#Amazon Vendor Management

[buttshahid]

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[mohdaquib]

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[merchantservices444]

What is the Difference Between a Vendor and a Merchant?

[impossiblebearfury]

MONITORING ADS TO REDUCE ACOS - ecommprofessionals.com

In Amazon Pay-per-Click advertising, Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS) is very important. Target ACoS is a measure of success, a volatile percentage and a decisive factor in bidding on search terms. Being an Amazon seller, you must have understood by now, how important a low ACoS is for the success of your Amazon Sponsored Products ads. You may be selling a lot of products, but if your ACoS is very high, it will eat away at your profits.

[misscammiedawn]

Dissociative Identity Disorder in Mr. Robot

So I have been writing little essays about Mr. Robot recently.

Dom's Sexuality, Gay Marriage and Whiterose

Back to the Future and Brainwashing

Today I wish to talk about the DID representation in Mr. Robot.

Actually I want to talk about the DID representation in the Hulk comics but there are 40 years worth of storylines involving it and it would require me to write about clinical understandings from the 1980s when it was called MPD (admitedly Mr. Robot's stumbles at the finish line with some of these same outdated treatment models) and that would take a while. Suffice to say it will happen eventually*. I shall make a new tag "Media Myself and I" and post it under that when I have more time to do it justice. Maybe I'll do others. I am uncertain. I believe I want to focus on positive depictions where there are no murder alters. The goal is to get people to want to enjoy things, not to steer them away. I have a few shows and games in mind at the very least.

Regardless… Mr. Robot is an easier topic to cover and is my hyperfocus of the moment.

So Mr. Robot is a show about isolation in the modern world. It's a show about socioeconomic stress, late-stage capitalism and what it means to enact meaningful change on a broken world.

But above all it is about the healing journey of Elliot Alderson, a man with dissociative identity disorder.

I say that at the start because Elliot's condition is never named until the final episode. In many ways a realistic depiction of a real world disorder was an afterthought noted in the final hour of the journey as a means of justifying the split personality trope and hiding a final twist. In spite of that the roadmap for the show was always leading to this destination and along the way they managed to get some fairly good representation out of the mix.

Season 2 even involves the only time I have ever seen a piece of fiction depict "blending" on screen. Blending isn't a symptom listed in either DSM or ICD manuals. It is, however, something one would hear about if they had a conversation with someone who had DID. I have used that scene to depict what it feels like to my partners.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

I love Mr. Robot. It is currently my favorite show of all time. If you have never seen it then please give it a shot. This post will be spoiler heavy and I'd hate to rob anyone the opportunity to watch S4E7 and have a pure emotional reaction to it. The show is on Amazon Prime and the full box set is available for $35-50 depending on format and vendor.

Go with my blessing.

-

The first season of the show begins with Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) living a double life. By day a cyber security expert and by night he spends his time at his computer hacking people's accounts and satisfying a "little itch in the back of his head" that guides him to uncover the murky facts about people. The first scene of the show has him take down a cafe owner who hosts an illegal and deeply unpleasant website. I have seen individuals walk away from the first episode thinking that the show is "Dexter but with computers" but it is more lulsec activism with a Fight Club aesthetic.

The show has 4 seasons and each season depicts a different stage of Elliot's healing journey and with it completely different rules and depictions of his condition. I'll break down each season for what they do right and what they do wrong.

Season 1: Discovery

Elliot's system in season one is undiscovered but he has overt symptoms, meaning he is unaware that he has any alters but he suffers from clean breaks in his consciousness and drastically altered behavior patterns both which are a detriment to the "hidden" nature of the condition.

Commonly most people do not discover their condition until their 30s. I was 37/38 when our therapist started guiding us towards accepting our condition.

DID manifests in childhood but it's a hidden illness that does its best to go undetected. The point of the condition is to remain hidden. The internet and the educational resources it offers are helping younger individuals to recognize their symptoms and advocate for themselves at an earlier age but the standard medical understanding is that most people are developed adults before they are diagnosed.

Published statistics for DID indicate the global population of those with the condition is about 1.5% (some organizations argue the number should be higher due to how difficult it is to receive an accurate diagnosis, but 1.5% is the most consistent figure) which is rare but not to the point of never encountering it. For comparison, according to a 2023 census 1.0% of people in the USA identify as transgender. There are no tested classifications for Covert vs Overt display of symptoms but it is widely agreed that an overwhelming majority of cases within the 1.5% are covert.

We learn that Elliot is desperately lonely, abuses morphine and has paranoid delusions about men in black stalking his every move. Whenever Elliot is on screen we can never be sure what is real and what isn't, so there are times when men wearing black suits are on screen and we cannot be sure if Elliot is paranoid or delusional.

The show takes place through his perspective after all and we are a character in the show.

See… the narrative device of the show involves Elliot speaking to "friend", us. The audience. "Hello, friend." is a common refrain spoken throughout the show. The narrative begins a short while after Elliot had a complete mental breakdown and smashed up a server room, he is seeing a court appointed therapist, is socially paralyzed to the point of which we see him linger outside a birthday party and retreat home to cry in loneliness.

The entire first season Mr. Robot is depicted as another character, akin to Tyler Durden, a wild revolutionary who wants to encrypt the data of the world's largest bank in order to seal the debt records and reset everything back to 0. He starts off appearing in scenes involving the men in black stalking Elliot to mingle him in with the paranoid delusions and eventually begins interacting with him in earnest. Though the reveal is treated as a twist 8 episodes into the show Elliot does accuse the audience of knowing the entire time and he refuses to speak to us for some time, even going as far as to keep secrets from us because he cannot trust us any longer.

It's at this point that I will note that media depictions of DID tend to lean heavily on the phrase "it's a visual medium" and depict ways that characters can see, interact with and communicate with alters/parts in a dramatic setting. Off the top of my head Hulk is about the only form of fiction I've seen where the temptation to do this doesn't take over and even then the old "other face in the mirror" trope shows up there.

So for what it's worth the paranoid thinking and hallucinations are not DID symptoms and typically a person with the condition cannot see or hear their alters. In fact a testing criteria included in the MID exam is to rule out schizophrenia by eliminating the possibility that the voices heard are external or that any hallucinations exist. In Mr. Robot they are likely caused by Elliot's morphine addiction, but he gets clean after season 1 and Mr. Robot is always there.

There are some plot elements which I want to talk about but they do spoil the final "twist" of the show. So I want to warn again that anyone in the process of watching should be warned we are getting into entire show spoiler territory.

The Elliot we see in the show is the result of the stress fueled breakdown that Mr. Alderson had 6 months prior to the show starting. The timeline is fuzzy in my head but there were two triggers which set him off and began his condition flaring up (and/or caused him to lean harder into his drug addiction which in turn fueled his condition). The one we know about is that he was locked in a server room and forced to work long into the night on an issue and the already upset and stressed Elliot snapped and had a black-out.

We come to learn that he has had these his whole life but this is the first time such an incident occurred that he couldn't self-justify what had happened. He smashed up a server room, something he felt himself not capable of.

But the second trigger is the more important one.

His sister, Darlene, moved to NYC and started visiting him.

The bigger and better twist of season 1 is that Elliot and Darlene are siblings. This is hidden from Elliot and the audience for the first 7 episodes and her presence is treated much like Marla Singer from Fight Club, of whom she likely contains some inspiration, where she keeps showing up in Elliot's apartment and acting overly familiar with him.

In the earliest episodes when we are learning about Elliot's lonely life he looks at a photograph of himself and his mother at Coney Island. Due to some hallucinations we know that Magda is an abusive mother and screamed at/hit Elliot a lot. We learn more about her in future episodes and she is a truly horrible parent. Likely more than was ever depicted in the show.

The photo is actually of the full Alderson family including Darlene and Edward but is not shown as such until the reveals that Darlene is Elliot's sister and Mr. Robot is modeled after Elliot's father. The photograph is a reference to Back to the Future.

But it also is a fairly good visual representation of self-filtering information, even when it is contradictory in nature. This is common not just in DID but in all forms of CPTSD.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that develops during prolonged exposure to trauma and makes radical changes to the nervous system. CPTSD is considered a root of DID and it is universal for those diagnosed with DID to have a CPTSD diagnosis also.

One of the ways CPTSD symptoms manifest is "Emotional Avoidance". The nervous system is activated when triggers related to the trauma exist within the person's life. In order to function their brains push away these reminders and naturally avoid interacting with them. This causes those with the condition to become withdrawn, to isolate and to have distorted and often contradicting patterns of thought. For instance Elliot needs connection and safety that he associates with family but his family were his primary abusers and so he edits his memories to focus on positive associations such as a family trip to Coney Island that has become an obsession to him in adulthood. We later learn that Elliot's obsession with movies was born from it being his primary way of connecting with his father... which is fairly relatable.

His positive memories of his parents are held in high regard even though we know that his father "pushed him out of a window" and his mother used to put out cigarette butts on Darlene, tried to force her to commit animal cruelty and is often depicted in hallucinations as beating and screaming at Elliot.

In a case where it is impossible to avoid the traumatic trigger, for instance the return of relative who is a living reminder of his abusive childhood, the individual may begin to dissociate. Dissociation being where a person, overwhelmed by what they are experiencing has a separation from their normal state leading to a disconnect from emotions, sense of self and reality.

Episode 8 in particular contains a visual depiction of it when Elliot is having a quiet meltdown over finding out he has a 2 day deadline and his boss at work has known about the server exploit he installed all along.

(the show often uses the camera in ways to emphasize emotional walls, dissociation and isolation like this. This sequence does so by having hard cuts, shaky cam and frantic pace melt into a gliding slow lull where the background noise filters out and we can share in Elliot's distance from his situation for a moment)

Elliot's form of blocking out is extreme but has half a foot in reality (and half a foot in the logic born from the "twist" ending) in that in order to continue interacting with Darlene he views her as a member of Fsociety and edits out their connection until it is revealed in episode 7.

A small brilliancy about Fsociety is that the entire group is formed around Elliot and Darlene's need for childhood safety. The hacking elements of the show undoubtedly born from 9 year old Elliot spending time at Mr. Robot computer repair with a smile. The anon-mask that the show uses comes from an in-universe movie that Darlene and Elliot watched every Halloween and their base of operations is Coney Island. A place that both siblings seem to associate with safety and happiness...

Which is extra messed up when you factor Season 2's revelation that Darlene was kidnapped while on a family trip to Coney Island.

Darlene's panic attacks, need to feel special and her abusive upbringing are not the topic for this essay, but I wanted to make mention that Magda was such a horrible mother that a 4/5 year old Darlene thinks of being kidnapped from a family trip to Coney Island as one of her most precious childhood memories.

