#credits to the owner of the template that i used on canva

[iobsessoverfictionalmen]

Reunited

AN: Inspiration hit this morning and I wanted to share this fic with you all! I am open to writing more fics for the characters in this AU. I blame October; it's got me wanting to write spooky and AU fics. The warnings for this fic are injury and sickness, smoking, and foul language. There's also a hint of spice.

Of all the ways you considered your life changing again, a sixth-year potions class with five minutes until the end of the lesson at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry didn’t even cross your mind.

Horace Slughorn straightened up as he finished examining the familial potions in front of him, “They are all safe to consume.”  He beamed, “Make sure that you have your piece of parchment in front of you so you can see the names of your parents, relatives, and ancestors.”

Eagerly, the students uncorked their potions and drank the contents of their vials in a gulp.  A heartbeat passed and you knew something was wrong when Harry Potter went rigid and fell to the floor.

“Professor!” Hermione Granger screamed as she crouched next to her fallen friend.  Her eyes frantically scanned the room for Slughorn.  You got to her side faster than he did.

“Harry.  Can you hear me?  Do you know where you are?”

The sixth year groaned.  His complexion was waxy and his eyes were unfocused.

“’M in potions at Hogwarts,” he slurred.

Displeased with the way his response sounded despite it being technically correct, you pulled him to his feet and wrapped one of his arms around your shoulders, “Meet us in the hospital wing.”  You ordered Hermione and Ron Weasley.

As an afterthought you added, “Bring his parchment too.”

Hermione nodded resolutely, “Yes professor.”

You tried not to focus on how clammy Harry’s skin felt and the way that his pulse was thready and weak.  You escorted the teenager out of the classroom and focused on reappearing in the Hospital Wing.

You knew you were successful when you heard Madame Pomfrey’s shriek of terror, “My Heavens!” She cried, “Where did you come from?”

Swallowing down your impatience, you answered her.  “Sixth year potions.  Professor Slughorn taught the students how to brew a familial potion and after he had inspected all of them, he gave them permission to drink their potions.  Harry drunk his and went rigid immediately.  His complexion is waxy and his eyes are unfocused.  He’s slurring his words.  His pulse is thread--”

“Put him on the bed.”  The matron ordered brusquely, “I will conduct my own assessment, thank you.  Out of the two of us, I am the one who was trained to be a Healer, Assistant Professor.”  Her tone was clipped and condescending.

“I have more experience than you could ever dream of.” You seethed in your thoughts.  “But of course, your people wouldn’t recognise it as experience because I did not complete my training here.”

Within seconds, Madame Pomfrey’s assessment reported the same symptoms that you had identified.  Feelings of pride and smugness swept through you and you fought to quell them as you remembered where you were.

“Professor?”  Ron gasped as he doubled over panting, “How did you beat us here?” Behind him, Hermione appeared to be in a similar state.

“Out!  Out!”  Madame Pomfrey barked as Professors Slughorn, McGonagall and Dumbledore bustled into the room and made a beeline for Harry’s bed, “My patient needs rest.”

Hermione glared at the Healer with such a burning glare that it was lucky for Hermione that Madame Pomfrey had turned to address the staff that had just arrived.  You sent the teens a sympathetic smile and the three of you left the left the Hospital Wing.  You weren’t sure whether it was Madame Pomfrey’s doing but as soon as your group left the Hospital Wing, the door slammed shut and locked behind you.

“What the bloody hell crawled up their arses and died?” Ron spat with a surly expression as he crossed his arms and glared at the locked door.

“Ronald!  There is a professor present.”  Hermione rebuked.

“I get it.”  You cut in and held up a hand to forestall Ron’s response “Harry’s in there and you’re worried about him.”

“I wish we had more professors like you.”

“Thanks Ron.”

Hemione handed you the sheet of paper that she had taken from the potions classroom.  Harry’s piece of parchment only had names from one side of his family.  Your eyes scanned the parchment and while you spotted some familiar names, the one that was most familiar to you was the name of his mother, Lily Potter.  Where the names of Harry’s father and ancestors should have been written, there was simply a black question mark that flashed red every few seconds.

“It was doing that all the way up to the Hospital Wing,” Hermione revealed.  “What does it mean?”

“I’m not sure.  I’ll look into it.” You hated lying to the teenagers but you couldn’t see any other option.

“Come on.  I’ll escort you back to your common room.”

The three of you walked in silence to the portrait of the Fat Lady.  You bid goodbye to the teens and spun around on your heel as soon as the portrait hole closed.  With long strides, it didn’t take you long to reach a blank section of wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.  Why he thought trying to teach trolls ballet was a good idea, you would never know.

“I need a safe place to summon the Eldest.  I need a safe place to summon the Eldest.  I need a safe place to summon the Eldest.” 

There was a creaking and grinding noise as two doors appeared in what had previously been a blank stretch of wall.  Running low on patience, you wrenched open the left door as soon as the doorhandle appeared.  You quickly darted into the room and shut the door behind you.  You even took the added precaution of locking the door.

“Well, well, well.”  A masculine voice drawled, “Look who finally answered the telephone.”

Teasingly slowly, the owner of the voice turned around to focus on you.  He was just as you remembered him.  Tall, broad shoulders, clad in a tailored suit, physically intimidating and it seemed that the smile that stretched on his thin lips with a cruel twist was his favourite accessory since it never left his face.  You raised yourself to your full height and stared directly into his eyes. 

“Years ago, you told me that I could contact you if I ever needed to make a deal.”

There was a blast of hot air and a cigar appeared in the eldest’s mouth.  This demon was known by many and feared by more.  In certain circles, he was referred to as “Big Boss” or “the Eldest.”  You were one of the few who knew him by his given name, Alistair.   

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”  He warned you.

You scoffed, “When you say things like that, I almost believe you care.”

His expression hardened, “What do you want?”

“There’s a child in the Hospital Wing--”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft.” Alistair interrupted.

You clenched your jaw, “He’s special.”

“Everyone says that.”  The demon argued.

“I need you to heal him.”

“And in return?” The demon questioned, removing the cigar from his mouth with one hand, and tapping it on the first finger of his other hand. This action resulted in some ash falling onto the floor at your feet.  You didn’t move or flinch.

“I return to your domain for one thousand years.”

“Two thousand, five hundred.”

“One thousand, five hundred.”

“Two thousand.”

You shook your head, “One thousand and seven hundred.  That’s my final offer.”

“One thousand, eight hundred and fifty.  That’s my final offer,” he growled, stepping into your personal space.  “What is that child’s life really worth to you?”

“I’m doing this for Harry.”  You vowed.

“Done.”

Alistair moved over to you once more and you had to crane your neck to look at him.  If you didn’t know that he was a demon and you passed him on the street, you would have found him attractive with his southern drawl, tan skin, his unnecessary glasses that matched the shade of his suit, his near-perfect smile, his glittering eyes, and the dimple on his right cheek that became visible when he smiled.

But you did know him.  You knew how cunning, deceptive, manipulative, and vengeful he could be.

“I trust you haven’t forgotten how we seal deals,” Alistair purred, stroking your cheek with the back of his hand.  Then he used the thumb of that hand to trace your bottom lip.  Your lips parted and his thumb stayed on your lip as he gazed at you lustfully.  His gaze was absolutely smouldering after your tongue pressed against his thumb.

Slowly he withdrew his hand and you found the words to reply to his statement, “No.  I haven’t forgotten how you seal deals.”

“Good girl.”  The demon praised.

Your mind was too fogged for you to decipher whether he was praising you for remembering how deals were sealed or for touching the pad of his thumb with the tip of your tongue.  His hand returned to your cheek and he tilted your face up before pressing his lips to yours.

It felt like every nerve ending in your body sparked to life at the touch of his lips.   The kiss grew more intense and Alistair raised his other hand to cup your face as he prised open your lips with his tongue.  Reflexively, your hands moved up his shoulders and one of them rose up his neck and buried itself in his hair.  Your nails scratched along the demon’s scalp causing him to moan into your mouth.

Alistair broke the kiss but remained close enough to you that you could feel his breath fanning across your lips.  The tip of his nose was touching yours and he felt a smug sense of satisfaction as you stretched upwards because you wanted his lips on yours again.

He nudged your nose with his own, “The deal is sealed,” he uttered quietly.  Your eyes snapped open and you rocked back onto your heels.  The air was thick with longing but urgency hung in the air too as you recalled why you had summoned him.

With Alistair by your side, it was easy to bypass Madame Pomfrey’s protection spells and appear on the other side of the locked door that led to the Hospital Wing.  You heart sunk as you took in Harry’s prone form on the bed; it didn’t look like any of the professors or Madame Pomfrey had been able to help Harry.  The teenager didn’t appear to have improved at all.

Alistair strode over to the teen’s bedside and rested a large hand on Harry’s forehead.  The air visibly crackled with electricity.  Red and black sparks danced around Harry and Alistair and Harry’s eyes shot open.  From where you were standing, you could see that they were blood red.  The teen arched off of the bed and his hands clenched as he grabbed onto the sheets underneath him.  His mouth opened in a silent scream and after chiding yourself for forgetting about the Hogwarts Mediwitch, you locked the door to her office and commanded her to fall deep into slumber with an unspoken command.

Alistair straightened up and turned to you with an unreadable expression, “You found my son.”

[crocusgarnet]

Warning: Very RANDOM

So these were my collages by using canva, i found the pictures from the bts offline pictures app and some are from articles and twtr credit to owners, just want to post these because i might delete these because of storage in the future, my favorite one is jhope daydream and jimin serendipity because it took me a lot of time to find the templates to match the colors, i might post a lot of these collages next time since i need to clear my storage out

[fandomanxiety-library]

Meet the Courier: Marie Harley!

Here she is!

Credit to the owners of the template and OC Creator under the cut!

At the bottom there is credit given to the person who made this template! It also says made with canva- meaning, that I decorated it (with the little pictures and such) and filled it out with canva! This template is not mine! I will leave a link for people to access to it! I just decorated it and filled it out! I also cannot draw or am I artistically inclined so I just put the big picture over the art stuff in the corner! I used a OC Creator (also not mine) and made my OC! I will add a link to that as well! I do not take credit for the little art of my OC in the corner or the template I used to let people know what my OC(s) is like!

