#E-learning app cost

[harshathusm]

How Much Does It Cost to Develop an E-learning App?

The cost of developing an e-learning app depends on features such as interactive modules, live classes, and AI-based personalization. Other factors include platform compatibility, design complexity, and development time. Investing in an e-learning app can empower education providers to reach a broader audience and enhance learning experiences. USM Business Systems is the best mobile app development company to create innovative and cost-effective e-learning solutions.

[hornetdynamics]

Development of a sign language learning app usually starts from $10000 but it is not a fixed amount because the Lingvano Price depends on various factors such as development approach, technology used, platform chosen to run the app, etc.

[mrmobileappdeveloper21]

In today's fast-paced world, where everything is just a click away, e-learning apps have taken the education industry by storm. With the power of technology at our fingertips, we can learn anything, anytime and anywhere. The rise of popular e-learning platforms like Byjus, SoloLearn and Udemy has made online e-learning app development more accessible than ever before. 

But have you ever wondered how much it costs to build an e-learning app like these? 

In this blog post, I will explore the different features and functionalities that make up an e-learning app as well as the types available in the market. 

Additionally, I will offer my expertise as a freelance e-learning app developer like me to help you determine your budget for building your very own e-learning app

Also read, How much does it cost to develop a CRM app like Monday.com, Pipedrive CRM, Salesforce CRM, Zendesk CRM

What is an e-learning app?

An e-learning app is an application that provides educational content and courses through digital platforms. These apps are designed to offer a personalized learning experience for students of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels. E-learning apps can be accessed from any location with internet connectivity on various devices such as smartphones, tablets or laptops. The purpose of e learning mobile app development is to provide users with access to quality education at affordable prices in comparison to traditional classroom-based learning. With the use of multimedia tools such as videos, animations, interactive quizzes and games learners can improve their skills and knowledge in different fields without having a physical presence in class. E-learning apps have become increasingly popular due to their flexibility and convenience. They allow learners to complete courses at their own pace without being restricted by schedules or geographical locations. This has made online learning more accessible than ever before. Moreover, many e-learning apps also offer features like progress tracking, peer-to-peer discussion forums, live classes with instructors, some even offer certifications upon completion of courses which has added immense value for both learners and employers alike. In summary, an e-learning app  developed by  elearning app developer, is revolutionizing the way we acquire knowledge by making it easily accessible anytime anywhere irrespective of your age or background!

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Why have e-learning apps?

In today's fast-paced world, time is of the essence. People are busy with their daily lives and often find it difficult to take out time for traditional classroom learning. This is where e-learning apps come into play. E-learning has gained immense popularity over the past few years due to its convenience and flexibility. elearning app development services provide learners with a platform where they can access educational resources anytime, anywhere, at their own pace. They eliminate the need for physical classrooms and offer a more personalized learning experience. Moreover, e-learning apps cater to a wide range of audience from school students to working professionals looking to upskill or learn something new. With features like online assessments, interactive quizzes and gamification elements, e-learning app users have reported higher engagement levels than traditional classroom learners. With the rise in digital literacy across the globe, it's no surprise that mobile app development e-learning has become an essential tool for education delivery today. Whether you're looking to enhance your skills or simply curious about a new subject; an e-learning app can be your go-to solution!

The benefits of e-learning app

E-learning apps offer a range of benefits that make them an excellent tool for learning. One of the most significant advantages is flexibility, which allows learners to learn at their own pace and in their preferred environment. With e-learning apps, students can access learning materials anytime and anywhere they want. This means that they can fit studying in with their other commitments and schedules. Another benefit of e-learning apps is customization. These apps allow users to tailor their learning experience according to their preferences, needs, and interests. They can choose what topics they want to study and how much time they spend on each topic. Moreover, these apps use algorithms to create personalized learning paths based on individuals' abilities. E-Learning also offers cost savings over traditional classroom-based education because it eliminates many expenses such as physical textbooks or transportation costs. Additionally, with digital content available online 24/7 around the world there are no geographic limitations. E-learning applications provide more interactive content than just reading from books or listening to lectures alone - especially through video-based lessons featuring visual aids like animations explaining complex concepts visually making it easier for students to understand difficult topics better.

E-Learning has been revolutionizing the education sector by providing affordable solutions while increasing accessibility across different demographics globally!

Features & functionalities in elearning app

E-learning apps come with an impressive array of features and functionalities to support effective learning. One of the key features is content diversity, which ensures that learners can access a wide range of educational materials in various formats, including text, audio, video, and images. Another important feature is progress tracking. This functionality helps learners monitor their progress over time by providing detailed reports on completed modules or courses and highlighting areas where they still need to improve. Additionally, e-learning apps often come with interactive tools such as quizzes, tests, simulations and games that make the learning process more engaging. These tools also help reinforce knowledge retention through repetition exercises. Furthermore, most e-learning apps have collaboration features that allow learners to connect with other students or teachers for discussions and feedback purposes. Communication channels like chat rooms or discussion forums enable participants to share ideas while social media integration allows them to share their achievements online. mobile app development service has been on top among different industries. Lastly but not least, some advanced e-learning apps may offer personalized learning plans based on individual needs or preferences using data analytics algorithms. The platform automatically recommends specific courses based on performance history in previous lessons or modules helping users save time when choosing classes tailored specifically towards their interests.

Types of e-learning app

When it comes to e-learning apps, there are various types of them available in the market. Each type serves a different purpose and target audience. Here are some of the most common types: 1. Academic e-learning apps - These apps cater to students who want to learn academic subjects like math, science, history etc. They usually have interactive lessons, quizzes and tests. 2. Corporate e-learning apps - These apps focus on providing training and development for employees in companies or organizations. 3. Language learning e-learning apps - These are designed for learners who want to learn a new language or improve their existing language skills. 4. Skill-based learning e-learning apps - These help users acquire specific skills like coding, photography, music etc. 5. Test preparation e-learning apps - As the name suggests, these help students prepare for exams like GRE, GMAT etc. 6. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) - These offer free online courses from universities across the world on a variety of topics. The type of app you choose depends largely on your personal goals and interests as well as your level of expertise in that particular field or subject area. With so many options available today, finding an app that suits your needs has never been easier! As a freelance mobile app developer i can provide all features listed above.

Do you have an App idea? Let's Discuss

why reach me as a freelance app developer

As a freelance app developer, I offer several advantages to my clients. Firstly, by working with me, you'll be getting personalized attention and care for your project. As a freelancer, I am not bogged down by multiple projects at once and can therefore give your project the time and dedication that it deserves. Secondly, as a app developer for hire, in e-learning app development, I have experience in creating apps like Byjus, SoloLearn, Udemy and others. My knowledge of the latest technologies allows me to create cost-effective solutions without compromising on quality. Thirdly, by hiring me as your freelance app developer you'll benefit from my flexibility. While many large companies may follow rigid schedules or processes when it comes to app development; being a freelancer means that I am open to trying new things and changing course if necessary. By reaching out to me you'll be able to save costs associated with hiring an entire team for your e-learning app development needs. With years of experience under my belt developing these kinds of apps as a solo practitioner- You won't need anyone else! So reach out today and let's get started!

Conclusion

Building an e-learning app requires a lot of effort, time and money. However, the benefits that come with it are worth every penny spent on development. With features such as personalized learning experiences and ease of access to educational resources, users can learn at their own pace and convenience. While there are already some established players in this market like Byjus, SoloLearn and Udemy; there is potential for new entrants to create unique offerings that cater to specific niches or markets. As a freelance app developer specializing in e-learning apps, I can help you build your app from scratch by providing innovative ideas coupled with my technical expertise.

If you're considering developing an e-learning app like Byjus or any other well-known platform but aren't sure where to star tor determine the cost to build an e-learning app– reach out to me! Together we can explore how best to bring your vision into reality while ensuring that it meets all of your business needs.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats – including elected officials – all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked. Collectively, it would be much cheaper for all the victims to band together and hire a fancy law firm to invalidate the patent, but individually, it makes sense for them all to pay. A collective action problem:

https://locusmag.com/2013/11/cory-doctorow-collective-action/

Musicians get royally screwed by Spotify. Collectively, it would make sense for all of them to boycott the platform, which would bring it to its knees and either make it pay more or put it out of business. Individually, any musician who pulls out of Spotify disappears from the horizon of most music fans, so they all hang in – a collective action problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/#universally-loathed

Same goes for the businesses that get fucked out of 30% of their app revenues by Apple and Google's mobile business. Without all those apps, Apple and Google wouldn't have a business, but any single app that pulls out commits commercial suicide, so they all hang in there, paying a 30% vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

That's also the case with Amazon sellers, who get rooked for 45-51 cents out of every dollar in platform junk fees, and whose prize for succeeding despite this is to have their product cloned by Amazon, which underprices them because it doesn't have to pay a 51% rake on every sale. Without third-party sellers there'd be no Amazon, but it's impossible to get millions of sellers to all pull out at once, so the Bezos crime family scoops up half of the ecommerce economy in bullshit fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

This is why one definition of "corruption" is a system with "concentrated gains and diffuse losses." The company that dumps toxic waste in your water supply reaps all the profits of externalizing its waste disposal costs. The people it poisons each bear a fraction of the cost of being poisoned. The environmental criminal has a fat warchest of ill-gotten gains to use to bribe officials and pay fancy lawyers to defend it in court. Its victims are each struggling with the health effects of the crimes, and even without that, they can't possibly match the polluter's resources. Eventually, the polluter spends enough money to convince the Supreme Court to overturn "Chevron deference" and makes it effectively impossible to win the right to clean water and air (or a planet that's not on fire):

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/us-supreme-courts-chevron-deference-ruling-will-disrupt-climate-policy

Any time you encounter a shitty, outrageous racket that's stable over long timescales, chances are you're looking at a collective action problem. Certainly, that's the underlying pathology that preserves the scholarly publishing scam, which is one of the most grotesque, wasteful, disgusting frauds in our modern world (and that's saying something, because the field is crowded with many contenders).

Here's how the scholarly publishing scam works: academics do original scholarly research, funded by a mix of private grants, public funding, funding from their universities and other institutions, and private funds. These academics write up their funding and send it to a scholarly journal, usually one that's owned by a small number of firms that formed a scholarly publishing cartel by buying all the smaller publishers in a string of anticompetitive acquisitions. Then, other scholars review the submission, for free. More unpaid scholars do the work of editing the paper. The paper's author is sent a non-negotiable contract that requires them to permanently assign their copyright to the journal, again, for free. Finally, the paper is published, and the institution that paid the researcher to do the original research has to pay again – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year! – for the journal in which it appears.

The academic publishing cartel insists that the millions it extracts from academic institutions and the billions it reaps in profit are all in service to serving as neutral, rigorous gatekeepers who ensure that only the best scholarship makes it into print. This is flatly untrue. The "editorial process" the academic publishers take credit for is virtually nonexistent: almost everything they publish is virtually unchanged from the final submission format. They're not even typesetting the paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1

The vetting process for peer-review is a joke. Literally: an Australian academic managed to get his dog appointed to the editorial boards of seven journals:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals

Far from guarding scientific publishing from scams and nonsense, the major journal publishers have stood up entire divisions devoted to pay-to-publish junk science. Elsevier – the largest scholarly publisher – operated a business unit that offered to publish fake journals full of unreveiwed "advertorial" papers written by pharma companies, packaged to look like a real journal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090504075453/http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

Naturally, academics and their institutions hate this system. Not only is it purely parasitic on their labor, it also serves as a massive brake on scholarly progress, by excluding independent researchers, academics at small institutions, and scholars living in the global south from accessing the work of their peers. The publishers enforce this exclusion without mercy or proportion. Take Diego Gomez, a Colombian Masters candidate who faced eight years in prison for accessing a single paywalled academic paper:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

And of course, there's Aaron Swartz, the young activist and Harvard-affiliated computer scientist who was hounded to death after he accessed – but did not publish – papers from MIT's JSTOR library. Aaron had permission to access these papers, but JSTOR, MIT, and the prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz argued that because he used a small computer program to access the papers (rather than clicking on each link by hand) he had committed 13 felonies. They threatened him with more than 30 years in prison, and drew out the proceedings until Aaron was out of funds. Aaron hanged himself in 2013:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Academics know all this terrible stuff is going on, but they are trapped in a collective action problem. For an academic to advance in their field, they have to publish, and they have to get their work cited. Academics all try to publish in the big prestige journals – which also come with the highest price-tag for their institutions – because those are the journals other academics read, which means that getting published is top journal increases the likelihood that another academic will find and cite your work.

If academics could all agree to prioritize other journals for reading, then they could also prioritize other journals for submissions. If they could all prioritize other journals for submissions, they could all prioritize other journals for reading. Instead, they all hold one another hostage, through a wicked collective action problem that holds back science, starves their institutions of funding, and puts their colleagues at risk of imprisonment.

Despite this structural barrier, academics have fought tirelessly to escape the event horizon of scholarly publishing's monopoly black hole. They avidly supported "open access" publishers (most notably PLoS), and while these publishers carved out pockets for free-to-access, high quality work, the scholarly publishing cartel struck back with package deals that bundled their predatory "open access" journals in with their traditional journals. Academics had to pay twice for these journals: first, their institutions paid for the package that included them, then the scholars had to pay open access submission fees meant to cover the costs of editing, formatting, etc – all that stuff that basically doesn't exist.

