Podcasts about Microsoft Office

DescriptionIn this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike go point-counterpoint on two high-profile articles making waves across Wall Street and Silicon Valley: Citrini's provocative February 2025 report, The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis, and Citadel's rebuttal, The 2026 Global Intelligence Crisis.Dave and Ray unpack whether AI is truly triggering an unprecedented economic collapse or whether Citrini's dark simulation is, as one economist put it, just "a scary bedtime story." They dig into the SaaS private credit contagion theory, the historic parallels of labor displacement, the role of government regulation, and why this particular AI scare hits closer to home than any previous tech disruption. As always, the brothers bring the receipts, including nearly 20 sources and 20 hours of research - so you don't have to.Full Episode Summary:Dave Kellogg and Ray Rike open by framing the episode as a tale of two AI futures: Citrini's alarming speculative simulation versus Citadel's data-driven rebuttal.The Citrini Case (Bear Case): Published February 22nd, Citrini's report simulates a scenario in which rapid AI agent adoption triggers a global intelligence crisis by mid-2028 featuring 10.2% unemployment and a 38% drop in the S&P 500. The report argues AI is categorically different from prior technology waves because it displaces cognitive workers, who represent roughly 75% of U.S. labor income.Citrini further warns that SaaS, already accounting for 23% - 25% of the $3 trillion U.S. private credit market could become the chip in the windshield that cracks the broader financial system, with ripple effects into insurance and the broader economy. Dave and Ray note that Citrini's word choices ran 3.4-to-1 negative, and flag that the firm may hold short positions — characterizing the piece as well-crafted "bear porn."The Citadel Rebuttal (Bull Case): Two days later, Citadel, a $65B AUM asset manager with 35 years of credibility responded with a data-driven defense. Software engineering jobs are up since January 2024, AI CapEx is 2% of GDP and AI-adjacent commodity pricing is up 65%. Citadel argues AI follows historical S-curve adoption patterns, that "recursive capability doesn't equal recursive adoption," and that technology has always complemented rather than replaced labor - pointing to Microsoft Office as a historical analogue.Dave and Ray's Take: Both hosts find Citadel more credible, but acknowledge real displacement risks ahead. Their key insight: the reason this particular AI scare is generating 10x more fear than past labor disruptions (auto workers, telephone operators, elevator operators) is that this time it's us — white-collar knowledge workers facing displacement. Ray adds that blue-collar jobs (truck drivers, Uber drivers, warehouse workers) face equal or greater long-term risk from AI plus robotics, but those disruptions don't generate the same visceral fear in the media and investor class. Both agree the timing of adoption is the biggest unknown. Long-term, history favors the Citadel view. Short-term, the transition could be painful.On Government Response: Dave and Ray agree that political and regulatory intervention is inevitable if unemployment spikes materially, whether through labor protections, AI regulation, or fiscal stimulus.On Economists' Reactions: Real economists, including Noah Smith (Noahpinion) and Wharton's Jeremy Siegel, largely dismissed the Citrini piece, wi Siegel arguing that productivity gains generate new income and demand, Smith calling it a "scary bedtime story." Dave's takeaway for operators: let the Metrics Brothers do the 20 hours of reading so you don't have to.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

New Book: Climate Capital — Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future | An Interview with Tom Chi | An Analog Brain In A Digital Age With Marco Ciappelli What if the economy isn't broken — just badly designed? Tom Chi, Google X founding member, inventor of 77 patents, and venture capitalist at At One Ventures, joined me on An Analog Brain In A Digital Age to discuss his new book Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future. From the streets of Florence to the strip malls of Silicon Valley, from the mechanics of attention capture to the physics of ecological economics, this conversation goes far beyond climate. It's about how we design the systems we live inside — and whether we have the will to redesign them before it's too late.

In this week's episode, we take a look at hysteria over AI, and compare it to past religious movements like William Miller's Great Disappointment. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Half-Elven Thief, Book #1 in the Half-Elven Thief series, (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store: RIVAH50 The coupon code is valid through March 2, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 291 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 28th, 2026, and today we're looking at AI hysteria and whether or not AI gives any actual benefits to people. We also have Coupon of the Week, progress updates on my current writing projects, and also Question the Week, where we talk to people about AI. But first, let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Half-Elven Thief (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is RIVAH50. This coupon code will be valid through March 2, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook as we exit winter and come into spring, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing and publishing and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report that the rough draft of Cloak of Summoning is done. It turned out to be just about as long as Cloak of Worlds, maybe a thousand words shorter. I am about 20% through the first round of editing, and I am hopeful that that book will be out sometime in March, probably the first week of March if all go as well. I've also written a short story called Dragon Claw that newsletter subscribers will get for free in ebook format when Cloak of Summoning comes out, which as I said will hopefully be in early March. I'm also 11,000 words into Blade of Wraiths, the fourth book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, and that will be my main project once Cloak of Summoning is published. In audiobook news, the audiobook of Blade of Shadows (as narrated by Brad Wills) is now out at almost all the stores, so you can get it at Audible, Apple, Google Play, Kobo, and the other main stores. Cloak of Titans (as narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is done and is currently rolling out to the stores. I think as of right now, you can get it at Google Play, Kobo, and my own Payhip store, but it should be showing up on Audible and the other main stores before too much longer. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:01:56 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. For the first Question of the Week of 2026 and this week's question: have you personally derived any benefits or experienced any negatives from the rise of generative AI? And this question was inspired by the topic of this week's post, obviously enough since we're talking about AI. I should note that this is a contentious topic with divergent opinions, and so I asked people to remain civil in the comments and they definitely were, so thank you for everyone for that. Now let's have some opinions on AI before I tell you how AI has positively and mostly negatively affected my life. Joachim says: I have not used AI for private purposes. My Con: My Chromebook might be obsolete rather sooner than later. In my company, we use an AI, which is helpful. It has all the knowledge articles, so you can ask, how do I do this or that? The company's Con: laptop prices are going up. Eddie says: My Cons are much the same as yours. My Pros are using it to create images for tabletop games to help players visualize monsters and NPCs. I have found it effective in turning voice to text meeting notes into meeting minutes and actions. Jesse says: Software engineer here. I have found it helpful when I'm working on something in a language I'm not as familiar with the syntax. As a "how I might do this" learning tool, it's not bad. As a "do this for me/vibe code" thing, no thanks…too much trust. John says: Yes and no. I was in an AI startup that stopped paying me and my team for two months then let us go. We're currently suing them for back pay, but the tech worked and is still working. I also work in ad tech. Devs are trying to get more productive using AI tools. It's hit and miss as far as I can tell, but using traditional machine learning and data science to optimize marketing has worked for decades and still works, but that's not what people consider to be AI nowadays. Also drove across the country last August and used ChatGPT to plan my trip, and that works splendidly. I think John might win here for largest negative in his comment though, to be fair, that's more for business reasons than for AI itself, though I, for his sake, I'm pleased he was able to use ChatGPT to plan his drive across the country and ChatGPT didn't send him driving off a cliff someplace. Jenny says: I'm so over everyone trying to push this "solution" on me. It's like protein enhanced foods. Stop trying to put protein and AI into everything. Just put it where it makes sense or let me choose it. My negative experiences far outweigh anything helpful. Jimmy says: I have quit using Google search. It never tried to find the answer that I asked for. It just returned what it felt like. Its answers usually matched the paid ads it led the list with. Rob says: Okay for meeting notes and rough drafting for job applications, et cetera. Other than that, seems to have limited use for me personally and is a nuisance on my phone, internet browser, et cetera. And finally, Randy says: my biggest Con is that the AI answers that pop up when I'm trying to search range between inaccurate and dangerously wrong. I suspect many people don't realize they aren't reading actual data when they see them. So thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts on that. For myself, I've mostly experienced negative things with AI and a few positive things though to be honest, both the positive and negative things were relatively minor in the greater scheme of things. So I shall list off the Pros and Cons of my experiences with generative AI. I should mention that none of my books, short stories, for sale audiobooks, or book covers contain any AI elements. If it says Jonathan Moeller on the cover and it's not on YouTube, then it is 100% human made. Now, the Pros and Cons. The Pros: Power Director 365, the video editing program I use for YouTube, has an "animated by AI" feature so I've used it to animate some of my book covers for use of Facebook ads with middling results at best. I used Google's Voice AI stuff to create AI voice versions of the Silent Order books and then put them on YouTube because I wanted to understand the technology. I'm not planning to ever do actual audiobook versions of Silent Order since they wouldn't make back any money, so I wasn't screwing a narrator out of work and the voices involved were licensed by Google, so there was no copyright infringement the way there is with companies like Anthropic. That said, I suspect this is less generative AI and simply a more advanced text to speech technology, which has been around forever. I mean, you could do text to speech back on the earliest versions of the Macintosh. I mean, ideally, I would like text to speech to just be a button in your ereader app of choice for accessibility reasons, and then you can purchase the audiobook if the text to speech was too bland. Overall, a lot of people listen to the AI versions on YouTube, but the listeners mostly complained about the synthetic voice and would've preferred a real narrator, unsurprisingly. Now onto the Cons. Facebook ads went from very effective to middling at best on a good day, thanks to their Advantage Plus AI. I am constantly bombarded by AI generated scam emails of several different varieties. I deleted twelve before I recorded this. The price of Microsoft Office went up, the price for RAM and GPUs went up due to data center hoarding them all. The price for electricity has gone up. Windows 11 and Microsoft Office's performance has gone down quite a bit due to forced AI integration. In fact, I got so annoyed at Windows 11, I switched to writing on a Mac Mini, which I suppose was a positive because I like the Mac Mini, but still. Google Search and all Google products in general are much less useful because of AI and the quality of information on the internet (already low) has gone down quite a bit due to the prevalence of AI slop. Admittedly, neither these Pros or Cons are majorly serious to me personally (with the possible exception of electricity prices going up), but the Cons definitely outweigh the Pros. I can confidently say I have derived no real benefit from generative AI, and I suspect a lot of other people could say the same, if they're honest. 00:07:27 Main Topic of the Week: William Miller, The Great Disappointment, and AI Now onto our related main topic this week, AI hysteria, William Miller, and The Great Disappointment. This past week there were numerous articles from and interviews with various AI bros saying that within 12 to 18 months, AI will replace white collar work and humanity must simply adjust. When I read these articles, I wasn't reminded of the Singularity, of AI, of Skynet and the Terminator, or anything technological. Instead, I thought of a preacher named William Miller who died about 190 years ago. William Miller came out of the Second Great Awakening, which was one of the waves of religious vitality and furor that grip America every so often. Miller almost died in combat as an officer in the War of 1812, and saw one of his men killed in front of him, which understandably left a lasting impression. His experiences led him to an examination of mortality that resulted in a fervent Baptist conversion. He also became convinced that he could calculate the date of Christ's return from the Bible and decided that Jesus Christ would return on October 22nd, 1844. By then, he had a substantial following, and on the day his followers gathered in their churches to await the End of Days and the judging of the living and the dead, many of them having already given away their possessions, but nothing happened. Miller's movement collapsed and most of his followers abandoned their beliefs, though some splinter groups eventually involved into the Adventist branch of American Protestantism, of which the Seventh Day Adventists are the most prominent. Nowadays, when Miller is discussed online, the usual tone is to laugh at the religious rubes from the benighted past, so unlike us enlightened and savvy moderns. But I think the truth is that Miller succumbed to a universal human impulse. Every generation thinks that it is going to be the last generation or the generation that will see the culmination of history, whether they're viewing that through a religious lens or a secular lens. For example, when I was in my early twenties, I knew a very religious woman my own age, who was convinced that the world had become so wicked that it would end by the time she was 30. A few years later, I met another woman who thought global warming would ensure the collapse of the ecosystem and the end of the food chain by the time we were 30. However, I have not been 30 for a rather long span of time now, and for better or for worse, the world grinds on. Nor is this an impulse limited to my own generation. People who came of age during the Cold War thought the world would end in nuclear fire during their lifetimes and a little after that from global cooling. Lesser examples could be seen in the Y2K scare in 2000. Throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period, it was common for peasant revolts to be led by charismatic preachers who predicted that soon all thrones would be overthrown and Christ would return to judge the living and the dead. Because of all these examples, I'm certain there is a universal human impulse to believe that the world will end in our lifetimes. I think this comes partly from a combination of fear and hope, fear of the future and the end of the world and hope that one's life will be lifted out of the mundane in the final fulfillment of history. You don't have to get up and go to school or work tomorrow if the world ends, but the truth is that the world is most likely not going to end, and you and I are probably going to have to get up and go to work tomorrow. I think the hyperbole about AI comes from that same sort of apocalyptic impulse, this idea that one is living to see and participating in the apotheosis of history when what one is in fact doing is using a money losing chatbot that frequently gets things wrong. To be clear, AI isn't going to wipe out white collar work, and it isn't going to cause the collapse of society, though like cryptocurrency, it will cause a lot of harm without very much benefit. AI simply isn't good enough and doesn't do what does boosters say that it can do. There are numerous people who, in my opinion, are accurately explaining and pointing out the many flaws in AI and in the economic bubble it has created, just as there were people who predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, the dot-com bubble, the housing bubble, the criminal activities of FTX and the flaws of cryptocurrency, and were frequently derided as cranks until subsequent events prove them right. So why all the hyperbole around AI? I think part of it is the end of days impulse we discussed above. The rest of it, I'm afraid, is simple crass desire for money and power. Why are all these tech companies burning unfathomable sums of money on AI when it's obvious, painfully obvious, that the bubble is heading for a crash? After the dot-com crash of the early 2000s, the Internet companies that survived eventually evolved into the tech titans of our day (Amazon and Google come to mind). All these different AI companies and boosters are hoping that their company is the one that survives and becomes the next titan conglomerate of the 2030s. Admittedly, I think this is unlikely. I think that while the most probable outcome for the current model of AI, LLMs, and generative AI is that it ends up like cryptocurrency. For a while, crypto advocates thought that it would overthrow central banking and lead to unprecedented freedom and prosperity. However, while there are many valid criticisms to be made of central banking and fiat currency, one of their advantages is that that they do a good job of shutting down the kind of scams that crypto easily facilitates. For all the glowing promises of its boosters, the primary use case for cryptocurrency has been to cause economic disruptions and to facilitate crimes and scams. I suspect AI will probably degenerate down to a similar state once the bubble pops. The technology won't go away, but it can't do all the miraculous things its backers promise. The money is going to run out eventually and it will inflict a lot of economic damage on its way out. And like crypto, AI will mostly have negative uses. Likely its most common use cases will be to help students cheat on exams, make stupid political memes where someone's least favorite politician (whoever that is) is shaking hands with Emperor Palpatine or Thanos or whoever, engage in mass copyright infringement, and to scam seniors out of their savings. So if you are disturbed by the rhetoric around AI, take heart. When you read an article from someone announcing the glories of AI and discussing how all of civilization will have to rework itself around AI, remember that the person in question is most likely seeking money or power, or are like William Miller's followers the day before October 22nd, 1844. 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 back 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 we'll see you all next week.  