The template I used is credited to the owner and I got it from here!

https://twitter.com/cparrisart/status/1475535559984656i392?lang=en

----

I used this OC Creator- credit to the owner!

https://href.li/?https://www.dolldivine.com/vintage-western.php

[tomas-calistaavrille-b]

Types of Media

Traditional media uses television, newspapers, magazines and radio to portray the news that they have in order to show and entertain the people that are supporting them. It can be in different ways like having a entertainment segment, news stations, television dramas, movies, different kinds of news all together in a paper and different kinds of trends that we have in a magazine. These are the types of media that traditional media shows. It's really amazing because we might have the digital media that we often use right now, but we can't deny the influence of the traditional media holds in our lives.

While digital media, uses different platforms like facebook, youtube, twitter, instagram, pinterest, tumblr, tiktok, snapchat and etc. Like I said, tradtional and digital media have the same purpose but they are very different in terms of the types that they have. Digitil media is a platform where it's more flexible, because people holds their own accounts and can share their own ideas in the public. The disadvantage of digital media is that, it can get overwhelming because millions of people are using it and it's hard to believe what is true or not.

©️ the template is from canva, credits to the owner.

[arguscmpo1]

How Good Is The Digital Health Of Your Business? – Part 2

This phase too shall pass, and we will be back to regular business.

As a reminder, in Part 1 of this article, I had given a few tips on how to check if your website is up to date and in line with today’s online needs.  I also gave some insights on SEO

In continuation, and for the benefit of small and medium businesses, here are a few tips to help you with your social media presence.

But before we start, here’s something to read that I had written a long time ago –The Ultimate Social Media Starter Kit for those who missed the bus!

The article explains in a simple format which platforms do you need to start getting on social media.

I am going to add a little more information to the blog.  To start with a few notes:-

Facebook Profile and Facebook Business Page are two different entities. I have seen some businesses make a profile in the name of their business. Profiles have limited reach, while pages could be boosted to reach a broader audience.

Though Facebook owns Instagram, the two audiences on both platforms are different, what works on Facebook may not work on Instagram and vice-versa.

Your product or service may be suitable for both the platforms, but tweak your content to resonate with the audience.

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. Keep your language professional and your posts relevant to your business.

Choose your LinkedIn connections wisely.

Google owns Youtube, so having a Youtube channel makes sense to rank higher in the Google search engine.

Video marketing forms nearly 80% of social media content, so invest time in creating related videos.

While going live on Insta or FB, please ensure the quality of your audio and video. Your attempts will fail if your audience does not experience an excellent live session.

Podcasts are great marketing tools and simple to create. However, please ensure that your practice well on your voice and tone to resonate with your listeners.

Here is a list of Free tools you can make to use great social media content:-

For Creative Visuals on social media:-

Canva: Choose from tons of readymade templates according to the relevant social media post. Use your creativity.

Pexels: Loads of lovely photographs to choose from. Images here are free for commercial use, but it is better to give credit.

Freepik: Again, thousands of images and vectors you can choose from.

Piktochart: Excellent for infographics. The free version is suitable for starters.

Giphy: Tell your story with some animation. Lots of free gif images to choose from.

There are too many free tools out there to choose from, but for small businesses and startups, the above list is good enough to work upon.  For those you want to indulge in more, here’s an article from Hootsuite to explore more tools.

For animated video content:-

Animoto: This is a free drag and drop video creator. You can create great videos with your existing pictures, video clips, personalize it, and share it.

Doodly: Create whiteboard videos with this tool. Great for information sharing, process sharing, or any kind of explanatory information.

Toonly: Create incredibly animated videos using pre-designed characters. Ideal for small and medium business owners to showcase their products or services engagingly.

Disclaimer: Doodly and Toonly are paid but quite reasonable.

While I have given you quite some options to start creating great content with minimum investment, the most critical investment to make social media work for you is your TIME. Give it your best shot. Have patience. Keep trying to win big.

A final word of caution – please ensure that the tools or software that you use are from reliable sources and secured sites.  Ensure your systems are well-protected antivirus/anti-malware tools and not vulnerable to frauds or hackers.

I have loved writing these articles for you.  If you have enjoyed reading it, share them within your contact spheres as a token of appreciation.

If your business has a digital presence and you are already using a service provider, you could reach out to us for a digital market audit to ensure that your investments are working well for you.  Write to us.

Website: https://www.arguscmpo.com/

[ourmrmel]

Free Online Tools for Setting up a New Business by Mel Feller, MPA, MHR

Free Online Tools for Setting up a New Business by Mel Feller, MPA, MHR

President/Founder of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching For Success 360, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching with offices in Texas and in Utah.

 Whether you have a traditional, local brick and mortar store or an exclusively online business, you will need a set of online tools to make setting up your online presence both simple and efficient.

 Growth is usually considered positive and desirable. It is often regarded as a measure of success and something that should be pursued. While this is true in many cases, business growth can  present its own set of problems and challenges.

 Those in business generally have limited resources and this can increase the risks associated with growth, especially when it occurs quickly or is unplanned. As the owner of a growing business, you need to learn to manage growth.

 First, you should take time to consider what growing your business will really mean and the implications of operating a larger enterprise.

 If you are ready to take the next step and grow your business, you can access the tools that I have listed below.  I have really tried to focus on the best and the free ones. After all, a penny saved is a penny earned!

 Legalzoom.com

 Every new business needs a quartet of business support services. If you are setting up a standard corporation, LLC, partnership, proprietorship, or even a not for profit, Legal Zoom not only has the necessary forms for your state, but also the available consultation where you can speak to an actual attorney and get many of your questions answered. They also can help you with patents and trademarks for your business, a necessity for the open frontier of the Internet.

 Freshbooks.com

 Trying to keep the books yourself creates two problems: 1) it takes the owner away from their primary focus of the business and 2) it opens the door for the possibility of paying too much in taxes. Online accounting software has become increasingly popular in recent years because it allow a business owner to have an actual accountant periodically review their books while giving the owner control over the day-to-day accounting operations with little time investment. Freshbooks has the best combination of ease of use and powerful features, requiring little time to keep your data safely stored in the cloud and focus on your business.

 Squareup.com

 Without billing, it is impossible to trace individual transactions and begin increasing your bottom line. Squareup is the place to go for new businesses who have a strong personal presence in their community and can make a sale fast. Squareup offers a free square that you connect to your smartphone for instant billing and sales, with no monthly or hidden fees. You will get access to your deposits within 1 to 2 business days, eliminating the need for waiting on payment from checks or money orders.

 Squarespace.com

 Squarespace is a popular platform that has award winning designs and templates that will get you up and running quickly. The templates can be easily customized, and you can use your own artwork to give your website a unique and personal branding.

 Business Development

 From planning to finance to day-to-day management needs, launching a small business involves a steep learning curve. Take advantage of these free resources to gain the knowledge you need as you develop your business idea into a thriving enterprise.

 SBA.gov

 Searching online for information about developing your business idea can result in a lot of conflicting information. For straightforward business education and advice with no agenda, start at the U.S. Small Business Administration’s website—SBA.gov. Here you can find information about writing business plans, tips for entrepreneurs, and trustworthy information about how to finance your business, and more. It is an incredible resource for rookie and veteran entrepreneurs alike!

 Local Small Business Development Center

 Sponsored by the SBA, small business development centers throughout the United States have helped thousands of entrepreneurs launch successful businesses through free business education, consulting, and mentoring services. Find your local center here and call to request support from an SBDC advisor in your area.

 SCORE

 For over 50 years, non-profit business association SCORE has provided education and mentorship opportunities to help small businesses get off the ground and achieve their growth goals. SCORE.org provides free online learning opportunities as well as confidential in person mentoring services throughout the country from volunteer entrepreneurs with years of business ownership experience.

 Business Planning

 Whether you are just starting your new business or refining your existing business model, let these free tools lead the way in your business planning process.

 Bplans.com

 Writing a plan for a new business does not have to mean reinventing the wheel. Check out Bplans.com for sample business plans representing nearly every industry—from caterers to construction companies and beyond!

 Enloop

 Even with a sample plan in hand, starting with a blank word doc to write your business plan is horribly intimidating. Use Enloop to easily create a professional looking business plan complete with 3-year financial forecast reporting, and even get a free business plan score to help take your plan from good to great.

 Your first business plan is free, with affordable subscription rates for additional plans and added features.

 Business Financing

 Unless you happen to be independently wealthy, figuring out how to raise capital may be the most overwhelming challenge you will face as an entrepreneur. Should you look for investors, or borrow from a bank or online lender? Check out these free resources to help you in your quest to fund your small business.

 AngelList

 Whether you are looking for investors or hiring your first employees, Angel List is your must-have resource for startup recruiting. Hundreds of startups have been matched with angel investors on the site, gaining much needed capital to grow their businesses.

  Kickstarter

 Want to crowdsource your business funding without giving away equity? Launch a funding campaign with Kickstarter: a free to sign-up crowdfunding platform that helps you recruit micro-donors for your business. You can incentivize your donors with future products or gifts of your choice, and Kickstarter will take a small percentage only if your campaign is fully funded.

 StreetShares

 Tell your story and get a loan for your business. StreetShares is a free online marketplace that will connect you with peer-to-peer lenders for small business funding. Instead of relying only on your credit history, you can complete StreetShares quick application and recruit lenders by sharing your story and demonstrating the value of your business idea.

 Design

 With an abundance of free tools online, creating a professional and visually stunning digital presence has never been easier. Check out these free tools to generate high impact eye-candy for your brand.

 Canva

 Want the look of professionally designed graphics for your blog or marketing materials without the cost or the expertise? Canva will be your new best friend. Use pre-formatted templates to create social media banners, blog graphics, marketing flyers, and much more. Free and idiot proof, Canva will make your amateur, no-budget marketing effort and make you look like a seasoned pro.

