Hello & Welcome
To this week's Tips, Guides and News You Can Use.

How to Become a Backyard Naturalist 
With Just Your Smartphone

Everything you need to conduct citizen science fits in the palm of your hand.

In the early days of summer, backyards come to life.

Warmer temperatures transform spring buds into lush greenery, coax insects from their winter slumber, and invite newborn animals to explore their surroundings on wobbling legs or wings.

With smartphones, documenting this emerging wildlife has never been easier.

These days, all the tools you need to become a backyard naturalist fit right in the palm of your hand.

And while June is an especially good time to start, you can use your phone to observe organisms, identify species, and record sightings any time of year, no matter your location.

It’s more than just a hobby—scientists can use your data to conduct important research, allowing you to make contributions as a citizen scientist.

Let's check it out, test tubes and magnifying glasses not required.

If You've Ignored Notepad Before, 
It’s Time to Take a Second Look

Most of us use Windows without ever giving a thought to the small, simple tools that come with it.

With the latest updates, Microsoft has converted one of these, Notepad, into quite a handy writing tool that you'll find hard to ignore now.

Notepad is no exception to the AI-ification of Windows, and those AI features have made Notepad a proper writing tool.

You get these three tools at the time of writing:

Write/Rewrite: Takes a prompt, or pre-written text if available, and generates or edits text based on your commands.

Customized rewrite: Lets you adjust the length, tone, and format of your text.

You get five options for tone and six for format.

Summarize: As the name suggests, gives you a short summary of everything included in your text file.

You might not use the Write or Customized rewrite features a lot, especially considering you can use a better tool like ChatGPT for free.

However, the Summarize feature is massively helpful, especially if you're working with larger text files or code/configuration files and don't understand what everything means.

Lets have a look at some of the other 'game-changer' features in this handy free tool.

NOTE: There are a couple of video tutorials I've added below that further highlights the Notepad features in Windows 11

8 Ways to Make Your Content Stand Out in 
The AI Writing Wave

Here's how to cut through the AI noise.

The recent rise in AI-generated content has some writers worried about their job security.

Especially with incredible advancements in the technology, reasoning models like OpenAI o1, AI search engines like Perplexity AI, and research-focused tools like ChatGPT deep research—it can be a little unnerving.

I get spooked about the situation myself—but I try to remember that we, as humans, still beat AI at much of what gives good content its impact.

I talked with a bunch of other writers and content marketers about how they make their content stand out, and what separates humans from bots. And here's what they had to share.

How To Efficiently Plan A WordPress Site

The most exciting moment of your new WordPress project is right at the beginning.

You have an idea that one day, you hope will soon be shared with the world.

But it can also be overwhelming.

WordPress has countless plugins that do pretty much everything under the sun.

In fact, the WordPress ecosystem has doubled in terms of plugin submissions in 2025.

So, which ones should you use?

In this guide, I will talk through how I plan to build a WordPress website.

How to Create a Viral Video, According to Creators

There are many ways to build a sustainable career as a content creator, but starting off can be really tough.

One of the swiftest ways to break into the algorithm is by creating viral content.

The definition of "viral" varies depending on who you ask.

For one creator, 100,000 views on a video is viral; for another, virality isn't accessed until the one million viewership threshold is passed.

For an individual creator, a good rule of thumb is that a video goes viral when the views on that video is significantly higher than the views on a creator's typical content.

Ultimately, viral videos are measured in impact, and there are dozens of ways to measure that, too.

Read on for more details.

The 2025 Generational Marketing Playbook: How to Engage Every Age Group on Social

Demographic data is a key building block in defining your target audiences on social media.

Incorporating generational marketing insights into your strategies can greatly influence how people connect with your brand, from the awareness stage all the way to advocacy.

Building relationships across age demographics starts with an up-to-date understanding of how each generation interacts with social media networks and content.

The data included in this guide involved an analysis of the following generations:

Generation Z (survey respondents ages 18-28)
Millennials, aka Generation Y (survey respondents ages 29-44)
Generation X (survey respondents ages 45-60)
Baby Boomers (survey respondents ages 61-79)

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My PLR Video Series
*Volume Two Coming Soon

The “Getting Started Vol-One” is a set of thirteen step-by-step, over-the-shoulder style video tutorials (except video one, which is me & PowerPoint) for starting an online presence that can be easily turned into your side hustle or full-time business.

It’s designed for beginners and intermediate users who want to improve their skills in creating and building their online presence.

Rest of the details inside

Click That Yellow 'Inside HERE' Button To GET Yours NOW!

The latest version of Notepad has some pretty cool features. 

Between the above article and these two videos, you should be caught up.

NOTE: The second video here might be best watched with the audio off - in my opinion anyway. The creators choice of background 'music' is not my cup of tea. Maybe it is your thing but I wanted to put it out there just in case. 

This is the one where I suggest the audio to be down or muted. Also, this tutorial covers many new features of Windows 11 so I cued up the URL to the five minute mark where the info on Notepad begins. Feel free to gander at the rest of the video.