In this episode of Tank Talks, Matt Cohen and John Ruffolo rip through a stacked rundown of tech, venture capital, and geopolitical “sovereignty” theater. They open with Europe's accelerating shift away from Microsoft Office and big U.S. platforms toward open-source alternatives, then jump straight into a breaking change from Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan: Canada is back on the list of accepted incorporations, reversing a move that sparked serious backlash about Canadian startup brain drain and U.S.-domicile pressure.From there, they dissect Elon Musk's headline-grabbing SpaceX–xAI all-stock merger and why it looks way better for xAI holders than SpaceX shareholders ahead of a rumored SpaceX IPO window. The episode also digs into Canada's national AI consultation (and the government openly using multiple LLM providers like Cohere and OpenAI to process submissions), the EU's push for digital sovereignty (and the risks of swapping to “free” tools), and the brutal reality of AI-driven search gutting legacy media traffic, with the Washington Post laying off a third of its newsroom. The big throughline: information is cheap now, execution and trust are expensive, and countries (and companies) that don't adapt are about to get cooked.Y Combinator Reverses Course: Canada Back on the List (00:43)YC CEO Garry Tan adds Canada back to YC's list of accepted incorporation jurisdictions after removing it, triggering a wave of criticism. Matt and John break down what changed, why the original rationale (Canadian winners re-domiciling to the U.S.) was a flawed signal, and why the real issue is still Canadian capital formation and follow-on funding strength.SpaceX Buys xAI: A $1.25T Story Swap Before an IPO? (02:34)Matt tees up the shocker: SpaceX acquires xAI in an all-stock deal valuing xAI at $250B and SpaceX at $1T, creating a combined $1.25T entity. They discuss xAI's massive burn versus SpaceX's improving cash profile (driven by Starlink) and why this kind of move raises eyebrows heading into an IPO narrative.Second-Order Effects: When a Cash-Burning AI Company Merges Into Space Infrastructure (07:35)They debate whether this becomes a template for other pre-IPO restructures or stays a one-off “Elon special.” John says a Starlink-style consolidation would make strategic sense; folding in xAI doesn't feel like a choke-point win.Canada's AI Strategy Consultation: Government Using LLMs in the Workflow (09:10)Canada's ISED publishes a high-level summary of its AI consultation and explicitly notes using multiple LLMs and pipelines (including Cohere and OpenAI) to process massive public input. Matt frames this as a meaningful “government actually doing something” moment, even if the public is still anxious about jobs and privacy.Europe's Digital Sovereignty Push: Dropping Teams/Zoom for Open Source? (12:40)They react to reports of governments moving away from Teams/Zoom and Microsoft tooling in the name of sovereignty. Matt calls the open-source swap risky from a security and operational standpoint; John says the bigger signal is global: sovereignty is now a first-order priority, and Canada can't pretend this wave isn't coming.Washington Post Layoffs: AI Search Is Eating the Referral Economy (16:48)Matt highlights the Washington Post's reported search traffic collapse and layoffs impacting a third of the newsroom. John calls journalism an obvious early disruption target: LLMs compress content production costs, and the old newsroom pyramid doesn't match the new economics.The Survival Play: Media Becomes a Live Events Business (19:26)They land on the counter-move: stop fighting the trend and monetize what still works: brand, access, community, and in-person experiences. If content becomes commoditized, relationships and trust become the product.Connect with John Ruffolo on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/joruffoloConnect with Matt Cohen on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/matt-cohen1Visit the Ripple Ventures website: https://www.rippleventures.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

Ian and Kat are back and talking things they think they are better at than they actually are...both skiing and the Microsoft Office Suite. From concatenating cells in Excel to creating works of art in PowerPoint, we delve into the products that every single person in the corporate world uses every day and where are our gaps are. Ian gives tricks to help fake it until you make it in Excel, Kat may be the world's foremost Word user (at least in her own mind), and they both then brag about flex their PowerPoint and OneNote skills. We then talk about how AI is being integrated into everyday tools, AND even talk about how Microsoft Teams runs on Cisco's collaboration endpoints (have to keep the bosses happy with the product pitch)! Also, you should just use Webex. It's the best. And secure. If you want to learn more about Webex, check it out here: www.webex.com

Russian-state hackers, identified as APT28, exploited a Microsoft Office vulnerability, CVE-2026-21509, within 48 hours of a security update, compromising devices in diplomatic, maritime, and transport organizations across several countries. The attack used encrypted exploits and payloads executed in memory to evade detection. The campaign began on January 28, targeting organizations in nine countries, including Poland, Slovenia, and Ukraine, affecting defense ministries, transportation operators, and diplomatic entities.Learn more on this news by visiting us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Got a question or comment? Message us here!This week's #SOCBrief covers a dangerous double-hit: a Microsoft Office security bypass and a Fortinet FortiCloud authentication flaw, both exploited in the wild. Andrew walks through what the CVEs mean, how attackers are abusing trusted tools, and the patching and hunting steps SOC teams should take immediately.Support the showWatch full episodes at youtube.com/@aliascybersecurity.Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere you get your podcasts.

OpenClaw targets ClawHub users Notepad++ update delivers malware APT28 attackers abuse Microsoft Office zero-day Get the show notes here: https://cisoseries.com/cybersecurity-news-openclaw-targets-clawhub-users-notepad-update-delivers-malware-apt28-attackers-abuse-microsoft-office-zero-day/ Huge thanks to our sponsor, Strike48 It's no secret that AI is only as good as the data available to it. Strike48 unifies agentic AI with unmatched log visibility while avoiding the typical hefty price tag. Build and deploy agents for phishing detection, alert triage, threat correlation and more. Queries existing logs where they currently live, so you can keep the technology you already have. Learn more at Strike48.com.  

Vallást alapítottak az AI-ügynökök – közeleg a világvége? Felfedjük a titkokat: az androidos telefonja tele van rejtett műszerekkel, amiket használhat is Új korszak előtt áll a Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum Egy nap alatt 27 kitörést produkált a Nap Házkutatást tartottak Elon Musk párizsi irodáiban az X-botrány miatt Lélektani határ felett a Raspberry Pi 5 ára Megvan a Xiaomi 17 és 17 Ultra európai ára Ellátásilánc-támadás érte a Notepad++ frissítési infrastruktúráját Az EU-ban is komolyan gondokat okoznak az álhírek Elon Musk végrehajtotta a valaha volt legnagyobb vállalati egyesülést Az orosz hekkerek ismét célba vették a Microsoft Office-t A további adásainkat keresd a podcast.hirstart.hu oldalunkon. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Vallást alapítottak az AI-ügynökök – közeleg a világvége? Felfedjük a titkokat: az androidos telefonja tele van rejtett műszerekkel, amiket használhat is Új korszak előtt áll a Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum Egy nap alatt 27 kitörést produkált a Nap Házkutatást tartottak Elon Musk párizsi irodáiban az X-botrány miatt Lélektani határ felett a Raspberry Pi 5 ára Megvan a Xiaomi 17 és 17 Ultra európai ára Ellátásilánc-támadás érte a Notepad++ frissítési infrastruktúráját Az EU-ban is komolyan gondokat okoznak az álhírek Elon Musk végrehajtotta a valaha volt legnagyobb vállalati egyesülést Az orosz hekkerek ismét célba vették a Microsoft Office-t A további adásainkat keresd a podcast.hirstart.hu oldalunkon. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Poland says weak security left parts of its power grid exposed. A Russian-linked hacker alliance threatens Denmark with a promised cyber offensive. Fancy Bear moves fast on a new Microsoft Office flaw, hitting Ukrainian and EU targets. Researchers find a sprawling supply chain attack buried in the ClawdBot AI ecosystem. A new report looks at how threats are shaping the work of journalists and security researchers. A stealthy Windows malware campaign blends Pulsar RAT with Stealerv37. A former Google engineer is convicted of stealing AI trade secrets for China. The latest cybersecurity funding and deal news. On our Afternoon Cyber Tea segment, Microsoft's Ann Johnson chats with Dr. Lorrie Cranor from Carnegie Mellon about security design. The AI dinosaur that knew too much.  Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. Afternoon Cyber Tea Dr. Lorrie Cranor⁠, Director of the CyLab Security and Privacy Institute at Carnegie Mellon University joins Ann Johnson, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft, on this month's segment of Afternoon Cyber Tea to discuss the critical gap between security design and real-world usability. They explore why security tools often fail users, the ongoing challenges with passwords and password less authentication, and how privacy expectations have evolved in an era of constant data collection. You can listen to Ann and Lorrie's full conversation here, and catch new episodes Afternoon Cyber Tea every other Tuesday on your favorite podcast app. Selected Reading Russian hackers breached Polish power grid thanks to bad security, report says (TechCrunch) Newly Established Russian Hacker Alliance Threatens Denmark (Truesec) Fancy Bear Exploits Microsoft Office Flaw in Ukraine, EU Cyber-Attacks (Infosecurity Magazine) Notepad++ Hijacked by State-Sponsored Hackers (Notepad++) ClawdBot Skills Just Ganked Your Crypto (OpenSource Malware Blog) Under Pressure: Exploring the effect of legal and criminal threats on security researchers and journalists (DataBreaches.Net) Windows Malware Uses Pulsar RAT for Live Chats While Stealing Data (Hackread) U.S. convicts ex-Google engineer for sending AI tech data to China (Bleeping Computer) Upwind secures $250 million in a Series B round. (N2K Pro Business Briefing)  Don't Buy Internet-Connected Toys For Your Kids (Blackout VPN) Share your feedback. What do you think about CyberWire Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? N2K CyberWire helps you reach the industry's most influential leaders and operators, while building visibility, authority, and connectivity across the cybersecurity community. Learn more at sponsor.thecyberwire.com. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Údajné sledování telefonů britských politických elit, aktivně zneužívané zranitelnosti ve WinRARu a Microsoft Office, kritické chyby v platformě n8n a alarmující stav kybernetické bezpečnosti českých nemocnic v kontextu NIS2.

Panel Discussion with Matt Eshleman, Steve Longenecker, Jennifer Huftalen, and Carolyn WoodardOur experts answered your questions about where nonprofit tech is going next.In part 1, Community IT senior staff discuss nonprofits and AI, and updated cybersecurity trends to be aware of. In part 2, they discuss updates to Microsoft and Google Workspace, and take audience Q&A. AI, Cybersecurity, Google Workspace v Microsoft Office, Gemini v Copilot or ChatGPT or another generative AI tool, AI agents, AI FOMO, data data data, safety and security of your staff, budgeting for and maintaining basic IT, not to mention fancy IT … anything else you want to know about?We don't have a crystal ball but we do know our way around nonprofit IT.We'll look back at the trends of 2025 and what we got right last January, and we'll look ahead to make predictions for 2026.The nonprofit tech roundtable is always one of our most popular webinars every year. As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Community IT is proudly vendor-agnostic, and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community. _______________________________Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn Thanks for listening.