 Pablo

 If just the thought of graphic design makes you sweat, Pablo by Buffer is a great place to start. Make your social media stand out with beautiful images created from your text in under 30 seconds. Even your grandmother can do this. We promise.

 Piktochart

 You see those incredible infographics buzzing through your Twitter feed and think “that must have taken a trained graphic designer hours to create.” However, did you know you could create similarly high impact infographics for your business, for free? Piktochart offers beautiful templates and easy-to-use tools that even non-designers can use to communicate information in a visually compelling way.

 Email

More than anything else, being a business owner involves a lot of email. For making decisions, communicating with staff, marketing to customers, and more—you likely live and die by your inbox. Check out these free email tools to make your email life a little more manageable.

 Gmail

 Call me biased, but I will state without hesitation that Gmail is the best there is in email communication. Whether you are using a standard free Gmail account or you have connected Gmail to your business email account, you cannot beat the easy to use organization of Gmail for archiving and inbox management.

 Boomerang

 Have a brilliant idea in the middle of the night, but don’t want to blow up your team’s inbox until morning? Alternatively, do you need to follow up on an email in a week, but need a reminder to do so? This awesome third party Gmail add-on for scheduled sending and follow-up reminders will help you restore some balance to your email.

 Free for the first 10 scheduled messages per month. Nominal subscription for unlimited messages and additional features.

 Organizer by OtherInbox

 Organizer does exactly what its name implies—organizes your inbox. Once it’s added to your email, it will automatically sort through the hundreds of promotional emails, receipts, and newsletters into the folders of your choosing. Designed to prioritize the most important emails and securely keep them at the top of your inbox, Organizer is the ultimate time saver for those whose inboxes are perpetually stuffed. Because those promotional emails and receipts may become “out of sight, out of mind” once they aren’t filling your inbox to the brim, Organizer also sends a “Daily Digest” email to keep you in the know of exactly what emails have been filed into which folders. That way you can keep an eye on what is coming into your inbox without sacrificing the time to actually sift through each folder while focusing on the emails that are the most critical to you.

 MailChimp

 If you are a minor entrepreneur new to the email marketing game, you cannot beat MailChimp for beautiful and easy to create bulk newsletter content. Send up to 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers free. Your prospects will love the beautiful content in their inbox, and you will love MailChimp’s awesome features, including beautiful templates, advanced analytics, easy one-click personalization, and more. Constant Contact is another option that many small business owners try. It can be a little pricier than Mailchimp, but wins in terms of customer support since Mailchimp relies heavily on email and their robust self-service Knowledge Base and Constant Contact has chat, phone, or email.

 Unroll.me

 How much time do you spend every day getting distracted by random junk mail cluttering your inbox? In addition, let us not even talk about the headache of scrolling to the bottom of all those emails for the tiny unsubscribe button, followed by an elaborate guilt trip before you can finally say “goodbye.”

 Just say no to inbox clutter with Unroll.me. Unsubscribe from what you do not need, and roll the rest up into a once daily summary of all your newsletter subscriptions. When it comes to saving time, this might be the best free tool on our list.

 Internal Communications

 Whether you work with a distributed team or just travel a lot for business, these communications tools will help you stay in touch with your crew from wherever you are.

 Skype

 The first (and probably still the best) internet calling service out there, Skype is the standard for video conferencing between computers, as well as wifi-based calling between mobile devices throughout the world. If you need that personal face-to-face connection with employees or clients from far away, free video conferencing between Skype accounts is the perfect tool to use.

 Slack

 Between social media accounts, email, text messages, chat tools, and more, the multitude of ways that team members communicate can get confusing and leave room for communications to get lost in the shuffle. Use Slack to manage conversations with your team members across devices and accounts on one platform. Therefore, you can send an email, receive a reply over text, and follow up with a tweet—and no one misses a beat.

 Sococo

 With all the benefits of a physical office environment without the overhead, Sococo is a dream come true for distributed teams. Just log into your virtual office to see who is working, communicate with colleagues by text, audio, or video chat with a click of the mouse, and make conference calls right from your office. Try Sococo’s free starter plan and you’ll be hooked on the feeling of working in community no matter where you are.

 Money Management

 From accepting credit cards to tracking expenses to time tracking and payroll, the internet is full of amazing resources for managing your company’s finances with minimal headache. But how will you know what works? Check out the free trials for these awesome tools to find the money management workflow that fits your business needs.

 Expensify

 Any employee with experience completing traditional expense reports knows what a pain it can be. And administrators know how much time gets wasted tracking down employees for receipts or other information. With Expensify, you can simplify the expense reporting process with smart scanning of receipts, easy mobile tracking of expenses, and one-click reimbursement options. Expensify offers an always free basic plan, plus a free 30-day trial for team and corporate plans with all whistles and bells.

 Paypal

 Is not accepting online payments holding your business back from growth? Paypal offers easy online credit and debit card transactions as well as recurring payments with no sign-up cost and no direct fee.

 TSheets

 If your business is growing and you are hiring hourly employees, you’ll quickly find that tracking their time spent working feels harder than it should be. Enter TSheets, a GPS monitored app that lets employees track time right from their cell phones and aggregates timecard reports from every member of your team to with little to no effort required from you. Check out this awesome service with a 14-day free trial.

 ZenPayroll

 Once you have tracked your employees’ time, there is still the matter of getting everyone paid. ZenPayroll simplifies the payroll process, giving employees online portal access to update their information and letting you run weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payroll for your entire team with just a few clicks of the mouse. Get started with a free 2 month trial.

 Productivity

 You have big ideas, you have a business plan, your company is funded, and you even have amazing graphics for your marketing efforts! However, to keep your business afloat day to day, what you need is to simply get things done. Try our favorite free tools for a boost in productivity to move your business forward.

 Evernote

 Many busy, on-the-go entrepreneurs swear by Evernote for keeping track of thoughts, plans, and ideas from wherever they are. The app’s free plan lets you clip content from across the web, create your own notes, share with friends, and comment on documents together. In addition, with seamless integration across all your devices, you can work from anywhere without missing a beat.

 Google Drive

 Have you noticed by now that I am a little Google obsessed? In addition, this may be one of our favorites. Google Drive offers you almost all the same benefits of Microsoft Office, but accessible from anywhere you have online access. Collaborate on documents with colleagues, track spreadsheet changes as you edit, and share with clients quickly without ever waiting for uploads or worrying about having compatible software installed—all free.

 Producteev

 This is your pen and paper to do list on overdrive. Manage projects between multiple users, set recurring events, and track both large scale projects and the smaller steps along the way that make the big to-do’s possible. Producteev is ideal for keeping up with your own work needs as well as assigning tasks to employees near and far.

 Scheduling

 With a growing number of clients and team members to consider, keeping track of who does what when can be a pain. Whether you are scheduling conference calls, meeting, or work shifts, try these awesome tools to streamline the process, saving you time and brain cells for improved things.

 Doodle

 Say “never again” to the headache of trying to coordinate a meeting, dinner, or other event with multiple parties who use different—even (gasp!) non-digital—calendar platforms. Instead, use Doodle to send out a quick poll with available date and time options. Skip the back and forth, let everyone cast their vote, and consider your meeting scheduled!

 When I Work

 Hands down our favorite tool for companies with shift workers of any kind. Instead of endless emails, sticky notes and phone calls to organize your weekly or monthly shift calendar, When I Work will keep track of employee availability, create a balanced shift schedule, notify employees when they work, and let them trade shifts with team members. All you have to do is set your requirements and approve the final schedule.

 Sign up for the 30 day free trial. You will likely find that the time you save scheduling employees through When I Work is worth every penny of the nominal monthly subscription.

 YouCanBook.me

 Consultants, therapists, salon stylists, attorneys, and other bill-per-hour service providers swear by YouCanBook.me for quick and easy client scheduling. Integrate this tool with your business website to allow clients to book services online. You can set preferences and session lengths for different services, and the app integrates directly with your Google Calendar to automatically work around any appointments or scheduling conflicts that may arise.

 In addition, as long as you do not mind the minimal “powered by YCB” branding, the standard scheduling service is always FREE!

 Social Media

 Every business owner knows you need to be on social media. Actually following through on a social media strategy is another matter entirely. Try these great, free tools to streamline your process and maximize your social media ROI.

  Hootsuite

 Publishing individual social media messages in real time is a drain on time and a recipe for low engagement. By signing up for Hootsuite, you can manage multiple social profiles from a single dashboard. Schedule posts, track mentions, engage with followers, and measure the effectiveness of your social media content, at no cost. It is the go-to tool for keeping your social media accounts in line.

 ManageFlitter

 If Twitter is a big part of your brand development, ManageFlitter is an awesome tool for improving your results. Easily unfollow dormant accounts, track useful analytics, and boost relevant followers with ManageFlitter’s free limited plan.

  Instasize

 If you manage social media accounts for your small business, you know the difficulty of editing on mobile for different apps. With InstaSize, you can format and edit videos and photos for Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more, with ease. The app allows you to add text and filters, retouch faces, and create collages that will make your business stand out.

 Stock Images

 Beautiful images are essential to making your brand stand out online. But if you’re not a professional photographer and your product isn’t visually compelling, how can you use images in your marketing effort? Try these free stock images site to search for images to use in your blog, social media, and other marketing materials.

 Flickr

 This user-generated photo-sharing site has a huge array of images available free with or without attribution. Check out the creative commons section of Flickr and read the usage terms to make sure your photo usage is on the up and up.

 FreeImages

 A great resource for business related stock images, FreeImages is a content marketer’s favorite bookmark for quick generic blog or social media graphics.

 Pixabay

 If you are feeling bored by the typical line up of free stock images online, Pixabay is a great resource to shake things up. The images here have a slightly more indie feel compared to the more generic vibe of traditional stock images.

 Unsplash

 Though the selection is smaller than most, Unsplash is an awesome resource for stock images that don’t feel like stock images? Updated every 10 days, this site’s collection of free to use, no attribution images will feel like a warm hug, creating that personal connection with your audience that typical stock images cannot quite reach.