The desire to reach into the past and change things to create an ideal future is a heavy theme of the show and I feel it's important to note that though the Alderson siblings reject Whiterose and her scheme, they are both living in an almost literal fun house distortion of the few unambiguously GOOD childhood memories that they each have and have wrapped them around themselves like a protective blanket.

The plot of season 1 gets a lot more uncomfortable when you realize how much of Fsociety is two traumatized kids recreating positive elements of their childhood and trying to live inside of those memories while lashing out at those who took their father away from them. The entire plan is centered around events from 1995. The show takes place in 2015.

Mr. Robot himself is, of course, the ultimate symbol of that take on events.

Edward Alderson was a monster. He's referred to as such overtly in Elliot's detox fever dream. Everyone asks him who his "monster" is while handing him the key that we learn was to his childhood bedroom. A key that he hid to prevent Edward from entering his room late at night.

Yet throughout the first 3 seasons of the show we are only shown him in context of the positive memories that he and Elliot shared. Elliot was 9 years old when Edward passed away from leukemia.

At a point, Elliot is picked up from school. He has a bruise on his cheek and the scene begins with Edward asking "If I had to guess, you didn't tell Principal Howard your side.", assuring him it's okay to share his side of the story. Because Edward is convincing him to tell his side I am going to assume Elliot got into a fight but it's not impossible to assume that the school pulled Edward in to discuss the signs of physical abuse on the child. Edward would never tell Elliot to tell his side of that story so I assume it was a fight.

It's unclear if Mr. Robot is the one who participated in those fights (we only have 2 confirmed instances of Elliot's alters showing up in childhood. The window incident and the day Edward died) but Edward picks him up and protects him from his mother's wrath and bonds with him during that drive, he reveals his diagnosis to Elliot before inviting him to work with him at the computer repair store. Likely this is what leads to Elliot's hacker skills being born.

A hauntingly similar event in my own life is why I am a photographer.

Given that the majority of Season 1 has Elliot in the dark about his condition we are only given context as to why he is the way he is and see the display of dissociative symptoms which manifest from CPTSD. Mr. Robot existing at all is actually not required for this to be a good depiction of adults who grew up in abusive environments and the way they maladaptively cope.

I also want to give a little praise to the "itch at the back of [Elliot's] head" that shows up when he feels the desire to hack someone or dig deeper and the way he pushes forward with his own will until he calms down enough to let a creeping hesitation overcome him and prevent him from acting.

Passive Influence is part of DID. It's a situation where a "fronting" (that is to say part that is in control at a time) performs an unthinking action or is emotionally swayed by the influence of another part/alter that is not presently conscious. These are one of the biggest ways that the condition flies under the radar for many. When they are close to discovering proof of their condition they will often feel an unconscious push away from it. The phenomenon is fairly easily brushed aside internally as "a gut feeling" or an "impulse" but it's observable under the right conditions.

An instance I can think of in my own life is when our survival part is trying to push people away and our emotional part desperately tries to reach out. I will often find my hand grabbing a person's wrist and clinging tightly to it without even noticing that I've done it.

In the show Elliot is compelled by Mr. Robot when he feels someone is a danger or has a weakness that can be exploited. Part of him knows he needs to do something about it and so he lets himself be guided.

The season ends with The 5/9 Hack succeeding, all the financial data being encrypted and Elliot sent to prison for (minor) hacking charges.

He knows who Mr. Robot is now and he fears him as his enemy.

Season 2 (and the book): Exploration

The first 8 episodes of Season 2 are a filter for those watching the show, many drop off. Personally I love it but I can see why it's not for everyone. Season 2 is much slower than the first and Elliot is in prison for those 8 episodes. He's also imagining that prison is his mother's house.

That daydreaming coping mechanism is largely there to add a fairly unearned sense of mystery to a character development season and make things a little more visually interesting. For the most part I don't really want to focus too much on it or the way Elliot treats "us"/"friend".

The fact is that for this season Mr. Robot and Elliot are in direct conflict but they are feeling out their landscape and trying to find common ground. They are pulling in different directions but they are reacting and responding to one another. The show uses a chess match as a visual symbol of this and in such they are keeping one another in a constant state of check. They are opposed to one another but they are communicating and working things out.

So let's start by looking at the book. The book is a recreation of the in-universe journal that Elliot keeps while he is in prison. We see him writing in it during the show and the entire thing is available, it even includes little ARG elements to let you decode the messages Mr. Robot is receiving from The Dark Army.

The book is detailed like this and it's possible to note when Elliot's handwriting turns into Mr. Robot's handwriting. There are even points where there is "blended" handwriting. It's easy to spot in the above image because Mr. Robot writes with a heavy hand and in all caps where Elliot is soft and uses lower case, in the top line of the second page "you NeeD atteNtioN aNd aRe Willing to pay a lotta MoNey to get it." you can see Elliot slipping from one headspace to another while becoming upset at society.

Even still if you look above the FUCK SOCIETY image you see Elliot's calmer handwriting as clear and flowing.

When we were in denial of our condition we poured through journal after journal and chatlog after chatlog hunting for evidence to prove or disprove the theory.

It was when I looked at our old gaming journals (we took notes in pen/pencil live during TTRPG sessions because memory issues are gonna memory issues) that we noticed similar. Cursive used in some phrases, individual letters separate on another, the letters g and y getting curled at times and not at other times.

Subtler than what is displayed above but no less real.

Season 2 introduces us to Ray the warden brilliantly played by Craig Robinson. He empathizes with Elliot because he speaks to his dead wife as a means of coping with grief and assumes that Elliot is the same.

He offers Elliot guidance by asking him to play chess "against himself" and this leads to Elliot and Mr. Robot playing endless games of stalemate against one another with deletion on the line for the loser. It's the same brain and neither side wants to lose (nor do they truly want to win, Elliot admits as much in Season 3 that he likes having Mr. Robot and misses him when he's not around) and as noted above with passive influence, the games are always guided to end in a stalemate because no matter how opposed they are as forces, they both want the same things.

So... how about the Sitcom episode?

Elliot breaks his promise to Ray and looks at the website that he is tasked with doing tech support on. It's--- not good.

Ray uses a combination of crooked cops and convicted Neo-Nazis to have Elliot beaten into submission so he won't report what he saw. Elliot cannot handle this and has a mental break and wakes up in a 90s 4 camera sitcom world.

Alf is there. Because old episodes of Alf are playing in the medical ward at the time Elliot is being treated for his wounds.

The entire time he is taking a beating Mr. Robot is protecting Elliot by fronting and forcing him into an inner-world fantasy.

Okay... so Inner-Worlds.

In the show we actually had one of these in Season 1 during the detox trip but I want to talk about it now and round back and talk more in Season 4.

Inner-Worlds are a thing within DID treatment. Emphasis on the word treatment. It's one of the more commonly misunderstood things within discussion on the condition because it's regularly reported as part of the experiences within those who are diagnosed with DID but it's important to know that the existence of the diagnosis indicates the existence of treatment.

During any adapted 3 or 4 phase trauma treatment program that includes parts work, whether this be Internal Family Systems model which is used for individuals who do not have DID or system mapping and stabilization for those who do, the patient must work on creating a "meeting" space to visualize (or sense out emotionally for those with aphantasia) and much of the work of developing safety and structure within comes from filling that space with comforts and generating communication between parts.

I'll talk more on the "conference table" in Season 4.

It is possible for those not going through therapy to create one outside of the context of a therapeutic alliance but the creation of one is an intentional act. Not something that comes free with your childhood trauma.

Elliot's trip to the inner-world keeps him from experiencing any of the beating that the body is receiving and at the end Mr. Robot earnestly says he only wanted to take the punches for Elliot, nothing more. Elliot falls against him, tearful and whimpers out "Thank you" before we are given the flashback of the day Edward picked up 9 year old Elliot from school after the fight and confesses his leukemia.

For the record, my heart swells every time I see Mr. Robot acting as a protector.

So, let's talk S2E9 and the "blending" incident.

Blending is what happens when two parts/alters are co-conscious and are present enough that they are sharing control of the body. It's an uncomfortable experience. Co-Consciousness means that more than one part/alter is actively perceiving the world at any given time.

It's more complicated than binary yes/no. Every one of these experiences exists on a spectrum and no two people with the condition experience it quite the same way but there are levels of presence that one has.

The following is me talking more from anecdotes and personal experience than textbooks. I like to be clear when I'm not being academic because I do not want to spread misinformation in my arbitrary analysis of TV shows that will get 20 notes on Tumblr Dot Com.

Front is to be driving the body, to have your inner monologue playing (if you have one, most people do, but it's not a given) and have your emotions interact with the nervous system if you are grounded enough to feel your experiences. As I said, it's a spectrum. Everyone gets dissociated at times and can just go into auto-pilot or a trance. That all still counts as being in front.

To be conscious but not front is to exist in an emotionally reactive state. If Fronting is driving then co-consciousness is to be in the passenger seat.

It's truly difficult to describe and my therapist doesn't even fully comprehend it despite her being the one who educates me on these topics. Presently as I type this I can only feel one of our system (5 parts) active and "with" me right now. She's not speaking but she's reacting. I can feel her apprehension to us typing this much about our personal life, little flits of paranoid thinking that we'll get anon-hate or that people from our former life will see this and judge us. It's a presence and exists on a gradient. She's "awake" right now but I do not consider her fully "co-con" because if I asked her to tell me what she thinks about this sentence I can feel an emotional reaction (apprehension) but not a direct answer akin to "I think you should edit out references to our journal and focus on talking about the show" (which is what I imagine she would say right now). That's the spectrum.

Closer to the front a part/alter is the more direct communication happens.

There's also "asleep" and "dormant" when they are unresponsive. Pretty self explanatory. Elliot's system has 5 parts(plus "friend") and until Season 4 we only really see Mr. Robot and the main character version of Elliot. Magda and Young Elliot show up in hallucinations in Season 1 and Young Elliot is co-con in Season 4. Magda never shows up outside of emotional flashbacks and the inner-world.

So after Elliot and Mr. Robot combine forces (though Mr. Robot is still working with the Dark Army and is trying to move in secret) they have moments where they rapidly switch and cannot keep straight who is fronting at any given time.

There's a scene where Elliot is in another room thinking to "friend" when he hears an argument in the next room and realizes Mr. Robot is in the argument. As he walks in, Mr. Robot is surprised to see that Elliot is aware when he is fronting and he trails off and they switch.

Mr. Robot says that something feels off about how they are acting and that they feel like they're overheating.