Microsoft just dropped an emergency patch for an Office zero-day being exploited in the wild. A WordPress plugin has a CVSS 10.0 vulnerability — that's the golden goose of hacking. 900,000 Chrome users had their ChatGPT conversations stolen by malicious extensions with Google's Featured badge. And two cybersecurity professionals pleaded guilty to moonlighting as ransomware affiliates. Welcome to 2026. It's gonna be a fun year. In this episode: CVE-2026-21509: Microsoft Office zero-day (security feature bypass) CVE-2026-23550: WordPress Modular DS critical vulnerability Prompt Poaching: Chrome extensions stealing AI conversations Brightspeed breach: Crimson Collective claims 1M+ records Insider threat: Security pros turned BlackCat/ALPHV affiliates Key takeaway: Update your stuff. A patch does you no good if it isn't installed. Subscribe for weekly cybersecurity news, vulnerability breakdowns, and threat intelligence.   https://forgeboundresearch.com/podcasts/

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Quinn Dunki, and Earl Evans Topic: 1988 In 1988, NeXT introduced its cube, bundled with Mathematica 1.0. IRC was developed. Sound Blaster changed gaming. Microsoft Office was announced. Lots of software was developed, and hardware incrementally improved. Topic/Feedback links: NeXT cube Laser 128EX/2 Mathematica Celebrating 35 Years of Mathematica (YouTube, first few sections show it in action on an SE/30) The Mathematica Story – A Scrapbook Sound Blaster (but 1990? 1989?) Microsoft Office (announced 1988, shipped 1990) IRC developed – /me likes this Apple IIc Plus – last 8-bit computer introduced by Apple? IBM PS/2 Model 70 Lemonamiga games for 1988 Retro Computing News: Video of production of new Commodore 64s in the factory Ken Shirrif repairs a Commodore PET Vintage Computer(-related) commercials: Amstrad Portable PC Microsoft Office System: It’s Showtime Retro Computing Gift Idea: Viking Electronics DLE-200B Two-Way Phone Line Simulator See also: Open House H650 Integrated Voice Networking System Auction Picks: Earl: Altos 580 Computer, Z80 system, supported multi-user MP/M, could accommodate hard drives, 4 RS232 ports See also: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/altos/580_Series_5/ Paul: NeXT Cube NeXT Video Cable Amstrad PPC 640 Adventure International Buckaroo Banzai Akalabeth Contributed Programs See also: Street Life (Apple II disk image) Closing notes: Ivan Loves the 80s Steve Jobs Unveils the NeXT Computer Other ways to experience this episode: a2stream file for this episode: http://lo-fi.rcrpodcast.com/rcr288.a2stream YouTube episode 288 Feedback/Discussion: feedback@rcrpodcast.com rcrpodcast@podcast.social on Mastodon rcrpodcast.com on bluesky Vintage Computer Forum RCR Podcast on Facebook Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X Listen/Download:

Panel Discussion with Matt Eshleman, Steve Longenecker, Jennifer Huftalen, and Carolyn WoodardOur experts answered your questions about where nonprofit tech is going next.In part 1, Community IT senior staff discuss nonprofits and AI, and updated cybersecurity trends to be aware of. In part 2, they discuss updates to Microsoft and Google Workspace, and take audience Q&A. AI, Cybersecurity, Google Workspace v Microsoft Office, Gemini v Copilot or ChatGPT or another generative AI tool, AI agents, AI FOMO, data data data, safety and security of your staff, budgeting for and maintaining basic IT, not to mention fancy IT … anything else you want to know about?We don't have a crystal ball but we do know our way around nonprofit IT.We'll look back at the trends of 2025 and what we got right last January, and we'll look ahead to make predictions for 2026.The nonprofit tech roundtable is always one of our most popular webinars every year. As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Community IT is proudly vendor-agnostic, and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community. _______________________________Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn Thanks for listening.

Make a Logo on Fiverr If you create PDFs for business, client work, or internal documentation, you already know the pain: subscriptions add up fast. Adobe Acrobat is powerful, but not everyone needs a monthly bill just to edit, merge, or annotate a file. Enter PDNob—a full-featured PDF editor designed to handle everyday document tasks without the heavyweight price tag. What Is PDNob? PDNob, from Tenorshare, is a downloadable PDF editor for Windows and Mac that lets you create PDFs from scratch or open and edit existing documents. Whether you're starting fresh or cleaning up a file someone else sent you, it's built to simplify the workflow. The software includes a free tier, plus individual and team licensing options. The standout? A lifetime license option that eliminates recurring fees. For freelancers, small businesses, or teams onboarding new members, that pricing model can be a serious advantage over traditional subscription-based tools. Get Started Here A Familiar Editing Experience Open PDNob and you'll immediately notice the ribbon-style interface. It feels similar to Microsoft Office, which means less time learning and more time getting work done. From the main dashboard, you can: Open or create PDFs Access recent, starred, and cloud files Convert PDFs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more Use batch tools to process multiple documents at once Creating a blank PDF looks and feels like building a Word document. You can add text, adjust fonts, resize and reposition elements, insert images, crop graphics, and manage layout with simple drag-and-drop controls. OCR and AI Tools Built In One area where many adobe alternative tools fall short is document recovery. PDNob includes built-in OCR (Optical Character Recognition), allowing you to convert scanned image-based PDFs into editable text. That means no more retyping entire documents just because they were scanned years ago. On top of that, PDNob integrates AI features powered by ChatGPT-4 or DeepSeek. You can upload a document to the cloud to summarize long PDFs, extract key insights, or ask questions about the content. For researchers, educators, or professionals digging through lengthy legal or medical PDFs, that's a serious productivity boost. Conversion, Protection, and Workflow Tools Need to merge multiple PDFs into one? Compress large files for email? Convert a PDF into Word, Excel, or even PowerPoint? PDNob handles all of it with built-in conversion and batch processing tools. You can also protect documents with passwords, control editing permissions, and permanently redact sensitive content. For businesses handling contracts, HR documents, or financial files, these features are essential. The Pros and Cons Pros Clean, office-style interface OCR and AI tools included Batch processing and file conversion options Lifetime license option Cons No mobile or tablet support (Windows and Mac only) Free version has feature limitations Is It Time to Quit Adobe? If you rely heavily on advanced Acrobat integrations across multiple platforms, Adobe may still be your ecosystem. But if you're looking for a capable pdf editor that covers editing, OCR, AI summarization, redaction, and conversion—without locking you into a subscription—PDNob makes a compelling case. For freelancers, educators, small teams, or anyone tired of paying monthly just to tweak documents, this Adobe alternative could be the smarter move. Get Started Here Check out the Geekazine Merch, including "I AM AI " T-Shirt.  Thanks for reading! Don't forget to subscribe to Geekazine: RSS Feed - YouTubeTwitter - Facebook Tip Me via Paypal.me Send a Tip via Venmo RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial Be a Patreon: Part of the Sconnie Geek Nation! Reviews: Geekazine gets products in to review. Opinions are of Geekazine.com. Sponsored content will be labeled as such. Read all policies on the Geekazine review page.  Reviews: Geekazine is also an affiliate of Amazon Last Updated on February 17, 2026 8:39 am by Jeffrey PowersThe post This Adobe Acrobat Alternative is Free – Time to Quit Adobe? PDNob appeared first on Geekazine.

Happy 2026! A new year means new goals. What goals are you making for your classroom? If you need ideas, this episode is for you. The answer's in the data! Join us as we talk all about data analysis with Nicole Rodenfels.  Nicole is a dedicated educator in the School District of Lee County in Ft. Myers, FL. She holds a master's degree in educational technology from Florida Gulf Coast University and taught Microsoft Office applications at the high school and college levels for seven years. Currently, she works at the district level, providing essential support to teachers utilizing Certiport certifications.  Nicole thrives on helping educators analyze data and navigate the extensive features of the Certiport platform, finding joy in empowering others to enhance their teaching practices. She is a Microsoft Office Specialist Expert (2019), a Microsoft Certified Educator, and has earned certifications in Entrepreneurship and Small Business, as well as Information Technology Specialist in Device Configuration and Management.  In this episode, Nicole shares why data analysis matters in today's classroom. She discusses what data points to track and how to use the data to adjust your teaching. Plus, what data you can capture from industry and where to get information on what matters most in the workforce. If you're nervous about data or don't know where to start, Nicole gives you a great introduction.  Looking to get hands on experience with data analysis? Check out Nicole's CERTIFIED presentation here.  Interested in learning from educators Nicole? Join our CERTIFIED Academy program. Get all the details here.      Connect with other educators in our CERTIFIED Educator Community here.           Don't miss your chance to register for our annual CERTIFIED Educator's Conference here.       

Neues Jahr und neue Webseite voraus. Blast from the Past seagate austausch platte updaten und niemals updaten Statistik: Wieviele Stunden war jemand in Sendungen präsent - DAS ist die Prozentzahl! Karakeep - Quickshare on iOS Toter der Woche Microsoft Office Microsoft Sloppy Untoter der Woche Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI Bose SoundTouch BGT 368 Dell XPS AI der Woche AI prescription refills Bundesregierung Chatbot ChatGPT Health News Plex Jellyfin FreeBSD IPv6 RCE Themen Neuer blog vibes Hugo Keycloak all the Things etherpad gitlab mastodon 3D-Druck der Woche Lego Kreuzweiche (Foto ) https://makerworld.com/en/models/2050695-cyberbrick-remote-train-switch-brick-duplo Duplo flex tracks Brio flex tracks Mimimi der Woche media.ccc.de on chromecast/tv usb-c ports beim dell laptop Button am Telefon kaputt PayPal-Betrug ohne Konto: Kriminelle nutzen gestohlene IBANs Lesefoo Der Armeechef stemmt sich gegen Microsoft My 2025 Linux + Go self-hosting stack (video) Picks How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner

This is a recap of the top 10 posts on Hacker News on January 05, 2026. This podcast was generated by wondercraft.ai (00:30): It's hard to justify Tahoe iconsOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497712&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(01:53): Anna's Archive loses .org domain after surprise suspensionOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497164&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(03:17): There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackoutOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46504963&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(04:40): Databases in 2025: A Year in ReviewOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46496103&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(06:04): Murder-suicide case shows OpenAI selectively hides data after users dieOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46499983&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(07:28): RevisionDojo, a YC startup, is running astroturfing campaigns targeting kidsOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46499976&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(08:51): Google broke my heartOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46505518&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(10:15): During Helene, I just wanted a plain text websiteOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46494734&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(11:39): Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46496465&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(13:02): I switched from VSCode to ZedOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46498735&utm_source=wondercraft_aiThis is a third-party project, independent from HN and YC. Text and audio generated using AI, by wondercraft.ai. Create your own studio quality podcast with text as the only input in seconds at app.wondercraft.ai. Issues or feedback? We'd love to hear from you: team@wondercraft.ai

Wir sind von sportlichem Ehrgeiz gepackt. Welcher Philipp drückt mehr auf der Hantelbank? Dazu sprechen wir über den Venezuela-Überfall der USA, Maduro, Ölreserven und die geopolitischen Implikationen für Trump und Russland. Microsoft macht aus Office 365 den Copilot, OpenAI und Johnny Ive bauen einen Stift, Yann LeCun verlässt Meta unzufrieden, und Grok lässt Nutzer Minderjährige per KI entkleiden. Dazu: Brookfield steigt ins Cloud-Business ein, Nvidia präsentiert Vera Rubin, und OpenAI wird zum Health-Advisor. Predictions für 2026: US-Zinsen, OpenAI und Anthropic IPOs, Energie, China-KI-Aktien, Top-Performer der Mag7, SpaceX & EchoStar, Robotics, Prediction Markets & Crypto, Hardware-Inflation,” Human-Made" als neues Bio-Siegel und viele mehr. Unterstütze unseren Podcast und entdecke die Angebote unserer Werbepartner auf ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠doppelgaenger.io/werbung⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Vielen Dank!  Philipp Glöckler und Philipp Klöckner sprechen heute über: (00:00:00) Intro & Fitness (00:05:17) Venezuela (00:13:16) Nvidia Vera Rubin Plattform (00:15:33) Microsoft Office wird Copilot (00:17:40) Sam Altman & Johnny Ive: Der Stift (00:22:35) Yann LeCunn (00:26:18) Meta enttäuscht (00:31:41) Salesforce rudert zurück (00:33:19) OpenAI wird Health-Advisor (00:36:24) China reguliert KI-Freunde (00:38:46) Polymarket Venezuela Insider-Wette (00:43:35) Grok undress Feature (00:45:53) Elon Musk zurück bei Trump (00:50:19) Predictions Start: US-Zinsen unter 3% (00:54:28) KI-Crash Q1 unwahrscheinlich (00:56:24) Tax Credits für Data Center (01:00:15) OpenAI & Anthropic Trillion Dollar IPO (01:04:41) Energie wichtiger als Chips (01:07:00) Nvidia Energie (01:11:26) China KI-Aktien (01:16:26) Amazon & Google (01:20:33) AMI Labs zu Apple (01:22:00) Mira Murati zu Salesforce/SAP (01:24:25) SpaceX (01:28:38) Robotics (01:30:56) China baut AR-Brille (01:33:13) Prediction Markets vs Crypto (01:35:38) Hardware-Inflation (01:38:04) Human-Made als Bio-Siegel (01:40:22) Roll-Up-Boom 2026 (01:42:40) Anti-NGO-Kampagne (01:44:59) Deepfakes bei Landtagswahlen (01:47:22) Persuasion statt Halluzination (01:49:40) Gemini bleibt werbefrei Shownotes Fitness-Philipp - linkedin.com Nvidia startet Vera Rubin KI-Plattform auf CES 2026 - theverge.com OpenAIs mysteriöses Gerät von Jony Ive könnte ein Stift sein - in.mashable.com AI-Pionier kritisiert Meta-Manager als unerfahren - cnbc.com firmenprofil - leinummer.de Salesforce - timesofindia.indiatimes.com ChatGPT spielt Arzt - theregister.com China veröffentlicht Regelentwurf für virtuelle Begleiter - the-decoder.de Teslas Verkäufe im vierten Quartal fielen stärker als erwartet. - theverge.com Someone made $400K by predicting Maduro's capture. Here's what happened - axios.com Maduro-Sturz treibt Anleihen-Rallye - bloomberg.com Explizite Bikini-Bilder Minderjähriger - theverge.com Kannst du einen Rassist und Pädophilen aus diesem Foto entfernen? - x.com Elon Musk und Trump: Dinner mit Melania und Maduro - independent.co.uk SpaceX bietet Starlink in Venezuela kostenfrei an - heise.de