Academics started putting "preprints" of their work on the web, and for a while, it looked like the big preprint archive sites could mount a credible challenge to the scholarly publishing cartel. So the cartel members bought the preprint sites, as when Elsevier bought out SSRN:

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/17/disappointing-elsevier-buys-open-access-academic-pre-publisher-ssrn/

Academics were elated in 2011, when Alexandra Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub, a shadow library that aims to make the entire corpus of scholarly work available without barrier, fear or favor:

https://sci-hub.ru/alexandra

Sci-Hub neutralized much of the collective action trap: once an article was available on Sci-Hub, it became much easier for other scholars to locate and cite, which reduced the case for paying for, or publishing in, the cartel's journals:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14979

The scholarly publishing cartel fought back viciously, suing Elbakyan and Sci-Hub for tens of millions of dollars. Elsevier targeted prepress sites like academia.edu with copyright threats, ordering them to remove scholarly papers that linked to Sci-Hub:

https://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

This was extremely (if darkly) funny, because Elsevier's own publications are full of citations to Sci-Hub:

https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/

Meanwhile, scholars kept the pressure up. Tens of thousands of scholars pledged to stop submitting their work to Elsevier:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Academics at the very tops of their fields publicly resigned from the editorial board of leading Elsevier journals, and published editorials calling the Elsevier model unethical:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/may/16/system-profit-access-research

And the New Scientist called the racket "indefensible," decrying the it as an industry that made restricting access to knowledge "more profitable than oil":

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/

But the real progress came when academics convinced their institutions, rather than one another, to do something about these predator publishers. First came funders, private and public, who announced that they would only fund open access work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7

Winning over major funders cleared the way for open access advocates worked both the supply-side and the buy-side. In 2019, the entire University of California system announced it would be cutting all of its Elsevier subscriptions:

https://www.science.org/content/article/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

Emboldened by the UC system's principled action, MIT followed suit in 2020, announcing that it would no longer send $2m every year to Elsevier:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#nerdfight

It's been four years since MIT's decision to boycott Elsevier, and things are going great. The open access consortium SPARC just published a stocktaking of MIT libraries without Elsevier:

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/

How are MIT's academics getting by without Elsevier in the stacks? Just fine. If someone at MIT needs access to an Elsevier paper, they can usually access it by asking the researchers to email it to them, or by downloading it from the researcher's site or a prepress archive. When that fails, there's interlibrary loan, whereby other libraries will send articles to MIT's libraries within a day or two. For more pressing needs, the library buys access to individual papers through an on-demand service.

This is how things were predicted to go. The libraries used their own circulation data and the webservice Unsub to figure out what they were likely to lose by dropping Elsevier – it wasn't much!

https://unsub.org/

The MIT story shows how to break a collective action problem – through collective action! Individual scholarly boycotts did little to hurt Elsevier. Large-scale organized boycotts raised awareness, but Elsevier trundled on. Sci-Hub scared the shit out of Elsevier and raised awareness even further, but Elsevier had untold millions to spend on a campaign of legal terror against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan. But all of that, combined with high-profile defections, made it impossible for the big institutions to ignore the issue, and the funders joined the fight. Once the funders were on-side, the academic institutions could be dragged into the fight, too.

Now, Elsevier – and the cartel – is in serious danger. Automated tools – like the Authors Alliance termination of transfer tool – lets academics get the copyright to their papers back from the big journals so they can make them open access:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Unimaginably vast indices of all scholarly publishing serve as important adjuncts to direct access shadow libraries like Sci-Hub:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#cornucopia-concordance

Collective action problems are never easy to solve, but they're impossible to address through atomized, individual action. It's only when we act as a collective that we can defeat the corruption – the concentrated gains and diffuse losses – that allow greedy, unscrupulous corporations to steal from us, wreck our lives and even imprison us.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

[kimyoonmiauthor]

How to save on groceries (since they are about to go up under the tariff system)

So you may not know this, but the majority of your groceries are imported, particularly meats and many vegetables. So if you were one of the people in the US that voted for the orange one, then you voted for higher grocery bills. Oh, yipee.

Given that, how do you protect yourself from the deregulation...

Make a List

No, seriously, make a list. Stick to the list. If you need an app, there are free apps for that.

2. Don't shop at big supermarket stores (or minimize) because...

There is a trick they pull where they re-shelve everything every few months so what you thought was down aisle one is now down aisle 5, and sometimes they shift shit on you, so if you think the honey is next to the tea, the baking aisle, it's suddenly next to the breads where you go WTF.

It drives me up the wall as an ND. But the rest of you non-NDs, who weren't observant enough for this... it's time to punish those grocery stores and stick to your list or minimize shopping there so you don't fall into the psychological torture game. And BTW, if you are one of those suckers in one of those studies, stick to your fucking list. Especially if you're in a game scenario and then note to the fucking researchers that a game scenario isn't very realistic compared to if one is spending their own money.

3. Participate in community gardens especially with communal areas.

But but I'm disabled and need mobility aids. The community gardens I've been to take that into account and you can help by doing the little shit that no one else wants to do, like making labels for the plants that no one bothers to label. (Who is doing that right now? I am.)

Or teach how to harvest. Or learn how to make greens in pots for yourself. Or help us unload all of the excess food we get at the end of the season. Or help us get rid of the blackberry vines by making baskets. You DO NOT have to kneel in the dirt. And who knows, if you own a house, maybe you'll find some people to help build you a disability friendly garden. You have no idea how much people love to share their knowledge.

But I have a black thumb. Come for that, then. You know what gardeners love, love to talk about for hours? How their garden is growing. And then diagnose why your garden is going wrong. They will talk your ear off about it. Gardeners will turn that black thumb yellow, then maybe green.

But I want eggs... You know that some community gardens have chickens? You know what chickens produce? Eggs. Feed the chickens. Get some eggs. Be great for people in wheelchairs also. I mean, fuck, what's cooler than feeding some chickens and maybe getting some eggs? Pet the chicken? Maybe.

4. Garden at home

But I live in an apartment

The most expensive thing is the lights. You have to look for high spectrum and high lumens. The LEDs with a hood are better and the high lumen light bulbs are better.

This will set you back about 50-70 dollars for a set of 6. The light bulbs are cheaper, but are more concentrated on area of spread. ~$16 for one 4060 Lumens. $10 for the fixture. 2600 Lumens light bulb is ~30 dollars for a set of 6

~22 for the fixtures, a set of 2. Take note that red lights are better for fruit. Yellow lights are better for leaf growth. White lights will help with stem growth.

However, 50-70 dollars +maybe a 30-50 dollar shelf shoved in a corner somewhere +cost of plants, etc is much cheaper than dealing with E. Coli in your effing spinach.

But I'm disabled

Hydroponic gardening might do well if you have allergies.

If not, allergies and mobility issues instead, you can get a box planter for about 30 bucks, plant some herbs. I'd consider also lettuce, spinach and leafy greens. They are easy to plant indoors.

If you want to plan for the apocalypse.... consider sweet potatoes.

The containers are movable and can be put at eye level.

I have mint, rosemary, sage, scallions, lettuce, basil, thyme.

Sometimes looking at something green will lift your mood.

Most leafy greens are dead easy to grow in apartments. And you know where I got the materials for all of them, save the lettuce? lol grocery store, and the community garden. I literally am growing basil and sweet potato from leftover stems from the community garden! But you could also do it from grocery store materials too. They sell like for 4 bucks, a rooted herb pack. Separate the roots and done.

I mean, when you don't even have to pay for the plants, you know you're doing well.

[i-am-obscuram]

Top Ways to Make Money in 2025 Make $500 or More This Week

Does the title look somewhat familiar? I’m sure you’ve come across ads or websites with this topic and it’s a LIE. Maybe you’ve noticed they haven’t actually utilized the suggestions they are promoting and earning $500 from their suggestions is often a lie. Once I see the bingo or casino style game apps it’s pretty clear. I read the reviews in the app store where there’s hidden costs or worse they are an outright scam! Avoiding scams, knowing if you have to shell out money, or when and how you can get the returns promised are crucial considerations. Which are important when struggling and in dire need, yet this is something that tends to be entirely overlooked by the typical “Need Money Fast?” style posts. Lets change that! Not only have I used and tested these apps, I will give you the details on what to expect and strategies to leverage multiple apps together to gain the best earnings!

WHAT TO EXPECT:

Realistically you could to earn between $100 to $300 within your first week. The catch: you need to use the links I provide and get the bonuses! Yes they are affiliate links where we both benefit!

This article is in 5 parts:

Shopping Apps Make or get money back on your purchases! Survey Apps Earn money for your opinions, insights, and more. Investment Apps Earn while you learn about investing! Other Options Here’s some other ways to generate income. Strategies Some ways to get the best gains and earn more!

Shopping Apps

Social Nature

Social Nature lets you try natural, eco-friendly products for free in exchange for reviews. From organic snacks to eco-friendly cleaning supplies or makeup, you can explore healthier alternatives by signing up, receiving free or rebates products, and sharing your feedback.

How it works:

There isn't a smartphone app for this yet; you access the webpage through your browser and receive updates through text message and email. There are a few ways this works:

You receive a voucher coupon for the product.

You purchase the product and upload a receipt for a full or partial refund.

How does it payout?

If you are getting a voucher, it can take about a week or sometimes longer to receive it in the mail.

For the cash-back option, after uploading the receipt, you will usually receive an email from rewards@reward.tremendous.com within 72 hours. Follow the prompts for the payout.

Social Nature Common Complaints & Fixes

Long Wait for Approval

Fix: Complete your profile and apply for various products to increase your chances. Being consistent with reviews will improve product selection. Not Receiving Product or vouchers

Fix: Double-check your shipping info and contact support if needed.

Receipt Issues

Fix: If the WiFi or data connection is slow there will be errors or issues with uploading. Connect to a working WiFi or move to an area with better signal. Refresh the website and upload again.

Fix: If the receipt is not clear, get another one from the store. If the receipt is clear but not processing, reach out to support. Didn't receive the cash-back email from Tremendous? Go to My Products from the Menu, Click on the product and contact support.

No Products To Try

Fix: Sometimes there are not products available to try, come back in a week or two for updates.

Currently the affiliate link doesn’t provide a bonus at this time when you sign up and share you link you are entered into a raffle. Join Social Nature Here: https://www.socialnature.com/friend-referral/?referrer=friend-146442-74ea825c-link

Fetch Rewards

Fetch Rewards lets users earn points by scanning receipts from everyday purchases at grocery stores, restaurants, and more. You can redeem these points for things such as gift cards to popular retailers like Apple, Barnes & Noble, Lowes, Sephora, Ulta, The Vitamin Shop and many more!

How it works:

With Fetch, you can:

Photograph and upload physical receipts

Scan your email for applicable e-receipts from select retailers

Use the app to purchase from online retailers and earn points

Play games/try out other apps to earn points

Points can be redeemed as gift cards, join a raffles to win prizes, or donate to a cause of your choice within the Fetch app

How does it payout?

Starting around 100 points you can join the raffles.

With 3,000 points, you can donate.

At 5,000 points, you can redeem gift cards.

To redeem points click on your point balance in the upper right corner of the screen, then click on the amount of points you have or want to redeem, and follow the prompts.

Fetch Common Complaints & Fixes

Not Receiving The Right Amount of Points for Receipts *This can be prevented by taking multiple pics of your receipt before swiping up to submit it.

Fix: Check the details of the offer to see if the store you got the product from and/or the product qualifies. If it does, there are two ways to fix this Go to your profile, click on points activity, select the receipt, in the upper right corner there is the pencil edit icon, you can add the item manually.

Fix: Go to your profile, click on points activity, select the receipt, in the upper right corner there is the pencil edit icon, you can add an item if the initial scan didn't pick it up, or you can click on the mislabeled item and scan the barcode or select find product. Then submit it for review.

Fix: Go to the home page and look for the item offer. Select the item then scroll down to where it says "Missing points from this offer?" And click on "Correct receipt." Select the receipt with the item and click correct receipt or contact support. Then follow the prompts.

Play Points for playing games through Fetch are Missing or Incorrect

Fix: Refresh the app, contact support. The catch...you can be rewarded the missing points, but...read the email support message and note this is a problem and using the play aspect can be risky.

App Freezing or Crashing

Fix: Close and reopen the app, update it, or clear the cache. If needed, reinstall the app.

Slow Point Redemption

Fix: Ensure your email is verified and check your spam folder for gift cards.

It takes a long time (1 month+) to build up points to redeem a decent amount!

Fix: Keep up on the higher point incentives and featured incentives as they change frequently! Games will net you better points too but you do need to enable app tracking. Invite friends to the app especially when the bonus is high.

Despite some hiccups, Fetch offers an easy way to earn rewards from everyday purchases, and most issues can be quickly resolved.

Using this link https://referral.fetch.com/vvv3/referraltext?code=7P2KJN or Code: 7P2KJN to get started with 2000 points!

Upside

Upside is a free app that gets you cash back on gas and other errands!

