#billing software for pc

[gimbook-blogs]

Why Your Business Needs Efficient Billing Software for PC

Running a business today is more challenging than ever. Managing bills, invoices, and payments manually can be time-consuming and error-prone. That’s where Billing Software for PC comes in. Whether you own a small shop, a growing startup, or a large company, billing software can streamline your operations and save valuable time.

In this blog, we will explore why your business needs efficient billing software, discuss its key features, compare options, and highlight its role as a vital business accounting tool. Let’s dive in!

What is Billing Software for PC?

Billing software is a computer program that automates the process of creating invoices, tracking payments, and managing customer transactions. Unlike manual processes, it reduces the chances of mistakes and helps you stay organized.

Fun Fact:

According to a 2023 study, businesses using billing software save up to 40% of the time spent on manual invoicing and record-keeping.

Data Point:

In the same study, 65% of small businesses reported improved cash flow management within the first 3 months of using billing software.

Why Efficient Billing Software is Essential

Efficient billing software is not just a luxury; it’s a necessity. Here’s why:

Saves Time: Imagine creating invoices for 100 customers manually. It could take hours! Billing software automates the task, allowing you to focus on growing your business.

Reduces Errors: Manual billing can lead to mistakes, like miscalculations or missed payments. Software ensures accuracy.

Enhances Customer Experience: Quick and accurate invoices make a good impression on customers, improving their overall experience.

Tracks Finances Easily: With built-in business accounting tools, you can monitor income, expenses, and taxes in one place.

Cost-Effective: Contrary to popular belief, there are affordable billing software options that offer great features without breaking the bank.

Data Point:

A report from 2024 indicates that businesses that adopted billing software saw a 25% reduction in late payments and a 15% increase in customer satisfaction scores.

Features of Billing Software

Modern billing software for PC comes with a variety of features that make it user-friendly and efficient:

Invoice Creation: Create professional invoices with pre-designed templates.

Payment Tracking: Track customer payments and set reminders for overdue bills.

Multi-Currency Support: Ideal for businesses dealing with international clients.

Tax Calculation: Automatically calculate taxes like GST, VAT, or sales tax.

Inventory Management: Keep an eye on your stock levels and prevent shortages.

User-Friendly Billing Apps: Many billing software options offer mobile apps, so you can manage your business on the go.

Example:

A bakery owner can use billing software to:

Generate customer bills.

Monitor daily sales.

Calculate monthly revenue.

Data Point:

On average, businesses using billing software reduce invoicing errors by 70%, saving an estimated $2,500 annually on corrections and adjustments.

How to Choose Affordable Billing Software

Here are some tips to find the right billing software for your budget:

Define Your Needs: Do you need inventory management, tax calculation, or multi-user access?

Try Free Versions: Start with free or trial versions to test the features.

Read Reviews: Look for software with high ratings for being user-friendly billing apps.

Check Scalability: Choose software that can grow with your business.

Benefits of Using Billing Software

Improved Productivity: Automating repetitive tasks increases your team’s efficiency.

Better Cash Flow Management: Easily track who owes you money and when payments are due.

Regulatory Compliance: Stay compliant with tax laws using built-in calculators.

Eco-Friendly Option: Go paperless and save the environment!

Example:

A clothing store using billing software could:

Generate 300 invoices in a week.

Reduce billing errors by 90%.

Save 15 hours of manual work.

Data Point:

By switching to billing software, small businesses report cutting operational costs by 20% on average.

Why Gimbook is the Right Choice

Gimbook stands out as a reliable solution among billing software options. Designed for small and medium-sized businesses, it offers a seamless user experience with features like automated billing, integrated payment tracking, and real-time tax calculation. Whether you're managing a retail store or a service-based business, Gimbook simplifies your operations while being affordable and easy to use. Its versatility makes it a preferred choice for businesses aiming for efficiency and growth.

Take the first step towards smarter invoicing and better cash flow management. Download Gimbook for Free! https://www.gimbooks.com/

Efficient billing software for PC is a game-changer for businesses of all sizes. From automating invoices to tracking payments and managing taxes, it simplifies complex tasks and boosts efficiency. Plus, with options for affordable billing software and user-friendly billing apps, there’s a solution for every budget.

[eazybillssoftware]

Transform your small business with the best online invoice software 

Are you a business owner or want to establish your business and are looking for user-friendly billing software for small business free? With the advent of digitalization, most businesses are moving towards online business these days.  

What is the meaning of invoice software for business? 

Billing software for small business free automates business invoicing operations by quickly generating a list of services, products, and the total amount and sending it to clients as a billing. 

Manual invoicing can cause lots of calculation errors. Even a small and simple mistake in billing can result in a heavy loss of business. With the best invoice software in India for small businesses, you can create and customize your billing, manage and process payments quickly, and generate reports that help you monitor the finances of your business. 

What are the advantages of using billing software for small business free? 

The following are the perks of using billing software for small business free: 

Cost-effective: Not having the best online invoice software can be an extra burden on business owners. You need stationery items like ink, paper, and time. But with the best online invoice software, you can save all the information on one system without causing a burden on the business owner. 

Instant updates: The best invoice software in India will update you on all the daily sales of your business and integrate with inventory and accounting software. In this way, you will have complete knowledge about the business inventory. 

Reminders: The best invoice software in India helps in making the professional approach towards the reminder of overdue payment. With the help of the best online invoice software, you can stay conscious of the payments, and soon the situation of pending payments will be eradicated from the business. 

Accessibility: The accessibility of the best invoice software in India makes it simple for small business owners to get notifications anywhere, and this way, the business owner can keep an eye on the business while sitting somewhere else. 

Integration: Unlike other billing systems, the best online invoice software integrates with other software to smooth the billing process. With integration, invoice software for business makes it easier for you to run the business. 

Quick billing: In a manual billing system, we enter the price and other details manually and then calculate them, which consumes lots of time. This time-consuming process can be done within minutes with the help of invoice software for business. 

Security: All the information uploaded to the invoice software is safe and secure. The billing software has a top-notch security system so that no one can breach the security of the software. Eazybills also offers top-quality data security for your business. 