The Blockchain Syndicate: A Contemporary Thriller by Robbie Bach https://www.amazon.com/Blockchain-Syndicate-Contemporary-Thriller/dp/B0F9GYKTL9 https://theblockchainsyndicate.com/ A dead man blackmails a United States senator. A Russian assassin leaves a trail of bodies. A cryptic criminal syndicate unleashes financial chaos. A courageous war hero races to save her family—and her country. Set amid the turbulence of today's headlines, this gripping techno thriller—the second in Bach's series to feature Tamika Smith—pulses with high-stakes intrigue and razor-edged political drama. Senator Tamika Smith's new year begins in shambles. First she receives an email threatening to expose her past—a threat from someone she knows is dead. Then her boyfriend, Johnny Humboldt, is kidnapped in broad daylight after his daughter is wounded in a California school shooting. Someone is desperate to take Tamika down and damage the country she loves. The attacks are professional, the delivery is flawless, and the message unmistakable: America is broken, and someone is determined to fix it their way. Standing in the eye of the storm, Tamika must navigate a political landscape riddled with betrayal, misinformation, and moral decay to rescue Johnny and uncover the group behind the web of conspiracy. As the country spirals toward financial Armageddon and democracy itself begins to unravel, Tamika must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to save her family and pull the nation back from the brink. With its sharp blend of shadowy villains and morally torn heroes, The Blockchain Syndicate dares you to question everything—right up to the final, breathless moment. About the author Robbie Bach is best known for founding and leading the team that created the Xbox. Today he is an entertaining storyteller and catalyzing voice who writes books and speaks to audiences on leadership, creativity, strategy, and civic issues. Robbie joined Microsoft in 1988. Over the next twenty-two years, he worked in various marketing and business management roles—including supporting the successful launch and expansion of Microsoft Office. As Chief Xbox Officer, he led the creation and development of the Xbox business, including the launch of the Xbox, and its highly popular successor, Xbox 360, as well as the Xbox Live gaming platform. Then as Microsoft's President of the Entertainment and Devices Division, he was responsible for the company's worldwide gaming, music, video, phone, and retail sales businesses until he retired in 2010. In his current role as a civic engineer, Robbie works with corporate, philanthropic, and civic organizations to help drive positive change in our communities. He guest-lectures extensively at a variety of colleges and universities and speaks to corporate, civic, nonprofit, and trade association audiences across the country. In 2015, he published his first book, “Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal.” His first thriller novel, “The Wilkes Insurrection,” was published in 2021. The sequel thriller, “The Blockchain Syndicate” featuring Senator Tamika Smith, was published in 2025.

U.S. Secretatry of State Marco Rubio says a Biden-era switch to the font Calibri — meant to be more accessible to more readers — was another instance of too much focus on DEI. He has ordered a return to Times New Roman, the old Microsoft Office classic. We'll talk about that with Ellen Lupton, the author of a definitive, bestselling book on typographic design.

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Goldbelly - Goldbelly.comEvery.io - http://every.io/Zite - zite.com/twistToday's show:Today, Zapier's a multi-billion company helping enterprises integrate AI agents and other time-saving shortcuts into their workflows… but we had the founder on TWiST when they were just getting started!In a 2016 chat, founder Wade Foster walked JCal through their 2012 seed round, running a small entirely remote team with no HQ, the complexities of building a tool that relies on third-party APIs, and why Microsoft Office was the “Holy Grail” for his integration software.PLUS we've got a new entrant in your Gamma Pitch Deck competition! Tour CEO/CTO Amulya Parmer tells us how his app is saving property managers time and grief, while eliminating “looky-loos” and increasing their “hit rate.”FINALLY, Alex chats with Tomas Puig of TWiST 500 marketing analysis startup Alembic. It turns out, LLMs aren't ideal for scrutinizing marketing campaigns because they lack the requisite historical data. Find out how they're using Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) to dig deeper than GPT and Claude can go.Timestamps:(02:40) Amulya from Tour opens the show with praise for Jason(03:34) Tour's 2-minute Gamma pitch: automated property tours for managers(06:47) Why Jason thinks Tour is an ideal tool for Gen Z(10:01) Goldbelly - Goldbelly ****ships America's most delicious, iconic foods nationwide! Get 20% off your first order by going to Goldbelly.com and using the promo code TWiST at checkout.(13:32) How Tour can eliminate “looky-loos” and increase the “hit rate”(14:38) Why Tour prices based on individual properties and apartments(19:13) Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io.(20:23) Jason wants to sprinkle some AI into Tour(24:29) Welcoming Tomas Puig from Alembic(25:12) Does epic-scale brand marketing actually pay off for these brands?(27:27) The hardest thing about being a marketer…(28:31) Alembic's origins: organizing huge unstructured data sets(30:18) Zite - Zite is the fastest way to build business software with AI. Go to zite.com/twist to get started.(31:27) Case Study: making sense of Delta's Olympics data(33:37) Applying simulation models and supercomputers to marketing data(35:48) How Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) help Alembic spot trends and link causal relationships(41:13) The key advantage of training models on private data(43:16) Building their own clusters vs. renting(44:41) “You don't ask if you have Product Market Fit… You hold on for dear life.”(46:28) Flashback with Alex and Lon to Jason's 2016 chat with Wade Foster of Zapier(54:48) The dangers of building atop other platform's APIs(01:03:00) What Zapier learned pre-pandemic about leading remote teams(01:13:12) Why MS Office was the “Holy Grail” for early ZapierSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisThank you to our partners:(10:01) Goldbelly - Goldbelly ****ships America's most delicious, iconic foods nationwide! Get 20% off your first order by going to Goldbelly.com and using the promo code TWiST at checkout.(19:13) Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io.(30:18) Zite - Zite is the fastest way to build business software with AI. Go to zite.com/twist to get started.Follow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

In this week's episode, we take a look at six software tools for indie authors to help them write and improve their workflow. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Blades, Book #4 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: BLADES2025 The coupon code is valid through December 15, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT [This episode's content is not sponsored. Jonathan has not received any compensation for these reviews and has not received any free products or services from the companies mentioned in this episode. He does not currently use affiliate links for the products mentioned.] 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 280 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is a very snowy December 5th, 2025, and today I'm discussing six software tools that are useful for indie authors. Before we get into that, we will have Coupon of the Week and then an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So first up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Blades, Book #4 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy), at my Payhip store. And that is BLADES2025. And as always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through December the 15th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for this winter or for your Christmas travels, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. As I mentioned last week, Blade of Shadows is out and it's available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store, and it's been doing quite well and gotten a good response from everyone. So thank you for that and I am looking forward to continuing that series. Now that Blade of Shadows is done, my main project is the fifth book in the Half-Elven Thief series, which is Wizard-Assassin. I had originally planned to name it Elven-Assassin, but decided Wizard-Assassin sounded a bit punchier, so I went with that instead. I am 46,000 words into it, which puts me on chapter 10 of 16. The final draft will have more chapters because one of the chapters is 11,000 words. I'm going to have to cut it up. I've also noticed that readers in general these days seem to prefer shorter chapters, so I've been trying to lean more into doing that and having books with shorter chapters. I think the rough draft is going to be about 70 to 75,000 words, give or take. So I'm hoping I can finish that next week, and I am cautiously optimistic I can have the book published before Christmas. If I can't get it published before Christmas, it is going to slip to my first book of 2026. But at the moment, and of course, barring our old unwelcome friend unexpected developments, I am cautiously optimistic I can have it out by Christmas 2025. So watch my website and listen to this space for additional news. My secondary project is Blade of Storms, which will be the third book in the Blades of Ruin series and the direct sequel to Blade of Shadows. I am about 6,000 words into that, and once Wizard-Assassin is done, that will be my main project. I'm hoping to have that out at the end of January, but if Wizard-Assassin slips to January, then Blade of Storms will [of necessity] slip to February. In audiobook news, Blade of Flames, the audiobook of the first book in the Blades of Ruin series, is now out and you can get that at Audible, Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, my own Payhip store, Spotify, and all the other usual audiobook stores. So if you're looking for something else to listen to during your Christmas travels this year, I suggest checking out Blade of Flames (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills). Cloak of the Embers, the 10th book in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy)…the recording of that is done and it is being proofed right now, so I am hopeful we can hopefully have that out before Christmas (if all goes well). In fact, after I record this podcast episode, I'm going to have to convert the ebook cover of Cloak of Embers into an audiobook cover for Cloak of Embers. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. There is definitely a lot going on. 00:03:40 Main Topic: 6 Helpful Writing Tools for Indie Authors in 2025 [All Prices referenced are USD.] Now we're going to move on to our main topic this week, which is six helpful writing tools for indie authors in 2025. Last year in 2024, I did a roundup of popular software tools for writers and I thought I would give a quick update for it. Some of these tools like Calibre and LibreOffice I use, while others like Scrivener and Notion just aren't great fit for my workflow, I still want to talk about them anyways since just because I don't use them doesn't mean that they're not good and a lot of writers do in fact use them. Many writers also have complex systems for organizing their files and would benefit from tools like that. Without further ado, here are six pieces of software used for writing and writing adjacent tasks. I should mention before we get going as well that none of these tools are explicitly generative AI tools because as you know, if you've listened to the podcast over the years is my opinion of generative AI remains mostly negative. I have and continue to do some marketing experiments with generative AI elements, but I remain overall unimpressed by the technology. So with that in mind, none of these software tools I'm going to mention are explicitly AI tools. Some of them do have AI elements that you can plug in and use if you want to, but they aren't part of the core functionality of the application unless you specifically seek it out. With that in mind, let's get to it. #1: The first one we will talk about is Scrivener. Scrivener is of course essentially a word processor and project management system specifically designed for creative or nonfiction writing, unlike a traditional word processor like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, or Apple Pages. It features tools for outlining, for breaking documents into chapters, tracking word count goals and et cetera. One of the major benefits of it is a one-time cost instead of as a subscription because it seems like everything is a subscription nowadays, but Scrivener is still $60 a pop. They also offer a free trial and student discount and occasionally [it will] go on sale during peak times like the holidays. The downside of this is that Scrivener has a sharp learning curve. For myself when I write, I write either in Microsoft Word or Libre Office and I just sit down and write. When I write an outline, it's one Word document and the rough draft is another document that I write until I'm done. Scrivener is definitely a more complex software application, which I have to admit is funny to say because Microsoft Word is ridiculously complicated and has, in my opinion, far more functionality stuffed into it than it really needs. But Scrivener is a different kind of functionality and therefore the learning curve could be quite high for that. Additionally, this may not be the right software tool to work with your style of writing or how you organize your files. A couple extra thoughts with that is it's important to know yourself. Will you actually use the extra features included with Scrivener or do they just look cool and shiny? Scrivener probably is best for those who take extensive notes on their work, especially if trying to organize research based on chapters where it's needed. So if you're a nonfiction writer or if you're a historical fiction writer or a thriller writer who is very concerned about accuracy in your books, this may be useful for you so you can put in notes about the proper way to address a duke in 19th century England or what caliber of ammunition your thriller hero's preferred firearm takes. It's maybe the best for the kind of people who enjoy curating their Notion and Trello accounts and are able to think about their book in a very visual way without letting that process be an excuse to keep them from writing. I'd also say it's good for people who extensively revise blocks of text within a chapter and move chapters around a lot. #2: Canva. Canva has been around for a long time and it is a platform that makes it easy to create visual content using a drag and drop interface that provides a variety of templates, fonts, and designs to use for things like social media posts. They currently have two tiers for individuals, a limited free option, and Canva Pro, which is $12.99 a month. Some of the pros for Canva are it is well-suited for using templates for writers to create images for social media posts and book marketing material. The learning curve is not very steep, especially compared with something like Photoshop. If you've used PowerPoint before, you can definitely handle Canva. The cons: although some people use it to create book covers, many books have been flagged by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and some of the other publishing platforms for doing so. I would advise you to avoid Canva for creating book covers because of the potential for issues that could keep your book out of ebook stores. At the very least, read Canva's terms of use and the rules of KDP and the other ebook publishers very, very carefully before you would even begin to consider using Canva for this purpose. Many of the free features have been folded into the pro version such as sharing template links. The editing and design features are basic compared to something like Photoshop, though that may change as we're going to discuss a little bit here. Because Canva is so popular, there's a certain amount of snobbery out there about using its designs without significant modification. You may have encountered on social media or the Internet people who react very negatively to the presence of AI generated images and this exists to a lesser extent with Canva templates. "Looks like it was made in Canva" is sometimes used as an insult. If you want a unique style and look for your images, you'll have to work a little more to achieve that using Canva. Canva is quick for great one-time things like Facebook or BookBub ads, but I wouldn't recommend using it for book creation or book covers at this time because of the potential problems that can arise from that. For myself, I don't usually use Canva. I've had enough practice with Photoshop that I'm pretty confident in making whatever I want in terms of ad images or book covers in Photoshop, and I use Photoshop for that. However, since I organized the notes for this episode, there is a major caveat to that. Recently, Canva acquired a program called Affinity Photo Editor, which is essentially a much lower cost alternative to Photoshop. When this happened, there was a great deal of negativity around it because people thought Canva was going to jack up the price or make it into an overpriced subscription. But what Canva did surprised a great many people in that they made Affinity totally free and essentially are using a freemium model with it where you can use Affinity Photo Editor for free. It used to be, I believe like $79, possibly $69, and then any of the other features like downloading additional content from Canva would cost part of your Canva subscription. So I have to admit, I'm sufficiently curious about this, that when I write the tie in short story for Wizard-Assassin, I may use Affinity Photo Editor to assemble the cover for it just to see if it would work for that or not, because as I've said, I use Photoshop, but Photoshop is very expensive, Adobe frequently does business practices that are a bit shifty, and the idea of a freemium alternative to Photoshop is not necessarily a bad idea. So when I write a tie in short story for Wizard-Assassin later this month, I think I will attempt to make the cover in Affinity Photo Editor and see if that is something that would be good for my workflow or not, and I will report on that later. #3: Number three is Notion, which can be used to organize information, links, calendars, and reminders into one central dashboard. They have two plans for individuals, a free plan and a Plus plan, which is currently $10 to $12 per month (depending on whether you want a monthly or an annual plan). The Plus version offers unlimited file uploads, greater customizations, and integrations with Slack and Google Drive. The pros for using Notion is that it is popular with writers and content creators for being able to have project planning tools, notes, lists, links, trackers, and reminders all in one dashboard. If you enjoy customization and getting something set up exactly the way you want, you might enjoy setting up your lists, calendars, trackers, and notes through Notion. You can add images and adjust the layout and colors for a more "aesthetic" experience. It is easy to find customized templates [online], especially for writers and for things like storyboarding, word counts, and keeping tracks of sources for nonfiction writing. These Notion templates are shared by individuals, not the company and can be free or paid. Now, some of the cons with Notion. It didn't used to use very much AI, but the company is leaning increasingly heavy into AI, both as a company and in its features on the boards, if that is a concern. The amount of customization options and detail can be absolutely overwhelming. Someone who gets decision fatigue easily or doesn't want to customize a lot and might not enjoy using it. Some people are increasingly complaining that the software is getting too overloaded with features and is slow. For people who value being organized and love having complex and highly visual systems, Notion might be helpful. The downside is that maintaining your Notion boards can easily turn into what I call a "writing-adjacent activity" that gives you the illusion of productivity because of the time you spend managing and updating it aside from the business of getting actual writing done. So once again, this is a good example of "know thyself." If this is something that would be helpful for you, go ahead and pursue it. But if it's something that could turn into a tool for procrastination, it's probably better to avoid it. For myself, I am old enough that when I need to make lists and keep track of things, I have a yellow legal pad on my desk that I write things down on. #4: The next piece of software we're going to look at is LibreOffice. It is an open source piece of software that closely matches Microsoft Office, including Microsoft Word. Pros: It's free and open source. There's a minimal learning curve for those already familiar with Microsoft Word. The interface is a little different, but it's pretty easy to figure things out if you're familiar with Word or Excel. Some swear that that LibreOffice is faster than Word. It depends on the kind of document you're working on and the kind of computer you're using. So that's an area where your mileage may vary. It is also the best word processing option for privacy advocates, especially for those who are concerned about Microsoft and Google storing their work and possibly harvesting it for AI because by default, LibreOffice doesn't work with any AI elements. If you want it to work with any AI elements, plugins are available but they are not included. It's great for the writer who doesn't want to support Microsoft for any reason but still wants to be able to easily save documents in Microsoft file formats like .docx. It works. I've written entire books using it. I wrote all of Soul of Serpents and Soul of Dragons in it, and that was 13 years ago now, and the software has only improved since then. I wrote Silent Order: Eclipse Hand [using it] in 2017 and was very happy with the results, and I still use it for various projects every week, and I found a couple times if something was screwed up in the formatting of Microsoft Word, if I opened it up in LibreOffice, I could fix it pretty easily and much easier than I could in Word. It does have a few cons. The user interface compared to Word or something like Apple Pages does look a bit dated, but it's still navigable. It doesn't have any cloud storage functionality. You would need to piece it together with another storage option if you want to be able to backup stuff to the cloud. But overall, if you can't afford the Microsoft Office Suite, don't want to support Microsoft, and value your privacy, this is your best bet for word processing. Some people may not like its interface, but it's still an extremely solid piece of free software. #5: And now let's move on to our fifth software tool, which is Calibre. Calibre is a tool for ebook management. It can be used for file formatting, changing your books' metadata, or changing file formats. Many use it to create a custom ebook library. Pros include: the product is free and open source. It is easy to generate different file formats for book publication. Do you want to categorize and organize your books in a very specific way? Calibre works for that. The cons: some people find the interface a little clunky and it comes with a bit of a learning curve. To be honest, the interface does look like it came from Windows 2000 and some of the features rely on knowledge of HTML and CSS. Editing and formatting of the book itself is better done using other software. Final thoughts on that? The software is trustworthy, reliable, and has been maintained over the years. It does exactly what it says it does, without any real style but plenty of substance. And I've been a regular Calibre user for like 15 years now, and whenever I get a new computer Calibre is usually one of the very first things I install on it. #6: And now for our sixth and final tool, Inkarnate. Inkarnate is a very useful piece of software that is designed for creating maps. I believe it was originally intended to create maps for role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder and so forth. But it's also very useful for creating maps for fantasy novels. As I may have mentioned on the podcast a few times before, I really don't like making maps. I find it constraining and it makes the writing feel a bit crabbed at times. That said, I write primarily in the fantasy genre and people in the fantasy genre love maps, so I'm kind of on the hook for making maps. I used to draw the maps by hand and then import it into Photoshop and add all the locations and add colors and so forth. But that is a lot of work, I have to admit. Inkarnate makes it a lot easier, and I've used it for the last couple of maps I've made. The map of the city of Tar-Carmatheion in the Half-Elven Thief books came from Inkarnate. The map of Owyllain for Blades of Ruin came from Inkarnate, and the map of New Kyre and adjoining regions for Ghost Armor also came from Inkarnate. It's very affordable too. The subscription, I believe, is only $30 a year, and I've been using for a few years now and have never regretted it. So I'd say all the pros are all the ones I've already listed. The cons are that the learning curve is a little bit sharp, but there are excellent YouTube videos and tutorials for that. So, final thoughts. If you find yourself needing to make maps and don't enjoy the process of making maps, then Inkarnate is the software product for you. So those are six tools, software tools for indie authors that I hope will make you more productive and make your work easier. 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 your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