 Storage & File Sharing Complicated computer networks and external hard drives are so 2005. Try these cloud storage resources to share files and collaborate on documents without a drawer full of USB cables and fifteen phone calls to your cousin who works in IT.

 Dropbox

 Modern companies are using Dropbox to share files between employees and collaborate on documents from multiple devices. Save all your documents to the cloud to access from anywhere, and share them via email invites with colleagues, clients, prospects, or whoever may need access. Your first GB of data is always free, which for a very small organization may be all you ever need.

 Box

 Another file sharing and cloud storage service similar to Dropbox. At Box you can store up to 10 GB of data for free, but will have to pay for additional users. If you are a solopreneur looking to make the most of free cloud storage, Box may be a better solution for your needs.

 Google Cloud

 If you already use a variety of Google apps (which you should; see above), Google Cloud is an obvious choice for backing up files, documents, images, and other content. Integrate it seamlessly with other Google apps to never lose track of your archive files.

 I hope my comprehensive resource list will help you take your business to new heights!

 Mel Feller, MPA, MHR, is a well-known real estate, business consultant, personal development consultant and speaker, specializing in performance, productivity, and profits. Mel is the President/Founder of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching For Success 360, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching, a real estate and business specific coaching company. His three books for real estate professionals are systems on how to become an exceptional sales performer.  His four books in Business and Government Grants are ways to leverage and increase your business Success in both time and money! His book on Personal Development “Lies that Will Sabotage Your Success”.  Mel Feller is in Texas and In Utah.  Currently an MBA Candidate.

[insomniackira]

WYSIWYG

Chapter 4

“What you see is what you get”

WYSIWYG is an editor or program that allows a developer to see what the end result will look like while the interface or document are being created.

ADVANTAGES OF USING A WYSIWYG EDITOR

You can do it yourself, experimenting with colors and layouts.

It is faster and easier to create web pages.

You can make changes to content.

WYSIWYG software runs on any windows computer.

You can make create background images on the fly.

ONLINE TECHNOLOGIES

Online technologies include presentation programs, forms and the file management that are available over the internet.

CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud Computing is a term for the delivery of hosted services over the internet. It has the goal to apply traditional supercomputing or high-performance computing power.

MAIN BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING

Self-service provisioning

Elasticity

Pay-per-use

PRESENTATION TEMPLATES

Prezi 

Prezi is a presentation resource that features a zoomable canvas unlike the box-type slides.

Emaze

Emaze is a presentation in which you can choose free presentation templates to easily create. It also features a proprietary state-of-the-art HTML5 presentation.

MIND MAP

Min map is a concept of using diagrams for representing tasks, words, concepts or items linked to and arranged around a central concept or subject. Along with this is a file and project management

MIND MAPPING TOOLS

MindMeister

is an online mind mapping tool that allows users to create, develop and share ideas visually.

Sibelius 

is an online platform used for writing music.

Google Forms 

is a tool used form for creating surveys, tests or web input forms.

In this lesson, I’ve learned about how important HTML are and how you can see what you’ve type or whatsoever. I also learned about  ONLINE TECHNOLOGIES and  CLOUD COMPUTING works. And because of this lesson I  discovered some website where they have Presentation templates and MInd mapping tools. I am kind of familiar with some of them, I can use this website someday so I really enjoy this lesson.

credits to the owner of the images...

[tsukishima-nana]

Chapter 4 Lesson 2: WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG “What you see is what you get”

is an editor or program that allows a developer to see what the end result will look like while the interface or document are being created.

                   ~ADVANTAGES OF USING A WYSIWYG EDITOR~

-You can do it yourself, experimenting with colors and layouts.

-It is faster and easier to create web pages.

-You can make changes to content.

-WYSIWYG software runs on any windows computer.

-You can make create background images on the fly.

ONLINE TECHNOLOGIES

-include presentation programs, forms and the file management that are available over the internet.

CLOUD COMPUTING

-is a term for the delivery of hosted services over the internet.

-goal is to apply traditional supercomputing or high-performance computing power.

                         MAIN BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING 

+Self-service provisioning

 +Elasticity

 +Pay-per-use

                                  PRESENTATION TEMPLATES

Prezi – is a presentation resource that features a zoomable canvas unlike the box-type slides.

emaze – is a presentation in which you can choose free presentation templates to easily create. It also features a proprietary state-of-the-art HTML5 presentation.

                                                   MIND MAP

is a concept of using diagrams for representing tasks, words, concepts or items linked to and arranged around a central concept or subject.

along with this is a file and project management

,                                         MIND MAPPING TOOLS

MindMeister – is an online mind mapping tool that allows users to create, develop and share ideas visually.

Sibelius – is an online platform used for writing music. 

Google Forms – is a tool used form for creating surveys, tests or web input forms.

I learned about this lesson are webs that may be useful for school and work activities.

Credits to the owners of the photos

Thank you!

[iobsessoverfictionalmen]

I'm midway through writing chapter 8 of the sequel to my mafia Rafael Barba AU. The name of the sequel is "The taste of revenge."

Frederick is a bit of a horny mess and Rafael is a schemer. I am so tempted to make this into a threesome fic.

This is the mood board that I've created for the fic.

[crocusgarnet]

Warning: Very RANDOM

So these were my collages by using canva, i found the pictures from the bts offline pictures app and some are from articles and twtr credit to owners, just want to post these because i might delete these because of storage in the future, my favorite one is jhope daydream and jimin serendipity because it took me a lot of time to find the templates to match the colors, i might post a lot of these collages next time since i need to clear my storage out

[ainahayaton]

After our class,

I understand that citation is the details or information provided in a bibliography. We have a right format when we are writing a citation, which can include: the title of the article, the periodic title, title of the book, or some other resources; the name of its author; the place of publication; the publisher; the date of publication; volume and the pages.

I realized that this lesson is meant to help us students to learn the proper way to cite sources in order to discourage plagiarism.

Because of that I will make sure to give the owner a credit anytime I share something on social media to avoid plagiarism.

Template from Canva

[charlieharry1]

Companies – we are right here to help you get through the covid-19 crisis!

We recognize that right now is an extremely difficult time for plenty people. And understand because we have frolicked on the cellphone with a lot of you over the last week and these conversations had been really heartbreaking. We want you to recognize that we hear you and  Digital Marketing Agencies Southampton  we're here for you. Worth noting we too are affected heavily however are we’re still geared up and willing to help in any way we can:

 Even though we're now all working from home as a protection measure, our phone line and web cam is constantly open to all of us that desires it, that has constantly been and could continue to be our policy. Ebook a no obligation chat with one among our pleasant crew right here. Live strong & don’t be afraid to invite for assist

 help for you & your health

We additionally need you to know that there are many, many sources to be had to you on a personal level. If you’re feeling distressed or beaten, past blue mental fitness specialists are available 24/7 for online chat and email (responses inside 24 hours). For instant help call lifeline on thirteen 11 14 and in an emergency, usually call triple zero (000).

Read Also:-  Top 10 Ways to Use AI in Brand Management

 ‘head to fitness’ is a awesome government initiative that enables human beings locate the right digital intellectual health sources for their needs. Career improvement affiliation of australia has a listing permitting you to look for career counsellors. Here’s the

 Speak to someone you recognize & accept as true with

Touch your gp, a counsellor, psychologist or psychiatrist

visit a sanatorium emergency department

contact your gp, a counsellor, psychologist or psychiatrist

go to a sanatorium emergency department

That is best transient. We are all on this together. Aid is available to you. Communicating-disaster

loose webinar recording:

speaking via a disaster

last friday 27 march we held a webinar on speaking thru a crisis. We’ve made the decision to make this statistics to be had to everyone. The recording might be to be had soon and this weblog put up could be updated. What’s it approximately? In the course of the covid-19 crisis, more than ever, there may be a sturdy want to communicate correctly to your clients, frequently and in a well timed manner. This could mean setting prominent updates for your website, posting a carefully crafted information object in your blog, getting ready and issuing an electronic mail out for your database and/or social media posts. Our webinar explained how to talk through a disaster with many available guidelines and equipment. Fb are giving out $100m in coins presents and ad credits

 We’ll share greater details as they become available. Inside the meantime they’ve launched a enterprise hub with loose resources:

 Extra approaches we may be able to help you or humans you recognize

websit

 Do you or your clients need to replace their internet site with a outstanding banner about covid-19?

Do you or your customers need to begin promoting on line proper now? Would they prefer steerage on a way to add their very own merchandise to their shopify or wordpress or wix web page?

Do you or your clients want to start taking online instructions?

Do you or your clients need to feature a log in region or membership place?

Do you or your customers wish to apply this time to overtake their websites or subsequently get a internet site?

social media offerings

Do you or your customers want to begin a social channel?

Do you or your clients need to set off their social media channels previously installation posting extra frequently based on what they do and how they're affected by a crisis (as an example if they're in essential offerings this is a time to speak more.

 alter – does the content being shared want to adjust in preference to stock fashionable content material they may need to do responsive/ 👉 outreach – do you need assist posting in relevant businesses to promote your enterprise?

 Training – do you or your customers need training in a way to ‘cross live’ with addresses from their ceo, key group of workers participants conveying important messages. S

search engine optimization services

Do you or your customers need to enhance their rankings asap so that they may be observed with the onslaught of people trying to find regular objects on line as opposed to at their common bricks & mortar stores?

Do you have a internet site but no concept the way to installation primary seo? We will share our screen and walk through a way to installation a seo plug in on their website (for wordpress web sites or wix sites)

 Do you need to start tracking how a lot site visitors they're getting to their internet site and what their roi is? We will assist installation on google analytics, google webmaster tools, conversion monitoring and greater and show them precisely what's taking place and what it approach.

Do you or your clients need updated electronic mail signatures speaking alternate of hours/on line operating/varied services?

