"You gave us bad code! We ran it and now production is DOWN! Join this bridgeline now and help us fix this!"

So, as the author of the code in question, I join the bridge... And what happens next, I will simply never forget.

First, a little backstory... Another team within our company needed some vendor client software installed and maintained across the enterprise. Multiple OSes (Linux, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, etc.), so packaging and consistent update methods were a a challenge. I wrote an entire set of utilities to install, update and generally maintain the software; intending all the time that this other team would eventually own the process and code. With this in mind, I wrote extensive documentation, and conducted a formal turnover / training season with the other team.

So, fast forward to when the other team now owns my code, has been trained on how to use it, including (perhaps most importantly) how to send out updates when the vendor released upgrades to the agent software.

Now, this other team had the responsibility of releasing their first update since I gave them the process. Very simple upgrade process, already fully automated. What could have gone so horribly wrong? Did something the vendor supplied break their client?

I asked for the log files from the upgrade process. They sent them, and they looked... wrong. Very, very wrong.

Did you run the code I gave you to do this update?

"Yes, your code is broken - fix it! Production is down! Rabble, rabble, rabble!"

So, I go into our code management tool and review the _actual_ script they ran. Sure enough, it is my code... But something is very wrong.

More than 2/3rds of my code... has been commented out. The code is "there"... but has been commented out so it is not being executed. WT-actual-F?!

I question this on the bridge line. Silence. I insist someone explain what is going on. Is this a joke? Is this some kind of work version of candid camera?
Finally someone breaks the silence and explains.

And this, my friends, is the part I will never forget.

"We wanted to look through your code before we ran the update. When we looked at it, there was some stuff we didn't understand, so we commented that stuff out."

You... you didn't... understand... my some of the code... so you... you didn't ask me about it... you didn't try to actually figure out what it did... you... commented it OUT?!

"Right, we figured it was better to only run the parts we understood... But now we ran it and everything is broken and you need to fix your code."

I cannot repeat the things I said next, even here on devRant. Let's just say that call did not go well.

So, lesson learned? If you don't know what some code does? Just comment that shit out. Then blame the original author when it doesn't work.

You just cannot make this kind of stuff up.

I am an indie game developer and I lead a team of 5 trusted individuals. After our latest release, we bought a larger office and decided to expand our team so that we could implement more features in our games and release it in a desirable time period. So I asked everyone to look for individuals that they would like to hire for their respective departments. When the whole list was prepared, I sent out a bunch of job offers for a "training trial period". The idea was that everyone would teach the newbies in their department about how we do stuff and then after a month select those who seem to be the best. Our original team was
-Two coders
-One sound guy(because musician is too mainstream)
-Two artists
I did coding, concept art(and character drawings) and story design, So, I decided to be a "coding mentor"(?).
We planned to recruit
-Two coders
-One sound guy
-One artist (two if we encountered a great artstyle)
When the day finally arrived I decided to hide the fact that I am the founder and decided that there would be a phantom boss so that they wouldn't get stressed or try flattery.
So out of 7, 5 people people came for the "coding trial session". There were 3 guys and 2 girls. My teammate and I started by giving them a brief introduction to the working of our engine and then gave them a few exercises to help them understand it better. Fast forward a few days, and we were teaching them about how we implement multiple languages in our games using Excel. The original text in English is written in the first column and we then send it to translators so that they can easily compare and translate the content side by side such that a column is reserved for each language. We then break it down and convert the whole thing into an engine friendly CSV kind of format. When we concluded, we asked them if they had any questions. So there was this smartass, who could not get over the fact that we were using Excel. The conversation went like this:(almost word to word)

Smartass: "Why would you even use that primitive software? How stupid is that? Why don't you get some skills before teaching us about your shit logic?"
Me:*triggered* "Oh yeah? Well that's how we do stuff here. If you don't like it, you can simply leave."
Smartass: "You don't know who I am, do you? I am friends with the boss of this company. If I wanted I could have all of you fired at whim."
Me:"Oh, is that right?"
Smartass:"Damn right it is. Now that you know who I am, you better treat me with some respect."
Me: "What if I told you that I am not just a coder?"
Smartass:"Considering your lack of skills, I assume that you are also a janitor? What was he thinking? Hiring people like you, he must have been desperate."
Me:"What if I told you that I am the boss?"
Smartass:"Hah! You wish you were."*looks towards my teammate while pointing a thumb at me* "Calling himself the boss, who does he think he is?"
Teammate:*looks away*.
Smartass:*glances back and forth between me and my teammate while looking confused* *realizes* *starts sweating profusely* *looks at me with horror*
Me:"Ha ha ha hah, get out"
Smartass:*stands dumbfounded*
Me:"I said, get out"
Smartass:*gathers his stuff and leaves the room*
Me: "Alright, any questions?"*Smiling angrily*
Newcomers: *shake heads furiously*
Me:"Good"

For the rest of the day nobody tried to bother me. I decided to stop posing as an employee and teaching the newcomers so that I could secretly observe all sessions that took place from now on for events like these. That guy never came back. The good news however, is that the art and music training was going pretty well.

