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AI Is Here — Do You See What’s Coming?

fisicx
It has been reported many times that even with guardrails AI tools will ignore your instructions and pull in data from external sources. That’s built into their design.

If you have your own airgapped LLM that’s different. But using a publicly accessible LLM means you have less control of the data used for the analysis.

I’m not suggesting you go through the output line by line but you should at least verify any summaries and suggestions. I’d do the same for a report a colleague created for me.
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Hello — Pranav from Optavero

P
Hello everyone — I’m Pranav, founder of Optavero.

I’m building Optavero alongside my current job to help UK freelancers, consultants and small service teams make clearer software decisions and avoid unnecessary subscriptions.

I joined UKBF to learn from people running real businesses, understand the operational problems they encounter and contribute wherever my research may be useful. No pitches—just looking forward to useful conversations and learning from the community.
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Grouping invoice line items in Xero: what does everyone actually do?

C
I’d use a two-layer process rather than retyping thirty lines each time. Keep the detailed quote/job sheet (and any purchase-cost detail) as the working record, then raise the Xero sales invoice with the customer-facing groups such as Labour and Materials. Attach the detailed sheet to the Xero transaction for your own audit trail if useful.

For repeat work, a consistent set of item codes or tracking categories can preserve useful analysis without making the invoice unreadable. I’d keep the same invoice number between the detailed job record and the issued invoice, and avoid sending a second document that could be mistaken for a different VAT invoice. Check each group’s VAT rate separately, and for CIS jobs keep materials clearly separated from labour. That gives the customer a clean summary while retaining the detail you’ll need later.
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Ocean Shipping China to UK

veebox.uk
Hi,

We - (Veebox) specialise in the China to UK trade lane for Full Container Loads, if you are shipping anything from 1-100 containers a month on this route we should be able to reduce your shipping costs.

How - we use a combination of grouped buying and available capacity slots across multiple lines to secure space at great rates.

Feel free to check out the website and get in touch if you'd like to benchmark your current pricing, I'd love to see what we can save you.

Thanks
Rich
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Is this unheard of?

G
Dannydee said:
In April I asked for a pay rise that amounted to 21% (£7,500).

After waiting for nearly 5 months, during which time my boss was continually pushing for the raise and even decided to request more, I got my raise.

In the end, the decision was a 35% pay rise. I asked for £7,500, and was given £12,500 instead, and a promotion to Sr. Manager of my business area (marketing technology).

Now, obviously I have zero complaints, but it got me thinking. I have never personally known of anyone this has happened to, where you ask for a raise and get 66% more than what you asked for.

In 2021 I was with an electricity company who made a big deal out of giving me a 2% raise, six months later than it was supposed to happen. They we a terrible company who treated me very poorly in more ways than one; thankfully, they failed miserably and closed down soon after I left having been psychologically frozen-out.

Anyways, I am asking a genuine question here, this is not me showing off. Has anyone experienced this kind of thing, or heard of it?

I got it on merit of course. I am 100% remote, and they are a US company. Is this more of a US thing? Are they more willing to pay you what you're worth?

It's my first experience working for a US company, so I have nothing to compare it to except for the tightwad UK companies I've worked for.
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That’s a seriously good result — congrats! 😄

I don’t think it’s necessarily just a US thing. A lot probably depends on the company, your role and how much they value you. If you’re interested in whether everything around the promotion, salary increase and your new terms has been handled correctly, you could always speak to an employment lawyer.

There are lawyers in both the UK and US who deal with employment matters.
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Website check. I'm thick skinned, tell it like it is...

fisicx
CardMachineGuy said:
Cheers, i've taken onboard some of the comments posted here, without changing my brand identity. I know theres still work to do though.
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What brand identity?

I see a picture of some random bloke in a fish shop holding a phone with something called Dojo on the screen.

All the fundamental elements a potential client expects to see are still missing.
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Getting many location pages indexed-help needed

Think SEO
Steve Jones2 said:
I travel to my customers, covering a 50 mile radius.
My site has 30k location pages, based on 10 keywords and 3000 towns.
But Google has only indexed 1.5k of 30k pages.Around 9k are "crawled not indexed". This has been the case for a long time.
A freelancer has suggested he resubmit the pages-he can do 200 per day.But I'm wondering if this is a waste of time unless I try something else.