Do you or your customers want to put together flyers and distribute them in a local neighbourhood so human beings realize their store presenting essentials is still open for commercial enterprise/or to promote unique services to the susceptible or elderly or non online people?Dours/online running/varied services or surely a covid-19 kindness message?

 do you or your client need professional organized social media templates to use in canva so as to then move and use their down time accurately?

 do you or your clients want help with a expert searching email advertising template so that it will send out a professional verbal exchange or regular communications with covid-19 updates?

 do you or your clients need a brand new web site design mock up? Consults

 do you or your customers simply need a 1:1 session on-line on what to do advertising clever at this difficult time?

could you or your clients like some 1:1 help on line on the way to do something they don’t understand a way to do including replace their internet site, put together and time table social media posts themselves, run their first zoom session and many others.

might you or your clients like to understand the way to create a primary set up of facebook funnels, which include introduction of a landing page using i. E. Lead pages, set up custom facebook events thru gtm or facebook pixel new tool, and create the tof, mof, bof campaigns.

want to better understandwebinar & video conferencing structures which includes zoom, google meet, skype, crowdcast, webex, gotowebinar and extra to take your conferences and events online? There are lots of options obtainable in recent times in relation to the use of these technologies and speakme to us approximately your alternatives will save you time in research to discover the proper one for you and get the most out of it. Again, we're here to help. Our contacts:

Going for walks multi-character meetings, workshops & massive scale occasions on-line

Want to higher understand webinar & video conferencing structures including zoom, google meet, skype, crowdcast, webex, gotowebinar and extra to take your conferences and events online? There are a variety of alternatives available nowadays in relation to the use of these technology and speaking to us approximately your alternatives will save you time in studies to find the proper one for you and get the maximum out of it. Book in a paid one hour or two hour seek advice from or institution schooling on line and we are able to educate you! Government assist

If you are a sole trader with out employees

If you rent human beings

government stimulus for small groups

For more records on monetary assistance, eligibility and timing for the brand new government guide for australian groups, visit business. Gov. Au. Boosting cash glide for employers

 The sooner $20,000 coins waft for employers degree has been improved

Up to $a hundred,000 to eligible small and medium-sized businesses, and now not for-profits (nfps) that appoint humans (may also be sole-dealer), with a minimum charge of $20,000. Those bills will assist groups and nfps with their cash drift – as a way to keep working, pay their lease, electricity and other payments and maintain body of workers

Small and medium-sized enterprise entities with aggregated annual turnover beneath $50 million and that employ people are eligible. Nfps, which include charities, with aggregated annual turnover beneath $50 million and that appoint employees will now also be eligible

Employers will acquire a price equal to one hundred per cent of their income and wages withheld (up from 50 in line with cent), with the most price being improved rom $25,000 to $50,000. In addition, the minimal price is being improved from $2,000 to $10,000

Eligible entities will acquire an extra price identical to the entire of all of the boosting cash float for employers payments obtained

Which means that eligible entities will receive as a minimum $20,000 up to a complete of $one hundred,000 beneath both bills

Cash go with the flow assistance for organizations

 Transient remedy for financially distressed corporations

 Providing a protection net is to reduce the threat of actions that would unnecessarily push commercial enterprise into insolvency and force the polishing off of the enterprise

Growing the threshold at which creditors can issue a statutory call for on a agency and the time organizations ought to respond to statutory demands they receive

The package deal additionally includes temporary comfort for directors from any non-public liability for trading whilst bancrupt, and presenting temporary flexibility inside the companies act 2001 to offer transient and centered comfort from provisions of the act to deal with unforeseen events that stand up due to the coronavirus fitness disaster

ato will tailor answers for owners or administrators of commercial enterprise which might be presently suffering due to the coronavirus, inclusive of temporary reduction of payments or deferrals, or withholding enforcement moves inclusive of director penalty notices and wind-ups

offering brief relief for financially distressed groups

 increasing the immediate asset write-off

 Increasing the instant asset write-off threshold from $30,000 to $150,000

Increasing access to consist of organizations with aggregated annual turnover of much less than $500 million (up from $50 million) until 30 june 2020

coins drift help for agencies

Backing commercial enterprise funding

 Time limited 15 month investment incentive (via to 30 june 2021) to help enterprise funding and monetary growth over the fast time period, by using accelerating depreciation deductions

organizations with a turnover of much less than $500 million may be able to deduct 50 per cent of the price of an eligible asset on installation, with existing depreciation regulations applying to the balance of the asset’s fee

Turning in guide for enterprise investment

 Assisting apprentices and trainees

 Eligible employers can observe for a salary subsidy of fifty consistent with cent of the apprentice’s or trainee’s salary for 9 months from 1 january 2020 to 30 september 2020

in which a small commercial enterprise isn't able to hold an apprentice, the subsidy can be available to a new corporation that employs that apprentice

employers will be reimbursed up to a maximum of $21,000 in line with eligible man or woman

coins flow help for organizations

 Guide for coronavirus-affected regions and communities

 1 billion to assist areas most importantly laid low with the coronavirus outbreak. Budget might be available to help for the duration of the outbreak and the recuperation

Assisting the airline enterprise by providing alleviation from a number of taxes and authorities fees estimated to total as much as $715 million

help for severely affected regions and sectors

 Coronavirus enterprise liaison unit

 A coronavirus commercial enterprise liaison unit has been mounted within treasury to have interaction with business on a ordinary foundation and offer updates to government on crucial troubles

Assistance from banks and ato

 Tax payments

Those can be deferred, contact the taxation workplace. The ato will hold to replace their

Internet site on recommendation to business. Enterprise loans

 an help package deal of extra than $one hundred billion will be provided

australian banks will defer mortgage payments. Programs consist of the pausing of loan payments and hobby fees for six months

how can i get assistance from my bank? Any commercial enterprise that has no longer been contacted need to call their bank to apply for help. Be affected person as there will be an influx of people in search of assist

what takes place on the give up of the deferral length of payments and interest

prices? Groups will now not be required to pay the deferred hobby in a lump sum. Both the time period of the mortgage may be extended or the extent of mortgage repayments will be increased. You can additionally amplify your loan period

More statistics touch the financial hardships team of your very own bank

 How can groups hold their expenses down? Study charges together with staffing ranges, strength payments and lease  Digital Marketing Company Southampton costs and see if any discounts

May be given. Speak to humans which includes your landlord, power provider and accountant.

Follow US:-  Faceboo  ,Twitter, LinkedIn,YouTube

[weneverlearn]

Dead Boys 1977

Interview with Clevelander Dave Treat about his new photo book that peaks into some daze in the pre-legendary life of the Cleveland punk rock masters. 

It’s easy to forget that, by their initial demise circa 1980, the Dead Boys were considered a kind of dark summation of the original American punk rock explosion. A blistering live act no doubt, they were “the Stooges played fast;” glam rock sans glitter; even proto-power pop given the best hooks of the second album. One of the ultimate flameouts in rock’n’roll history, their punk status was cemented just under the ubiquitous Lower East Side canon. And heaven forbid, they were from Cleveland.

But as the years roll on, the layers of their status have shifted and deepened. Being from Cleveland – actually forming out of bands who pre-dated the CBGB scene (Rocket from the Tombs, Frankenstein) – makes them punk originators, not just the out-of-towners they were sometimes painted as when they moved to the Big Apple in 1977. Their debut album, Young Loud and Snotty, remains perhaps the most consistently invigorating American punk album of that era. Singer Stiv Bators’ too-soon death, guitarist Cheetah Chrome’s long journey to find himself, it all inadvertently lent gravity to the band’s more immediate and welcome sense of humor that put them in stark contrast to the sometimes pretentious CBGB scene.

And in the last few years, Chrome has been busy as hell, making new records, playing Dead Boys songs again with various friends, and doing occasional solo acoustic sets that can be genuinely tear-quelling in their intimacy and memory-dredging.

If you haven’t checked out Chrome’s 2009 biography, A Dead Boys Tale: From the Front Lines of Punk Rock, you should! It not only gives a flailing firsthand account from one of punk’s template tossers, it articulates to outsiders that Cleveland was the equal to NYC as THE post-industrial blank canvas for young, drunk, and broke punks to come up with their own thing. Further, you will find no trust fund kids in his story, no relocated Connecticutians sliding into ripped jeans and hoping nobody finds out their dad is a Wall Street lawyer. As “punk” has incrementally defined its soul as a working-class genre, the Dead Boys story becomes more and more foundationally iconic.

And now this beautifully bleak collection of photos and quick quotes, Dead Boys 1977: The Lost Photographs of Dave Treat. It’s a perfect companion to the first few chapters of Cheetah’s bio. Half are gloriously raw shots of the band awkwardly striking poses around the desolate streets of downtown Cleveland as a newly minted, four-piece Dead Boys. The second half is color photos from two 1977 Cleveland shows. Then the book closes with achingly alone solo shots of Stiv, also shot during one afternoon (Treat lived in the same building where Stiv and Chrome roomied.) Stiv had an uncanny visage that could be simultaneously madcap and melancholy. For a guy who would whip it out anywhere on command and who spent the majority of his adult work life yelling loudly on stage, he remains a mystery man in many ways. And you see that mystery in his eyes and bent body through these pix.

As you arrive at the end of this book, you feel as if you just spent a day and night with the Dead Boys. Your inclination on closing it is to swig back the last backwash, throw the bottle down, and say “See ya later” to the guys, walk out onto Detroit Ave., and never look back, just like they did.

The photos herein were meant as a no budget attempt at “promotional rock photos,” but the band soon added a fifth member and moved to NYC, so these photos have been sitting in a box since then. Save for one small gallery show where a few of them were displayed, this is the first time they appear.

I asked Treat about the book and more.

The Dead Boys pose for Dave Treat on Huron Avenue in Cleveland, 1977, a time when the central city was so desolate you could do this in the middle of the day and hardly see another soul. L-R Johnny Blitz, Cheetah Chrome, Stiv Bators, Jimmy Zero. Photo credit: Dave Treat

Did you grow up in the Cleveland area?

Yes, on West 41 St., off of Clark Avenue.

So when and what were the initial inspiration to drag these pix out and do something with them?