How to select the best invoice software in India? 

There are various billing software programs that claim to be the best, but it is your responsibility to inquire about the billing software before finalizing any particulars for your business. Billing software plays a vital role in the reputation of a business, so it may have a good as well as a bad impact on your business, depending upon the selection of billing software. 

Following are the important pointers that you need to consider: 

Check the authenticity of the software by checking its rating on Google, reading feedback, and contacting previous users. 

Confirm that it offers all the features that you need. 

Have a robust security system or not. 

The final words It is clear that billing software for small business free , plays an important role for small businesses, so be cautious while selecting billing software, or you can directly contact us, as Eazybills is one of the best invoice software companies in India. So hurry up, contact us now, and we will revert back as soon as possible.

[lerios]

hoorayyy thank you <333 it's only mint so hopefully it shouldn't be too bad, but i'll keep you in mind

[eazy-bills]

Make your Billing effortless with Simple Billing Software

Simple Billing Software helps in making the billing for the goods and services delivered to the clients. Easy billing software eliminates the manual data entry and ensures on-time payment for smooth functioning of the business.Small business owners can also use simple billing software for small business for user-friendly billing and better stock management. This blog explains how simple and easy billing software will help in the effortless billing process.

Significance of simple billing software for PC

Simple billing software plays an important role in the growth of business by offering the following benefits:

Streamlining of billing process: It is one of the main benefits of using easy billing software. It eliminates the time-consuming task of manual recording of business transactions and saves time as well as extra operational costs. It also automates the billing generation, which reduces the burden so that the business owner can focus on other core activities. 

More accuracy: Accuracy is the most important thing in financial management. Because it eliminates disputes, delays in payments, and poor customer satisfaction. By using simple retail billing software, you can easily reduce the chance of error that is common in the manual recording of transactions. 

Quick payment processing: Another compelling benefit of using simple billing software for PC is it speeds up the payment processing because you can easily make the list of outstanding payments and send the reminders to the respective clients. 

Financial Reporting: A good, simple billing software India, like Eazybills, has a robust reporting feature where you can easily get comprehensive data on the financial performance of the business. This financial reporting will further help you in making important and strategic decisions. 

Customer Experience: It is one of the most important features of the simple billing software free as it shows how the billing software values its customers. Billing software like Eazybills has a contribution to good customer experience by offering tailored solutions to the requirement. 

Cost efficiency: Investing in good billing software like Eazybills is a cost-efficient method in the long run. By eliminating the manual task and automating the billing process, it saves the operational cost, which can be used in other areas of the business. 

Flexibility: With the growth of the business, the workings of the business become more complex. Simple billing software offers the flexibility to change its functioning according to the growth of the business. The billing software can easily manage the high transactions without compromising the accuracy.  

Robust security: Everyone wants their data to be in safe hands while using the online mode of payment. Billing software offers additional security to protect the data of the business and customers.

Eazybills: Simple billing software for small business

Although there are various billing software options, Eazybills is the best simple billing software for small business that makes the billing process effortless. It has a user-friendly design with easy navigation. It offers various features like automation of billing, inventory management, payment reminders, and customer support. Additionally, it has robust security to protect both customers’ and business data.

[kuiperblog]

The tweet being quoted is of course obviously wrong: the fact that the current market price of gold is ~$3,000 per ounce is contingent on gold maintaining its current rarity, and the market price of gold would be considerably lower in a world where gold was more abundant.

But the person who has showed up to dunk on this tweet is wrong in a more subtle (and more annoying) way: gold being abundant would not make it "worthless."

We intuitively understand that many types of mineral are useful for things. For example, iron useful as a construction material (especially if you make steel out of it). And titanium offers a similar strength at less weight, making it useful if you're trying to build spaceships.

If the earth suddenly gained a huge amount of iron, this would not cause iron to become "worthless." Ditto for titanium.

If we had a magic machine that could instantly create more lithium and cobalt, that would not be a "worthless" invention: we would use the machine to create minerals that we could use to make batteries; we could make more of the grid solar, energy would be more abundant, and that would have the effect of making us all richer (in tangible ways, like cutting the price of your energy bill, and in other less-immediately-obvious but still tangible ways).

Adding more resources to the world would make the world richer, not poorer, because we could do things with them! This is true of iron, titanium, and cobalt. It is also true of gold.

Gold is useful! It has a bunch of unique properties that allow you to build useful things out of it!

If you've ever installed a CPU, you're probably familiar with this sight:

Intel did not put a gold top-coat on your CPU pins because they were expecting you to display them to ostentatiously broadcast your wealth. It used gold because that's the best material for the job!

Gold has low electrical resistance, and it doesn't tarnish, which means that properties like resistance won't change over the lifespan of the chip. Palladium-nickel is too porous and prone to cracking; silver tarnishes too easily, platinum is harder to solder.

The Intel chip in your PC has gold because in a counterfactual world where they instead had to use a different material, your CPU would be worse at doing the the things that it's supposed to do.

In fact, there are a lot of applications where gold is just straight-up better than copper, aluminum, tin, and nickel, but we end up using those (worse) materials anyway just because gold is too expensive. If price were no object, you'd really rather wire your house with gold than copper, but we use copper because it's less than 1% the cost. If gold were more abundant, we wouldn't have to settle for second-best!

But there is another way in which the annoying tweet is wrong that people would remain poor even if we accept the false premise that "gold would be worthless": those suffering under the resource curse of gold could be considerably better off!

A world where gold is valuable is a world where dictators who control a limited supply of gold have a major source of wealth that is mostly decoupled from human capital. A country whose main export is gold has considerably less incentive to do things like "build schools" and "ensure that children aren't malnourished" than they would in a world where their main export was microchips or movies or software, because in order to create chips/movies/apps, you need to have a bunch of skilled labor and you can only get that skilled labor by building schools and ensuring that your people's cognitive capacity isn't being diminished by childhood malnourishment. (In case it's not obvious, this point generalizes to many things beyond "just" building schools and getting nutrients into children.)

So, if "gold became worthless," it's quite conceivable that people could be better off: eliminating that specific source of wealth would mostly have the effect of reducing a particular kind of inequality that tends to make a tiny number of people rich at the expense of everyone else.