How it works:

Download the app and link your payment cards.

Browse for nearby offers on gas, restaurants, and more.

Select the business you will be making a purchase from and Claim the offer

Make a purchase at a participating location.

Complete the offer in the app by selecting the card used or uploading a receipt

Earn cash back that is typically credited to your account within 10 days.

How does it payout?

Payouts have minimum requirements, I have only utilized the Paypal payout option, it can take up to 24 hours to receive the payout and you can add multiple Paypal Accounts to payout to!

Gift card withdrawals: $10 minimum

PayPal: $1.01 minimum but they take a percentage if you don’t have a withdraw amount of $15 or more

Upside Common Complaints & Fixes

Offers Not Always Available or Change Frequently

Fix: Check the app frequently for updated offers, especially during promotions.

Slow Cashback Processing

Fix: Ensure your payment card is linked correctly and that the purchase was processed successfully.

Fix: Wait 10 days as they confirm with the payment processor of the business that the transaction went through.

Didn’t get cash back

Fix: Read the fine print on the offer as some gas stations may have a limit to redemptions. Example one gas station in my area limited the offer to cash back on 50 gallons of gas.

Fix: Contact Support, click the 3 lines i the upper right corner you will see your profile, other options, and “help.” Click on help and then click in the upper right corner to use the chat and submit a request. Check your email for a response if no one is immediatly available.

Limited Availability in Some Areas

Fix: Check if there is availability in your area go to the menu and select Help to put in a request or see how you can improve availability in your area.

Join using this link: https://upside.app.link/BRETTNEY2562 or use promo code: BRETTNEY2562 to get an extra 15¢/gal bonus on your first purchase!

SURVEY Apps

AttaPoll

AttaPoll is an easy-to-navigate app that pays users to complete short surveys. It’s simple straightforward and user-friendly.

How it works:

Take and complete surveys, or “AttaPoll Tasks” to earn a bit of cash. AttaPoll Tasks are typically downloading and trying out apps. Most are games, but sometimes to complete the task it requires a purchase.

How does it payout?

Once you earn $2.50, you can withdraw, with the exception of PayPal, you will need a balance of $3. I've only utilized PayPal to do withdraws with no issue. You can earn $5 within a few hours. Withdraws are limited to 1 every 24 hours.

AttaPoll Common Complaints & Fixes

Low Survey Availability

Fix: Complete your profile, enable notifications, and check the app at different times of the day.

Frequent Disqualifications

Fix: Answer screening questions honestly and ensure your profile is up to date. Pay attention to questions as they screen for bots, give thoughtful and detailed responses in text boxes. Regardless disqualifications do happen a lot, simply move on to the next survey.

Not Receiving A Payout Or Disqualified On Completing A Quiz

Fix: Contact Support by clicking on your profile select “Help” then select “Surveys” or “Other” and follow the prompts.

Payment Delays

Fix: Give it 30 minutes for the payout to complete. Make sure you have WiFi or a good data signal to complete your payout. Check that your account is linked correctly, and that it meets the payout threshold ($3 for PayPal). If all else fails, contact support.

AttaPoll can be a convenient way to earn a little extra, especially with the know how to navigate common issues. The advantage with AttaPoll is that surveys are plentiful.  Get a $0.50 boost to start https://attapoll.app/join/rqfvc or Use Code: rqfvc

Eureka

Eureka is one of the best survey apps! It has a great design, easy to navigate layout and most of all if you start a survey and get disqualified they still give you $.02 for your time.

How it works:

Eureka Survey offers users the chance to earn cash by completing surveys or by downloading and trying out apps. Sometimes to complete the app trial it requires a deposit or purchase. With a fun easy-to-use interface and frequent surveys, it's a popular app for making extra money. However, like any rewards app, there are common complaints. Here's a breakdown and how to fix them.

How does it payout?

Earn $5 to be eligible for the payout, and you are limited to one payout every 24 hours!

Once your payment is processed, take the feedback survey to immediately earn $1.25

Eureka Common Complaints & Fixes

Closed Surveys

Fix: This happens a bit and you dont get the $.02 reward! The way to navigate this is to do surveys Monday to Friday!

Survey Disqualifications

Fix: This happens quite a bit, lessen the chances of this happening when you fully complete your profile, answer screening questions honestly, and frequent the app to have more recent surveys show up.

Low Survey Availability

Fix: Ensure your profile is detailed, turn on notifications, and check the app at different times. Close or refresh the app frequently. Eureka will only show a limited amount of surveys as you complete surveys, more will appear. However, during the weekdays is the best time to have ample survey availability.

Payouts Problems

Fix: Ensure your app is up to date, check that PayPal is verified, make sure your internet connection is working well as low or no signal areas will cause problems. Contact support if delays persist longer than 30 minutes!

Survey Issues

Fix: Restart the app, check for updates, and clear the app's cache.

Eureka can be a simple and fun way to earn cash Use my code UPT7QB or the link below for Eureka Surveys and unlock an entry $1 survey just for signing up!  https://eurekasurveys.page.link/Z9g6ahbWsd2nXcn27

INVESTMENT APPS

Coinbase

Coinbase is a leading platform for buying, selling, investing and earning cryptocurrency.

How it works:

For this, you will be using Coinbase's learn-to-earn based Rewards program, where you can earn free crypto simply by completing educational quizzes or tasks. Cryptocurrency can be a profitable investment! By earning while you learn the basics, you can gain valuable insights into the realm of investments in digital finance. Coinbase has some international limitations see those here I'm going to be honest, Coinbase can be very complicated, especially if you are brand new to cryptocurrencies! Take your time and have patience as you go through some of the tasks! Also several of the tasks may require money to complete! Also do not withdraw the currency earned until all steps of the task are complete, as that may go towards completing the task! For example, with a task you may be rewarded learning about a cryptocurrency, then rewarded for downloading and installing a wallet connected to that currency. Another reward for transfering the currency earned to the wallet and then earning more with using some to do an activity through the wallet to then complete the task. Feel free to reach out via the comments below this post or to me directly for support.

How does it payout?

Coinbase often gives you the option to receive your sale proceeds as USD (deposited to your cash balance) or as USDC (a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar). Here's the clarified "Payouts" section:

Payouts (Getting Cash from Selling Crypto):

When you sell your cryptocurrency on Coinbase, you'll want to get that money into your bank account. Here's how it works:

Sell your crypto: You tell Coinbase you want to sell your Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other crypto.

Choose USD: Coinbase might give you a choice between USD (US dollars) and USDC (a digital dollar). To get real money in your bank, you MUST choose USD. This puts the money into your Coinbase USD balance.

Withdraw to your bank: Once the sale is complete and the USD is in your Coinbase USD balance, you then tell Coinbase to send that money to your linked bank account. This is called a "withdrawal."

Wait for the money: It usually takes 1-3 business days for the money to show up in your bank account.

Important Note about USDC: USDC is a type of cryptocurrency that's designed to be worth the same as a US dollar. It's useful for trading and other things within the crypto world, but if your goal is to get cash in your bank account, you need to choose USD when selling your crypto, and then withdraw the USD to your bank.

Common Complaints & Fixes

Rewards Not Showing After Quizzes or tasks

Fix: Ensure you completed the quiz, log out and back in, or contact support if the issue persists. I have experienced delays between 5 to 10 minutes on rewards.

Account Restrictions on Rewards

Fix: Verify your identity, ensure your country is eligible, and reach out to support for further help.

Fix: Coinbase has some international limitations see those here

Fix: Sometimes your ability to earn rewards just disappears or they change the menu configurations frequently. Take a break from the app and usually the issue will be resolved later.

Sign up for Coinbase and make a deposit in your account using my link and we can each get $20 in BTC. https://coinbase.com/join/RH5F3K3 Use Code: RH5F3K3 *If you have a hard time navigating tech, this may not be for you.

Webull

Webull makes it easy for beginners to start investing, offering new users up to 12 free stocks for signing up and depositing. This gives you an instant portfolio with no risk.

How does it work?

Create a Webull account and make a deposit.

Claim your free stocks you need to claim them or you wont get them.

Start investing in stocks, ETFs, or options (with caution).

How does it payout?

You can sell your stocks through the Webull platform and withdraw the proceeds to your bank account.

Note: The offers change frequently, some require adding in one cent, others $100+ read the fine print. But this is still a great way to start getting into investing! You can withdraw what you deposit.

Common Complaints & Fixes

This can be a confusing interface

Fix: Be sure to start with options for being new to trading. When I joined it gave me the option o that. You can start with paper trading and use educational resources.

Slow Customer Support

Fix: Use the help center or detailed in-app messages for faster responses.

Tax Confusion

Fix: Learn about capital gains taxes and use Webull's tax tools to stay informed.

Webull's free stocks, educational resources, and easy-to-use tools make it a great platform for new investors to start growing their wealth. Happy investing! Use this link: https://a.webull.com/3Dba18HsZwZiNAQzF7 to get 3 or more stocks for signing up and depositing $100 or more when you create your account.

Other Options

Poshmark

Sell clothing, jewelry, and decor on Poshmark it works best using your smartphone! Poshmark is a user-friendly marketplace that allows you to sell clothing, shoes, accessories, and even home goods. Whether you're decluttering your wardrobe or flipping thrifted finds, Poshmark makes it easy to earn money from unwanted items.

How does it work?

Sign up and set up your profile it’s completely free.

List Your Items – Snap clear photos, write a detailed description, and set your price.

Ship with Ease – Once your item sells, Poshmark provides a prepaid shipping label. Simply package the item and drop it off at the post office *TIP - make sure you get a drop-off receipt from the post office!!

How does it payout?

Once your item has been received from the person that bought it, you will be able to access your funds. there can be a 3 day delay from when the buyer receives it and when funds are released. You can use it to buy items or withdraw.

Withdraw funds with Direct Deposit (ACH Transfer) Instant Transfer (there may be some limitations on this) Paypal, or Venmo. Fees may apply.

Mailed Check – If you prefer, Poshmark can mail you a check instead.

Common Complaints & How to Resolve Them:

Slow Sales:

Fix: Enhance your listings by using high-quality photos and detailed descriptions.

Fix: Share your listings frequenlty to your network on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and to friends on the Poshmark app to boost visibility

Fix: Engage with other users by following, sharing, and commenting to increase exposure.

Fix: Add items often.

Fix: Do live shows if this interests you it can be best to go all in on it! You do need to meet some criteria before going live.

Fix: Ship items within 3 days!

High Selling Fees:

Fix: Poshmark takes a 20% commission on sales over $15 (or a flat $2.95 on sales under $15). To maximize profits, factor in fees when pricing your items. Poshmark makes this easy and will display what you will receive when you post your listing.

Returns & Cancellations:

Fix: While Poshmark generally has a no returns policy, disputes may arise if an item is misrepresented. Be transparent in descriptions and disclose any flaws.

Fix: If a buyer requests a cancellation before shipment, respond quickly to avoid penalties.

I enjoy Poshmark and I use it as a passive income generator by reposting listings and adding more items as I can. The hassle-free shipping with prepaid labels where I just pack print the label and ship, keeps it easy. The ability to negotiate and accept offers to boost sales is great too.

Turn your unwanted or unused items into extra cash while building a sustainable side hustle follow me there and comment here so I can follow you back! https://poshmark.com/closet/yewenchie Click to checkout my shop on Poshmark and Use Code: YEWENCHIE to get $10 OFF *Code is only good for new users to Poshmark.

Wag

WAG is a great way to gain some income without having a car! It’s best in dense urban cities! Wag is the perfect app for pet lovers looking to earn extra income by walking dogs, pet sitting, or offering drop-in visits. If you enjoy spending time with animals and want a flexible side hustle, Wag provides an easy way to get paid while staying active.

How It Works:

Sign Up & Get Approved – Create an account, complete a background check, and get verified.

If I remember correctly you will need to pass a test as well as the background check.

There is a fee associated it may be $65 with signing up for the background check etc. You can make part of it back with using my link to get a sign up bonus of $25 https://wagwalking.com/dog-walker?code=BRETTNEY29322 then you will get the rest back with your first few walks/boardings.

Payments go through Stripe, so you must link a valid bank account or debit card.

Set Your Availability – Choose when and where you want to work.

Accept Walks & Pet Care Requests – Browse available dog-walking, sitting, or boarding jobs in your area. Take photos and videos, follow the owners directions

How does it payout?

Complete a Service – Finish a dog walk, pet sitting, or other service.

Receive Payment Held in Earnings Tab – Earnings are typically processed every Friday for completed services.

Choose Payout Option – Use Instant Pay for quick access or wait for the weekly direct deposit.

Instant Pay – You may need to meet criteria before you can use the Instant Payout option. Fees are applied to this with minimum pay fee of 1.99 below $60 or 3% fee above $60 per transaction (this is subject to change), the benefit is it allows to receive funds within minutes via debit card.

Standard Payout – Free, but funds may take 3-5 business days to be deposited into your bank account. For me the money that is attributed to the standard payout happens weekly with the money going out of Wag Earnings on Thursday.

Your Earnings will display what is available with the weekly payout and the instant payout. If you opt for the instant payout it will include the weekly payout and 0 out your earnings.

