Podcasts about CSV

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Send us a textTonight we bring back an fan favorite as I travel this week...We unpack how to test copper the right way—permanent link, channel, and especially MPTL—and why choosing the correct limit and adapters is the difference between clean passes and costly callbacks. We also make the business case for certification, show how labeling workflows save hours, and explain how to fix wrong category tests without rolling a truck.• standards‑aligned testing for permanent link and channel• MPTL use cases and category‑specific adapters• test planes and why field plugs must be measured• certification vs qualification vs verification value• cost, calibration, and long‑term warranties• pricing and communicating deliverables to clients• labeling schemes, CSV list‑based workflows, and consistency• wrong category limits and software re‑certifying• corporate test plans, training, and maintenance• Cat 8 capability vs practical needsJoin the community today at LowVoltagenation.com or jump into the conversation at our Facebook groupFollow the journey on Instagram and Twitter at Uncle Bear underscore and at Security Today PodcastSupport the showKnowledge is power! Make sure to stop by the webpage to buy me a cup of coffee or support the show at https://linktr.ee/letstalkcabling . Also if you would like to be a guest on the show or have a topic for discussion send me an email at chuck@letstalkcabling.com Chuck Bowser RCDD TECH#CBRCDD #RCDD

Seth Williams (00:00) I was able to buy a lot of land at dirt cheap prices. So there's no mortgages or anything on it. And when you buy anything for a small fraction of its actual market value, it's not hard to turn around and sell that thing and make money on it. Jason Hull (00:14) All right, I am Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For over a decade and a half, we have brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry. At DoorGrow, we have spoken to thousands of business owners, coached, consulted, and cleaned up hundreds of property management businesses, helping them add doors, improve pricing, increase profit. simplify operations and build and replace entire teams, we are like bar rescue for property managers. In fact, we have cleaned up and rebranded over 300 businesses and we run the leading property management mastermind with more video testimonials and reviews than any other coach or consultant in the industry. At DoorGrow, we believe that good property managers can change the world and that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. Now, let's get into the show. And my guest today I'm hanging out with is Seth Williams. Welcome, Seth. Seth Williams (01:28) Hey, Jason, good to be here. Thanks for having me. Jason Hull (01:31) Yeah, it's great to have you and of REtipster. so Seth, let's get into a little bit of your background. You've done a lot of different things connected to real estate. Give us the background on your journey and how you got it kind of got into entrepreneurism and what made you start all this crazy stuff. Seth Williams (01:48) Yeah, sure. Yeah. Well, my journey kind of starts back in about 2005, 2006 when I was still in college. And like most people, I was trying to find houses I could buy that I could flip or rent that kind of thing. Just get into the real estate game. But I didn't really know anything about how to do it. I had no competitive advantage. I was looking on the MLS. That was the only place I knew I could look for to find deals. And there weren't any deals. It was horrible. I spent hundreds of hours and found nothing that made any financial sense. And I was just like, man, how do people do this? Like, how do people find good real estate deals if I can't find them? I was looking everywhere and there was nothing out there. And it was around, you know, after struggling with this for a couple of years, I discovered two things that kind of worked hand in hand. The first was the land business. So buying vacant land and Like most people, when I first heard that I was like, what? Picket land? Like, why would I do that? That makes no sense. It's just dirt. Like, where's the cash flow? Where's the income? The other thing that I discovered though was how to find deals off market through something called the delinquent tax list. And this is basically a list of property owners that every county has of properties that are currently back due on their property taxes. This is not the same thing. Jason Hull (02:52) Yeah. Seth Williams (03:11) as the tax sale list. So it's not the list of properties that's going to go up for auction soon. It's people who still own their property, but they're back doing taxes. If they don't pay them off soon, they're going to get their property taken from them. And these two things together, land and the delinquent tax list, I was able to find and contact people who had land with delinquent taxes on it. And because there were delinquent taxes, they're in a situation where it's like, Jason Hull (03:18) Yeah, they're just behind. Seth Williams (03:37) You got to pay off these taxes in like weeks or you're going to lose everything. So why are you in this situation? Is it because you don't care about the property? Like what is the issue? And in many cases, that was it. Maybe they just inherited it. Maybe they bought it 20 years ago, but for whatever reason, they didn't care about the thing. And I'm sitting there saying, Hey, I'll pay you a few hundred dollars, maybe a few thousand dollars, and I'll pay off your taxes and I'll make this problem go away. And because a lot of these people didn't want their property anyway, and I was kind of taking care of a nuisance in their life, I was able to buy a lot of land at dirt cheap prices. And I could also buy it free and clear. So there's no mortgages or anything on it. And when you buy anything for a small fraction of its actual market value, it's not hard to turn around and sell that thing and make money on it. So that was the business I got into. And it's been awesome. It's changed a lot over the years, but It's just been a really great way to, you know, without needing a whole lot of cash, finding properties, getting them for a very cheap price, and then making money without having to change anything on the property. Jason Hull (04:45) Yeah, got it. Okay, cool. Is that still the go-to strategy? Delinquent tax lists. Seth Williams (04:52) So, it's definitely still effective, but the drawback of the delinquent tax list is that they're kind of a pain to get, and then even when you do get them, they're kind of a mess to sort through. So, if you're willing to go through the nuisance of getting the list and sorting through it, there's a ton of value on that. But there's another way that's actually easier through a data service that I use called the LAN portal. And it's basically just a much more streamlined Jason Hull (05:04) Yeah. Yeah. Seth Williams (05:20) seamless, organized way to get lists of landowners. They don't necessarily have delinquent taxes, but I can find specifically the types of properties I want and then either send the mail or a cold column, that kind of thing. So both ways work. They both have pros and cons. The delinquent tax list is more of an annoying way to do it, but it's probably the more effective way. The land portal is a lot easier, but you get a little bit less motivation on that list because people don't have this delinquent tax problem. Jason Hull (05:48) Yeah, less of a mess to clean up, but probably a little quicker. so cool. you're going to unpack today the secrets of building wealth through land investing. This is like your number one specialty. And we'll chat a little bit about self storage. And I'm sure there's some property managers that are listening that might be like, haven't done that yet. Like I have not gotten into. That sort of investment and most of the property managers listening you if you're on a property management business your number one goal Should not be to just manage other people's properties. It should probably be to build up your own portfolio of stuff and and make some money That's probably a bigger better play and leveraging your company to attract deals and to attract Real estate so let's get into this. Where do we start? Seth Williams (06:37) Yeah, well, what I just described, there's kind of the high level view of how you find properties in the first place. And I mean, in terms of like people out there who are property managers who might invest in houses and that kind of thing, there's only one tax list or the land portal can work for those kinds of properties to the main difference is that you're going to find usually less competition when dealing with vacant land, because most people aren't thinking about land, thinking about houses. They think that's the way they have to do it. And that's fine if you want that. But the problem with houses, as you probably know, in property management, there's a lot more wrinkles. There's a lot more people problems. There's things falling apart that are broken and get stolen and destroyed. With land, there's none of that. It's a much simpler animal to deal with. But if your strategy is to find rentals or something like that, you could certainly scope out rental properties using the same method. You would just be targeting different types of property owners than I do. Jason Hull (07:10) Thank got it. So how does this connect to self storage? Seth Williams (07:34) Well, self storage is a totally different business than buying and selling vacant land, but there is some crossover. So back in 2021, I found a piece of land that was zoned residential. It was 6.7 acres and I bought it and I rezoned it to commercial. And then I got approval to build a self storage facility because I had always wanted to get into this business. A land business is great for generating big influxes of cash. It's like a cash generating machine. But self storage is a little bit different. At least the way that I do it, it's more of a cash flow play. you know, all in all, took me a couple million dollars to buy the land and build this facility. It took me basically a year to design it and build it. And it's comparatively speaking, more of a trickle of cash, cash flow, but it's permanent cash flow. There's also a lot of depreciation write offs. It's also very scalable. So it's easy to increase every single person's rent by $5 and the value effectively goes way up because of that. But like nobody moves out because it's just five bucks and most people don't care about a $5 increase per month. So it's a very different business. And for me, my long-term goal is to do more of that because the benefit of self-storage is that unlike land, it's not like a thing that you have to keep peddling for it to keep working. Land is a very active, you know, got to keep peddling or the cashflow is going to stop. Whereas self-storage is, well, you can buy one facility and the management is not terribly difficult for that, at least compared to like a rental property and the cashflow will come in for as long as you own the thing. So that was why I made that shift. Jason Hull (09:12) Nice. well, tell us a little bit about cell storage. How does that work? How can maybe property managers potentially get in? Seth Williams (09:21) Yeah, well, it's when I first got into it, what I tried to do is buy an existing facility from somebody within like an hour driving radius of where I lived. And I think that's probably the best first move is to do that if you can, because you don't have to deal with all of the work of construction and there's cash flow on day one. So like right when you buy the thing, money is already coming in. Whereas when you build a new one, it takes months for the thing to fill up. So that was what I tried to do at first, but problem was in my market, I couldn't find anybody who wanted to sell their property at anywhere near a reasonable price. People wanted like twice as much as what their facilities were worth. And people were paying it like it was just crazy. You couldn't find good deals. And when I saw that, was like, wow, I would normally never build something. But if people are being dumb and overpaying for self storage facilities, I could probably give this a go. And even if I screw it all up, I could still sell it and get out if I needed to. So that was why I decided to do that. And it's nice in that you get to design it and lay it out the way you want, but it's also a much longer runway required to put the cash in and then wait for it to fill up and start cash flow. Jason Hull (10:29) Yeah, this is our market to building these things out and then just selling them even though they're empty. Seth Williams (10:35) Yeah, that's what some people do. Selling them empty. I mean, that's not the ideal play. The real value of these things comes from paying tenants, that kind of thing. Maybe what most people would do is build them or maybe even buy an existing one that's half empty and then fill it up. Like do whatever you have to do to get tenants in there, whether it's changing the pricing or advertising more. And then once it's at least reasonably full, then you could cash out and do whatever you want. Buy another one or do something else. Jason Hull (10:39) Right. Got it. Okay. Got it. Cool. So vacant land, self storage, and then you're also like, you do a lot of content creation stuff in the real estate space. So tell us a little bit about that. Seth Williams (11:12) Sure. Yeah. So I started a website called REtipster back in 2012. And it was really kind of a place to store a lot of the lessons and knowledge that I had gained from my experience in land investing and in owning rental properties and everything I had done to that point. And I didn't really know what the plan was. I just knew, like, it's kind of fun for me to take my ideas and thoughts and things I've learned and distill them down into like bite sized chunks and help other people. figure out how to do the business from where they're at. And it turned out to be a lot of fun. And it didn't make money for like probably the first year that I was running it. But eventually I found ways to monetize it. Started a podcast, a YouTube channel. And a lot of what we talk about is land, but we also talk about self storage and occasionally rental properties, other things that are ancillary related to real estate investing. Jason Hull (12:07) Okay, well cool. Let me do a quick word from our sponsor and then we can get into a little bit more. So our sponsor for this episode is Vendoroo Many of you listening tell me that maintenance is probably the least enjoyable part of being a property manager and definitely the most time consuming. But what if you could cut that workload by up to 85 %? That's exactly what Vendoroo has achieved. They've leveraged cutting edge AI technology to handle nearly all of your maintenance tasks from initiating work orders. and troubleshooting to coordinating with vendors and reporting. This AI doesn't just automate, it becomes your ideal employee, learning your preferences and executing tasks flawlessly, never needing a day off and never quitting. This frees you up to focus on the critical tasks that really move the needle for your business, whether that's refining operations, expanding your portfolio, or even just taking a well-deserved break. Over half the room at last year's DoorGrowLive event conference signed up with Vendoroo right there. And then a year later, they're not just satisfied, they're raving about how vendor is transformed their business. Don't let maintenance drag you down. Step up your property management game with vendor. Visit vendor.ai slash door grow today and make this the last maintenance hire you'll ever need. All right, cool. So, Seth. Where should we go from here? We've been talking a little bit about vacant land, a little bit about self storage, talking a little bit about RE tipster. What do you think would be of the most benefit to property management business owners that are exploring some of this stuff? Seth Williams (13:42) Well, you know, maybe we could have a little conversation, you and me. So I've got a few questions I always go to when I'm talking to other real estate investors that are always kind of brings out some interesting perspectives. How long have you been in real estate, Jason? Jason Hull (13:55) Well, so I've been involved with coaching and consulting property management companies. So I'm more of a business coach for like since 2008. Seth Williams (14:04) Mm OK, gotcha. Well, interesting. Here's a question for you. What's one thing that you see new property managers focusing on that you think is actually a distraction from long term success? Jason Hull (14:09) so while. That's a good one. So the most common thing that I see that's a big distraction from long-term success is digital marketing. So a lot of property managers think in order to get more doors or get business, they need to do SEO. They need to do Google ads like pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing. The problem is the dirty secret marketers don't want to tell property managers because they like making money off of them. is that there's very little search volume of people looking on the internet for property management. So they can go on Google trends right now, put in property management backdated to 2004 when Google started tracking data and metrics to the present. And what you'll see is there's very little search volume. And if you compare it to any other term, like compared to AI is a good one lately, it has the same search volume of AI a decade ago. Whereas AI has this meteoric rise. Seth Williams (15:13) Mm, sure. Jason Hull (15:15) And compared to AI, property management is just a little line at the bottom. It like doesn't even register. And so there's plenty of business out there of people that don't want to manage their own property. There's no shortage in the U.S. There's no scarcity, but they're not looking for a property manager actively because they're either not aware that property managers are a viable option or exist, or they are aware, but most property managers suck. So they've written it off. Seth Williams (15:44) Yeah. So how do you find those people then if you don't know where they're looking or maybe you do know where they're looking. Jason Hull (15:44) and they're not really looking. We get them to do crazy things like pick up the phone and call non owner occupied property owners or like connect with real estate agents and create relationships to help the real estate agents get more deals from investors, stuff like that. So. Seth Williams (16:02) Yeah. I'll tell you, there's a ton of power in somebody who's willing to pick up the phone. I mean, so many people don't even want to think about that. But if you can do that, man, you're already way, way ahead of the crowd. Jason Hull (16:09) And there we go. Yeah, I mean, it's the one thing that we can teach clients that they can create business on demand at any time and not have to hope and pray that a market is able to give them something. yeah. Okay. Seth Williams (16:20) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, here's another question. What's something that you hear novice property managers or critics of property managers complain about that makes you roll your eyes? Jason Hull (16:35) Well, the first that comes to mind is a lot of novice property managers complain about the potential clients being cheap. yet they're cheap. And so that's kind of the blind spot that I think there's a lot of property managers that have. They're like, like, I had a client once and he was complaining that, about, you know, I'm tired of getting all these people wanting discounts or asking for us to lower our pricing, all these people that are so cheap about related to property management. And then I saw the same person post in a Facebook group for property managers saying, hey, does anybody have a discount for this? property management software or this then like, what is it? A maintenance software that exists because I don't want to pay full price. And so the irony wasn't lost on me. you know, usually the blind spot that we have is we, you know, kind of project that and create that in others. And so if you're cheap and you have a cheap mindset, then you're going to attract cheap clients. It's far more likely not only that, but you're going to be a lot more sensitive to it. It's going to impact you differently. Seth Williams (17:16) Hmm. Jason Hull (17:36) and people will pick up on that and they'll feel more anxious and be more price sensitive because you are. Seth Williams (17:40) Yeah. For those property managers who are willing to pick up the phone and call around and find their customers, what do they do to avoid those cheap clients? Is there some red flag they can look out for to say, you're not a good fit. We're going to go look here instead. Like, how do you find people that are willing to pay what they have to pay? Jason Hull (17:58) Well, I think I just had Dustin Heiner on as an interview. And yeah, I know him from some masterminds that we're in together. And Dustin's a really cool guy. Dustin had this, we did this great episode where he's like our client's ideal client, really. Because he's like, the first thing I do is I try to find a property manager before I even get a rental property. Seth Williams (18:03) Yeah, Essence Mm. Jason Hull (18:24) And I want to ask them where I should get a rental property and ask them for their advice. And I want a good property manager I can trust before I go find a property. But it's like, usually everyone does it backwards. They go get a realtor, they get a property. Then they go and try and see if there's a good property manager. And he wants to be hands off. He doesn't want to call his property manager. He doesn't want to be involved in it. He wants them to just take care of stuff. That's the ideal. So I think the challenge is when property managers are looking on the internet for clients. They're like getting them through SEO or pay per click. These are the worst investor clients. They view property management as a commodity. They think all property managers are the same and they're not right. Not all property measures the same and most property managers are not very good. So to find the exceptional ones, usually you're going to find the better clients for a property management business by doing stuff that is Seth Williams (19:11) Mm-hmm. Jason Hull (19:20) more towards the strategies that we would rely on, which are warmer leads, warmer connections, so that you're not getting the crappy scraps that fall off the word amount table that are now searching on the internet looking for the cheapest manager. And if you build your portfolio off of digital marketing and the cheapest and most price sensitive owners, then you're going to have the highest operational costs, more than my clients at least, and it's going to be expensive to run your business. So. Seth Williams (19:43) Yeah. Yeah. What do you think makes somebody a good property manager? Because I've had my share property managers that were terrible. had one that was pretty, pretty decent. And in my case, I thought what made them stand out was just really good communication. Like I was always in the loop. I was never questioning where things were at. Like I just, I just felt like I knew what was going on. I don't know if that's true for everybody, though, in your mind, like the ones that really stand out and just kill it in this business and have no problem. finding clients and keeping them happy. Like what is it they're doing that makes them so good? Jason Hull (20:16) Okay, this is a great question and I love that you shared your perspective. And tell me a little bit more, what do you think makes a good property manager? And then I'll share my thoughts, which might be a little different. You said good communication. Seth Williams (20:28) Yeah. mean, I just kind of mentioned that. Yeah. And I will say one thing, you know, one of my nightmare experiences with a bad property manager was and maybe this is just foolish on my part, but I relied on them to find some subcontractors to, you know, make some improvements and repairs on my property. And they just found horrible people that totally screwed up the property. And and they just kind of walked around all flustered, like, I can never find good people. And like. I don't care. Like if he can't do it, then don't don't do it. Yeah. Like tell me you can't don't just, you know, find somebody who's going to ruin my property. So that really annoyed me. ⁓ Jason Hull (20:59) to the next. Hmm. Yeah, that's yeah, that's hot. Okay, so I mean, according to studies and surveys, the number one reason that people leave a property management company is communication. And so I think a lot of property managers mistakenly think they need to over communicate. But I think what a lot of property managers do is they give their tenants and their owners a blank check to steal all their profits in some instances, because that's The number one source of financial leaks that I've seen in companies is interruptions. so they just, every phone call from every tenant, every owner, constant interruptions means they need way more team, way more staff. This is the business. What I've found is really effective property management companies aren't communicating all the time. Good communication is what the clients want if they don't trust the property manager. Seth Williams (21:41) Mm-hmm. Jason Hull (21:55) If they trust the property manager, they want zero communication. So that's very different. So the best property managers, what I think is they set really good boundaries. It's different. It's not like, hey, I'm going to talk to you all the time. So for example, my wife, Sarah, she managed 260 units part-time in 20 hours a week, basically by herself. She had one time, one part-time person boots on the ground, C-class properties, average rent below a grand, difficult tenants. and she had plenty of time and she had 60 to 90 % profit margin in her business. One of the most ridiculous like case studies I've ever seen. Like she was really successful, very profitable, but she basically had a conversation with her owners at the beginning said, hey, it's been great getting to know you, getting to know your property from here on out. You're not going to be hearing from me much. If I call you, if my name shows up on your phone, I'm asking for money because there's a problem. So you're probably not going to want to hear from me. And she was said as a joke, but she was setting boundaries and they would laugh. But that was how they trusted her. They trusted her because she set really strong boundaries. And so that reduced their anxiety and it lessened the amount of times they had to call. They weren't like, hey, Sarah, did we get that tenant yet? Who's looking at the property? Anyone look at it this week? Like what's going on with the maintenance? What happened with this? Are we getting this handled? Like they weren't anxious. They trusted her to manage and she was good at managing. So one, you got to be good at managing. Seth Williams (22:57) Mm Yeah. Jason Hull (23:17) Like you've got to have good vendors. You know, you've got to have good resources. Otherwise, why would they use you? Why don't they just do it themselves? As a good property manager, you should be way better at it than your clients. You're the professional. Which means you're not relying on them to tell you what to do. They should not be micromanaging the manager. They didn't want, they didn't hire you to micromanage you if you're a property management business owner, right? And so I think that there's good communication. Seth Williams (23:27) Yeah. Jason Hull (23:44) This is the superficial thing that everybody sees. The better thing is having really good service and really good boundaries is even better. Seth Williams (23:52) Yeah. Well, it seems like the boundaries thing works as long as you are good at your job, right? I mean, if you do let a place sit vacant or if you do find a subcontractor who screws the property all up, your trust is gone now and they are going to be harassing you. Jason Hull (23:58) Yeah. Yeah, you can't say, don't call me. I'll let you know when I get this taken care of, you know, because their anxiety is going to go through the roof. Right. Yes, exactly. You have to be on top of your stuff and you have to be good. but the conversely, you can't be good if you are over communicating with everybody. It's not it's not a scalable business. You just can't do it. And so if you are giving everybody all the attention all the time, Seth Williams (24:12) Yeah. Jason Hull (24:31) it's going to be very little attention and it means you're not going to be able to pay attention to and focus on the things that actually matter and do a good job. So setting boundaries is required in order to do have a really healthy business that does perform well. Especially if you're a business owner. Seth Williams (24:43) Yeah. Yeah. I guess like say if you're managing a property that's in the armpit of town and it's going to take a long time to find a tenant. I mean, maybe it's starts by just telling that property owner, hey, it's going to be a while. Like set the expectations. Like don't make them think it's going to happen fast when it's not. Is that what you do? Jason Hull (24:55) Good expectations. Absolutely. Yep, setting good expectations, setting good boundaries is absolutely critical. And I think that goes for any business. Any business that involves humans, right? If they can land, there's not a whole lot of people involved, but maybe in the deal, you need to set boundaries and expectations, right? In self storage, same thing. You have tenants, there are people involved. It's a little less than dealing with toilets, and termites, but. Seth Williams (25:17) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jason Hull (25:27) There's still humans that are involved and you have to be willing to set boundaries. know, there's self-storage places in LA that have a problem with homeless people trying to build homes inside of them. Right. Like that's probably outside of like what you wanted to be selling, you know, it's not probably legal for them to live there. Right. And so, yeah, setting boundaries, setting expectations. And they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And that's probably true in any business. Yeah. Seth Williams (25:51) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I'm wondering if you could wave a magic wand and fix anything about the real estate industry right now, what would that be? Anything come to mind? Jason Hull (26:03) Ooh, fixing the real estate. Seth's interviewing me now, everybody. and yeah, you are. You are good at this. so, well, why don't you go first? This is a great question. So Seth, what would you wave your magic wand and change about the real estate industry? Seth Williams (26:07) Yeah. I'm pretty good at this. Yeah, mean, mine would be mostly related to the niches that I'm in. So like land and self storage and on the self storage front. So the way that we manage our properties, the software is a huge component. mean, it's it's a very, very important. It's how we assign gate codes. It's how we get people's payments. It's how we communicate with them. Like it's a big deal. But a lot of the software out there is terrible. Like it is just garbage software. It looks like it was designed 20 years ago and it's It's like antiquated, but it's expensive. And the problem is, once you start using it, they kind of hold you hostage. So like, even though it's bad, you got to keep paying for it and rewarding this broken system. So it's just a it's just a pain. So if I could wave a wand, I would probably make it super easy to jump ship and switch softwares without them holding all of my customers information hostage. That's what I'd fix. Jason Hull (26:55) Yeah, you're in bed forever. Got it. You might be able to wave that one now with vibe coding and AI. It's probably possible. Get a nerd, they create a prompt for you. They could probably import the API or the data or the information from an existing company software, or at least get a CSV export and you could probably create your own software from scratch. It does exactly what you want. And kids are making software every day now. Somebody just made vibe coding software and some women made this app. Seth Williams (27:17) Cool. Jason Hull (27:41) called T or something like this. And it was like rating men for dating. So women could say, this guy's like not a great guy to date or something like this. and it was like at the top of the app store, like you can, you can create stuff now through AI. And the only problem with that app is they had a big security flaw that some guys probably didn't like what was on the app about them easily hacked it. And they doxxed all of the women's Seth Williams (27:51) interesting. No. Jason Hull (28:09) Credit or not credit cards, but their drivers licenses that they had submitted to verify their profiles and they made it all public Right. So if you're doing vibe coding people make sure you have somebody take a look at the security side of it All right. Yeah, so but that you know that could be that that could be a magic wand that could be waived My magic wand in line with what you said I would selfishly do something towards the property management industry is I would change the licensing requirements throughout the US, because the licensing requirements in each state to be a property manager have nothing to do usually with property management. Usually you have to have a real estate broker's license in order to manage rental properties, and that doesn't qualify them to manage rental properties at all. But it does create a big hurdle for them to be able to do it, and so it keeps probably some good actors out. Seth Williams (28:48) Yeah. ⁓ Jason Hull (29:03) and probably makes people feel overconfident to do something that they probably aren't prepared to do. And very few states have a separate property management license. So, yeah. Seth Williams (29:12) What is the connection there? Like, is it because you have to effectively list properties? Like, you're not selling it, but you have to list it publicly and then respond to people who are interested in that kind of thing. Jason Hull (29:19) Yeah, I think it's related to leasing and renting properties. The number one source of complaints at most board of realtors is related to leasing, not real estate. so, yeah, so there are some things in which, but there should be separate licensing, separate rules specific to property management and that maybe raise the bar for property management so that they come in, you know, understanding some things legally. Seth Williams (29:29) Mm-hmm. Hmm. Jason Hull (29:46) that are related to that because there's a lot of real estate agents that are doing some stuff that's probably not legal when it comes to leases or having conversations or probably breaking laws, you know, and so that can be dangerous. we have one of our lead magnates that we have that we have clients build out is a 411 on leasing course. And it's basically a course property managers can download, put their branding on and go scare the shit out of real estate agents in handling leases. And so that these agents will refer business to them, which isn't hard to do because a lot of real estate agents are dabbling in leases and they should not be messing with it because it puts the real estate license at risk. So. Yeah, so that would be my magic wand. Well, that's to tell us a little bit about your podcast and some of the stuff that you're up to lately and how people can get a hold of you. Seth Williams (30:26) Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. That's cool. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, the REtipster podcast, it's really creative name, just REtipster podcast. I've been running it since 2018 and every week, just talk to people that I find really fascinating. Sometimes they're in land, sometimes self storage, sometimes neither. They just have a really cool thing going on and I like to grill them and ask them questions and really get to the bottom of like how they're doing what they're doing. So not surfacey questions, but like really getting into it. It's a ton of fun. So Yeah, feel free to check it out or anything at retipster.com. That's kind of the home base where you can find all the stuff I have out there. Jason Hull (31:18) Perfect. Very cool. Well, Seth, it's been fun. Appreciate you asking me some questions. That's always a surprise. And it's great having you here on the the DoorGrow show. If those of you listening, if you've been stuck or stagnant in your property management business, you want to take it to the next level, reach out to us at door grow dot com. Also join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners at door grow club dot com. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'd really appreciate it. And until next time. Seth Williams (31:22) Yeah, likewise. Jason Hull (31:46) Remember the slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together. Bye everyone.