(That is, of course, accepting the premise that gold would become "worthless," which it wouldn't, because we can do useful things with gold: it can't be worthless because it literally has worth even absent any shared notion of it being a useful "store of value." Gold is like titanium; it's not like a piece of paper with Benjamin Franklin whose usefulness is entirely contingent on constructed factors. If humanity went extinct, aliens would struggle to find useful things to do with $100 bills, but they'd find plenty of useful things to do with all of the gold that they found on earth. This was even the premise of an extremely silly sci-fi movie starring Harrison Ford, Cowboys and Aliens.)

The only time when I really feel comfortable dunking is when it is a "counter-dunk," so I will float the possibility that perhaps this tweeter would benefit from taking his own advice to "take an economics class."

[thoughtportal]

Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025.

Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer.

But what if you could make your current one fast and secure again?

If you bought your computer after 2010, there's most likely no reason to throw it out. By just installing an up-to-date Linux operating system you can keep using it for years to come.

Installing an operating system may sound difficult, but you don't have to do it alone. With any luck, there are people in your area ready to help!

5 Reasons to upgrade your old computer to Linux

No New Hardware, No Licensing Costs A new laptop costs a lot of money, but several Linux operating systems are available for free. Software updates are also free, forever. You can of course show your support with donations!

Enhanced Privacy Windows comes with lots of ads and spyware. This slows down your computer, lets companies spy on you, and increases your energy bills.

Good For The Planet Production of a computer accounts for 75+% of carbon emissions over its lifecycle. Keeping a functioning device longer is a hugely effective way to reduce emissions. With a Linux operating system you can use your device longer.

Community & Professional Support There are local repair cafes and independent, professional services and computer shops available for providing you help. You can find support in online forums, too.

Better User Control Linux grants you the four freedoms of software. You are free to use, study, share, and improve the program, for as long as you wish. You are in control of your device.

[cozy-writes-things]

Electric Love: Pt. 1

Edgar [Electric Dreams 1984] x Gn!Reader

All of my fics so far have followed the same universe, so I thought it's only logical that I post an introduction to that universe.

The old man peering at you through puffy eyes and age seemed to have an air shrouded in mystery. His thin, white wisps of hair seemed to stagnate in place as he adjusted his button down.

“This old thing has been around for years now,” he gruffed—an unreadable tone—as his hand encased the yellowed plastic, “I don’t remember what happened to it; must have dropped it, or let some animal chip away at it.”

The dingy, vintage computer before your eyes surely had not been dropped, nor torn into by some animal. It sat upon his countertop completely destroyed; as if it had burst and shattered from the inside out, ripping the glass into jagged shards. You swallowed this thought; this was no time to debate the old man. He seemed to be quite senile as it was and pushing any further seemed like a fruitless effort. Instead, you stretched a thin smile his way, pursing your lips in thought.

“You actually think you can get this thing to work again?” he queried, raising a salt and pepper brow at your expression.

“Well, I’m not sure, but… I’d like to try,” what you hadn’t told him, however, was your infatuation with electronics. Ever since completing your bachelor’s in computer science, you have been tinkering away at many different projects in between jobs, building custom PCs, fixing old Game Boys, and many others. This little computer was an addition to your ever growing collection.

It came from a company you had never heard of before, only to learn it had become defunct in the 80s due to some inexplicable software issues in their products. This certainly intrigued you, as prodding into its code could provide some useful insight to real, vintage tech that just doesn’t exist anymore. But, that’s only if you manage to fix the heap of destruction limply hung before you.

The old man stiffened at your words, ever so slightly, before rattling out, “Well, if you do, don’t bring it anywhere near me. I can’t stand all this tech, and gadgets, and whatnot. Pisses me off.”

“Right,” you interjected, knowing people like him tend to go on long, anti-future, anti-technology rants, trying desperately to beat him to the punch, “well, how much do you want for it?”

He stilled, contemplating for a moment, “twenty-five should be fine.”

“Perfect,” you chirped, padding against your pockets and bag searching for some cash. Pulling out your wallet, you waded around the folds, only to find a crumpled up and faded ten dollar bill and a debit card.

“Ah, I’ve only got a ten…”

He rolled his eyes, “of course you do, you got PayPal, then?” Your cheeks flushed a burning red hot from embarrassment, “ah, yes, I do-”

“Great, just pay me that way,” he bent down and scribbled something messily onto a note, “here’s my information. I made sure to set this up for people like you, you know. Nobody carries cash anymore, or so my grandson tells me.”

You force out a nervous chuckle.

“That’s certainly true… these days, ah…” you unlocked your phone and began inputting his information into PayPal before pressing send on the digital payment, “okay, it went through.”

“Perfect. You need help getting this hunk of junk to your car?”

“No, I should be fine, thank you, sir,” you croak as you heave the broken computer into your arms, heading towards his door.

“Well, come back if you want to buy anything else. Nobody goes to yard sales anymore, it seems.”

You can only turn your head and chuckle at his quip, before awkwardly dashing out of his apartment and towards your car. The dampened asphalt from the rain squelched under your toes as you lugged the large piece of tech to the passenger side.

“There,” you whispered, to nobody in particular, as you awkwardly buckled the computer in place, “hopefully you won’t fall that way.”

And just like that, you were off, headed towards home to begin the massive project that was repairing this obsolete device.

“What to do with you?”

You groaned as you thumped the solid mass of plastic and metal against your desk, “you’re incredibly broken.”

First and foremost, it needs a screen replacement. Which is easier said than done. Especially considering the company who manufactured these things hasn’t existed in 40 years. Unfortunately, a close replica will have to do. Maybe you could even upgrade its screen with something with a bit more prowess.

Poking inside of its components seemed to tell a different story. Miraculously, none of the motherboards were damaged with the same ferocity the screen had been. There seemed to be some sort of dried, caked on water damage of some sort, that left a sticky residue, but otherwise, everything seemed to be relatively intact. The yellowed casing could use a wipe down from the thick layer of starchy dust, but it seemed to hold its original shape with surprising ease.

