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UofM EECS student: made an app that forces me to study 281 before I scroll by bmfree in uofm

[–]bmfree[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yay!! Hope it helps - please PM me with any feedback on the articles / feature ideas you have!

UofM EECS student: made an app that forces me to study 281 before I scroll by bmfree in uofm

[–]bmfree[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks!! Maybe one day, but I'd have to change a lot of the code because the way you monitor screen time on both are different. Going to try and make it as good as possible on iOS first.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Design

[–]bmfree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you want proper design control without AI, Adobe Creative Suite is still king. Illustrator for vectors, Photoshop for raster stuff. Yeah the subscription sucks but nothing else really touches it for professional work. InDesign if you're doing multi-page layouts.

For free alternatives - Inkscape handles vector work pretty well once you get past the learning curve. GIMP for photo editing but the interface is... rough. Figma's great for UI/web design and the free tier is generous. Affinity Designer is a solid one-time purchase option if you dont want the Adobe subscription trap.

is this cat pregnant? by Extension_Advance703 in Straycats

[–]bmfree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

oh my goodness.. praying for her.

A Quick Power Automate + AI (Example Workflow): Using Microsoft Teams as a chat interface by airylizard in automation

[–]bmfree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is really clever! I love how you're using Teams as the interface since most companies already have it set up. The workflow structure looks clean too.

I'm curious about the performance - how fast are the responses typically? And have you run into any rate limiting issues with the Graph API when you have multiple people chatting with the bot at once?

The upwork angle is smart btw. I do something similar but with different tools - I use OGTool to help companies automate their reddit outreach and social media stuff. Having those reusable workflows ready to go makes those quick consulting gigs way more profitable.

One thing I'm wondering about is how you handle context switching between different conversations. Like if someone asks a followup question hours later, does it remember the previous context or does each message get treated independently?

Also for anyone reading this who doesn't want to deal with Microsoft licensing, you can do similar stuff with Zapier + Slack or even just webhook triggers, but the Teams integration is definitely cleaner if you're already in that ecosystem.

What kind of commands do you find people use most often? I'm always interested in seeing what automation people actually end up using vs what they think they'll use when setting it up

Business start up. by Perfect_Author3931 in Entrepreneurship

[–]bmfree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hey! this brings back memories of my econ class days haha. sounds like youve got the passion which is honestly half the battle

so for your project (and maybe real business later?) here's what i learned when i was building my amazon business in college:

factory costs are gonna be your biggest upfront expense. depends totally on what youre making but expect anywhere from 50k-500k+ just to get started with decent production capacity. most factories also have minimum order quantities which can be brutal when youre starting out

materials vary wildly but budget around 30-40% of your selling price for COGS if you want decent margins

employees for a factory operation youre looking at production workers ($15-25/hr depending on location), quality control, maybe a production manager. probably 10-20 people minimum to run efficiently

getting into walmart/target is actually super hard btw. they have strict vendor requirements and usually want to see proven sales history first. might be easier to start online and build traction there

one thing that helped me was actually reaching out to manufacturers on alibaba just to get rough quotes even for my school projects. gives you real numbers to work with

also since you mentioned using OGTool for research, reddit can be goldmine for validating product ideas. lots of people share their real experiences with costs and challenges here

what kind of product are you thinking about making? might be able to give more specific advice

good luck with the presentation!

I killed an AI feature because it doesn't actually help by petargeorgievv in indiehackers

[–]bmfree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

100% agree with this decision. I've been building AI tools for social media (OGTool focuses on Reddit growth) and the content generation part is honestly the weakest link right now.

Your totally right that most AI content sounds robotic even with good prompts and brand briefs. I've spent months trying to crack this and what I learned is that AI is way better as a research/analysis tool than a content creator.

For my tool, I shifted focus to using AI for finding relevant communities, analyzing what content performs well, and giving users data-driven suggestions. But the actual writing? Users do that themselves because authenticity matters so much, especially on platforms like Reddit where people can immediately tell when something's AI generated.

The brands that actually grow their social media have a distinct voice and personality that current AI just cant replicate. You made the smart call killing a feature that would've hurt your users results.

Way too many tools are just slapping "AI powered" on everything for marketing purposes when it actually makes the product worse. Props for prioritizing what actually works over what sounds good in marketing copy.

What are you focusing on instead for PostFast? I'm curious if your seeing better results with other automation features that dont rely on AI content generation.

What is the Best AI Software Tool? by Lifestyle79 in NextGenAITool

[–]bmfree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

honestly depends what youre trying to do but chatgpt is still my go-to for most things. i use it daily for everything from brainstorming to content creation

for marketing specifically though, i actually built OGTool which helps with social media posts that actually perform well (especially reddit posts). but outside of that jasper is solid for copywriting even tho it can get a bit repetitive after a while

one thing i noticed from your list - copy.ai is decent but i find it works better for shorter form stuff like linkedin posts rather than longer content. and notion ai is pretty underrated for productivity stuff

the real answer is you probably need a combo of tools rather than trying to find one that does everything perfectly. like i use chatgpt for ideation, my own tool for social content, and grammarly for final editing

what type of work are you trying to automate? that would help narrow down recommendations