A later scene depicts Elliot phasing out mid-conversation on the subway and picturing himself in the next car observing Mr. Robot talking to Cisco while a passenger plays erratic music on a keyboard.

That is such a horrifyingly accurate depiction of something we live with that I was stunned to see it on screen. I've included it in some of my stories that go over living with these experiences but the idea is when we are stressed out, can't keep our head straight and are blended like this we tend to have snippets of music playing over and over in our head. We also get what I refer to as "static" and that seems to be relatable in support groups.

A++ for the show depicting something about the DID experience that simply does not get spoken about outside of the spaces of people dealing with it. It was the moment I knew they actually spoke to people who experience this stuff and did proper research that wasn't just media depictions and medical textbooks.

The final part of Season 2's wild ride I want to talk about is the "lucid dreaming" bit.

Mind awake. Body asleep. Mind awake. Body asleep.

This again goes into Overt DID which I cannot comment on as much as covert depictions but the idea is that Elliot trains himself to remain awake when Mr. Robot takes over. We have seen from the blending experience that he is starting to remain when Mr. Robot is active and so he tries to force himself to stay when Mr. Robot is active.

In therapy this would be achieved through trust, communication and awareness. It's said in communities that systems tend to become more overt as they go through treatment as they are able to identify lines, parts can advocate for themselves and there's better understanding of what "self" means for every alter.

In my experience there's also an element of trying to pretend to be consistent and whole. We were coming out transgender when our therapist guided us towards DID diagnosis and there was a lot of tearing ourselves apart because we needed to act in a certain way for our safety and inability to do so put us at risk of being targeted. In accepting our system we have stopped trying to be the same individual and that has lead to a more overt presentation. As I tell my therapist "we need to act out our gender expression anyway. Every action we take is a performance."

That is to say, Mr. Robot has never attempted to maintain the illusion that he is Elliot Alderson (albeit he never identifies himself. He's even surprised to learn that Elliot calls him that) and Elliot doesn't even know he is "The Mastermind".

In opting to remain hidden and conscious he gains a greater degree of control and agency in his situation.

These things get easier as you learn your condition, build system trust and allow yourself to experience that which you feel comfortable experiencing. With the example of the beating earlier, Mr. Robot shut Elliot out and took the beating for him and Elliot resisted but ultimately did not want to be present. In this episode he learns that if he wishes he could have pushed through and been there and experienced everything, albeit as a passenger rather than the driver.

Therapy also teaches how to "go into the back room" to maintain stability. A technique that lets you volunteer to not be involved in a situation. My system all use this whenever I (Dawn) perform erotic intimacy of any kind. They cannot handle the thought of associating with those acts and prior to treatment it would emotionally disregulate our nervous system if parts that couldn't handle the concept were to be present during those moments because parts of me would be trying to dissociate while I am trying to act. It would either trigger a switch, cause blending or make a part shut down and become unresponsive for a large period of time- one of our partners actually discovered our system this way. She saw us shut down during a scene and realized it wasn't just a "mood swing" as we had insisted.

Elliot learns how to intentionally open up and be present when Mr. Robot is active and because Plot happens he is shot and decides to use this skill to close himself off and create a stronger divide between parts.

Season 3: Rejection

If Season 2 was the pair working things out on a chess match where they keep one another in check then Season 3 is after Elliot has tossed the board and decided to shut Mr. Robot out completely.

The arc words are "battling in our own voids", in Season 1 Mr. Robot was always aware of what Elliot was doing but Elliot was unaware of Mr. Robot's actions and in Season 2 they were fairly co-conscious to the point of overheating. Season 3 the connection is shut down. Mr. Robot has no concept of what Elliot is doing and Elliot no concept of what Mr. Robot is doing.

This goes back to the Overt/Covert thing mentioned at the start. It's a rare thing even within a rare disorder to have that level of amnesia barriers between parts and so I can't really comment on accuracy. It's a frustrating season for me in that regard because Season 2 was doing so well at depicting something that I have lived through that going back to Fight Club tropes was fairly disappointing to me.

Season 3 is great by the way. It's a debate on if 3 or 4 is the best but it's close enough that there is a debate.

The real meat of the discussion, spare for the events of the final episode where they reconcile, is in how other people treat them and talk about their condition.

Angela Moss is Elliot's childhood best friend and also lost a parent to the disaster that claimed Edward Alderson's life. She discovered Elliot's condition during his breakdown in S1E8 and was brainwashed by the show villain Whiterose in S2E11 (I have a write-up of the psychological principals at play with the brainwashing here).

In Season 3 she acts as Elliot/Mr. Robot's handler and is responsible for helping Mr. Robot continue his hacktivist terrorism without Elliot finding out. She betrays Elliot and exploits his condition. She also tells people about it without his knowledge or consent, which is pretty fucking monstrous in my eyes.

Don't out a person. Just don't do it.

When Mr. Robot asks how she can tell who she's talking to she responds "Your eyes. You're never trying to look away." which is accurate enough that I messaged my girlfriend to be sappy and grateful towards her as the first time she noticed our condition she told me it was our eyes.

From a 2022 IM chat, shared with permission:

"it's ... well, it's [...] your eyes soften, kind of, when going to Cammie. Dawn has this piercing gaze, like she's looking right into my heart and soul. Camden is just very alert, noticing so many things but not the level of piercing. Cammie... her gaze is softer. More focused, but in a ... drinking everything in, rather than seeking it out sort of way"

and added today when I asked for permission to share the quote:

"(for the record, Craig draws his eyebrows down in a particular way that makes his gaze intense in a good way)"

The show works as hard as it can to never let the audience wonder who they are seeing on screen at any time. Most scenes where Rami Malek is depicting Mr. Robot it is a brief perspective view to remind us what the other characters are seeing before switching back to Christian Slater playing the character. There are a few scenes which involve Rami playing the character for a full sequence. One is the context for a flashback where we see a scene Slater performed through another character's eyes where they see Malek.

The others usually involve us being in Darlene's perspective to highlight her unease and uncertainty of what is happening with her brother.

The only scene where it is ever treated as a surprise is when Darlene plants a bug on Elliot's computer while staying overnight and is roughly interrogated by "Elliot", only to realize midway through the conversation "Jesus. It's you".

The camera cuts back to reveal it has been Mr. Robot the entire scene. They avoid that trick throughout the show so it has large impact when it actually happens.

I feel like that scene (as well as the scene where Elliot wears the real Mr. Robot jacket and gives birth to the 2 Stage plan to take down Evil Corp) are important for reminding that no matter how differently Malek and Slater play their roles, to an outside observer they are the same person and when he acts "out of character" it could easily just be an emotional outburst.

Incidentally you can see the physicality of the acting if you go back and watch it again.

The end of the season has Elliot, betrayed, alone and terrified for the safety of his sister; finally reach out to Mr. Robot and open a dialogue.

He even goes out of his way to have this discussion on the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island both as a Season 1 callback and as a sign of trust. Elliot admits in this conversation that he missed Mr. Robot while he shut him out and wants him to be part of his life and in the season finale Mr. Robot says that he wants the two of them to keep talking.

Elliot also finds out that the window incident wasn't his dad pushing him out of a window. They jumped. Elliot asks in a kind and soft way to Mr. Robot, representing both his protector and an element of the loving father he wished he had, "did you know?"

Mr. Robot, the one who jumped. The one who wanted to protect Elliot from Edward says nothing. But he finally feels an alliance form with Elliot.

The road to healing finally has opened.

Season 4: Integration and Fusion

So let's address the elephant in the room right away. The show uses the word "real" to describe the Elliot who existed before the show started and considers him to be the only legitimate alter. There is enough wiggle room within the show to think that is in-universe ignorance but the show does nothing to prevent the fumble at the finish line.

I want to say upfront and before I start dissecting this season that outdated models of DID believed that there was a crack formed in a person's sense of self and that healing involved restoring the identity prior to the crack.

This is 100% UNTRUE and it upsets me that people once believed it. DID is formed in childhood during a time of a person's life (between ages 4-9) where the child is taking in data from their surroundings and integrating it into their socialized survival mechanics to form a personality. The child is working out what traits it can exhibit to receive nurture, care and protection from other humans and will adapt to those processes. Attachment Theory goes into greater detail about how this relates to the formation of psychological disorders, especially personality disorders.

For a traumatized child they will find that their environments do not offer consistent and reliable safety and thus they are unable to adapt to a version of their reality where they are able to maintain stable safety. This may be horrifying forms of physical, emotional and sexual abuse placed upon a child and is often depicted as such but it can also be a confused child trying to get affection from a cold and distant parent or having a parent who abuses alcohol and becomes inconsistent in their ability to give affection and care. Child psychology is a heavy and depressing field, sadly.

The result is that the child never forms a permanent sense of identity. This is a large factor in the formation of Borderline Personality Disorder and is why DID and BPD are so often thrown together within medical treatment and diagnosis. It's at the point of which when my therapist gave me our diagnosis she presented a clinical list of "myths" regarding DID and "BPD is the same thing as DID" was 5 on the list of 6.

The point of this detour is to say that there is no original self. A person who has DID never managed to form a stable sense of identity in childhood and thus they find themselves acting as chameleons in their day-to-day life, adapting to what they feel they need to become in order to receive the things they need from their surroundings. It's why there is a stigma in the BPD community over the concept of being "manipulative". In reality people with that condition are unconsciously adapting to their environment as a survival mechanism. With DID the added layer of dissociation is there to help the self function even when they are forced to interact with materials that are incompatible with their ability to function.

Pre-show Elliot was living a fairly comfortable life but his emotional needs were not met and at the time he was alienated from his sister. He was miserable and lived in a society that he felt was crumbling. His daydreaming gave birth to "The Mastermind" to remove the threats from his reality and Mr. Robot who had been there all along went into Protective Sicko Mode and decided to expedite the process in a way only a protector's morality could.

We'll get into system roles a little later.

The point is that day-to-day life Elliot (Janina Fisher's book "Healing the Fragmented Self" refers to the part untouched by trauma as the "going about daily life" part) is not Real. He is not The Original. Those terms do not exist and are meaningless in this space.

True/Real/Orignal-Elliot is as much a construct as Mr. Robot. He's a version of Elliot who does not have to think about the trauma, he can just live a happy normal life. The kind that Elliot speaks often and derisively about in Season 1.

With that out of the way, I'm going to ignore the bad use of language and talk only about what is depicted on the screen and not said out loud. Because if you remove the misconception about real/original from the mixture, this is a perfect depiction of final fusion model healing.