What really intrigues me though is that why do I keep getting caught with these annoying people? It's like I am working in customer support or something.

How my birthday is going so far:
1. Dropped coffee on my shirt
2. Client is wondering why we removed a feature that he wants yet asked us to remove a week ago
3. Dev server is no longer working
4. Internet connection is shit
5. My VPN keeps on disconnecting (see #4)

Is this day going to end or what?

Me: Great iOS app is only 20MB shouldn't take long to upload!

XCode laughed
AppLoader laughed
Apple laughed

I cried T_T

Fuck ISP. Just moved to nz. Explain to this company im working at home on the internet. Need it fast.

Takes 8 days to get the 📦 in a country of 5 million people. Wtf.

Box does not contain all default connections for box to work in a default house hold.

Call them. Tells me i have to go get it myself because i didnt request it. Fuck you or did you just fuck me.

Pay 100 dollars (this is in new zealand even though it feels like afghanistan. Not trying to offenecse any on here btw) a month for unlimited internet and phoneline.

They forget to put on the phone line.

Pay their fucking stupid 4 dollar cable insurance because new zealand has houses built for fucking cave people with 0 insolation and prone to dampness.

First day connections dont work. Well is that not fucking beautiful. I actually payed 4 worthy dollars.

WRONG YOU MOTHER FUCKER.

They tell me i didnt take the insurance.i go mayhem tell them how useless they are. So they send some one 8am the next mornin while activating the insurance. Ho yeah they also told me they forgot to include landline in my account.

Now 2 days in everything works im happy. Wake up to “your account has been suspended because you went over the max 200$ of your credit. You owe us 250$ before you can re-activate your account....

Inside boiling. Rudness and caps just won`t help.... I need some blood.... Some ISP blood....

The state of the web in 2020:
discussion sites as a medium are dying. chalk that up to censorship.

reddit is an echochamber. twitter is mostly a marketing platform disguised as (anti)social media. instagram is a self promotion/wannabe eceleb site, and youtube is the new hollywood..quickly becoming irrelevant.

facebook is where I (dont) go to (totally not) ignore all the people important to me.

and email is where I go to send letters bordering on hatespeech to my various local and federal "representatives", in between borderline cyberbullying people stupid enough not to automate their spam marketing in 2020. or talking to left/right self-help grifters about the state of society.

in the grim dark future of 2020, the last bastion of intelligent conversation, free speech, and civility, the one shining icon of hope in a dark world..
is the comment section of pornhub videos where a women got stuck under a bed for the 50,000th time. And all I can think is "wow I never knew how easy it was to get trapped under a bed. They should look into fixing this safety hazard."

newsmedia has jumped so many sharks, the fonz now spins in his grave so fast we could hook him up to a generator. meanwhile people hide in their homes for a disease so deadly you have to be tested to know if you even have it.

while ever more car commercials
are released, set to somber but hopeful piano music to the tune of "in this time of social distancing its important to stay close even when we're apart."

Im beginning to think media has become a poison on society, both television and the internet, and like an ersatz cargo cultist worshipping the great-charles- manson-in-the-sky we should all take a page from the unabomber and smash our televisions with hammers before going outside and sawing down the telephone polls.

I jest of course. But there is no denying the inherent appeal of moving from the unsettling uncertainty of complex societies, driven by expertly manipulated fear cycles, to the beatitude-esque simplicty of pastoral protestant style living, sans witch burning and shoe buckles.

And against the reckoning of utopians who are still fresh from the womb as it were, wet behind the ears and smelling of their mother's pussy, I reject the notion that "up" is a synonym for "forward."
Were it the case, every drinking binge, followed by throwing up, would bring us, with each vomitting, one step closer to heaven. Rather the state of affairs is what it is, and what it is, like most of nature, is a cruel master and a harsh teacher. And while we may binge on digital delusions of grandeur and a greater society, rest easy in the nihilistic and sobering thought that we are little more than 200,000 year old cave men wielding magic bricks, and atomic bombs.

