DEV Community: Auke de Haan

7 AI Email Writing Tools Tested: Which One Writes the Best Professional Dutch Emails?

Auke de Haan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 11:05:03 +0000

Every Dutch professional spends about two hours a day on email. AI email tools promise to cut that in half. But which one actually works, and which one just rewrites your sentences in a way that still sounds translated from English?

I tested seven AI tools specifically on professional Dutch email writing: Claude, Copilot for Microsoft 365, ChatGPT Plus, Google Gemini, MailMaestro, Notion AI, and Perplexity.

The Results

Claude won on Dutch language quality. Its email drafts sounded like they were written by a native Dutch speaker. Phrases like "Ik zou graag willen" (which sounds translated) were avoided; instead, Claude consistently used natural Dutch constructions.

Copilot won on Outlook integration. If you work in Microsoft 365, Copilot reads your email thread context and suggests replies directly inside Outlook — no copy-pasting needed.

MailMaestro won on price. At under $5/month, it plugs directly into both Outlook and Gmail and handles most routine business correspondence.

The GDPR Catch

None of the consumer plans (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, etc.) include a Data Processing Agreement. If you paste customer names or email addresses into an AI tool without a DPA, you risk AVG/GDPR violations. Use anonymized placeholders until you have a business-tier subscription.

For a full Dutch-language comparison including pricing tables and AVG compliance scores, this guide on AI email writing for Dutch professionals covers all the options in detail.

What AI email tool do you use? Let me know in the comments.

Why Niche Wall Art Outsells Generic Decor (And What That Means for Buyers)

Auke de Haan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 09:01:32 +0000

The home decor market has a paradox: generic products that appeal to everyone often sell worse than niche products that appeal to a specific few.

Canvas wall art is one of the clearest examples of this.

What the purchase data actually shows

Generic art — neutral landscapes, abstract color fields, botanical prints — is everywhere. Every furniture chain carries it. The buyer who wants something inoffensive and broadly decorative has hundreds of options within walking distance.

The buyer who wants a historically accurate depiction of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent, or a canvas showing Norse mythological scenes, has almost no options locally. That buyer often has to search specifically for what they want.

This scarcity creates stronger purchase intent and less price sensitivity. A buyer searching for a dinosaur canvas already knows they want it — the decision is made before they land on the product page.

The three reasons people actually buy wall art

Identity signaling. Art communicates interests to visitors. A Viking mythology print or a prehistoric timeline canvas tells guests something specific about who lives there. Generic landscapes communicate nothing.

Atmosphere. Some buyers want their space to feel a specific way — scholarly, adventurous, mysterious. Themed art creates that more reliably than abstract color fields.

Gift purchasing. Niche themes make gift-buying easy. A dinosaur-obsessed friend is simple to shop for. Someone who "likes art" is not.

Canvas vs. framed prints: what's changed

Canvas has largely replaced framed posters as the default format for decorative art. The reasons are practical: no glass glare, reads as real art rather than a poster, no additional hardware needed, and quality canvas prints last for decades without fading.

One detail most buyers miss: the thickness of the stretcher bars matters. Thinner (2cm) bars can warp over time. Gallery-wrap bars at 4cm hold their shape indefinitely — worth checking before purchasing.

Where niche themed art actually exists

YourWallArts specializes in exactly this segment — themed canvas art covering historical, prehistoric, mythological, and fantasy subjects. The focus is designs that mean something rather than generic decor, with production handled directly rather than dropshipping generic inventory.

For buyers in the Netherlands, shipping is domestic with standard delivery times.

If you're decorating a space and want something that actually represents an interest rather than filling wall space, it's worth looking at niche-specific stores rather than general home goods retailers.

Private Jet Costs for 12 People and Dusseldorf to Mallorca: Two DACH Routes in 2026

Auke de Haan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:31:14 +0000

12-Person Group Charters: When a Heavy Jet Beats Two Midsize Jets

The private jet market in DACH has a gap: what does it actually cost when you have 12 people?

For groups of 10 to 12, the calculation shifts. A single Heavy Jet like a Gulfstream G450 or Falcon 900LX carries 10-14 passengers at 8,500 to 11,500 EUR per flight hour. Two Midsize Jets for the same group means double the crew, double the handling fees, and typically 10-15% more in total costs.

On Munich to Mallorca, a 12-person Heavy Jet costs around 22,000 to 30,000 EUR one-way. That is roughly 1,833 to 2,500 EUR per person, approaching business class economics with the cabin exclusively for your group.

This German guide on privatjet-vergleich.de covers the full cost breakdown with per-person calculations for all major DACH routes.