Hamel Husain and Shreya Shankar teach the world's most popular course on AI evals and have trained over 2,000 PMs and engineers (including many teams at OpenAI and Anthropic). In this conversation, they demystify the process of developing effective evals, walk through real examples, and share practical techniques that'll help you improve your AI product.What you'll learn:1. WTF evals are2. Why they've become the most important new skill for AI product builders3. A step-by-step walkthrough of how to create an effective eval4. A deep dive into error analysis, open coding, and axial coding5. Code-based evals vs. LLM-as-judge6. The most common pitfalls and how to avoid them7. Practical tips for implementing evals with minimal time investment (30 minutes per week after initial setup)8. Insight into the debate between “vibes” and systematic evals—Brought to you by:Fin—The #1 AI agent for customer serviceDscout—The UX platform to capture insights at every stage: from ideation to productionMercury—The art of simplified finances—Where to find Shreya Shankar• X: https://x.com/sh_reya• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shrshnk/• Website: https://www.sh-reya.com/• Maven course: https://bit.ly/4myp27m—Where to find Hamel Husain• X: https://x.com/HamelHusain• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamelhusain/• Website: https://hamel.dev/• Maven course: https://bit.ly/4myp27m—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Hamel and Shreya(04:57) What are evals?(09:56) Demo: Examining real traces from a property management AI assistant(16:51) Writing notes on errors(23:54) Why LLMs can't replace humans in the initial error analysis(25:16) The concept of a “benevolent dictator” in the eval process(28:07) Theoretical saturation: when to stop(31:39) Using axial codes to help categorize and synthesize error notes(44:39) The results(46:06) Building an LLM-as-judge to evaluate specific failure modes(48:31) The difference between code-based evals and LLM-as-judge(52:10) Example: LLM-as-judge(54:45) Testing your LLM judge against human judgment(01:00:51) Why evals are the new PRDs for AI products(01:05:09) How many evals you actually need(01:07:41) What comes after evals(01:09:57) The great evals debate(1:15:15) Why dogfooding isn't enough for most AI products(01:18:23) OpenAI's Statsig acquisition(1:23:02) The Claude Code controversy and the importance of context(01:24:13) Common misconceptions around evals(1:22:28) Tips and tricks for implementing evals effectively(1:30:37) The time investment(1:33:38) Overview of their comprehensive evals course(1:37:57) Lightning round and final thoughts—LLM Log Open Codes Analysis Prompt:Please analyze the following CSV file. There is a metadata field which has an nested field called z_note that contains open codes for analysis of LLM logs that we are conducting. Please extract all of the different open codes. From the _note field, propose 5-6 categories that we can create axial codes from.—Referenced:• Building eval systems that improve your AI product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-eval-systems-that-improve• Mercor: https://mercor.com/• Brendan Foody on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-foody-2995ab10b• Nurture Boss: https://nurtureboss.io/• Braintrust: https://www.braintrust.dev/• Andrew Ng on X: https://x.com/andrewyng• Carrying Out Error Analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoAxZsdw_3w• Julius AI: https://julius.ai/• Brendan Foody on X—“evals are the new PRDs”: https://x.com/BrendanFoody/status/1939764763485171948• Who Validates the Validators? Aligning LLM-Assisted Evaluation of LLM Outputs with Human Preferences: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3654777.3676450• Lenny's post on X about evals: https://x.com/lennysan/status/1909636749103599729• Statsig: https://statsig.com/• Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code• Cursor: https://cursor.com/• Occam's razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor• Frozen: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/• The Wire on HBO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire—Recommended books:• Pachinko: https://www.amazon.com/Pachinko-National-Book-Award-Finalist/dp/1455563935• Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-China-Capture-Greatest-Company/dp/1668053373/• Machine Learning: https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Learning-Tom-M-Mitchell/dp/1259096955• Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach: https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approach-Global/dp/1292401133/Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.My biggest takeaways from this conversation: To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Soll Lëtzebuerg Sanktioune géint Israel ausschwätzen - och wann aner EU-Staaten dat net maachen? Dat ass eng vun de Froen un den aussepolitesche Spriecher vun der CSV.

D'Zeitungen analyséieren de Moien déi flou Positioun vun de Regierungsparteien, besonnesch der CSV, a Saachen Aschreiwung vum Recht op Ofdreiwung an d'Verfassung.

Topics covered in this episode: * Mozilla's Lifeline is Safe After Judge's Google Antitrust Ruling* * troml - suggests or fills in trove classifiers for your projects* * pqrs: Command line tool for inspecting Parquet files* * Testing for Python 3.14* Extras Joke Watch on YouTube About the show Sponsored by us! Support our work through: Our courses at Talk Python Training The Complete pytest Course Patreon Supporters Connect with the hosts Michael: @mkennedy@fosstodon.org / @mkennedy.codes (bsky) Brian: @brianokken@fosstodon.org / @brianokken.bsky.social Show: @pythonbytes@fosstodon.org / @pythonbytes.fm (bsky) Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too. Finally, if you want an artisanal, hand-crafted digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it. Michael #1: Mozilla's Lifeline is Safe After Judge's Google Antitrust Ruling A judge lets Google keep paying Mozilla to make Google the default search engine but only if those deals aren't exclusive. More than 85% of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google search payments. The ruling forbids Google from making exclusive contracts for Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, or Gemini, and forces data sharing and search syndication so rivals get a fighting chance. Brian #2: troml - suggests or fills in trove classifiers for your projects Adam Hill This is super cool and so welcome. Trove Classifiers are things like Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14 that allow for some fun stuff to show up in PyPI, like the versions you support, etc. Note that just saying you require 3.9+ doesn't tell the user that you've actually tested stuff on 3.14. I like to keep Trove Classifiers around for this reason. Also, License classifier is deprecated, and if you include it, it shows up in two places, in Meta, and in the Classifiers section. Probably good to only have one place. So I'm going to be removing it from classifiers for my projects. One problem, classifier text has to be an exact match to something in the classifier list, so we usually recommend copy/pasting from that list. But no longer! Just use troml! It just fills it in for you (if you run troml suggest --fix). How totally awesome is that! I tried it on pytest-check, and it was mostly right. It suggested me adding 3.15, which I haven't tested yet, so I'm not ready to add that just yet. :) BTW, I talked with Brett Cannon about classifiers back in ‘23 if you want some more in depth info on trove classifiers. Michael #3: pqrs: Command line tool for inspecting Parquet files pqrs is a command line tool for inspecting Parquet files This is a replacement for the parquet-tools utility written in Rust Built using the Rust implementation of Parquet and Arrow pqrs roughly means "parquet-tools in rust" Why Parquet? Size A 200 MB CSV will usually shrink to somewhere between about 20-100 MB as Parquet depending on the data and compression. Loading a Parquet file is typically several times faster than parsing CSV, often 2x-10x faster for a full-file load and much faster when you only read some columns. Speed Full-file load into pandas: Parquet with pyarrow/fastparquet is usually 2x–10x faster than reading CSV with pandas because CSV parsing is CPU intensive (text tokenizing, dtype inference). Example: if read_csv is 10 seconds, read_parquet might be ~1–5 seconds depending on CPU and codec. Column subset: Parquet is much faster if you only need some columns — often 5x–50x faster because it reads only those column chunks. Predicate pushdown & row groups: When using dataset APIs (pyarrow.dataset) you can push filters to skip row groups, reducing I/O dramatically for selective queries. Memory usage: Parquet avoids temporary string buffers and repeated parsing, so peak memory and temporary allocations are often lower. Brian #4: Testing for Python 3.14 Python 3.14 is just around the corner, with a final release scheduled for October. What's new in Python 3.14 Python 3.14 release schedule Adding 3.14 to your CI tests in GitHub Actions Add “3.14” and optionally “3.14t” for freethreaded Add the line allow-prereleases: true I got stuck on this, and asked folks on Mastdon and Bluesky A couple folks suggested the allow-prereleases: true step. Thank you! Ed Rogers also suggested Hugo's article Free-threaded Python on GitHub Actions, which I had read and forgot about. Thanks Ed! And thanks Hugo! Extras Brian: dj-toml-settings : Load Django settings from a TOML file. - Another cool project from Adam Hill LidAngleSensor for Mac - from Sam Henri Gold, with examples of creaky door and theramin Listener Bryan Weber found a Python version via Changelog, pybooklid, from tcsenpai Grab PyBay Michael: Ready prek go! by Hugo van Kemenade Joke: Console Devs Can't Find a Date

Déi gréng Deputéiert an de Fraktiounschef vun der CSV diskutéieren iwwer d'Resultater vun der Sozialronn.

