#configure email settings

[upon-sunflower-trails]

technical difficulties

tenna x reader | part 1 | 1308 words

in which you discover a little secret of your boss'...

maybe i'll make a continuation to this fic if i feel like it (or if there's enough demand for it)

UPDATE: part 2 of this fic is here!

warnings: VERY suggestive, boss x employee relationship, not proofread!!

work below the cut!

It hadn't been long now that you'd been working under Mr. Ant Tenna at the TV station. For the most part, you kept to yourself, unless your assistance was needed by the film crew. You kept Tenna's station running smoothly thanks to the work you did.

Which was exactly why he wanted to do something to thank you.

His plan was simple, really. Surprise you with a cake (with help from Ramb, of course), give you a fancy pen, and then sincerely thank you. You'd be smiling and on your way, and Tenna could get back to his regularly scheduled broadcast.

"Mr. Tenna?" You knocked on the door to his office, stack of papers in hand. You had made sure to painstakingly scrawl out the schedule for next week's broadcast on paper, after copying it from the spreadsheet you made on your computer at home. Tenna didn't need to know that, though. He hated anything to do with emails and whatnot, meaning on office hours, you worked by hand. About a week into working for the TV-headed man, you realized how inefficient that system was, and opted for secretly configuring schedules at home before transferring them over to bring to work. What your boss didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

The door flung open, nearly knocking you over with its gusto. "Y/N! My most valued employee, the star of the show! Come in, come in!" His beaming smile never seemed to waver as he ushered you into his office.

The sheer size of him never failed to take you aback for a moment. Your boss towered over you, and his larger-than-life personality certainly didn't help. You offered him a small smile back before dropping the papers off on his desk.

"Here's the schedule for next week, sir. I'm guessing that's why you wanted to see me?" Your tone was slightly cautious. You knew that Tenna could be a bit unpredictable, which was why receiving a one-on-one invitation to his office worried you-- just a bit.

Tenna barked out a laugh, shaking his head. He slid into the seat behind his desk, gesturing to the chair in front of it.

"Not at all, actually!" He laughed again before pausing, pulling on his collar. "But- Well, that's not to say that your efforts aren't appreciated, of course!" A light blush appeared on the white screen of his face before he straightened out his suit jacket, sitting up taller.

"What I meant was... That's not why I called you in here today. You see..." Tenna's grin grew impossibly wider as he reached under his desk, before re-emerging with a large white box, "I wanted to thank you!"

You blinked, mind going blank. Thank you? Was that really the reason he'd set up a private meeting? "Oh- Really?"

He nodded, much too eagerly, before pursing his lips and ducking back under his desk.

"And that's not all!" He chimed, mimicking the tone of someone off the shopping channel. He came back up, holding a nicely wrapped gift before setting it down in front of you. "I figured it was the least I could do for my best employee."

You could feel your heart thrumming in your chest at his words. Sure, you'd had a workplace crush on your boss of all people since you started working there, but this... This was almost too much, even for you!

"S-sir, I-" You began shakily, quickly being cut off.

"You can just call me Tenna, really. We don't need all of those... stuffy formalities." He waved off any concern you had before opening the larger of the two boxes and pushing it towards you.

You nodded at his words before peering into the box, which held a nicely decorated cake.

'Thanks for all you do, it's true! You're the best :)'

If your face wasn't already flushed, it certainly was now. Your gaze snapped up to Tenna's screen in an instant. His smile, usually so wide and practiced, had softened as he looked at you.

"I wanted to do something nice, for all the work you put in to make things run smoothly around here."

You were speechless for a moment, a million thoughts racing through your head. His smile faltered at your silence, growing self conscious under your gaze.

"B-but if it's too much, then, uh..." He pulled the box away, shame creeping into his features. You snapped out of your daze, hands flying to the cake box.

"No! No, not at all, Tenna. I think it's really sweet."

You gave him an encouraging smile, hands resting over his. You could've sworn you saw his screen flash to static for a split second before he straightened back up, smile growing.

"Well, I'm glad! Can't get much sweeter than cake, right?" He laughed loudly to himself in a desperate attempt to cover up his nerves, slapping his hand down on his desk as he lost himself in his hysterics. The smaller, carefully wrapped box fell to the ground.

You let out a noise of surprise, rising out of your seat. "Oh, I'll get th-"

"I CAN GET IT!" Tenna cried out, swiftly ducking under his desk to grab the gift. Your brows quirked up in confusion as you approached him.

"Tenna, it's alright, I-"

"YEOWCH!"

You were once again cut off, only this time by the bang of Tenna's head against the underside of his desk. You heard him hiss out in pain before you rushed to his side.

"I'm fine, really, Y/N! Nothing could shake me up more than the digital switchover," he joked, rubbing the back of his head as you carefully pulled him up by his other arm.

You tutted, shaking your head. "I was trying to tell you I could grab it, Tenna. You're much too stubborn."

He sighed, shoulders dropping. "Right as always, of course." He seemed to shrink at your light scolding. You led him to the couch at the far end of the room, sitting him down tenderly. He sunk down onto the cushions, still rubbing at the back of his head as you sat down next to him.

Even when in one of his moods, he was still a sight to behold. You took him in as he sat beside you, scanning over his form. His antennas were out of place, likely due to the force of him hitting the desk.

"Oh, you knocked your antennas out of place. Let me just..."

Before Tenna could protest, you reached over to fidget with his antennas. A deep blush immediately spread across his face, slapping a hand over his mouth as a whine nearly slipped out.

You looked down at him, concern etched on your features. "I'm sorry if it hurts, I've almost got them back in place." You continued to fix his antennas back into place, completely oblivious to Tenna's internal conflict beneath you.

He could have blacked out at that very moment. Your hands gently sliding over his antennas, taking care of him in more ways than one... It was almost too much for him to bear. A groan slipped past his lips as you straightened out his left antenna.

"Shit, sweetheart..." he breathed out, mind hazy. The dim glow of his screen cast up on your features as you looked down at him, realization dawning on you.

Oh. Oh.

Your hands stilled. Tenna gazed up at you, practically panting at this point. You could feel the heat radiating from his screen, as if it were threatening to engulf you, too.

You had two options at this point. Stop what you were doing and profusely apologize to your boss for accidentally engaging him in such an inappropriate way, or...

Gazing down at Tenna, he shot you a lazy grin.

You swallowed hard, grip subconsciously tightening on his antennas before sliding into his lap.

Good thing you were off-air.

[ms-demeanor]

I had a straight up delightful moment at work yesterday when a new member of the management team asked me how we were tracking warranties and I explained that we kind of aren't and he asked why we aren't and that meant he got a 30-minute rundown of how top-to-bottom fucked the procurement process is here.

First I explained the process for sending a quote (i am assigned a ticket in system A1, I create an opportunity in system A2, from the opportunity i can generate a quote in system B - if I start with the quote I can't associate it back to the opportunity or the ticket, if we need to change the quote after it was approved we need to generate a new quote from the opportunity to overwrite the old one - and send the quote from system B.)