This week's episode is a full ride — from raging at Microsoft Office subscriptions, to questioning why politicians love “executive sessions,” to discovering Jim's newest life hack: drinking hot water like it's a religion. We also dive into a spicy Malibag about exes, boundaries, and why you deserve more than being someone's “escape.”It's messy, it's honest, and it's very us.Send letters to jimandsaab.com/malibag

EP 269. In this week's update:Organized crime syndicates are now recruiting skilled hackers to orchestrate sophisticated digital hijackings of entire truckloads of high-value cargo.A bizarre Windows preview update has turned the password field invisible, leaving Microsoft advising users to blindly click where the button once appeared.Australia's $62 million weather-service overhaul launched on one of the hottest days of the year—only to deliver a slower, less functional site that enraged farmers and the public alike.The FTC has slammed edtech provider Illuminate Education for egregious security failures that allowed a single hacker to steal sensitive records of over 10 million students.A startling new study reveals that simply rearranging sentence syntax—not content—can trick major language models into ignoring their own safety guardrails.The company behind America's sprawling network of AI-powered license-plate cameras quietly relies on low-wage overseas freelancers to label footage of U.S. drivers and pedestrians.In a major blow to cybercrime, Europol and partners have seized servers, €25 million in Bitcoin, and shut down one of the world's largest cryptocurrency money-laundering services.European Parliament members are demanding the institution ditch Microsoft Office 365 and U.S. hardware in favor of homegrown alternatives to reclaim digital sovereignty.Let's jump in the cab and take this week's rig for an adventure!Find the full transcript to this week's podcast here.

Hello and welcome to The Rob Burgess Show. I am, of course, your host, Rob Burgess. On this our 288th episode, our guest is Robbie Bach. Robbie Bach is a bestselling author and former tech executive who helped lead Microsoft through some of its most dynamic years. As the Chief Xbox Officer, he spearheaded the creation of the iconic Xbox and Xbox 360. After retiring from Microsoft, he shifted his focus to philanthropy, civic advocacy and storytelling. Robbie Bach joined Microsoft in 1988. Over the next 22 years, he worked in various marketing, general management and business leadership roles, including supporting the successful launch and expansion of Microsoft Office. As Chief Xbox Officer, he led the creation and development of the Xbox business, including the launch of the Xbox and its highly popular successor, the Xbox 360. He retired from Microsoft as the president of the Entertainment and Devices Division in 2010. In his new role as a civic engineer, Robbie works with corporate, philanthropic and civic organizations that are driving positive change in our communities. He guest lectures extensively at various colleges and universities and speaks to corporate, civic and trade association audiences across the country. In 2015, he published his first book, “Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal.” His debut novel featuring Tamika Smith, “The Wilkes Insurrection,” was published in 2021. He is the former chairman and current board member at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He serves on the national board of governors for Boys and Girls Clubs of America and was the chairman of that board from 2009 to 2011. He is also a board member for Habitat for Humanity International and Genius Sports. He previously served as a board member of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Sonos, Brooks Running Company, the Space Needle, Magic Leap and Year Up Puget Sound. He is the co-owner of Manini's, a company specializing in gluten-free foods. He was an Arjay Miller Scholar at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he earned his MBA, and a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina, where he earned his degree in economics. He and his wife, Pauline, reside in Washington state, with their yellow lab, Roscoe. They have three grown children and two grandchildren. His first novel, “The Wilkes Insurrection,” introduced readers to Senator Tamika Smith in a high-stakes battle against a domestic terror conspiracy. In his latest novel, “The Blockchain Syndicate,” Bach continues the gripping saga as Tamika faces a cryptic criminal syndicate threatening America's financial and political foundations. Follow me on Mastodon: newsie.social/@therobburgessshow Check out my Linktree: linktr.ee/therobburgessshow Follow me on Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/robaburg.bsky.social

From flying to online shopping to using social media, everything seems to be getting worse. It's all — pardon our language here — shittier. According to today's Lever Time guest, that's no accident. Cory Doctorow is the author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. In this episode, Doctorow explains how enshittification works, how it's infected our online spaces, and what we can do to stop it. Plus, as an exclusive bonus to our paid subscribers, click here for the rest of David's conversation with Cory Doctorow. They talk about why Americans are trapped on Facebook or Microsoft Office and how Donald Trump is using tech companies as weapons in his trade war. Doctorow also offers a few simple solutions to stop our world from going to shit. Not yet a paid subscriber? Click here for a special membership offer exclusive to Lever Time listeners. To leave a tip for The Lever, ⁠click here⁠. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. ⁠Click here⁠⁠ for a transcript of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vanaf volgend jaar kunnen Nederlandse onderwijs- en onderzoeksinstellingen experimenteren met het Duitse samenwerkingsplatform Nextcloud, een Europees alternatief voor diensten van Amerikaanse techbedrijven zoals Google en Microsoft. De Nederlandse ICT-coöperatie SURF maakt dat mogelijk door het platform breed beschikbaar te stellen binnen het hoger onderwijs en onderzoeksdomein. SURF, dat verantwoordelijk is voor de ICT-diensten van universiteiten, hogescholen en onderzoeksinstellingen, voerde het afgelopen jaar al enkele kleinere pilots uit met Nextcloud. Die proefperiode is volgens de organisatie positief verlopen. Daarom wil SURF nu op grotere schaal ervaring opdoen, door instellingen aan te moedigen het platform intern te testen. Zo moet duidelijk worden hoe teams in de praktijk kunnen samenwerken en of Nextcloud een volwaardig alternatief kan zijn voor bestaande platforms. Nextcloud biedt functionaliteiten die vergelijkbaar zijn met diensten die veel instellingen nu gebruiken, zoals clouddiensten, e-mail, videobellen en online documentbewerking. Daarmee bestrijkt het vrijwel dezelfde basistaken als Word, Excel, Gmail en Google Docs. Het platform wordt in eerste instantie een jaar lang naast de bestaande Amerikaanse oplossingen aangeboden. Uit een recente interessepeiling van SURF blijkt dat er brede belangstelling is voor het gebruik van Nextcloud. Meerdere universiteiten, hogescholen, umc’s en onderzoeksinstellingen hebben zich gemeld om mee te doen met de testfase. Volgens SURF groeit het draagvlak voor een Europees platform, omdat de afhankelijkheid van Amerikaanse techbedrijven steeds meer als een risico wordt gezien. Een volledig Nederlands alternatief is er vooralsnog niet, maar met Nextcloud lijkt Europa in elk geval een serieuze optie in handen te hebben.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know that preparing students for the contemporary workforce looks dramatically different than it did even a few years ago. Today's students need to be prepared to succeed in an even more demanding environment.  We sat down with two educators (Noam Bonkowski and Vladimir Noda) to talk about today's workforce demands and how you can make sure your students are prepared.  Noam is a CTE teacher, work-based learning (WBL) coordinator, and Project Management Professional in Queens, NY. In his role, he creates a classroom that models a professional PMO work environment, all while teaching project management foundations and key business skills. He certifies his students using the PMI Project Management Ready certification program. Noam also extends his influence beyond the classroom in his role as WBL coordinator. He fosters partnerships with businesses and develops opportunities for students to work as interns for key work experience and educational credit.  Vladimir is an enthusiastic educator, instructional coach, and advocate for business education with over a decade of experience enhancing student success. Throughout his career, he has assisted countless students in obtaining industry-recognized certifications in Microsoft Office, Adobe, and the Entrepreneurship and Small Business (ESB) exam. As an instructional coach, he is dedicated to building a top-tier business program and enhancing his school's presence through strategic marketing efforts. With a dynamic approach to curriculum development and certification preparation, Vladimir aims to empower educators with the tools and strategies necessary to boost student achievement, expand their programs, and cultivate future business leaders.  In this episode, we talk with Noam and Vladimir all about skills needed for the managers of tomorrow's workforce. We discuss everything from soft skills, classroom architecture, the role of certification, helping students practice their abilities in real-world scenarios, and inclusivity for marginalized students. Whether you're focusing on project management, communication, or an entrepreneurial mindset, we know you'll learn something to help your students master the skills required of tomorrow's business leaders. Learn more about our episode sponsors: The PMI Project Management Ready certification and Entrepreneurship and Small Business certification programs.  Interested in learning from educators like Noam and Vladimir? Join our CERTIFIED Academy program. Get all the details here.   Connect with other educators in our CERTIFIED Educator Community here.        Don't miss your chance to register for our annual CERTIFIED Educator's Conference here.    