..where water flows more readily from metal tubes in our houses than it does from the nile. where food comes to our door at little more than our beck and call.
where we may bath, and sleep, and *shit*, cleanly, comfortably, and safely, wrapped in the (failing) bubble of delusion we all tenaciously grasp collectively, the thing we call "civilization".

an empire of needful things, wanton and fragile.

if we have not gone mad from boredom, I have no doubt we one day will.

it becomes more and more obvious to me every day, had war never existed, it would have been necessary for man to invent it just to have something to do, that didnt include farming, fucking, or building.

And so enters "political idealogy."

How would we ever have enemies if we were allowed to speak our piece instead of being given the means (and reflex dogwhistle training) to silence and destroy one another?

give a man a gun, he'll rob a bank. give a man a bank, he'll rob the world.
give him a media empire or a tech platform, and he'll lie about the theft and convince one half of millions of lemmings to hate all the other lemmings.

A month or so ago this manufacturer of soldering equipment contacted me with the request to make a video about a review unit (a soldering handle) that they'd send to me for free in exchange. Initially I was really pumped about it - company would send me free stuff!! - but fast-forward to today and I realized how terrible a choice I've made by accepting that offer.

See, that handle is worth only €40 and I've spent so much time on the bloody video material already that it'd make my "pay" expected to be close to €1/h if not less. I feel like I've been exploited, especially since I don't even like the handle's design and am not using it. It's just collecting dust, making my work essentially free labor.

I could return the item but that's gonna cost me a fuckload of money, I could pay for the handle and cut my losses that way.. or I could do the review anyway and end up feeling very bad about that company. Or I could tell them to fuck off and lose a supply chain for my soldering equipment.

I have no idea what to do about this..

Oh and the fact that the correspondent in that company has the worst Chinglish skills imaginable, the communication skills of a toddler and is also super indecisive (they asked me to make a YouTube video first which led me to assume a video format for YouTube, but instead they want to put it on their fucking AliExpress product page, rendering my existing video footage useless!) doesn't help either.. I hate that shit company. Fucking leeches!

Anyway, what would you do when you're in a position like that?

Ok, a few days ago I recommended contabo.com as a good and cheap VPS, because our company uses it and it is blazingly fast. BUT! I am definitely NOT doing this!

"False or fraudulent orders are commonplace on the Internet. We have to take measures to prevent such false or fraudulent orders. Our system has identified your order as a possible false order. We must now prove your order as a valid order, otherwise we cannot provide you with the services you bought. We need your help with this. Please send us a copy of your passport or national identity card or something similar which corresponds to the data you have provided to us. Alternatively, you can send us your telephone or electricity bill if it contains your address. The address must match the address you provided on our homepage. It is sufficient if you simply take a photo of the document. The only purpose of this is to prove your order as authentic. This is why it does not matter which of the mentioned documents you send us and it does not matter if you make a scan or take a photo. A scammer could not provide any of these documents, this means one document is already enough to prove that your order is authentic and valid."

Google: The all mighty bug fixes for Android Studio are now live, see version 3.4
Android Studio: But I still freeze when I need to format xml files tho, but who cares...

** Days later
Google: Android Studio 3.4.1 is now live! Smash those bugs!
Android Studio: lool I still freeze when formatting an xml file ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Wrote a small code to test my "Reset Password" feature, service console kept printing: User not found and returns 404

I was 100% I added that user manually to the database....

Well it turned out I added that user to the wrong database. I need to sleep T_T

Let's get ready for another rant. I work at a new company now which claims to be "fast paced" and startup-like culture. At the same time, I don't think I've ever seen a place with more rules and bureaucracy when it comes to engineering.

By the looks of it, my manager seems to value process a lot more than actual outcome. Both my manager and another engineer in the team tend to nitpick over every line of code and will not approve anything until they believe it's absolutely perfect and up to their liking.

Every PR I create has to go through 5 cycles of review. On top of that, the comments that get added are rarely related to product impact, but rateher "let's rename this variable in a test file to this", "maybe we should have this many spaces in a config file". There's been actual cases where I had to go through different cycles and had my PR's blocked for days because of some minor comments about variable names and styling they "liked" more.

This is one of the main reasons why we lose critical time during the development of our features. There seems to be no sense of priorities or urgency. The other reason we keep losing time is because of the massive amount of team meetings we have. Our team has only 3 engineers. How many meetings can you possibly schedule in a day to "realign". We have technical meetings where it apparentely is necessary to all agree on every tiny detail, such as which types we're gonna use etc etc.

That's not all. Last week, weeks of my work was thrown out of the window, because it was slightly different from how "we" usually do it. Even though, I explained and motivated how my solution solved issues the other proposed solution did not, we ended up spending an additional two days reimplementing the same fixes more in line with "the rules".