Common Complaints & How to Resolve Them:

Low Pay for New Walkers:

Fix: Increase your earnings by accepting repeat clients and focusing on doing 30 min and 1 hour walks.

Fix: Offer additional services like pet sitting or boarding to boost income.

Scheduling Challenges:

Fix: The competition for walks can be high in some areas. Stay active on the app and enable notifications to grab new opportunities quickly.

Fix: Expand you radius for walks

Fix: Head to an area with higher demand to do on demand walks.

App Glitches & GPS Issues:

Fix: If the app isn’t tracking your walk properly, ensure your location settings are turned on and update the app regularly to avoid bugs.

Fix: Low signal areas may be challenging, get to spots with signal, use WIFI when available, contact support after the gig is complete.

Lots of fees

Fix: Be aware and prepared for the fees use the bonus link Wag charges a one time fee could be $65 for the background check with joining. Joine using my link https://wagwalking.com/dog-walker?code=BRETTNEY29322 apply and earn $25!

Fix: Avoid using the Instant Pay feature

Fix: Avoid paying for boosting your account but I could work starting out to get more work or higher paying walks.

It’s a learning curve and the upfront fee may be a barrier to begin. Yet once you get established and set-up recurring walks it can be a decent side gig. Want to try this out? Apply and earn a $25 bonus when accepted! (Terms apply.) https://wagwalking.com/dog-walker?code=BRETTNEY29322 Use code: BRETTNEY29322

Strategy

HOW I MAXIMIZE MY EARNINGS

Start with Social Nature look for deals that can be used at grocery stores that offer cash back through Upside then upload the receipt to Fetch. You not only get reimbursed through Social Nature you actually make some money.

Fetch is useful as you will earn points on any and all receipts that you can combine with points offered through credit and debit cards. As a hack you can use friends receipts, found receipts and double receipts like when you go get an itemized receipt and a separate credit processing slip.

Upside can combine with cash back offers and Fetch high point offers at grocery stores, and cash back credit or debit card offers with specific restaurants.

Attapoll and Eureka can give you bonus offers for JOINING apps like Upside Webull and Coinbase You can try to maximize the offer by seeing if you can use my affiliate code on top of the offer through the poll apps! I found Upside through Attapoll.

Enjoy using and combining these suggestions and let me know how it goes or if you have questions in the comments below!

☕️Buy Me A Coffee ☕️

Click the link above to Buy me a coffee OBSCURAM costs money to keep it running! Even $1 supports on the website expenses! Thank you - Brettney

AMAZON ASSOCIATE LINKS

Try Audible Plus Register a SNAP EBT card Audible Gift Memberships

This post contains affiliate links that are intended to support you with things that can get you bonuses, that have been vetted, tested, and researched! By utilizing the links it also gives crucial support in keeping Obscuam going as it does cost me money for hosting ect.

[ezonebusinesssetupdubai]

Top Online Business Ideas to Consider in 2025

Dubai's dynamic business environment offers numerous online opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs. Here are some of the top online business ideas to consider in 2025:

E-commerce Store: Launch an online platform to sell products directly to consumers. With the UAE's e-commerce market projected to reach $9.2 billion by 2026, there's significant potential here. Focus on a specific niche, obtain the necessary e-commerce license, and develop a user-friendly website. Partnering with reliable delivery services and implementing effective marketing strategies will be crucial.

Dropshipping Business: Manage an online store without holding inventory. When a customer makes a purchase, the order is forwarded to a supplier who ships the product directly to the customer. This model reduces upfront costs and is gaining popularity globally.

Digital Marketing Agency: Offer services like social media management, SEO, and content creation to help businesses enhance their online presence. As companies increasingly recognize the importance of digital marketing, there's a growing demand for such expertise.

Online Education and Tutoring: Provide virtual classes or tutoring sessions in subjects you're knowledgeable about. The rise of online learning platforms has made education more accessible, and there's a consistent demand for quality instructors.

Content Creation and Blogging: Create engaging content through blogs, videos, or podcasts. Monetize your content via advertising, sponsorships, or affiliate marketing. Building a loyal audience can lead to significant revenue opportunities.

Affiliate Marketing: Promote products or services from other companies and earn a commission for each sale made through your referral. This model is cost-effective and can be lucrative with the right strategy.

App Development: Develop mobile or web applications to meet specific user needs. With the increasing reliance on digital solutions, innovative apps can gain rapid popularity.

Virtual Assistant Services: Offer administrative support to businesses or individuals remotely. Tasks can range from managing emails to scheduling appointments, providing flexibility for both parties.

Online Consulting: Leverage your expertise in a particular field to offer consulting services online. Whether it's business strategy, health, or finance, many are willing to pay for professional advice.

Graphic Design Services: Provide design solutions for logos, marketing materials, or websites. As businesses aim to stand out visually, skilled graphic designers are in high demand.

Social Media Influencer: Build a strong presence on platforms like Instagram or YouTube. With a substantial following, you can collaborate with brands for promotions and sponsorships.

Online Fitness Coaching: Offer virtual fitness classes or personalized training plans. The health and wellness industry continues to thrive, and many prefer the convenience of online sessions.

Stock Photography: Capture high-quality images and sell them on stock photography websites. Businesses and creators constantly seek quality visuals for their projects.

Handmade Crafts Online Store: Sell handmade items like jewelry, art, or home decor through an online platform. There's a market for unique, handcrafted products that can't be found in mass production.

Subscription Box Service: Curate and deliver boxes of niche products to subscribers regularly. This model has gained traction in various industries, from beauty products to gourmet foods.

Language Translation Services: Provide translation services for documents, websites, or media content. In a globalized world, effective communication across languages is essential.

Online Travel Agency: Assist clients in planning and booking their travel experiences. With the resurgence of travel, personalized planning services are valuable.

Virtual Event Planning: Organize and manage online events, from webinars to virtual conferences. As virtual events become more common, skilled planners are needed to ensure their success.

Print on Demand: Design custom apparel or merchandise and partner with suppliers who print and ship items as orders come in. This reduces the need for inventory and allows for creative flexibility.

Online Real Estate Brokerage: Facilitate property transactions through a digital platform. With the real estate market's evolution, online brokerages offer convenience to buyers and sellers.

Embarking on an online business in Dubai offers numerous advantages, including a strategic location, supportive government policies, and a tech-savvy population.

By selecting the right niche and implementing effective strategies, you can build a successful venture in this thriving market.

[wigilham]

Which Platform is Good for Commodity Trading?

Commodity trading has grown in popularity as investors seek to diversify their portfolios beyond traditional stocks and bonds. With the rise of online trading platforms, choosing the right platform for commodity trading can make a significant difference in your trading experience and profitability. 

Top 10 Platforms for Commodity Trading:

Finding the best commodity trading platform is crucial for beginners looking to trade commodities such as gold, silver, and crude oil. Whether you need a mini futures broker or a comprehensive trading app, the right platform can enhance your trading experience. Here’s a quick overview of the top platforms to help you get started:

1. AvaTrade

Pros: User-friendly, offers both CFDs and futures, extensive educational resources, regulated globally.

Cons: Higher spreads, limited advanced features.

2. Eightcap

Pros: Low fees, ideal for beginners, mobile app available, offers a 20% deposit bonus.

Cons: Limited contract trading tools, fewer educational resources.

3. IG

Pros: Wide market selection, in-depth research reports, user-friendly.

Cons: Higher commissions, complex for beginners.

4. Interactive Brokers

Pros: Access to global exchanges, competitive fees, strong market insights.

Cons: High minimum deposit, steep learning curve.

5. Exness

Pros: Low fees, good educational content, mobile trading available.

Cons: Limited niche market access, complex platform for new traders.

6. CMC Markets

Pros: Low spreads, advanced charting tools, extensive educational content.

Cons: Complex for beginners, limited support for mini futures.

7. E*TRADE Futures

Pros: Low commissions, fast execution, strong research tools.

Cons: Limited educational content, restricted customer support hours.

8. NinjaTrader

Pros: Low-cost futures trading, real-time data, advanced tools for professionals.

Cons: Steep learning curve, limited customer support.

9. TradeStation Futures

Pros: Comprehensive tools for experienced traders, wide market access, strong risk management features.

Cons: High commissions for small traders, not beginner-friendly.

10. Webull Futures

Pros: Commission-free trading, mobile-friendly, real-time data access.

Cons: Limited selection of commodities, minimal educational content.

Each platform offers unique advantages tailored to different trading styles. Beginners should consider factors such as fees, ease of use, available educational resources, and market access before making a choice.

[panashifzco]

Why Self-Service Kiosks Are the Future of Hospitality and Retail !!

The retail and hospitality industries are constantly evolving to meet the demands of modern consumers. As businesses strive for efficiency, convenience and improved customer experience, self-service kiosks have emerged as a game-changing solution. From quick-service restaurants to retail stores and hotels, kiosks are revolutionizing how customers interact with businesses, making transactions smoother, reducing wait times and enhancing overall satisfaction.

The Growing Demand for Self-Service Solutions

With the rise of digital transformation, consumers now expect seamless, tech-driven interactions in every aspect of their lives. Self-service kiosks address this demand by providing :

Speed and Efficiency – Customers can place orders, check-in or make payments quickly without waiting in long lines.

Reduced Labor Costs – Businesses can optimize staff allocation, reducing operational expenses while maintaining quality service.

Enhanced Customer Experience – Customizable interfaces and multilingual support ensure a smooth and personalized experience for diverse audiences.

Improved Accuracy – Self-service kiosks eliminate human errors in order placement, payment processing, and service requests.

How Kiosks Are Transforming Retail Retailers are integrating self-service kiosks to streamline operations and improve shopping experiences. Some key benefits include:

Faster Checkout – Self-checkout kiosks minimize congestion at traditional cash registers, reducing wait times.

In-Store Navigation & Product Lookup – Customers can quickly locate products and access real-time stock availability.

Loyalty Program Integration – Kiosks enable customers to register for rewards programs, check points, and redeem offers effortlessly.

Seamless Omnichannel Experience – Integration with e-commerce platforms allows customers to order online and pick up in-store.

Upselling and Cross-Selling Opportunities – Kiosks can suggest complementary products or promotions based on customer preferences.

The Impact of Kiosks in Hospitality In the hospitality industry, self-service kiosks are redefining guest experiences by offering:

Faster Hotel Check-Ins and Check-Outs – Guests can skip front desk lines and access rooms with digital keys.

Self-Ordering at Restaurants – Quick-service and fast-casual restaurants use kiosks to enhance order accuracy and speed.

Automated Ticketing and Reservations – Kiosks streamline the process for theme parks, movie theaters and travel agencies.

Personalized Customer Interactions – AI-powered kiosks can recommend services, upgrades, or add-ons based on customer preferences.

Multi-Functionality – Kiosks can serve as concierge services, providing guests with local recommendations and travel assistance.

The Future of Self-Service Kiosks The future of self-service kiosks is driven by technological advancements, including:

AI and Machine Learning – Personalized recommendations and predictive analytics will enhance user engagement.

Contactless and Mobile Integration – NFC payments and mobile app connectivity will further simplify transactions.

Biometric Authentication – Facial recognition and fingerprint scanning will improve security and user convenience.

Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Kiosks – Digital receipts and energy-efficient designs will support environmental initiatives.

Cloud-Based Management – Remote monitoring and software updates will enable seamless kiosk operations.

Voice-Activated Interfaces – Enhancing accessibility for all users, including those with disabilities.

Conclusion Self-service kiosks are no longer a luxury but a necessity for businesses aiming to enhance efficiency, reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction. As the retail and hospitality industries continue to evolve, adopting kiosk technology will be key to staying competitive and meeting the ever-growing expectations of tech-savvy consumers.

What are your thoughts on the future of self-service kiosks? Share your insights in the comments below!

[fraoula1]

𝐓𝐨𝐩 5 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐇𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 2025

In today’s fast-paced tech world, side hustles can be a fantastic way for professionals to boost their skills and earn extra income. With advancements in artificial intelligence, remote working, and a growing need for tech solutions, 2025 is filled with exciting possibilities for tech enthusiasts.

This post dives into five promising side hustles, supported by data and trends. Techies can capitalize on their expertise and thrive in these areas.

1. Remote IT Support

With businesses shifting to hybrid work models, the demand for remote IT support has skyrocketed. According to a report from the International Data Corporation (IDC), the global IT services market is set to hit $1 trillion by 2025, hinting at tremendous opportunities in this field.

Techies with skills in troubleshooting can offer services to both businesses and individuals. The TechServe Alliance notes that the demand for IT support roles surged over 10% last year, making this a vibrant market.

Starting a remote IT support hustle is easy. Freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr allow techies to find clients quickly. Depending on the complexity of the service, they can earn between $25 and $150 per hour while enjoying the flexibility to work on their own schedule.

2. Cybersecurity Consulting

As cyber threats evolve, companies increasingly prioritize cybersecurity. A report from Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that costs from cybercrime could reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. This statistic underscores the growing need for cybersecurity professionals.

Techies with experience in cybersecurity can offer their services to businesses looking to protect sensitive data. A survey by Proofpoint found that 55% of organizations fended off phishing attacks, indicating a strong demand for seasoned professionals.