Landing a job in Australia is increasingly competitive, with AI reshaping workplaces. New SEEK data reveals the top ten human skills employers want most, from customer service and Microsoft Office know-how to leadership and relationship management. Success coach Nim Gholkar shares practical tips on volunteering, networking, gaining local qualifications, and overcoming barriers often faced by South Asian professionals.

In this Blind Abilities episode, Jeff Thompson talks with Jeff Bishop, president of BITS—Blind Information Technology Specialists—an all-volunteer organization empowering blind and low-vision individuals through accessible technology, community, and hands-on learning. Bishop outlines BITS' rapid growth, affordable memberships, and expanding reach across platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, email lists, and mentoring channels. BITS offers high-impact training, including Python programming, Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, NVDA, and AI immersion courses—all with fully accessible materials and strong completion rates. Their partnerships with APH, Bookshare, NLS, Microsoft, and others ensure free resources and meaningful industry feedback opportunities, including paid participation in Microsoft's Project Empower. With free Remote Incident Manager (RIM) support, active mentoring, and a welcoming culture, BITS serves beginners and experts alike. As the group considers rebranding the "S" in BITS to Solutions, the mission remains clear: meeting people where they are and helping them thrive in their digital lives. Link to BITS

What if your carefully crafted training course could become a content campaign that actually drives behavior change? Most L&D professionals create amazing content that gets consumed once and forgotten. But what if that single course could spawn dozens of touchpoints that reinforce learning over time?We're seeing a shift where smart L&D teams are borrowing from marketing playbooks, and it's working. The secret isn't creating more content; it's strategically repurposing what you already have.Joining this episode is Mike Taylor, Learning Consultant at Nationwide and co-author of "Think Like a Marketer, Train Like an L&D Pro."Mike's been pioneering the campaign approach to learning, and shows us how one webinar recording can become email sequences, infographics, GIFs, and micro-learning moments.He explains why thinking in campaigns rather than courses changes everything, introduces the SURE model for creating content that sticks, and shows how to overcome the "we don't have time" objection with smart repurposing strategies.Learning points from the episode include:00:00 - 02:22 Introduction to repurposing and spawning multiple content pieces02:22 - 05:15 Why repurposing isn't more work and how to expand your reach05:15 - 06:56 Think campaigns not courses: the hero content pyramid06:56 - 09:19 Leaving breadcrumb trails across multiple channels09:19 - 11:51 Setting hooks and the SURE model for relevant content11:51 - 12:39 Why content creates feelings whether you know it or not12:39 - 14:23 Turning annual compliance into year-round micro-learning14:23 - 16:37 Using AI and A/B testing data to sell repurposing internally16:37 - 17:58 Finding small experiments to build credibility17:58 - 21:13 Visual repurposing: webinars to GIFs, polls to graphics21:13 - 23:13 Using Camtasia for Microsoft Office tips and animated GIFs23:13 - 25:00 Why even simple content benefits from repurposing25:00 - 26:53 Making subject matter expert content digestible26:53 - 31:15 OutroImportant links and mentions:Connect with Mike Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miketaylor/Find out more about Train Like a Marketer: https://trainlikeamarketer.com/Camtasia: https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/  Snagit: https://www.techsmith.com/snagit/Audiate: https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/audiate/

In this episode of Hashtag Trending, Jim Love discusses Geoffrey Hinton's views on AI replacing human labor for big tech profits, Google Cloud's internal competition with YouTube, and the International Criminal Court's switch from Microsoft Office to an open-source alternative. The episode also covers YouTube's controversial removal of Windows 11 installation videos on unsupported systems. 00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Message 00:29 AI's Impact on Jobs and Economy 02:35 Google Cloud's Rise and Internal Competition 04:36 ICC's Shift from Microsoft to Open Source 06:10 YouTube's Controversial Content Removals 07:40 Conclusion and Sponsor Message

Während andere Medienhäuser ihre Artikel durch KI überarbeiten lassen reden wir wieder unkontrolliert daher und liefern ein wenig Feedback, sprechen ausführlich über den Ausfall der AWS-Infrastruktur und was das für die Welt so bedeutet, unterstützen den Internationalen Strafgerichtshof bei dem Versuch, sich von Microsoft Office zu befreien, geben ein kurzes Update zur Chatkontrolle, erklären warum die Flughäfen auch alle nicht ganz so datensouverän sind und bedauern die Unterzeichnung der Cybercrime Convention. Zum Schluß noch ein paar Tips zum 39C3. Mehr gibt's nicht – abgesehen von ein paar Belehrungen und schlechten Witzen. Also alles wie immer.

Anna Bicker, heise-online-Chefredakteur Dr. Volker Zota und Malte Kirchner sprechen in dieser Ausgabe der #heiseshow unter anderem über folgende Themen: - Big Teams is watching you: Microsoft Teams prüft künftig Büroanwesenheit – Ab Dezember kann Microsoft Teams die Anwesenheit von Mitarbeitern im Büro erfassen. Welche Funktionen bietet das neue Feature genau? Wie reagieren Datenschützer auf diese Überwachungsmöglichkeit? Und welche Auswirkungen könnte das auf die Vertrauenskultur in Unternehmen haben? - Zurückhacken erlaubt? Bundesinnenministerium prüft Abwehrschläge gegen Cyberangriffe – Das Bundesinnenministerium erwägt, aktive Abwehrmaßnahmen gegen Cyberangriffe zu ermöglichen. Wo verläuft die Grenze zwischen Verteidigung und Angriff im digitalen Raum? Welche rechtlichen und technischen Herausforderungen bringt eine solche Strategie mit sich? Und wie könnten andere Staaten auf deutsche Cyber-Gegenschläge reagieren? - Musks neue Wissenswelt: Wie gut ist die Grokipedia? – Elon Musk hat mit Grokipedia eine Wikipedia-Alternative mit 885.000 Artikeln gestartet. Was unterscheidet Grokipedia von Wikipedia und wie funktioniert die KI-gestützte Plattform? Kann eine von Musks X-Plattform betriebene Enzyklopädie neutral und verlässlich sein? Und welche Chancen hat Grokipedia gegen den etablierten Platzhirsch Wikipedia? Außerdem wieder mit dabei: ein Nerd-Geburtstag, das WTF der Woche und knifflige Quizfragen.

Co-hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little explore how Google's Nano Banana photo restoration tool will revolutionize image restoration by integrating with Adobe Photoshop. This move will greatly reduce unintended changes to historical photos when editing them with AI.Next, they unpack OpenAI's move to make ChatGPT Projects available to free-tier users, making research organization more accessible for genealogists.This week's Tip of the Week provides essential guidance on the responsible use AI when editing historical photos using AI tools like Nano Banana, ensuring transparency and trust in historical photographs.In RapidFire, they cover OpenAI's new Sora 2 AI-video social media platform, Claude's new ability to create and edit Microsoft Office files, memory features in Claude Projects, advancements in local language models, and how OpenAI's massive infrastructure deals are changing the AI landscape.Timestamps:In the News:02:43 Adobe improves historical photo restoration by adding Nano Banana to Photoshop09:34 ChatGPT Projects are Now FreeTip of the Week:13:36 Citations for AI-Restored Images Build Trust in AI-Modified PhotosRapidFire:21:24 Sora 2 Goes Social27:23 Claude Adds Microsoft Office Creation and Editing34:26 Memory Features Come to Claude Projects38:32 Apple and Amazon both create Local Language Model tools44:47 OpenAI's Big Data Centre Deal with Oracle Resource LinksOpenAI announces free access to ChatGPT Projectshttps://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notesEngadget: OpenAI Rolls Out ChatGPT Projects to Free Usershttps://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-rolls-out-chatgpt-projects-to-free-users-215027802.htmlForbes: OpenAI Makes ChatGPT Projects Freehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2025/09/14/small-business-technology-roundup-microsoft-copilot-does-not-improve-productivity-and-openai-makes-chatgpt-project-free/Responsible AI Photo Restorationhttps://makingfamilyhistory.com/responsible-ai-photo-restoration/Claude now has memory, but only for certain usershttps://mashable.com/article/anthropic-claude-ai-now-has-memory-for-some-usersNew Apple Intelligence features are available todayhttps://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/new-apple-intelligence-features-are-available-today/Introducing Amazon Lens Livehttps://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/search-image-amazon-lens-live-shopping-rufusAmazon Lens Live Can Scan and Pull Up Matcheshttps://www.pcmag.com/news/spot-an-item-you-wish-to-buy-amazon-lens-live-can-scan-and-pull-up-matchesA Joint Statement from OpenAI and Microsoft About Their Changing Partnershiphttps://openai.com/index/joint-statement-from-openai-and-microsoft/The Verge: OpenAI and Oracle Pen $300 Billion Compute Dealhttps://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/776170/oracle-openai-300-billion-contract-project-stargateReuters: OpenAI and Oracle Sign $300 Billion Computing Dealhttps://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-oracle-sign-300-billion-computing-deal-wsj-reports-2025-09-10/?utm_source=chatgpt.comTagsArtificial Intelligence, Genealogy, Family History, Photo Restoration, AI Tools, OpenAI, Google, Adobe Photoshop, ChatGPT Projects, Nano Banana, Image Editing, AI Citations, Sora 2, Video Generation, Claude, Microsoft Office, Apple Intelligence, Amazon Lens, Oracle, Cloud Computing, Local Language Models, AI Infrastructure, Responsible AI, Historical Photos

In this episode, Josh discusses his perspective on how AI and advanced technologies in platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft Office could potentially render general-purpose legal CRMs like Clio and PracticePanther obsolete.  Josh shares insights from his experience in family law and how he's been able to automate numerous tasks using these workstations. He highlights the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of using integrated features like e-signature, custom workflows with AI support, and booking links.  Josh also talks about the niche legal tech tools that will still be necessary and offers examples from his practice to demonstrate these concepts. Tune in to hear his predictions and learn more about his tech-driven approach to legal practice. Never miss an update on my journey by joining my substack here: https://joshschachnow.substack.com/ 00:00 Introduction and Overview 00:36 Balancing Tech and Law Practice 02:19 The Rise of AI in Legal Workspaces 05:25 Cost Efficiency of Google Workspace 07:43 Future of Legal CRMs and AI Integration 09:38 Niche Legal Tech Tools 10:46 Conclusion and Call to Action

Think about your digital life for a moment. What do you actually OWN anymore? Microsoft Office? Music? Movies? Your social media accounts? WRONG! In all of those spaces (and more), you're just a digital sharecropper. Americans have become more like the coal miners and sharecroppers we read about it history - not really owning much of anything and trapped in cycles of debt. God never wanted His people to be trapped in cycles of debt - and God has a lot to say about it. In this message, Max Vanderpool offers practical advice for handling debt.