Following a closer inspection, it seemed as though the glass screen, and the components in charge of illuminating it, were the only things in need of replacing. A quick browse on Amazon, some tech forums, and a post on Reddit should be a good start in finding a usable replacement for this sad, broken gadget.

For now, however, you get some isopropyl alcohol and a soft bristled toothbrush to chip away at the water damage on the motherboards in hopes of restoring the electrical connections. You were quite hopeful that you’d get this little guy up and running just as soon as you could find the right parts. It’s only a matter of time.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Microsoft pinky swears that THIS TIME they’ll make security a priority

One June 20, I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. On June 21, I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On June 22, I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

As the old saying goes, "When someone tells you who they are and you get fooled again, shame on you." That goes double for Microsoft, especially when it comes to security promises.

Microsoft is, was, always has been, and always will be a rotten company. At every turn, throughout their history, they have learned the wrong lessons, over and over again.

That starts from the very earliest days, when the company was still called "Micro-Soft." Young Bill Gates was given a sweetheart deal to supply the operating system for IBM's PC, thanks to his mother's connection. The nepo-baby enlisted his pal, Paul Allen (whom he'd later rip off for billions) and together, they bought someone else's OS (and took credit for creating it – AKA, the "Musk gambit").

Microsoft then proceeded to make a fortune by monopolizing the OS market through illegal, collusive arrangements with the PC clone industry – an industry that only existed because they could source third-party PC ROMs from Phoenix:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/ibm-pc-compatible-how-adversarial-interoperability-saved-pcs-monopolization

Bill Gates didn't become one of the richest people on earth simply by emerging from a lucky orifice; he also owed his success to vigorous antitrust enforcement. The IBM PC was the company's first major initiative after it was targeted by the DOJ for a 12-year antitrust enforcement action. IBM tapped its vast monopoly profits to fight the DOJ, spending more on outside counsel to fight the DOJ antitrust division than the DOJ spent on all its antitrust lawyers, every year, for 12 years.

IBM's delaying tactic paid off. When Reagan took the White House, he let IBM off the hook. But the company was still seriously scarred by its ordeal, and when the PC project kicked off, the company kept the OS separate from the hardware (one of the DOJ's major issues with IBM's previous behavior was its vertical monopoly on hardware and software). IBM didn't hire Gates and Allen to provide it with DOS because it was incapable of writing a PC operating system: they did it to keep the DOJ from kicking down their door again.

The post-antitrust, gunshy IBM kept delivering dividends for Microsoft. When IBM turned a blind eye to the cloned PC-ROM and allowed companies like Compaq, Dell and Gateway to compete directly with Big Blue, this produced a whole cohort of customers for Microsoft – customers Microsoft could play off on each other, ensuring that every PC sold generated income for Microsoft, creating a wide moat around the OS business that kept other OS vendors out of the market. Why invest in making an OS when every hardware company already had an exclusive arrangement with Microsoft?

The IBM PC story teaches us two things: stronger antitrust enforcement spurs innovation and opens markets for scrappy startups to grow to big, important firms; as do weaker IP protections.

Microsoft learned the opposite: monopolies are wildly profitable; expansive IP protects monopolies; you can violate antitrust laws so long as you have enough monopoly profits rolling in to outspend the government until a Republican bootlicker takes the White House (Microsoft's antitrust ordeal ended after GW Bush stole the 2000 election and dropped the charges against them). Microsoft embodies the idea that you either die a rebel hero or live long enough to become the evil emperor you dethroned.

From the first, Microsoft has pursued three goals:

Get too big to fail;

Get too big to jail;

Get too big to care.

It has succeeded on all three counts. Much of Microsoft's enduring power comes from succeeded IBM as the company that mediocre IT managers can safely buy from without being blamed for the poor quality of Microsoft's products: "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft" is 2024's answer to "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

Microsoft's secret sauce is impunity. The PC companies that bundle Windows with their hardware are held blameless for the glaring defects in Windows. The IT managers who buy company-wide Windows licenses are likewise insulated from the rage of the workers who have to use Windows and other Microsoft products.

Microsoft doesn't have to care if you hate it because, for the most part, it's not selling to you. It's selling to a few decision-makers who can be wined and dined and flattered. And since we all have to use its products, developers have to target its platform if they want to sell us their software.

This rarified position has afforded Microsoft enormous freedom to roll out harebrained "features" that made things briefly attractive for some group of developers it was hoping to tempt into its sticky-trap. Remember when it put a Turing-complete scripting environment into Microsoft Office and unleashed a plague of macro viruses that wiped out years worth of work for entire businesses?

https://web.archive.org/web/20060325224147/http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/newsinfo/collateral.aspx?cid=33338

It wasn't just Office; Microsoft's operating systems have harbored festering swamps of godawful defects that were weaponized by trolls, script kiddies, and nation-states:

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

Microsoft blamed everyone except themselves for these defects, claiming that their poor code quality was no worse than others, insisting that the bulging arsenal of Windows-specific malware was the result of being the juiciest target and thus the subject of the most malicious attention.

Even if you take them at their word here, that's still no excuse. Microsoft didn't slip and accidentally become an operating system monopolist. They relentlessly, deliberately, illegally pursued the goal of extinguishing every OS except their own. It's completely foreseeable that this dominance would make their products the subject of continuous attacks.

There's an implicit bargain that every monopolist makes: allow me to dominate my market and I will be a benevolent dictator who spends his windfall profits on maintaining product quality and security. Indeed, if we permit "wasteful competition" to erode the margins of operating system vendors, who will have a surplus sufficient to meet the security investment demands of the digital world?