In this consulting niche, technology experts can earn between $100 and $500 per hour, based on their experience and project complexity. Earning certifications, like the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), can significantly boost credibility and income potential.

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3. Software Development and Mobile App Creation

As the world becomes more mobile-first, demand for software and app development is expected to rise. Statista reports that the global app economy may generate over $407.31 billion in revenue by 2026, presenting a lucrative chance for techies skilled in coding.

Developers can enter this space through freelancing or by launching their own projects. Tools like React Native and Flutter allow for efficient cross-platform application development, saving both time and resources.

Freelancers can charge between $50 and $200 per hour based on expertise and project scope. For those willing to turn a side hustle into a full business, the income from app sales and in-app purchases can be enormous.

4. Data Analysis and Visualization

Data remains one of the most valuable assets today, with analytics aiding decision-making. The global data analytics market might reach $300 billion by 2026, creating fertile ground for techies skilled in data analysis.

Freelance data analysts can help companies extract valuable insights from their data. Utilizing tools like Tableau, Power BI, and R can help create compelling visualizations, making their services even more attractive.

Data analysts typically charge between $40 and $150 per hour depending on analysis complexity. Mastering data storytelling enables techies to transform raw data into practical insights, positioning themselves as key assets for businesses.

5. E-Learning Course Creation

The rapid growth of online learning has made creating and selling e-learning courses a sought-after side hustle. The global e-learning market is anticipated to reach $375 billion by 2026, driven by rising demand for skill development.

Techies can harness their knowledge to develop courses on platforms like Udemy or Teachable. Topics can range from programming languages to software tools and emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning. Statista reported that 42% of online course creators are tech professionals, showing the market's strong bias toward technical education.

Successful courses can generate substantial passive income, sometimes yielding thousands of dollars. Since course creation has low overhead, techies can concentrate on producing high-quality content and devising effective marketing strategies.

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Unlocking New Opportunities in Tech

The side hustles mentioned offer exciting paths for tech-savvy individuals aiming to enhance their skills and income in 2025.

As technology keeps evolving, the need for skilled professionals in IT support, cybersecurity, software development, data analysis, and e-learning will continue to grow.

By leveraging their expertise and using the right platforms, techies can build rewarding side hustles that provide financial perks and opportunities for personal and career growth.

Whether solving challenging problems for clients, creating innovative apps, or imparting knowledge, the potential for side hustles in the tech sector is vast. The key is to find a niche that aligns with personal interests, engage in continuous learning, and embrace the entrepreneurial spirit in this dynamic environment.

In a landscape where technology is at the center of everyday life, techies hold a unique position to lead future innovations. Engaging in these side hustles will not only keep them relevant but also equip them for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

[kitkatt0430]

Setting Up Calibre + FanFicFare

I've talked before about using Calibre to download fic off of fiction archives, so that's where I decided to start with this series. If you're interested in learning more about how to download fanfic for offline reading/local archiving, then watch the #ficArchiving tag. And if you're not interested in seeing these posts then that's also the tag to block.

Edit (3/22/25) - I've updated the post due to changes in how FanFicFare works with regards to site ratings metadata - the type of column this information needs to be stored in has changed as it no longer works with selectable, pre-set options as originally outlined. Also adding note that additional plugins are required to make FanFicFare's anthology options available.

(Since this is a long post, I'm sticking it under the cut.)

First some background on what Calibre is. It's an open source eBook manager and is really quite versatile for it's usage, thanks in part to the robust library of plugins that it utilizes. The default Calibre app comes bundled not only with management software but an e-reader, server options for locally hosting your library (or libraries), and a whole host of options for managing metadata. Default metadata being tracked include title, author, series, publishing data, synopsis, and tags, but you can manually add columns for any additional data you want - which comes in handy when managing a local fanfiction archive. You can add columns for the fandom the fic is written for, the included ships, characters, completion status, whether it's a single fic or a series turned into an anthology. If the information is useful for you, then you can add a method to track it.

Now, for what Calibre does not do. Because it only runs on Windows/Mac/Linux systems - aka it only runs on a PC - you cannot install it on your phone or tablet. There's no official Calibre apps for Android or iPhones either, though there are unofficial ones that can work with Calibre in server mode. I've never tried the unofficial apps, however, as they tend to cost money that I don't really think they're worth. That's largely because in server mode you can log in to the local instance of Calibre with a regular old browser. Just book mark the page and, so long as your on a network where the local instance is running, your phone or tablet will have access to every book on your Calibre's library (or libraries, depending on how you set things up). You can then either read the eBook directly on the browser or, my preferred method, download the file and read it on the e-reader app of your choice. (You can also make the server available outside your local network, but I've never bothered to learn to set that up.)

Given everything Calibre can do, I'm not particularly bothered by the lack of official apps for phones or tablets - as far as I'm concerned it doesn't need one.

This post is going to be focused on using Calibre for fanfictions specifically, but if you want more information on the other things it can be used for, the Calibre FAQ pages are quite extensive and goes into detail about it's format support, eBook conversion abilities, device integration, news download services, library management, and more.

Alrighty, so first thing you'll want to do is download the version of Calibre that works with your computer. You can also create a portable version that runs off a USB drive if you prefer. Once you've downloaded and installed Calibre, it's time to decide where you want your fanfics to live. Do you want all your eBooks to live in one spot or do you want separate libraries for fanfiction vs original fiction? Since I like to collect more metadata for my fanfic collection than for my regular eBooks - and then completely different extra data for tracking my Star Trek books, or Doctor Who books - I like to have multiple libraries for managing my eBook files. And Calibre makes managing multiple libraries at one time very, very simple.

In Calibre's header there are going to be a lot of icons - I’ve modified the header toolbar for my Calibre instance, but most of the default options are still visible in the picture below.

Specifically you want the one that looks like four books leaning against each other on a shelf. It should have the default library name displayed there - Calibre Library.

Clicking on that will open the menu used for maintaining multiple libraries. While the application only sets up one library by default, it can link to multiple libraries located anywhere on your computer's filesystem. Since I like to use Dropbox to back up my libraries, I usually locate mine in my local Dropbox folder. You can import existing libraries from one instance of Calibre to another, which makes moving from one computer to another, or maintaining the same library across multiple computers, very simple.

Let’s assume you want to have a separate library just for fanfiction. To that end, you'll want the first option on the menu - labeled "Switch/create library".

From there you'll want to select the folder - or create a new folder - with the name of the library you want to use in Calibre. I'd recommend something straightforward and call it "Fanfiction". Then you'll select the radio button labeled "Create an empty library at the new location".

You don't need to copy the current library's structure since every library is created with Calibre's default structure and you won't have added any specialized data tracking at this point to copy over. Once you've set your library location and selected the option for creating a new library, hit the OK button. It'll create the new library and immediately change so that it's managing that library instance instead of the default Calibre Library instance.

If you aren't sure which library is currently open in the Calibre app, then the icon with the four books in the header is where you want to check. It will always be labeled with the name of the currently open library. The most recently opened libraries will be listed at the bottom of the menu opened by that icon for easy switching between libraries and the "Quick switch" option will list all the available libraries registered to your Calibre instance. The icon with the four books is the default icon for a library - if you change the icon for a library then keep in mind that the icon will change in the header when the library is the currently selected on.

Alright, so step one is completed. You now have a dedicated Fanfiction library for maintaining any fics you choose to download. But the default metadata being tracked for the books isn't as robust as it could be. Time to bulk that information up. You'll want to look back at the header again, this time for an icon that looks like a crossed screwdriver and wrench. It's labeled Preferences. Click on that in the center of the icon to bring up the Preferences modal instead of just the menu (which you can access by clicking the associated down arrow beside the icon instead).

The Preferences modal is where you can access options to tweak the appearance, behavior, and various other functions of Calibre. And I certainly encourage experimenting with the application as it can be customized to your heart's desire to make it meet your accessibility needs. For now, however, we're only interested in the "Add your own columns" option on the top layer of the modal, under "Interface". The associated icon for the "Add your own columns" option is, appropriately, a small Greek column.

This will open the column maintenance modal which presents with a table listing all the existing columns - these all track some kind of metadata for the ebook - and will have checkboxes on the left most of the table indicating whether these columns are displayed on the main interface or are accessible only through the Edit Metadata modal. (We'll get to the Edit Metadata modal later.)

To the right of the table are options for moving a column up or down in the list order, a minus sign used for deleting unnecessary columns, a plus sign for adding new columns, and an edit option for editing existing columns. I'd recommend unchecking columns you don't want displayed in the main table, but not deleting columns. That way you can still store the metadata - and search on it - in that column, but it won't clutter up the main page.

Alright, so now it's time to add some columns. Click the plus button to bring up a custom column form.

The "Lookup name" is what Calibre uses to do searches, so it needs to be something that can be safely saved in a database. "Column heading" is the pretty name that displays either as a column heading in the main Calibre table or as the metadata entry name in the "Edit metadata" modal. "Column type" has a dropdown of the different types of metadata that can be stored in a column and has an option to show checkmarks (a checkbox) for additional true/false parsing. There are a lot of options in the dropdown for metadata types, some of which will offer up additional column creation form options, and this is something that cannot be changed once a column has been saved. If you select the wrong one and realize it later, you'll have to delete the column and create a new one to take it's place. "Description" is there to help clarify things if the "Column header" isn't descriptive enough to make clear what the metadata being tracked by the column is for. And, finally, you can use the optional "Default value" if you want that column to be auto filled with a value you can update later.

Note that the form may add further fields to it, depending on the selected “Column type”.

Since this is going to be tracking fanfiction metadata, some good ideas for creating tag-type metadata columns would be "Fandom", "Ship", and "Characters". You might also consider "Rating", "Content Warnings", “Chapters”, or other data which might be better suited for other types of metadata. We'll start with the "Fandom" column.

You'll want to set the "Lookup name" to "fandom" (note the lowercase here), the "Column heading" to "Fandom" (uppercase this time), and the "Column type" to "Comma separated text, like tags, shown in the Tag browser". The "Description" is optional, so add what you like (or don't) there and the same goes for "Default value", which you might want to list as "Unsorted" or simply leave blank to indicate the fandom is currently unlisted. Once you're satisfied with your selections, click "OK" and you can either then "Apply" your settings changes or continue on to add more columns.

The "Ship" and "Character" data also work best as comma separated data, so I recommend making those columns in the same fashion as the "Fandom" column. “Chapters” you may want to add as an integer column, shown below.

If you're wanting to add "Rating" as a column, then you might want to have specific options for rating a fic, such as limiting the options to the same ones used by Ao3. To this end, you'd fill out the form more like this. "Lookup name" as "rating_level" so as not to confuse it with the existing rating column for star ratings, "Column heading" as "Rating" or maybe "Rating Level", and "Column type" as "Text, but with a fixed set of permitted values". This "Column type" selection will bring up two more inputs on the column creation form - "Values" and "Colors". These two inputs work together and can be edited later. In the "Values" input, you can add a list of comma separated values. In this case the list for "Values" would look like "General Audiences, Teen and Up Audiences, Mature, Explicit, Not Rated". "Colors" is an optional list that will assign a different color to every option on the "Values" list that corresponds to an entry in the "Colors" list. So if you want General Audiences to be blue and no other option to have a color, you'd list "blue" for colors. Or "blue, blue, red, red, red" to have the first to options on the "Values" list as blue and the last three as red. You can play around with this more or leave it blank to have the options all be the same default colors.

Once you've finalized your selections, hit OK to create the column.

Edit (3/22/25) - FanFicFare currently no longer accurately scrapes ratings data into a column setup as "Text, but with a fixed set of permitted values". Instead you will need to use the "Comma separated text, like tags, shown in the Tag browser" option. Fixed values should still work for things like fic status, which have the Completed and In-Progress settings only, but changes either to FanFicFare or Ao3 (and thus any Ao3 clones) have made the fixed values option for ratings fail to correctly connect site tags to the preset values. The good news is that this will now set the ratings for an anthology fic made from a series page with the ratings of all fics within the series - so if some are General Audiences and others are Mature within a single anthology, that will be accurately reflected in your captured metadata after downloading a fic.

After creating all your new columns and selecting which ones you want present on the main table, hit the "Apply" button. You'll likely be prompted to restart Calibre. Do so and when the program reloads it should display the main table with all the columns exactly how you set them up. Which means step two is complete. At this point if you have any fanfiction eBooks already, you can drag and drop them into the table from folder files or use the "Add books" option at the left most side of the header toolbar to start adding those. You can manually update the metadata either by clicking on newly added book and then selecting a column or by clicking the book and then selecting the "Edit metadata" option in the header. So now it's time to take a quick look at the metadata editor modal.

By default, the metadata modal will only have one screen but, because you've added custom columns, there should be tabs at the top. One for "Basic metadata" and one for "Custom metadata". The "Basic metadata" includes options for title, title sort, author(s), author sort, series, series number, file versions (for tracking if you have epub, mobi, pdf, etc files of the same book), cover management options, the star-based rating system, tags, ids, upload date, published date, associated publisher, languages, and "Comments" which is where the story summery/synopsis should go. For regular, non-fanfiction eBooks, you might also take note of the "Download metadata" button which allows for scrapping official metadata off of sites like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or other eBook sellers or archives.