Discover how blind tech enthusiasts can upgrade from Windows 10, harness Apple's new Braille Access features, and get involved with the powerful Bits community for learning and support. This episode is supported by Pneuma Solutions. Creators of accessible tools like Remote Incident Manager and Scribe. Get $20 off with code dt20 at https://pneumasolutions.com/ and enter to win a free subscription at doubletaponair.com/subscribe!Steven Scott hosts a lively discussion with Michael Babcock and Jeff Bishop about technology for blind users, starting with questions about device compatibility and upgrading from Windows 10 as end-of-life approaches. The episode explores tools like Rufus for accessible updates, the role of screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, and Narrator, and the importance of choosing the right solution for different computing needs. The conversation shifts into Apple's new Braille Access, highlighting features like BRF note creation, multitasking with braille displays, and sharing files via iCloud. Steven shares his personal training experience, while the team reflects on the impact of this feature for education, productivity, and collaboration. Listeners also get an in-depth look at BITS (Blind Information Technology Specialists), a global community empowering blind users to learn everything from Microsoft Office and Google tools to Python coding and AI. The team explains Project Empower, mentorship, and on-demand educational resources that help blind users upskill and even provide paid accessibility feedback to tech companies.Relevant LinksBITS (Blind Information Technology Specialists): https://joinbits.orgYour Tech Report: https://yourtechreport.com Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A dead man blackmails a U.S. senator. A shadowy syndicate unleashes financial chaos. Awar hero must risk everything to save her family and the country she swore to protect. From Robbie Bach, former Chief Xbox Officer at Microsoft and author of The Wilkes Insurrection, comes a riveting new contemporary thriller that blends cutting-edgetechnology with political danger in a way only he can. The Blockchain Syndicateimagines a world alarmingly close to our own, and it's just one wrong move away from collapse.Bach's insider knowledge of the tech world and his deep involvement in civic and policy circles lends a chilling authenticity to this thriller. With themes ripped from current headlines, AI, disinformation, political extremism, and digital vulnerability, The Blockchain Syndicate is not just a suspenseful read; it's a wake-up call. Robbie Bach joined Microsoft in 1988. Over the next twenty-two years, he worked in business leadership roles, including supporting the successful launch and expansion of MicrosoftOffice. As Chief Xbox Officer, he led the creation and development of the Xbox business, including the launch of the Xbox and its highly popular successor, the Xbox 360.In 2015, he published his first book, Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal. His debut novel featuring Tamika Smith, The Wilkes Insurrection, was published in 2021.

"PC-as-a-Service makes fast, secure deployments possible without having to contract with a series of vendors for devices, connectivity, support, and replacement services — all with a competitive, predictable monthly payment," says John Tonthat, CRO of Cellhub, in a new Technology Reseller News podcast. Cellhub, a premier primary agent in T-Mobile's Channel Partner program, has teamed with Lifetime Endpoint Resources (EPR) to introduce a first-to-market PC-as-a-Service (PCaaS) program. Powered by T-Mobile's industry-leading 5G network and anchored by Lenovo® ThinkPad™ devices, the program is designed to give MSPs and solution providers a full-stack, fixed-price computing environment to deliver to end-users. Key features of the program include: Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 6 laptops – ready-to-go, preconfigured Built-in 5G connectivity – 75 to 125 GB/month for mobile-first access Embedded security agent and remote wipe – enterprise-grade protection 24/7/365 help desk support – powered by distributor D&H Distributing Advanced exchange – replacement devices shipped before the old ones return Fixed 36-month pricing – predictable IT costs in volatile markets Microsoft 365 + Copilot – AI-enhanced productivity Tonthat explains that Cellhub's mission is to represent and advance T-Mobile solutions, but this launch also positions the company as a systems integrator and lifecycle enabler for MSPs. By unifying connectivity, devices, support, and software in one bundle, PCaaS helps partners offer a premium 5G-enabled workplace while creating new streams of recurring revenue. The program is aimed squarely at small and mid-sized businesses, helping them gain enterprise-grade computing power without the burden of upfront capital expenditures. “Cellhub is thrilled to provide a superior, comprehensive 5G solution that can accelerate outcomes for small businesses, especially those who might not be able to maintain their own in-house IT teams,” Tonthat adds. Listen to the full conversation with John Tonthat of Cellhub on Technology Reseller News. Connect with Cellhub & John Tonthat John Tonthat on LinkedIn cellhub.com Cellhub on LinkedIn Cellhub, a premier primary agent in T-Mobile's Channel Partner program, is working with asset lifecycle management provider Lifetime EndPoint Resources to launch a first-to-market PC-as-a-Service (PCaaS) program for the channel, powered by T-Mobile. This end-to-end 5G connectivity solution provides high-performance Lenovo® ThinkPad™ computing devices connected by T-Mobile, the largest 5G network, bundling 24-hour help desk services, advanced exchange services, and Microsoft Office 365 and Copilot for the devices. Cellhub considers PCaaS a next-gen model for comprehensive device lifecycle management in the channel, positioned to drive the category forward. The PCaaS program is delivered over a 36-month term at a competitive (and tariff-resistant) monthly recurring fee as opposed to an up-front capital expenditure. PCaaS allows MSPs to offer a fully-managed, set-price computing bundle, complete with cutting edge 5G connectivity, Lenovo-branded devices,  “always-there” support, and expedited exchange of devices when issues arise. It's ideal for a variety of modern workplaces, especially companies whose employees are distributed among different locations, like visiting nurses services or attorneys' offices, translating to reliable, consistent connectivity with minimal downtime and long-term optimized computing.

In this week's episode, we take a look at creating good backstories for characters and how that can advance the plot. We also discuss two articles about the problems of generative AI. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook versions of books in the Sevenfold Sword series at my Payhip store: SEVENBOOKS The coupon code is valid through October 13, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! Here are links to the articles mentioned in the episode. Writer Beware: https://writerbeware.blog/2025/08/01/return-of-the-nigerian-prince-a-new-twist-on-book-marketing-scams/ Ed Zitron: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-haters-gui/ TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 271 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 3, 2025, and today we are looking at how to create character backstories. We'll also look at some good articles about the problems created by generative AI technology. If you hear occasional drumming noise in the background, it seems like the elementary school a few blocks from here is practicing their marching band. Hopefully it won't be too disruptive. First off, let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook versions of books in the Sevenfold Sword Series in my Payhip store, and that coupon code is SEVENBOOKS. And as always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes. This coupon code will be valid through October the 13th, 2025. If you need a new ebook for this fall, we have got you covered. Now let's have a progress update on my current writing projects. As of this recording, I am 83,000 words into Cloak of Worlds, which will be the 13th book in the Cloak Mage series. I'm thinking the book will end up about 110,000 words, so hopefully I will finish up the rough draft next week. We'll see how things go. I'm also 8,000 words into Blade of Shadows, which will be the sequel to Blade of Flames from last month, and that will be my main project once Cloak of Worlds is published (hopefully by the end of October, if all goes well). In audiobook news, I'm very pleased to report that recording and all the work is done on Ghost in the Siege (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) and we will actually close out this episode with a preview from that audiobook. It's currently up on my Payhip store and probably Google Play as of this recording, but it should be showing up on all the other stores before too much longer. 00:01:52 Generative AI Now onto our next topic, which is two very good articles about the problems of generative AI I read recently. The first (and I'll have the links to both articles in the show notes) is from Writer Beware, which talks about how generative AI is causing a new round of super targeted scammers. These scammers feed your book into the chatbot, which then generates a highly personalized email praising the book and offering marketing services. I got a ton of these scam emails after Stealth and Spells Online, Ghost in the Siege, and Blade of Flames came out in the past couple months and a bunch more after Malison: The Complete Series did well on BookBub at the end of August. So if you are a writer and you publish a book and a few days later or perhaps even the very same day, you get a very detailed email praising the book with very specific plot points and offering marketing services, beware, it's probably a scam that will give you no value whatsoever for your money. Journalist Edward Zitron wrote a great article explaining in extensive detail why generative AI is a bad idea that's probably going to cause a serious market crash in the next few years. I admit I started out with a mildly negative opinion of LLM based generative AI tools in 2022 and 2023, but I wanted my opinion to be an informed one. I've experimented with them on and off and read a good bit about them and as I've experimented with them, my opinion has moved from mildly negative to highly negative and finally arriving at completely anti-AI this year. I never used AI for any of my books, short stories, or cover images. I experimented a bit with using AI images for Facebook ads, but people generally hated them, so I stopped entirely with that. In fact, Facebook ads have become far less effective this year because of all the AI stuff Meta has crammed into them, but more on that later. So why did I arrive at a highly negative opinion of AI? It's because these tools do not actually do what their advocates promise, they're hideously expensive to run, and the enormous costs and downsides significantly outweigh any benefits. In addition to the problems mentioned in the Zitron article like cost, false promises, economic bubbles, and the companies blatantly lying about their capabilities, I think the fundamental difficulty with generative AI is that it's essentially a cognitive mirror for its users, like a Narcissus Machine like I've called it before. What do I mean by this? In Greek myth Narcissus was enraptured by the beauty of his own reflection. LLM based AI is essentially very fancy autocomplete, which means it guesses the most likely response to your prompt based on a statistical likelihood. In other words, it ends up mirroring your own thoughts back at you. So I think LLMs are highly prone to inducing an unconscious confirmation bias in the user. Confirmation bias is a logical fallacy where one interprets new information as confirming one's preexisting beliefs. It's healthier to reevaluate one's beliefs based on new information that comes in, but with confirmation bias, you warp any incoming information to fit a preexisting belief. For example, let's say you have the preexisting belief that you're immortal and nothing can kill you, and then you accidentally shoot yourself in the arm with a nail gun and you bleed. The correct interpretation of this is no, you are not in fact immortal and you can in fact die. Someone suffering under confirmation bias would say the fact that they accidentally shot themselves in the nail gun in the arm with a nail gun and didn't die is proof that they're immortal. That's obviously a logical fallacy, but you see why it's called a confirmation bias. I think even highly intelligent people using LLMS are prone to this kind of confirmation bias because the AI model settles on what is the most statistically likely response to the prompt, which means that consciously or not, you are guiding the LLM to give you the responses that please you. This is why you see on the tragically hilarious side, people who are convinced they've invented a new level of physics with the LLM or taught it to become self-aware or think that the LLM has fallen in love with them. And on the outright tragic side, people who have serious mental breakdowns or blow up their lives in destructive ways because of their interaction with the LLM. Grimly enough, I suppose the problem is going to sort itself out when the AI bubble crashes, whether in a few months or a few years. As one of the linked articles mentioned, AI companies have no clear path to profitability, save for chaining together infinite NVIDIA graphics cards and hoping they magically stumble into an artificial general intelligence or a super intelligence. They're not going to and it's all going to fall apart. The downside is that this is going to cause a lot of economic disruption when it crashes. I know I'm very negative about AI, but in the end I see hardly any good results or actual benefits from the technology. Lots of technology products are becoming worse from having AI stuffed into them (like Windows 11 and Microsoft Office) and what a few good results have come about will not last because the data centers are burning cash like there's no tomorrow. So again, you can see the links to these articles in the show notes and those are my thoughts on generative AI at the moment. 00:07:04 Writing Backstory for Characters [Note: Contains some mild spoilers for early books in the Frostborn, Half-Elven Thief, The Ghosts, and Cloak Games series] Now let's move on to a happier and frankly more interesting topic and that is writing backstory for characters. I will define it, talk about why backstory is important, give three tips about writing effective backstories, and share examples of good backstories from my own work and other media. First of all, what is a backstory? It's what happens to a character before the story begins or details of situation that happens before the story begins. Very often you'll have characters who have preexisting pasts before the story begins. It's very rare the story will begin when the main character is born and go from there. Even if that is the case, then some of the supporting characters obviously will have backstories. One example of a backstory could be a detective who had a twin sister who is kidnapped, which explains why he gets overly invested when a similar case happens. An example of a location's backstory would be knowing that a particular country was once part of another one and split off after revolution or war. That detail influences how people in that country currently treat people in the other nation. And you can see that a backstory is also an important component of world building as well, especially for fantasy and science fiction novels, though even novels set in in the contemporary world like mysteries and contemporary romance will often have backstories as well that require world building, because the location is very often fictional or will have fictional elements to it. Now, why is backstory important? For one thing, it makes a story feel more realistic and “lived in”, for lack of a better word. It's not realistic that absolutely nothing of interest happened to the protagonist before the story begins, or that nothing from their past would influence their current beliefs, behavior, and decisions. Backstory also gives characters clearer reasons for doing things. Returning to the earlier example of detective who had a younger sister who was kidnapped. What if the detective was a very procedural and by the book until a sudden similar case happened? Backstory can explain his unorthodox methods and willingness to solve the case at any cost. Backstory can also drive the plot in many ways. Continuing with the detective example, the detective's knowledge of his little sister's case leads him to find similar patterns in the new case and sends him on a search to prove that the cases are connected. As we can see from that, backstory is also a good way to set up plot hooks for later characters, such as we could have our detective here with his twin sister who disappeared in circumstances similar to his current case. It could be a fantasy hero who had previous battles with orcs and explains why he doesn't like seeing orcs. It could be a contemporary romance heroine who is reencountering her old flame, in which case the backstory would be central towards the plot, essentially. And now for three tips for writing backstory. First, it's important to not stop the plot to reveal backstory. Infodumping is generally something to be avoided when you are writing a novel. A little bit of it is unavoidable, but you want to avoid infodumping as much as possible and to reveal only as much information as necessary, partly because that creates a less cumbersome read for the reader and partly because that can also inspire a sense of mystery that sort of helps hook the reader and propels them forward into the story. It's also good to only reveal backstory that serves the plot or provides key information. For example, you could have in your detective's backstory that he went to high school and he was only a mediocre student and graduated with a GPA of 2.9 while doing well in athletics. Unless that's actually relevant to the story or has some significance to the plot, it's probably best to not include that. You can always tell when a writer has done a lot of research on a particular topic like firearms or travel or the history of a particular country because they are going to put that information in the book whether you want it or not. And if you're inventing an elaborate backstory for your character, it's best to avoid that impulse and only bring in details from the backstory as necessary. It's also important not to have the characters tell each other backstory that they would already know. For example, if you have two characters who've been married for 20 years, it would not be good to have them appear in dialogue as, “As you know, beloved wife, we have been married for 20 years this Tuesday.” It would be better if it's important to the plot to reveal that information like they're going out to a 20th anniversary party or their friends are throwing them a 20th anniversary party, that kind of thing, rather than having it come out in sort of a cumbersome conversation like that. Additionally, it's also important to only do as much backstory as necessary. For your main character, you may need a good deal of backstory or for the antagonist, but for supporting characters, it's less important to have a fully realized background. You need just enough so that they feel realistic and can contribute to the plot without overburdening the plot with too many details. Now, a few examples from my own books, mild spoilers here, nothing major but mild spoilers. I have written characters who have one key backstory element that influenced the plot. Ridmark Arban from Frostborn would be one and his major backstory point is that he was unable to save his wife Aelia from being killed five years before the story starts. Later on, there would be additional backstory that comes out for him in relation to his father and his brothers, but that is the main backstory point that defines his character for easily the first half of the series. Another example would be Morigna, whose parents were killed by the dvargir and then she was raised by a mysterious sorcerer who called himself the old man. And that is a major defining part of her character, that backstory that happened before we meet her in the narrative. I've also written characters with a lot of backstory, and the chief example of that would be Calliande from Frostborn as well, where she wakes up in the first book with no memory of her past and discovering what her backstory actually is a major driving force in the first eight books of the series. So that is a good example. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but that is a good example of using backstory as a mysterious narrative hook to pull the characters forward. Rivah from Half-Elven Thief is another character of mine who has a lot of backstory. In the backstory, she was raised in a noble household, her mother died, her father was about to sell her into slavery, so she fled into the streets and then she met Tobell and became part of his thieving crew. Tobell suffered a serious injury, and the thieving crew broke up and Rivah had to sort of strike out on her own while coming under debt to the procurator Marandis. So there is a lot of backstory there and all of it is important to Rivah's character and I think I've done my best to sort of feed that into the story as necessary to drive the plot rather than hopefully unloading it all in a massive infodump. And I have written characters with very little backstory, and the prime example of those would be Caina and Nadia. In Caina's series, the series starts when she's 11 years old and living with her parents and we develop Caina as she goes along and follow her she grows to adulthood and then increasing prominence in her world. With Nadia, the very first scene in the book is her first day of kindergarten pledging allegiance to the flag, the United States, and the High Queen of the Elves, which is the first indicator that Nadia's world, while very similar as to ours, is nonetheless very different. Like Caina, the book's narrative starts when Nadia is very young and then we see her develop along the course of the books. In a good example of backstory used well from another book would be Aragorn from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, where Aragorn's backstory is extremely important because when the hobbits first meet him at The Prancing Pony in Bree, he's just this mysterious wanderer known as Strider. But later on, we learn that he's actually the last heir of Gondor and Arnor and the rightful king of Gondor. His desire to reclaim his heritage and fulfill the role destiny has prepared for him is a major part of his character and that actually grows organically out of his backstory. I'm not usually fond of prequels, but a good example of a prequel using backstory effectively would be the combination of the Andor TV show and the Rogue One movie, where they create this excellent backstory for the Star Wars movie [Episode IV]. They do it through good characterization so you can see all the motivations of the characters as they go about their various missions and errands. So hopefully that gives you a good look into the process of creating backstory and how best to use it for writing your own stories. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found this show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes of the show 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. And now let's close out with a preview of the audiobook of Ghosts in the Siege, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy [audiobook excerpt follows].    