Then I explained the process of getting approval (system B sends the quote and receives the approvals but does not communicate that to system A, so until it is manually updated system A sends a daily reminder about the quote to the client and after three days with no response will close the ticket even if the client approved the quote in system B. System B will send an email if a quote is approved but it comes from our generic support email so to make sure that I don't miss approvals I have filtering rules set up and a folder I check twice a day. Because there are 4 people who use this system I also check twice daily in system B to see if anyone else's quotes were approved).

Then I explained how I place the orders (easy! I'm a pro! We have a standardized PO pattern that tracks date, vendor and client, it's handy)

Then I explained how I document the orders (neither system A nor B has a way of storing information about orders in progress, only orders that are complete; as such I have created a PO Documentation spreadsheet that lists the PO number, vendor, line of business, client, items ordered, order total, order date, ETA, tracking numbers, serial numbers, delivery confirmation, ticket number for install, ticket title for install, shippong cost, and close confirmation, which all have to be entered individually and which require a minimum of three visits to the spreadsheet per order: entering initial info, entering tracking and SN info, then once more to get that info to close the opportunity)

Then I explained how we close an order (confirm hardware delivery or activate software, use system A2 to code hardware/software/non-taxable products appropriately, run wizard to add charges from A2 to ticket in A1; because the A2 charges were locked by approval in system B, use system A3 to add shipping or other fees or to remove any parts that were approved but not actually needed or ordered - THIS WEEK I got permission to do this bit on my initial A1 procurement ticket instead of generating an A1 post-procurement ticket for fees and shipping. Once all of that is done it's moved into system A4 and is no longer my problem).

If there is a warranty involved it *should* automatically have the expiration tracked in system C, but system C doesn't have any way to pull order info so there's no way it can track warranty *start* dates without somebody manually entering it or without using API data from the manufacturer, which some manufacturers don't provide (fuck you, Apple).

But me and my trainee are happy to add the start date to the configuration once a tech tells us that the device is enrolled in system C. If the techs will tell us that we can add that info no problem.

Until then, I have unfortunately been forced to start a spreadsheet.

The manager was appalled, it was great. I got to say the words "part of the reason things sometimes fall through the cracks is because we have so many cracks" and his response was "no shit." I'm talking to vendors about a procurement system now :) :) :) :)

[allthose3amthoughts]

Ladies, gentlemen, friends, foes, earthlings and other interested parties...

Desktop Buddy! Peter is officially out on Itch.io

I'm finally confident that the Beta version of of the Your Boyfriend Desktop Buddy is good enough to share. The link is here, and details are under the cut! It's a free game, but your comments and feedback mean everything to me, so please drop em, even if they're short. Thank you so much for your support everyone - I'm so proud of my first game, and so excited to share it <3

Features:

Idle Dialogue: Peter will say random things while idling on your desktop, with his dialogue evolving based on how you interact with him. If you'd prefer peace and quiet, you can also mute him.

Interactions: You can kiss Peter by moving your mouse over his head (without clicking) or hit him by double-clicking his face. His reactions will change based on how often you do each action.

Standard Functions: Peter can:

Set images as your wallpaper

Empty your recycle bin

Display your computer’s stats

Check for new emails (if you've configured your POP settings in SSP)

Relationship System: Peter tracks how you treat him, adjusting his dialogue and reactions accordingly. You can check your status with him or reset his memory to start fresh if you want.

Dialogue Depth: While Peter may not talk much at random, his menus contain a lot of dialogue. You can ask him questions on various topics, and his responses will vary based on your interactions. Even familiar questions might lead to unexpected answers.

Gifts: You can give Peter gifts, and what he accepts may change depending on your relationship status.

This is a beta version of the desktop buddy, with more content and updates to come. But please do leave a comment or reach out if you encounter any bugs, weird-looking sprites, or just anything that seems off. This is my first game, and there'll be kinks to work out!

[allpiesforourown]

Man imagine having shen yuan as your cute personal assistant... he'd say he forwarded you an email and you could go "read it to me" and when he frowns you can tease him by telling him work is less boring when you get to hear his sexy voice

Or when he's telling you your schedule for the day and you sneak up from behind and grab his waist and say you're just looking over his shoulder to read the planner...

Or you can say you're having technical troubles and shen yuan will roll his eyes and say there's no way you can't fix something as simple as that... you tell him to do it, but don't move from your chair, so he has to sit on your lap to configure your settings.

Imagine having lunch with him everyday and telling him to try your food and holding something out for him to take, then pulling it back when he leans in for a bite until he falls on you

Shen Yuan in tight fitting dress shirts and slacks that show his frail body and incredible ass...

I'm normal about this.

[kayr0ss]

Phishing Attack [Sulemio Fanfic]

[Gundam: The Witch from Mercury / GWitch, Sulemio, Fluff & Humor, post-canon, married, miorine is down bad, lmfao, self-inudlgent office shenanigans] AO3 Link

Summary: Unfortunately for her, Miorine falls for the IT department's phishing attack test email and has to go through GUND-ARM, Inc's mandatory security training. Fortunately for her, it seems her wife, of all people, was the one teaching it.

-

"Uhm—"

This poor kid. Miorine was going to have a talk with Nuno about this, because there was absolutely no reason for him to send the newest tech support hire to her office for something he could have emailed her about. She wonders if he and Ojelo placed a bet on whether or not he would do it. That wouldn't do. She'd have to give them an earful after all this.

Or, even better, she'd tell Lilique. No one liked to get on Lilique's bad side.

"Is everything okay?" She crossed her arms, trying to school her expression into something... nicer? It didn't look like it was working, because he visibly gulped.

"P—President! I'm here because you—uh. Email."

"Email?"

He looked down towards his feet, his voice barely over a whisper. "...test email that IT had sent out."

Miorine pinched the bridge of her nose, doing her best to even out her breathing. "Hey. It's okay, I don't bite. I can barely hear you."

"You clicked on a phishing test email! That—that IT sent out. Kargan-san told me, to tell you, that you have to attend mandatory training or else your email access was going to get revoked."

She frowned, eyes flitting to her laptop, unable to keep an incredulous huff at bay. Phishing email? She was usually really careful about this, when did she even—she paused.

She remembers now. Last night, while working late from home, she received an email from what she thought was a travel agency. She had been looking into booking a vacation for their family, and wanted to sign up for their newsletter and so she—oh. She clicked a link.

She sighed, deep and weary, leaning forward on her desk. "Thank you," she waved at the young man. "I'll go talk to Nuno."

He sighed in relief, said his greetings, and left.

-

"He looked terrified! Why would you do that?" She growled across the lunch table towards Nuno, who was holding up his tray in defense. "You could have told me yourself!"

"But how was he supposed to learn? Besides, it's a good time to work on rapport-building, for you!"

"That doesn’t make any sense." She slammed down her coffee mug, visibly irritated. "And also totally targeted. You knew that I was planning a vacation for us."

"What, did you think phishing attacks were just randomly cast nets? These things have gotten more sophisticated! Especially for C-suite individuals like you. Do you know what kind of cybersecurity liability it would have been if your email got compromised?"

"I know that!" Miorine groaned in frustration. "Fine, I'll do the training. But really? Revoking my email access?"

"Hey—you signed off on the ops manual yourself!"