Season 4 introduces us to the conference table in the inner world. A conference table is a therapeutic technique used in trauma therapy where you bring the alters/parts to a conference. The idea is that it needs to be a neutral ground where everyone is comfortable and able to share their thoughts and ideas. With practice it can be a space one can close their eyes and imagine, seeing their system and allowing communication to happen between parts.

Mine is based on the Minerals Gallery in the Natural History Museum in London. I refer to it as The Library. You didn't need to know that but I didn't want to discuss this section without mentioning it.

Elliot's is the conference room in Evil Corp where he and Tyrell spoke in the first episode.

Interestingly enough there are only 4 seats in this set. I'm not sure what the implication is here as in the scene depicted above Magda (Persecutor Alter) is scolding Young Elliot (Child Alter) for sitting in a chair that isn't his. They mention all 3 alters who are not present (Elliot, Mr. Robot and The Other One).

My thought is that this is the show going all in on the idea that Elliot ("Real") is not an alter and does not take a seat at the table. Which I have issues with.

I'll note as I did with the inner-world that this is a therapy technique and not something Elliot would just have in his mind. It's an accurate depiction of DID treatment but Elliot isn't being treated for DID. Krista is no way near close enough to be able to help Elliot. She's wonderful and deserves the world and more for how she handles things in this season but she's in the pre-stabilization phase of therapy where she knows more than Elliot is willing to accept and needs to wait for him to come around.

Speaking of Krista. Episode 7 is the greatest hour of television rivaled only by Ozymandias from Breaking Bad and the M*A*S*H finale. At present it has a 9.9 on IMDB.

The episode is structured as a bottle episode in way of a 5 act play depicting the stages of grief. This is the episode where Elliot peels back to dissociative layers and understands the truth. The truth of what his father did.

I won't type it.

I don't need to.

The next episode involves Elliot seeing Young Elliot and following him to a museum exhibit with a model of Manhattan. In Season 1 when Elliot had his psychotic break after realizing Darlene is his sister Darlene and Angela checked this location stating it was a place he used to go in times of crisis.

It turns out when he was young Elliot hid the key to his bedroom here to prevent Edward from getting in. All these years later adult Elliot (or "The Mastermind" if you prefer, which I do not) discovers it and has a heart-to-heart with his younger self, screaming into the emptiness that he's sorry for not protecting him. Sorry for letting him get hurt.

The scene is lit in the golden hues that symbolize safety in this show. The final season also takes place during Christmas in New York so it gets to show off that color palette more often which is great for symbolism and aesthetic.

Young Elliot shows that the act of hiding the key from their father was protecting him. It was fighting back. Sometimes surviving is the best you can do and you need to forgive yourself for not being able to do more.

God I love this show so much.

That episode ends with the scene I most want to just overtly show off to an audience.

I already loved the show. The final episode may have broken my heart a little with its talk of "Real" but this scene? This scene gets it.

Prior to the above video clip Mr. Robot cautiously approaches and says "Hey, kiddo". Something he always says. It's who he is. Regardless of anything else he, Mr. Robot, is designed from the father Elliot wishes he had and when he hears Mr. Robot-- no Edward's voice he tenses up in terror, allowing the above scene to take place with Mr. Robot so scared that he has failed as a protector by allowing Elliot to remember and that he cannot be there for him any longer because of who he is based off of.

Those with the condition commonly create alters who are based on the traits of those in the child's life at the time the symptoms developed. I... have experience.

The lines I want to focus on the most are:

Mr Robot: If I could go back in time and change everything that happened to you... just make it all go away...

Elliot: Then I wouldn't be me... *He turns to finally look at Mr. Robot* ...and I wouldn't have you.

The final arc of the show is where the "Mastermind" twist takes center stage and Elliot enters his inner-world and finds out that he created a peaceful reality for "Real" Elliot to exist in so that he is unharmed by the horrors of the world that is crumbling in reality. Mr. Robot, as a protector, wanted to expedite the whole hack and destruction of capitalism in order to rescue "Real" Elliot from the inner-world prison. In time he came to accept "Mastermind" as a part of the whole and not a rogue alter who was endangering the body and their "Host".

S4E13 lays it all down. An imagined version of Krista speaks directly to Elliot and explains the system and their functions. Mr. Robot a father and protector who could prevent Elliot from intolerable situations. Magda, a persecutor who blamed Elliot for the abuse. Young Elliot, who Elliot could push the traumatic situations on, a common thing that many do unconsciously in CPTSD situations, dissociating from the person the trauma happened to, disconnecting until they are just another version of self.

Elliot then says "I guess she doesn't know about you." referring to us, the audience.

Krista(*) looks into the camera and addresses us directly, calling us the voyeurs who pretend we're not a part of it even though we have been here for it all. She even claims we are on her side in getting "Mastermind" to accept he is a constructed personality who was there to lash out at the society that caused him so much pain.

"You loved him so much you wanted to keep him safe, no matter the cost."

The episode ends with "Mastermind" Elliot waking up in a hospital and reuniting with Darlene only to realize that she has known the entire time that the person we have been following throughout the show wasn't her "real" brother.

...and god damn it I hate this element of the show so much.

I'll accept that they had very little time to clean things up and needed to get a way to have Mastermind agree to the fusion. I'll even demonize Darlene and say she was being selfish and ignorant in saying something hurtful because she missed the version of her brother that existed before Fsociety.

But Our version of Elliot says that he loves her and she doesn't reply. Her disappointment and resignation causes Our Elliot to go back inside and agree to the fusion.

The show ends in a first person perspective of Darlene seeing her "real" brother wake up and that's it. I'm glad we never actually see "Real" Elliot, that feels fitting.

Here's the thing about that last minute fumble though.

Let's talk about Integration and Fusion. They are different things.

Integration is when dissociative barriers come down. The system is stabilized to the point of which the alters are capable of communicating openly, sharing thoughts, memories and experiences and every part has the ability to opt in or out as life goes on.

"Functional Multiplicity" is what happens when a system is in harmony, no memories are being withheld and the system is able to go about everyday life with minimal disruption or disregulation. It is a valid goal for trauma therapy and there's a decent amount of medical stigma around it being used as the goal and not a step towards the goal. Many clinicians prioritize the appearance of normalcy over the function of the individual(s).

Fusion is when you go the extra step and take this communication and sharing of memory and experience and as you tore down the dissociative barriers you tear away the division between parts.

A system is made up of parts that make up a whole person and Fusion is the process of all parts uniting to "become" that whole person. It is a valid and normal goal for treatment. It shouldn't be held up as the only legitimate method of healing but it shouldn't be demonized for being an option. I say this because I have seen some people in support communities get real upset when the topic comes up.

The final sequence of the show, prior to Elliot opening his eyes, involves the system at the inner-world conference table agreeing to go through with it and walking towards a cinema screen. Elliot says this will only work if we go too.

The family (and audience) sit down in the movie theatre and memories flood onto the screen and pour out until all experiences and emotions are shared in one pool and Elliot Alderson opens his eyes with all 5(+audience) alters fused into one.

It was almost perfect if only Darlene hadn't have rejected the "not real" brother.

The cinema screen projecting memories, all the thoughts and experiences being shared as the Alderson System accept their parts in the whole and agree to the process? It was a beautiful visualization of a healing journey.

There are imperfect moments here and there. There are great moments I skipped over such as S3E8 (I'm not up for talking about Self-Deletion today) but all in all it's the best depiction of DID for a main character we'll likely get on TV. It's a whole and complete narrative and I love it so much. It makes me feel seen.

[duckprintspress]

hey, i'd like to just throw this out to you, since you're a press so i have a feeling you might know. if i was seeking to publish a book but i didn't want it to ever be sold through amazon, what would my options be?

Hiya!

I'm assuming you mean you're interested in self-publishing? If yes, then yeah, I can give you at least some information about your options. :D

If you don't want to use Amazon, you definitely still have some options for self-publishing a book. I can sympathize with this sentiment; we hate Amazon and I've done what I can to keep our works off there (and, ultimately, failed, but still kept it to a minimum).

There's two overarching questions you'll need to consider when deciding how to proceed:

What formats are you selling? Are you doing e-book only or e-book + print or print book only? What about audiobooks? Which will influence your choices.

Are you mostly interested in direct sales (as in, you personally sell the book to the customer) or sales-through-an-intermediary (as in, a bookstore sells your book to a customer) or distribution (as in, you list the book with someone who acts as an intermediary between you and other vendors)?

As briefly as I can, first, here's what Duck Prints Press uses:

Ingram - e-book (and, once we have one - we're working on our first! - audiobook) distribution. Ingram is the biggest book distributor in the US and has a virtual monopoly on distribution. Even places that aren't technically Ingram, such as draft2digital, usually use Ingram. Because they're a near-monopoly, Ingram has a lot of ability to, well, screw people, and one way they've tried to screw people is they keep making it harder to get into their better services, pushing people to their much-less-supported service IngramSpark. I managed to get the Press grand-fathered in to Coresource, which is their e-book and audiobook distribution system, even tho we don't meet the current minimums for number of titles for that product. I CAN'T get into Lightning Source, which is their better-supported print book distribution service, because we don't have enough titles (we'd need 30, we currently have 10ish). If I wanted to use IngramSpark, I'd have to ditch Coresource, and I don't want to do that because Coresource works great and has good customer support, and so I had to settle on a compromise I don't love until we meet the minimums for Lightning Source - I use Coresource through Ingram for e-book distribution (and don't distribute to Amazon), which is...

draft2digital - print book distribution. This was my work around for not losing Coresource in the name of getting Ingram print on demand (pod), and it came with a price: d2d doesn't let me opt out of Amazon, much to my irritation. So the three titles we currently have pod on ARE on Amazon.

our webstore - e-book and print books, directly sold to the public. Our website lets people download e-books; I package print book orders made through the webstore myself and mail them myself.

in-person sales - I started vending at events last year; this year I'll be doing about a dozen.

All of which goes to show, even trying to publish while avoiding the most evil places is really hard and a source of frustration. If anyone knows a good option for ethical publishing distribution, I'm honestly all ears. Competing with Ingram is extremely David vs. Goliath (see also the recent death of Small Press Distribution).

So: remembering that Amazon is easily the worst but that there's still basically no ethical consumption or production under capitalism...

Ingram

Of the places I'm familiar with, the best-known option with the widest reach for self-publishing distribution is IngramSpark. As mentioned, I don't use Spark, but Coresource lets me completely customize which of Ingram's partners (vendors, wholesalers, libraries, etc.) I actually distribute with, and I've assumed that other Ingram products are the same. I believe IngramSpark is currently free per title; they get paid by charging fees per sale and because they get better listing deals with partners than an individual would get (like, Ingram might get charged x per title they list with, idk, Barnes and Noble, whereas you as an individual would get charged y, where y is larger than x, and Ingram pockets the difference).