The "Custom metadata" is where your custom column data will be found. It should be found at the top of the page and fill space downwards with however many custom columns you've added. Inputs that allow for comma separated values will still have a dropdown option associated to allow adding tags you've entered previously for other ebooks. Columns that only allow using preselected data are more likely to appear as select boxes or other form types. This is where you might notice you created a column type incorrectly, so make sure to check over all the data entry options for each metadata type you're collecting. If it doesn't look like it's set up the way you wanted it to be, you can go back to the column editing modal and try again.

The big draw of using Calibre to manage fanfiction eBooks, however, is being able to use Calibre to download the fanfictions from the web and convert them to eBook format for you. And that's where Calibre's plugin library comes in handy.

If you were making any edits to an existing eBook, save those and close the metadata editor. Head back over to the Preferences modal and check the Advanced settings options at the bottom of the modal. There should be a green puzzle piece icon labeled "Plugins" - click that to open the Plugins modal.

It will take you to a table used for monitoring and controlling existing plugins and, yes, it does already have 'plugins' installed. These are really more the application's default modules, but because of how Calibre works they can be edited and controlled in the same way that external plugins are. At the bottom of the page you'll see three buttons - "Get new plugins", "Check for updated plugins", and "Load plugin from file". These are concerned with the external plugins that you can add to Calibre. "Get new plugins" will allow you search through the official library of third party plugins available to Calibre - plugins that the Calibre team have vetted to confirm aren't actually malware. But they're by no means the only plugins you can install, as the "Load plugin from file" will allow you to load pretty much any plugin you want to. Such as a plugin for, say… stripping DRM off of purchased eBooks.

In this case, you want to select the "Get new plugins" option. This brings up a modal for User plugins and the displayed list will automatically be filtered by available plugins that have not yet been installed. You can filter this list further by typing "FanFicFare" into the "Filter by name" text input.

You can then select the FanFicFare plugin and install it. After installing the plugin, you should select the option to restart the application, to ensure that it installed properly. I'd also recommend adding the FanFicFare icon to the optional bottom toolbar instead of the header toolbar, since that'll make it much easier to find since, unless you add more plugins and assign them to that toolbar, it should be the only option on the bar right now.

Edit (3/22/25) - In addition to the FanFicFare plugin, you'll want to include two additional plugins so that FanFicFare can make it's anthology options available. These two plugins are EpubMerge and EpubSplit. These plugins can be used on their own to create anthologies by creating a new epub file from multiple epubs or splitting anthology books into separate epubs for each book contained within. Without these plugins FanFicFare's anthology options will be hidden, as it utilizes them for merging fics in a series together after downloading them separately.

So, full disclosure, you don't need Calibre to run FanFicFare. You could download it and run it from a command line interface instead. However, I prefer it's Calibre interface, especially since it really lets you take advantage of the best Calibre has to offer in metadata tracking, as it can be set up through Calibre to auto fill those columns I walked you through setting up earlier. But I'll get to more on that in a minute.Once Calibre has restarted, you should now have FanFicFare available on one of your toolbars. It's associated icon is a green text bubble with the letters "FF" in it pointing down at a picture of a book.

It'll have a small down arrow next to it, which you'll want to select in order to bring up FanFicFare's menu. At this point you can start downloading fics if you want - but let's do a little customizing first. Select the "Configure FanFicFare" option to bring up the configuration modal.

So this modal has a lot going on. And I do encourage doing some exploration on your own, because FanFicFare is a powerful tool made all the more powerful here in conjunction with Calibre's built in tools. Cover generation is very useful, "Reading lists" can be used to auto send new books to any devices you've linked to Calibre when they're connected to the computer, you can tie into email accounts to pull fanfics from email or pull URL links for downloading... there is just so much this plugin can do.

For now, however, we're interested in the column related options. First, check out the tab for "Standard Columns". Look over the options there carefully to make sure that the default settings are actually what you want. They're pretty straight foward - most are determining whether the metadata gets scraped and updated every time you update a fanfic eBook or if they're only scraped for new books. The rest have to do with title and author sorting, setting series related data, and setting the comment data for anthologies.

Once you've set that data how you want, head over to the "Custom Columns" tab where things get more interesting.

You should now be looking at a list of all those custom columns you created earlier, in alphabetical order. Each column will have a corresponding select box with nothing selected and an unchecked checkbox marked "New Only". This works in a pretty straightforward manner. Let's use "Fandom" as the example. Click the associated select box to open the dropdown and you'll see a bunch of potential metadata that FanFicFare scrapes listed there. It'll all go into the default tags column - found over in the "Standard Columns" section - but you can also parse it out to specific custom columns here. It might give you a few ideas for more columns you want to add for metadata sorting purposes. "Fandom" you'll want to link to "Category". I left "New Only" unchecked so that if I update an eBook later and it has a new fandom attached to the fic then that new metadata will be picked up and added to my Fandom tags for the fic.

Go through each custom column and set them up to be auto filled with the data you think fits it best. Select OK to save your changes and congratulations, this library has now been set up to import fanfiction.

Do keep in mind that FanFicFare's settings are on a per-library basis. So if you decide to do a separate library for different types of fanfics then you'll need to configure FanFicFare separate for every library. You may want separate libraries for different repositories, for example. Though FanFicFare is often smart enough to recognize when it already has an eBook version of a fanfiction from one repository - such as FFnet - when trying to download the same fic from another place - like Ao3.

You may need to make changes later to the personal.ini file associated with the library (which is also set up on a per-library basis) but I'll write up a separate post for that later. While sites protected by Cloud Flare more stringent protections will likely result in 403 responses and failed downloads, most fanfiction sites are going to work with the default FanFicFare settings. You could head over to, say, Archive of Our Own or Twisting the Hellmouth and grab a URL for a story from there. Or a URL for a series, which has links to multiple stories.

Now that the set up is done, it's time for the fun part. Downloading and maintaining fanfiction in your library. I'll be using a few of my fanfictions on Ao3 as example URLs. Awaken, which is already in my fanfiction library. What Balance Means, which is not already in my library. And the two series Hartmonfest 2023 and Eobard vs Eobard.

We'll start with the single URL uploads.

Click on the FanFicFare down arrow to bring up the menu and select the first option on the menu, labeled "Download from URLs". If you have a URL in your clipboard and have the option to grab URLs from the clipboard selected in the FanFicFare configuration (it's a default option, so you most likely do) then you should see that URL prepopulated in the text area when the Story URLs modal loads. You can add more URLs, one per line, to this text area and when you select OK each one will be individually downloaded as a separate epub file. For multi-chapter fics you only need to provide the url for the first chapter. FanFicFare will be able to detect the additional chapters and download them into the same epub file as the first chapter. All providing additional chapter URLs will do is lead to FanFicFare attempting to create multiple epubs of the same fanfic.

Once you've added your list of URLs to the text area, select OK. FanFicFare will do the rest, fetching metadata for the fic (or fics) and compiling the epub file(s). When it's finished compiling the data but hasn't officially saved the epubs, it will pop up a message letting you know how many "good" and "bad" entries it found.

"Good" means it made an epub file and it's good to go. "Bad" could mean that you've already got the fanfic downloaded and no updates - such as new chapters - were available. Or it could mean that it failed to grab the web pages for whatever reason… like Cloud Flare blocking the download. You can go forward with the download at this point, adding the good epubs to your library. Or you could cancel the download, meaning none of the epubs are saved. Before choosing one of those options you can also choose to look at the job output, seen in the pop up as a button labeled "View log". This will display a list of every url you tried to download a fanfic for and information on either it's success or why it failed, the associated URL, and how many chapters were downloaded.

Since I already had Awaken downloaded and there have been no updates since the last time I downloaded it, that is the bad update from my list and the result I was expecting. What Balance Means hadn't been downloaded before, so it was the expected good update. Once Yes is selected in the dialog, the new fanfiction eBooks will be added to the library and will appear at the top of the main list in the application.

That's great for updating one fic at a time or copy-pasting in a list of fanfictions, but let's get ambitious. Maybe you want to import an entire page of bookmarked fanfictions at once or a series of fanfictions as individual books. Instead of copying every single URL by hand, you can take the URL for the series main page or the Bookmarks URL. With that URL copied, you can head over to the FanFicFare menu again, but this time select the option "Get Story URLs from Web Page"

The modal that pops up only allows for inputting one URL - the URL for the page you want it to scour for fanfic URLs. Once you've inputted that URL click the button labeled "For Individual Books." It might take a bit but it's going to pull up the same Story URLs modal from before, this time prepopulated with every URL from the page you gave it. Pretty cool, right? Click OK and watch it run the job just like before.

I gave it the URL for my Hartmonfest 2023 series, which is a complete series and it downloaded all three books. Once they're populated on the list, I could scroll over to the Series column to see that they all are listed as being part of the Hartmonfest 2023 series in the same series order they're listed in on Ao3.

However, what if I'm uploading an unfinished series, like Eobard vs Eobard, and want to be able to track when it updates later on? Single books can track when new chapters are updated; is there any way to do the same thing but on a larger scale? The answer is yes, but you have to upload the series as an anthology.

Head back to the "Get Story URLs from Web Page" option on the FanFicFare menu and give it another series URL. But, this time, click the button labeled For Anthology Epub. This will trigger the Story URLs modal again once it's gathered all the story URLs, but this time it looks a little different.

This time there will be text indicating the Series and Comments/description, the information for which will have been taken from the series metadata. The series story URLs will be present in the text area, allowing you to remove a story from the anthology if there's a fic in there you don't want included. Click OK to run the import job, which will run like normal.

When the job completes, there should be multiple good updates listed - one for every URL - but when you click yes to add the eBook to the library, you'll only see one added. It should be named following the convention "<Series Name> Anthology". So now I've got the "Eobard vs Eobard Anthology" in my library.

Last but not least, how to check for updates to incomplete fanfictions or series. It's generally pretty easy to do. Select the fanfiction(s) on the list that you want to check for updates on. If it's a single fanfiction (or several single fanfictions), you go to the FanFicFare menu and click the option "Update Existing FanFiction Books"

Click OK and let it run. Any fanfictions that don't have new chapters will return as bad entries. Any that have new chapters will be listed as good. Selecting Yes to add the good entries to the list will update the existing epub files with the new chapters.

However, if it's a series you want to update, I recommend doing those one at a time. Select the anthology from the eBook list and head back over to the FanFicFare menu. This time select "Anthology Options"; it'll open a fly-out menu. You want the bottom option, labeled "Update Anthology Epub". The associated URL for the series is saved as part of the eBook's metadata already, so it will pull the series metadata and associated URLs again, before returning you to that same modified Story URLs modal seen before. When you click OK, it'll pull all the fanfictions in the series - new and old - and any new chapters as well, bundling it up in a new eBook file that will replace the old one.

There's still a lot to talk about when it comes to managing fanfictions in Calibre, but I think I'll end here for now. You should be able to download, and manage, fanfiction from most websites at this point. So go back up your bookmarked fics and rest easy knowing that from this point forward a missing bookmark on your bookmarks list is no longer cause for sadness - it'll still be in your local archive to enjoy offline. Just don't go abusing this power, okay guys?

[aryamistwood]

Would anyone be willing to help me order the E-Books in either Dutch or Swedish for the Star Stable second trilogy?

So, I don't think we're going to get the 2nd trilogy in English like we hoped for. All day I've been working on a theory video for something that was APPARENTLY already confirmed at the beginning of the first book, and quite honestly, I've had enough. The lore can be kept from me any longer! No borders or language barriers can stop me!

...but apparently websites requiring an account be made with a actual address in Sweden or the Netherlands - even for digital-only-no-shipping purchases - can in fact stop me.

So, dear mutuals, I ask, nay, I beg. Would someone be able to help me get the books? I will of course cover costs. Even if you can point me in a direction to get the books through a US vendor, I just need my juicy lore bits.

My goal is to translate the books as best I can to English and share the lore Sparks Notes. Ik spreek en beetje Nederlands, well, as much as the Green Owl would tell me before they started doing AI translations and I deleted the app, but still. I recognize this is a monumental task for someone who only knows a little Dutch, but this is also a chance for me to learn more of the language and sentence structure. https://starstableentertainment.com/the-second-soul-riders-trilogy/ Shadows Over Jorvik – Helena Dahlgren The Prisoner of Pandoria – Helena Dahlgren Aideen’s Gift – Helena Dahlgren

[hornetdynamics]

How to determine the Lingvano development Price

The Lingvano price for developing an app depends on various factors such as App complexity, size, feature requirements, development approach chosen, and many more. But the average cost for developing an app like Lingavano is $20000. If you looking for a developer then Contact us to get the best services for your problem with an optimum solution.  

[digiexpert894]

WhatsApp AI: Revolutionizing Communication and Beyond

In today’s fast-paced world, communication plays a pivotal role in personal and professional spheres. Enter WhatsApp AI, a game-changer that is reshaping how individuals, businesses, and organizations interact. Leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance WhatsApp’s capabilities is transforming it from a simple messaging app to a robust tool for automation, customer engagement, and personalized experiences. Let’s dive into the world of WhatsApp AI and explore how it is influencing various aspects of our lives.