"You have to set an example for following the rules, Miorine-san." Aliya laughed.

And she was right. And Miorine hated it. But she always resented authority who didn't play fair, so she was going to do her best to set a good example. She went back to eating, stabbing at her potato wedges with unnecessary force, making Nuno and Ojelo grimace with each stab.

"By the way," he elbowed Ojelo, who was dejectedly playing with his salad. "You owe me. I told you she'd fall for it."

"You two are impossible!"

-

"There's no way they got you too." Miorine deadpanned, looking at the only other person seated in the conference room. It had several long tables, arranged in a U-configuration, and had high-backed leather office chairs that rolled themselves back to place when you clapped. She thought it was a bit much, but... Nika liked over-engineering things, so here they were.

Nika smiled sheepishly. "They sent me an email for a parts sale. I clicked the link without thinking too much."

"A sale?" Miorine almost laughed. "Nika, your department has the highest budget."

"No, not for work—it was uhm. For mobile suit figures?" She twiddled her thumbs. "The little models I like to build?"

Miorine couldn't even be upset. She actually laughed this time (“They were full mechanics! I couldn’t resist!”). Everyone had their weaknesses, it seemed.

"So this is the training video we made for all the new hires, and whoever else needs it." Ojelo was setting the screen up. "It's about an hour long—"

"An hour?" Miorine slammed her palms on the desk.

"Yes, an hour!" He barked back, crossing his arms. "Obviously, since you two are here—our literal president and the person who designs all our prototypes—we need it! I can hardly think of two worse people to fail this test."

Miorine sighed, covering her face with her hands, because he was right.

"Let's just get this over and done with."

The holo-screen flickered to life, Ojelo waved them goodbye, and then Miorine's jaw dropped because—

[Hello there, GUND-ARM, Inc.!]

She knew that voice. It was only the title screen, without showing the speaker, but she knew. 

Then the video feed finally came on, and she swallowed: it was Suletta. She was smiling sweetly at the viewer, wearing a business suit that had GUND-ARM, Inc's pin on the blazer’s lapel. She felt the air rush out her lungs, and jolted upright from her seat.

[Welcome to the first module of Cybersecurity 101! My name is Suletta Mercury-Rembran, and I—]

Miorine felt her mouth dry up because why?

She whipped her head towards Nika. "Why is my wife teaching the cybersecurity training?!"

She briefly remembers Suletta mentioning something about getting filmed for a GUND-ARM, Inc. video. It was quite a while ago, and Miorine figured it was just another marketing campaign, but she didn't realize that it might have also been this.

"I mean," Nika shrugged. "She is a literal teacher. I imagine out of all of us she's the most qualified to conduct a training."

Which. Okay. Fair—it made sense! But still—why?

Miorine ran her hand through her hair, grounding herself. Why did she look so good even on screen? Who's idea was it? Did she want to thank them or throttle them? 

Why on this ridiculous Earth was she so goddamn attractive?

(A rhetorical question, for sure: she knew with absolute certainty that that was simply a truth of this world.)

[Let's start with the basics: What exactly is a phishing attack?]

-

[14:47 SEST] Nika : It kind of feels like I should leave T_T

[14:47 SEST] Ojelo: lmaooooooooooo

[14:49 SEST] Nika: please let me leave

[14:53 SEST] Nuno: I'm sorry but u are also literally a security risk until u learn this so u can't

[14:54 SEST] Nika: fml

-

It was almost impossible to listen, but also impossible to look away. Miorine put an honest effort into taking down notes, into remembering the tell-tale signs of a fake domain name and the most common typing mistakes made in phishing emails. They even had little quizzes in between that they had to take on their phone before moving onto the next section. Apparently, failing those meant having to take the training again and... and, well, that was both pleasant and terribly embarrassing.

At the halfway point, Miorine had crossed her arms, flushed deeply, and sighed.

"You okay, Miorine-san?" Nika poked her on the shoulder.

Suletta had just flashed another charming smile on screen, congratulating the viewer for finishing this section.

"She's so—" Miorine slowly tipped over, leaning forward, and planted her face on the table, muttering. "—pretty."

-

[Don't forget! Urgent language and unsecured links are really good tells! Are you feeling ready for your next test? Once again, please check your company phone's training app, and—]

Miorine pulled out her phone. She was so ready for this quiz. She had been locked in and could probably recite company policy backwards at this point.

Nika, for the fifteenth time within the past forty-five minutes, tried not to keel over laughing.

-

[Still there?]

Sang Suletta's sweet, whimsical voice.

[Thanks for sticking with it! Good job, we're almost through! You're doing great!]

Miorine had nearly snapped her stylus in half, blushing, but she powered on in the name of professionalism and—spite. For Nuno and Ojelo, of course. Not Suletta.

She checked her watch. They weren't kidding about it taking no less than an hour. She leaned back into her chair, unable to deny the fact that it was nice to take a short break from paperwork and checking spreadsheets all afternoon.

-

She had bolted out the room as soon as the training was done.

"Leaving in a hurry?" Sabina caught her haphazardly stuffing all her things into her leather folio.

"Yes."

It was a Thursday, which meant Suletta didn't have an afternoon class to teach, which meant she was already home by now.

"I'll call for the car, then." She hummed.

"Thank you."

Miorine almost forgot her keys, fishing them out her drawer before grabbing her coat off the back of her chair. It was probably windy, but she was in too much of a hurry to bother putting it on, instead bundling it in her arms with her folio.

-

Suletta was surprised to hear the jingle of Miorine's keys so early in the afternoon. 

She looked up from the book she was reading, happy to see the front door swing open. She carefully got up, a smile on her face.

"Miorine! You're home early—" she stopped in her tracks. "You look mad. Why do you look mad?"

And—in the most confusing three seconds of her life—Miorine had pulled her in by the collar, gotten up to her tip-toes, and kissed her. 

Honest to god kissed her.

"Whoa," she mumbled against Miorine's lips in a daze. She leaned forward a little, settling her free hand on Miorine's waist, bending down so that her wife didn't have to struggle reaching her.

Finally pulling back, Suletta gave her a hesitant smile. "I missed you too?"

"I clicked a stupid phishing email."

What? Suletta blinked, stupefied, wondering what that had to do with the fact that Miorine was shrugging her coat off and kissing her—again.

"An—" she took a breath "—email?"

"Yeah." Miorine pushed them towards the hallway, and Suletta awkwardly stumbled along with her. "How are you so—so—"

"Eh?” Suletta’s brows furrowed. “Me? What do you mean?"

“So…” Miorine had a frown and the prettiest blush Suletta had ever seen. "Beautiful. In the training video."

There was an almost-audible click in Suletta's head. 

She finally put two and two together. 

"Oh!" She gasped. "Oh no, they made you watch the training video?" She laughed. "That must have been funny. I was so embarrassed filming it!"

"I think you did great." Miorine was still pushing her, having kicked off her shoes now.  She fished the book out of Suletta's hand ("Hey!") and placed it on the nearest table. "But I might have already forgotten the whole thing."

Miorine hastily felt for the door knob to their bedroom, swinging it open and pulling Suletta in by her shirt.

"Miorine!"

"You should remind me again."