This week, we discuss AI disillusionment, the good and bad of AI use cases, and VMware news. Plus, we compare tech mergers to Taylor Swift's engagement. Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode (https://www.youtube.com/live/CbnZ1rbCdCw?si=Psfe1gM33zDFQT1e) 534 (https://www.youtube.com/live/CbnZ1rbCdCw?si=Psfe1gM33zDFQT1e) Runner-up Titles I'm going to turn off the Roomba Spider Patrol My old office had a door The dog was up all night Exiting our bubble The child's name is Steve We don't want to anger the Swifties It's fine isn't good enough I am leaving my wife for Google Search It's all made-up anyway Anything you see, CSV just pops out Stop digging Rundown Trough of Disillusionment? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Concedes GPT-5 Was a Misfire, Bets on GPT-6 - Decrypt (https://decrypt.co/336053/openai-ceo-sam-altman-concedes-gpt-5-misfire-bets-gpt-6) Suddenly, Silicon Valley Is Lowering AI Expectations — New York Magazine (https://apple.news/AUWOJ5HKQSp27r74sgu9v8w) It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes (https://defector.com/it-took-many-years-and-billions-of-dollars-but-microsoft-finally-invented-a-calculator-that-is-wrong-sometimes) The Search for Product Market Fit Clouded Judgement 8.22.25 - Workflows Are the New Databases (https://cloudedjudgement.substack.com/p/clouded-judgement-82225-workflows?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=56878&post_id=171604013&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2l9&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email) AWS CEO says AI replacing junior staff is 'dumbest idea' (https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/21/aws_ceo_entry_level_jobs_opinion/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email) Coinbase CEO explains why he fired engineers who didn't try AI immediately (https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/22/coinbase-ceo-explains-why-he-fired-engineers-who-didnt-try-ai-immediately/) VMware Modern Private Cloud: The Data Center's Next Chapter - Broadcom News and Stories (https://news.broadcom.com/explore/vmware-explore-2025-vmware-cloud-foundation-news-and-momentum) Broadcom calls for tech to go back where it belongs: On-prem (https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/vmware_explore_vcf_evolution/) Feds: Critical Software Must Drop C/C++ by 2026 or Face Risk (https://thenewstack.io/feds-critical-software-must-drop-c-c-by-2026-or-face-risk/) Relevant to your Interests Microsoft says U.S. law takes precedence over Canadian data sovereignty (https://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science/microsoft-says-u-s-law-takes-precedence-over-canadian-data-sovereignty/article) Removing XSLT From the Web Platform (https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/08/21/removing-xslt-from-the-web-platform/) Walmart Fires VP for Taking Daily Kickbacks Starting from $30K (https://www.ctol.digital/news/walmart-fires-vp-kickbacks-terminates-1200-contractors/) YouTube secretly used AI to edit people's videos. The results could bend reality (https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20250822-youtube-is-using-ai-to-edit-videos-without-permission) Bye-bye barrel jack: Framework brings 240W USB-C charging to laptops (https://www.theverge.com/news/765542/framework-240w-usb-c-pd-charger-first-framework-16) Google scores six-year Meta cloud deal worth over $10 billion (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/21/google-scores-six-year-meta-cloud-deal-worth-over-10-billion.html) Nonsense Nerd! How the word popularized by Dr. Seuss went from geeky insult to mainstream (https://www.npr.org/2025/08/20/nx-s1-5507053/nerd-dr-seuss-word-of-week) K-Pop Demon Hunters os recommend in the Slack Python Package Management tool “uv” PROMOTE STICKERS Conferences SREDay London (https://sreday.com/2025-london-q3/), Coté speaking, September 18th and 19th. Civo Navigate London (https://www.civo.com/navigate/london/2025), Coté speaking, September 30th. Texas Linux Fest (https://2025.texaslinuxfest.org), Austin, October 3rd to 4th. CF Day EU (https://events.linuxfoundation.org/cloud-foundry-day-europe/), Coté speaking, Frankfurt, October 7th, 2025. AI for the Rest of Us (https://aifortherestofus.live/london-2025), Coté speaking, October 15th-16th, London. Use code SDT20 for 20% off. Wiz Wizdom Conferences (https://www.wiz.io/wizdom), NYC November 3-5, London November 17-19 SREDay Amsterdam (https://sreday.com/2025-amsterdam-q4/), Coté speaking, November 7th. SDT News & Community Join our Slack community (https://softwaredefinedtalk.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-1hn55iv5d-UTfN7mVX1D9D5ExRt3ZJYQ#/shared-invite/email) Email the show: questions@softwaredefinedtalk.com (mailto:questions@softwaredefinedtalk.com) Free stickers: Email your address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com (mailto:stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com) Follow us on social media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/softwaredeftalk), Threads (https://www.threads.net/@softwaredefinedtalk), Mastodon (https://hachyderm.io/@softwaredefinedtalk), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/software-defined-talk/), BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/softwaredefinedtalk.com) Watch us on: Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/sdtpodcast), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi3OJPV6h9tp-hbsGBLGsDQ/featured), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/softwaredefinedtalk/), TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@softwaredefinedtalk) Book offer: Use code SDT for $20 off "Digital WTF" by Coté (https://leanpub.com/digitalwtf/c/sdt) Sponsor the show (https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/ads): ads@softwaredefinedtalk.com (mailto:ads@softwaredefinedtalk.com) Recommendations Brandon: Gmail Manage Subscriptions (https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/08/gmails-new-manage-subscriptions-tool-will-help-declutter-your-inbox/) Matt: Deskflow (https://github.com/deskflow/deskflow) Search Engine: A Dubai Chocolate Theory of the Internet (https://www.searchengine.show/a-dubai-chocolate-theory-of-the-internet/) Photo Credits Header (https://unsplash.com/photos/a-couple-of-women-walking-across-a-lush-green-field-g9VzOpYYpzQ)

PerplexityがリリースしたAIブラウザCometで、いろいろ試した話です。AIへの指示でブラウザ操作ができるので、WordPressの記事作成を自動化してみました。＝＝＝ 目次 ＝＝＝00:00:00 オープニング00:01:31 Amazonで商品をカートに入れる00:03:33 Perplexity無料プランでも使えるComet00:04:30 CMSの更新を試して成功した00:07:38 AIがミスしたときのリスクを考える00:08:56 CSVの読み込みでの更新との違い00:10:11 Notionフォームを作るのを自動化00:11:31 エンディング【感想・質問・取り上げてほしいテーマ大歓迎です】✉️メールアドレスashikagacast@icloud.com

Fighting crime through collaboration – lessons from a retired DEA Special Agent. Detailed Summary: In this Finovate podcast episode, host Greg Palmer interviews David Tyree, a retired DEA special agent now serving as a senior advisor with Valid8 Financial. Tyree shares his extensive career journey from joining the DEA in 1998 to working in various locations including New Mexico, Oregon, Europe, West Africa, and Wyoming. Early in his career, he discovered the effectiveness of targeting criminal organizations' financial assets, which led to developing strong relationships with financial institutions. Tyree emphasizes that successful investigations require humility and collaboration between law enforcement and banks, noting that both sides benefit when they share information openly rather than remaining guarded. Throughout the conversation, Tyree highlights the importance of understanding criminal typologies in financial crime detection. He discusses technological advancements that have improved financial crime investigations, including CSV files, online typology resources, and third-party monitoring software. Despite these technological improvements, Tyree consistently returns to the human element as critical, stressing that banks should focus on making their customers "the heroes of their stories" by educating them about fraud risks and empowering them with information to protect themselves, particularly vulnerable populations like the elderly. In his current role at Valid8, Tyree helps law enforcement make sense of money movement patterns, with the platform having helped him discover an additional million dollars in a case where he had initially seized $200,000. He advises financial institutions to prioritize understanding criminal typologies across various crimes including human trafficking, drug trafficking, fraud, and elder abuse. Tyree concludes by emphasizing two key elements for effective financial crime prevention: understanding what criminal activity looks like in financial data and fostering greater collaboration between banks and law enforcement agencies to share emerging trends and patterns. More info: Report: https://www.valid8financial.com/money-laundering Valid8: https://www.valid8financial.com/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/valid8-financial/ David Tyree: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidatyree/ Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/ Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/ #Finovate #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #financialcrime #moneylaundering #fintech #fraud #antifraud #money #innovation #startup #banking

Today we are talking about Drupal CMS Analytics, Recipes, and how to use both with guest Dharizza Espinach. We'll also cover Field Data as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/516 Topics Drupal CMS Analytics Track Balancing Personal and Work Contributions Planning and Estimating Contributions Team Effort and Collaboration Challenges and Solutions in UI and Integration Future Enhancements and Roadmap Conclusion and Contact Information Resources Noise Cancellation Tool Recipe installer kit Saplings Creating a Simple Donation form with Drupal, Stripe, and Webforms Guests Dharizza Espinach - dharizza Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Rich Lawson - richlawson.co rklawson MOTW Correspondent Jacob Rockowitz - jrockowitz.com jrockowitz Brief description: Did you ever need to review all the data in a field on a content entity type or a specific bundle? Module name/project name: Field Data Brief history How old: February 28, 2025 Versions available: 1.0.0-alpha12 Maintainership Actively maintained Test coverage Documentation Default settings include Display only published field data Display only field data in the default language Usage stats: 34 sites report using this module Maintainer(s): Jacob Rockowitz Module features and usage Adds a 'Data' tab to Drupal core's 'Field list' report (/admin/reports/fields), which allows administrators to view and download field data. This module can be used while developing a migration to review field data before and after a migration. This module also allows site builders and developers to identify unused fields. Similar Modules Schema Viewer Provides a backend developer tool to view table schema by table name. Entity Export CSV Export Content Entity to CSV.  

Bienvenue dans ce 128 ème épisode de DigitalFeeling, votre rendez-vous hebdo sur l'IA générative appliquée au marketing digital… même en été !Je suis Élodie Chenol, formatrice en marketing digital et intelligence artificielle.Et aujourd'hui, j'ai une ambition simple : vous aider à lever le pied… sans perdre le fil grâce à l'IA.Dans cet épisode, je vous partage 5 choses que j'aurai laissées à l'intelligence artificielle si j'avais dû déléguer, cet été pour me permettre de vraiment souffler… tout en gardant mon business en mouvement.1. La programmation des contenus LinkedIn Avant de partir, j'aurai utilisé ChatGPT + Canva + Buffer pour programmer des posts utiles, légers ou inspirants.Objectif : garder une régularité de publication sans avoir à y penser.Exemple de prompt : “Rédige 3 posts LinkedIn courts autour de l'IA et de la créativité, avec un ton estival.”Résultat : des posts prêts à l'emploi, que j'ai simplement adaptés à ma voix et planifiés.Je peux même lui demander de rédiger mon planning éditorial pour le mois en lui donnant les inputs sur les sujets à traiter ;)Pendant ce temps, je peux profiter de la limonade– et mon feed reste actif.2. L'auto-répondeur email personnalisé… Fini le message d'absence basique !Avec l'aide de ChatGPT, je créé un message d'absence chaleureux, pro et engageant.Exemple :“Bonjour et merci pour votre message ! Je suis en mode déconnexion créative jusqu'au 15 août… mais je vous répondrai avec plaisir dès mon retour. En attendant, retrouvez mes conseils d'IA et marketing dans le podcast DigitalFeeling ou sur LinkedIn.”Un prompt bien pensé m'a permis de rédiger un message à la fois humain et stratégique.Astuce : pensez à intégrer un lien vers un contenu ou une ressource evergreen (newsletter, épisode, mini formation…).3. La veille automatisée grâce à Perplexity ou ChatGPTMême en vacances, je ne veux pas passer à côté d'une info-clé.Mais je ne veux surtout pas scroller tous les jours sur LinkedIn…Solution : j'utilise Perplexity ou ChatGPT pour recevoir une sélection intelligente des actus IA & marketing une fois par semaine dans ma boîte mail. En 10 minutes, je suis à jour, sur les sujets qui m'intéresse.4. Les idées de contenus pour la rentrée C'est en coupant que naissent les meilleures idées…Mais plutôt que de les laisser s'évaporer, je les note dans Notion AI.Ex : je dicte une idée à mon téléphone : “Et si je faisais un épisode sur ‘IA et copywriting émotionnel' ?”Notion me propose automatiquement un plan de contenu, un angle, des questions à poser.Résultat : en septembre, je redémarre avec un carnet de notes déjà structuré, prêt à transformer en contenus.5. L'analyse automatique des performances de mon contenu Je ne veux pas perdre 2h à analyser mes posts LinkedIn ou mes stats d'épisode pendant mes vacances…Mais je veux quand même savoir ce qui a fonctionné.J'ai connecté ChatGPT à mes exports CSV (ou des dashboards automatisés) pour me résumer les tendances :Quels posts ont généré le plus d'interactions ?Quels formats fonctionnent le mieux ?Quelles thématiques à creuser à la rentrée ?Je lis tout ça en 5 minutes, tranquillement sur mon transat.Conclusion L'intelligence artificielle ne remplace pas le repos – elle le facilite.En déléguant à l'IA certaines tâches bien choisies :✅ je reste visible,✅ je reste créative,✅ je reste sereine…Sans sacrifier ma déconnexion.Et vous ? Qu'allez-vous laisser à l'IA cet été pour respirer ?Écrivez-moi sur LinkedIn, je serais ravie de le partager dans un prochain épisode !Soutenez le podcast :✅ Abonnez-vous à DigitalFeeling sur LinkedIn✅ Rejoignez ma newsletter : substack.com/@elodiechenol✅ Et laissez 5 ⭐ sur Apple Podcasts ou Spotify

Have you tried ChatGPT's updated Canvas mode in GPT-5?If you didn't know, most frontier LLMs have a way for you to render and run code in the browser like a virtual computer -- this is what ChatGPT's Canvas mode does. Previously, Google Gemini's Canvas and Anthropic's Artifacts were light-years ahead of ChatGPT's Canvas mode. With GPT-5, though, OpenAI has closed that gap. We'll tell you what's new, how it works, and how to put GPT-5's updated Canvas mode to work for YOU. Newsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageJoin the discussion: Thoughts on this? Join the convo and connect with other AI leaders on LinkedIn.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:GPT-5 Canvas Mode Overview & FeaturesHow to Activate Canvas Mode in ChatGPTCanvas Mode: Inline Editing CapabilitiesCanvas Mode: Live Code Writing & RenderingBuilding Interactive Web Apps With CanvasUploading & Visualizing Data in Canvas ModeReal-World Canvas Mode Business Use CasesGPT-5 Coding Advancements in CanvasStep-by-Step Live Canvas Mode DemonstrationsTroubleshooting Canvas Mode Errors & LimitsComparing Canvas Mode to Gemini's CanvasFive Business Solutions Using GPT-5 CanvasTimestamps:00:00 "Become AI Expert with GPT5"03:46 "Exploring GPT-5's Canvas Mode"08:14 Exploring GPT-5 Canvas Mode13:48 "Exploring Context Engineering in AI"15:11 Live Test: Uploading Large Files17:47 Hosting Interactive Web Game Easily21:42 Creative Career Advancement Tips26:01 Unexpected Features and Mode Toggles28:47 "Podcast Revenue Calculator Need"33:14 "GPT-5 Canvas Mode Enhancements"34:27 Iterative Conversations with GPT538:24 "Client ROI Calculator Tool"42:34 "GPT-5's Impact on Business Efficiency"44:39 "Spread the Word on AI"Keywords:GPT-5, Canvas Mode, ChatGPT Canvas, GPT-5 Canvas Mode, GPT-5 update, OpenAI, ChatGPT updates, interactive editor, inline editing, code generation, code rendering, business dashboard, interactive web app, vibe coding, non-technical coding, prompt engineering, Context engineering, Retrieval Augmented Generation, RAG, interactive learning game, live coding demo, dashboard builder, data visualization, file upload, CSV analysis, resume website generator, portfolio site with Canvas, client ROI calculator, proposal generator, contract comparison tool, meeting summary builder, budget variance dashboard, enhanced code capabilities, SWE Bench Verified, software engineering benchmarks, syntactic code generation, contextual understanding, model selector, GPT-5 Pro, tSend Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Ready for ROI on GenAI? Go to youreverydayai.com/partner

In episode 253 of our SAP on Azure video podcast we talk about SAP HCM with Microsoft Entra ID Governance. In previous episodes we have talked about the extensibility concept of Entra ID, Entra ID Governance and other SAP integration. In a lot of customer scenarios, these integrations are relevant in the context of HCM. So today -- after more than 3 years -- I am happy to welcome Chetan Desai with us again. He recently published new guidance on integrating SAP HCM with Microsoft Entra ID Governance, using flexible provisioning options like CSV, SAP BAPI, or SAP IDocsFind all the links mentioned here: https://www.saponazurepodcast.de/episode253Reach out to us for any feedback / questions:* Goran Condric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gorancondric/* Holger Bruchelt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holger-bruchelt/ #Microsoft #SAP #Azure #SAPonAzure #HCM #EntraID

En Interview mat der Landwirtschaftsministesch, d'CSV mat Muechtsuergen an d'Baustellen am Betreiungssecteur, dat sinn d'Theemen haut an der Presserevue.

Logementspolitik an de Gemengen, nei Kriticken am SIGI an eng iwwerfuerdert CSV, dat sinn d'Theemen haut an der Presserevue.

Vamos a trabajar con las IA´s en version gratuita de " Chat GPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Deepseek, Qwen y Kimi K2 y he hecho unas pruebas a ver si se puede sobrevivir solo con las Ia gratuitas. Para ello le he pedido una app web de finanzas, que analice un CSV de 1,7MB y que busque información sobre Blas de Lezo.En esta carpeta os dejo los archivos... asi como los promptshttps://mega.nz/folder/aRRmCAqB#63RnjQJGVkOIElTvEUdbgASi te unes a Lowi te dan 15€ a ti y a mi referir.lowi.es/carlosh-3830MI VPN  NORDVPN…. Código descuento https://refer-nordvpn.com/MNCtSAmxRcIMi super ratón MX https://amzn.to/4ia8P6dMi web www.discosduros.netMi telefono https://amzn.to/3DiBiYvLa comida de Pistón https://amzn.to/3FbiNWv

ChatGPT Agent Mode is here. If you're wondering what types of use-cases we're using internally and some tips to get you ahead of the curve....we gotchyu. Make sure to join us as we put AI to Work this Wednesday. Try Gemini 2.5 Flash! Sign up at  AIStudio.google.com to get started. Newsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageJoin the discussion: Thoughts on this? Join the convo and connect with other AI leaders on LinkedIn.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:ChatGPT Agent Mode Overview & RolloutDifferences: AI Agents vs. Agentic WorkflowsChatGPT Agent Mode Hands-On DemoVirtual Desktop & Browser Capabilities ExplainedChatGPT Agent Use Cases for Business AutomationReal-World Agent Mode Example: Podcast AnalyticsPros and Cons of ChatGPT Agent ModeThree Key Tips for ChatGPT Agent SuccessAgent Mode Security, Privacy, and RisksCompetitive Landscape: OpenAI, Microsoft, Google AgentsTimestamps:00:00 "Exploring ChatGPT's Agent Mode"03:42 "ChatGPT Agent Mode Overview"07:14 "Enhanced ChatGPT Capabilities"13:31 "True AI Agents Unveiled"17:14 Spotify Podcast Metrics Challenge19:58 Podcast Retention Rate Analysis24:17 "New Tech Feature Faces Bugs"26:49 Google's Project Mariner Innovation29:43 Meeting Prep Automation Tool34:26 ChatGPT Agent Mode Benefits35:21 Real-Time Chatbot Interaction Tips41:51 ChatGPT Strengths and Weaknesses45:10 AI Agents for Truck Drivers?Keywords:ChatGPT Agent Mode, AI agent, OpenAI, generative AI, agentic model, virtual environment, agent-powered workflow, pro users, Plus plan, subscription rollout, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Gemini, Google Agent Space, enterprise AI, computer using agent, virtual desktop, API connection, terminal access, file upload, CSV analysis, Buzzsprout, Spotify podcast analytics, Apple Podcasts, podcast retention, data aggregation, live demo, automation, hands-on AI, multi-platform data extraction, PowerPoint creation, spreadsheet automation, connectors integration, privacy and data security, browser control, prompt engineering, context window, deep research mode, AI-powered spreadsheet, meeting prep automation, CRM data enrichment, repetitive task automation, manual data entry, multi-step workflow, virtual browser, business intelligence automation, AI-driven presentation, user activity log, iterative prompt refinement, SaaS integration, troubleshooting AI agents, future of AI agentsSend Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info)

Back in 2010, Tableau beat smarter tools with a better demo. No brain, all charm and the market loved it. Fast-forward to now: same playbook, new costume. The AI dashboard crowd is selling “natural language BI” with zero semantic model, zero memory, and a whole lot of LinkedIn swagger. In this episode, Rob and Justin revisit why Tableau's empty-calorie approach won the first round, and how that same mistake is about to flood the AI + BI space all over again. Turns out, you can still sell snake oil if you call it GenAI. Rob breaks down how an elite MIT course managed to skip LLMs entirely, how a flashy Tableau blog post went viral for connecting a CSV, and why “AI-ready” vendors keep duct-taping chat interfaces onto raw SQL and hoping no one looks under the hood. But the real story? Microsoft is sitting on the most powerful data brain in the game, and if they land the front end, it's game over. This isn't just a history lesson. It's a blueprint for seeing through the hype and betting on what actually works. If you're building, buying, or betting on AI tools, listen in before you get dazzled by the demo. Also on this episode: Early Experiments in Tableau's New MCP Service

Welcome to Season 11!

