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.
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 is the free, no-sales-pitch playbook straight from the federal agency whose whole job is keeping businesses safe from ransomware, phishing, and hackers. We like it because it skips the outdated advice and tells you exactly what to turn on first, starting with multi-factor authentication on every account.
We like this one because it skips the jargon and walks you straight through what the 3-2-1 rule actually means for a small shop, including real tool picks and a cost example you can steal right now. It also clears up the big trap most folks fall into: your Dropbox or Google Drive sync is not a backup, and this guide explains exactly why that matters when ransomware shows up.
We found a plain-talk post from a real accountant who ran her own QuickBooks file and made every one of these mistakes herself, so she knows exactly where DIY owners go wrong. It walks through six specific slip-ups, like double-posting income and letting auto-add bank rules run wild, and tells you exactly how to fix each one before they turn into a tax headache.
We like this one because it walks you through all ten fixes in plain order, from moving your router to picking the right kind of extender or mesh setup, so you can actually do something today instead of just reading about the problem. EPB is a real fiber utility, not somebody trying to sell you gear, which means the advice is straight and honest for a shop our size.
Google put together a free video series that walks real small business owners through everyday AI tasks like writing emails, sorting finances, and handling customer service, no tech background needed. We watched it and the demos are plain and practical, the kind of thing you can try the same afternoon right here in Alice.
This one walks you through a real NWS marine forecast the same way a buddy at the dock would, covering wind knots, wave height, and the swell interval trick that most folks ignore until they get beat up out on the water. If you fish out of Port Aransas or Rockport, we think this is worth ten minutes of your time before the next trip.