-

fin

-

A/N:

Thank you to @saltypyrotato for once again beta reading this! You're the best broski! This is basically some self-indulgent office shenanigans that I can't help but imagine would happen lmaoooo

[sigynpenniman]

DID YOU WAKE UP THIS MORNING TO FIND AO3 BLOCKED ON YOUR WORK OR SCHOOL WIFI?

So, something has happened overnight.

Many major companies and institutions use a tech called Cisco Umbrella to block “potentially objectionable” domains - porn, violent content, etc. Cisco Umbrella primarily works using categories, which, while changable by users, are pre-set by Cisco. So Cisco builds a list of websites which are, for example, "adult," and then makes that a category that a company can block all at once from its network. When you, as a network admin, choose to block "adult" websites in cisco umbrella, if you don't make changes to that list yourself, everything in that list is blocked on the domain.

There's another system called OpenDNS. OpenDNS allows you to block websites on your *home* network. If you have an OpenDNS account you can also participate in what's called "community tagging." community tagging allows people to tag certain websites, and I guess if you use OpenDNS you can block things with those tags...idk, I don't use it.

Here's the bit that matters: OpenDNS and Cisco Umbrella are owned by the same company. It appears that Cisco Umbrella, to some extent, uses OpenDNS community tags to sort websites.

Someone on OpenDNS has community tagged Ao3 as a "tasteless" website. Community tags can be proposed by anyone, but they have to be approved by a moderator. It seems a moderator has approved this tag. Because of the moderator approved tag, it looks like Ao3 has been bundled into *Cisco Umbrella's* blocked sites list for "adult" content. So now, any library, school, business, etc which is blocking Cisco Umbrella’s “adult” category is now blocking Ao3.

Here’s how you can help.

Go here (https://signup.opendns.com/homefree/) to create an OpenDNS account. This is free. Don’t do any of the steps to create or configure a network, JUST make an account. Be sure to uncheck any promotional checkboxes. Once your account is made, be sure to confirm your email, and the confirmation may go into spam - mind did, just be aware. Once you have an account made, go to https://login.opendns.com/ and log in with the account you've made.

It should take you here.

From here, click the small "community" button at the top.

It will bring you here. You will be likely prompted to create a display name. Pick something random, you won't need it again.

Click on “domain tagging." It will bring you here.

There's a small searchbox in the top right labeled "check a domain." enter archiveofourown.org in this field and hit go. You should be brought here.

What you want to do now is hit the "Flag for Review" button under "Tagged: Tasteless." Don't worry about the other tags. They are candidate tags, not approved/applied and aren't doing anything. The "tasteless" one that's been mod approved is the only one we're worried about. "Flag for review" will open a small text box.

Type in whatever you like here, but PLEASE be academic and respectful. Focus on how "tasteless" is an inaccurate and offensive description for the content. Hit submit.

That's it, you're done.

I do want to be clear about one thing - I am not 100% sure this is going to remove this domain from the cisco adult list, but I'm hoping. The “tasteless” tag that is present on OpenDNS was submitted in 2015. Now, it is not clear when the moderator approved this tag. They may have approved it last night, or in 2015. That date does not appear to be visible. I’m not sure what happened overnight that caused Ao3 to slip into the Cisco umbrella adult category. My best guess is that either the tag was approved last night, or Cisco suddenly started grouping the “tasteless” community tag under adult. It is interesting to me that previous tags such as pornography have been actively mod rejected, so it looks like this one being approved might have been one person with a vendetta. Either way, right now, this seems to be the root of the issue. Domains can be individually allowed on networks by network admins, so if you have to petition your school or place of work it's possible, but I think if we can fix the OpenDNS tag, we can fix it everywhere at once. Hopefully, if we can get enough flags for review in a short enough period of time, it will force them to review it.

Come, help me out here. Let's try and get Ao3 unblocked on the country's schools and libraries.

[geneeste]

Creating a personal fanfic archive using Calibre, various Calibre plugins, Firefox Reader View, and an e-Reader / BookFusion / Calibre-Web

A few years ago I started getting serious about saving my favorite fic (or just any fic I enjoyed), since the Internet is sadly not actually always forever when it comes to fanfiction. Plus, I wanted a way to access fanfic offline when wifi wasn't available. Enter a personal fanfic archive!

There are lots of ways you can do this, but I thought I'd share my particular workflow in case it helps others get started. Often it's easier to build off someone else's workflow than to create your own!

Please note that this is for building an archive for private use -- always remember that it's bad form to publicly archive someone else's work without their explicit permission.

This is going to be long, so let's add a read more!

How to Build Your Own Personal Fanfic Archive

Step One: Install Calibre

Calibre is an incredibly powerful ebook management software that allows you to do a whole lot of stuff having to do with ebooks, such as convert almost any text-based file into an ebook and (often) vice-versa. It also allows you to easily side-load ebooks onto your personal e-reader of choice and manage the collection of ebooks on the device.

And because it's open source, developers have created a bunch of incredibly useful plugins to use with Calibre (including several we're going to talk about in the next step), which make saving and reading fanfiction super easy and fun.

But before we can do that, you need to download and install it. It's available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, and in a portable version.

Step Two: Download These Plugins

This guide would be about 100 pages long if I went into all of the plugins I love and use with Calibre, so we're just going to focus on the ones I use for saving and reading fanfiction. And since I'm trying to keep this from becoming a novel (lolsob), I'll just link to the documentation for most of these plugins, but if you run into trouble using them, just tag me in the notes or a comment and I'll be happy to write up some steps for using them.

Anyway, now that you've downloaded and installed Calibre, it's time to get some plugins! To do that, go to Preferences > Get plugins to enhance Calibre.

You'll see a pop-up with a table of a huge number of plugins. You can use the Filter by name: field in the upper right to search for the plugins below, one at a time.

Click on each plugin, then click Install. You'll be asked which toolbars to add the plugins to; for these, I keep the suggested locations (in the main toolbar & when a device is connected).

FanFicFare (here's also a great tutorial for using this plugin) EpubMerge (for creating anthologies from fic series) EbubSplit (for if you ever need to break up fic anthologies) Generate Cover (for creating simple artwork for downloaded fic) Manage Series (for managing fic series)

You'll have to restart Calibre for the plugins to run, so I usually wait to restart until I've installed the last plugin I want.

Take some time here to configure these plugins, especially FanFicFare. In the next step, I'll demonstrate a few of its features, but you might be confused if you haven't set it up yet! (Again, highly recommend that linked tutorial!)

Step Three: Get to Know FanFicFare (and to a lesser extent, Generate Cover)

FanFicFare is a free Calibre plugin that allows you to download fic in bulk, including all stories in a series as one work, adding them directly to Calibre so that that you can convert them to other formats or transfer them to your e-reader.

As with Calibre, FanFicFare has a lot of really cool features, but we're just going to focus on a few, since the docs above will show you most of them.

The features I use most often are: Download from URLs, Get Story URLs from Email, and Get Story URLs from Web Page.

Download from URLs let's you add a running list of URLs that you'd like FanFicFare to download and turn into ebooks for you. So, say, you have a bunch of fic from fanfic.net that you want to download. You can do that!