I recently reviewed a coworker's PR pointing out actual functionality that was not working as expected. Real user impact...
I created an alternative solution that covered all cases, and sent it. It got basically ignored. Then we ended up having a meeting for hours with several engineers where they made me watch how they started fixing the same issues as I had already fixed.

Each week, I'm losing around 2-3 days of development time dealing with this nonsense. But then there's a deadline. Then the manager goes full-on wild and pushes everyone into overtime and will send you 700 messages a day in channels or privately to you if "you need help" and how things should be done.

I'm not looking forward to switching jobs again, but please tell me... how can I cope with this?

Thanks

Boss: Can I have you design our website?
Me: Yeah, of course. I'll send you some details for the design and after you approve it, I can get started on it.
Boss: Okay, send me stuff you find.

Fast-forward to two days later, he decided going through my design checklist was a hassle so bought a WordPress theme and just asked me to make 3 banners for its slider with no given context and no help as far as design and aesthetics are concerned... way to get my hopes up then bring them down. And designing them is making me so sleepy, I took a bathroom trip to nap for a while because the Wi-Fi won't stop disconnecting either.

Storytime!

(I just posted this in a shorter form as a comment but wanted to write it as a post too)

TL;DR, smarts are important, but so is how you work.

My first 'real' job was a lucky break in the .com era working tech support. This was pretty high end / professional / well respected and really well paid work.

I've never been a super fast learner, I was HORRIBLE in school. I was not a good student until I was ~40 (and then I loved it, but no longer have the time :( )

At work I really felt like so many folks around me did a better job / knew more than me. And straight up I know that was true. I was competent, but I was not the best by far.

However .... when things got ugly, I got assigned to the big cases. Particularly when I transferred to a group that dealt with some fancy smancy networking equipment.

The reason I was assigned? Engineering (another department) asked I be assigned. Even when it would take me a while to pickup the case and catch up on what was going on, they wanted the super smart tech support guys off the case, and me on it.

At first this was a bit perplexing as this engineering team were some ultra smart guys, custom chip designers, great education, and guys you could almost see were running a mental simulation of the chip as you described what you observed on the network...

What was also amusing was how ego-less these guys seemed to be (I don't pretend to know if they really were). I knew for a fact that recruiting teams tried to recruit some of these guys for years from other companies before they'd jump ship from one company to the next ... and yet when I met them in person it was like some random meeting on the street (there's a whole other story there that I wish I understood more about Indian Americans (many of them) and American engineers treat status / behave).

I eventually figured out that the reason I was assigned / requested was simple:

1. Support management couldn't refuse, in fact several valley managers very much didn't like me / did not want to give me those cases .... but nobody could refuse the almighty ASIC engineers. No joke, ASIC engineers requests were all but handed down on stone tablets and smote any idols you might have.

2. The engineers trusted me. It was that simple.

They liked to read my notes before going into a meeting / high pressure conference call. I could tell from talking to them on the phone (I was remote) if their mental model was seizing up, or if they just wanted more data, and we could have quick and effective conversations before meetings ;)

I always qualified my answers. If I didn't know I said so (this was HUGE) and I would go find out. In fact my notes often included a list of unknowns (I knew they'd ask), and a list of questions I had sent to / pending for the customer.

The super smart tech support guys, they had egos, didn't want to say they didn't know, and they'd send eng down the rabbit hole. Truth be told most of what the smarter than me tech support guy's knew was memorization. I don't want to sound like I'm knocking that because for the most part memorization would quickly solve a good chunk of tech support calls for sure... no question those guys solved problems. I wish I was able to memorize like those guys.

But memorization did NOT help anyone solve off the wall bugs, sort of emergent behavior, recognize patterns (network traffic and bugs all have patterns / smells). Memorization also wouldn't lead you to the right path to finding ANYTHING new / new methods to find things that you don't anticipate.

In fact relying on memorization like some support folks did meant that they often assumed that if bit 1 was on... they couldn't imagine what would happen if that didn't work, even if they saw a problem where ... bro obviously bit 1 is on but that thing ain't happening, that means A, B, C.

Being careful, asking questions, making lists of what you know / don't know, iterating LOGICALLY (for the love of god change one thing at a time). That's how you solved big problems I found.

