on Windows. This version came with a toolbar for filters and 16-bit channel support. Photoshop 3 came in 1994 and Thomas Knoll created what was probably one of the most important features added, and one that's become a standard in graphical applications since, layers. Now a designer could create a few layers that each had their own elements and hide layers or make layers more transparent. These could separate the subject from the background and led to entire new capabilities, like an almost faux 3 dimensional appearance of graphics..  Then version four in 1996 and this was one of the more widely distributed versions and very stable. They added automation and this was later considered part of becoming a platform - open up a scripting language or subset of a language so others built tools that integrated with or sat on top of those of a product, thus locking people into using products once they automated tasks to increase human efficiency.  Adobe Photoshop 5.0 added editable type, or rasterized text. Keep in mind that Adobe owned technology like PostScript and so could bring technology from Illustrator to Photoshop or vice versa, and integrate with other products - like export to PDF by then. They also added a number of undo options, a magnetic lasso, improved color management and it was now a great tool for more advanced designers. Then in 5.5 they added a save for web feature in a sign of the times. They could created vector shapes and continued to improve the user interface. Adobe 5 was also a big jump in complexity. Layers were easy enough to understand, but Photoshop was meant to be a subset of Illustrator features and had become far more than that. So in 2001 they released Photoshop Elements. By now they had a large portfolio of products and Elements was meant to appeal to the original customer base - the ones who were beginners and maybe not professional designers. By now, some people spent 40 or more hours a day in tools like Photoshop and Illustrator.  Adobe Today Adobe had released PostScript, Illustrator, and Photoshop. But they have one of the most substantial portfolios of products of any company. They also released Premiere in 1991 to get into video editing. They acquired Aldus Corporation to get into more publishing workflows with PageMaker. They used that acquisition to get into motion graphics with After Effects. They acquired dozens of companies and released their products as well. Adobe also released the PDF format do describe full pages of information (or files that spread across multiple pages) in 1993 and Adobe Acrobat to use those. Acrobat became the de facto standard for page distribution so people didn't have to download fonts to render pages properly. They dabbled in audio editing when they acquired Cool Edit Pro from Syntrillium Software and so now sell Adobe Audition.  Adobe's biggest acquisition was Macromedia in 2005. Here, they added a dozen new products to the portfolio, which included Flash, Fireworks, WYSYWIG web editor Dreamweaver, ColdFusion, Flex, and Breeze, which is now called Adobe Connect. By now, they'd also created what we call Creative Suite, which are packages of applications that could be used for given tasks. Creative Suite also signaled a transition into a software as a service, or SaaS mindset. Now customers could pay a monthly fee for a user license rather than buy large software packages each time a new version was released. Adobe had always been a company who made products to create graphics. They expanded into online marketing and web analytics when they bought Omniture in 2009 for $1.8 billion. These products are now normalized into the naming convention used for the rest as Adobe Marketing Cloud. Flash fell by the wayside and so the next wave of acquisitions were for more mobile-oriented products. This began with Day Software and then Nitobi in 2011. And they furthered their Marketing Cloud support with an acquisition of one of the larger competitors when they acquired Marketo in 2018 and acquiring Workfront in 2020.  Given how many people started working from home, they also extended their offerings into pure-cloud video tooling with an acquisition of Frame.io in 2021. And here we see a company started by a bunch of true computer sciencists from academia in the early days of the personal computer that has become far more. They could have been rolled into Apple but had a vision of a creative suite of products that could be used to make the world a prettier place. Creative Suite then Creative Cloud shows a move of the same tools into a more online delivery model. Other companies come along to do similar tasks, like infinite digital whiteboard Miro - so they have to innovate to stay marketable. They have to continue to increase sales so they expand into other markets like the most adjacent Marketing Cloud.  At 22,500+ employees and with well over $12 billion in revenues, they have a lot of families dependent on maintaining that growth rate. And so the company becomes more than the culmination of their software. They become more than graphic design, web design, video editing, animation, and visual effects. Because in software, if revenues don't grow at a rate greater than 10 percent per year, the company simply isn't outgrowing the size of the market and likely won't be able to justify stock prices at an inflated earnings to price ratio that shows explosive growth. And yet once a company saturates sales in a given market they have shareholders to justify their existence to. Adobe has survived many an economic downturn and boom time with smart, measured growth and is likely to continue doing so for a long time to come.

