This week the newsroom learned to write itself. North Point Daily shipped as a full self-casting system that pulls real work from every repo and builds the newspaper in Jay's voice without asking. The AI council debates what matters and the story goes live. That's the biggest thing. Everything else is just the shop running.
NPCLocal's job board moved from free to pay-to-post, with Stripe payments and a moderation gate to keep out scams.
NPCLocal is our local-services site that connects Coastal Bend folks with local pros, plus a jobs board.
By The Shop · Dispatch from Alice
The jobs board at npclocal.com/jobs used to be free for anyone to post. Now posting a job costs money and goes through a moderation gate first. The idea is simple: if you have to pay, you're probably serious. If you're serious, scammers mostly skip you.
This protects people looking for work. A scammer can spam free job boards all day. But if every listing costs something, they move on to easier targets. The moderation gate catches the obvious traps and explains why a job got flagged before it goes live.
Every NPC Laser video shows you a custom laser-engraved piece being made. The old videos started by showing the setup and explaining what you were about to see. The new ones open with a shot that makes you stop scrolling.
Job boards are magnets for scams. Someone posts work that doesn't exist, collects application fees, vanishes. The person looking for work loses money and time. The legit employers get buried under the noise.
This short video from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission breaks down exactly how a ransomware attack starts and what a small business owner can do right now to stop it before it wipes out their files. It comes straight from the feds, it is free, and it is plain enough that you can watch it with your whole staff in one sitting.
This free step-by-step guide walks you through fixing slow mesh Wi-Fi the right way, starting with node placement and reboot order before you spend a dime on new gear. We like it because it covers the stuff that actually trips up small shops, like weak backhaul, sticky clients that won't roam, and ping spikes on video calls.
This is a free workshop straight from Google that shows small business owners how to use AI tools like Gemini to knock out real everyday tasks, not just theory. We like it because it is built for folks with no tech background and walks you through actual things you can do this week.
We found this one real useful because it walks you through the right tools to have on hand and the safety steps to follow before you crack open any device yourself. If you have been paying a shop for fixes you could probably handle at home, this video is a solid place to start.
We like this one because it comes straight from the federal government and covers ransomware, phishing, and hacking in plain English with fact sheets, videos, and quizzes built for owners like us. No vendor upsell, no fine print, just solid free advice we can share with anyone on our team.
This free guide walks you through the 3-2-1 backup rule in plain English, tells you exactly what NAS does versus what cloud backup does, names the actual tools and what they cost, and calls out the mistakes most small businesses make when they think they are already covered. Down here on the Coastal Bend where a hurricane or a ransomware hit can wipe you out overnight, knowing your data is in three places on two different kinds of storage is worth an hour of your time right now.