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I was helping a friend erect their newly refurbished multi-band antenna and during the process we discussed the notion of tuning an antenna that's high in the air. They made a curious response, in that they'd tuned the antenna on the ground before we started. I asked how this would work, since as I understand the process, this changes things once it gets in the air. They assured me that while the actual SWR might change, the frequencies at which it was resonant would not. This was news to me because I've been putting off erecting my own multi-band 6BTV antenna mainly because I didn't really want to face having to erect it, tune it, lower it, modify the elements, erect it, tune it, etc., all whilst standing on the steel roof of my patio. Would this phenomenon be true for my antenna? It occurred to me that I could test this idea, not only for my antenna, but for other antennas as well. In my minds-eye, I saw a video displaying the pertinent attributes of an antenna, SWR, gain, radiation pattern, and whatever else I could think of, animated with the modifications of things like height and ground radials. If this sounds familiar in some way, it's because I've been here before. This time the outcome was slightly different, since I found a tool that can optimise antennas using a genetic algorithm. What I mean by that is an automated process where you can test variations of a thing, in this case antennas. Rather than design each antenna and test it, you essentially generate antenna designs and tweak them to determine the best one. Then you use that to generate the next series of designs. Rinse and repeat until you have what you're looking for. There's a whole field of computer science dedicated to this and unsurprisingly the rabbit hole goes deep. The tool is called "xnec2c-gao" and it's written by Maurizio DC1MDP. The name of the tool hints at its nature, working in combination with "xnec2c", written by Neoklis 5B4AZ and maintained by Eric KJ7LNW, you'll find links to both tools on the xnec2c.org website. How the two tools work together is a beautiful dance. The antenna modelling tool, xnec2c, can read an antenna definition file and detect if it changes, at which point it can redo the simulation, which it can output to another file. The genetic algorithm optimisation tool, xnec2c-gao, can detect the changed output and update the antenna definition file, and the process repeats. Which brings me to a pro-tip, for this to work, you need to configure xnec2c to do two things, detect the changed definition file, and write the output to CSV, both of these options can be found in the "Optimization Settings" menu, just so you don't spend an hour banging your head against the desk. Between the two tools, the antenna definition evolves and you end up with a design optimised for your purpose. The default does this for SWR and gain. Mind you, I tested a multi-band dipole which managed to find some interesting designs, but didn't pick them because a low SWR combined with a high gain, for reason't I don't yet understand, wasn't considered better than a high SWR with a high gain, so there's some work to be done. As a software developer I have a sneaking suspicion that it's adding the two, rather than picking the highest gain combined with the lowest SWR, but I haven't confirmed that. As I said, deep rabbit hole. While we're not yet at the video display stage, for the first time I can get a sense that this might come to pass. There's plenty of work to be done. For example, the antenna display on xnec2c during the process seems broken, there's no way to output gnuplot files during the process, and capturing the various charts in real-time will require work, but all that seems if not easy, at least possible. Meanwhile, I'm attempting to locate an antenna definition file, preferably in .NEC format for my 6BTV antenna, so I can use this combination of tools to discover if tuning it on the ground will work and while I'm at it, discover if the installation I'm working on will give me something worthwhile. I realise that this is well beyond "try it and see", but my body isn't up to climbing up and down ladders 17 times in a day and I think that getting a feel for what might occur is a good way to learn. When was the last time you climbed on a roof and what did you do to avoid it? I'm Onno VK6FLAB

In conversation with Seán Coughlan and Dr. Joyce Wamoyi In this episode of Africa Rights Talk, we spotlight a transformative conversation on ending childhood sexual violence (CSV) with Seán Coughlan, Director of To Zero, and Dr. Joyce Wamoyi, Tanzanian Principal Investigator for the Parenting for Lifelong Health digital programs. Together, they unpack A Vision to Zero, a groundbreaking global roadmap co-created by over 50 organizations and 330 field leaders committed to eradicating CSV. Seán discusses the importance of African-led solutions in shaping global agendas, while Joyce reflects on the powerful impact of the ParentApp Teen initiative in Tanzania, which has significantly reduced sexual violence against children through digital parenting support. Explore the A Vision to Zero Roadmap and the Toolkit for practical strategies and evidence-based interventions. The discussion dives into the critical need to shift harmful social norms, amplify survivor voices, and foster cross-sector partnerships involving parents, civil society, and governments. Seán and Joyce explore what's working, the systemic barriers that remain, and how young Africans and advocates can take hope and action from emerging evidence and success stories. This episode is a call to invest in locally rooted, globally relevant interventions that bring us closer to a world free from childhood sexual violence.    Seán Coughlan is a senior leader with extensive experience across both the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors. His experience includes tackling childhood sexual violence and harmful practices in his current role as Director of To Zero and previously as Executive Director of the Human Dignity Foundation. His career also includes managing Ireland's largest indigenous internet forum as Chief Executive of Boards.ie and co-founding and running Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, a sector-leading social entrepreneurship fund. Seán has also served on a number of not-for-profit and academic boards and working groups including the End Violence Against Children Safe Online Working Group, the Advisory Board of INTERPOL's Fight Against Child Sexual Exploitation Initiative, the Board of the European Venture Philanthropy Association, the Enterprise Advisory Board of Dublin City University, the Board of Trustees of Airfield Estate farm and sustainable food hub, and the Leonardo Group of Science Gallery Dublin. Seán earned a degree in Theoretical Physics from Trinity College Dublin and is a graduate of Harvard Business School, INSEAD and the Irish Management Institute executive education programmes. Dr. Joyce Wamoyi is a Social and Behavioural Researcher with over 20 years of research experience in adolescent and young people's Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH); Social determinants of health; Parenting and child outcomes; and Sexual and gender-based violence. She has contributed to the understanding dynamics of risky sexual behaviour and to the development of measures to capture complexity of risky sexual behaviour. She is the Tanzanian Lead Principal Investigator for the Parenting for Lifelong Health digital parenting programmes (ParentApp-Teens and ParentApp-Kids) to prevent violence against children. Dr. Wamoyi has excelled in translating complex research findings into actionable strategies, collaborating with national governments, civil society organizations, bilateral and philanthropic donors, and UN agencies. She is the lead of the project on building a national parenting support system for scaling evidence-based parenting interventions in Tanzania. She served as a member of the: WHO Behavioural Insights Technical Advisory Group; and UNICEF Advisory Board for the multi-country project “Children's Experiences and Perspectives of Covid-19”. She is a co-founder of the organisation, REAL Transformation that collects evidence and transforms it into action for policy impact.     This conversation was recorded on 17 June 2025.         Youtube: https://youtu.be/MpQFogU6lns Music and news extracts: Inner Peace by Mike Chino https://soundcloud.com/mike-chinoCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...Music promoted by Audio Libraryhttps://youtu.be/0nI6qJeqFcc Limitless https://stock.adobe.com/za/search/audio?k=45259238        

 This week's episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day Podcast interviews, Jen Corcoran. Are you wasting time chasing likes and views on LinkedIn?Join us as LinkedIn expert Jen Corcoran shows you a smarter way to turn conversations into real business. In this eye-opening episode, you'll learn:-Why tracking numbers doesn't help you grow your business.-How to build a simple spreadsheet to track real people, not random clicks.-The 3 groups you should always stay in touch with.-Why old clients and past sales calls are full of hidden opportunities.-How to message people without sounding pushy or weird.-A fun tip Kris uses to never forget who's who on LinkedIn.-What to download from LinkedIn before your account disappears. This episode will change how you see LinkedIn—and help you use it with purpose. Don't miss it! DOWNLOAD LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS IN SETTINGS:Most of us have great contacts that we forget about if they don't post… •Go to ‘me' on the top menu and select ‘Settings & Privacy'•Select ‘Data Privacy'•Manage your data and activity•And then the below where you tick what you want ‘connections' etc.•You'll get the CSV file within 10 minutes to the email you have synched with LinkedIn•Save it to your desktop and / or print.  It's good to do this once a year! Win The Hour, Win The Day! www.winthehourwintheday.com  Podcast: Win The Hour, Win The Day Podcast  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/winthehourwintheday/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/win-the-hour-win-the-day-podcast You can find Jen Corcoran at:LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-corcoran-mysuperconnector/ #LinkedInMarketing#LeadGeneration#KrisWard 

My day-to-day coding looks very different from what it was a few years ago. Today, you'll learn about my voice-to-code workflow and how I leverage smart tools to have so much free time that I feel guilty for "not working enough." Seriously.The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/from-code-writer-to-code-editor-my-ai-assisted-development-workflow/The podcast episode:  https://tbf.fm/episodes/395-from-code-writer-to-code-editor-my-ai-assisted-development-workflowCheck out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fmSend me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvidYou'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.comPodcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcastNewsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletterMy book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.comHere are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

What's holding back enterprise adoption of blockchain?In this episode, Sergio from Sonar X joins Sam to explain why the missing piece is data infrastructure. Drawing from experience at Bloomberg and AWS (where he led Amazon Managed Blockchain), Sergio breaks down why most blockchain systems are broken at the data layer—and how Sonar X is building a scalable, multi-chain backend to fix it.From audit-grade historical data to real-time indexing across 30+ chains, Sonar X is laying the foundation for Web3's next growth wave.Key Timestamps[00:00:00] Introduction: Sergio's background and what Sonar X is solving.[00:01:30] Growing up as a fixer: From Italian banking to Bloomberg and AWS.[00:04:00] Falling in love with blockchain: MIT program and lightbulb moment.[00:05:30] The problem: Enterprise-grade infrastructure for blockchain data doesn't exist.[00:07:00] What Sonar X does: Reliable, multi-chain data infra for coverage, quality, and access.[00:09:00] Use cases: From DeFi indexes to forensics, custody, fund admin, and compliance.[00:12:00] The architecture: How Sonar X solves the CAP theorem limitations of blockchain.[00:15:00] Data standardization: Making 30+ chains interoperable via common schemas.[00:17:30] Indexing like Bloomberg: Creating a “market data” layer for all chains.[00:19:00] Data delivery: Snowflake, Databricks, CSV exports, and multi-cloud support.[00:20:00] Business model: Simple annual chain-based subscriptions, no usage limits.[00:22:00] Custom support: Engineering advisory to reduce compute costs for clients.[00:23:00] Challenges ahead: Scaling to meet 1M+ TPS chains and occasional-use customers.[00:25:00] Traditional finance: How blockchain will upgrade, not replace, infrastructure like DTCC or SWIFT.[00:27:00] Blockchain = the ultimate value exchange machine.[00:28:00] Data scale: Every new asset, chain, or protocol creates exponential complexity.[00:30:00] Final ask: Keep investing in product, preparing for GenAI, and expanding chain support.[00:33:00] The future: RWA tokenization, AI agents, and why reliable data will be the cornerstone.Connecthttps://www.sonarx.com/https://www.linkedin.com/company/sonarxhttps://x.com/sonarx_hqhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiocapannaDisclaimerNothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. Finally, it would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend.Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/

Are you still manually reviewing competitor feedback? You run the risk of falling behind because  your biggest competition is leveraging AI to gain market insights in just minutes.In this episode of the Profit Cleaners Podcast, Brandon Schoen and Brandon Condrey share a practical and forward-thinking approach to competitive research using artificial intelligence. Recorded live at a recent Profit Cleaners event, this episode introduces two highly effective tools that are transforming how cleaning business owners analyze the market and make data-driven decisions.You'll discover how to extract and evaluate Google reviews from competing businesses, identify customer sentiment trends, and generate clear, actionable insights without sifting through spreadsheets for hours. The Brandons also discuss how these tools are being used in their own business to track KPIs, visualize growth metrics, and improve team efficiency—all while keeping operations streamlined and focused.This episode is your step-by-step guide to modernizing your market research process and staying ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving industry. Listen now and start making smarter, faster business decisions with the power of AI!Highlights:(00:51) Why you should read your competitors' reviews — and how to automate it with AI(04:26) How PhantomLocal converts Google reviews into usable CSV files.(07:51) Leveraging Julius AI to uncover patterns and business insights(09:57) Recognizing what customers love through 5-star review patterns(14:57) Creating review trends and customer sentiment graphs in minutes.(18:22) Automating reporting and KPI analysis for better team visibility(22:18) Staying up to date with AI through curated tools and channels like Skill Leap AI(24:32) Empowering your team with AI tools to increase efficiency and customer satisfactionLinks/Resources Mentioned:Profit Cleaners Website Watch the FREE Masterclass: https://profitcleaners.com/masterclass)Join the FREE Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitcleaners/

In this episode of Tales From Tech Support, one user thinks a blank screen means the internet is down while another blames updates for breaking the VPN. A simple quotation mark nearly derails an entire finance department, and someone loads 100GB of files onto their work laptop. From misunderstood mice to vanished software windows, it's a parade of digital chaos. Stick around for the one user who left tech support truly speechless.Submit your own stories to KarmaStoriesPod@gmail.com.Karma Stories is available on all major Podcasting Platforms and on YouTube under the @KarmaStoriesPodcast handle. We cover stories from popular Reddit Subreddits like Entitled Parents, Tales From Tech Support, Pro Revenge and Malicious Compliance. You can find new uploads here every single day of the week!Rob's 3D Printing Site: https://Dangly3D.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/karma-stories--5098578/support.

