Dirigo Software Solutions

02/17/2026

If You Want to See How the Sausage is Made

Recently I was watching another video from Carl Brown about AI. Love it, hate it, or something in between, he made a great point. Before you jump into this mess you should have some idea on what is going on. He shared a link for a Claude Code Challenge (CodeCrafters) - https://iob.fyi/COCR, where you can code an agent in different languages. It is well worth a look if you plan to heavily invest time and energy into AI Agents. You see how it interacts with you computer and you get an idea of how this process works.

For me, you can see why you should exercise caution when using these tools. You can easily allow bad actors to hijack your system and get access to things it shouldn't. I am not against AI, just the unsafe use of it. And the best protection you have have out there is to be informed and curious.

As Carl says "stay safe out there!"

P.S. The link to CodeCrafters has an affiliate like, but for Carl not me. So, if this is something that interests you, please use it. We need people like him out there finding this information and getting it out to the rest of us!

https://youtu.be/GYfgjYVEYQ0?si=oluzOEsBAt9ci7E6

"The singularity is not happening. Fast take-off is not star...

11/04/2025

It’s November — Are You Where You Want to Be?

Hard to believe it’s already November. Many of us are looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. But then it’s New Year’s.

And that’s when the panic sets in if it hasn’t already.

Are you where you expected to be? Or are you in the same rut as last year, just a year older?

Did we make ourselves more productive? Did we automate something that drain out time and energy?

Or will the new year bring the same old busywork?

The thing is that freeing ourselves of boring and repetitive work doesn't need to be time consuming or difficult.

Often an afternoon spent thinking about a broken process is all we need to find a solution. I’ve seen people free up hours of work just by asking one simple question: “Is there a better way to do this?” And then actually doing something about it.

So don’t wait for New Year's Eve to roll around to make another resolution you won't keep.

Start now by asking yourself:

-What do I still do by hand?

-What am I doing that frustrates me every month?

-Where do I lose time?

Then get out there and find a solution. Need help, well I am all ears. Let's connect.

You’ve still got time to make this the year you stopped suffering with work you hate.

Remember that life is too short to waste on tasks that kill your productivity and happiness!

10/29/2025

Here is a post for my technical friends. Always an interesting take on AI, contrary to all the hype or doom and gloom.

There are a lot of things the AI Companies want us to believe against our best interests, but I think this one is the worst one of all, it's almost never cha...

10/21/2025

When Pennies Don’t Add Up

A client came to me with a tedious problem. Every month, they had to allocate costs from one department to others.

Sounds easy until you run into the issues of having to set up the same formulas every month. Handle issues of partial pennies. Ensuring it all ties out and then on top, you need to format it all to put into an IFF file to import into Quickbooks.

Throw in the possibility of human error and the process becomes the punishment.

The solution was to let automation handle the process of allocating the costs. It handles all the math and easily handles those pesky partial pennies. Then conveniently dumps it all into an IFF format.

Now hours of work is turned into something that takes less than a minute. The user only needs to review the work and then upload the IFF file into Quickbooks.

That’s the beauty of automation:

It doesn’t just save time, it removes frustration.

Tired of the process being the punishment and want to know if there is a better way? Then let’s talk. I’ll show you what automation can do for you.

Remember life is too short to waste on work you hate!

10/16/2025

When the Software Says “No,” but the Database Says “Yes”

A client reached out frustrated that their software couldn’t generate the information they needed.

The software would only show an important report as of the date you ran it. Forget and the result would be wrong.

Now, it wasn't that the data was not there, it was just a limitation for this important report. Even worse, the developer of the software was not interested in fixing it.

What now?

Enter the ability to understand how software works. Most business software runs on top of a database — and that database often holds far more information than the user interface lets you see.

A few SQL queries later, we had exactly what they were looking for.

No new software. No upgrade. No waiting weeks for support. No expensive fix.

Sometimes the limitation isn’t the software it’s how we access it.

I had another client with a similar issue. They had report they didn't like and missing reports they wanted. Did a little digging in the software's documentation and there it was. Instructions on how you could create custom reports.

Again no new software. No upgrade. No waiting weeks for support. No expensive fix.

In both cases, the key wasn’t buying new tools — it was understanding how to unlock the potential of the ones they already had.

Running into similar roadblocks with your software? Let’s talk. You might be surprised what your systems are capable of when someone knows where to look.

10/14/2025

From Eight Hours to Five Minutes

Ever had one of those tasks that eats your entire day? Every single month, day, hour. Constantly dragging you down with constant sorting, merging, cleaning, and formatting data until your eyes glaze over?

That was my client a few weeks ago. They were spending 8 hours every month cleaning fleet charge data for their accounting system.

Now? It takes 5 minutes — all thanks to Power Query in Excel.

- No complex code.

- No expensive software.

Just using a tool most people already have.

Power Query automated the entire process — pulling in raw files, transforming the data, and delivering clean, ready-to-use results automatically.

This is the kind of automation people overlook because it’s not flashy or “AI-driven.”

But it’s the kind that gives you back something more valuable than money, YOUR TIME!

- Time to think.

- Time to solve.

- Time to create.

- Time to actually finish work on time.

Sometimes the best automation isn’t about new tools — it’s about learning how to use the ones you already have better.

Stop the constant grind! Use automation to eliminate that boring and repetitive work that is killing your productivity and happiness. Need help, DM me or email me.

Life is too short to waste on work you hate!