Dusseldorf to Mallorca: The Overlooked NRW Summer Route

Dusseldorf (DUS) is Germany's third-largest Business Aviation hub, but most charter guides focus on Frankfurt and Munich. NRW has a dense network of family businesses and mid-market firms that regularly charter, and Mallorca is the number one summer destination.

A Light Jet from DUS to Mallorca costs 9,500 to 13,000 EUR one-way in about 2 hours 10 minutes. Monchengladbach Airport (MGL) offers the same route with handling fees 1,000 to 2,000 EUR lower per movement.

Full pricing with FBO comparison for the DUS-PMI route is now available in German.

Google Merchant Center Availability Mismatch: 5 Causes and How to Fix Each One

Auke de Haan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 07:56:44 +0000

Why Your Google Shopping Products Keep Getting Disapproved for Availability

An availability mismatch is one of the most common reasons Google Merchant Center disapproves products. Your feed says a product is in_stock, but Google's crawler visits your page and sees it shows Out of Stock or Sold Out. The product gets disapproved, and if it keeps happening across your catalog, you risk a full account suspension.

The 5 Root Causes

1. Caching serving stale stock status to Googlebot
Caching plugins and CDN edge nodes can serve a cached version of your product page with an older stock status. Googlebot visits the page, sees In Stock from yesterday's cache, but your feed now says out_of_stock. Mismatch.

Fix: Reduce cache TTL for product pages to 4 hours or less. Purge product page cache automatically when inventory changes.

2. Inventory sync lag between platform and feed
Your e-commerce platform updates inventory in real time, but your Google Shopping feed only refreshes every few hours. Flash sales and limited-stock drops cause mismatches during the gap.

Fix: Enable real-time feed updates where your platform supports them. In Shopify, trigger a manual fetch in Merchant Center after any bulk inventory change (Products > Feeds > Fetch now).

3. Oversell settings active
Shopify and WooCommerce let you continue accepting orders when inventory hits zero. If that setting is active, your feed says in_stock even when you have zero units. That is a misrepresentation violation.

Fix: Disable the oversell setting, or use the backorder availability value with an accurate availability_date in your feed.

4. Manual feed overrides not updated
Supplemental feeds and feed rules in Merchant Center that hard-code availability values stay fixed until you change them manually. Your page can update dynamically while the override sits unchanged.

Fix: Audit supplemental feeds and feed rules. Remove or update manual availability overrides.

5. Preorder products without availability_date
Pages using Preorder language without a corresponding availability_date in the feed now trigger the same flag as an active buy button on a sold-out page. The 2026 AI verification treats missing availability_date on preorder products as a form of availability misrepresentation.

Fix: Add the availability_date attribute to every preorder product in your feed.

Before You Appeal

Run a free scan on your store at GMCSuspension.com before submitting any appeal. The audit checks your product pages against the same data points Google uses, including availability signals, cache behavior, and structured data. Fixing mismatches you did not know about before the appeal gives you a much better reinstatement outcome.

Full guide with platform-specific fixes for Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and BigCommerce: Google Merchant Center Availability Mismatch Fix Guide

How to Write Professional German Business Emails with Free AI Tools in 2026

Auke de Haan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 07:31:47 +0000

Writing professional emails in German is notoriously tricky — the formal "Sie" form, the correct greetings, and avoiding Anglicisms all matter more than English speakers expect.

In 2026, several free AI tools handle German business emails surprisingly well. Here's what actually works:

Claude (Free tier) delivers the most natural German writing of any model I've tested. It correctly handles the formal Sie form, produces proper greetings like "Mit freundlichen Grüßen" without prompting, and avoids the stiff machine-translation feel.

ChatGPT Free (GPT-5.5 Instant) is now the default on the free tier since May 2026 and handles German formality well — especially useful for response emails where you paste in the thread.

Mistral Le Chat is the EU-hosted option: servers in France, no monthly limit on the free tier, and clean German output that works well for formal authority correspondence.

Neuroflash is worth knowing if you write marketing emails in German — it's the only model specifically trained on German marketing copy and generates three subject line variants automatically.

For a full German-language comparison with GDPR notes and concrete prompt templates for common situations (customer inquiries, first payment reminders, polite rejections), see this comparison on KI Tools DE.

The short version: use Claude for formal and application emails, ChatGPT for everyday reply drafts, Mistral when GDPR compliance matters.

7 Ways Indie Authors Can Get More Amazon Reviews in 2026

Auke de Haan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 06:37:39 +0000

Getting reviews as an indie author on Amazon is genuinely hard. You can write a great book, nail your cover, and still launch to silence because zero reviews means zero trust signals for new readers.