Actually, I didn’t know I still had them. I was cleaning out some boxes and there they were. That was three years ago. I went to Blue Arrow Records and started talking to Pete the owner, and he liked the pics. He had Brittany Hudak look at them and she wanted to do a gallery show at Gallery 61-- owned by Byron Miller, who also printed them for me -- with a 25th Anniversary Show honoring the loss of Stiv Bators. That is how it all started. Clem Burke of Blondie came to the  Cleveland Stiv show on Waterloo and gave us a number and recommendation to Lethal Amounts in LA. The gallery show was first, with Cheetah playing to a sold-out crowd after at the Monty Bar.

How did you first meet up with Cheetah and Stiv?

I moved to an apartment on Giel Avenue in Lakewood. About three months later, Stiv moved into the building. We met and became friends. Cheetah was always there. One note: Stiv and Cheetah wrote some of the songs for Young Loud and Snotty in their bathroom. Cheetah on the toilet and Stiv in the tub.

The pic with the band next to the dumpster – what was the impetus behind purposely shooting in garbage? Were any of the members like, “Can we take nice shots somewhere, like maybe at Swingos?” I know Cheetah mentions the first Ramones album cover as inspiration.

No nice pics, it was decided to go downtown and find the place we shot the photos. Cheetah liked the Ramones album cover. Collectively, we wanted the urban decay, the garbage and the dilapidated buildings. We didn’t want them lined up against a wall, but something unique to them.

So how present were the Ramones and the notion of this new "punk" music in your life personally? 

For me, the intro into punk was through the Dead Boys. Meeting and seeing their passion for this new sound was amazing. It pulled you in. Finally, something new in Cleveland.

What were the live music clubs you'd go to, and were there local bands you could stand? I know Cheetah's told me how it was mostly lame blues or ‘60s cover bands, if any live music at all...

Pirate’s Cove, Agora, Jicky’s After Dark, Piccadilly’s.

 Pere Ubu, The Pagans, Styrenes.

     (A history-smushing aside: The Pirate’s Cove turned into Peabody’s, which I frequented in my youth (Replacements, Pixies, Godfathers, Death of Samantha, Rocket from the Crypt, among many), and only died a few years ago; and the Agora is still there, operating on/off.)

Can you just give me a random crazy Stiv story, and maybe one that is not expected from the "wild man" he's known as?

Came home from classes, started knocking on the door, looked in the hall and Stiv was having sex with someone. He looked up, waved, smiled and put up his index finger to say just a minute. I laughed and went upstairs.

Dropped at the door of Drome Records, 1977.

Was Stiv a late night, drunkly opening up with his feelings kinda guy?

No, not at all. He was always upbeat. He liked having a good time, pulling a good prank…never melancholy.

Dead Boys singer Stiv Bators poses for Dave Treat at the Cleveland Agora with their friend and neighbor “Barb the Fat Bitch” (a joking nickname for someone who, according to Cheetah Chrome, was in fact neither fat nor a bitch). Photo credit: Dave Treat

I grew up in Cleveland - Parma Hts., to be exact -- and the whole Catholic thing about Cleveland is one of the simmering things inside the Dead Boys that I always loved, and makes them so "Cleveland," no matter their fame gained in the Big Apple. But did religion actually come up much? Or any stories of desecrating churches or anything?

Religion never came up. Nothing too outrageous. Stiv putting his finger on his throat and barfing on a Denny’s window while people were eating. Cheetah pissing out the window or back porch. Cheetah mooning two ladies walking on Giel Avenue. Not too crazy yet.

I think, while the NYC scene was peppered with slumming rich kids, reading Cheetah's book and looking through your's, you definitely get the sense there was none of that in Cleveland, that the Dead Boys and the few people in the actual "scene" were not exactly getting their rent paid for.

No rich kids here. Went to classes in the a.m. and worked in the evenings. Paid for everything myself.

That "ruin porn" early-70s punk era is always mythologized, but as Cheetah has pointed out, it wasn't some huge scene. At underground or new rock kind of shows, there might be 15 people in the crowd. Do you agree, and any stories of hanging out at shows with Cheetah and Stiv, with 10 other people or what have you?

Cleveland at that point was in a free fall. Our mayor had the city’s garbage men deliver a porn poll. We were called the Mistake on the Lake. The city would go into default. There were no jobs. My roommate, after I moved, and another student at Cooper actually organized the First Annual Cleveland Smoke-In. Attached is a copy of the flyer.  In short, good or bad, you got by.

In the book, the mentions of how dead it was downtown, Cheetah saying you could just stop in the middle of Euclid Ave. and take pictures -- do you have memories of just exploring downtown Cleveland then? And did you have a feeling that this really was the end of a city, an end of an era, or did you think Cleveland could "come back?" Would you want it to "come back?"

As far as downtown, it was dead. The malls opened in the ‘burbs and people didn’t need to go downtown. I shot the guys in the middle of Huron. We were there 10-15 minutes. No cars or people. Can’t do that now.

What did you think when the band decided to move to NYC?

They had to, there wasn’t a market in Cleveland. When they first went to CBGB’s, there was no turning back. They found where they needed to be, and I am glad they did.

How did you hear about Stiv dying, and when was the last time you'd heard from him?

I heard there was a benefit for Stiv and Babylon-A-Go-Go, 6/29/90. I went there and saw people I knew. They told me what happened. *

Where do you live today; what are you doing for a living; and what do you think of the more bustling downtown Cleveland of today?

I currently live in Solon, Ohio. I am a currently consulting in residential construction. It’s about damn time. Actually the renaissance of downtown and the Flats has been doing incredibly well. I’m proud to say I’m a Clevelander.

* -- I too was at that memorial:

http://weneverlearn.tumblr.com/post/520928279/this-is-the-funeral-card-from-stiv-bators 

These are the amazing VHS tributes that were shown at Stiv’s memorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FreVBEt_8BQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfIZwblztxQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOUIZIQghFY

Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome moons Dave Treat’s camera in one of downtown Cleveland’s MANY empty buildings in 1977. L-R: Stiv Bators, Cheetah Chrome, Jimmy Zero, Johnny Blitz. Photo credit: Dave Treat

Photographer Dave Treat, photo credit: Bryon Miller

[shophub]

Why You Should Use Betube Video WordPress Theme?

Introduction Of Betube Betube is most dominant and greatest Responsive Video WordPress topic grows explicitly for video site. Betube presents to you the most recent structure in Video Website patterns with wonderfully full and fixed width page layouts that slime with polish and appeal, you will have an earth-shattering completely useful video site close to buying. With 10+ interesting Homepage structures, I am certain you will discover a plan that addresses your issues. Make the enormous online video site with rich full-page sliders and propelled highlights, Betube is the solution to your inquiries when making an online commercial center that is secure and future confirmation. You can implant recordings from every enormous video sites like Youtube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Hulu and so on.

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Betube Widgets Betube classes Widget: Show All Categories in gadgets with a special craft. Betube Categories Accordion Widget: Show All Categories in Accordion Style. Betube Most Viewed Videos Widget: Show Most Viewed Videos in Widget. Betube Recent Videos Widget: Show Latest Videos in Widget. Betube Twitter Widget: Latest tweet gadget utilizing twitter programming interface and will indicate most recent tweets from your record. Most Viewed Video Posts Slider Widget: Show Most Viewed Videos in Slider Style. All Supported All WordPress Widgets. Approaches to Embed Video Easily Video File: Embed Self Hosted Video just need to glue your video record URL. Video URL: Auto-Embed recordings by the URL from prominent video destinations like YouTube, Vimeo, and numerous others. Video Code: Embed a video by crude video code(object, install of iframe). Credits and Copyrights Fonts Open Sans : We have Use Google Font Plugins Used Font Awesome 4 Menus: Thanks to New Nine Media Nextend Facebook Connect: Thanks to Roland Soos. Nextend Google Connect: Thanks to Roland Soos. Nextend Twitter Connect: Thanks to Roland Soos. Video Thumbnails: Thanks to Sutherland Boswell FV Flowplayer Video Player: Thanks to FolioVision Other Sources Foundation: The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world. Redux Framework: Redux is a simple, truly extensible options framework for WordPress themes and plugins. WordPress: The most popular CMS. Preview All videos used in BeeTube demo are copyrighted to their respective owners. These video from popular video site YouTube, Vimeo etc. BeTube Documentation #video blog wordpress theme,#free wordpress video theme#video theme wordpress#betube video wordpress theme#betube v2.0.2 - video wordpress theme#best theme for wordpress#best wordpress theme#free theme for wordpress#free theme in wordpress#free theme of wordpress#free wordpress theme#youtube#google adsense Read the full article

[thestressedpoet]

Blog # 4

Sooooo this one is a Performance task in our Theology IV and I cant help but to think that, how can us, something to stubborn and cruel can be loved by someone so indefinitely glorious. I made the poem a little personal yet not that simple to say that “It’s all his perspective.” 

“Repeated actions are sometimes repeated words.”

credits to the owner of the picture. made it using canva go and check it out it has tons of templates that you can choose from. www.canva.com

[michaelandy101-blog]

How to Make a Scalable SMS Chatbot Using Twilio, Python, and Google Sheets (with Free Code)

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/how-to-make-a-scalable-sms-chatbot-using-twilio-python-and-google-sheets-with-free-code/

How to Make a Scalable SMS Chatbot Using Twilio, Python, and Google Sheets (with Free Code)

Many of us are helping businesses that are facing hard times, or we’re facing hard times ourselves. If you’re working for a company (or client) that’s in trouble, the use of SMS chatbots could be a way for you to look outside your normal list of solutions and help them succeed in a completely different way. If you’re a marketer looking for work, adding this to your list of skills could mean you keep things ticking along while many of the usual doors are closed — or that you open new doors.

What you’ll get

In this post, I give you instructions and code to produce not just one, but a series of text-based chatbots that can be managed by Google Sheets.

The example here is set up to work with restaurants, but could be adapted to work with any business that needs to receive orders, check them against inventory/menus, and note them down to be fulfilled.

Once the system is set up, there will be no coding necessary to create a new SMS-based chatbot for a new business. Plus, that business will be able to manage key details (like incoming orders and a menu) by simply updating a Google Sheet, making all of this far more accessible than most other options.