09/23/2025

THIS IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT FOR ME

I got this email from one of my clients:

OH MY WORD! I just uploaded the entire month of August Fleet charges. The export from the timecard program had 2,827 rows of data to cull thru – this would have taken me all day. The new spreadsheet had it analyzed and ready to import in less than a minute. I spent 30 minutes verifying data was accurate but all in all this 9 plus hour task is now taking less than 5 minutes from download to upload to post!!! What a time saver!

Nothing feels better than using technology to actually improve the lives of others. She is now free to do work that a human does best. NOT mindlessly staring at rows and columns.

Also, this was not using some fancy tool or complex workflow, just Power Query in Excel.

Put yourself in her place, is there something you keep spending hours on, that you keeping asking yourself "there has got to be a better way?" What could you do with the time if you could just make it disappear? How would it make you feel at your job without that task sitting over your head?

If you finally want the question answered reach out to me or put it in the comments. You have nothing to lose except by asking the question.

LIFE IS TOO SHORT to waste on work you hate and adds nothing to your life!

08/25/2025

Power Query – Accountants and Bookkeepers Are You Using It?

Recently, I have been trying to connect with accountants and bookkeepers to get their input on automation and ai. One of the things that surprised me was that many were not aware of what Power Query could offer them.

So, I put together a simple blog post to show case some of it's features. It may seem to be simplistic, but that is the point.

Not every solution or tool needs to be complicated or save the world. It needs to save you time and effort, even if that is just 20 to 30 minutes a day.

The goal is to put more time back in your hands, not put on the Greatest Show on Earth.

Accountants and bookkeepers please let me know what you think about Power Query or what you would like to know more about.

P.S. I am still looking to interview accountants and bookkeepers, please DM me or email me at [email protected] if you would be willing to help me out.

Blog Post -

You already have Excel open almost every day. It can be used for reports, reconciliations, or even a simple database. Here’s the question: are you really taking advantage of what’s built inside it? I recently have been talking with accountants and bookkeepers about their struggles with technolog...

08/19/2025

Accountants & Bookkeepers — I need your insight.

I’m talking with professionals in your field to learn how you’re thinking about automation and AI:

-What’s actually saving you time?

-What’s overhyped?

-What tools or solutions do you wish existed?

This isn’t a sales call or pitch. I’m gathering data, so I can better understand what’s working (and what’s not) when it comes to automation and AI in accounting and bookkeeping. I am doing this to help me develop presentations I am creating for continuing education. For me this stuff just seems great, but I am biased, so I want to get how those in the trenches are really feeling.

If you’re open to a quick 10–15 minute chat, I’d love to hear your perspective. In return, I’ll share with you information on what I have seen work or help with questions you have about technology.

If you’d be open to chatting, send me a DM or email me at [email protected].

Thanks in advance!

08/01/2025

Recency Bias - QR Codes

I just got an email from Bit.ly about their new resource on using QR codes - https://bitly.com/pages/qr-code-survey. Seems like I am seeing cool use-cases for QR codes everywhere now. Not an exciting technology, but I am not about how cool something is, but how useful it is. So, here I am putting the word out. Happy automating!

07/17/2025

Security with Zapier MCP – Practice Least Privilege

I recently learning about using Zapier MCP, but a post by General Analysis (link below) about Supabase leaking database information got me thinking. It wasn’t Supabase that was the issue, it was that the AI had more access than it should’ve.

This is a classic "least privilege" issue. In software development, “least privilege” means giving any system or user only the minimum access they need to do their job and that is it.

In the case shared, the AI should never have been able to access tables unrelated to the task at hand. But it could because someone gave it broad access! That’s the risk. You also can't assume that the default settings are least privilege as not all software follows the "secure by default" methodology. Yes, this can be a pain as you might have to use different tools to make sure you are not putting your data at risk, but getting breached is much more inconvenient!

And this doesn’t just apply to AI. Any automation can become a liability if it’s got more access than necessary. Every process should be reviewed through the lens of "what is the bare minimum this tool needs to do its job?"

Ok, enough of the premise here are some ways to make your Zapier MCP more secure.

- Avoid allowing it to send emails directly on your behalf, allow it to only create drafts. This prevents bad actors from being able to exfiltrate your data.

- Avoid using a personal email account. Create one specific to the MCP, so someone can't access sensitive data in your email account. If you need to have something come from your account, you could have the MCP account email your account and let a rule forward it to where it needs to go.

- When you set up a tool in Zapier MCP you can decide which actions it can take. Don't select all of them. Only select the one's you need. This will prevent bad actors from using an action to do something you weren't aware of or in a way you didn't expect.

- Following up on the previous item, when you select an action, you can determine what parameters AI can use or hard code values. This allows you to limit the discretion the AI has. for example, I want to access a spreadsheet of students. So, when I setup the Sheet action, I only allow it to access the specific sheet I am using. Or if I need to access different sheets, I will only allow the action to use a specific Google drive folder with sheets I need. Keeping my more sensitive files from being accessed by accident.

- If you are done with a tool or action, remove it from the MCP server.

Now, this is not an exhaustive list and I am sure others can other items. So, I would love to hear any suggestions on what I should add to the list. Keep safe out there and as always feel free to contact me with questions. Technology is supposed to make our lives better, not scarier. Happy automating!

Link to General Analysis's Article -

In this post, we show how an attacker can exploit Supabase’s MCP integration to leak a developer’s private SQL tables. Model Context Protocol (MCP) has emerged as a standard way for LLMs to interact with external tools. While this unlocks new capabilities, it also introduces new risk surfaces.