I know a lot of people who use IngramSpark and my impression is that when it works, it works really well, but when it doesn't, getting help/customer service can be a nightmare. Virtually everyone I know who has used them has stories about late titles, support taking a week+ to reply, that kind of thing. I believe they have an option to pay for better/more rapid responses from customer support, which I feel kinda tells you everything you need to know about IngramSpark.

Draft2Digital

Another option is draft2digital. They use the Ingram distribution network, but again they can do so cheaper than an individual can because of their bulk sales through Ingram. They also offer e-book, audiobook, and print distribution. I use draft2digital for print and I've been quite satisfied with their customer support, but their print distribution doesn't allow opt-out of Amazon. HOWEVER, I believe their e-book distribution does. At minimum, there's a checklist on d2d about "steps you have to take to distribute e-books through d2d" and I'm assuming if you just. didn't do that checklist. then you obviously wouldn't get your books distributed through them. The other big thing I don't like about d2d (which may also be true of IngramSpark, idk) is that they charge after the first revision. Which is to say: you put together your book, you upload your book, you get it all set... and you notice a mistake. Okay, fine. You fix the mistake and re-upload. Re-uploading uses a "change token." You only get one free change token per title per six months. So, you notice another mistake you feel you have to fix a few days after that first? That'll cost $25. I've personally just kinda... tried to find all my mistakes right off and fix them, and anything I spot after that, I keep a log and will update all of them at the six month point. (I understand why they do this, btw - they have actual humans doing set-up on their end, so if you revise eight times in a week, that's a lot for an actual human, and charging for the tokens forces people to be careful, helps ensure people submit books that are actually ready in good faith, and helps keep costs low. That doesn't mean it's not annoying, though.)

Bookvault

Bookvault is a UK-based print-on-demand option (so NO e-book distribution, just print) that has recently started offerings in the US too. They currently have a relatively limited distribution network, but they're growing, and especially for UK-based people they're a strong alternative. I've heard a lot of positive reports about their printing in a FB group I'm in (Kickstarter for Authors - do recommend, lots of great info there), but I'll own my personal experiences weren't great and I've decided not to keep using them for now. However, if what you primarily want is print books as print-on-demand, and some limited distribution choices, they're a good choice, and they can help with option five below.

Do It Yourself Lite

A fourth option that's a LOT of work is...you add it everywhere yourself. Most places will let you. For example, here's how to sell on Barnes and Noble.com. When I self-pubbed a book a few years back, before I ran the Press, I submitted my work by hand to several different options (B&N, Kobo, Amazon because I still used them then, Smashwords, to name a few). However, doing this isn't the same as distribution - it only will sell through that specific vendor - and as far as I know there are no options for doing print-on-demand those ways (I THINK, tho I'm not sure, that Amazon is the only place you can set up both e-book and pod through a single vendor - it's not something I've researched tho, cause with the Press, doing single-title-at-a-time entry across so many different vendors is simply not realistic).

Side note on this: I don't believe there's a way to list self-pub books on Bookshop.org, but don't quote me on that.

This method also doesn't work well if you want to get your title in with libraries. I researched this a bit well over a year ago now, so I don't recall all the details, but before we signed up for Ingram I DID try to see if there was a way for us to publish and get in libraries especially without involving them, but there...wasn't really. Places like Overdrive that handle e-book-to-library distribution don't really have a way for individuals to submit; I have this vague memory I found a way to do it that involved paying per title but tbh I can't even find that now (though while I was looking I did find this decent-looking article about how to get your self-published book out in the world, echoing a lot of what I say here).

Do It Yourself Difficult Mode

Your fifth major option, and what we originally did as a press, is: do it all yourself. You can get your own storefront (ours is through Woocommerce + Wordpress). You can do your own crowdfunding. You can run your own newsletter (I use Mailerlite), do your own advertising, etc. You can do your own printing (we currently use Booklogix and I'm quite happy with them, their customer service is A+++). You can vend at events, you can market to local bookstores, sell through bookstores that do consignment, etc. You can learn to format your own e-books (I use a combination of Affinity software and Calibre, with an assist from Daisy to improve the accessibility of our e-books). You can get access to stock images and vector art to make things look nice (I use vecteezy). There's a LOT you can do entirely on your own. And that's what I did for myself before I ran the Press, and what I did for the Press for the first couple years we operated.

The reason I changed how the Press handles things? I hate to say this but the sad truth of publishing is that not using Amazon is utterly crippling to a publisher. As of 2 years ago, Amazon represented 67% of all book sales in the United States. Not selling through Amazon means accepting you'll simply be completely unable to reach more than half of the people reading works in English all around the world (works not in English may be different, I don't know that market since I publish in English). And for myself, alone - for my works? I could make that choice. But the Press currently works with well over 100 authors, and I ultimately felt I couldn't make the same choice to them. I tried so so hard not to compromise this, but refusing all distribution, when we were also avoiding Amazon, meant completely hamstringing the ability of authors we work with to market and sell their books. It meant, to work with us, people would have to sacrifice so much of their ability to earn money from their words, and it just didn't feel right to continue in that avenue as we grew. So, I was forced to compromise: first to use Ingram, which I did on the condition that I'd be able to reject Amazon specifically, and then by having to use draft2digital, including their goddamn Amazon print-on-demand, at least until I qualify for a better option, which as soon as I can do? You bet your butt I'll be switching and opting out of Amazon again.

The current climate makes these choices really hard, and I didn't make them lightly, nor did I make them alone - there's about 20 people on the DPP staff, and they all contributed opinions and voted on the final decisions I implemented for the Press in these regards.

(and sorry, I know "what DPP does and why" is a bit to the left of your actual question, but I felt like it'd be weird to make a list of recommendations without including the decisions I've personally made and why - like, why would I recommend you something I don't do myself with the books I publish? So sorry for the info dump.)

The TL:DR of all this is, as far as I know, and as I've been forced to accept as part of the realities of running a small press in the modern world of publishing, is that avoiding one Big Evil (Amazon) with any hope of achieving even a modicum of success basically requires partnering with at least one other Big Evil (Ingram especially). It's a very hard game to win.

HOWEVER, you are doing this FOR YOURSELF, NOT for all the people involved in a business larger than just you. If you're willing to put in the extra work to figure out a lot on your own and manage your own marketing, you can theoretically build enough of an audience to go it alone without Amazon OR Ingram OR places like Kobo/B&N/etc. You'll have to outlay more out of pocket - things like webhosting cost money - and you'll have to be a lot more careful - if you're running your own website instead of using someone elses, you gotta go above and beyond making you're in compliance with privacy rules and such - but it can be done.

And if you don't want to go that route, and your only real "to avoid" is Amazon specifically... use IngramSpark.

Sorry I'm long-winded. I hope this helps! Good luck with your publishing goals!

(and if others reading this have some other advice and resources, things I may not know about, please do weigh in! I bet the asker would like to know, and I'm always eager to learn about new options too.)

[sublimecolorsuit]

**Outsourcing vs. In-House IT: Finding the Right Balance for SMBs in New York’s Competitive Market**

Introduction

In this day’s all of a sudden evolving technological landscape, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in New York face a imperative resolution: should still they outsource their IT necessities or build an in-dwelling team? This query is awfully urgent in a competitive marketplace where effectivity, defense, and suppleness are non-negotiable. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have set top ideas for IT functions, and SMBs ought to determine how you can preserve tempo.

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This article dives deep into the nuances of outsourcing vs. in-house IT that can assist you discover the top balance on your enterprise. We'll explore all the things from rate implications and useful resource management to cybersecurity measures and compliance with specifications like NIST, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.

Outsourcing vs. In-House IT: Finding the Right Balance for SMBs in New York’s Competitive Market Understanding IT Needs Assessing Your Business Requirements

Before diving into outsourcing versus building an in-house team, it’s fundamental to assess your one of a kind IT requirements. Are you broadly speaking centred on guaranteeing sturdy network infrastructure? Or do you desire specialized talent like cybersecurity or cloud expertise?

Identify Core Competencies: What features of IT are major in your operations? Evaluate Current Capabilities: Do you might have existing team whose abilities may well be leveraged? Determine Future Needs: As your industry grows, what further features may you require? Common IT Challenges Faced with the aid of SMBs

Many SMBs stumble upon identical demanding situations whilst coping with their understanding science:

Limited budgets prohibit hiring gifted specialists. The want for really expert expertise routinely results in hiring difficulties. Cybersecurity threats have become increasingly more advanced.

Understanding these challenges is step one closer to making an instructed https://ameblo.jp/remingtonzqpr790/entry-12897681595.html determination approximately regardless of whether to outsource or take care of an in-area crew.

The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Benefits of Outsourcing IT Services

Outsourcing has emerged as a doable alternative for lots SMBs trying to handle bills even as preserving top of the range provider. Here are a few compelling advantages:

Cost Efficiency: By outsourcing, establishments can store cost on salaries, merits, and overhead quotes linked to asserting an in-space group. Access to Expertise: Many outsourced vendors concentrate on a number fields inclusive of controlled detection and reaction or endpoint detection and response. Scalability: Outsourced ideas enable establishments to swiftly scale their IT competencies up or down centered on demand. Potential Drawbacks of Outsourcing

However, outsourcing isn't very without its challenges:

Loss of Control: Handing over duties way much less direct manage over methods. Communication Barriers: Working with assorted time zones or cultures can result in misunderstandings.

[taxveda]

Difference Between GST and Company Registration– Do You Need Both?

When starting a new business, entrepreneurs often get confused between GST and Company Registration. While both registration are essential for business compliance, but they serve different purposes. If you are planning to start a business in Jaipur, understanding the differences can help you avoid legal hassles and ensure smooth operations.

What is Company Registration?

Company Registration is the process of legally incorporating your business entity under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). This provides your business with a distinct legal identity, allowing it to enter contracts, own assets, and be legally recognized as a separate entity from its owners.

Why is Company Registration Important?

Gives your business a separate legal identity.

Protects personal assets from business liabilities.

Enhances credibility with clients, investors, and banks.

Allows for easier fundraising and business expansion.

Ensures compliance with corporate laws and regulations.

Types of Business Entities You Can Register:

Private Limited Company (Pvt Ltd) – Most preferred for startups and medium-sized businesses.

Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) – Suitable for professional firms and small businesses.

One Person Company (OPC) – It is ideal for solo person entrepreneurs.