What is WhatsApp AI?

At its core, WhatsApp AI refers to integrating artificial intelligence technologies into WhatsApp to enhance its functionalities. This includes chatbots, machine learning algorithms, and natural language processing (NLP) models that make interactions smarter, faster, and more intuitive. AI can automate tasks, provide instant responses, and even offer data-driven insights, making WhatsApp a go-to platform for more than just chatting.

The Role of AI in WhatsApp

The application of AI in WhatsApp extends across various domains, such as:

1. Chat Automation with WhatsApp Chatbots

WhatsApp chatbots powered by AI are revolutionizing customer service. These bots can handle multiple inquiries simultaneously, provide 24/7 support, and deliver accurate information instantly. Whether it’s answering FAQs, processing orders, or troubleshooting, businesses can rely on AI-driven chatbots to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.

2. Personalized Communication

WhatsApp AI enables personalized messaging by analyzing user behavior and preferences. This is particularly useful for businesses running marketing campaigns. Instead of sending generic messages, companies can tailor their communication to individual needs, boosting engagement and conversion rates.

3. Language Translation

Breaking language barriers is another significant advantage of WhatsApp AI. AI-powered translation tools integrated into WhatsApp can instantly translate messages into various languages, fostering seamless communication between users across the globe.

4. Smart Notifications and Reminders

AI can also help users stay organized by offering smart notifications and reminders based on their habits and schedules. For instance, it can remind users of upcoming meetings, tasks, or appointments in a personalized and timely manner.

5. E-commerce Integration

AI has transformed WhatsApp into a mini e-commerce hub. With AI-driven solutions, businesses can showcase products, guide users through purchase decisions, and complete transactions—all within the app.

Benefits of WhatsApp AI

Efficiency: Automating repetitive tasks allows businesses to save time and allocate resources more effectively.

Scalability: Businesses can handle a large volume of interactions without compromising on quality.

Cost-Effectiveness: AI reduces the need for extensive human intervention, cutting operational costs.

Improved User Experience: Real-time responses and personalized communication enhance user satisfaction.

Data Insights: AI tools analyze interactions to provide valuable insights for businesses to make data-driven decisions.

Real-World Applications

1. Customer Support

From handling complaints to tracking orders, WhatsApp AI is becoming a trusted assistant for customers and companies alike.

2. Healthcare

Hospitals and clinics use WhatsApp AI to schedule appointments, share reports, and send reminders to patients, ensuring a seamless healthcare experience.

3. Education

Educational institutions are leveraging AI-powered WhatsApp tools for administrative tasks, such as fee reminders, class schedules, and assignment submissions.

4. Travel and Hospitality

Travel agencies use WhatsApp AI to send ticket details, itinerary updates, and hotel booking confirmations, making the travel experience hassle-free.

5. Retail

Retailers are integrating AI into WhatsApp to showcase products, manage inventory, and guide customers through their shopping journey.

The Future of WhatsApp AI

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, the scope of WhatsApp AI is bound to expand. Future innovations may include even more advanced conversational AI, predictive analytics for proactive customer engagement, and seamless integration with other apps and services. The possibilities are limitless, and the potential for growth is immense.

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 26, 2023

Saturation of visual responses explains size tuning in rat collicular neurons. Baranauskas, G., Rysevaite‐Kyguoliene, K., Sabeckis, I., & Pauza, D. H. (2023). European Journal of Neuroscience, 57(2), 285–309.

Reconstruction of sparse recurrent connectivity and inputs from the nonlinear dynamics of neuronal networks. Barranca, V. J. (2023). Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 51(1), 43–58.

Population codes enable learning from few examples by shaping inductive bias. Bordelon, B., & Pehlevan, C. (2022). eLife, 11, e78606.

Cerebro-cerebellar networks facilitate learning through feedback decoupling. Boven, E., Pemberton, J., Chadderton, P., Apps, R., & Costa, R. P. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 51.

The role of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex in creating cognitive maps. Costa, K. M., Scholz, R., Lloyd, K., Moreno-Castilla, P., Gardner, M. P. H., Dayan, P., & Schoenbaum, G. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26, 107–115.

Functional geometry of the cortex encodes dimensions of consciousness. Huang, Z., Mashour, G. A., & Hudetz, A. G. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 72.

Optimal Control Costs of Brain State Transitions in Linear Stochastic Systems. Kamiya, S., Kawakita, G., Sasai, S., Kitazono, J., & Oizumi, M. (2023). Journal of Neuroscience, 43(2), 270–281.

Do cognitive and physical effort costs affect choice behavior similarly? Lim, L. X., Fansher, M., & Hélie, S. (2023). Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 112, 102727.

Deciphering functional roles of synaptic plasticity and intrinsic neural firing in developing mouse visual cortex layer IV microcircuit. Liu, S., & Li, Y. (2023). Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 51(1), 23–42.

Arithmetic value representation for hierarchical behavior composition. Makino, H. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26, 140–149.

Altered integration of excitatory inputs onto the basal dendrites of layer 5 pyramidal neurons in a mouse model of Fragile X syndrome. Mitchell, D. E., Miranda-Rottmann, S., Blanchard, M., & Araya, R. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(2), e2208963120.

Introducing the Dendrify framework for incorporating dendrites to spiking neural networks. Pagkalos, M., Chavlis, S., & Poirazi, P. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 131.

A statistical foundation for derived attention. Paskewitz, S., & Jones, M. (2023). Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 112, 102728.

Rapid synaptic and gamma rhythm signature of mouse critical period plasticity. Quast, K. B., Reh, R. K., Caiati, M. D., Kopell, N., McCarthy, M. M., & Hensch, T. K. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(2), e2123182120.

Lingering Neural Representations of Past Task Features Adversely Affect Future Behavior. Rangel, B. O., Hazeltine, E., & Wessel, J. R. (2023). Journal of Neuroscience, 43(2), 282–292.

Evidence for entropy maximisation in human free choice behaviour. Rens, N., Lancia, G. L., Eluchans, M., Schwartenbeck, P., Cunnington, R., & Pezzulo, G. (2023). Cognition, 232, 105328.

Choice selective inhibition drives stability and competition in decision circuits. Roach, J. P., Churchland, A. K., & Engel, T. A. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 147.

Information-processing dynamics in neural networks of macaque cerebral cortex reflect cognitive state and behavior. Varley, T. F., Sporns, O., Schaffelhofer, S., Scherberger, H., & Dann, B. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(2), e2207677120.

Transformation of acoustic information to sensory decision variables in the parietal cortex. Yao, J. D., Zemlianova, K. O., Hocker, D. L., Savin, C., Constantinople, C. M., Chung, S., & Sanes, D. H. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(2), e2212120120.

Hippocampal spatial representations exhibit a hyperbolic geometry that expands with experience. Zhang, H., Rich, P. D., Lee, A. K., & Sharpee, T. O. (2023). Nature Neuroscience, 26, 131–139.

[toinfinitywinning]

this is get to know you time. the cringy name game at every camp in the world you do with toilet paper. enough.

Conversations and thoughts resembling the same level of random and incongruence of my Apple Music library. like Josh Groban is to Eminem: Mercy Me. a lot about everything that’s not a hashtag bc it just needs more attention.

Let the first (post) be first:

Hi. I’ve never done this before (like a seriously grown up blog on purpose. Just when just followed sad somewhat desperate poetry with a random live-laugh-love meme in there somewhere.) and Pitch Perfect.

BUT.

For 2 years I’ve had Long-Haul COVID. It’s a different kind of lonely

Thanks so much, amirite? —Gen-Z apologies if I didn’t use that jumbled acronym-word correctly.

It’s hard to keep up.

See? What am I talking about now and how did I get there…

Due to a very common symptom of LHC…

Again—hard to keep up. It’s there. Tho

And I have a lot of quirk so it’s possible I think you’ll “get” but are just nice not to tell me

BUT.

It’s already gone. Train left the Station yesterday.

Slipped on a penny.

Not Good. not even funny.

Teens with the gorgeous graffiti have to Go elsewhere. I’ve always been jealous of that kind talent.

Whole lot better than something else shiny thrown on the track and it’s derailed. There’s at least some innocence in a paint can.

WOW.

I have major attention and Brain Fog hurdles to conquer or shortly bypass. You might not be able to tell b/c of how My writing jumps around so infrequently.

Not true but still easier.

Mostly innocent and playful.

Sadly the attention part is this many years young.

Writing comes naturally. As it always has, strangely...

And why is healing so exhausting? Writing is therapeutic but My body says—can you not?

i know im not the only one asking that!

As if I have time for that too.

find a community of people suffering just as similarly and gain strength, tips and tricks.

Just, speak-screen edit my writing for me. Maybe a clarification fact-✔.

Just not wherever Tr*mp gets his.

Could be Truth Social. Monthly fee tho will cost you your Red Hat.

MYGAbad

Speaking I struggle with processing w/e skills I must have held onto.

BUT.

Since 2 years is quite. some. time.—I’ve shared many struggles and victories.

Like a Bell curve. Or a punk Domino falling then lining them up takes longer just to go down again in half the time. Repeat.

It’s very likely I Will try to talk about many things at once.

I really can’t help that. LOL.

Jury’s still out but I get most of my writing and miscellaneous musings from mom.

Dad can write the best, longest, and precious prayers and notes.

Almost delicately but like you KNOW he’s giving you a hug.

A Good mix tape’s paper Version.

Enter Run on sentences. Truly a stream by now.

Although my brain muscle is weak I’ve been encouraged by several people to Start a blog. Someday I’ll include the past 2 years of w/e pics are on other SocMed.

I can’t think of anything worse.

Yea, okay LOL.

Judgment free. Occasionally… like normal doses then have to work through that.

Mostly that’s because I knew nothing about anything before I opened My computer and started sharing My thoughts under zero context ridden or form at all.

More likely as well to offend and piss someone off. Well done you’re now one less friend popular. There’s an App for that tho-tracking people Who don’t like you.

Not sure where I’ll land with this. It may not land you either.

Because like a lot of us. Sometimes you don’t get to talk actually. No Room.

I like routine; that’s out. So it gets dull.

I’ve learned I hadn’t yet given myself the space to see all of things I can do sitting down.

But. By “given” I mean to say that perhaps I didn’t know it was there.

One Good thing I’ve gathered from this Hell.

Hell fresh by the Day! Never frozen.

So at that time and in this case of my life; sitting is fine.

Some of it isn’t too bad. The writing. You will find questionable punctuation. Run on sentences that I was running.

Relevance at all.

All around Confusion…altho connect the dots could have been seen as practice.

Or annoying even. I’d have no words.

I truly don’t set out to be funny. I could never do stand-up or improv. Or act.

Humor forced just takes and receives too much energy that might come off insincere.

Nothing on command.

Like Matt Perry’s brilliant improv wit it just doesn’t hit the same.

B/c it was scripted.

A syllabus for it Imagine.

The horn to jump off the swim block.

It’s when Life feels more scripted a lot of people close up.

That’s because you’re not in charge anymore. I’ve lost the Power.

Don’t prefer caring about whether someone likes me like I used to.

I believe you can snooze me for 30 days or say ‘I’m done w/ her’ and send Me to the cyberarchives.

Okay. Okay.

So—90% of the time I’m witty and sarcastic with a bit of cynicism, discomfort (for you), and pettifogging.

I write primarily about the questions of intersectionality.

How do things fit.

Let’s Fit it.

Until I figured out physics and calculus and basic math were behind a career in architecture and the classes I would have to take, I enjoyed taking things apart to make something else.

Not always pretty.

Could be Good what I took apart was the best thing we can’t see.

Like I’m writing questions but with wisdom not meaning to do that either,

A lot of people don’t like that. You do you! Baby.

I don’t mean to be at all harsh or hurtful. I try not to say that anything vainly.

I say it b/c a lot of what I’m writing is all of every piece of stream of consciousness tallied.

And it was a synapse connecting another.

Maybe that’s the creative part? The other side of My Brain is telling Me to ✔ on the other side so I’m like…crickets.

What I write is stream of consciousness, brutally honest and to some might be lightly offensive. In College writing this Way would’ve absolutely driven Me crazy.

Then life steps in and bonks u on the head with a newspaper but 15 years later returns the favor with an iPhone.

Or too blunt. And comes across as harsh. And that’s mostly because if I don’t have an emoji to match my real-life broken ღ I’m breaking up with you.

Self reflection: impulsive

I used to journal so much growing up.

When did I lose that innocence?

We can’t talk about folding paper into cranes and witchcraft finger fortune games anymore?

No more MASH?

Huh, maybe you weren’t born this Way. Ur Parents just drew circles nearest each other or your apple stem twist broke too soon and you want a partner whose name starts with P.

Very often I overshare. If you’re reading this this is not brand new information. No ability to say things simply. Think I’ve already. That can put me really vulnerable to more bitcoin hacks.

And then you need to figure out what bitcoin is. And whether Mario can collect coins as well in place of the hackers.

I’d say ask Tom Brady b/c of his investments but since retirement he’s been pretty deflated.

Mean people that mean to hurt.

First of all I feel sorry for you. Not in a poor you tho.