Sometimes your skills aren't super smarts, super flashy code, sometimes, knowing every method off the top of your head, sometimes you can excel just being more careful, thinking different.

doing things right seems to be a waste of time

especially considering how fast things change beneath you

for years I've said I should just stop overoptimizing but I've yet to fucking try it. I said this to myself 5 hours ago and what am I doing. I spent the last 5 hours trying to overoptimize for a theoretical scenario that I won't ever even be in, because I haven't even decided what I want to immediately do

how about immediately do something Jesus fuck
next Tuesday this system will have to be rewritten again anyway

how many fucking asset loading systems do I want under my belt
just load the fucking assets

maybe decide on which assets you'll be using first so then you don't overoptimize for "WELL MAYBE ILL LOAD THEM INDIVIDUALLY THEN PUT THEM IN A NICE IMAGE IN RAM FIRST BEFORE I SEND IT OFF TO THE GPU" omg just shut up. just because you can doesn't mean you should. doesn't help everyone using this thing keeps insisting you do it this way. but you don't fucking need to.

actually you know what, I blame them. they kept confusing me with yOu ShOulD do It ThiS WAY. next thing I know I'm walking through every possible conceivable way to do asset loading so I can decide how to load assets and then end up in architecturizing of the perfect system. I didn't want to be on this path. but they told me to be on this path. I blame them

take-away: if you can make it work at all, just use that unless it breaks something. fuck how or for "what" the dumb system is designed. people don't stick to their "designs" anyway -- it's idealism just like free stuff sounds great in theory, but in reality it just shits up everything because it's unrealistic

Dude that convinced me to come to company became the most toxic person ever after I got fed up of his lies and lame attempts to get me to do his job (so he could just get the merits). We don’t work on the same project but closely related. Every time we speak he tries to hurt me by trying to put me down/raising sensitive topics. But he gets rid of the history all the time, so I have nothing to handle to HR or manager. Time to jump the ship? Job is fine otherwise.

I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. We brought on a vendor to provide us some fancy OCR tool. It barely works. It's been barely working. And the vendor is so adamant it works it's so difficult to get them to send people onsight to work with us. We complained about it to the exec and we got "Oh they're a tech startup. You have to help them along with developing their process blah blah blah". Well they don't want help we offered they keep existing their shit is top secret (and it works). When they make changes remotely it's like they blindly make a change and then throw it to us to test. When we can get them to come in they hang around till the problem is fixed (more than once we've had to tell them how to fix it.) and they fly as fast as they fucking can through the door. A guy on my team even built something similar backed by Azure but we were given directive to work with them. And now we're getting pressure about delays in launch. But it's not our fault. The vendors asshole lying CEO keeps making shit up and we're told to work with it. Yet it's our fault that we missed deadlines? fuck this place !!! fuck all of this !!!

AWS Contractor

I've been putting a web application together that I'm looking to have published on AWS. Not having too much experience with AWS, I am looking to hire a contractor. I've had a number of quotes from different AWS admin's ranging from $40 an hour to $200 an hour, from 1-days worth of work to 2-months worth of work!

I'm not really sure what to make of it or to whom to trust. I believe they’re using my ignorance to overcharge me. I've listed my requirements below, could you guys use your professional experiences to let me know what you think is reasonable charge and where best I could find someone to help me.

My application is a US shopping website where people can set up an online shop and upload their products and maintain an inventory of the items.

This is what I’m looking for setup and configuration with the following two areas:

1) AWS SYSTEMS…

* AIM - Set up my server admin users.

* EC2 - Web Hosting.

* RDS - Fast DB.

* SES - To send emails.

* S3 Buckets - Uploaded image hosting.

Route 53 - I don’t know but someone said I should have this.

* Elastic Load Balancing - For, well, load balancing.

2) SCRIPTS…

* A script that would back up the database once a day and save it to a private S3 Bucket.

* A script that will run once a day that calls an internal API, and POST a query to it.

* A script that runs once every 90 days, to refresh the SSL using ZeroSSL.com

Is there anything that I've missed such as security systems, firewalls, auto scaling and CDNs?

The quotes that I've received arranged from $320 to $64,000. I know I am being abused because of my ignorance. I would never overcharge someone because the customer doesn't know the efforts of the work. I hope someone here can help to understand the efforts needed and can tell me the true cost.