In this week's episode, we take a look at the major self-publishing platforms that I use, and examine the pros and cons of each. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Doom of the Sorceress, Book #8 in the Dragonskull series, (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: DOOM50 The coupon code is valid through June 24, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 253 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 30th, 2025, and today we are looking at the current major self-publishing platforms and what they offer indie authors. Before we get to our main topic, we'll have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing projects.   So let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Doom of the Sorceress (book number eight in the Dragonskull series, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That code is DOOM50. And as always, we will have the coupon code and the links to the store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through June 24th, 2025. So if you are setting out on summer travels this summer and you need an audiobook to listen to while you're in the car or plane, we have got you covered. So now for an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. Ghost in the Corruption (as I mentioned last week) is now out and available at all the ebook stores: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and Payhip. It is selling well. So thank you all for that. Now that Ghost in the Corruption is finished, what am I working on next? Well, back in 2023, I finished the Dragonskull and The Silent Order series back to back, so I declared Summer 2023 to be my Summer of Finishing Things. Well, it looks like Summer 2025 is going to be the Super Summer of Finishing Things because I intend to finish three series back to back.   First up is Shield of Power, the sixth and final book of The Shield War series. As of this publishing, I am 26,000 words into it, which puts me on Chapter 6 of 29. So I think it's going to end up being around 100,000-110,000 words long, and I am hoping it will be out in June, though it might slip to July depending on how things go. Once that is done, the next one up will be Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, which will be the third and very definitely final book of the Stealth and Spells Online trilogy. Believe it or not, I have been working on Final Quest on the side for so long that I passed the 100,000 word mark in that book this week. In fact, it's been a side project for so long that I don't remember how long I've been working on it, and I had to look up the metadata to check that I indeed started chipping away on it on October 18th, 2024. So I am very pleased that I'm nearly done with the rough draft and because of that reason, if all goes well, it'll come out very quickly after Shield of Power, since I think the rough draft will end up at about 125,000 to 130,000 words or in that neighborhood. Once Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest is finished, I will then write Ghost in the Siege, which will be the sixth and final book of the Ghost Armor series. I am 1,500 words into that and hoping for that to come out in August or September, if all goes well. Once The Shield War, Stealth and Spells Online, and Ghost Armor are finished, I will finally be free to return to the Rivah and Nadia series. I realized that through all of 2024 and the first half of 2025, I had five unfinished series at the same time, and that was just too much for me to keep track of as a writer, and I think it may have been too much for the readers because it was too much of a wait between the different series as I worked my way through them. So five series at the same time is too much, so hence the Super Summer of Finishing Things. Going forward, I've decided that three unfinished series at the same time will be my maximum, which after the Super Summer of Finishing Things will be Cloak Mage, Half-Elven Thief, and a new epic fantasy series that I will set in the realm of Owyllain.   In audiobook news, Brad Wills started working on Shield of Battle this week and Hollis McCarthy started working on Ghost in the Corruption, so hopefully before probably about July or thereabouts, we will have those audiobooks available for you to listen to. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects.   00:03:49 Main Topic of the Week: Self-Publishing Platforms for Ebooks [Note: Information in this Episode is Very Likely to Change]   So now let's move on to our main topic for the week, which is the main self-publishing platforms for ebooks. Today we will do a brief overview of the self-publishing platforms I currently use: Amazon/KDP, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and Draft2Digital/Smashwords. The reason I wanted to do this is because there are many scammy platforms for self-publishing out there, but fortunately there are also many legitimate ones. Today we'll compare several of the most popular ones for ebooks. Just to make things easier for comparison, we'll be using the term platform to discuss both retailers and aggregators and we're not going to talk about options for self-publishing print or audio formats today. We're going to focus solely on ebooks.   First of all, what should you look for in a publishing platform? The first thing is to make sure you retain complete ownership of your content in all formats. Some of these scammer ones try to claim all rights to anything you try to post or sell through them, so that is definitely a red flag to watch out for. Make sure that you understand any exclusivity requirements of any programs that you sign up for such as KDP Select, such as if other formats like audio are also included in their requirements, how long exclusivity lasts, et cetera. If the platform requires exclusivity, that is definitely something to pay attention to. Make sure you do your research carefully to understand how pricing, royalties, and payments work on each individual platform. Sometimes some of them will pay quarterly, some of them pay monthly, and some of them pay you last month's royalties at the end of the month. Some of them like Amazon run like two months behind.   Finally, and this is a big one, you should not have to pay any money in order to upload your work. If they are asking for money upfront, it is probably a scam. Now, there are some aggregators that don't take a percentage and instead charge you a yearly fee. I'm not talking about them in this podcast episode because I don't use them, but they are out there. One example would be Book Funnel, which does charge a yearly fee for you to use but provides a valuable service in being a backend for running your own store on like Payhip or Shopify, and there's a couple of other useful services in that way, but they're not a storefront and they don't take a percentage of any royalties. They just charge a yearly fee. So they're not the topic with this episode.   All the platforms I've talked about today do not have any fees in order to upload. Reputable sites like Amazon or Kobo will instead take a percentage of each book's sale. It's also good to have a few realistic expectations before you start using self-publishing platforms, and one of them is that the platform is not a marketer. For example, many people complain that KDP doesn't showcase their books and they get lost in the millions of books available. However, none of these services are promising that you'll make the front page of their site just by publishing there. It's a common delusion among new indie authors that when you publish your first book, that's all you have to do and people will flock to it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.   In fact, since Amazon makes a small fortune off book ads, it's not in their interest to give away screen space for free, and this isn't to knock on Amazon, that's just the way the retail industry works. For example, if you go into a Target or a Walmart or another big box retailer, note the products that are prominently displayed on the aisle displays or the endcaps of the aisles. They didn't just get there randomly. The manufacturers of those products paid big money to Amazon and Target and Walmart and the other big box retailers to have their products featured there. In many cases, online commerce is no different.   Getting your book uploaded onto a platform is just the first step. Promoting and marketing the book is up to you and strategies for those will vary based on which ones you choose to use. For example, if you choose to make your work exclusive to just one platform, it's not a good idea to run Facebook ads in countries where that platform either doesn't exist or where it's not terribly popular. Today we're going to be just focusing on comparing the platforms, not how to best to market from them. So what are the options?   #1: First up is the most common platform people use and it's the 800 pound gorilla in the self-publishing space, and that is Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. And what are the pros and cons of KDP?   Pro: They are the biggest force in ebook publishing in many countries, including the United States. Some authors find that as much as 80 to 95% of their ebook sales come from Amazon, even if they are not exclusive with Amazon. For myself, it's usually about 50 to 60% of my sales on any given month are from Amazon and the rest come from the other retailers.   Heavy readers are generally very familiar with the Kindle Store interface and Library setup, and many readers are kind of locked into Amazon because they own Kindle devices, subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, and have large Kindle Libraries. So those are all the pros of publishing with KDP.   Cons: If you're expecting a large portion of your sales to come from the print version of your book or if print sales are very important to you, be aware that many bookstores and libraries either can't or won't buy print books from Amazon, so you should find an additional platform for the print version such as Ingram Spark or maybe Barnes & Noble's print division. One big concern about going exclusive with Amazon is that you're losing readers who don't have Kindle books in their countries, people who are boycotting Amazon for a variety of reasons, people who are locked into another platform such as Apple or Kobo, or people who want to self-archive their ebooks since Amazon doesn't allow that anymore. If you're already wide, you'll have to look carefully at what percentage of your sales are non-Amazon and if this percentage is an amount you'd be comfortable risking losing in order to be exclusive. Occasionally authors do complain about the customer service available to KDP, especially if it's urgent. For myself, I've not personally had any huge problems with KDP customer service. That said, I think you should expect a lead time of about one to two business days on anything you ask because I usually go through the email form.   Does KDP offer a subscription service? Yes. Kindle Unlimited (KU) readers pay a set amount and can read an unlimited number of books each month, although they're limited as to how many they can have in their library at any one time. Promotions happen regularly, usually based around big sales like Prime Day, and it can make a subscription as cheap as $0.99 for a three month period. Some also receive free subscriptions by buying certain Amazon products such as a new Kindle or Kindle Fire.   The downside of being in Kindle Unlimited is the exclusivity. You can't be in KU without being exclusive with Amazon, or at least the specific book in question has to be exclusive. Not all of your books have to be exclusive, and many authors such as myself will usually put one series in KU and then make sure everything else is wide. You must agree to be exclusive with them for ninety days and that time period is renewable.   What does KDP pay in terms of royalty? For $2.99 to $9.99, they give you 70% of the sale price. Under $2.99 and above $9.99, it's 35%. So that is sort of an encouragement from Amazon to price your ebooks in the $2.99 to $9.99 range. Currently I price new novels at $4.99 and do short stories at $0.99 cents.   What do I do? I have all of my titles available through KDP. I have a smaller portion of my collection exclusive through KDP Select/KU, and I have only recently increased that amount of Select titles due to the economic downturn. I suspect that KU users are likely to hold onto their subscriptions while cutting other expenses because honestly, KU is a pretty good deal for readers and the monthly subscription costs is about the same as one tradpub frontlist ebook, but with a KU subscription, they could read thousands of books for the same price. The value of KU is really very strong for frequent romance, LitRPG, science fiction, and fantasy readers. There's a strong population in the KU subscriber base often referred to as binge readers. They care more about variety, discovering new books, and the ability to read a lot over the ability to read specific authors or stories.   So overall, I think if you are self-publishing and even if you don't like Amazon very much or don't plan to go exclusive, it's still in your best interest to publish your ebook with them, even if you are wide and intend to do all the other retailers just because Amazon really is the biggest ebook platform out there at the moment. #2: Now, the next self-publishing platform we're going to look at is Barnes & Noble Press, which as the name implies, belongs to Barnes & Noble. The Pros: some people are never, ever going to let go of their Nooks or they already have a large personal ebook library through the Nook so they feel locked into that platform. These readers are the majority of people buying ebooks through Barnes & Noble, but fortunately that group tends to read a lot. There's also a lot of trust in Barnes & Noble as a brand, and that inspires people to continue buying from them.   In fact, for a while in the indie author space at the end of the 2010s and the start of the 2020s, it was a regular prediction that Barnes & Noble was going to go out of business soon, but then the company was bought by a private equity firm, and while private equity firms often have a deserved bad reputation for stripping a company of assets and then selling it off at a bargain basement price (such as the fate of Red Lobster), that does not seem to be the case of what happened with Barnes & Noble and the company really has been strengthening in recent years. So they may be here to stay for a while.   The downsides of publishing with Barnes & Noble Press is that Barnes & Noble is relatively a minor player in the ebook market, though usually in the top four of most indie author ebook sales if they're wide. They have shifted their focus to selling print books instead of Nook devices, especially in the retail space.   Do they offer a subscription service? They do not. However, nothing about Barnes & Noble requires exclusivity, which is nice, and the royalty structure is pretty good. It's 70% over all titles over $0.99. So if you want, you could price your ebook at $0.99 or $19.99 and still make 70%, which you couldn't do with those prices on Amazon.     #3: The next self-publishing platform we'll look at is Kobo Writing Life, which is the ebook platform to publish on Kobo, which is owned by Rakuten. Pros: Kobo is strong in the international market and will help you to reach readers in many countries. Based on my sales data, in Canada and Australia, Kobo is significantly bigger than Amazon for ebook sales. Kobo has also had a surge of recent media attention in the US as people seek out alternatives to Amazon and Kindle devices.   The Con of Kobo, and this is a fairly small one, is that their US market share is still fairly small compared to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or some of the others. But as I mentioned, they're a lot stronger in Canada and Australia, and they do reach a lot of different countries, more than Amazon does.   Does Kobo have a subscription service? Yes, Kobo Plus. Kobo Plus is significantly less expensive than Kindle Unlimited, and there's an additional tier that allows you to add audiobook content to the plan. The library isn't quite as extensive as KU though, though. I should note that in the years since Kobo has been introduced, I'd say about half of my revenue from Kobo (sometimes 60% of my revenue from Kobo) comes from Kobo Plus and not from direct ebook sales. So it's getting to the point where the majority of their ebook revenue I suspect, is coming from Kobo Plus and not direct Kobo sales.   Do they require exclusivity? No, which is another strong selling point for Kobo Plus. For their royalty structure, ebooks over $2.99, you get 70% and any books over below $2.99, you get 45%, which is a more generous term than Amazon in terms of the royalty rate for below $2.99 and above $9.99.   So what do I do? I currently use it as one of the platforms for my ebooks. It's been a pretty strong seller for me consistently over the years, and every Kobo book that I have is also available in Kobo Plus, which probably explains the revenue split I was talking about earlier. #4: The next platform we'll look at is Draft2Digital/Smashwords, which we'll do as one because Draft2Digital and Smashwords are in the process of merging. Draft2Digital is technically what's called an aggregator, where you upload your book and then they can publish on a variety of different platforms for you, and in exchange, they take a small cut of the sales. Draft2Digital is, in my opinion, probably the most effective way to get your ebooks through Apple and Smashwords. Apple does have its own direct uploading service, but I've never used it because there are a bit too many hoops to jump through.   Draft2Digital does, as I mentioned, have a way to publish on multiple storefronts at once while managing uploads and sales reporting through just one interface. They're not a storefront in and of themselves, although since Draft2Digital does own Smashwords, Smashwords essentially acts as their storefront for them. Although Draft2Digital lists Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble as an option, most authors will upload to these sites separately, and in fact, that's what I do for myself.   The Pros of Draft2Digital is that it's a definite time savings using Draft2Digital to publish across multiple platforms, especially with platforms like Apple that are more difficult or time consuming to learn. This is also a convenient way to make your work accessible to library platforms like Overdrive/Libby, Hoopla, and Bibliotheca, if that is important to you. Library sales have never been a huge priority of mine, but I've never been opposed to them either, so I usually just flip those switches on and then don't think about it again.   The Cons for Draft2Digital are that there was a period after the Smashwords migration where they received complaints about customer service and difficulty in setting up tax information, though I think that is mostly ironed out now.   One potential hazard for Draft2Digital with a very specific subset of writers is that if you are a writer of, shall we say, very hard erotica, the sort that ends up in very restricted categories on most stores, you will probably have trouble publishing through Draft2Digital. This is not, however, a problem that's unique to Draft2Digital. Amazon has what is called the “erotica dungeon”, where if you publish certain kinds of, like we said, very harsh erotica, your book isn't searchable on the Amazon store. You can link to it directly, but it will never show up on any search results. Kobo in particular has had problems with erotica.   Back in the 2010s, Kobo was also distributing ebooks to some British retailers, and these British retailers suddenly got upset when they noticed that these kinds of hard erotica were showing up on their store pages, which was not a good look for the company. And so there was a kerfuffle until that was all sorted out. My frank opinion with that is if you are writing these kinds of erotica, the big stores and Draft2Digital will never be on your side, and so you are better off pursuing a sort of a Patreon/running your own store on Shopify or Payhip strategy, but that is a bit of a digression.   So in terms of royalties, Draft2Digital takes 10% of the book's retail price per copy sold, which is in addition to whatever amount is taken by the specific storefront. So you are paying a bit of money in exchange for convenience for just uploading your book to Draft2Digital and having it push out the book to all the different stores for you.   What I do is I use Draft2Digital for Apple mainly because for a while I was using Smashwords, but Smashwords in the 2010s was a bit more persnickety than is now, and you needed to prepare a specially formatted doc file to publish on Smashwords and sometimes getting it through the Smashwords processing onto Apple was a bit of a pain. Draft2Digital took epub files, which are much easier to work with, and after a while I switched over all my Apple publishing to Draft2Digital entirely. So that's why I use Draft2Digital for Apple and for various library services that tend to be a minor amount of sales. Because of the difficulties on publishing direct to Apple, I do find that that 10% is good trade off in terms of selling books on Apple for me.   #5: Now onto Google Play's ebook self-publishing platform, which is, I think its full name is the Google Books Partner Center, which lets you publish books to the Google Play Store for sale on Android devices.   The Pros are that for writers interested in the international market, Google Play is another strong choice for a platform since the international mobile device market is very Android heavy. The iPhone (Apple) tends to be concentrated mainly in the US and a few of the wealthier countries like the UK and Canada, but Android has a much more international reach in general than the iPhone. Google Play also has some interesting promotional options for ebooks, such as offering the buyer a chance to subscribe to a specific series.   The cons are that some authors report that their sales reporting doesn't always consistently generate reports, and others are annoyed that it only generates a CSV file, (which isn't that much of a hardship for people who are familiar with Excel).   For myself, I found that there is a bit of a reporting lag on Google Play where it will sometimes take as long as five or six days for sales to show up on the dashboard, though usually it's only a delay of two days, though sometimes during the month you'll get these bigger lags and sometimes processing new material on the Google Play Store can be slow, and it can sometimes take two to three days for things to appear, though it usually gets worked out in the end. Does Google Play have a subscription service? It does not, nor does it require exclusivity, which is another point in its favor. And the royalties, the data is quite nice here. It is 70% for all price points in the countries listed on their support page, which only excludes a handful of countries like India, South Korea, and Japan (because of currency conversion regions or other local laws).   So those are the ebook publishing platforms that I currently use, and because I use them myself, I would recommend them. Hopefully that is helpful to you as you are looking for places to self-publish your book as you set out to become an indie author.   So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the backup episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

In this episode of the PowerShell Podcast, we welcome back Justin Grote, a Microsoft MVP and open-source powerhouse, for an in-depth and fast-paced conversation. Fresh off his PowerShell Wednesday presentation, Justin shares the thinking behind his latest innovations, including the creation of the high-performance ExcelFast module and his evangelism for dev containers and modern development workflows.   Key topics in this episode include: Getting the most from VS Code – Justin shares power-user tips, favorite settings, and the evolution of his 1,000-line configuration file. GitHub Copilot and real-world developer productivity – How Justin's approach to AI tooling shifted after experiencing measurable value in his PowerShell workflows. Dev containers and runtime containers – A detailed breakdown of the difference, practical use cases, and how they transform collaboration, onboarding, and consistency. Excel Fast – A brand-new module optimized for high-performance reading, writing, and streaming of large Excel and CSV datasets, developed with dev containers from day one. Open-source contributions to PowerShell – Including enhanced logging for Invoke-RestMethod and building a dev container for the PowerShell repo itself. PowerShell Conf EU previews – From a 90-minute VS Code optimization deep dive to a hands-on runspaces lab with GitHub Codespaces integration. This episode is packed with practical advice, philosophy on tooling, and Justin's trademark blend of performance focus and community-first thinking. Whether you're a seasoned developer or looking to up your scripting game, you'll walk away with new ideas and resources to explore.   Guest Bio – Justin Grote Justin Grote is a Microsoft MVP, PowerShell advocate, and open-source contributor with a deep focus on automation, performance, and developer productivity. Known for tools like ModuleFast and his work improving PowerShell workflows, Justin blends real-world experience with a passion for teaching and sharing. Whether he's optimizing VS Code, contributing to the PowerShell repo, or speaking at global conferences, Justin empowers the community with practical solutions and thoughtful insight.   Links: Find Justin on GitHub, BlueSky, or on Discord (@JustinGrote): https://github.com/JustinGrote Try out ExcelFast: https://github.com/JustinGrote/ExcelFast PSConfEU Announcement: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7328093268225806337/ Create Dev Container Docs: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/devcontainers/create-dev-container SecretManagement.DpapiNG: https://github.com/jborean93/SecretManagement.DpapiNG Connect with Andrew on Socials: https://andrewpla.tech/links Catch PowerShell Wednesdays weekly at 2 PM EST on discord.gg/pdq The PowerShell Podcast hub: https://pdq.com/the-powershell-podcast  The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dHbWFUyUaOE

In this episode of Talking Drupal, we dive into the intricacies of the Drupal marketplace initiative with our guest, Tiffany Farriss, CEO and co-owner of Palantir.net and long-time board member of the Drupal Association. We explore the goals and challenges of creating a trusted Drupal marketplace, discuss how site templates can lower the barrier to entry for new users, and examine the importance of maintaining community trust and the sustainability of Drupal. This episode also includes a spotlight on the Views CSV Source module and an in-depth discussion on community feedback, the potential value and business models for site templates, and the steps needed to make a go/no-go decision on the marketplace by the upcoming Vienna event. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/504 Topics Meet Our Guest: Tiffany Farriss Module of the Week: Views CSV Source Deep Dive into Views CSV Source Introduction to the Drupal Marketplace Goals and Challenges of the Marketplace Working Group Community Feedback and Sustainability Monetization and Fairness in the Marketplace Risk Mitigation and Future Plans Exploring the Impact of Releases and Usage Challenges and Successes of the Drupal Marketplace Defining the MVP for the Drupal Marketplace Addressing Community Concerns and Governance Engaging the Community and Next Steps Final Thoughts and Contact Information Resources Marketplace initiative Guests Tiffany Farriss - palantir.net farriss Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Norah Medlin - tekNorah MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted to present data within your Drupal website that comes from a CSV flat file, without having to import that data to your Drupal database? There's a module for that. Module name/project name: Views CSV Source Brief history How old: created in March 2024 by Daniel Cothran (andileco) of JSI, though I met Danieal at Midcamp earlier this week and he was emphatic that his colleague and co-maintainer Nia Kathoni (nikathone) deserves significant credit Versions available: 1.0.11, which works with Drupal 8.8, 9, 10, and 11 Maintainership Actively maintained, latest release was last month Security coverage Test coverage Documentation - a robust README Number of open issues: 4 open issues, none of which are bugs Usage stats: 56 sites Module features and usage With Views CSV Source installed, you can create a view that uses a CSV as a source instead of the Drupal site's data. You can point to a file within your site's filesystem, or it can be a remotely hosted CSV. If the file requires authentication for access, it is also possible to include encoded credentials in a header. Now you can use CSV Fields to specify the columns you want to pull into the view, and you can use the “group by” to specify datasets to represent, for example to plot as lines in a chart You can also create filters, either a CSV Field that acts a standard text filter, or a CSV Field Options filter that creates a dropdown of all the unique values in a specified column Your assembled data can be shown in tables or charts, and can also be manipulated using standard view configuration, or using contributed modules like Views Simple Math Field The module also comes with sort and a contextual filter plugins It was impressed by a demo of Views CSV Source in a lightning talk at Midcamp yesterday, so I thought it would be fun to talk about today

Mikah Sargent takes viewers on a comprehensive tour of the Passwords app in macOS Sequoia, demonstrating how this robust tool serves as a complete credential management system. From passkeys to verification codes and shared passwords, Mikah explores how Apple has created a secure yet user-friendly solution for managing all your login information across devices. Passkeys - These are created automatically when you set up passkey authentication on websites, with limited editing options but the ability to add notes or modify the associated website. Verification codes - Users can add two-factor authentication codes either by entering setup keys manually or scanning QR codes. Wi-Fi - The app stores Wi-Fi network credentials, displays network security information (WPA2/WPA3), and lets users generate QR codes for easy sharing. Security recommendations - The app alerts users when passwords may be compromised in data breaches using Apple's differential privacy techniques that protect user privacy. Password sharing feature - Users can create groups to share specific login credentials with family members or others, with granular control over which passwords are shared. Password importing - The app supports importing passwords from CSV files, though Mikah strongly recommends deleting these files immediately after import for security. Cross-device synchronization - All passwords sync across Apple devices with end-to-end encryption via iCloud. Windows compatibility - Even Windows users can access their passwords through the iCloud Passwords app, making it a versatile solution. Passwords User Guide - Apple Support - https://support.apple.com/guide/passwords/welcome/1.1/mac/15.4.1 Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Mac at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Mikah Sargent takes viewers on a comprehensive tour of the Passwords app in macOS Sequoia, demonstrating how this robust tool serves as a complete credential management system. From passkeys to verification codes and shared passwords, Mikah explores how Apple has created a secure yet user-friendly solution for managing all your login information across devices. Passkeys - These are created automatically when you set up passkey authentication on websites, with limited editing options but the ability to add notes or modify the associated website. Verification codes - Users can add two-factor authentication codes either by entering setup keys manually or scanning QR codes. Wi-Fi - The app stores Wi-Fi network credentials, displays network security information (WPA2/WPA3), and lets users generate QR codes for easy sharing. Security recommendations - The app alerts users when passwords may be compromised in data breaches using Apple's differential privacy techniques that protect user privacy. Password sharing feature - Users can create groups to share specific login credentials with family members or others, with granular control over which passwords are shared. Password importing - The app supports importing passwords from CSV files, though Mikah strongly recommends deleting these files immediately after import for security. Cross-device synchronization - All passwords sync across Apple devices with end-to-end encryption via iCloud. Windows compatibility - Even Windows users can access their passwords through the iCloud Passwords app, making it a versatile solution. Passwords User Guide - Apple Support - https://support.apple.com/guide/passwords/welcome/1.1/mac/15.4.1 Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Mac at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Mikah Sargent takes viewers on a comprehensive tour of the Passwords app in macOS Sequoia, demonstrating how this robust tool serves as a complete credential management system. From passkeys to verification codes and shared passwords, Mikah explores how Apple has created a secure yet user-friendly solution for managing all your login information across devices. Passkeys - These are created automatically when you set up passkey authentication on websites, with limited editing options but the ability to add notes or modify the associated website. Verification codes - Users can add two-factor authentication codes either by entering setup keys manually or scanning QR codes. Wi-Fi - The app stores Wi-Fi network credentials, displays network security information (WPA2/WPA3), and lets users generate QR codes for easy sharing. Security recommendations - The app alerts users when passwords may be compromised in data breaches using Apple's differential privacy techniques that protect user privacy. Password sharing feature - Users can create groups to share specific login credentials with family members or others, with granular control over which passwords are shared. Password importing - The app supports importing passwords from CSV files, though Mikah strongly recommends deleting these files immediately after import for security. Cross-device synchronization - All passwords sync across Apple devices with end-to-end encryption via iCloud. Windows compatibility - Even Windows users can access their passwords through the iCloud Passwords app, making it a versatile solution. Passwords User Guide - Apple Support - https://support.apple.com/guide/passwords/welcome/1.1/mac/15.4.1 Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Mac at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Allen Wyma talks with WindSoilder, a contributor to Nushell, a shell that treats data as structured tables. WindSoilder shares his journey into programming, his work on Nushell, and how Rust has shaped his development experience. Contributing to Rustacean Station Rustacean Station is a community project; get in touch with us if you'd like to suggest an idea for an episode or offer your services as a host or audio editor! Twitter: @rustaceanfm Discord: Rustacean Station Github: @rustacean-station Email: hello@rustacean-station.org Timestamps [@00:00] - Meet WindSoilder: Python developer and Rust enthusiast [@04:15] - Discovering Rust and starting with Nushell [@09:30] - Structured data pipelines in Nushell [@15:20] - Using Nushell for CSV, JSON, and HTTP tasks [@20:45] - Integrating Nushell with external commands and plugins [@27:35] - From contributor to core team member [@33:10] - Learning Rust through Nushell: Challenges and rewards [@38:50] - Upcoming features and improvements in Nushell [@44:25] - Advice for new contributors and Rust beginners [@47:40] - Final thoughts and community resources Credits Intro Theme: Aerocity Audio Editing: Plangora Hosting Infrastructure: Jon Gjengset Show Notes: Plangora Hosts: Allen Wyma