I'm not technical on SEO. Do I need to change page titles, embed a local map for each town, provide internal links? I don't have the skills to do any of this.
Basically, I need someone who's familiar with this issue to help me, so contact me if you think you can help.
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Yes, this is something we can help with.

With 30,000 location pages, I’d be very cautious about simply resubmitting them in bulk. If Google has already crawled thousands of them and chosen not to index them, the issue is more likely to be page quality, duplication, internal linking, crawl structure or the pages being too similar to each other.

At Think SEO we’d look at the site properly first, identify why Google is leaving so many as “crawled – currently not indexed”, then work out which location pages are actually worth keeping and strengthening.

That could include improving titles and content, adding stronger internal linking, making the location pages genuinely unique and useful, improving schema/local signals and making sure the site isn’t effectively creating thousands of near-duplicate doorway-style pages.

We also look at AI search optimisation alongside traditional SEO now, so the site can be structured for both Google and newer AI-driven search results.

Happy to take a look and tell you what we think before you spend money having thousands of pages resubmitted. No pressure.

Think SEO
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Re-ignite an old Youtube channel or register a new one?

Think SEO
Pete-W said:
I want to start pushing "How To" videos on Youtube to promote my photo/video studio.

I have an old unused channel that I posted on years ago with some old videography how-to's but its sat idle for about 2 years, only about 100 follwers.

Should I bring that old channel back to life? or should I register a new one?
The question is basically around what the Youtube algorithm will push harder - an older channel with 10 videos from the past, or a brand new channel with zero followers and little content?
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I’d probably revive the old channel rather than start from scratch.

YouTube generally cares much more about how individual videos perform than whether the channel is old or new, so an inactive channel with 100 subscribers and some relevant history isn’t really a disadvantage. If the old content is in the same sort of niche, it can actually give you a better starting point.

I’d clean the channel up, update the branding, make sure the old videos still fit the direction you want to go in, then start posting consistently around very specific “how to” searches your ideal customers are already making.

The bigger opportunity is making the videos work alongside your website and Google visibility, so each video targets a real search topic and points people back towards your studio/services.

We do SEO and AI/search optimisation at Think SEO, so if useful I’d be happy to suggest a few YouTube topics that could actually bring local enquiries rather than just views. No pressure at all.
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School Uniform - should Government pay the shortfall?

tony84
4!
School photo - The only one I get.
There is a company coming in with a big tent with the planets - apparently the school have subsidised that, but we still need to pay, I have no idea how much it costs but I am in the wrong game!
100 club - you pay £100 to get a raffle ticket each month for the next 9 months and hope to win some tat.
After school clubs - now cost more than actual after school clubs!
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AI does have its uses

ctrlbrk
Ozzy said:
You are absolutely right again, you was referring to the guy who sent me the email. I will remember this for future correspondence and ask for clarification if there is any ambiguity in future communications.

(you may be missing the joke, yes)
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Yes, AI agents' apologies always remind me about a Father Ted's scene where Ted admonishes Dougal, and Dougal replies:

"Well Ted, like I said last time, it won't happen again."

🤣
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Reactions: Ozzy

Remote hiring risks: How fraudulent freelance IT contractors are targeting SMEs

A
Hello everyone,

Many UK small businesses and startups rely on freelance platforms (Upwork, Fiverr, LinkedIn) to outsource software development, web maintenance, and IT support to keep overheads manageable.

However, there has been a sharp increase in warnings from cybersecurity agencies regarding state-sponsored threat actors and fraudulent overseas contractors infiltrating Western businesses. These individuals use stolen identities, forged UK/EU credentials, and proxy video interviews to secure remote contracting roles. Once granted access to internal Git repositories, cloud environments, or corporate networks, they can plant backdoors, exfiltrate proprietary data, or demand ransoms. For an SME, the resulting operational disruption and GDPR compliance liability can be devastating.

Useful investigation breaking down the tactics these fraudulent freelance contractors use to bypass standard vetting:
Source: Cointelegraph
ct.com/magazine/freelancer-north-korean-spies-may-using-you

For business owners hiring remote developers or IT contractors: what specific verification steps (live video ID checks, background screening, restricted repository permissions) have you put in place to verify identity before granting codebase or server access?
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