Thank you

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I never thought I would find myself in a situation where I would need to rely on a professional service for the recovery of my lost bitcoins and ETH. But there I was, staring at my computer screen in disbelief as I realized that I had fallen victim to a hacking scam. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized that my hard-earned cryptocurrency was gone. During my desperate search for assistance, I identified Trust Geeks Hack Expert a business that specializes in retrieving lost cryptocurrency. In the vain hope that they could assist me in getting my stolen money back, I contacted them And I was relieved and grateful when they replied right away, promising to do every effort to get my bitcoins and Ethereum back. As I waited anxiously for updates from the team at Trust Geeks Hack Expert, I couldn't help but marvel at their unwavering dedication and commitment to helping me. They worked tirelessly around the clock, using their expertise and advanced technology to trace and recover my lost cryptocurrency. Each time they provided me with an update, it filled me with hope and reassurance that my funds would soon be returned to me. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, I subsequently acquired the word that my Ethereum and Bitcoins had been successfully reestablished. The Trust Geeks Hack Expert team's extraordinary abilities and commitment filled me with relief and thankfulness. I am so grateful to them for their hard work; Send a message: E m a i l .trustgeekshackexpert {At} fast service .. com

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I matched with Samantha on Tinder thinking the usual: favorite movies, travel dreams, the obligatory "so what do you do? " Instead, over a plate of overpriced sushi, she hit me with "Yeah, I lost $250,000 in crypto once. Digital Tech Guard Recovery got it back." I spat my drink. Excuse me? She laughed. "Yeah, some scam drained my wallet overnight. Thought my life was over. Then I came across Digital Tech Guard Recovery, and they did the impossible." I nodded half in amazement, half in disbelief; this lady must have been exaggerating. I mean, who just casually recovers six figures? Cool story, but that could never be me.
Oh, how foolish of me.
Fast forward two months and the universe decided to make me its punchline. I woke up one morning, checked my crypto wallet, and $400,000 was gone. GONE. Like it had been beamed into another dimension. I stared at my screen in horror, refreshing the app like a maniac. Maybe it was a glitch? Maybe my eyes weren't working? Maybe I was hallucinating from lack of sleep Nope. I had fallen for a Ledger fake update. The panic that followed was unlike anything I had ever felt in my life. I was sweating all over my place like I had just finished running a marathon. My brain short-circuited, replaying every bad decision I'd ever made. How could I be this stupid? And then-I remembered Samantha. I scrolled frantically through our old messages, found the name Digital Tech Guard Recovery, and within minutes, I was on the phone, pleading for them to save my financial life. From the moment they answered the phone, I knew I was in good hands: so calm, professional, and eerily confident that their team analyzed my case, assured me they'd track my funds. I barely slept for days on end, checking my emails like a lunatic, waiting for updates. Then, finally—the call: "We recovered your funds. Every last cent." I just sat in complete shock before bursting into laughter. This was what Samantha had described. This time, it was my life they had just saved. I reached for my wallet, and sure enough—there it was, every single dollar back where it belonged. Relief washed over me hard enough that I almost fell. I wanted to scream and cry and throw a party all at once. Instead, I did the only logical thing: I messaged Samantha. "You're never gonna believe this." She replied instantly. "Let me guess… Digital Tech Guard Recovery? " All I could do was send a thumbs-up. Lesson learned: Never ignore good advice from a Tinder date. Also, check on crypto updates yourself; or better yet, have Digital Tech Guard Recovery watch your back.

Pulse Merch – Custom Caps and Hat Embroidery Services in Cedar City, Utah

At Pulse Merch, we specialize in providing custom caps embroidery and custom hat embroidery services that are perfect for businesses, sports teams, special events, or personal gifts. Located in Cedar City, Utah, at 736 N Main St Unit 3, Pulse Merch is your trusted source for high-quality embroidery that turns everyday hats into personalized masterpieces.

Whether you're looking to create a custom cap for your team, brand, or a special occasion, we offer a wide range of options, all backed by our expert craftsmanship and attention to detail. Our embroidery services ensure that your custom design is perfectly executed, giving you hats that are both stylish and long-lasting.

Why Choose Pulse Merch for Your Custom Cap and Hat Embroidery?
Precision in Custom Hat Embroidery
When it comes to custom hat embroidery, the key is precision. At Pulse Merch, we use state-of-the-art embroidery machines to ensure that every stitch is placed perfectly. Whether you're adding a logo, name, or unique design to your caps or hats, we make sure the embroidery is sharp, vibrant, and flawlessly executed.

Wide Variety of Hat Styles for Custom Embroidery
At Pulse Merch, we offer a diverse selection of hats that can be customized to suit your needs. From classic baseball caps to trendy snapbacks, trucker hats, beanies, and more, we provide options that fit a variety of styles and preferences. You can choose the perfect hat to match your custom embroidery design, ensuring a cohesive and professional look.

Durable, Long-Lasting Embroidery
Embroidery is known for its durability, and custom cap embroidery is no exception. Unlike other methods such as screen printing, which can fade or peel, embroidered designs stay intact and vibrant for the long haul. This means that your custom hats will continue to look great, even after regular wear and washing. Whether for a business, a sports team, or a personal gift, your custom hat embroidery will maintain its integrity over time.