But monopolists always violate this bargain. When faced with the decision to either invest in quality and security, or hand billions of dollars to their shareholders, they'll always take the latter. Why wouldn't they? Once they have a monopoly, they don't have to worry about losing customers to a competitor, so why invest in customer satisfaction? That's how Google can piss away $80b on a stock buyback and fire 12,000 technical employees at the same time as its flagship search product (with a 90% market-share) is turning into an unusable pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Microsoft reneged on this bargain from day one, and they never stopped. When the company moved Office to the cloud, it added an "analytics" suite that lets bosses spy on and stack-rank their employees ("Sorry, fella, Office365 says you're the slowest typist in the company, so you're fired"). Microsoft will also sell you internal data on the Office365 usage of your industry competitors (they'll sell your data to your competitors, too, natch). But most of all, Microsoft harvest, analyzes and sells this data for its own purposes:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

Leave aside how creepy, gross and exploitative this is – it's also incredibly reckless. Microsoft is creating a two-way conduit into the majority of the world's businesses that insider threats, security services and hackers can exploit to spy on and wreck Microsoft's customers' business. You don't get more "too big to care" than this.

Or at least, not until now. Microsoft recently announced a product called "Recall" that would record every keystroke, click and screen element, nominally in the name of helping you figure out what you've done and either do it again, or go back and fix it. The problem here is that anyone who gains access to your system – your boss, a spy, a cop, a Microsoft insider, a stalker, an abusive partner or a hacker – now has access to everything, on a platter. Naturally, this system – which Microsoft billed as ultra-secure – was wildly insecure and after a series of blockbuster exploits, the company was forced to hit pause on the rollout:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/microsoft-delays-data-scraping-recall-feature-again-commits-to-public-beta-test/

For years, Microsoft waged a war on the single most important security practice in software development: transparency. This is the company that branded the GPL Free Software license a "virus" and called open source "a cancer." The company argued that allowing public scrutiny of code would be a disaster because bad guys would spot and weaponize defects.

This is "security through obscurity" and it's an idea that was discredited nearly 500 years ago with the advent of the scientific method. The crux of that method: we are so good at bullshiting ourselves into thinking that our experiment was successful that the only way to make sure we know anything is to tell our enemies what we think we've proved so they can try to tear us down.

Or, as Bruce Schneier puts it: "Anyone can design a security system that you yourself can't think of a way of breaking. That doesn't mean it works, it just means that it works against people stupider than you."

And yet, Microsoft – whose made more widely and consequentially exploited software than anyone else in the history of the human race – claimed that free and open code was insecure, and spent millions on deceptive PR campaigns intended to discredit the scientific method in favor of a kind of software alchemy, in which every coder toils in secret, assuring themselves that drinking mercury is the secret to eternal life.

Access to source code isn't sufficient to make software secure – nothing about access to code guarantees that anyone will review that code and repair its defects. Indeed, there've been some high profile examples of "supply chain attacks" in the free/open source software world:

https://www.securityweek.com/supply-chain-attack-major-linux-distributions-impacted-by-xz-utils-backdoor/

But there's no good argument that this code would have been more secure if it had been harder for the good guys to spot its bugs. When it comes to secure code, transparency is an essential, but it's not a sufficency.

The architects of that campaign are genuinely awful people, and yet they're revered as heroes by Microsoft's current leadership. There's Steve "Linux Is Cancer" Ballmer, star of Propublica's IRS Files, where he is shown to be the king of "tax loss harvesting":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/24/tax-loss-harvesting/#mego

And also the most prominent example of the disgusting tax cheats practiced by rich sports-team owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#economic-substance-doctrine

Microsoft may give lip service to open source these days (mostly through buying, stripmining and enclosing Github) but Ballmer's legacy lives on within the company, through its wildly illegal tax-evasion tactics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/13/pour-encoragez-les-autres/#micros-tilde-one

But Ballmer is an angel compared to his boss, Bill Gates, last seen some paragraphs above, stealing the credit for MS DOS from Tim Paterson and billions of dollars from his co-founder Paul Allen. Gates is an odious creep who made billions through corrupt tech industry practices, then used them to wield influence over the world's politics and policy. The Gates Foundation (and Gates personally) invented vaccine apartheid, helped kill access to AIDS vaccines in Sub-Saharan Africa, then repeated the trick to keep covid vaccines out of reach of the Global South:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation

The Gates Foundation wants us to think of it as malaria-fighting heroes, but they're also the leaders of the war against public education, and have been key to the replacement of public schools with charter schools, where the poorest kids in America serve as experimental subjects for the failed pet theories of billionaire dilettantes:

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/millionaire-driven-education-reform-has-failed-heres-what-works

(On a personal level, Gates is also a serial sexual abuser who harassed multiple subordinates into having sexual affairs with him:)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/technology/microsoft-sexual-harassment-policy-review.html

The management culture of Microsoft started rotten and never improved. It's a company with corruption and monopoly in its blood, a firm that would always rather build market power to insulate itself from the consequences of making defective products than actually make good products. This is true of every division, from cloud computing:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/28/other-peoples-computers/#clouded-over

To gaming:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/27/convicted-monopolist/#microsquish

No one should ever trust Microsoft to do anything that benefits anyone except Microsoft. One of the low points in the otherwise wonderful surge of tech worker labor organizing was when the Communications Workers of America endorsed Microsoft's acquisition of Activision because Microsoft promised not to union-bust Activision employees. They lied:

https://80.lv/articles/qa-workers-contracted-by-microsoft-say-they-were-fired-for-trying-to-unionize/

Repeatedly:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/activision-fired-staff-using-strong-language-about-remote-work-policy-union-2023-03-01/

Why wouldn't they lie? They've never faced any consequences for lying in the past. Remember: the secret to Microsoft's billions is impunity.

Which brings me to Solarwinds. Solarwinds is an enterprise management tool that allows IT managers to see, patch and control the computers they oversee. Foreign spies hacked Solarwinds and accessed a variety of US federal agencies, including National Nuclear Security Administration (who oversee nuclear weapons stockpiles), the NIH, and the Treasury Department.

When the Solarwinds story broke, Microsoft strenuously denied that the Solarwinds hack relied on exploiting defects in Microsoft software. They said this to everyone: the press, the Pentagon, and Congress.

This was a lie. As Renee Dudley and Doris Burke reported for Propublica, the Solarwinds attack relied on defects in the SAML authentication system that Microsoft's own senior security staff had identified and repeatedly warned management about. Microsoft's leadership ignored these warnings, buried the research, prohibited anyone from warning Microsoft customers, and sidelined Andrew Harris, the researcher who discovered the defect:

https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-solarwinds-golden-saml-data-breach-russian-hackers

The single most consequential cyberattack on the US government was only possible because Microsoft decided not to fix a profound and dangerous bug in its code, and declined to warn anyone who relied on this defective software.