Partnership Firm – Traditional business structure for multiple owners.

Sole Proprietorship – Simplest business form, no separate legal identity.

What is GST Registration?

It is mandatory for businesses that exceed the turnover threshold prescribed by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act. It allows businesses to collect GST from customers and claim Input Tax Credit (ITC) on purchases, ensuring compliance with India's indirect tax system.

When is GST Registration Required?

If your business turnover is more than ₹40 lakh (₹20 lakh for service providers).

If you engage in interstate trade or e-commerce.

If you are a supplier of goods/services to other GST-registered businesses.

If you provide services online (freelancing, digital marketing, SaaS, etc.).

If you run an ecommerce business (Amazon, Flipkart, Shopify, etc.).

Benefits of GST Registration

Legal recognition as a supplier of goods/services.

Ability to collect GST from customers and claim ITC on purchases.

Helps in business expansion, as many B2B clients prefer GST-registered vendors.

Required for government tenders and contracts.

Reduces cascading tax effects by allowing seamless input tax credit.

Key Differences Between GST and Company Registration

Do You Need Both GST and Company Registration in Jaipur?

If you are starting a new business in Jaipur, you may need both registrations depending on your business structure and operations:

If you plan to incorporate a Pvt Ltd or LLP, Company Registration is mandatory.

If your business crosses the GST turnover threshold, GST Registration is compulsory.

If you operate as a sole proprietor or freelancer, you may not need Company Registration, but GST Registration is necessary if you provide taxable services.

If you plan to sell goods/services online via Amazon, Flipkart, or your own website, GST Registration is mandatory regardless of turnover.

How Tax Veda Consulting Can Help in Jaipur

Navigating the GST and Company registration process can be complex. At Tax Veda Consulting, we specialize in helping startups and businesses in Jaipur with hassle-free registration services. Our experts ensure compliance with MCA and GST regulations, so you can focus on growing your business.

Our Services Include:

Company Registration (Pvt Ltd, LLP, OPC, etc.)

GST Registration & Compliance

Annual Return Filing & Compliance Management

Tax Planning & Advisory

Business Setup Consultants in Jaipur

Conclusion

Both Company and GST Registration are crucial but serve different purposes. While Company Registration gives your business a legal identity, GST Registration ensures tax compliance. If you need professional assistance, reach out to Tax Veda Consulting in Jaipur for a smooth registration process.For expert guidance on Company and GST registration, contact us today and get your business legally compliant!

[govindhtech]

CrowdStrike Outage: Customers Independent Cybersecurity Firm

Supporting customers during the CrowdStrike outage Independent cybersecurity firm. CrowdStrike launched a software upgrade that started affecting IT systems all across the world. They would like to provide an update on the efforts that were made with CrowdStrike and others to remedy and help consumers, even though this was not a Microsoft issue and it affects the entire ecosystem.

CrowdStrike outage

Everyone have been in constant contact with customers, CrowdStrike outage, and outside developers since the start of this incident in order to gather data and hasten resolutions. It are aware of the impact this issue has brought to many people’s everyday routines as well as companies. The primary objective is to help customers safely restore interrupted systems back online by offering technical advice and support. Among the actions made are:

Using CrowdStrike to automate their solution development process.

In addition to providing a workaround recommendation, CrowdStrike has made a public statement on this vulnerability.

The Windows Message Centre contained instructions on how to fix the issue on Windows endpoints.

Deploying hundreds of engineers and specialists from Microsoft to collaborate directly with clients in order to restore services.

In order to inform ongoing discussions with CrowdStrike and customers, us are working together with other cloud providers and stakeholders, such as Google  Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), to share awareness on the state of effect they are each witnessing throughout the sector.

publishing the scripts and documentation for manual cleanup as soon as possible.

Customers will be updated on the incident’s status via the Azure Status Dashboard, available here.

They are constantly updating and supporting customers while working around the clock.

CrowdStrike has also assisted us in creating a scalable solution that would speed up Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure’s correction of CrowdStrike’s flawed update.

They have also collaborated on the most efficient methods with AWS and GCP.

CrowdStrike update

Software changes might occasionally create disruptions, but major events like the CrowdStrike event don’t happen often. As of right now, researchers calculate that 8.5 million Windows devices less than 1% of all Windows computers were impacted by CrowdStrike’s update. Even though the percentage was low, the usage of CrowdStrike by businesses that manage numerous vital services has a significant influence on the economy and society.

This event highlights how intertwined the large ecosystem consisting of consumers, software platforms, security and other software vendors, and worldwide cloud providers is. It serves as a reminder of how critical it is that everyone in the tech ecosystem prioritizes disaster recovery utilising existing channels and safe deployment practices.

As the past two days have demonstrated, cooperation and teamwork are the keys to learning, healing, and forward motion. They value the cooperation and teamwork of everyone in this sector, and will continue to keep you informed about the results and future plans.

Overview

An CrowdStrike outage can be a difficult occurrence for any organisation in the ever-changing field cybersecurity . Their resilience and readiness were put to the test recently when a significant CrowdStrike outage affected customers. This post seeks to give a thorough explanation of how they supported the clients at this crucial time, making sure their cybersecurity requirements were satisfied with the highest effectiveness and consideration.

Comprehending the CrowdStrike Incident

One of the top cybersecurity companies’ services experienced problems due to the unanticipated CrowdStrike outage. Many organizations were affected by the outage, which made them susceptible to possible cyberattacks. The primary objective was to minimize the effects of this outage on customers while maintaining security services for them.

Quick Reaction to the Outage

Upon detecting the outage, the dedicated employees moved quickly to resolve it. They prioritized communicating with clients due to recognized the seriousness of the matter. Below is a thorough explanation of the prompt response:

Notification and Communication: Everyone immediately sent out a notification of the outage by email, phone calls, and through own support portal to all impacted clients. Having open and honest communication was essential to reassuring and informing those who hired us.

Activation of the Incident Response Team: They promptly activated the incident response team, which is made up of support engineers and cybersecurity specialists. To evaluate the effects of the outage and create a tactical reaction strategy, this team worked nonstop.

Providing Differential Approaches to Security

Ensuring customers have strong security was the initial focus during the downtime. To guarantee ongoing protection, having put in place a number of other security measures, including:

Temporary Security Solutions: In order to cover for the CrowdStrike outage, they implemented temporary security solutions. Advanced threat intelligence tools, more intrusion detection systems, and improved firewall setups were some of these answers.

Alerts and Manual Monitoring: They increased the manual monitoring efforts at its Security Operations Centre (SOC). In order to ensure prompt action in the event of an incident, having installed extra alarm mechanisms to identify any unusual activity that would point to possible cyber attacks.

Improving Customer Service

It strengthened the support infrastructure in order to reply to the worries and questions of the clients:

24/7 Support Availability: They have extended support service hours to offer assistance whenever you need it. Clients could get in touch with the support team whenever they needed assistance, so they could get it quickly.

Specialised Support Channels: Everyone set up special support channels for problems relating to outages. This made it possible for us to concentrate on helping the impacted clients and to expedite the support process.

Constant Observation and Updates

They continued to provide updates throughout the interruption due to the were committed to being open and satisfying those who trust us:

Regular Status Updates: Having kept you informed on the status of the issue resolution process on a regular basis. The actions being taken to resume regular services and the anticipated time frames for resolution were noted in these updates.

Integration of Customer comments: In order to better understand the client’s unique wants and concerns, and actively sought out their comments. This input was really helpful to us because it adjusted the way to replied and enhanced the assistance offerings.

Acquiring Knowledge and Developing from Experience

They carried out a comprehensive investigation following the CrowdStrike outage in order to pinpoint problem areas and guarantee enhanced readiness for upcoming incidents:

Root Cause Analysis: To identify the causes of the CrowdStrike outage, their team conducted a thorough root cause analysis. They were able to pinpoint areas that required improvement and weaknesses thanks to their investigation.

Process Improvements: Having carried out a number of process enhancements in light of the new information. These included modernizing the security architecture, strengthening communication tactics, and refining the incident response procedures.

Enhancing Their Collaboration with CrowdStrike

Nous collaborated closely with CrowdStrike outage to quickly resolve the issue due to recognized their crucial position in the cybersecurity ecosystem:

Cooperation and Support: In order to guarantee a prompt resolution, they worked in tandem with CrowdStrike’s engineering and technical support teams. They were able to efficiently utilize CrowdStrike’s resources and experience thanks to working together with them.

Post-Outage Review: To assess the CrowdStrike outage and its effects, they jointly reviewed with CrowdStrike once services had fully recovered. This review was crucial to strengthening cooperation and improving the capacity to respond as a team.

In summary

Although the CrowdStrike outage was a difficult occurrence, all proactive and customer-focused strategy made sure that customers got the assistance and security they required. It lies in the unwavering commitment to enhancing its infrastructure and services to deliver the best possible cybersecurity. The desire to remain a dependable and trustworthy partner for their clients, protecting their digital assets from any danger, has been reinforced by what happened during this CrowdStrike outage

Read more on govindhtech.com

[skarlette1]

Hi, long time fan with more of an accommodating question. I am thinking of getting back into writing flash fiction like yours myself. Other than that Tumblr's proven before they can't be trusted, is there a reason you use WordPress over Tumblr or Medium or others? Do you use the hosted version or self-host?

Great Ask! Thanks. Congrats on considering writing! It's fun. I wish you the best.

I feel like I have more control on Wordpress. Even though Wordpress owns Tumblr, WP's management style seems more ... predictable, I guess.

While I have had to interact with tech support on both sites over the years, WP was more helpful. Which is not to say that Tumblr was unhelpful, because the support staff was nice, but Tumblr has some blanket, no-appeals, two-strikes-and-you're-out policies on bans where all help ends and my original blog is just plain gone.

But, I'm still here, of course. Just as an additional platform, rather than my one-and-only.

BTW, never post a link to anything hosted on B.d-S_m~L r from either WP or Tumblr. There will be trouble. I speak from experience. These days, all my image links are to images hosted on Tumblr, or on my own WP site, for safety.

I use the free version hosted on the Wordpress site. I'm not tech-savvy enough to self-host.

Also, Wordpress is such a widely-used platform that I'm pretty sure my archives will be importable into anything else I consider moving to.

I've never investigated Medium for my writing. I know they focus on a lot of non-fiction article-type stuff. I don't know their policy on adult content. I have no idea if there's an erotica or hypnokink community. I know that there is (or was) a lot of paywalls for readers to manage, which kinda defeats the purpose of giving this writing away for free. I don't know their policy about linking to outside vendors, like Smashwords and Amazon, or outside images, like Tumblr.