Perfect for Branding and Promotional Use
Custom hats with embroidery are a fantastic way to promote your brand, business, or event. With custom caps embroidery, you can create professional-looking hats that showcase your company logo, slogan, or any other design. These embroidered hats serve as walking advertisements, helping to increase your brand's visibility and reach. They're perfect for giveaways, corporate gifts, or team uniforms, adding a stylish touch to your promotional efforts.

Personalized Gifts for Special Occasions
Looking for a thoughtful gift? Custom hat embroidery offers a unique way to create personalized gifts for birthdays, weddings, family reunions, or other special events. You can add names, dates, or even meaningful symbols to make each hat special and memorable. Custom embroidered hats are a lasting keepsake that recipients will cherish.

The Pulse Merch Custom Embroidery Process
At Pulse Merch, we make the process of creating your custom caps embroidery simple and stress-free. Here’s how it works:

Design Submission
The first step in creating your custom embroidered hats is submitting your design. Whether you already have a logo or artwork or need help creating something from scratch, our experienced team is here to assist you. We can take your design and ensure it’s optimized for embroidery to achieve the best result.

Choose Your Hat Style and Color
Next, you'll choose the type of hat that best fits your needs. Whether it's a classic baseball cap, a trendy snapback, or something else, we offer a wide selection of hat styles and colors to choose from. Our team will guide you in selecting the best hat that complements your custom design.

Review the Digital Proof
Before we begin the embroidery process, we'll send you a digital proof of your design. This allows you to confirm the placement, size, and colors of the design before we proceed. Your approval ensures that the final product meets your expectations.

Embroidery and Production
Once you’ve approved the proof, we begin the embroidery process. Our advanced equipment uses high-quality threads to create your design with precision and clarity. Each cap is embroidered with care, ensuring that the final result is perfect and professional.

Fast Turnaround and Delivery
At Pulse Merch, we understand the importance of time, and we pride ourselves on offering a fast turnaround for custom hat embroidery projects. Whether you need just a few hats or a bulk order, we’re committed to delivering your custom embroidered hats on time, so you can start enjoying them right away.

VirPhone: Empowering Your Business with Cloud Phone Systems and VOIP Technology

In today’s fast-paced and digital world, efficient communication is key to the success of any business. Whether you're reaching out to clients, collaborating with remote teams, or handling customer inquiries, having a reliable phone system is essential. VirPhone offers cutting-edge cloud phone systems that are designed to streamline your communication, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. Let’s explore how our cloud phone systems can elevate your business and answer some common questions like, “What is VOIP phone?” and how it can benefit your business.

What is a Cloud Phone System?
A cloud phone system is an advanced communication solution that operates over the internet, rather than relying on traditional landlines. This system provides businesses with a more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective way to manage their communications. VirPhone’s cloud phone systems allow businesses to make and receive calls, send messages, and conduct video conferences—all from the convenience of a cloud-based platform.

With VirPhone, you can enjoy the flexibility of managing your communications from anywhere. Whether you’re in the office, working remotely, or traveling, a cloud phone system ensures you stay connected at all times.

What is VOIP and How Can It Benefit Your Business?
VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, which is a technology that allows voice calls to be made over the internet rather than using traditional telephone lines. So, what is VOIP phone? It’s simply a phone system that enables businesses to make calls over the internet.

Unlike traditional phone systems, VOIP phone systems are cost-effective and more flexible, providing features such as call forwarding, voicemail, and voicemail-to-email. VirPhone’s VOIP technology not only reduces your business’s communication costs but also enhances overall productivity by providing features that are more customizable and scalable.

Some of the key benefits of VOIP phone systems include:

Lower Costs: Traditional phone systems charge for long-distance calls. With VOIP, these calls are often free or at a much lower rate.

Scalability: As your business grows, your cloud phone system can easily scale to accommodate more users or advanced features without expensive upgrades.

Flexibility: With VOIP phone systems, employees can make and receive calls anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. This is ideal for remote teams or employees on the go.

How to Get a Toll-Free Number with VirPhone
One of the most important features for any business is having a toll-free number. A toll-free number makes your business appear professional and accessible, giving customers a way to reach you without incurring charges. VirPhone offers toll-free numbers that are easy to set up and manage through our cloud phone system.

With a toll-free number from VirPhone, customers can call your business without worrying about the cost, regardless of where they are located. This can improve customer satisfaction and make it easier for customers to get in touch with your business. Whether you're conducting customer service calls or receiving inquiries, a toll-free number can help you provide exceptional service.