Now, in this case, I've already downloaded these (which FanFicFare detected), so I didn't update my library with the fic.

But I do have some updates to do from email, so let's try getting story URLs from email!

Woohoo, new fic! Calibre will detect when cover art is included in the downloaded file and use that, but at least one of these fic doesn't have cover art (which is the case for most of the fic I download). This is where Generate Cover comes in.

With Generate Cover, I can set the art, font, dimensions, and info content of the covers so that when I'm looking at the fic on my Kindle, I know right away what fic it is, what fandom it's from, and whether or not it's part of a series.

Okay, last thing from FanFicFare -- say I want to download all of the fic on a page, like in an author's profile on fanfic.net or all of the stories in a series. I can do that too with Get Story URLs from Web Page:

The thing I want to call out here is that I can specify whether the fic at this link are individual works or all part of an anthology, meaning if they're all works in the same series, I can download all stories as a single ebook by choosing For Anthology Epub.

Step Four: Using FireFox Reader View to Download Fic Outside of Archives

This is less common now thanks to AO3, but the elders among us may want to save fanfic that exists outside of archives on personal websites that either still exist or that exist only on the Internet Wayback Machine. FanFicFare is awesome and powerful, but it's not able to download fic from these kinds of sources, so we have to get creative.

I've done this in a couple of ways, none of which are entirely perfect, but the easiest way I've found thus far is by using Firefox's Reader View. Also, I don't think I discovered this -- I think I read about this on Tumblr, actually, although I can longer find the source (if you know it, please tell me so I can credit them!).

At any rate, open the fic in Firefox and then toggle on Reader View:

Toggling on Reader View strips all the HTML formatting from the page and presents the fic in the clean way you see in the preview below, which is more ideal for ebook formats.

To save this, go to the hamburger menu in the upper right of the browser and select Print, then switch to Print to PDF. You'll see the URL and some other stuff at the top and bottom of the pages; to remove that, scroll down until you see something like More settings... and uncheck Print headers and footers.

Click Save to download the resulting PDF, which you can then add to Calibre and convert to whichever format works best for your e-reader or archive method.

Step Five: Archiving (Choose Your Own Adventure)

Here's the really fun part: now that you know how to download your fave fanfics in bulk and hopefully have a nice little cache going, it's time to choose how you want to (privately) archive them!

I'm going to go through each option I've used in order of how easy it is to implement (and whether it costs additional money to use). I won't go too in depth about any of them, but I'm happy to do so in a separate post if anyone is interested.

Option 1: On Your Computer

If you're using Calibre to convert fanfic, then you're basically using your computer as your primary archive. This is a great option, because it carries no additional costs outside the original cost of acquiring your computer. It's also the simplest option, as it really doesn't require any advanced technical knowledge, just a willingness to tinker with Calibre and its plugins or to read how-to docs.

Calibre comes with a built-in e-book viewer that you can use to read the saved fic on your computer (just double-click on the fic in Calibre). You can also import it into your ebook app of choice (in most cases; this can get a little complicated just depending on how many fic you're working with and what OS you're on/app you're using).

If you choose this option, you may want to consider backing the fic up to a secondary location like an external hard drive or cloud storage. This may incur additional expense, but is likely still one of the more affordable options, since storage space is cheap and only getting cheaper, and text files tend to not be that big to begin with, even when there are a lot of them.

Option 2: On Your e-Reader

This is another great option, since this is what Calibre was built for! There are some really great, afforable e-readers out there nowadays, and Calibre supports most of them. Of course, this is a more expensive option because you have to acquire an e-reader in addition to a computer to run Calibre on, but if you already have an e-reader and haven't considered using it to read fanfic, boy are you in for a treat!

Option 3: In BookFusion

This is a really cool option that I discovered while tinkering with Calibre and used for about a year before I moved to a self-hosted option (see Option 4).

BookFusion is a web platform and an app (available on iOS and Android) that allows you to build your own ebook library and access it from anywhere, even when you're offline (it's the offline bit that really sold me). It has a Calibre plugin through which you can manage your ebook library very easily, including sorting your fanfic into easy-to-access bookshelves. You may or may not be able to share ebooks depending on your subscription, but only with family members.

Here's what the iOS app looks like:

The downside to BookFusion is that you'll need a subscription if you want to upload more than 10 ebooks. It's affordable(ish), ranging from $1.99 per month for a decent 5GB storage all the way to $9.99 for 100GB for power users. Yearly subs range from $18.99 to $95.99. (They say this is temporary, early bird pricing, but subscribing now locks you into this pricing forever.)

I would recommend this option if you have some cash to spare and you're really comfortable using Calibre or you're a nerd for making apps like BookFusion work. It works really well and is incredibly convenient once you get it set up (especially when you want to read on your phone or tablet offline), but even I, someone who works in tech support for a living, had some trouble with the initial sync and ended up duplicating every ebook in my BookFusion library, making for a very tedious cleanup session.

Option 4: On a Self-Hosted Server Using Calibre-Web

Do you enjoy unending confusion and frustration? Are you okay with throwing fistfuls of money down a well? Do you like putting in an incredible amount of work for something only you and maybe a few other people will ever actually use? If so, self-hosting Calibre-Web on your own personal server might be a good fit for you!

To be fair, this is likely an experience unique to me, because I am just technical enough to be a danger to myself. I can give a brief summary of how I did this, but I don't know nearly enough to explain to you how to do it.

Calibre-Web is a web app that works on top of Calibre, offering "a clean and intuitive interface for browsing, reading, and downloading eBooks."

I have a network-attached storage (NAS) server on which I run an instance of Calibre and Calibre-Web (through the miracle that is Docker). After the initial work of downloading all the fic I wanted to save and transferring it to the server, I'm now able to download all new fic pretty much via email thanks to FanFicFare, so updating my fic archive is mostly automated at this point.

If you're curious, this is what it looks like:

Pros: The interface is clean and intuitive, the ebook reader is fantastic. The Discover feature, in which you are given random books / fic to read, has turned out to be one feature worth all the irritation of setting up Calibre-Web. I can access, read, and download ebooks on any device, and I can even convert ebooks into another format using this interface. As I mentioned above, updating it with fic (and keeping the Docker container itself up to date) is relatively automated and easy now.

Cons: The server, in whichever form you choose, costs money. It is not cheap. If you're not extremely careful (and sometimes even if you are, like me) and a hard drive goes bad, you could lose data (and then you have to spend more money to replace said hard drive and time replacing said data). It is not easy to set up. You may, at various points in this journey, wish you could launch the server into the sun, Calibre-Web into the sun, or yourself into the sun.

Step Six: Profit!

That's it! I hope this was enough to get you moving towards archiving your favorite fanfic. Again, if there's anything here you'd like me to expand on, let me know! Obviously I'm a huge nerd about this stuff, and love talking about it.

[halfbaked00q]

office work CC culture is so funny to me. sometimes the person you email just CCs a random person or several random people in with no explanation, and you never find out who these people are or why they needed to be included in. They never say anything. Do they even read these emails? maybe it just clogs up their inbox

Also funny is ppl who care about the nebulous hierarchy of importance or power as represented by listing order in CC. OBJECTIVELY funny thing to get worked up about; and yet, some people do

I can't decide if Q should have no opinions on this, or sets of Highly Nuanced And Specific Opinions about it.