Yesterday, Microsoft president Brad Smith testified about this to Congress, and promised that the company would henceforth prioritize security over gimmicks like AI:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/microsoft-in-damage-control-mode-says-it-will-prioritize-security-over-ai/

Despite all the reasons to mistrust this promise, the company is hoping Congress will believe it. More importantly, it's hoping that the Pentagon will believe it, because the Pentagon is about to award billions in free no-bid military contract profits to Microsoft:

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/17/pentagon-weighs-microsoft-licensing-upgrades

You know what? I bet they'll sell this lie. It won't be the first time they've convinced Serious People in charge of billions of dollars and/or lives to ignore that all-important maxim, "When someone tells you who they are and you get fooled again, shame on you."

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again

[apricotbuncakes]

Cashapp Paypal

I have so many things I need to save money for, but a short list includes:

A wheelchair

Bills

Medication

School supplies

Moving fees

More details under the cut

Wheelchair and Bills:

Recently my chronic fatigue and pain has become so severe that walking even short distances puts a significant strain on my body. I need to save up for a wheelchair (a self propelling one that meets my needs costs just under 1,000 out of pocket).

In a similar vein, I currently work as a lifeguard which, as you can imagine, also puts a strain on my body. Just a couple hours at work puts me in bed for the rest of the day with limited or no ability to care for my body and needs like showering, brushing my teeth, making food for myself, etc. Funds from commissions will help me set aside money to pay my bills while I look for a job to replace my current one.

Medication:

While insurance covers most of the cost of my medications (for now ...) there's still occasional copays that I'm given no warning for. With my limited funds as is, these couple dollar copays can put me behind weeks or longer on other necessary purchases.

School Supplies:

My PC (the only computer in the house that can handle my mandatory software for classes) is crashing due to hard drive issues, and the hard drive needs replaced entirely. Using my PC at home helps to conserve energy and prevent me from being in as much pain while completing school work, but also allows me to work on homework while the school is closed. It's essentially for my success in college.

Moving Expenses:

Finally, my partners, a couple friends, and myself are all trying to raise funds to move out of our red state and into a blue one up north that is saver for queer and especially trans people. Moving expenses and cost of living in the new state are expensive, but it is essential for our wellbeing and safety in the short and long term.

[amessageonthewind]

PC Storage System

The Pokémon Storage System was invented by Bill in 1995 with Lanette as a co-developer of the software, designed for people to be able to store more than six Pokémon in a global database where their Pokémon could be converted into raw data and safely kept somewhere they could be easily accessed through interacting with a PC or an otherwise capable link in order to access the database. It is capable of storing both Pokémon kept in Poké Balls and Pokémon eggs in their natural states.

The Pokémon Storage System is managed my multiple different people globally in order to troubleshoot, improve, and maintain it. Bill maintains it in Kanto and Johto.

Celio maintains it in the Sevii Islands and also runs the Pokémon Network Centre on One Island which is responsible for providing a method of facilitating global trading. He also helped develop the Global Terminal in Johto and Sinnoh for this same purpose.

Lanette maintains it in Hoenn and is primarily in charge of the user interface and enabling personal Trainer customization of the Box System with wallpapers and giving Trainers the ability to change the names of boxes and the like as well as streamlining the process and making the interface more user-friendly.

Bebe maintains it in Sinnoh and actually built it from scratch as a computer technician based on the previous designs of the system by Bill and Lanette, earning their respect, and developing a way to make it so that the system can be accessed by Trainers from anywhere without the need to access a PC.

Amanita maintains it in mainland Unova and developed it based on the previous designs of Bill, Lanette, and Bebe, introducing a new feature of a Battle Box where Trainers can store a team they use specifically for battling and making it so that Trainers start out with eight boxes available to them and that each time each box is storing at least one Pokémon, the capacity will increase by another eight boxes and then by another eight boxes once the same conditions are met again, making the total capacity of Unova’s PC Storage System seven-hundred-and-twenty Pokémon per Trainer.

Cassius maintains it in Kalos and despite being a capable computer technician, he has made no significant contributions to the operations or design of the PC Storage System. In fact, his sole role is keeping it maintained and was personally tasked by Bill himself to take on that role.

Molayne maintains it in Alola and runs the Hokulani Observatory and, like Cassius, makes no significant contributions to the operations or design of the PC Storage System and simply maintains it.

Brigette (Lanette’s older sister) and Grand Oak (relation to Professor Samuel Oak unclear) manage the PC Storage System everywhere else and in every other capacity, typically on a more global scale. They maintain a more centralized PC Storage System that acts as the bridge between all the others and the network that facilitates global trading. Brigette is credited with upgrading the Pokémon Storage System with the ability to hold fifteen-hundred Pokémon per Trainer, as well as the ability to select and move multiple Pokémon at once. She is also the developer of the Bank System, which acts as an online cloud where Pokémon can be transferred if their Trainers have to move regions and need to access them from the local PC Storage System in their target region and other similar purposes. Grand Oak, however, is more interested in completing a comprehensive National Pokédex by collecting the data from Pokédex holders all over the globe into one central database.

Taglist:

@earth-shaker / @little-miss-selfships / @xelyn-craft / @sarahs-malewives / @brahms-and-lances-wife

-

@ashes-of-a-yume / @cherry-bomb-ships / @kiawren / @kingofdorkville / @bugsband

Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed from my taglist :3

[gimbook-blogs]

How AI & Automation Are Revolutionizing Online GST Billing Software

In today's digital era, businesses are rapidly adopting technology to simplify their operations. One such game-changing advancement is the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation in GST Billing Software. This technology is transforming how businesses manage their tax calculations, invoicing, and compliance.

If you are a business owner or accountant, understanding how AI in GST billing software can improve efficiency and accuracy is essential. In this blog, we will explore how Online GST Billing Software powered by AI is reshaping the future of taxation.