But first, some context.

Some context

In September 2017, as one of my first big passion projects at Distilled, I wrote a Moz blog post telling people how to make a chatbot and giving away some example code.

This April, I got an email from a man named Alexandre Silvestre. Alex had launched “a non-profit effort to help the local small business owners navigate these challenging times, save as many jobs as possible, and continue to serve our community while helping to flatten the curve.”

This effort began by focusing on restaurants. Alex had found my 2017 post (holy moly, content marketing works!) and asked if I could help his team build a chatbot. We agreed on some basic requirements for the bot:

It had to work entirely within text message (and if the order was super complicated it had to be able to set up a call directly with the restaurant).

Running it had to be as close to free as possible.

Restaurants had to be able to check on orders, update menus, etc., without setting up special accounts.

The solution we agreed on had three parts:

Twilio (paid): supplies the phone number and handles most of the conversational back-and-forth.

Google Cloud Functions (semi-free): when a URL is called it runs code (including updating our database for the restaurant) and returns a response.

Google Sheets (free): our database platform. We have a sheet which lists all of the businesses using our chatbot, and linking off to the individual Google Sheets for each business.

I’ll take you through each of these components in turn and tell you how to work with them.

If you’re coming back to this post, or just need help with one area, feel free to jump to the specific part you’re interested in:

—Pricing —Twilio —Google Sheets —Google Cloud Functions —Test the bot —Break things and have fun —Postscript — weird hacks

Pricing

This should all run pretty cheaply — I’m talking like four cents an order.

Even so, always make sure that any pricing alerts are coming through to an email address you actively monitor.

When you’re just starting on this, or when you’ve made a change (like adding new functionality or new businesses), make sure you check back in on your credits over the next few weeks so you know what’s going on.

Twilio

Local Twilio phone numbers cost about $1.00 per month. It’ll cost about $0.0075 to send and receive texts, and Twilio Studio — which we use to do a lot of the “conversation” — costs $0.01 every time it’s activated (the first 1,000 every month are free).

So, assuming you have 2,500 text orders a month and each order takes about five text messages, it’s coming to about $100 a month in total.

Google Sheets

Google Sheets is free, and great. Long live Google Sheets.

Google Cloud Functions

Google shares full pricing details here, but the important things to know about are:

1. Promotional credits

You get a free trial which lasts up to a year, and it includes $300 of promotional credits, so it’ll spend that before it spends your money. We’d spent $0.00 (including promotional credits) at the end of a month of testing. That’s because there’s also a monthly free allowance.

2. Free allowance and pricing structure

Even aside from the free credits, Google gives a free allowance every month. If we assume that each order requires about 5 activations of our code and our code takes up to five seconds to run each time (which is a while but sometimes Google Sheets is sluggish), we could be getting up to over 400,000 orders per month before we dip into the promotional credits.

Twilio

Twilio is a paid platform that lets you buy a phone number and have that number automatically send certain responses based on input.

If you don’t want to read more about Twilio and just want the free Twilio chatbot flow, here it is.

Step 1: Buy a Twilio phone number

Once you’ve bought a phone number, you can receive texts to that number and they’ll be processed in your Twilio account. You can also send texts from that number.

Step 2: Find your phone number

You can see your list of purchased phone numbers by clicking the Twilio menu in the top left hand corner and then clicking “Phone Numbers”. Or, you can just go to phone-numbers/incoming.

Once you see your phone number listed, make a note of it.

Step 3: Create your Studio Flow

Studio is Twilio’s drag-and-drop editor that lets you create the structure of your conversation. A studio “flow” is just the name of a specific conversation you’ve constructed.

You can get to Twilio Studio by clicking on the Twilio menu again and clicking on “Studio” under “Runtime”.

Create a new flow by clicking “Create a flow”.

When you create a new flow, you’ll be given the option to start from scratch or use one of the built-in options to build your flow for you (although they won’t be as in-depth as the template I’m sharing here).

If you want to use a version of the flow which Alex and I built, select “Import from JSON” and click “Next”. Then, download this file and copy the contents into the box that comes up.

Make sure that it starts with a single brace, and ends with a single  brace. The box that comes up will automatically have in it and if you don’t delete them before you paste, you’ll double-up and it won’t accept your input.

If all goes well, you’ll be presented with a flow that looks like this:

You might be asking: What in the name of all that is holy is that tangle of colored spaghetti?

That’s the Twilio Studio flow we created and, don’t worry, it basically splits up into a series of multiple-choice questions where the answer to each determines where you go next in the flow.

Everything on the canvas that you can see is a widget from the Twilio Studio widget library connected together with “if this, then that” type conditions.

The Studio Flow process

Before we go into specific blocks in the process, here’s an overview of what happens:

A customer messages one of our Twilio numbers

Based on the specific number messaged, we look up the restaurant associated with it. We then use the name and saved menu of the restaurant to message the customer.

If the customer tries to order off-menu, we connect a call to the restaurant

If the customer chooses something from our menu, we ask their name, then record their order in the sheet for that restaurant and tell them when to arrive to pick up their order

As/when the user messages to tell us they are outside the restaurant, we ask whether they are on-foot/a description of their vehicle. We record the vehicle description in the same restaurant sheet.

Let’s look at some example building blocks shall we?

Initial Trigger

The initial trigger appears right at the start of every flow, and splits the incoming contact based on whether it’s a text message, a phone call, or if code is accessing it.

“Incoming Message” means the contact was via text message. We only need to worry about that one for now, so let’s focus on the left-hand line.

Record the fact that we’re starting a new interaction

Next, we use a “Set Variables” block, which you can grab from the widget library.

The “Set Variables” block lets us save record information that we want to refer to later. For example, we start by just setting the “stage” of our interaction. We say that the stage is “start” as in, we are at the start of the interaction. Later on we’ll check what the value of stage is, both in Studio and in our external code, so that we know what to do, when.

Get our menu

We assume that if someone messaged us, triggering the chatbot, they are looking to order so the next stage is to work out what the applicable menu is.

Now, we could just write the menu out directly into Studio and say that whenever someone sends us a message, we respond with the same list of options. But that has a couple problems.

First, it would mean that if we want to set this up for multiple restaurants, we’d have to create a new flow for each. 

The bigger issue is that restaurants often change their menus. If we want this to be something we can offer to lots of different restaurants, we don’t want to spend all our time manually updating Twilio every time a restaurant runs out of an ingredient.

So what we really need is for the restaurants to be able to list their own menus. This is where Google Sheets comes in, but we’ll get to that later. In Twilio, we just need to be able to ask for external information and forward that external information to the user. To do that we use a Webhook widget:

This widget makes a request to a URL, gets the response, and then lets us use the content of the response in our messages and flow.

If the request to the URL is successful, Twilio will automatically continue to our success step, otherwise we can set it to send an “Oops, something went wrong” response with the Fail option.

In this case, our Webhook will make a request to the Google Cloud functions URL (more on that later). The request we send will include some information about the user and what we need the code to do. The information will be in JSON format (the same format that we used to import the Twilio flow I shared above).

Our JSON will include the specific Twilio phone number that’s been messaged, and we’ll use that number to differentiate between restaurants, as well as the phone number that contacted us. It’ll also include the content of the text message we received and the “stage” we set earlier, so the code knows what the user is looking for.

Then the code will do some stuff (we’ll get to that later) and return information of its own. We can then tell Twilio to use parts of the response in messages.

Send a message in response

Next we can use the information we received to construct and send a message to the user. Twilio will remember the number you’re in a conversation with and it’ll send your messages to that number.

This is the “Send & Wait For Reply” widget, meaning that once this message is sent, Twilio will assume the conversation is still going rather than ending it there.

In this case, we’re writing our welcome message. We could write out just plain content, but we want to use some of the variables we got from our Webhook widget. We called that specific Webhook widget “get_options”, so we access the content we got from it by writing:

{{widgets.get_options

The response comes back in JSON, and fortunately Twilio automatically breaks that up for us. 

We can access individual parts of the response by writing “parsed” and then the label we gave that information in our response. As it is, the response from the code looked something like this:

“name”: restaurant_name,

“dishes_string”: “You can choose from Margherita Pizza, Hawaiian Pizza, Vegetarian Pizza”

“additions”: “large, medium, small”

We get the available menu by writing “widgets.get_options.parsed.dishes_string”, and then we write the message below which will be sent to people who contact the bot:

Make a decision based on a message

We can’t assume everyone is going to use the bot in exactly the same way so we need to be able to change what we do based on certain conditions. The “Split Based On…” widget is how we select certain conditions and set what to do if they are met.

In this case, we use the content of the response to our previous message which we access using options_follow_up.inbound.Body. “Options_follow_up” is the name of the Send & Wait widget we just spoke about, “inbound” means the response and, “Body” means the text within it.

Then we set a condition. If the user responds with anything along the lines of “other”, “no”, “help”, etc., they’ll get sent off on another track to have a phone call. If they respond with anything not on that list, they might be trying to order, so we take their order and check it with our code:

Set up a call

If the user says they want something off-menu, we’ll need to set up a call with the restaurant. We do that by first calling the user:

Then, when they pick up, connecting that call to the restaurant number which we’ve already looked up in our sheets:

Step 4: Select your studio flow for this phone number

Follow the instructions in step two to get back to the specific listing for the phone number you bought. Then scroll to the bottom and select the Studio Flow you created.

Google Sheets

This chatbot uses two Google Sheets.

Free lookup sheet

The lookup sheet holds a list of Twilio phone numbers, the restaurant they have been assigned to, and the URL of the Google Sheet which holds the details for that restaurant, so that we know where to look for each.

You’ll need to create a copy of the sheet to use it. I’ve included a row in the sheet I shared, explaining each of the columns. Feel free to delete that when you know what you’re doing.

Free example restaurant sheet

The restaurant-specific sheet is where we include all of our information about the restaurant in a series of tabs. You’ll need to create a copy of the sheet to use it. 

Orders

The orders tab is mainly used by our code. It will automatically write in the order time, customer name, customer phone number, and details of the order. By default it’ll write FALSE in the “PAID/READY?” column, which the restaurant will then need to update.