Some folks have suggested DeviantArt as having an active hypnokink community, but I just haven't had the time.

What other alternatives are out there?

[reladsaluminiumladder]

Exploring Amazon Vendor Central Management Services

For businesses seeking to expand their reach and leverage the immense power of online retail, Amazon Vendor Central presents a compelling opportunity. However, navigating the intricacies of this platform and maximizing its potential can be a complex endeavor. This is where Amazon Vendor Central Management Services come into play.

[logisticscompany3]

The Benefit of Using a Procurement Company With Logistics and Products Transportation Capabilities

Purchase is the procedure of determining as well as obtaining goods and services. It includes sourcing, acquiring as well as covers all tasks from determining prospective suppliers through to shipment from distributor to the individuals or beneficiary. Procurement is a key activity in the supply chain administration.

Logistics staff involvement in assessments offers logistics info as well as data that supports program/response application. All significant business source preparation (ERP) software application vendors like Oracle and also SAP give products around logistics and also transport monitoring. Arrangement and implementation of these products needs in-depth understanding of the market, neighborhood and also global freight plans, and also fundamental understanding of the business technique. The general price of logistics plays a vital part in product pricing. The organization is after that able to prepare ahead for the provision of the goods as well as solutions. Hence, logistics is the cornerstone of firms which create physical items. Logistics also plays a vital duty in military operations. Logistics shortages can create severe problems to the firm's bottom line.

Several business have been proclaimed to shed their market placement owing to rivals having far better logistics monitoring. Ecommerce vendors like Amazon and also ebay.com depend on state of art logistics to keep ahead of the market. Success of firms is not just a variable of how well they do their core-business (like generate a certain product) but additionally exactly how well they contract out non-core parts of their organization to 3rd parties. shipping logistics near me

Provided the intricacy of logistics as well as transport, this is a vital location for outsourcing. Experienced business understand to collaborate with one-stop stores to define vital solution degree contracts around supply chain and after that leave it to the professionals to overcome the complexity as a black box. This permits the firm to focus on where it matters, their core service. Logistics firms give myriad advantages (over attempting an in-house version):.

Logistics automation. Procurement solutions. International network. Shipping as well as freight services. Market experience as well as Quantity price cuts.

Logistics Automation deals with minimizing labor expenses by integrating wise machinery, progressed software program and dynamic tools and modern technologies. As included advantages, automation additionally reduces power as well as material wastefulness, enhances high quality and precision. By using warehousing innovations like RFID, automated placement and also storage, software program based supply tracking, companies give satisfaction with considerable expense advantage (that features co-location of your items).

Purchase services can vary from consultatory on resources purchase to rate monitoring. Companies with both straight (basic material) purchase and indirect procurement (fixing and also upkeep materials). They help come to a sweet area between amount and frequency while offering sector particular value. It is prevalent expertise that apparently inconsonant sectors make use of comparable product and also equipment. For instance, a manufacturing plant calls for safety and security and also clinical supplies, whereas, a health center needs general upkeep products. Utilizing one stop stores enable one to benefit from the large range of materials in their purview.

Shakespeare's 'all the globe is a stage' quite possibly obtains the current business versions with open market acts in between countries being widespread. The capability to supply to remote countries, while not needing to manage disambiguation of policy, money as well as language subtleties is vital to worldwide success. One stop stores have all the global network and also connections to encourage and perform your international shipping undertakings.

The aim of transport is to physically move products in a reputable and also safe way, promptly, price properly and also effectively to its location. Even if a company owns its cars, there may well be events when a demand develops for additional ability, to satisfy peak task or various other short term requirements. This can be fulfilled by the use lorries supplied by an industrial transport company (third party). Additionally using the 3rd party delivery as well as freight solution is advantageous to the company because:.

of the variable lots and also trips can be provided for. the hauler may have the ability to supply a much more affordable as well as an extra reliable solution. the obligation for administration of cars and drivers is no longer the duty of the company (hence enabling staff to focus on much more productive areas). transport logistics near me there is no need for resources to be purchased transportation. Several on-line logistics firms give consulting solutions whereby the customers can conquer their challenges that they face while trading goods. Market professionals well versed with plans and also laws, audit (like SAS70) as well as compliance requirements (for example hazardous and also ignitable materials), dynamic factors (like weather condition, socio-political events) and vendor staminas (like volume discounts and geographical insurance coverage) are gotten in touch with as well as business companies can create their own time and also cost effective logistical time table while optimizing their spending plan at the same time.

[market-sample-reports]

North America Predictive Analytics Market 2028 Size, Share | Industry Trends, Business Revenue Forecast and Statistics, Growth Prospective

Business market insights Latest Report on North America Predictive Analytics Market Market 2022-2030' Analyses Research Methodology diagram including Primary Research, Secondary Research, Compative examination, Company Share Analysis, Model ( including Demographic information, Macro-financial pointers, and Industry markers: Expenditure, foundation, area development, and offices ), Research Limitations and Revenue Based Modeling. Organization share examination is utilized to determine the size of the worldwide market. Just as an investigation of incomes of organizations for the last three to five years additionally gives the base to guaging the market size (2022-2030 ) and its development rate.

Get Exclusive Sample Pages of North America Predictive Analytics Market Market -https://www.businessmarketinsights.com/sample/BMIRE00027139

The report provides the current market size for the North America Predictive Analytics Market Market, defines trends, and presents growth forecasts for nine years from 2022 to 2030. 2022 is considered as the base year, and 2022 to 2030 is the forecast year for the entire report. All the market numbers for revenue are provided in US dollars. The market is analyzed by the supply side, considering the market penetration of Benefits Management Platform for all the regions globally.

This research report on the “North America Predictive Analytics Market Market” provides a holistic view of the market size across major regions. The report further elucidates the key driving factors, restraints, growth opportunities, and future trends about the market growth. The market is segmented into deployment, application, and geography. 

Market Drivers

Market Restraints

Future Trends

Market Opportunities

Major key players covered in this North America Predictive Analytics Market Market report:

IBM Corporation

Microsoft Corporation

Oracle Corporation

SAP SE

Google LLC

SAS Institute Inc.

Salesforce.com, inc.

Amazon Web Services

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (HPE)

North America Predictive Analytics Market Market Research Report Scenario includes:

The report provides qualitative and quantitative trends of the North America Predictive Analytics Market Market.

The report provides qualitative and quantitative trends of the North America Predictive Analytics Market Market segmented by deployment, component, solution, application, and geography.

The report starts with the key takeaways, highlighting the key trends and outlook of the North America Predictive Analytics Market Market.

Chapter 3 provides the research methodology of the study.

Chapter 4 provides a brief overview of the Benefits North America Predictive Analytics Market Market landscape. It further provides the segmentation of the market with PEST analysis on scenarios along with ecosystem analysis and expert opinions.

Chapter 5 highlights the Benefits North America Predictive Analytics Market Market trends and outlook and the prevailing factors that are driving the market, as well as are deterrents to market growth, along with their impact analysis.

Chapter 6 discusses the market revenue and forecast, in the North America Predictive Analytics Market Market.

Chapter 7, 8, and 9 discuss the market segmented by deployment, application, and geography across the regions.

Chapter 10 provides the impact of COVID 19 across the regions and respective countries.

Chapter 11 provides the industry landscape and highlights the major market events, as well as major market vendors in the ecosystem.

Chapter 12 provides the detailed profiles of the key companies operating within the Benefits North America Predictive Analytics Market Market. The companies have been profiled based on their key facts, business descriptions, financial overview, SWOT analysis, and key developments.

Chapter 13,e., the appendix is inclusive of a brief overview of the company, glossary of terms, contact information, and the disclaimer section.

The report also covers a detailed chapter of the analysis on COVID-19 impact on this market at the and regional level in our final reports.

This research provides detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the North America Predictive Analytics Market Market at the Regional Level (drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges), forecast of the market size, in terms of value, market share by region and segment; regional market positions; segment and country opportunities for growth; New product developments, strengths, and weaknesses, brand portfolio; Marketing and distribution strategies; challenges and threats from current competition and prospects; Key company profiles, SWOT, product portfolio and growth strategies.

Interested in purchasing this Report? Click here @: https://www.businessmarketinsights.com/buy/single/BMIRE00027139

Reason to Buy -

Primary Research:

“Business Market Insights” conducts hundreds of primary interviews a year with industry participants and commentators to validate its data and analysis. A typical research interview fulfills the following functions:

Provides First-Hand Information on the Market Size, Market Trends, Growth Trends, Competitive Landscape, and Future Outlook

Validates and Strengthens Secondary Research Findings

Further Develops the Analysis Team’s Expertise and Market Understanding

Primary research involves email interactions and telephone interviews for each market, category, segment, and sub-segment across geographies. The participants who typically take part in such a process include, but are not limited to:

Industry Participants: VPs, Business Development Managers, Market Intelligence Managers and National Sales Managers

Outside Experts: Valuation Experts, Research Analysts and Key Opinion Leaders Specializing in the Industry

About Us:

Business Market Insights is a market research platform that provides subscription service for industry and company reports. Our research team has extensive professional expertise in domains such as Electronics & Semiconductor; Aerospace & Defense; Automotive & Transportation; Energy & Power; Healthcare; Manufacturing & Construction; Food & Beverages; Chemicals & Materials; and Technology, Media, & Telecommunications.

Contact Us:

If you have any queries about this report or if you would like further information, please

Contact Person: Ankit Mathur

Phone: +442081254005

E-Mail ID: sales@businessmarketinsights.com

Web URL: https://www.businessmarketinsights.com/

[whatsdash]

How to Choose the Right Ecommerce Reporting Software for Your Business Needs

In the fast-paced world of online retail, data is everything. Ecommerce reporting software provides the insights you need to make informed decisions, optimize marketing efforts, and drive growth. But with so many tools on the market, how do you choose the right ecommerce reporting software for your business?

This guide breaks down the key features, considerations, and steps to help you find the perfect fit for your ecommerce needs.

Why Ecommerce Reporting Software Matters

Whether you're a small store owner or running a large ecommerce operation, reporting software can:

Track sales and revenue trends

Monitor marketing campaign performance

Analyze customer behavior

Improve inventory and supply chain management

Provide actionable insights for business growth

With the right tool, you can transform raw data into clear, strategic decisions that enhance your online store's performance.

1. Define Your Business Goals

Before you start shopping for software, define what success looks like for your business. Are you focused on increasing conversions, boosting customer lifetime value, or reducing cart abandonment? Your goals will determine the features you need.