Maybe it's both-- *he* doesn't care, BUT he knows exactly who DOES, and absolutely weaponizes it when he deems necessary.

for example

"Dear Quartermaster,

Thanks for taking care of xyz! Just as a gentle reminder, emails should be listed in the CC field in order of importance of the receiver's role in the project.

Best regards,

Janet Walker"

"Dear Ms. Walker,

Thank you for the very valuable contribution on this highly significant project. However the receivers list was correctly configured. If you have concerns about the division of duties within the project feel free to discuss this with your supervisor offline.

Have a good evening,

Q"

Like. it's gotta be fun, right? to be able to snark so openly but plausibly deniably. It's, like, recreational. Like if you're gonna PVP *him* about it oh boy you better be ready to catch rocks.

[admhawthorne]

No One Pays Attention to Me Here Anymore, So...

I'm just going to put down some stuff I've done recently that I'm proud of and/or are thinking about but no one else would care about.

I cleaned out both of my personal email accounts, set up filters, and finally deleted most of the communication related to my time with R&I because it's been over a decade.

I finally figured out a configuration for my home office setup that I can live with and feel productive in. It only took 4 years.

I believe I've finally figured out a formula for keeping track of action items for my VERY busy boss.

I bought my wife season tickets to the opera for her birthday because opera is a life passion of hers. It was a hit.

I think I'm finally ready to talk to my therapist about the THING that I never want to talk about.

I hit my 10 year anniversary at work not that long ago, and I'm grateful.

My wife has planted a garden in our backyard, and I'm proud of her for it. It is really amazing. I'm happy for her because she's happy about her garden.

I bought the VR version of Hitman: World of Assassination because this is one of my all-time favorite games, and now I get to play the maps all over again through new eyes.

One of our adopted kids recently married. I'm so proud of how well she's done in life, and we get to see her and the new hubby next month, which I'm very much looking forward to.

There is a replica of a Compression Phaser Rifle used by Captain Janeway in the Voyager series on Etsy that I am SO close to buying, and the only thing stopping me is the economy.

[exquisite-peculiarity]

Update on the Fur Affinity hack!

For those who don't know, Fur Affinity is a furry site that hosts furry art, writing, photos, etc. It's an important and unique community beloved by its userbase. The person who founded and ran the site, Dragoneer, passed away 8/6/24. His friends and family are working together, with the support of the community, to keep the site up and running. They have a gofundme campaign to cover site expenses and the debt of his estate to keep the site from getting sold off as an asset. So far, it is looking bright. Unfortunately, this week, bad actors hijacked the site. They didn't break into the private info, but redirected traffic and communications to other places, including Kiwifarms (alt right site) who promptly released a statement that they weren't involved, and the hijack was at the expense of both websites. Fortunately for everyone, it's been resolved, and the site is safe to use again.

Here's the statement from their discord:

"Good Afternoon!

Yesterday, after meeting for several hours with Network Solutions (our domain registrar), they finally agreed to our demands to lock our account and revert changes made to our domain name’s NAMESERVER configuration. This lock also prevents anyone from signing in and making further changes. A fraud investigation has been launched on their part, and upon conclusion, our account will be fully released to us and we will receive more information on how this hijacking occurred. Our domain is directing traffic correctly.

While the bad actor was in control of our domain between Tuesday, August 20th at 12:47AM ET and Wednesday, August 21st at 2:28PM ET, they redirected our traffic to other websites and they set up an email server to receive any emails that were sent to any of our @furaffinity.net accounts. If you sent any emails to our @furaffinity.net accounts during that time, then the bad actor has those emails, we did not receive them, and you should act appropriately to secure and protect your information. Furthermore, any emails sent from @furaffinity.net during that time would have been sent by the bad actor and should not be trusted. The bad actor never had access to our actual email accounts, any previous emails, nor data we have previously received.

It is important to stress that the Fur Affinity web server itself was never compromised, and the bad actor never had access to any private information therein such as our user and server data (It's as if someone stole your home address and had your mail and visitors routed somewhere else. Your house and everything inside is fine, only the address and incoming/outgoing mail were affected). **As a precautionary measure during the incident, we invalidated all current login sessions and you will need to log back into your account.**

**✨🌟🎉 FUR AFFINITY IS NOW ONLINE AND MAY BE ACCESSED SAFELY! 🎉🌟✨**

Furthermore, as of last night (August 21st at 9:53PM ET), we have regained access to our Twitter account, and with the help of Whanos (@KernelJunkie), reclaimed our username (@FurAffinity). And as of this morning (August 22nd at 10:45AM ET), we also secured Dragoneer's personal Twitter account.

We have also been made aware of various sources claiming to have identified the bad actor responsible for this attack. We have no way to verify that these accusations are accurate, but will continue to share all information with the FBI. With that said, we want to remind everyone that we have a zero-tolerance policy toward harassment, no matter the circumstances. Recently, there have been instances where speculation has led to individuals being harassed, even if they have no proven connection to the incident.

It is important to note that Fur Affinity, with direct insight into the situation, has not conducted its own investigation. We are leaving that responsibility to law enforcement. Speculation only spreads misinformation and causes harm, so please be cautious about what you share or believe online.

We kindly urge everyone to avoid engaging in further speculation or harassment. It is the role of law enforcement to determine the facts and make decisions, not ours.

Finally, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to all of you for your unwavering support during this incredibly difficult time. Your kindness, patience, and understanding have meant the world to us as we've navigated these challenges together. We are committed to continuing to foster a creative and welcoming environment for all, and it is your strength and solidarity that make our community truly special. Thank you for standing with us.

Please note FA might suffer from the "hug of death" - basically, everyone interacting with it at once causes it to run slowly. (: It's not broken, just overwhelmed by your support!! "

In my opinion, the people who are running the site at this time are doing a good job with a really terrible situation.

We love and protect tumblr, as a special and queer community that is unique in it's function. Fur Affinity is important in the same way. It is a safe space for both nsfw and sfw queer expression, and that's something important to protect. ♥️