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Brandon Liu is an open source developer and creator of the Protomaps basemap project. We talk about how static maps help developers build sites that last, the PMTiles file format, the role of OpenStreetMap, and his experience funding and running an open source project full time. Protomaps Protomaps PMTiles (File format used by Protomaps) Self-hosted slippy maps, for novices (like me) Why Deploy Protomaps on a CDN User examples Flickr Pinball Map Toilet Map Related projects OpenStreetMap (Dataset protomaps is based on) Mapzen (Former company that released details on what to display based on zoom levels) Mapbox GL JS (Mapbox developed source available map rendering library) MapLibre GL JS (Open source fork of Mapbox GL JS) Other links HTTP range requests (MDN) Hilbert curve Transcript You can help correct transcripts on GitHub. Intro [00:00:00] Jeremy: I'm talking to Brandon Liu. He's the creator of Protomaps, which is a way to easily create and host your own maps. Let's get into it. [00:00:09] Brandon: Hey, so thanks for having me on the podcast. So I'm Brandon. I work on an open source project called Protomaps. What it really is, is if you're a front end developer and you ever wanted to put maps on a website or on a mobile app, then Protomaps is sort of an open source solution for doing that that I hope is something that's way easier to use than, um, a lot of other open source projects. Why not just use Google Maps? [00:00:36] Jeremy: A lot of people are gonna be familiar with Google Maps. Why should they worry about whether something's open source? Why shouldn't they just go and use the Google maps API? [00:00:47] Brandon: So Google Maps is like an awesome thing it's an awesome product. Probably one of the best tech products ever right? And just to have a map that tells you what restaurants are open and something that I use like all the time especially like when you're traveling it has all that data. And the most amazing part is that it's free for consumers but it's not necessarily free for developers. Like if you wanted to embed that map onto your website or app, that usually has an API cost which still has a free tier and is affordable. But one motivation, one basic reason to use open source is if you have some project that doesn't really fit into that pricing model. You know like where you have to pay the cost of Google Maps, you have a side project, a nonprofit, that's one reason. But there's lots of other reasons related to flexibility or customization where you might want to use open source instead. Protomaps examples [00:01:49] Jeremy: Can you give some examples where people have used Protomaps and where that made sense for them? [00:01:56] Brandon: I follow a lot of the use cases and I also don't know about a lot of them because I don't have an API where I can track a hundred percent of the users. Some of them use the hosted version, but I would say most of them probably use it on their own infrastructure. One of the cool projects I've been seeing is called Toilet Map. And what toilet map is if you're in the UK and you want find a public restroom then it maps out, sort of crowdsourced all of the public restrooms. And that's important for like a lot of people if they have health issues, they need to find that information. And just a lot of different projects in the same vein. There's another one called Pinball Map which is sort of a hobby project to find all the pinball machines in the world. And they wanted to have a customized map that fit in with their theme of pinball. So these sorts of really cool indie projects are the ones I'm most excited about. Basemaps vs Overlays [00:02:57] Jeremy: And if we talk about, like the pinball map as an example, there's this concept of a basemap and then there's the things that you lay on top of it. What is a basemap and then is the pinball locations is that part of it or is that something separate? [00:03:12] Brandon: It's usually something separate. The example I usually use is if you go to a real estate site, like Zillow, you'll open up the map of Seattle and it has a bunch of pins showing all the houses, and then it has some information beneath it. That information beneath it is like labels telling, this neighborhood is Capitol Hill, or there is a park here. But all that information is common to a lot of use cases and it's not specific to real estate. So I think usually that's the distinction people use in the industry between like a base map versus your overlay. The overlay is like the data for your product or your company while the base map is something you could get from Google or from Protomaps or from Apple or from Mapbox that kind of thing. PMTiles for hosting the basemap and overlays [00:03:58] Jeremy: And so Protomaps in particular is responsible for the base map, and that information includes things like the streets and the locations of landmarks and things like that. Where is all that information coming from? [00:04:12] Brandon: So the base map information comes from a project called OpenStreetMap. And I would also, point out that for Protomaps as sort of an ecosystem. You can also put your overlay data into a format called PMTiles, which is sort of the core of what Protomaps is. So it can really do both. It can transform your data into the PMTiles format which you can host and you can also host the base map. So you kind of have both of those sides of the product in one solution. [00:04:43] Jeremy: And so when you say you have both are you saying that the PMTiles file can have, the base map in one file and then you would have the data you're laying on top in another file? Or what are you describing there? [00:04:57] Brandon: That's usually how I recommend to do it. Oftentimes there'll be sort of like, a really big basemap 'cause it has all of that data about like where the rivers are. Or while, if you want to put your map of toilets or park benches or pickleball courts on top, that's another file. But those are all just like assets you can move around like JSON or CSV files. Statically Hosted [00:05:19] Jeremy: And I think one of the things you mentioned was that your goal was to make Protomaps or the, the use of these PMTiles files easy to use. What does that look like for, for a developer? I wanna host a map. What do I actually need to, to put on my servers? [00:05:38] Brandon: So my usual pitch is that basically if you know how to use S3 or cloud storage, that you know how to deploy a map. And that, I think is the main sort of differentiation from most open source projects. Like a lot of them, they call themselves like, like some sort of self-hosted solution. But I've actually avoided using the term self-hosted because I think in most cases that implies a lot of complexity. Like you have to log into a Linux server or you have to use Kubernetes or some sort of Docker thing. What I really want to emphasize is the idea that, for Protomaps, it's self-hosted in the same way like CSS is self-hosted. So you don't really need a service from Amazon to host the JSON files or CSV files. It's really just a static file. [00:06:32] Jeremy: When you say static file that means you could use any static web host to host your HTML file, your JavaScript that actually renders the map. And then you have your PMTiles files, and you're not running a process or anything, you're just putting your files on a static file host. [00:06:50] Brandon: Right. So I think if you're a developer, you can also argue like a static file server is a server. It's you know, it's the cloud, it's just someone else's computer. It's really just nginx under the hood. But I think static storage is sort of special. If you look at things like static site generators, like Jekyll or Hugo, they're really popular because they're a commodity or like the storage is a commodity. And you can take your blog, make it a Jekyll blog, hosted on S3. One day, Amazon's like, we're charging three times as much so you can move it to a different cloud provider. And that's all vendor neutral. So I think that's really the special thing about static storage as a primitive on the web. Why running servers is a problem for resilience [00:07:36] Jeremy: Was there a prior experience you had? Like you've worked with maps for a very long time. Were there particular difficulties you had where you said I just gotta have something that can be statically hosted? [00:07:50] Brandon: That's sort of exactly why I got into this. I've been working sort of in and around the map space for over a decade, and Protomaps is really like me trying to solve the same problem I've had over and over again in the past, just like once and forever right? Because like once this problem is solved, like I don't need to deal with it again in the future. So I've worked at a couple of different companies before, mostly as a contractor, for like a humanitarian nonprofit for a design company doing things like, web applications to visualize climate change. Or for even like museums, like digital signage for museums. And oftentimes they had some sort of data visualization component, but always sort of the challenge of how to like, store and also distribute like that data was something that there wasn't really great open source solutions. So just for map data, that's really what motivated that design for Protomaps. [00:08:55] Jeremy: And in those, those projects in the past, were those things where you had to run your own server, run your own database, things like that? [00:09:04] Brandon: Yeah. And oftentimes we did, we would spin up an EC2 instance, for maybe one client and then we would have to host this server serving map data forever. Maybe the client goes away, or I guess it's good for business if you can sign some sort of like long-term support for that client saying, Hey, you know, like we're done with a project, but you can pay us to maintain the EC2 server for the next 10 years. And that's attractive. but it's also sort of a pain, because usually what happens is if people are given the choice, like a developer between like either I can manage the server on EC2 or on Rackspace or Hetzner or whatever, or I can go pay a SaaS to do it. In most cases, businesses will choose to pay the SaaS. So that's really like what creates a sort of lock-in is this preference for like, so I have this choice between like running the server or paying the SaaS. Like businesses will almost always go and pay the SaaS. [00:10:05] Jeremy: Yeah. And in this case, you either find some kind of free hosting or low-cost hosting just to host your files and you upload the files and then you're good from there. You don't need to maintain anything. [00:10:18] Brandon: Exactly, and that's really the ideal use case. so I have some users these, climate science consulting agencies, and then they might have like a one-off project where they have to generate the data once, but instead of having to maintain this server for the lifetime of that project, they just have a file on S3 and like, who cares? If that costs a couple dollars a month to run, that's fine, but it's not like S3 is gonna be deprecated, like it's gonna be on an insecure version of Ubuntu or something. So that's really the ideal, set of constraints for using Protomaps. [00:10:58] Jeremy: Yeah. Something this also makes me think about is, is like the resilience of sites like remaining online, because I, interviewed, Kyle Drake, he runs Neocities, which is like a modern version of GeoCities. And if I remember correctly, he was mentioning how a lot of old websites from that time, if they were running a server backend, like they were running PHP or something like that, if you were to try to go to those sites, now they're like pretty much all dead because there needed to be someone dedicated to running a Linux server, making sure things were patched and so on and so forth. But for static sites, like the ones that used to be hosted on GeoCities, you can go to the internet archive or other websites and they were just files, right? You can bring 'em right back up, and if anybody just puts 'em on a web server, then you're good. They're still alive. Case study of news room preferring static hosting [00:11:53] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. One place that's kind of surprising but makes sense where this comes up, is for newspapers actually. Some of the users using Protomaps are the Washington Post. And the reason they use it, is not necessarily because they don't want to pay for a SaaS like Google, but because if they make an interactive story, they have to guarantee that it still works in a couple of years. And that's like a policy decision from like the editorial board, which is like, so you can't write an article if people can't view it in five years. But if your like interactive data story is reliant on a third party, API and that third party API becomes deprecated, or it changes the pricing or it, you know, it gets acquired, then your journalism story is not gonna work anymore. So I have seen really good uptake among local news rooms and even big ones to use things like Protomaps just because it makes sense for the requirements. Working on Protomaps as an open source project for five years [00:12:49] Jeremy: How long have you been working on Protomaps and the parts that it's made up of such as PMTiles? [00:12:58] Brandon: I've been working on it for about five years, maybe a little more than that. It's sort of my pandemic era project. But the PMTiles part, which is really the heart of it only came in about halfway. Why not make a SaaS? [00:13:13] Brandon: So honestly, like when I first started it, I thought it was gonna be another SaaS and then I looked at it and looked at what the environment was around it. And I'm like, uh, so I don't really think I wanna do that. [00:13:24] Jeremy: When, when you say you looked at the environment around it what do you mean? Why did you decide not to make it a SaaS? [00:13:31] Brandon: Because there already is a lot of SaaS out there. And I think the opportunity of making something that is unique in terms of those use cases, like I mentioned like newsrooms, was clear. Like it was clear that there was some other solution, that could be built that would fit these needs better while if it was a SaaS, there are plenty of those out there. And I don't necessarily think that they're well differentiated. A lot of them all use OpenStreetMap data. And it seems like they mainly compete on price. It's like who can build the best three column pricing model. And then once you do that, you need to build like billing and metrics and authentication and like those problems don't really interest me. So I think, although I acknowledge sort of the indie hacker ethos now is to build a SaaS product with a monthly subscription, that's something I very much chose not to do, even though it is for sure like the best way to build a business. [00:14:29] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people can appreciate that perspective because it's, it's almost like we have SaaS overload, right? Where you have so many little bills for your project where you're like, another $5 a month, another $10 a month, or if you're a business, right? Those, you add a bunch of zeros and at some point it's just how many of these are we gonna stack on here? [00:14:53] Brandon: Yeah. And honestly. So I really think like as programmers, we're not really like great at choosing how to spend money like a $10 SaaS. That's like nothing. You know? So I can go to Starbucks and I can buy a pumpkin spice latte, and that's like $10 basically now, right? And it's like I'm able to make that consumer choice in like an instant just to spend money on that. But then if you're like, oh, like spend $10 on a SaaS that somebody put a lot of work into, then you're like, oh, that's too expensive. I could just do it myself. So I'm someone that also subscribes to a lot of SaaS products. and I think for a lot of things it's a great fit. Many open source SaaS projects are not easy to self host [00:15:37] Brandon: But there's always this tension between an open source project that you might be able to run yourself and a SaaS. And I think a lot of projects are at different parts of the spectrum. But for Protomaps, it's very much like I'm trying to move maps to being it is something that is so easy to run yourself that anyone can do it. [00:16:00] Jeremy: Yeah, and I think you can really see it with, there's a few SaaS projects that are successful and they're open source, but then you go to look at the self-hosting instructions and it's either really difficult to find and you find it, and then the instructions maybe don't work, or it's really complicated. So I think doing the opposite with Protomaps. As a user, I'm sure we're all appreciative, but I wonder in terms of trying to make money, if that's difficult. [00:16:30] Brandon: No, for sure. It is not like a good way to make money because I think like the ideal situation for an open source project that is open that wants to make money is the product itself is fundamentally complicated to where people are scared to run it themselves. Like a good example I can think of is like Supabase. Supabase is sort of like a platform as a service based on Postgres. And if you wanted to run it yourself, well you need to run Postgres and you need to handle backups and authentication and logging, and that stuff all needs to work and be production ready. So I think a lot of people, like they don't trust themselves to run database backups correctly. 'cause if you get it wrong once, then you're kind of screwed. So I think that fundamental aspect of the product, like a database is something that is very, very ripe for being a SaaS while still being open source because it's fundamentally hard to run. Another one I can think of is like tailscale, which is, like a VPN that works end to end. That's something where, you know, it has this networking complexity where a lot of developers don't wanna deal with that. So they'd happily pay, for tailscale as a service. There is a lot of products or open source projects that eventually end up just changing to becoming like a hosted service. Businesses going from open source to closed or restricted licenses [00:17:58] Brandon: But then in that situation why would they keep it open source, right? Like, if it's easy to run yourself well, doesn't that sort of cannibalize their business model? And I think that's really the tension overall in these open source companies. So you saw it happen to things like Elasticsearch to things like Terraform where they eventually change the license to one that makes it difficult for other companies to compete with them. [00:18:23] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean there's been a number of cases like that. I mean, specifically within the mapping community, one I can think of was Mapbox's. They have Mapbox gl. Which was a JavaScript client to visualize maps and they moved from, I forget which license they picked, but they moved to a much more restrictive license. I wonder what your thoughts are on something that releases as open source, but then becomes something maybe a little more muddy. [00:18:55] Brandon: Yeah, I think it totally makes sense because if you look at their business and their funding, it seems like for Mapbox, I haven't used it in a while, but my understanding is like a lot of their business now is car companies and doing in dash navigation. And that is probably way better of a business than trying to serve like people making maps of toilets. And I think sort of the beauty of it is that, so Mapbox, the story is they had a JavaScript renderer called Mapbox GL JS. And they changed that to a source available license a couple years ago. And there's a fork of it that I'm sort of involved in called MapLibre GL. But I think the cool part is Mapbox paid employees for years, probably millions of dollars in total to work on this thing and just gave it away for free. Right? So everyone can benefit from that work they did. It's not like that code went away, like once they changed the license. Well, the old version has been forked. It's going its own way now. It's quite different than the new version of Mapbox, but I think it's extremely generous that they're able to pay people for years, you know, like a competitive salary and just give that away. [00:20:10] Jeremy: Yeah, so we should maybe look at it as, it was a gift while it was open source, and they've given it to the community and they're on continuing on their own path, but at least the community running Map Libre, they can run with it, right? It's not like it just disappeared. [00:20:29] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. And that is something that I use for Protomaps quite extensively. Like it's the primary way of showing maps on the web and I've been trying to like work on some enhancements to it to have like better internationalization for if you are in like South Asia like not show languages correctly. So I think it is being taken in a new direction. And I think like sort of the combination of Protomaps and MapLibre, it addresses a lot of use cases, like I mentioned earlier with like these like hobby projects, indie projects that are almost certainly not interesting to someone like Mapbox or Google as a business. But I'm happy to support as a small business myself. Financially supporting open source work (GitHub sponsors, closed source, contracts) [00:21:12] Jeremy: In my previous interview with Tom, one of the main things he mentioned was that creating a mapping business is incredibly difficult, and he said he probably wouldn't do it again. So in your case, you're building Protomaps, which you've admitted is easy to self-host. So there's not a whole lot of incentive for people to pay you. How is that working out for you? How are you supporting yourself? [00:21:40] Brandon: There's a couple of strategies that I've tried and oftentimes failed at. Just to go down the list, so I do have GitHub sponsors so I do have a hosted version of Protomaps you can use if you don't want to bother copying a big file around. But the way I do the billing for that is through GitHub sponsors. If you wanted to use this thing I provide, then just be a sponsor. And that definitely pays for itself, like the cost of running it. And that's great. GitHub sponsors is so easy to set up. It just removes you having to deal with Stripe or something. 'cause a lot of people, their credit card information is already in GitHub. GitHub sponsors I think is awesome if you want to like cover costs for a project. But I think very few people are able to make that work. A thing that's like a salary job level. It's sort of like Twitch streaming, you know, there's a handful of people that are full-time streamers and then you look down the list on Twitch and it's like a lot of people that have like 10 viewers. But some of the other things I've tried, I actually started out, publishing the base map as a closed source thing, where I would sell sort of like a data package instead of being a SaaS, I'd be like, here's a one-time download, of the premium data and you can buy it. And quite a few people bought it I just priced it at like $500 for this thing. And I thought that was an interesting experiment. The main reason it's interesting is because the people that it attracts to you in terms of like, they're curious about your products, are all people willing to pay money. While if you start out everything being open source, then the people that are gonna be try to do it are only the people that want to get something for free. So what I discovered is actually like once you transition that thing from closed source to open source, a lot of the people that used to pay you money will still keep paying you money because like, it wasn't necessarily that that closed source thing was why they wanted to pay. They just valued that thought you've put into it your expertise, for example. So I think that is one thing, that I tried at the beginning was just start out, closed source proprietary, then make it open source. That's interesting to people. Like if you release something as open source, if you go the other way, like people are really mad if you start out with something open source and then later on you're like, oh, it's some other license. Then people are like that's so rotten. But I think doing it the other way, I think is quite valuable in terms of being able to find an audience. [00:24:29] Jeremy: And when you said it was closed source and paid to open source, do you still sell those map exports? [00:24:39] Brandon: I don't right now. It's something that I might do in the future, you know, like have small customizations of the data that are available, uh, for a fee. still like the core OpenStreetMap based map that's like a hundred gigs you can just download. And that'll always just be like a free download just because that's already out there. All the source code to build it is open source. So even if I said, oh, you have to pay for it, then someone else can just do it right? So there's no real reason like to make that like some sort of like paywall thing. But I think like overall if the project is gonna survive in the long term it's important that I'd ideally like to be able to like grow like a team like have a small group of people that can dedicate the time to growing the project in the long term. But I'm still like trying to figure that out right now. [00:25:34] Jeremy: And when you mentioned that when you went from closed to open and people were still paying you, you don't sell a product anymore. What were they paying for? [00:25:45] Brandon: So I have some contracts with companies basically, like if they need a feature or they need a customization in this way then I am very open to those. And I sort of set it up to make it clear from the beginning that this is not just a free thing on GitHub, this is something that you could pay for if you need help with it, if you need support, if you wanted it. I'm also a little cagey about the word support because I think like it sounds a little bit too wishy-washy. Pretty much like if you need access to the developers of an open source project, I think that's something that businesses are willing to pay for. And I think like making that clear to potential users is a challenge. But I think that is one way that you might be able to make like a living out of open source. [00:26:35] Jeremy: And I think you said you'd been working on it for about five years. Has that mostly been full time? [00:26:42] Brandon: It's been on and off. it's sort of my pandemic era project. But I've spent a lot of time, most of my time working on the open source project at this point. So I have done some things that were more just like I'm doing a customization or like a private deployment for some client. But that's been a minority of the time. Yeah. [00:27:03] Jeremy: It's still impressive to have an open source project that is easy to self-host and yet is still able to support you working on it full time. I think a lot of people might make the assumption that there's nothing to sell if something is, is easy to use. But this sort of sounds like a counterpoint to that. [00:27:25] Brandon: I think I'd like it to be. So when you come back to the point of like, it being easy to self-host. Well, so again, like I think about it as like a primitive of the web. Like for example, if you wanted to start a business today as like hosted CSS files, you know, like where you upload your CSS and then you get developers to pay you a monthly subscription for how many times they fetched a CSS file. Well, I think most developers would be like, that's stupid because it's just an open specification, you just upload a static file. And really my goal is to make Protomaps the same way where it's obvious that there's not really some sort of lock-in or some sort of secret sauce in the server that does this thing. How PMTiles works and building a primitive of the web [00:28:16] Brandon: If you look at video for example, like a lot of the tech for how Protomaps and PMTiles works is based on parts of the HTTP spec that were made for video. And 20 years ago, if you wanted to host a video on the web, you had to have like a real player license or flash. So you had to go license some server software from real media or from macromedia so you could stream video to a browser plugin. But now in HTML you can just embed a video file. And no one's like, oh well I need to go pay for my video serving license. I mean, there is such a thing, like YouTube doesn't really use that for DRM reasons, but people just have the assumption that video is like a primitive on the web. So if we're able to make maps sort of that same way like a primitive on the web then there isn't really some obvious business or licensing model behind how that works. Just because it's a thing and it helps a lot of people do their jobs and people are happy using it. So why bother? [00:29:26] Jeremy: You mentioned that it a tech that was used for streaming video. What tech specifically is it? [00:29:34] Brandon: So it is byte range serving. So when you open a video file on the web, So let's say it's like a 100 megabyte video. You don't have to download the entire video before it starts playing. It streams parts out of the file based on like what frames... I mean, it's based on the frames in the video. So it can start streaming immediately because it's organized in a way to where the first few frames are at the beginning. And what PMTiles really is, is it's just like a video but in space instead of time. So it's organized in a way where these zoomed out views are at the beginning and the most zoomed in views are at the end. So when you're like panning or zooming in the map all you're really doing is fetching byte ranges out of that file the same way as a video. But it's organized in, this tiled way on a space filling curve. IIt's a little bit complicated how it works internally and I think it's kind of cool but that's sort of an like an implementation detail. [00:30:35] Jeremy: And to the person deploying it, it just looks like a single file. [00:30:40] Brandon: Exactly in the same way like an mp3 audio file is or like a JSON file is. [00:30:47] Jeremy: So with a video, I can sort of see how as someone seeks through the video, they start at the beginning and then they go to the middle if they wanna see the middle. For a map, as somebody scrolls around the map, are you seeking all over the file or is the way it's structured have a little less chaos? [00:31:09] Brandon: It's structured. And that's kind of the main technical challenge behind building PMTiles is you have to be sort of clever so you're not spraying the reads everywhere. So it uses something called a hilbert curve, which is a mathematical concept of a space filling curve. Where it's one continuous curve that essentially lets you break 2D space into 1D space. So if you've seen some maps of IP space, it uses this crazy looking curve that hits all the points in one continuous line. And that's the same concept behind PMTiles is if you're looking at one part of the world, you're sort of guaranteed that all of those parts you're looking at are quite close to each other and the data you have to transfer is quite minimal, compared to if you just had it at random. [00:32:02] Jeremy: How big do the files get? If I have a PMTiles of the entire world, what kind of size am I looking at? [00:32:10] Brandon: Right now, the default one I distribute is 128 gigabytes, so it's quite sizable, although you can slice parts out of it remotely. So if you just wanted. if you just wanted California or just wanted LA or just wanted only a couple of zoom levels, like from zero to 10 instead of zero to 15, there is a command line tool that's also called PMTiles that lets you do that. Issues with CDNs and range queries [00:32:35] Jeremy: And when you're working with files of this size, I mean, let's say I am working with a CDN in front of my application. I'm not typically accustomed to hosting something that's that large and something that's where you're seeking all over the file. is that, ever an issue or is that something that's just taken care of by the browser and, and taken care of by, by the hosts? [00:32:58] Brandon: That is an issue actually, so a lot of CDNs don't deal with it correctly. And my recommendation is there is a kind of proxy server or like a serverless proxy thing that I wrote. That runs on like cloudflare workers or on Docker that lets you proxy those range requests into a normal URL and then that is like a hundred percent CDN compatible. So I would say like a lot of the big commercial installations of this thing, they use that because it makes more practical sense. It's also faster. But the idea is that this solution sort of scales up and scales down. If you wanted to host just your city in like a 10 megabyte file, well you can just put that into GitHub pages and you don't have to worry about it. If you want to have a global map for your website that serves a ton of traffic then you probably want a little bit more sophisticated of a solution. It still does not require you to run a Linux server, but it might require (you) to use like Lambda or Lambda in conjunction with like a CDN. [00:34:09] Jeremy: Yeah. And that sort of ties into what you were saying at the beginning where if you can host on something like CloudFlare Workers or Lambda, there's less time you have to spend keeping these things running. [00:34:26] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. and I think also the Lambda or CloudFlare workers solution is not perfect. It's not as perfect as S3 or as just static files, but in my experience, it still is better at building something that lasts on the time span of years than being like I have a server that is on this Ubuntu version and in four years there's all these like security patches that are not being applied. So it's still sort of serverless, although not totally vendor neutral like S3. Customizing the map [00:35:03] Jeremy: We've mostly been talking about how you host the map itself, but for someone who's not familiar with these kind of tools, how would they be customizing the map? [00:35:15] Brandon: For customizing the map there is front end style customization and there's also data customization. So for the front end if you wanted to change the water from the shade of blue to another shade of blue there is a TypeScript API where you can customize it almost like a text editor color scheme. So if you're able to name a bunch of colors, well you can customize the map in that way you can change the fonts. And that's all done using MapLibre GL using a TypeScript API on top of that for customizing the data. So all the pipeline to generate this data from OpenStreetMap is open source. There is a Java program using a library called PlanetTiler which is awesome, which is this super fast multi-core way of building map tiles. And right now there isn't really great hooks to customize what data goes into that. But that's something that I do wanna work on. And finally, because the data comes from OpenStreetMap if you notice data that's missing or you wanted to correct data in OSM then you can go into osm.org. You can get involved in contributing the data to OSM and the Protomaps build is daily. So if you make a change, then within 24 hours you should see the new base map. Have that change. And of course for OSM your improvements would go into every OSM based project that is ingesting that data. So it's not a protomap specific thing. It's like this big shared data source, almost like Wikipedia. OpenStreetMap is a dataset and not a map [00:37:01] Jeremy: I think you were involved with OpenStreetMap to some extent. Can you speak a little bit to that for people who aren't familiar, what OpenStreetMap is? [00:37:11] Brandon: Right. So I've been using OSM as sort of like a tools developer for over a decade now. And one of the number one questions I get from developers about what is Protomaps is why wouldn't I just use OpenStreetMap? What's the distinction between Protomaps and OpenStreetMap? And it's sort of like this funny thing because even though OSM has map in the name it's not really a map in that you can't... In that it's mostly a data set and not a map. It does have a map that you can see that you can pan around to when you go to the website but the way that thing they show you on the website is built is not really that easily reproducible. It involves a lot of c++ software you have to run. But OpenStreetMap itself, the heart of it is almost like a big XML file that has all the data in the map and global. And it has tagged features for example. So you can go in and edit that. It has a web front end to change the data. It does not directly translate into making a map actually. Protomaps decides what shows at each zoom level [00:38:24] Brandon: So a lot of the pipeline, that Java program I mentioned for building this basemap for protomaps is doing things like you have to choose what data you show when you zoom out. You can't show all the data. For example when you're zoomed out and you're looking at all of a state like Colorado you don't see all the Chipotle when you're zoomed all the way out. That'd be weird, right? So you have to make some sort of decision in logic that says this data only shows up at this zoom level. And that's really what is the challenge in optimizing the size of that for the Protomaps map project. [00:39:03] Jeremy: Oh, so those decisions of what to show at different Zoom levels those are decisions made by you when you're creating the PMTiles file with Protomaps. [00:39:14] Brandon: Exactly. It's part of the base maps build pipeline. and those are honestly very subjective decisions. Who really decides when you're zoomed out should this hospital show up or should this museum show up nowadays in Google, I think it shows you ads. Like if someone pays for their car repair shop to show up when you're zoomed out like that that gets surfaced. But because there is no advertising auction in Protomaps that doesn't happen obviously. So we have to sort of make some reasonable choice. A lot of that right now in Protomaps actually comes from another open source project called Mapzen. So Mapzen was a company that went outta business a couple years ago. They did a lot of this work in designing which data shows up at which Zoom level and open sourced it. And then when they shut down, they transferred that code into the Linux Foundation. So it's this totally open source project, that like, again, sort of like Mapbox gl has this awesome legacy in that this company funded it for years for smart people to work on it and now it's just like a free thing you can use. So the logic in Protomaps is really based on mapzen. [00:40:33] Jeremy: And so the visualization of all this... I think I understand what you mean when people say oh, why not use OpenStreetMaps because it's not really clear it's hard to tell is this the tool that's visualizing the data? Is it the data itself? So in the case of using Protomaps, it sounds like Protomaps itself has all of the data from OpenStreetMap and then it has made all the decisions for you in terms of what to show at different Zoom levels and what things to have on the map at all. And then finally, you have to have a separate, UI layer and in this case, it sounds like the one that you recommend is the Map Libre library. [00:41:18] Brandon: Yeah, that's exactly right. For Protomaps, it has a portion or a subset of OSM data. It doesn't have all of it just because there's too much, like there's data in there. people have mapped out different bushes and I don't include that in Protomaps if you wanted to go in and edit like the Java code to add that you can. But really what Protomaps is positioned at is sort of a solution for developers that want to use OSM data to make a map on their app or their website. because OpenStreetMap itself is mostly a data set, it does not really go all the way to having an end-to-end solution. Financials and the idea of a project being complete [00:41:59] Jeremy: So I think it's great that somebody who wants to make a map, they have these tools available, whether it's from what was originally built by Mapbox, what's built by Open StreetMap now, the work you're doing with Protomaps. But I wonder one of the things that I talked about with Tom was he was saying he was trying to build this mapping business and based on the financials of what was coming in he was stressed, right? He was struggling a bit. And I wonder for you, you've been working on this open source project for five years. Do you have similar stressors or do you feel like I could keep going how things are now and I feel comfortable? [00:42:46] Brandon: So I wouldn't say I'm a hundred percent in one bucket or the other. I'm still seeing it play out. One thing, that I really respect in a lot of open source projects, which I'm not saying I'm gonna do for Protomaps is the idea that a project is like finished. I think that is amazing. If a software project can just be done it's sort of like a painting or a novel once you write, finish the last page, have it seen by the editor. I send it off to the press is you're done with a book. And I think one of the pains of software is so few of us can actually do that. And I don't know obviously people will say oh the map is never finished. That's more true of OSM, but I think like for Protomaps. One thing I'm thinking about is how to limit the scope to something that's quite narrow to where we could be feature complete on the core things in the near term timeframe. That means that it does not address a lot of things that people want. Like search, like if you go to Google Maps and you search for a restaurant, you will get some hits. that's like a geocoding issue. And I've already decided that's totally outta scope for Protomaps. So, in terms of trying to think about the future of this, I'm mostly looking for ways to cut scope if possible. There are some things like better tooling around being able to work with PMTiles that are on the roadmap. but for me, I am still enjoying working on the project. It's definitely growing. So I can see on NPM downloads I can see the growth curve of people using it and that's really cool. So I like hearing about when people are using it for cool projects. So it seems to still be going okay for now. [00:44:44] Jeremy: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective about how you were talking about projects being done. Because I think when people look at GitHub projects and they go like, oh, the last commit was X months ago. They go oh well this is dead right? But maybe that's the wrong framing. Maybe you can get a project to a point where it's like, oh, it's because it doesn't need to be updated. [00:45:07] Brandon: Exactly, yeah. Like I used to do a lot of c++ programming and the best part is when you see some LAPACK matrix math library from like 1995 that still works perfectly in c++ and you're like, this is awesome. This is the one I have to use. But if you're like trying to use some like React component library and it hasn't been updated in like a year, you're like, oh, that's a problem. So again, I think there's some middle ground between those that I'm trying to find. I do like for Protomaps, it's quite dependency light in terms of the number of hard dependencies I have in software. but I do still feel like there is a lot of work to be done in terms of project scope that needs to have stuff added. You mostly only hear about problems instead of people's wins [00:45:54] Jeremy: Having run it for this long. Do you have any thoughts on running an open source project in general? On dealing with issues or managing what to work on things like that? [00:46:07] Brandon: Yeah. So I have a lot. I think one thing people point out a lot is that especially because I don't have a direct relationship with a lot of the people using it a lot of times I don't even know that they're using it. Someone sent me a message saying hey, have you seen flickr.com, like the photo site? And I'm like, no. And I went to flickr.com/map and it has Protomaps for it. And I'm like, I had no idea. But that's cool, if they're able to use Protomaps for this giant photo sharing site that's awesome. But that also means I don't really hear about when people use it successfully because you just don't know, I guess they, NPM installed it and it works perfectly and you never hear about it. You only hear about people's negative experiences. You only hear about people that come and open GitHub issues saying this is totally broken, and why doesn't this thing exist? And I'm like, well, it's because there's an infinite amount of things that I want to do, but I have a finite amount of time and I just haven't gone into that yet. And that's honestly a lot of the things and people are like when is this thing gonna be done? So that's, that's honestly part of why I don't have a public roadmap because I want to avoid that sort of bickering about it. I would say that's one of my biggest frustrations with running an open source project is how it's self-selected to only hear the negative experiences with it. Be careful what PRs you accept [00:47:32] Brandon: 'cause you don't hear about those times where it works. I'd say another thing is it's changed my perspective on contributing to open source because I think when I was younger or before I had become a maintainer I would open a pull request on a project unprompted that has a hundred lines and I'd be like, Hey, just merge this thing. But I didn't realize when I was younger well if I just merge it and I disappear, then the maintainer is stuck with what I did forever. You know if I add some feature then that person that maintains the project has to do that indefinitely. And I think that's very asymmetrical and it's changed my perspective a lot on accepting open source contributions. I wanna have it be open to anyone to contribute. But there is some amount of back and forth where it's almost like the default answer for should I accept a PR is no by default because you're the one maintaining it. And do you understand the shape of that solution completely to where you're going to support it for years because the person that's contributing it is not bound to those same obligations that you are. And I think that's also one of the things where I have a lot of trepidation around open source is I used to think of it as a lot more bazaar-like in terms of anyone can just throw their thing in. But then that creates a lot of problems for the people who are expected out of social obligation to continue this thing indefinitely. [00:49:23] Jeremy: Yeah, I can totally see why that causes burnout with a lot of open source maintainers, because you probably to some extent maybe even feel some guilt right? You're like, well, somebody took the time to make this. But then like you said you have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out is this something I wanna maintain long term? And one wrong move and it's like, well, it's in here now. [00:49:53] Brandon: Exactly. To me, I think that is a very common failure mode for open source projects is they're too liberal in the things they accept. And that's a lot of why I was talking about how that choice of what features show up on the map was inherited from the MapZen projects. If I didn't have that then somebody could come in and say hey, you know, I want to show power lines on the map. And they open a PR for power lines and now everybody who's using Protomaps when they're like zoomed out they see power lines are like I didn't want that. So I think that's part of why a lot of open source projects eventually evolve into a plugin system is because there is this demand as the project grows for more and more features. But there is a limit in the maintainers. It's like the demand for features is exponential while the maintainer amount of time and effort is linear. Plugin systems might reduce need for PRs [00:50:56] Brandon: So maybe the solution to smash that exponential down to quadratic maybe is to add a plugin system. But I think that is one of the biggest tensions that only became obvious to me after working on this for a couple of years. [00:51:14] Jeremy: Is that something you're considering doing now? [00:51:18] Brandon: Is the plugin system? Yeah. I think for the data customization, I eventually wanted to have some sort of programmatic API to where you could declare a config file that says I want ski routes. It totally makes sense. The power lines example is maybe a little bit obscure but for example like a skiing app and you want to be able to show ski slopes when you're zoomed out well you're not gonna be able to get that from Mapbox or from Google because they have a one size fits all map that's not specialized to skiing or to golfing or to outdoors. But if you like, in theory, you could do this with Protomaps if you changed the Java code to show data at different zoom levels. And that is to me what makes the most sense for a plugin system and also makes the most product sense because it enables a lot of things you cannot do with the one size fits all map. [00:52:20] Jeremy: It might also increase the complexity of the implementation though, right? [00:52:25] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. So that's like. That's really where a lot of the terrifying thoughts come in, which is like once you create this like config file surface area, well what does that look like? Is that JSON? Is that TOML, is that some weird like everything eventually evolves into some scripting language right? Where you have logic inside of your templates and I honestly do not really know what that looks like right now. That feels like something in the medium term roadmap. [00:52:58] Jeremy: Yeah and then in terms of bug reports or issues, now it's not just your code it's this exponential combination of whatever people put into these config files. [00:53:09] Brandon: Exactly. Yeah. so again, like I really respect the projects that have done this well or that have done plugins well. I'm trying to think of some, I think obsidian has plugins, for example. And that seems to be one of the few solutions to try and satisfy the infinite desire for features with the limited amount of maintainer time. Time split between code vs triage vs talking to users [00:53:36] Jeremy: How would you say your time is split between working on the code versus issue and PR triage? [00:53:43] Brandon: Oh, it varies really. I think working on the code is like a minority of it. I think something that I actually enjoy is talking to people, talking to users, getting feedback on it. I go to quite a few conferences to talk to developers or people that are interested and figure out how to refine the message, how to make it clearer to people, like what this is for. And I would say maybe a plurality of my time is spent dealing with non-technical things that are neither code or GitHub issues. One thing I've been trying to do recently is talk to people that are not really in the mapping space. For example, people that work for newspapers like a lot of them are front end developers and if you ask them to run a Linux server they're like I have no idea. But that really is like one of the best target audiences for Protomaps. So I'd say a lot of the reality of running an open source project is a lot like a business is it has all the same challenges as a business in terms of you have to figure out what is the thing you're offering. You have to deal with people using it. You have to deal with feedback, you have to deal with managing emails and stuff. I don't think the payoff is anywhere near running a business or a startup that's backed by VC money is but it's definitely not the case that if you just want to code, you should start an open source project because I think a lot of the work for an opensource project has nothing to do with just writing the code. It is in my opinion as someone having done a VC backed business before, it is a lot more similar to running, a tech company than just putting some code on GitHub. Running a startup vs open source project [00:55:43] Jeremy: Well, since you've done both at a high level what did you like about running the company versus maintaining the open source project? [00:55:52] Brandon: So I have done some venture capital accelerator programs before and I think there is an element of hype and energy that you get from that that is self perpetuating. Your co-founder is gungho on like, yeah, we're gonna do this thing. And your investors are like, you guys are geniuses. You guys are gonna make a killing doing this thing. And the way it's framed is sort of obvious to everyone that it's like there's a much more traditional set of motivations behind that, that people understand while it's definitely not the case for running an open source project. Sometimes you just wake up and you're like what the hell is this thing for, it is this thing you spend a lot of time on. You don't even know who's using it. The people that use it and make a bunch of money off of it they know nothing about it. And you know, it's just like cool. And then you only hear from people that are complaining about it. And I think like that's honestly discouraging compared to the more clear energy and clearer motivation and vision behind how most people think about a company. But what I like about the open source project is just the lack of those constraints you know? Where you have a mandate that you need to have this many customers that are paying by this amount of time. There's that sort of pressure on delivering a business result instead of just making something that you're proud of that's simple to use and has like an elegant design. I think that's really a difference in motivation as well. Having control [00:57:50] Jeremy: Do you feel like you have more control? Like you mentioned how you've decided I'm not gonna make a public roadmap. I'm the sole developer. I get to decide what goes in. What doesn't. Do you feel like you have more control in your current position than you did running the startup? [00:58:10] Brandon: Definitely for sure. Like that agency is what I value the most. It is possible to go too far. Like, so I'm very wary of the BDFL title, which I think is how a lot of open source projects succeed. But I think there is some element of for a project to succeed there has to be somebody that makes those decisions. Sometimes those decisions will be wrong and then hopefully they can be rectified. But I think going back to what I was talking about with scope, I think the overall vision and the scope of the project is something that I am very opinionated about in that it should do these things. It shouldn't do these things. It should be easy to use for this audience. Is it gonna be appealing to this other audience? I don't know. And I think that is really one of the most important parts of that leadership role, is having the power to decide we're doing this, we're not doing this. I would hope other developers would be able to get on board if they're able to make good use of the project, if they use it for their company, if they use it for their business, if they just think the project is cool. So there are other contributors at this point and I want to get more involved. But I think being able to make those decisions to what I believe is going to be the best project is something that is very special about open source, that isn't necessarily true about running like a SaaS business. [00:59:50] Jeremy: I think that's a good spot to end it on, so if people want to learn more about Protomaps or they wanna see what you're up to, where should they head? [01:00:00] Brandon: So you can go to Protomaps.com, GitHub, or you can find me or Protomaps on bluesky or Mastodon. [01:00:09] Jeremy: All right, Brandon, thank you so much for chatting today. [01:00:12] Brandon: Great. Thank you very much.