In the final stage, the script will add TRUE to the “CUSTOMER HERE?” column and give the car description in the “PICK UP INFO” column.

Wait time

This is a fairly simple tab, as it contains one cell where the restaurant writes in how long it’ll be before orders are ready. Our code will extract that and give it to Twilio to let customers know how long they’ll likely be waiting.

Available dishes and additions tabs

The restaurant lists the dishes that are available now along with simple adaptations to those dishes, then these menus are sent to customers when they contact the restaurant. When the code receives an order, it’ll also check that order against the list of dishes it sent to see if the customer is selecting one of the choices.

Script using sheet tab

You don’t need to touch this one at all — it’s just a precaution to avoid our code accidentally overwriting itself.

Imagine a situation where our code gets an order, finds the first empty row in the orders sheet, and writes that order down there. However, at the same time, someone else makes an order for the same restaurant, another instance of our code also looks for the first empty row, selects the same one, and they both write in it at the same time. We’d lose at least one order even though the code thinks everything is fine.

To try to avoid that, when our code starts to use the sheet, the first thing it does is change the “Script using sheet” value to TRUE and writes down when it starts using it. Then, when it’s done, it changes the value back to FALSE.

If our script goes to use the sheet and sees that “Script using sheet” is set to TRUE, it’ll wait until that value becomes FALSE and then write down the order.

How do I use the sheets?

Example restaurant sheet:

Make a copy of the example restaurant sheet.

Fill out all the details for your test restaurant.

Copy the URL of the sheet.

Lookup sheet:

Make a copy of the lookup sheet (you’ll only need to create one).

Don’t delete anything in the “extracted id” column but replace everything else.

Put your Twilio number in the first column.

Paste the URL of your test restaurant in the Business Sheet URL column.

Add your business’ phone number in the final column.

Sharing:

Find the “Service Account” email address (which I’ll direct you to in the Cloud Functions section).

Make sure that both sheets are shared with that email address having edit access.

Creating a new restaurant:

Any time you need to create a new restaurant, just make a copy of the restaurant sheet.

Make sure you tick “share with the same people” when you’re copying it.

Clear out the current details.

Paste the new Google Sheet URL in a new line of your lookup sheet.

When the code runs, it’ll open up the lookup sheet, use the Twilio phone number to find the specific sheet ID for that restaurant, go to that sheet, and return the menu.

Google Cloud Functions

Google Cloud Functions is a simple way to automatically run code online without having to set up servers or install a whole bunch of special programs somewhere to make sure your code is transferable.

If you don’t want to learn more about Google Cloud and just want code to run — here’s the free chatbot Python code.

What is the code doing?

Our code doesn’t try to handle any of the actual conversations, it just gets requests from Twilio — including details about the user and what stage they are at — and performs some simple functions.

Stage 1: “Start”

The code receives a message from Twilio including the Twilio number that was activated and the stage the user is at (start). Based on it being the “start” stage, the code activates the start function.

It looks up the specific restaurant sheet based on the Twilio number, then returns the menu for that restaurant.

It also sends Twilio things like the specific restaurant’s number and a condensed version of the menu and additions for us to check orders against.

Stage 2: “Chosen”

The code receives the stage the user is at (chosen) as well as their order message, the sheet ID for the restaurant, and the condensed menu (which it sent to Twilio before), so we don’t have to look those things up again.

Based on it being the “chosen” stage, the code activates the chosen function. It checks if the order matches our condensed menu. If they didn’t, it tells Twilio that the message doesn’t look like an order. 

If the order does match our menu, it writes the order down in the first blank line. It also creates an order ID, which is a combination of the time and a portion of the user’s phone number.

It sends Twilio a message back saying if the order matched our menu and, if it did match our menu, what the order number is.

Stage 3: “Arrived”

The code receives the stage the user is at (arrived) and activates the arrived function. It also receives the message describing the user’s vehicle, the restaurant-specific sheet ID, and the order number, all of which it previously told Twilio.

It looks up the restaurant sheet, and finds the order ID that matches the one it was sent, then updates that row to show the user has arrived and the description of their car.

Twilio handles all the context

It might seem weird to you that every time the code finds some information (for instance, the sheet ID to look up) it sends that information to Twilio and requests it afresh later on. That’s because our code doesn’t know what’s going on at all, except for what Twilio tells it. Every time we activate our code, it starts exactly the same way so it has no way of knowing which user is texting Twilio, what stage they’re at, or even what restaurant we’re talking about.

Twilio remembers these things for the course of the interaction, so we use it to handle all of that stuff. Our code is a very simple “do-er” — it doesn’t “know” anything for more than about five seconds at a time.

How do I set up the code?

I don’t have time to describe how to use Google Cloud Functions in-depth, or how to code in Python, but the code I’ve shared above includes a fair number of notes explaining what’s going on, and I’ll talk you through the steps specific to this process.

Step 1: Set up

Make sure you:

Step 2: Create a new function

Go here and click “create a new function”. If you haven’t created a project before, you might need to do that first, and you can give the project whatever name you like.

Step 3: Set out the details for your function

The screen shot below gives you a lot of the details you need. I’d recommend you choose 256MB for memory — it should be enough. If you find you run into problems (or if you want to be more cautious from the start), then increase it to 512MB.

Make sure you select HTTP as the trigger and note down the URL it gives you (if you forget, you can always find the URL by going to the “Trigger” tab of the function).

Also make sure you tick the option to allow Unauthenticated Access (that way Twilio will be able to start the function).

Select “Inline editor” and paste in the Gist code I gave you (it’s heavily commented, I recommend giving it a read to make sure you’re happy with what it’s doing).

Click “REQUIREMENTS.TXT” and paste in the following lines of libraries you’ll need to use:

Make sure “function to execute” is SMS, then click the “Environment Variables” dropdown.

Just like I’ve done above, click “+ ADD VARIABLE”, write “spreadsheet_id” in the “Name” column, and in the “Value” column, paste in the ID of your lookup sheet. You get the ID by looking at the URL of the lookup sheet, and copying everything between the last two slashes (outlined in red below).

Click on the “Service account” drop down. It should come up with just “App Engine default service account” and give you an email address (as below) — that’s the email address you need all of your Google Sheets to be shared with. Write it down somewhere and add it as an edit user for both your lookup and restaurant-specific sheets.

Once you’ve done all of that, click “Deploy”.

Once you deploy, you should land back on the main screen for your Cloud Function. The green tick in the top left hand corner tells you everything is working.

Step 4: Turn on Sheets API

The first time your code tries to access Google Sheets, it might not be able to because you need to switch on the Google Sheets API for your account. Go here, select the project you’re working on with the dropdown menu in the top left corner, then click the big blue “ENABLE” button.

Step 5: Go back to Twilio and paste in the HTTP trigger for your code

Remember the trigger URL we noted down from when we were creating our function? Go back to your Twilio Studio and find all of the blocks with the </> sign in the top left corner:

Click on each in turn and paste your Google Cloud URL into the REQUEST URL box that comes up on the right side of the screen:

Test the bot

By now you should have your Cloud Function set up. You should also have both of your Google Sheets set up and shared with your Cloud Function service account.

The next step is to test the bot. Start by texting your Twilio number the word “order” to get it going. It should respond with a menu that your code pulls from your restaurant-specific Google Sheet. Follow the steps it sends you through to the end and check your Google Sheet to make sure it’s updating properly.

If for some reason it’s not working, there are two places you can check. Twilio keeps a log of all the errors it sees which you can find by clicking the little “Debugger” symbol in the top right corner:

Google also keeps a record of everything that happens with your Cloud Function. This includes non-error notifications. You can see all of that by clicking “VIEW LOGS” at the top:

Conclusion: break things and have fun

All of this is by no means perfect, and I’m sure there’s stuff you could add and improve, but this is a way of building a network of scalable chatbots, each specific to a different business, and each partially managed by that business at minimal cost.

Give this a try, break it, improve it, tear it up and start again, and let me know what you think!

Postscript: weird hacks

This bit is only really for people who are interested, but because we’ve deliberately done this on a shoestring, we run into a couple weird issues — mainly around requests to our bot when it hasn’t been activated for a bit.

When Twilio gets messages for the first time in a while, it turns on pretty quickly and expects other things to do so, too. For example, when Twilio makes requests to our code, it assumes that the code failed if it takes more than about five seconds. That’s not that unusual — a lot of chat platforms demand a five-second max turnaround time.

Cloud Functions are able to run pretty fast, even with lower memory allowances, but Google Sheets always seems to be a bit slow when accessed through the API. In fact, Google Sheets is particularly slow if it hasn’t been accessed in some time.

That can mean that, if no one has used your bot recently, Google Sheets API takes too long to respond the first time and Twilio gives up before our code can return, causing an error.

There are a couple parts of our script designed to avoid that.

Trying again

The first time we activate our Cloud Function, we don’t want it to actually change anything, we just want information. So in Twilio, we start by creating a variable called “retries” and setting the value as 0. 

If the request fails, we check if the retries value is 0. If it is, then we set the retries value to 1 and try again. If it fails a second time, we don’t want to keep doing this forever so we send an error and stop there.

Waking the sheet up

The second time we activate our Cloud Function we do want it to do something. We can’t just do it again if it doesn’t return in time because we’ll end up with duplicate orders, which is a headache for the restaurant.

Instead, during an earlier part of the exchange, we make a pointless change to one of our sheets, just so that it’s ready for when we make the important change.

In our conversational flow we:

Send the menu

Get the response

Ask for the user’s name

Write the order

We don’t need to do anything to the sheet until step four, but after we get the user’s response (before we ask their name), we activate our code once to write something useless into the order sheet. We say to Twilio — whether that succeeds or fails — keep going with the interaction, because it doesn’t matter at that point whether we’ve returned in time. Then, hopefully, by the time we go to write in our order, Google Sheets is ready for some actual use.

There are limitations

Google Sheets is not the ideal database — it’s slow and could mean we miss the timeouts for Twilio. But these couple of extra steps help us work around some of those limitations.

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