[girderednerve]

i have a very technical work complaint

okay so basically every modern library has a piece of software i am accustomed to calling an "ILS" (integrated library system), which is basically a big database that tracks all of our patron, item, and bibliographic records, with all of the various complex states these might be in, plus some front-end stuff so you can do things in the database conveniently. (the patron side of this, btw, is called an "OPAC," an online public-access catalog. yay, jargon!) so anyway we have this big database, right, with all of our records in it. one of the basic things that it's very helpful to do, if you work in a library, is run reports to pull lists of records from this database—all the patrons whose library cards are expiring, all the items at a given branch that have been marked missing, all the bibliographic records that don't have any items attached, all the items in a given section that haven't been checked out in a couple years, whatever. so at work we implemented this fun little tool in the OPAC (yay, jargon!) that shows you where a given item is physically located on a floor map of the library. to set up this tool, my boss had to do a bunch of configuring behind the scenes to tell the tool where a given item is, but there are a bunch of hard-to-catch items that don't render correctly because they have little errors in their records (for example, like fifteen years ago the librarian at my library would add paperbacks to the collection with a different material type than hardcover books; we stopped doing this, but there are still a few items with the old material type, and the new tool is confused by it & won't render their locations correctly). the thing i actually wanted to complain about is that this problem is incredibly easy to rectify in most ILSs: you would just run a report with simple parameters (items, filter for our branch, filter for material type) to find all of them, and then you would have a set of records that you need to make a predictable change to, so you would just batch update or whatever they call it. OUR ILS DOESN'T DO THAT! IT'S BEEN SET UP SO NO ONE IN A BRANCH HAS ACCESS TO RUN REPORTS AT ALL, MUCH LESS DO BASIC MAINTENANCE TASKS ON THE RESULTING REPORT! we have to email someone in central cataloging with our list criteria, who will then email us back an xls in 1-3 business days, which has made me fucking nuts—this system is slow, stupid, and prevents you from sitting there & tweaking your terms to get exactly what you want. it's dumb as hell. also i did a phone interview with a different branch in our system today & they told me that they handle weeding by having staff manually pull a cart of books, then manually check those item records to manually write down their total checkouts and last checkout date, like, i don't know, people trapped in 1903???????? i'm going to explode. these people cannot be serious. the excuse given apparently is that they don't want everyone to run reports at once & slow down the servers, but you can just, like. tell people when it's okay to run lists. also, most lists are not that taxing. if the servers choke & die every time i run a shelflist then you need to buy some more servers, buddy, that shit is not on me. but HONESTLY? a library in 2025? that can't RUN REPORTS in-house??????

fortunately our ILS is old enough that it's being sunsetted soon so they will be forced to switch to a twenty-first century catalog service, so maybe they'll let the librarians run reports, like adults, oh my god i'm so peeved. i think my willingness to poke around in the database has made me seem like a computer-loving egghead but actually what i love is not wasting time for no reason????

[azspot]

What's interesting about enshittified email is that it didn't start with corporate takeover: it started with volunteer-maintained blocklists of untrustworthy servers that most email operators subscribed to, defederating from any server that appeared on the list. These blocklists of bad servers were opaque (often, their maintainers would operate anonymously, citing the threat of retaliation from criminal scammers whose servers appeared on the list). They had little or no appeal process, and few or no objective criteria for inclusion (you could be blocklisted for how your email server was configured, even if no one was using it to send spam). All of this set up the conditions to favor large email servers, and also had the effect of immunizing these large servers from appearing on blocklists. I mean, once three quarters of the internet is on Gmail, no one is going to block email from Gmail, even if a ton of spam is sent using its servers.

Defense (of the internet) (from billionaires) in depth

[stuarttechnologybob]

What types of issues does technical support handle?

Technical Support Services

Technical Supporting services serve a vital role and prospect, by keeping businesses and organizations running efficiently & active by resolving their IT-related problems and issues. From minor glitches to major disruptions errors, technical support teams and professional experts help to ensure that systems remain up and running while in use, allowing the users to stay productive and alert. But what exactly do they handle? Let's take a closer look at what to look for and they assist with.

Hardware and Device Issues:

Technical supporting teams and professional experts assist with problems related to desktops, laptops, printers, scanners, and other hardware. As this includes and consists of deliverables fixing hardware failures, replacing parts, configuring devices, and troubleshooting connectivity or performance issues. Whether it's a malfunctioning keyboard or a slow-loading workstation, Technical Support is there to help.

Software Installation and Troubleshooting:

From installing and implementing the applications to resolving and assisting the software errors and glitches, technical Support guides various software-related and applications concerns and points at a time. They help and assist with updating programs, fixing bugs, assuring the overall compatibility within the operating systems, and restoring the performance if an app crashes or freezes.

Network and Connectivity Problems:

A strong network and support is the backbone of modern businesses and companies. Technical Supporting officials handle and maintain the internet issues, router configuration, VPN access, slow connection speeds, and network outages. Whether it's a minor or impactful Wi-Fi issue or a more significant server connectivity problem, the support team works to restore communication quickly.

Email and Communication Tools:

Email downtime can affect the business continuity and its proceedings. The technical supporting team manages email configuration, syncing errors, spam filters, and login issues and errors across multiple devices and platforms, including Outlook and Gmail. They also handle collaboration tools like Teams, Slack, or Zoom when they don't function as expected.

Security & Access Management:

Working professionals play an essential role in managing the IT security measures and operating parameters. While they also assist to reset passwords settings, also help to manage the user accounts, set up two-factor authentication, and address down the ongoing suspicious activity.

Personalized Help and Guidance:

From onboarding and completing setup for the new users to answering tech-related questions, technical Support assures that employees use systems efficiently. Their goal is to minimize downtime and boost productivity. Companies like Suma Soft, IBM, Cyntexa, and Cignex offer dependable technical support services tailored to your specific business needs. Their expertise helps resolve issues faster and keeps your systems up and running at all times.

[clementinesbarn]

Clementine's Kids: Our AU-Friendly Harry Potter Next-Gen Fest

We are proud to announce Clementine's Kids, our AU-Friendly Harry Potter Next-Gen Fest. A fest where you don't need to be married to common fanons, or to canon. Let your imagination fly.

Rules

Works should be set in the Harry Potter Universe.

Works should have a next-gen character in a prominent role (Either as PoV character or important supporting character).

A next-gen character for the effects of this fest is a character that was born after Harry started Hogwarts.

Minimum word count of 500 words, no maximum.

This fest is AU friendly. This means OCs are welcome and expected in most cases. This also means it’s not necessary for the fics to be canon compliant, you can write any canon divergence.

All ratings allowed, but common triggers should be tagged.

Fics should be original for this fest. You can also use your fest entry as the start of a long WIP. Spin-offs of older fics of yours are also welcome.

Fics are due September 5th.

Reveals start September 8th.

After submitting to the collection, you must complete this form.

FAQ

Do the fics have to be canon compliant? No. This fest is AU friendly. You can write about canon next-gen, but you can also write about any canon divergence. If Hinny has only daughters, you can write that; If in your universe Hermione marries Krum, you can write that. As long there are any character born after Harry’s generation starts Hogwarts, it’s game.

Do I have to use one of the prompts? To submit you'll have to use a prompt because of the configuration of the collection. If you work doesn't follow any prompt, you can use the "Free style" prompt.

Can I submit multiple entries? Yes you can.

I have other questions. Where do I send them? You can send them to the email clementinesbarnfests@gmail.com or to the tumblr clementinesbarn, or join our discord server and ask the host directly there.

[easylaunchpad]

Build a Full Email System in .NET with DotLiquid Templates (Already Done in EasyLaunchpad)

When you’re building a SaaS or admin-based web application, email isn’t optional — it’s essential. Whether you’re sending account verifications, password resets, notifications, or subscription updates, a robust email system is key to a complete product experience.

But let’s be honest: setting up a professional email system in .NET can be painful and time-consuming.

That’s why EasyLaunchpad includes a pre-integrated, customizable email engine powered by DotLiquid templates, ready for both transactional and system-generated emails. No extra configuration, no third-party code bloat — just plug it in and go.