Calling on a Phone: How VirPhone Enhances Your Business Calls
Whether you’re calling on a phone to reach a client, partner, or team member, VirPhone’s cloud phone system ensures that your calls are clear, reliable, and cost-effective. No more worrying about dropped calls or poor audio quality—our system is designed to provide high-quality call connections, no matter where you are.

Here are some features of VirPhone’s calling on phone services that help improve your business communication:

Crystal-Clear Audio: With VOIP phone systems, you can expect high-definition voice quality that eliminates the usual static or noise found in traditional phone calls.

Call Forwarding and Routing: If you’re unavailable, VirPhone can forward your calls to another number or voicemail. This ensures you never miss an important call.

Voicemail-to-Email: With VirPhone, you can receive voicemails directly in your email inbox, making it easier to manage messages and respond promptly.

Why Choose VirPhone for Your Business Communication?
At VirPhone, we understand the importance of reliable communication for businesses. Our cloud phone systems are designed to provide advanced features and excellent call quality, all at an affordable price. Here’s why businesses trust VirPhone for their communication needs:

Affordable: Our VOIP phone systems are cost-effective and provide significant savings over traditional phone systems.

Flexible and Scalable: Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, our systems grow with you. Adding more lines or features is easy and can be done remotely.

oh dear the stocktaking i did (maybe am still doing? don't know whether it's done yet🤷) with my dad for his little shop😩
his pc/office skills had begun with microsoft excel (he taught me how to use a pc all together) ... and have stopped there. Excel for almost everything. To be fair, he uses PCs like a normal user and isn't of that metier, ok fine🤷.
but when i saw the table he uses, which he copied over the years from the previous versions (still ok), i quickly found out that his table entries were written by him FOR HIM. it was very hard for me to help him (he tells me the article he sees in his storage, i have to include, so i look it up in the table and do stuff) as he had nicknames for his articles that only he associated with😐.
next he prints out a list a company has given to him where he buys some products from, which is ordered by id number ... my dad works with the correspnding names instead so of course all product names are random😑, so every time i need a price for an article he has to scan every list item. you've guessed it, n² search😪😒.
i tell him multiple times to call the company and send him a list in alphabetical order but he refuses as "we've almost finished" ... 🙄 (i'm not allowed to ask for him, as the company will only talk with the responsible one😑)
so I'm tied to a pc, talking to my dad over phone, who has to walk around and has to help me very often to find the article he's meaning to, at the end, do a n² search to add all the prices....😩
I absolutely want to help him automate things for sanity's sake🤔😅
install databases, connect via internet, connect to companies databases for up-to-date prices etc., make some desktop/web app/i don't know for fast access and boom...
and i don't even know where to start and where to find the time for it and whether it's even all possible😅🤔😐🤷

Drive Engagement and Conversions with Expert New York Email Marketing

In today’s competitive digital landscape, email remains one of the most effective tools for nurturing leads, engaging customers, and driving consistent revenue. At Business Awareness, we specialize in New York email marketing services designed to help businesses communicate clearly, convert strategically, and grow efficiently.

Headquartered at 40 Wall St, New York, NY 10005, we work with companies of all sizes to create impactful email marketing campaigns tailored to the fast-paced, results-driven New York market.

Why Choose Business Awareness?
1. Local Expertise, National Reach
We understand what New York audiences respond to. With our finger on the pulse of the city’s evolving market, we design targeted campaigns that reflect local trends while delivering results that scale.

2. Full-Service Email Campaign Management
From strategy and design to segmentation, automation, and performance tracking—we manage the entire email marketing lifecycle. Our goal is simple: to help you send the right message to the right people at the right time.

3. Conversion-Focused Content
Effective email marketing goes beyond good design. We craft compelling subject lines, persuasive copy, and strong calls to action that encourage clicks, conversions, and customer loyalty.

4. Advanced Segmentation and Personalization
We use data-driven segmentation and behavior-based triggers to personalize every campaign. This means higher open rates, better engagement, and more meaningful interactions with your audience.

5. Transparent Reporting and ROI Tracking
You’ll never be left guessing about performance. We provide detailed reports that highlight key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and ROI—so you can make informed decisions.

Contact Us
If you’re looking for professional New York email marketing services that deliver real business results, Business Awareness is your trusted partner.

Visit us: 40 Wall St, New York, NY 10005, United States
Call us: +1 888-352-2927

Let’s build smart email campaigns that keep your customers engaged and your business growing. Get in touch today to schedule a consultation.