People Who hurt on purpose don’t often have any Way to vent or get a rise other than evoke feelings in and deflect toward a schoolmate.

Skip back to the part I tried talking about vulnerability. It truly is the invisible cloak and no one can see you but nothing makes sense still and you’ve only fixed what’s on the outside. Now you’re peeved AND cloaked.

At this conjunction junction next I’d suggest try shopping at Target opposed to Abercrombie then.

Feet in the water right above bankruptcy to see how things could be different only what…if?

Good ♧ seriously.

So there’s more grace given when you fall. When it’s not your month Day or even year!

Nobody is there for you!!

And My cloak is getting rained on.

Maybe gathering strength from falling will come a common sense with a 6th one but with seriously meaningful things I’ve learned and less hard knock’s Life for us.

The hard Way.

The bottom’s still there and it actually stinks stinks. Discouraging b/c there are two sides to the bottom of the cave full of stalagTITES and mites.

All the up’s and down’s. Right there. And the COVID-19 bat OMG!

You know you may not be able to fall any further further but once you’re up again you’re wondering whether you should get some cement to close that thing off.

Choose to live! But welcome to the real world—it sucks—ur gonna Love it.

Almost 4got. In the cave you dont always have to wait for Jesus to be resurrected if that metaphor comforts you but if change comes and it requires a whole new worm can of Life we already can’t handle that gets us outta the dank I don’t think we need to ask permission to the rights of that Bible passage.

BUT.

Until YOU are ready for change...

Forget it. At least you meant well. Someone can guide that horse to water but it stays pretty hydrated, so he says he’s Good. Promise. The only talking animal and it was Me Who got to hear it. More importantly, who’s gonna ☊? Care? There’s a country song finding out Who your Friends are. A lot stay lost and it’s not helpful all our Friends aren’t the same.

Missing a Good chance to find out if you’re in a similar predicament and that not always a bad thing.

At times I have literally had to be lifted off the floor.

I don’t do this at all for pity. As you read, My Pride is the biggest obstacle to let Go.

When you do?

The hard way through this.

I am angry and irritable for bouts. Sometimes I’m silly and invite karma punishments.

Go all Brimstone and every type fire and the Old Testament has nothing New-thinking and no one new to add to it. SMH. Nail a list on the wooden church door reading it is nearing endgame. Or, Just open your hotel drawer and tear out the back half.

So change then— If it were Me and it has been just not an actual hole I’d be outta there due to the spiders and crickets alone. Jiminy’s Cool.

If u can’t change and just stay a novice bunny hill—fine! Stay there. Build some confidence through experience.

And isn’t that another thing? Something specific motivates the fire under your (cuckoo!) and before you’d see the dark without any End of the tunnel and more importantly with the light aspect. All the sudden you care b/c what? It applies to you of course be selfish. Fascinating yet humbling.

Then there’s the ‘Why Me’ (?) phase? Not fully pitiful but just pretentious enough to resume the trailblaze. Bad attitude with a healthy dose of are we there yet and trying to Balance whether someone is saying …’they get it; you always feel bad’ so…KY Basketball banter? Ashamed accompanies too bc thing is a few times I did kind of scoff at phrases like I always feel bad. Like, here’s 2 Extra strength Tylenol.Alright, Ok, come test for Covid 1/29/22. It shouldn’t take going through something to empathize with or change but you could’ve listened for longer with a clear mind. Just cannot wrap your head around it and I think sometimes that’s okay. What’s next I’ll try so hard.

+ It’s 12:01am of 1/29/24 (so last night), you still can’t do math and/or struggle to add or subtract 12 so aren’t entirely sure its your sophomore year orientation, and you already surrender to what you didn’t want to get up for in the first place. Kind of silly u set the alarm! B/c Pain, confusion, Discomfort and a Deep loneliness that has very little to do with people awaits. That whole scenario is a disaster but look who’s standing and GOT. UP. period. 15 years ago that’s where I’d be. Just defeated.

THAT. Is enough some days. I say that to you struggling to believe the same but know Deep down.

Year 2 longhaul and youre wondering why there are anniversaries at all given about half are always sad or tragic. Evoking the worst on what could be the best. Might be something To think 2 minutes ago you’d ended your prayer to have a better Day. Of anything is true about everything happens for a reason I’d say having to chooose how to respond given you have the privilege at all to that just means were normal. B/c ill be honest I would not

I’m angry. WHAT is so complicated about your lack of Faith or belief prayer must go into an encrypted iCloud even the FBI can’t retrieve or interpret. Never had a chance! But I’ll add that it’s worth noting prayer doesn’t deal with its existence in transaction currencies..

Feel less Pain but feel more with it or stronger now. Or, just plain ‘ol numb. Similar to Addiction I suppose people get so used to being healthy one Way or another they don’t even notice better OR worse and no one is getting married.

Truth is.

Yea.

I’m in Hell, but I’m not on a ventilator. I’m not without relentless Support.

I still can smile but laugh just a bit before it hurts.

Something is always worse.

SomeONE is doing worse.

Somewhere and definitely rn.

I never knew I’d be dealing greed of perspective for this Long.

Something you’ll never find out about that changed your life’s trajectory where an explanation would have only confused things.

Then we still have the chance to be astonished and then genuine bc of that. Thankful. Expectant. With Faith somehow. Maybe carrying someone else’s Hope for a while might burden you less for a short time.

You dont need to see eye struggle and suffering. You dont need examples. You just know. There’s a fleeting peace u might not see again for 2 days but in knowing it’s not just you with the same bs going on.

Like here. Here is someone who needs support but in a different Way but how unique it could be to trade just for a bit. It’s not leg day this time remember u agreed a temp trade.

We don’t have to know everything. Most of the time I don’t give God the time to keep up w/ Me let alone do anything miraculous before I just hang up.

Although My Life was headed in a completely renewed direction in so many ways of recovery—

I got sick. Not because it was meant to be.

Because COVID. Possibly a rabid bat. Cracked vile or petri-dish

Everything does not happen for a reason and ppl dont like hearing that bc its an easy out. Says time might go on but this thorn wont ever heal. How do we respond? that’s the most authentic and a strength yes or no wand.

I hate cliché. Thing is tho…I think we all hate it b/c it doesn’t hold us accountable. Eh it’s fine.

Unfortunately we wouldn’t have the pretty, surprise, one of the Walk to Remember walks. All up to the of healing and forgiveness individual to each of us.

If for Me that means ive healed all I can and I’m counting on research to help Me out some more maybe I just keep going. Trust Me nothing is forgotten but you do know now that at least you were strong and capable enough to figure all that at all. And—I can do that. Some days aren’t that kind.

Maybe it becomes a goal we never anticipated but ✔ your resilience at the ticket line and saddle up, honey.this donkey only holds ____ lbs. let some things Go. That thing will still only walk in a circle but you’ve evenly distributed your baggage.

The feeling of pure joy. Which btw does still require a thesaurus b/c it is NOT the same as joy. Like a preventative Med to an acute one.

Then feel Accomplishment.

Not knowing what’s next but trying to be prepared.

It’s a surprise party we never RSVP’d and don’t regret it.

And it’s a Good thing u got outbid for that yacht.

Hell, tho, you won’t be forgotten but pushing helps the donkey move faster for now that is acceptable.

Unshun. Reshun. (This will make sense if you Watch the Office)

Flee fly. Be gone. Thankfully we hope to come out more resilient after the rip and tear and often not fully repaired sewing lessons.

But perhaps the biggest trait I’ve had to work on is My Pride. I want to do it.

I’ll give myself 3 strikes. 4 balls.

Then I walk to First.

Please do not get Me a gift.

I Love you and that was so sweet.

Would I be as generous?

Do u work, yea. It’s just one really hurts more and being tough isn’t tough at all if it’s not helping the worst hurt.

Those are sitting down, timeout thoughts.

The compression socks need to breathe.

But once the Pride slides over, let go, I get to know how it feels to very tangibly be taken care of and watched over.

Patience. The other side of a rant.

Later on that.

My main goal is to learn. Connect. Be called out if something comes off really tasteless.

Laugh at things that don’t have anything to do with being chronically sick. Laugh about what Medicine u had to administer and royally failed.

Sometimes all coupled with a handicap car-tag. No crutches either b/c I don’t like hearing I Will get better. It is a nice statement but it is impossible to be sure. Ive struggled with that b/c I know everyone believes that and means well I’ve just taken prior sick Gentry’s generalization and multiplied.

I am not making light. I think part of me is using the sarcasm as a coping mechanism.

Praise God there is something that does help the pain or at least distract from that Pain just not the one in your legs.

A codependency just a bit less severe. Embarrassing. Reason for judgment. Too easy.

If you can believe it—-I am not the same person I was 2 years ago.

For now I truly don’t know how. Pain can leave, anything traumatic can be worked on. You’ve got your scars.

I actually really think a scar is just unique as a snowflake or fingerprint. Telling so many stories. B/c a scar does mean something has healed. And it never forgets at one time it was painful. I’d prefer to see what I accomplish but I see wonder and beauty in them.

Things get pretty deep, complicated and downright pitifully sad. Vulnerable. Frighteningly true and relevant.

So I take what Good I can get in that day and pray those with LHC (Long-Haul COVID-19)

Be released.

However. On the flip tail’s side.

I’m 35 years aware there are some people who just don’t like me.

Until recently I wouldn’t have meant ‘sorry not sorry.’

I do now. To a respectable extent.

Reader discretion is advised. I promise I never set out to hurt anyone.

definitely not on purpose.

Because. Idgaf. Not bars being held. Que sera, sera.

complete transparency and seriously tho this doesn't mean i dont care. i wear my heart on my sleeve like a ding-dong ready to get hurt.

call it a diversion. we were on a break.

i just might take all of whatever hits wrong and turn that in to whatever ounce of assurance I can with the openness and to the best capability to learn new things and grow with compassion.

And back to writing—may already be just engrained but I don’t ever have a thesis, 3 supporting ideas or a better word then a conclusion.

You might find yourself confused. Reading it again prob won’t help.

Some will be really bad. Ugly. Waste of time. it was at least therapeutic for me.

Already is.

Even more might not make sense.

Read at your own risk, basically.

I have confidence but not really. Just enough not to care to change.

But I think about it. Because I’m wrong a lot.

challenge me. ill try to get through the fog.

But a lot of things have changed. in ways i might not even know Beauty in the Mess.

To sum up the above (sorry, there won’t be another summary after this disclaimer’s commercial intermission.)

I want to be as positive as possible.

Be in control of what I can. Ask for help for what I cannot.

I’m so ready to get My Life back. Trust Me and trust anyone Who tells your theyre in constant pain.

Really embarrassing I used to kind of scoff and be empathetic.

Funny how youre so sure of things.

Until it happens to you.

Suddenly it’s back to the drawing board and humility.

I wear my ღ on my sleeve. My greatest superpower and kryptonite.

What you read is as close to what you get as possible.

Balance can be unfair.

Please know that I care. I try harder than I ever had before. There are things I didn’t even Imagine could happen to someone when sick.

In all the ways I want to come out of this even better than what I envy I was entering into when I got sick.

There will be a WIDE range of thoughts similar to how i write. Mostly Sports and public figures and the politics I can comprehend.

B/c I know there’s someone out there who’s homeless because of this diagnosis. Or was deadly. Fired.

Divorced.

Ive become a bit of a nerd. Childish in some ways b/c you have to be creative…to be creative.

How do I even Start philosophizing that? So I don’t.

So I try My best to be the best I can. Inspire. Elicit laughter and new ways of thinking.

Questions.

Really tho? I just wanna be me.

thank you so sincerly to anything fromn a meme to a gift to a hug a prayer a smile, company, vibes if they can travel

but most of all

for holding hope when ive not been strong enough to.

For better or worse

for loving me.

making me feel heard.

idk what tomorrow holds but if its the same as today ill know at least i can make it and i am still beyond blessed and cared for and loved unconditionally.

even if forever.

wanna feel free, free.

to be me unabandoned.

changed for the better without knowing it.

some people dont have that option.

or even less the resource or safety to write about it.

Lastly mostly—I’m thankful for Insurance and the ability and privilege to work from home. And. Still have a job in general.

A Family and Family reserves holding me.

gentry.gonna.gents/g3

next. and if you made it this far, bless you.

thank you.

you mean more than you know to me. to anyone miscellaneous thanks as well and to my family and extended family and friends and job and insurance.

im in better shape than a lot. perspective sucks in the throes. selfish not selfish but my gosh turn the lights off. each journey is sooo different, but idk find the goodness and inspiration inbtw. There will be a rainbow soon enough, I wont make the bold claim and promise you one tho,

semi lastly and vulnerably, we've all been hurt. all going through something.

I say this every time something really bad happens. Ya know the ‘this is even worse,’ talk.

This one holds every candle.

Funny not funny none are the same and you’re never fully prepared.

and no one knows what it is you’re dealing.

give grace when I can’t sometimes.

cliché’s be damned lets just golden rule it b/c that one’s hard to do too but it sounds cute and Idont see a periodic table saying A! U! Be nice and welcoming.

I know I’ve forgotten something.

So I’ll fight.

But I still get to complain.

Feeling so entitled to this ill.

Sincerely,

Gentry

no ps you're welcome