Elliot Cohen, cofounder of PillPack, joins Julie Yoo, a16z Bio + Health general partner. Together, they discuss Elliot's experience designing and building a consumer-first pharmacy alongside TJ Parker.Elliot's journey with PillPack began when he noticed his father struggling with a mail-order pharmacy that couldn't get the simplest thing right: the correct version of a pill.Elliot shares the nitty-gritty of building a consumer-centric business in healthcare, including how they had to adapt CSV files and cake boxes to get their initial product off the ground, and how they balanced the needs of a healthcare system with the desires of their customers. Learn more about a16z Bio+HealthLearn more about & Subscribe to Raising HealthFind a16z Bio+Health on LinkedInFind a16z Bio+Health on X

Theodore Morley wonders why tech workers so frequently point our wanderlust toward hands-on trades, Eduardo Bouças explains why he's lost confidence in Vercel's handling of Next.js, "xan" is a command line tool that can be used to process CSV files directly from the shell, Pawel Brodzinski takes us back to Kanban's roots & Sergey Tselovalnikov weighs in on vibe coding.

Theodore Morley wonders why tech workers so frequently point our wanderlust toward hands-on trades, Eduardo Bouças explains why he's lost confidence in Vercel's handling of Next.js, "xan" is a command line tool that can be used to process CSV files directly from the shell, Pawel Brodzinski takes us back to Kanban's roots & Sergey Tselovalnikov weighs in on vibe coding.

Theodore Morley wonders why tech workers so frequently point our wanderlust toward hands-on trades, Eduardo Bouças explains why he's lost confidence in Vercel's handling of Next.js, "xan" is a command line tool that can be used to process CSV files directly from the shell, Pawel Brodzinski takes us back to Kanban's roots & Sergey Tselovalnikov weighs in on vibe coding.

https://www.pinterest.com/easymedicaldevice In this episode, Tibor Zechmeister will challenge us on what we would answer if the Notified Body asks if our software is validated. CSV or Computer System Validation will become one of the major topics So stay tuned.  Who is Tibor Zechmeister?  Passionate about Creating Maximum Efficiency in MedTech Regulatory | Head of Regulatory and Quality Flinn.ai | Notified Body Auditor | MedTech Entrepreneur | Software Solutions for Regulatory Automation with AI Who is Monir El Azzouzi?  Monir El Azzouzi is the founder and CEO of Easy Medical Device a Consulting firm that is supporting Medical Device manufacturers for any Quality and Regulatory affairs activities all over the world. Monir can help you to create your Quality Management System, Technical Documentation or he can also take care of your Clinical Evaluation, Clinical Investigation through his team or partners. Easy Medical Device can also become your Authorized Representative and Independent Importer Service provider for EU, UK and Switzerland.  Monir has around 16 years of experience within the Medical Device industry working for small businesses and also big corporate companies. He has now supported around 100 clients to remain compliant on the market. His passion to the Medical Device filed pushed him to create educative contents like, blog, podcast, YouTube videos, LinkedIn Lives where he invites guests who are sharing educative information to his audience. Visit easymedicaldevice.com to know more.  Link Tibor Zechmeister LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tibor-zechmeister/  Flinn.ai Website: https://www.flinn.ai/  ISO 13485:2016 https://www.iso.org/standard/59752.html  ISO/TR 80002-2:2017: https://www.iso.org/standard/60044.html  Social Media to follow Monir El Azzouzi Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/melazzouzi Twitter: https://twitter.com/elazzouzim Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/easymedicaldevice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/easymedicaldevice

What if the key to mortgage success was simply having the right conversations with the right people? In this episode of the Local Marketing Lab, Steve Kyles, partner at Mortgage Marketing Animals and host of the Loan Officer Leadership Podcast, reveals the data-driven approach that's transforming mortgage professionals' results. Steve breaks down exactly why most loan officers struggle despite working hard and shares the precise formula for consistent mortgage success in today's market.Topics discussed in this episode: 1️⃣ How to generate 8+ deals monthly through consistent outbound contact2️⃣ Identify truly qualified real estate agent partners3️⃣ Powerful scripts for asking for business that increase referral rates4️⃣ Three-step priority system for creating a sustainable work routine5️⃣ Using modern technology to boost conversion rates by 15%ResourcesConnect with Steve Kyles on LinkedIn.Learn more about Success Mortgage Partners.Listen to an episode of the Loan Officer Leadership Podcast.Check out Mortgage Marketing Animals.Other shout-outsCarl White — Partner at Mortgage Marketing AnimalsCovve — Export phone numbers from your phone as a CSV file

In this episode I share my exact framework for identifying profitable AI SaaS business opportunities by focusing on manual workflows that could be automated. We focus on export buttons and other manual processes in enterprise software as indicators of workflow breakdowns that AI could solve. The framework breaks down to solving niche problems, charging immediately for solutions, and focusing on quantifiable ROI.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro02:50 - The Export Button Theory of AI Opportunity04:03 - Step 1: Identifying Repetitive Pain Points08:31 - Step 2: Adding Intelligence to Manual Processes10:53 - Step 3: Identifying Data Silos that Need Bridging12:47 - Step 4: Finding Missing Connections Between Tools14:12 - Step 5: Start Small, Grow Naturally16:55 - Exploring Additional Manual Buttons for Startup Ideas19:03 - The QuickBooks Export Gold Mine20:43 - Your First 30 Days: Getting Started with Your AI SaaS Startup24:02 - Final Thoughts on AI Startup OpportunitiesKey Points:• The "Export Button Theory" - Every export button in software represents a business opportunity worth $10,000-30,000/month• Five-step framework for finding AI SaaS opportunities• Manual buttons in software (like "generate report," "schedule meeting," "upload CSV") represent AI automation opportunities1) The Export Button Theory of AI Opportunity Every time a user clicks "export" in software, they're signaling:• A workflow breakdown• Manual labor that could be automated• A potential $10-30K/month feature2) The 5-step framework for finding these opportunities:Step 1: Identify repetitive pain points Watch how people use enterprise software daily:• Exporting data to reformat it (Salesforce → Excel → PowerPoint)• Copying between tools (Jira → Slack)• Building the same reports weekly• Maintaining spreadsheets manually3) Step 2: Add intelligence to manual processes Every manual task is an LLM opportunity:• Turn Stripe exports into AI-powered revenue analysis ($50-100K MRR)• Convert CRM data into AI-formatted presentations ($80-120K MRR)• Generate sentiment trends from support tickets ($30-70K MRR)4) Step 3: Bridge data silos Look for phrases like:"I need to pull this data every week""I wish I could see this alongside that""We keep this in a separate spreadsheet"5) Step 4: Find missing connections between tools Watch for "I wish these two things worked together":• HR system + Payroll → AI opportunity: automatic sync with anomaly detection• CRM + Marketing automation → AI opportunity: bi-directional sync with AI prioritization6) Step 5: Start small, grow naturally The MOST successful AI SaaS businesses:• Pick a specific niche big players ignore• Focus on ONE painful workflow• Make it 10x better with AI• Let AI suggest next actions• Charge immediately (if solving real pain, people will pay day one) 7) Beyond the export button, look for these manual buttons in software:• "Generate Report" → AI opportunity: automatic insight generation ($2.5B market)• "Schedule Meeting" → AI opportunity: context-aware scheduling ($1.8B market)• "Upload CSV" → AI opportunity: intelligent data processing ($3.2B market)8) The QuickBooks goldmine • 250M financial reports exported annually• Each export = 45-90 mins of manual work• Value of time: $75-150 per export• Total addressable market: $12-18B annuallyThis is just ONE platform with massive opportunity!9)  Your first 30 days roadmap:Days 1-5: Select software with high export volume, research communitiesDays 6-10: Interview power users about export habitsDays 11-20: Build minimal prototype (using V0, Lovable, Bolt, etc.)Days 21-30: Get 3-5 PAYING beta usersNotable Quotes:"Every export button in software represents a business opportunity. When a user clicks export, what are they saying to us? They're basically saying this software doesn't do what I need to, so I'm taking my data elsewhere to do manual work.""The best AI opportunities aren't where everyone is looking. They're hiding in these mundane, repetitive tasks that knowledge workers are doing every single day."Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideasLCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.coFIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

Neetu Rajpal, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Lilac Software, brings data and analytics tools to healthcare payers with a specific focus on addressing health disparities and improving benefits for Medicare Advantage members. The Medicare Advantage Star Rating program is a key incentive for health plans to be more innovative about data analysis to improve quality measures and receive financial incentives. Timely, reliable information in an accessible format and better data analytics improve decision-making, patient outcomes, and engagement with providers and patients. Neetu explains, "Health plans tend to have lots of data. They have lots of valuable tools, but those tools have data that is locked inside those tools themselves. So if you're, for example, part of an actuarial team, you may actually be getting PDFs, you may be getting spreadsheets, you may be getting access directly to a CSV file. You may get all these things on a one-off basis, and you have to make sense of all this data. The burden of cleaning and making use of this data falls on you." "This is exactly where lots of energy is lost, lots of labor costs are lost, and lots of efficiency is lost. So with Lilac, we're trying to make sure that all of this stuff of banal value is just available behind the scenes. This is exactly what tech is supposed to be doing for you. Help you operate at the top of your license. If you're an actuary, do actuarial things and let tech make sure that the data you need to do your work is available to you when you need it, and you can just rely on and trust it." "Yes, unfortunately, there is still a lot of paper in the process. Some of the paper is regulatorily required. So if you're a payer, you're required to send any of your members a directory of providers that are available. If they ask for it in paper, you are required to send them ID cards that can be paper. We all know about the fax machines and all of those things on paper." #LilacSoftware #DataAnalytics #HealthAI #AI #MedicareAdvantage #MedicareStarRating #HealthPlan #HealthcarePayers #HealthcareInsurance lilacsoftware.com Download the transcript here

Neetu Rajpal, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Lilac Software, brings data and analytics tools to healthcare payers with a specific focus on addressing health disparities and improving benefits for Medicare Advantage members. The Medicare Advantage Star Rating program is a key incentive for health plans to be more innovative about data analysis to improve quality measures and receive financial incentives. Timely, reliable information in an accessible format and better data analytics improve decision-making, patient outcomes, and engagement with providers and patients. Neetu explains, "Health plans tend to have lots of data. They have lots of valuable tools, but those tools have data that is locked inside those tools themselves. So if you're, for example, part of an actuarial team, you may actually be getting PDFs, you may be getting spreadsheets, you may be getting access directly to a CSV file. You may get all these things on a one-off basis, and you have to make sense of all this data. The burden of cleaning and making use of this data falls on you." "This is exactly where lots of energy is lost, lots of labor costs are lost, and lots of efficiency is lost. So with Lilac, we're trying to make sure that all of this stuff of banal value is just available behind the scenes. This is exactly what tech is supposed to be doing for you. Help you operate at the top of your license. If you're an actuary, do actuarial things and let tech make sure that the data you need to do your work is available to you when you need it, and you can just rely on and trust it." "Yes, unfortunately, there is still a lot of paper in the process. Some of the paper is regulatorily required. So if you're a payer, you're required to send any of your members a directory of providers that are available. If they ask for it in paper, you are required to send them ID cards that can be paper. We all know about the fax machines and all of those things on paper." #LilacSoftware #DataAnalytics #HealthAI #AI #MedicareAdvantage #MedicareStarRating #HealthPlan #HealthcarePayers #HealthcareInsurance lilacsoftware.com Listen to the podcast here

Thanks to the 5,975 people who took the 2025 Astral Codex Ten survey. See the questions for the ACX survey See the results from the ACX Survey (click “see previous responses” on that page1) I'll be publishing more complicated analyses over the course of the next year, hopefully starting later this month. If you want to scoop me, or investigate the data yourself, you can download the answers of the 5500 people who agreed to have their responses shared publicly. Out of concern for anonymity, the public dataset will exclude or bin certain questions2. If you want more complete information, email me and explain why, and I'll probably send it to you. You can download the public data here as an Excel or CSV file: http://slatestarcodex.com/Stuff/ACXPublic2025.xlsx http://slatestarcodex.com/Stuff/ACXPublic2025.csv Here are some of the answers I found most interesting: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/acx-survey-results-2025  

In this episode of Research Like a Pro, Nicole and Diana discuss using AI to analyze tax records. Tax research involves a lot of data, and once you've extracted the data, analyzing it can be a challenge. Diana explains how she exported data from Airtable into a CSV file, and Nicole explains how she used Claude AI to create a table from the data. Diana provides an example of how she used the AI analysis to gain new insights into Jefferson Weatherford, an early settler in Dallas County.  Diana shares a case study of Henderson Weatherford, demonstrating how the tax records revealed his connection to Samuel H. Beeman and Henderson's death or move by 1865. Nicole shares technical tips for refining a narrative using AI and incorporating the data into a research report. Diana discusses the benefits and limitations of using AI for tax record analysis, emphasizing how it enhanced her analysis and saved writing time while also providing new insights. This summary was generated by Google Gemini. Links Using AI to Analyze Tax Data in a Research Log - https://familylocket.com/using-ai-to-analyze-tax-data-in-a-research-log/  Claude AI - https://claude.ai/new  Sponsor – Newspapers.com For listeners of this podcast, Newspapers.com is offering new subscribers 20% off a Publisher Extra subscription so you can start exploring today. Just use the code “FamilyLocket” at checkout.  Research Like a Pro Resources Airtable Universe - Nicole's Airtable Templates - https://www.airtable.com/universe/creator/usrsBSDhwHyLNnP4O/nicole-dyer  Airtable Research Logs Quick Reference - by Nicole Dyer - https://familylocket.com/product-tag/airtable/ Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist's Guide book by Diana Elder with Nicole Dyer on Amazon.com - https://amzn.to/2x0ku3d 14-Day Research Like a Pro Challenge Workbook - digital - https://familylocket.com/product/14-day-research-like-a-pro-challenge-workbook-digital-only/ and spiral bound - https://familylocket.com/product/14-day-research-like-a-pro-challenge-workbook-spiral-bound/  Research Like a Pro Webinar Series 2024 - monthly case study webinars including documentary evidence and many with DNA evidence - https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-webinar-series-2024/  Research Like a Pro eCourse - independent study course -  https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-e-course/ RLP Study Group - upcoming group and email notification list - https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-study-group/ Research Like a Pro with DNA Resources Research Like a Pro with DNA: A Genealogist's Guide to Finding and Confirming Ancestors with DNA Evidence book by Diana Elder, Nicole Dyer, and Robin Wirthlin - https://amzn.to/3gn0hKx Research Like a Pro with DNA eCourse - independent study course -  https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-ecourse/ RLP with DNA Study Group - upcoming group and email notification list - https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-study-group/ Thank you Thanks for listening! We hope that you will share your thoughts about our podcast and help us out by doing the following: Write a review on iTunes or Apple Podcasts. If you leave a review, we will read it on the podcast and answer any questions that you bring up in your review. Thank you! Leave a comment in the comment or question in the comment section below. Share the episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. Subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. Sign up for our newsletter to receive notifications of new episodes - https://familylocket.com/sign-up/ Check out this list of genealogy podcasts from Feedspot: Best Genealogy Podcasts - https://blog.feedspot.com/genealogy_podcasts/

In today's podcast, we have two experts who will be speaking about DLA Internet Bid Board System (DIBBS), Mike and his wife Vanessa. Mike is a pilot who did 700,000 in sales in August and over 5 million in sales for the year shares his experience.  We also have a Q&A session to guide you look at sources sought on Sam.gov. Noy only that, in this episode, I share how you can navigate Sam.gov and download relevant information into a CSV file. So tune in to this episode now to learn more!