Coming up in this episode 1. Plasma's Kind of Hot Right Now 2. Brush your passwords 3. Browser Watch! 4. A little feedback 5. And a little FOCUS 0:00 Cold Open 1:33 Akademy Awards 3:22 Plasma 5.27 24:33 Your Last Pass... Word 47:05 Browser Watch! 55:36 The Mailbag 1:05:35 Community Focus: Vashinator 1:08:08 App Focus: ClamAV 1:20:24 Next Time: EndlessOS History 1:22:25 Stinger Watch this episode on Youtube (https://youtu.be/L3haDDxBJU0) https://youtu.be/L3haDDxBJU0 Banter Akademy videos are online (https://tube.kockatoo.org/c/akademy/videos?s=1) Plasma 5.27 is ❤ (https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/5/5.27.0/) Nick from The Linux Experiment did a video that goes over some highlights (https://youtu.be/onPUaAKoGIM). Jupiter Broadcasting covered it in Linux Action News too. (https://linuxactionnews.com/280) The question of why isn't KDE Plasma the main DE for a main distro comes around every once and a while (https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/x8m0bt/comment/injemm2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Announcements Give us a sub on YouTube (https://linuxuserspace.show/youtube) and TILvids (https://tilvids.com/a/linuxuserspace). You can watch us live on Twitch (https://linuxuserspace.show/twitch) the day after an episode drops. If you like what we're doing here, make sure to send us a buck over at https://patreon.com/linuxuserspace Password hygiene is all the rage LastPass Blog announcement of the security incident (https://blog.lastpass.com/2022/12/notice-of-recent-security-incident/) We talked a lot about password managers in episode 11 (https://www.linuxuserspace.show/311). Mozilla's pitch (https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/privacy-security-tips/your-childs-name-makes-a-horrible-password/). Brian Krebs has this to say (https://krebsonsecurity.com/password-dos-and-donts/). You can check your passwords against Have I Been Pwned (https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords). If you use Bitwarden/Vaultwarden, you can use the reports (https://bitwarden.com/help/reports/) to check exposed, reused, and weak passwords. More Announcements Want to have a topic covered or have some feedback? - send us an email, contact@linuxuserspace.show Browser Watch Gnome Web has a new UI (https://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2023/02/twig-83/#web) for handling permissions. We pitched Gnome Web a couple of episodes ago (https://www.linuxuserspace.show/315). Version 110, Firefox (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/110.0/releasenotes/) got the addition to import bookmarks, passwords and history from Opera, Opera GX, and Vivaldi. Vivaldi makes improvements to their Window Panel (https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-5-7-on-desktop/). Brave does HTTPS everywhere (https://brave.com/privacy-updates/22-https-by-default/). Microsoft Edge adds Adobe Acrobat (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-edge-will-switch-to-adobe-acrobats-pdf-rendering-engine/). Feedback "ee" "dee", gotcha

Catch up on the cybersecurity and tech news of the week with Don, Dan, and Sophie as they cover the latest. This week, Asus placed the Promontory 21 chipset on a PCIe card, Microsoft is planning to replace Edge’s PDF reader with Adobe Acrobat, and Microsoft removed Internet Explorer from most Windows 10 PCs on February 14th, 2023. In cybersecurity news, Apple has a new zero-day flaw, Wyze security cameras and home monitoring were offline for two hours, and hackers breached Reddit to steal source code and internal data.

Catch up on the cybersecurity and tech news of the week with Don, Dan, and Sophie as they cover the latest. This week, Asus placed the Promontory 21 chipset on a PCIe card, Microsoft is planning to replace Edge’s PDF reader with Adobe Acrobat, and Microsoft removed Internet Explorer from most Windows 10 PCs on February 14th, 2023. In cybersecurity news, Apple has a new zero-day flaw, Wyze security cameras and home monitoring were offline for two hours, and hackers breached Reddit to steal source code and internal data.