The Role of AI in GST Billing Software

Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps businesses automate repetitive tasks, reducing manual effort and errors. Here’s how GST software with AI is improving the billing process:

Real-Time Tax Computation: Traditional billing software requires manual input for tax calculations. With AI, tax rates are automatically applied based on business type, location, and category of goods/services. This ensures real-time tax computation, minimizing errors and saving time.

Automated Invoice Generation: AI can automatically generate GST-compliant invoices based on past transaction history. E-invoicing automation ensures that invoices follow GST rules, reducing compliance risks.

GST Compliance Automation: Keeping up with frequent GST updates can be difficult. AI-powered GST compliance automation ensures that your business follows the latest tax regulations. It alerts you to any compliance issues before they become major problems.

Fraud Detection & Error Prevention: AI can detect unusual billing patterns that might indicate tax fraud or data entry errors. Businesses can use AI-powered analytics to identify mistakes in invoices and fix them before submission.

Why Online GST Billing Software Is the Future

With the rise of cloud technology, businesses are moving from traditional desktop-based software to cloud-based GST software. Let’s look at why this shift is happening:

Accessibility Anytime, Anywhere: Unlike GST Billing Software for PC, which requires installation on a single device, Online GST Billing Software allows users to access data from any device with an internet connection.

Data Security & Backup: Cloud storage ensures that your data is safe and backed up regularly. Even if a system crashes, your invoices and tax records remain secure.

Seamless Integration with Other Tools: Online GST billing software can integrate with accounting software, payment gateways, and ERP systems, ensuring a smooth workflow.

How AI is Transforming GST Billing Software for Businesses

Businesses, whether small or large, benefit greatly from AI-powered GST billing software for businesses. Here’s how:

Faster Return Filing: AI-driven software can automatically prepare tax returns, making it easy for businesses to file GST on time.

Predictive Analytics: AI can analyze past transactions and suggest ways to optimize tax savings. Businesses can use predictive analytics to forecast future tax liabilities.

Reduced Operational Costs: Automation reduces the need for additional manpower, saving businesses money in the long run.

The Future of AI in Billing Software

The Future of AI in billing software is exciting. Here are some trends we can expect:

AI-powered Chatbots: Businesses will be able to interact with AI assistants to generate invoices, answer GST-related queries, and resolve compliance issues instantly.

Voice-Based Commands: Users will soon be able to generate invoices using voice commands.

Blockchain Integration: Secure and tamper-proof transactions will be possible with AI and blockchain working together.

Data & Statistics on AI Adoption in GST Billing

Here are some facts to highlight the impact of AI in GST billing:

According to a report by PwC, AI-powered accounting software can reduce tax compliance costs by 30-50%.

A survey by Deloitte found that 82% of businesses using AI in taxation saw a significant reduction in tax-related errors.

India's GST Network (GSTN) has been working on AI-driven analytics to identify fraud cases, saving thousands of crores in tax evasion.

GimBook: Your AI-Powered GST Billing Solution

GimBook is a cutting-edge GST Billing Software designed to simplify tax compliance with AI-driven automation. It offers real-time tax computation, e-invoicing automation, and cloud-based accessibility, making it the perfect choice for businesses of all sizes. With AI in GST billing software, GimBook ensures error-free invoicing, seamless GST compliance automation, and effortless tax filing. Whether you need a GST Billing Software for PC or an Online GST Billing Software, GimBook provides a user-friendly and efficient solution to manage your finances with ease.

Experience the future of billing—switch to GimBook today, https://gimbooks.com/

AI and automation are transforming the way businesses handle GST billing. With AI in GST billing software, companies can enjoy real-time tax computation, E-invoicing automation, and GST compliance automation.

As businesses continue to embrace Online GST billing software and cloud-based GST software, the future of AI in billing software looks promising. Now is the perfect time to switch to an AI-powered billing system and make your GST compliance smoother and error-free.

Are you ready to take your business to the next level with AI-driven GST billing software? Start today and experience the future of automated taxation!

[eazybillssoftware]

Organize your business with the best billing software in India 

The billing method is the tool that sends the invoice to the clients with a detailed explanation of the goods and services provided and the payable amount. This type of billing method is generally used in business-to-business transactions as it helps maintain the cash flow of the business.

The top features of the best billing software in India 

To overcome the drawback of manual bill generation, these features of the best billing software in India have proven helpful: 

Invoicing: Easy billing software has the ability to instantly create and send invoices to clients. 

Payment processing: It offers various methods for payment processing, like credit cards, debit cards, electronic checks, and other methods, so that there is a regular flow of cash in the business. 

Automation: Easy software for billing has the capability to automate the process of bill generation on a fixed schedule. 

Tracking: Billing software for PC has a tracking facility so that you can easily generate reports to know the payment history, outstanding balances, and other financial and accounting information. 

Security: Billing software for PC has strong and top-notch safety and security features to safeguard sensitive and important customer and payment data. 

Customization: Easy software for billing offers the flexibility to customize billing templates, invoices, and payment methods to fulfill special business needs. 

Mobile accessibility: The best billing software in India is easily accessible for managing billing information from a mobile device or computer. 

The significance of using easy billing software 

Let’s explore the significant role of easy billing software in fulfilling business goals: 

Quick invoice generation: Manually verifying every single transaction requires lots of time and money, but there is still a higher risk of human error. But, with easy billing software, you can quickly generate invoices, which will help you save time, and you can easily access the information of multiple clients in one place. 

Instant Payment: Every service or product delivered to the client demands a bill. The pen-and-paper invoicing process is time-consuming and involves various steps for invoice generation. Try the best billing software in India that generates bills in no time so that clients can quickly make payments. Eazybills is the best billing software for PC that creates quick invoices and controls the flow of cash. 

Automation: Every business requires billing software for a PC. Businesses should manage invoices in such a way that they ensure timely payments, which is only possible with automated billing software. Easy software for billing helps in sending payment reminders, statements, and delayed payment notices to clients. Eazybills is easy software for billing with automated billing that follows pre-defined business rules. 

Improves brand identity: One of the benefits of using the best billing software in India is that it helps in improving and establishing brand identity and reputation. Through billing software, you can add your business logo, brand names, and contact details with a thank-you note. Using billing software on a PC helps speed up the payment.  