Key Questions to Ask:

What metrics matter most to your business?

Which platforms (Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon, etc.) do you sell on?

Do you need multi-channel reporting?

2. Identify Must-Have Features

Look for ecommerce reporting tools that offer the right mix of features for your needs. Here are some of the top features to consider:

a. Customizable Dashboards

Get a clear view of your KPIs with dashboards tailored to your business priorities.

b. Integration with Ecommerce Platforms

Ensure seamless integration with platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, and marketplaces like Amazon or eBay.

c. Marketing and Sales Analytics

Track ROAS, customer acquisition costs, funnel performance, and more across channels like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and email marketing.

d. Real-Time Data Reporting

Make decisions based on up-to-date information with real-time tracking.

e. Automated Reports

Save time by scheduling regular reports to be sent directly to your inbox or team members.

f. Customer Segmentation

Understand your customer base by segmenting data based on behavior, location, purchase history, and more.

3. Consider Ease of Use

The best ecommerce reporting software should be intuitive and easy to use—no coding required. A user-friendly interface allows you and your team to access and interpret data without needing a technical background.

Pro Tip:

Look for platforms that offer drag-and-drop builders and templates to get started quickly.

4. Evaluate Scalability

Choose software that can grow with your business. As your ecommerce store expands, you may need more integrations, higher data volumes, and advanced features. Ensure the tool is scalable and has pricing tiers that align with your future needs.

5. Compare Pricing Plans

Ecommerce reporting tools vary widely in price. Some offer freemium models with limited features, while others charge based on data volume or number of users.

Things to Consider:

Does the software charge per data source or report?

Are there hidden fees for integrations or support?

What is the ROI compared to your current manual reporting process?

6. Look for Strong Customer Support

No software is perfect, and at some point, you'll need support. Choose a vendor with responsive customer service, live chat, comprehensive documentation, and onboarding assistance.

7. Read Reviews and Testimonials

Before committing to a reporting solution, read user reviews on platforms like G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot. Look for recurring pros and cons to understand what to expect.

Conclusion

Choosing the right ecommerce reporting software is a strategic decision that can significantly impact your business performance. By understanding your goals, identifying key features, and evaluating usability, scalability, and cost, you can find a solution that turns your data into a competitive advantage.

Ready to simplify your ecommerce reporting? Explore tools like Whatsdash for an all-in-one dashboard that automates reports, integrates with major ecommerce and marketing platforms, and gives you full visibility into your performance.

[mostafakheer44-blog]

The New Translation Workflow: Why MTPE Is Becoming Essential in Global Content Strategies

In the high-speed digital economy, content is currency. Brands that scale quickly into international markets need to translate more, faster, and often at lower costs. Enter Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE) — a hybrid process where human linguists refine and perfect content that’s been pre-translated by AI systems. It’s not just a workaround; it’s the backbone of modern multilingual communication.

Machine translation tools like DeepL, Google Translate, and Microsoft Translator have come a long way, powered by neural networks and large language models. They’re fast, cheap, and surprisingly accurate in many cases. But even the best algorithms struggle with nuance, tone, brand voice, and cultural context — especially in complex industries like legal, healthcare, finance, and technical manufacturing.

That’s where MTPE steps in. Instead of translating from scratch, linguists review the machine-generated content and correct mistakes, polish style, and localize meaning. This workflow retains the speed of machine translation but injects human quality and reliability where it counts most.

Companies that handle high-volume documentation — think e-commerce platforms, software providers, and global customer support teams — are the biggest adopters. They use MTPE to localize websites, FAQs, knowledge bases, product descriptions, training manuals, and more. For example, Amazon and Booking.com have in-house MTPE pipelines to maintain consistency and scale efficiently across hundreds of markets.

The efficiency is undeniable. Studies show MTPE can reduce translation turnaround time by 40–60% while maintaining up to 90% of the quality of fully human translation — depending on the subject matter and the quality of the original MT output. But speed isn't everything. MTPE also ensures that compliance, tone, and clarity are retained — which is critical in industries where a mistranslation could lead to legal disputes or brand damage.

There are two main levels of post-editing:

Light Post-Editing (LPE): Focuses on correcting critical errors only — grammar, spelling, and basic fluency — ideal for internal communications and low-stakes content.

Full Post-Editing (FPE): Delivers publication-ready quality with adjustments to style, tone, formatting, and cultural relevance.

When choosing MTPE services, businesses should look for vendors that:

Use trained linguists with subject matter expertise

Integrate translation memory (TM) tools to improve consistency

Provide quality assurance checks after post-editing

Support multiple file formats and content management systems

It’s also important to measure post-editing effort and quality with tools like BLEU, TER, or human-reviewed quality scorecards, allowing continuous improvement of both the MT engines and human workflows.

MTPE is not a compromise — it’s a strategy. It acknowledges that while machines are powerful, they still need human oversight to ensure linguistic and cultural accuracy. And as LLMs continue to evolve, the role of MTPE will become even more central to global communication strategies.

In a world where content is expected to be “right now” and “right everywhere,” MTPE makes that possible — balancing automation with authenticity. It’s not the future of translation. It’s the present, and it’s working.

[datacrafters]

What Is a Cloud Solution?

In today’s dynamic digital environment, cloud solutions have become the backbone of modern enterprise technology. As organizations continue to transition away from traditional IT infrastructure, the demand for scalable, flexible, and efficient computing has pushed cloud-based services to the forefront. But what exactly is a cloud solution, and why has it become so essential for businesses of all sizes?

Understanding the Fundamentals of a Cloud Solution

A cloud solution refers to any on-demand service, application, or resource that is delivered via the internet. Unlike traditional computing, which relies on physical servers and local infrastructure, cloud computing enables users to access technology services—such as storage, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—remotely through a cloud provider.

These solutions are typically hosted in data centers and offered through providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and others. They provide seamless access, cost efficiency, and powerful processing capabilities that are far superior to legacy systems.

Types of Cloud Solutions

To fully understand what a cloud solution entails, it’s crucial to explore its different deployment and service models:

Public Cloud

A public cloud is a cloud environment owned and operated by a third-party provider. These services are delivered over the internet and shared across multiple organizations. Examples include AWS, Azure, and GCP. Public cloud solutions are ideal for businesses that want to eliminate the cost of hardware purchases and reduce IT complexity.

Private Cloud

A private cloud is dedicated to a single organization and can be hosted either on-premises or through a third-party service. It offers enhanced control, security, and customization. Enterprises with strict compliance requirements often opt for private cloud environments.

Hybrid Cloud

A hybrid cloud combines both public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to be shared between them. This model provides flexibility, scalability, and better deployment options while meeting both operational and regulatory needs.

Multi-Cloud

Multi-cloud refers to the use of more than one cloud service provider. Businesses adopt this strategy to avoid vendor lock-in, increase resilience, and optimize workloads based on performance, cost, and location.

Cloud Service Models

There are three primary cloud service models:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

IaaS delivers fundamental IT resources such as virtual machines, storage, and networking through the internet. Businesses can scale up or down based on demand. It eliminates the need to invest in physical hardware, making it a popular choice for startups and enterprises alike.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS provides a framework for developers to build and deploy applications without managing the underlying infrastructure. It includes tools, libraries, and development environments, enhancing productivity and innovation.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS offers ready-to-use applications accessible through a web browser. Common examples include Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Dropbox, and Google Workspace. SaaS eliminates the need for installation, maintenance, and upgrades, delivering a seamless experience to end-users.

Benefits of Cloud Solutions

Embracing cloud solutions provides a multitude of benefits that empower businesses to operate more efficiently and competitively.

1. Scalability and Flexibility

Cloud services allow organizations to scale resources up or down based on real-time demands. Whether it’s increasing storage capacity or deploying new applications, everything is done instantly without physical constraints.

2. Cost Efficiency

One of the most attractive advantages of cloud computing is its pay-as-you-go model. Companies only pay for what they use, eliminating the high capital expenditures associated with traditional IT.

3. Business Continuity

Cloud providers offer robust disaster recovery and backup solutions. In the event of a failure, data can be quickly restored, ensuring minimal downtime and business continuity.

4. Enhanced Collaboration

Cloud platforms enable real-time collaboration among teams, regardless of their physical location. File sharing, communication tools, and synchronized data ensure that everyone is working with the most current information.

5. Automatic Updates and Maintenance

Providers manage the underlying infrastructure, including software updates and security patches. This ensures that businesses always have access to the latest features and protections without manual intervention.

6. Security and Compliance

Leading cloud providers invest heavily in security, including encryption, threat detection, and compliance certifications (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, ISO 27001). While concerns still exist, many cloud environments offer superior protection compared to on-premise systems.

Key Use Cases of Cloud Solutions

Cloud solutions serve as the foundation for numerous modern applications and services:

Data Storage & Backup: Secure, scalable cloud storage for large volumes of structured and unstructured data.

Big Data Analytics: Process massive datasets quickly with AI and ML-powered analytics platforms.

Web Hosting: Flexible and reliable hosting services with global reach and redundancy.

Application Development: Cloud-based development environments enhance speed and reduce time to market.

E-commerce: Powering online stores with scalability during peak seasons and integrated payment systems.

Remote Work: Enabling a distributed workforce with access to tools and files anytime, anywhere.

Challenges and Considerations in Cloud Adoption

While cloud solutions offer numerous advantages, there are some challenges businesses must address:

Data Security and Privacy

Data stored in the cloud can be vulnerable to breaches if not adequately secured. Organizations must implement encryption, access control, and security policies to protect sensitive information.

Compliance Requirements

Industries such as finance and healthcare have strict data regulations. Choosing a cloud provider that supports relevant compliance standards is essential.

Latency and Downtime

Although rare, outages do occur. Businesses should assess service level agreements (SLAs) and build redundancy into their cloud architecture.

Vendor Lock-in

Dependence on a single cloud provider can limit flexibility. A multi-cloud strategy may help mitigate this risk.

Future of Cloud Solutions

The future of cloud computing is incredibly promising, driven by advancements in AI, machine learning, edge computing, and quantum computing. Businesses are investing in cloud-native architectures, leveraging microservices, containers, and serverless computing to enhance performance and agility.

As 5G technology matures, the integration of IoT and edge cloud will revolutionize industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics by enabling real-time processing closer to data sources.

Conclusion

A cloud solution is far more than just a buzzword—it is a transformative technology that is reshaping the digital landscape. From cost efficiency and agility to security and innovation, cloud computing empowers businesses to thrive in a competitive market. Whether you're a startup looking to scale or an enterprise seeking digital transformation, adopting the right cloud strategy can unlock unparalleled growth.