In this post, we’ll show you what makes the EasyLaunchpad email system unique, how DotLiquid enables flexibility, and how you can customize or scale it to match your growing app.

💡 Why Email Still Matters

Email remains one of the most direct and effective ways to communicate with users. It plays a vital role in:

User authentication (activation, password reset)

Transactional updates (payment confirmations, receipts)

System notifications (errors, alerts, job status)

Marketing communications (newsletters, upsells)

Yet, building this from scratch in .NET involves SMTP setup, formatting logic, HTML templating, queuing, retries, and admin tools. That’s at least 1–2 weeks of development time — before you even get to the fun part.

EasyLaunchpad solves all of this upfront.

⚙️ What’s Prebuilt in EasyLaunchpad’s Email Engine?

Here’s what you get out of the box:

Feature and Description

✅ SMTP Integration- Preconfigured SMTP setup with credentials stored securely via appsettings.json

✅ DotLiquid Templating- Use tokenized, editable HTML templates to personalize messages

✅ Queued Email Dispatch- Background jobs via Hangfire ensure reliability and retry logic

✅ Admin Panel for Email Settings- Change SMTP settings and test emails without touching code

✅ Modular Email Service- Plug-and-play email logic for any future email types

✨ What Is DotLiquid?

DotLiquid is a secure, open-source .NET templating system inspired by Shopify’s Liquid engine.

It allows you to use placeholders inside your HTML emails such as:

<p>Hello {{ user.Name }},</p>

<p>Your payment of {{ amount }} was received.</p>

This means you don’t have to concatenate strings or hardcode variables into messy inline HTML.

It’s:

Clean and safe (prevents code injection)

Readable for marketers and non-devs

Flexible for developers who want power without complexity

📁 Where Email Templates Live

EasyLaunchpad keeps templates organized in a Templates/Emails/ folder.

Each email type is represented as a .liquid file:

- RegistrationConfirmation.liquid

- PasswordReset.liquid

- PaymentSuccess.liquid

- CustomAlert.liquid

These are loaded dynamically, so you can update content or design without redeploying your app.

🛠 How Emails Are Sent

The process is seamless:

You call the EmailService from anywhere in your codebase:

await _emailService.SendAsync(“PasswordReset”, user.Email, dataModel);

2. EasyLaunchpad loads the corresponding template from the folder.

3. DotLiquid parses and injects dynamic variables from your model.

4. Serilog logs the transaction, and the message is queued via Hangfire.

5. SMTP sends the message, with retry logic if delivery fails.

Background Jobs with Hangfire

Rather than sending emails in real-time (which can slow requests), EasyLaunchpad uses Hangfire to queue and retry delivery in the background.

This provides:

✅ Better UX (non-blocking response time)

✅ Resilience (automatic retries)

✅ Logs (you can track when and why emails fail)

🧪 Admin Control for Testing & Updates

Inside the admin panel, you get:

An editable SMTP section

Fields for server, port, SSL, credentials

A test-email button for real-time delivery validation

This means your support or ops team can change mail servers or fix credentials without needing developer intervention.

🧩 Use Cases Covered Out of the Box

Email Type and the Purpose

Account Confirmation- New user activation

Password Reset- Secure link to reset passwords

Subscription Receipt- Payment confirmation with plan details

Alert Notifications- Admin alerts for system jobs or errors

Custom Templates:

✍️ How to Add Your Own Email Template

Let’s say you want to add a welcome email after signup.

Step 1: Create Template

Add a file: Templates/Emails/WelcomeNewUser.liquid

<h1>Welcome, {{ user.Name }}!</h1>

<p>Thanks for joining our platform.</p>

Step 2: Call the EmailService

await _emailService.SendAsync(“WelcomeNewUser”, user.Email, new { user });

Done. No controller bloat. No HTML tangled in your C# code.

📊 Logging Email Activity

Every email is tracked via Serilog:

{

“Timestamp”: “2024–07–12T14:15:02Z”,

“Level”: “Information”,

“Message”: “Password reset email sent to user@example.com”,

“Template”: “PasswordReset”

}

You can:

Review logs via file or dashboard

Filter by template name, user, or result

Extend logs to include custom metadata (like IP or request ID)

🔌 SMTP Setup Made Simple

In appsettings.json, configure:

“EmailSettings”: {

“Host”: “smtp.yourdomain.com”,

“Port”: 587,

“Username”: “noreply@yourdomain.com”,

“Password”: “your-secure-password”,

“EnableSsl”: true,

“FromName”: “Your App”,

“FromEmail”: “noreply@yourdomain.com”

}

And you’re good to go.

🔐 Is It Secure?

Yes. Credentials are stored securely in environment config files, never hardcoded in source. The system:

Sanitizes user input

Escapes template values

Avoids direct HTML injection

Plus, DotLiquid prevents logic execution (no dangerous eval() or inline C#).

🚀 Why It Matters for SaaS Builders

Here’s why the prebuilt email engine in EasyLaunchpad gives you a head start:

Benefit:

What You Save

✅ Time

1–2 weeks of setup and testing

✅ Complexity

No manual SMTP config, retry logic, or template rendering

✅ User Experience

Reliable, branded communication that builds trust

✅ Scalability

Queue emails and add templates as your app grows

✅ Control

Update templates and SMTP settings from the admin panel

🧠 Final Thoughts

Email may not be glamorous, but it’s one of the most critical parts of your SaaS app — and EasyLaunchpad treats it as a first-class citizen.

With DotLiquid templating, SMTP integration, background processing, and logging baked in, you’re ready to handle everything from user onboarding to transactional alerts from day one.

So, why should you waste time building an email system when you can use EasyLaunchpad and start shipping your actual product?

👉 Try the prebuilt email engine inside EasyLaunchpad today at 🔗 https://easylaunchpad.com

[bleghablah]

ugh, total rant about working in IT coming. We got a request to set up a few new workstations at a remote clinic, and no one client side took ownership of the job. so I've been communicating with four people who have all told me four different things about the requirements and the closest thing I was ever given to a deadline was "uhhhh, well, whenever we get the people." I got the workstations set up according to the original ticket, and person A signed off but person B had some changes, so I made the changes, then person B and person C signed off, but then person D requested changes, then changed the scope, then had some changes, then had even more changes, then complained to my fucking boss that I didn't meet the deadline she made up and didn't tell me about, and also complained that I didn't accommodate a change of scope that she also didn't communicate to me.

like I'm so sorry that I didn't configure a whole new networked printer (that isn't owned by my department and would require a month of communication across my department and the vendor that supplies our printer) and I'm so sorry that I didn't set up a label printer that you never asked for and would have a lead time of another month and the involvement of my network guy, and I'm sorry that I didn't materialize three iPads that we don't have in stock that she never requested.

I thougjjt me and this user were chill, but I guess I shouldn't have assumed that since she's always been a dick and has been calling me Jane despite the fact that my name is on every email and teams message she's ever seen.

Like girl, please, I coordinated getting a new network drop for you, I stayed late and came in early for you, I hooked you up with an optiplex 7020 fresh out of the box, what the fuck?

really soured my day, let me tell you.