Correct Information: The absence of billing software for PCs can cause you to depend on manual recording of information, which can lead to calculation errors as the records need to be updated with time. The best billing software in India, like Eazybills, ensures the correct updating of information. 

Parting Words 

Eazybills billing software is the best billing software in India because it records correct data and helps build a strong business image. All the data recorded in Eazybills is safe, as customers’ security is our top priority. That is why we use top-notch security systems in our software. Without wasting time, connect with us.

[krisrisk]

i want stupid tech back.

my ps5 has been out of use for a while because it was too expensive (electricity bill). When i started it now, with the controller plugged in via cable, it told me that there's a software update for the controller - which cannot be installed right now, because it's battery is almost empty (so? I have it plugged in you device). So i turned the ps5 off because i need to charge the controller first so that i can update the software on the controller so that i can start the ps5 so that i can choose my ps4 game and connect the ps4 controller and play a game and i can't load the battery of the controller with my ps5 turned off.

And i seriously turned off my pc for this???

[mariacallous]

The hacker ecosystem in Russia, more than perhaps anywhere else in the world, has long blurred the lines between cybercrime, state-sponsored cyberwarfare, and espionage. Now an indictment of a group of Russian nationals and the takedown of their sprawling botnet offers the clearest example in years of how a single malware operation allegedly enabled hacking operations as varied as ransomware, wartime cyberattacks in Ukraine, and spying against foreign governments.

The US Department of Justice today announced criminal charges today against 16 individuals law enforcement authorities have linked to a malware operation known as DanaBot, which according to a complaint infected at least 300,000 machines around the world. The DOJ’s announcement of the charges describes the group as “Russia-based,” and names two of the suspects, Aleksandr Stepanov and Artem Aleksandrovich Kalinkin, as living in Novosibirsk, Russia. Five other suspects are named in the indictment, while another nine are identified only by their pseudonyms. In addition to those charges, the Justice Department says the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS)—a criminal investigation arm of the Department of Defense—carried out seizures of DanaBot infrastructure around the world, including in the US.

Aside from alleging how DanaBot was used in for-profit criminal hacking, the indictment also makes a rarer claim—it describes how a second variant of the malware it says was used in espionage against military, government, and NGO targets. “Pervasive malware like DanaBot harms hundreds of thousands of victims around the world, including sensitive military, diplomatic, and government entities, and causes many millions of dollars in losses,” US attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a statement.

Since 2018, DanaBot—described in the criminal complaint as “incredibly invasive malware”—has infected millions of computers around the world, initially as a banking trojan designed to steal directly from those PCs' owners with modular features designed for credit card and cryptocurrency theft. Because its creators allegedly sold it in an “affiliate” model that made it available to other hacker groups for $3,000 to $4,000 a month, however, it was soon used as a tool to install different forms of malware in a broad array of operations, including ransomware. Its targets, too, quickly spread from initial victims in Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Australia to US and Canadian financial institutions, according to an analysis of the operation by cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.

At one point in 2021, according to Crowdstrike, Danabot was used in a software supply-chain attack that hid the malware in a javascript coding tool called NPM with millions of weekly downloads. Crowdstrike found victims of that compromised tool across the financial service, transportation, technology, and media industries.

That scale and the wide variety of its criminal uses made DanaBot “a juggernaut of the e-crime landscape,” according to Selena Larson, a staff threat researcher at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.

More uniquely, though, DanaBot has also been used at times for hacking campaigns that appear to be state-sponsored or linked to Russian government agency interests. In 2019 and 2020, it was used to target a handful of Western government officials in apparent espionage operations, according to the DOJ's indictment. According to Proofpoint, the malware in those instances was delivered in phishing messages that impersonated the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and a Kazakhstan government entity.

Then, in the early weeks of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, DanaBot was used to install a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) tool onto infected machines and launch attacks against the webmail server of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

All of that makes DanaBot a particularly clear example of how cybercriminal malware has allegedly been adopted by Russian state hackers, Proofpoint's Larson says. “There have been a lot of suggestions historically of cybercriminal operators palling around with Russian government entities, but there hasn't been a lot of public reporting on these increasingly blurred lines,” says Larson. The case of DanaBot, she says, “is pretty notable, because it's public evidence of this overlap where we see e-crime tooling used for espionage purposes.”

In the criminal complaint, DCIS investigator Elliott Peterson—a former FBI agent known for his work on the investigation into the creators of the Mirai botnet—alleges that some members of the DanaBot operation were identified after they infected their own computers with the malware. Those infections may have been for the purposes of testing the trojan, or may have been accidental, according to Peterson. Either way, they resulted in identifying information about the alleged hackers ending up on DanaBot infrastructure that DCIS later seized. “The inadvertent infections often resulted in sensitive and compromising data being stolen from the actor's computer by the malware and stored on DanaBot servers, including data that helped identify members of the DanaBot organization,” Peterson writes.

The operators of DanaBot remain at large, but the takedown of a large-scale tool in so many forms of Russian-origin hacking—both state-sponsored and criminal—represents a significant milestone, says Adam Meyers, who leads threat intelligence research at Crowdstrike.

“Every time you disrupt a multiyear operation, you're impacting their ability to monetize it. It also creates a bit of a vacuum, and somebody else is going to step up and take that place,” Meyers says. “But the more we can disrupt them, the more we keep them on their back heels. We should rinse and repeat and go find the next target.”

[someones-pc]

I've come to leave a complaint. Your worthless software has let out over 25 pokemon from my PC system. "Bill's PC box the most secure" SHUT UP! Your incompetence has MADE ME LOSE FIVE COMPETITIONS IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS! And worst of all? You have no address listed ANYWHERE! YOU WEASEL!! COWARDLY ANT YOU ARE! I should SUE YOU FOR ALL YOU'RE WORTH!

That seems like user error on your part, actually.

And also why the fuck would i have my address out on the internet anywhere, do you know how many death threats I recieved.

Your losing competitions is not my fault.

And with how you're acting, I would be shocked if those missing pokemon hadn't simply run away.