Apalancamiento y criptomonedas estables en peligro / Quién es el Pr. Wu Zhe, creador de los globos chinos / España triplica el canon digital / Da Vinci casi descubre la gravitación universal Patrocinador: Estamos todos flipando con el nuevo Galaxy S23, y no es de extrañar. Se viene el móvil con la mejor cámara, por su zoom y su modo Nightography, para capturar tus noches más icónicas sin perder ni un detalle. ¡Di adiós a las fotos con poca luz! — Tienes toda la información en Samsung.es, para aprovecharte de las promociones de lanzamiento. Apalancamiento y criptomonedas estables en peligro / Quién es el Pr. Wu Zhe, creador de los globos chinos / España triplica el canon digital / Da Vinci casi descubre la gravitación universal

PDFs (Portable Document Format) are the de facto standard for digital paper. They are used worldwide by virtually all platforms and systems as a method of conveying information. They can be used to transmit an invoice to a client, sign an agreement with a partner, or save a permanent copy of a financial statement. While being widespread, most financial professionals don't know to leverage this format effectively. They lack the knowledge of how to create their documents, edit existing documents, or secure them for transmittal. Additionally, there are many new PDF capabilities such as forms, e-signature, cloud storage, and more which are underutilized by financial professionals.  The most common and powerful application for creating, editing, and managing PDF files is Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. This application can be leveraged in so many ways to create effective documents. This course will go through in deep detail the major features and functionalities of this application. It will demonstrate the various ways to create and edit documents. It shows utilizing the review and annotation functionalities such as stamps and comments. It will teach participants how to create forms and collect e-signatures. Additionally, it will present free and open-source alternatives to Acrobat DC to consider. This course is a must-watch for any financial professional that works with PDFs regularly.  Are you a CPA?? Are you a Financial Professional?? Earn CPE Credits for Today's Podcast. Check out https://cpe.cx/ADFP2/. Take a quick 5 question quiz and get your certificate today. Super Easy!  Presented by Stephen M. Yoss, CPA, MS (https://yoss.io) Produced by Alicia Yoss & Alanna Regalbuto Graphics By Flaticon.com and iStock Music by Bensound.com Education and Compliance By K2 Enterprises (https://k2e.com) Copyright. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. The use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Educational Use Only. The information presented in this presentation is for educational use only. The presenter will make specific recommendations, but the participant is highly recommended to do their own due diligence before making any investment decision.

Don was back this week to help explain what happened at Cloudflare. Then, the team discussed the Windows 98 update for the Mars probe, the new Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2, Adobe Acrobat blocking antivirus access, and the poor benchmarks on the M2 MacBook Pro. Finally, they laughed about the IT worker in Japan who lost some important PII after a night at the bar.

Don was back this week to help explain what happened at Cloudflare. Then, the team discussed the Windows 98 update for the Mars probe, the new Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2, Adobe Acrobat blocking antivirus access, and the poor benchmarks on the M2 MacBook Pro. Finally, they laughed about the IT worker in Japan who lost some important PII after a night at the bar.

Don was back this week to help explain what happened at Cloudflare. Then, the team discussed the Windows 98 update for the Mars probe, the new Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2, Adobe Acrobat blocking antivirus access, and the poor benchmarks on the M2 MacBook Pro. Finally, they laughed about the IT worker in Japan who lost some important PII after a night at the bar.

In this Raw Rerun, our tech savvy mom was operating without a right-click and driving Kris crazy with her Adobe Acrobat.HERE'S WHAT WE DISCUSSED ON NIT-PICKING MOM:Dave would order the fruit sliced & dicedOutsourcing to the extremeClearing off the badges12,522 emails in the phone inboxTight as a drumMom's relying on flagsAge vs email load has Mom hyperventilatingTwinsiesGarageband gives Kris anxietyNo intersection with the meatsOutsourcing and control issuesShe can't right-clickOvernighting more mousesThe Adobe Acrobat nightmareDeep dive or letting it go?LINKS TO RESOURCES DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:Precut fruitAdobe AcrobatApple Magic MouseCONNECT WITH RAW FEMALE