Guest: Shawn Villaron, Vice President of Customer and Strategic Initiatives, Office Product Group at Microsoft | Former VP & GM of PowerPoint | Bay Area Site Leader | Executive Sponsor of HOLA   Episode Overview In this episode, we sit down with Shawn Villaron, a 29-year veteran at Microsoft who has helped shape some of the company's most widely used products and strategies. Now serving as Vice President of Customer and Strategic Initiatives in the Office Product Group, Shawn partners with Microsoft's most important customers to better understand their needs around AI, workplace modernization, and productivity—insights that directly shape the future of Microsoft Office. Previously, Shawn was Vice President & General Manager for PowerPoint, where he led teams across multiple platforms—Windows, Mac, Web, iPad, Android, and iOS—reimagining how billions of people create and deliver stories. He also serves as Engineering Site Leader for Microsoft Bay Area, working across commercial, consumer, hardware, and AI platforms, while championing diversity and inclusion as executive sponsor of HOLA (Hispanic & Latinx Organization of Leaders in Action). Shawn brings a rare perspective: spending nearly three decades at a single company, driving innovation from the inside, and now exploring how AI and agents are reshaping the way we work, create, and build businesses. What You'll Learn in This Episode The positives and challenges of building an entire career at one company in the fast-moving tech world. How PowerPoint and Office are being reimagined for the AI storytelling era. Practical ways companies can encourage employees to use AI responsibly and effectively. How leaders can use AI to boost both creativity and productivity within teams. When employees might be using too much AI—or not enough. What it means to become an “AI Agent Boss” and how agents can give startups enterprise-level capabilities. Whether the concept of the one-person unicorn is realistic, and what's still missing. How recent graduates can stand out in an AI-driven job market. The emerging technologies Microsoft's Bay Area teams are most excited about right now. One piece of advice Shawn would give to founders and technologists building the next generation of workplace tools. Key Questions We Discuss What are the upsides and downsides of staying at one company for nearly three decades? How is Microsoft rethinking storytelling with AI in PowerPoint and Office? How can leaders balance productivity and creativity when adopting AI tools? What role will AI Agents play in empowering both startups and enterprises? Are we truly heading toward the era of the one-person unicorn? What advice would you give to graduates entering an AI-powered job market? Which emerging technologies are your Bay Area teams most focused on right now? About Shawn Villaron Shawn Villaron is Vice President of Customer and Strategic Initiatives in the Microsoft Office Product Group, where he drives strategy by working closely with top customers to shape the future of AI and productivity. Previously, he served as Vice President & GM of PowerPoint, guiding the product across every platform and ensuring seamless experiences for millions of users. He also serves as Engineering Site Leader for Microsoft Bay Area and as executive sponsor of HOLA, advancing diversity and inclusion at Microsoft. Resources & Links LinkedIn: Shawn Villaron | LinkedIn Microsoft Bay Area Blog: Microsoft Bay Area Blog Microsoft Work Trend Index: The 2025 Annual Work Trend Index: The Frontier Firm is Born   The views expressed on this podcast are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial or legal advice. Please consult with a professional for guidance on your specific situation. The opinions shared are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Finalis Inc. or Finalis Securities LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC.

A story about passing lucrative deals to competitors—and building something users refuse to give upThis episode is for SaaS founders exhausted from chasing every opportunity—and wondering if extreme focus actually works.Most SaaS companies don't fail because of bad tech. They fail because they can't stop building.Ray Meiring, CEO of QorusDocs, discovered this during a meeting with a bank CIO. While trying to find use cases for their generic document tool, Ray realized they had it backwards—they were hunting for problems to fit their solution instead of solving a specific problem.That realization changed everything. Ray narrowed QorusDocs from "any document" to proposals to specific verticals. He even developed a system for passing lucrative but wrong-fit customers directly to competitors.And this inspired me to invite Ray to my podcast. We explore how narrowing from documents to proposals to law firms and engineering firms created users who'd "pry QorusDocs from their cold dead hands." Ray shares why moving 10,000 miles to Seattle transformed their network, how building inside Microsoft Office became their differentiator, and why consistency beats constant pivoting. You'll discover how saying no to features actually accelerated growth.We also zoom in on three of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:Acknowledge you can't please everyoneAim to be different, not just betterFocus on the essenceRay's story shows how narrowing your focus can multiply your impact.Here's one of Ray's quotes that captures his philosophy:"We were trying to be everything to everyone and just build this very generic product. But as we worked with more customers, we started to see a pattern around a very specific set of documents that were challenging—proposal documents."By listening to this episode, you'll learn:Why the A-B-Z framework beats traditional segmentationWhat happens when you deprecate features instead of adding themWhen proximity to customers trumps remote efficiencyWhy integration beats innovation for enterprise retentionFor more information about the guest from this week:Guest: Ray Meiring, CEO QorusDocsWebsite: qorusdocs.com

The Power of Partnership: Upskilling for Eastern KentuckyGuests:- Dottie Nolan: EKCEP Training Coordinator- Linda Chen & Donnie Grimes: The Center for Professional Development, University of the CumberlandsEpisode Highlights:The Need: Dottie discusses why EKCEP saw a need for new, customized certification courses to make job seekers more employable.The Partnership: The team explains the collaborative process of creating custom, asynchronous training programs that clients can complete on their own time.The Courses: We break down the key skills covered in four certification programs:Financial Literacy: Budgeting, credit, and banking basics.Customer Service: Skills for customer-facing roles across various industries.Digital Literacy: Computer skills, online safety, and software like Microsoft Office.Real-World Impact: We hear a success story and discuss how these certifications demonstrate a candidate's value to potential employers.The Future: Our guests share what's next for this successful partnership and potential new course offerings.Get Involved: Dottie explains how EKCEP clients can sign up for these exclusive, no-cost training opportunities.Thank you to our guests! To learn more about EKCEP's services or to find a job, visit ekcep.org or your local Kentucky Career Center.

ChatGPT Agent is here!↳ What the heck is it? ↳ How does it work? ↳ What do you need to know? Glad you asked, shorties. Join us for the answers. Square keeps up so you don't have to slow down. Get everything you need to run and grow your business—without any long-term commitments. And why wait? Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com/go/jordan. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today.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 & NamingLive ChatGPT Agent Demo WalkthroughChatGPT Agent Mode Availability & PricingOperator vs. Deep Research Capabilities ExplainedChatGPT Agent Virtual Computer FunctionsSpreadsheet and PowerPoint Generation in ChatGPTMini RAG-Ready Agents with Data ConnectorsChatGPT Agent Security and Biological Risk ClassificationTimestamps:00:00 "Introducing ChatGPT Agent"03:41 Potential Delay for Paid Plan Rollout09:24 "Chat GPT Agent: New Tools Overview"12:44 OpenAI-Microsoft Tensions Over Software Overlap16:42 "ChatGPT's New RAG Feature Unveiled"21:55 AI Agent with Weapon Risk23:31 Agent Models: Boon or Bane?29:05 "Agent Mode: Seamless Editing Integration"Keywords:ChatGPT Agent, Agent Mode, OpenAI, virtual computer, Agentic skills, Operator, Deep Research, browsing websites, web research, synthesizing information, Microsoft competitor, PowerPoint creation, Excel spreadsheet creation, terminal access, public API integration, connectors, data analysis, image generation, multi-agent environments, retrieval augmented generation, mini RAG, AI operating system, human-in-the-loop, security concerns, biology classifier, biological weapons classification, chemical weapons classification, O3 model, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, agentic models, AI workflows, editable slide deck, Microsoft Office alternative, AI-powered presentations, spreadsheet automation, cloud-based agents, AI task automation, calendar integration, Gmail connector, Google Drive connector, Outlook connector, team collaboration, premium AI features, desktop to browser transition, file creation, terminal commands, workflow automationSend 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

We're hours away from OpenAI's livestream announcement of what's reportedly called Agent Mode. There's been a few lines of reporting of what's coming!We tackle the rumors, what they mean, and how to be prepared for what this means for our day-to-day work lives. Square keeps up so you don't have to slow down. Get everything you need to run and grow your business—without any long-term commitments. And why wait? Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com/go/jordan. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today.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 Release RumorsChatGPT vs Microsoft Office CompetitionPotential Excel and PowerPoint IntegrationDeep Research and Agent Mode FeaturesOpenAI Operator and Browser UpdatesImpact on Microsoft Office Business ModelWorkflow Automation and App ConnectorsProductivity Tool Advancements for Knowledge WorkersTimestamps:00:00 "OpenAI's New Agent Announcement"04:56 OpenAI's New Features Reveal Tomorrow07:35 Microsoft-OpenAI Integration: Enhanced ChatGPT Features10:28 "ChatGPT-Powered Document Creation"13:42 "AI Tools for Visual Presentations"17:18 OpenAI's Enhanced Operator Unveiled19:55 "Anticipating Software Agent Reveal"25:28 AI Evolution: New Industry NormsKeywords:ChatGPT agent, OpenAI, agent mode, Microsoft Office competitor, Excel automation, PowerPoint automation, generative AI tools, spreadsheet AI, presentation AI, Operator, OpenAI browser, Canvas mode, Advanced Data Analysis, Microsoft Copilot, document management AI, workflow automation, browser automation, deep research, computer using agent, data analysis AI, GPT-4o image generation, Google Drive integration, report generation, database analysis, visual creation AI, productivity tool, chat-based document editing, slide generation, formula automation, business productivity AI, AI-powered presentations, AI-powered spreadsheets, AI advancements, IP sharing, OpenAI-Microsoft relationship, slide transitions AI, corporate data analysis, public data synthesis, Mac user productivity, PowerPoint, Excel, real-time updates AI, web sources integration.Send 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