Here are seven methods that work in 2026, ordered from fastest to most sustainable.

1. Review exchange platforms. Services like iWrity match authors who read and review each other's books. No money changes hands for the review, so it stays within Amazon's terms of service. Results typically arrive within 1-3 weeks.

2. Back matter CTA. Ask readers at the end of your book. A short personal request converts more than most authors expect.

3. ARC team before launch. Recruit 20-40 readers from your email list or social following who will post on launch day.

4. BookFunnel group promotions build your list with engaged readers who later become reviewers.

5. Genre communities on Reddit and Facebook often have designated ARC request threads.

6. Book bloggers in your genre who post reviews to both their blog and Amazon.

7. Goodreads ARC groups like ARC Angels have active members who enjoy reviewing.

The combination that gives the best ongoing returns: a review exchange platform plus an email list ask after launch. For more vetted KDP tools, iWrity has a curated KDP services page worth bookmarking.

Two New Reading Orders: The Ottoman Empire and Golden Age Pirates

Auke de Haan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 06:29:45 +0000

The Ottoman Empire (1299-1922): Where to Start

Most reading lists for the Ottoman Empire are either too academic or skip six centuries in a single page. The best starting point is Caroline Finkel's Osman's Dream - a 600-year overview that draws on Ottoman primary sources rather than filtering everything through European observers. For something more literary, Jason Goodwin's Lords of the Horizons covers the same ground thematically with a travel writer's eye.

The most important book for understanding the empire's legacy is David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace, which traces how British and French diplomats carved up the Ottoman territories after WWI to create the modern Middle East's borders. It explains more about current events than most contemporary journalism.

Skriuwer has a full ranked list here, organized by beginner vs. deep reads, with sections on the harem myth, Ottoman women, and the WWI collapse.

Golden Age Pirates: The Real Story

Pirates had written constitutions before the United States existed. They elected their captains. They ran workers' compensation. The best books take this seriously.

Colin Woodard's Republic of Pirates covers Blackbeard and Black Sam Bellamy and the pirate settlement in Nassau that the British Crown eventually suppressed. Peter Leeson's The Invisible Hook uses economics to explain why the skull and crossbones flag was a rational signaling device, not just a terror symbol.

For the myths vs. reality account, David Cordingly's Under the Black Flag is the go-to - Cordingly was a curator at the National Maritime Museum and knows the primary sources better than almost anyone writing popular history.

Full ranked list of pirate books here, with separate sections for nonfiction, female pirates, and the best fiction.

How to Get Honest Amazon Book Reviews as an Indie Author (Without Violating TOS)

Auke de Haan — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 09:02:17 +0000

Getting real Amazon reviews is one of the hardest parts of being an indie author. Without reviews, your book is invisible. With fake reviews, your account gets banned. So what actually works?

The Problem With Most Review Services

Most platforms either charge $50-$100/month for ARC readers who rarely post to Amazon, or they operate in a legal gray area that puts your KDP account at risk.

The core issue: Amazon's terms of service prohibit incentivized reviews. That means you cannot pay for reviews, exchange gifts for reviews, or offer compensation of any kind.

What a Compliant Review Exchange Looks Like

The ethical approach is a reciprocal exchange where both parties are readers and authors. You read someone else's book and leave an honest review. They do the same for you. No money changes hands. No review is guaranteed.

This is the model iWrity operates on. Authors earn points by writing reviews, then spend those points to get their books in front of other readers. Because every review is genuinely written by a reader who chose to read the book, the reviews are honest and Amazon-compliant.

Key Features to Look For

When evaluating any review exchange platform, check for:

No guaranteed reviews - Platforms that promise a specific number of reviews are likely violating Amazon TOS
Reader choice - Readers should be able to decline a book they don't want to read
Multi-currency and global reach - Amazon operates in 13+ marketplaces; a US-only platform misses most of the market
Expert feedback options - Some platforms offer editorial feedback separate from public reviews
Free tier - You should be able to test the platform before committing

The Numbers That Matter

Books with 10+ reviews convert at roughly 3x the rate of books with 0-2 reviews. Getting those first 10 honest reviews is the single highest-ROI activity for a new indie book.

For authors looking for a TOS-compliant way to build their review base, iWrity's review exchange platform is worth checking out. It covers all major Amazon marketplaces, includes a free plan, and has built-in safeguards to keep exchanges compliant.

Alternatives Worth Knowing

BookSprout - Good for ebook ARCs but limited Amazon focus
Pubby - Points-based system, US-centric
Hidden Gems - Moving toward consulting/mentorship model

The review landscape keeps changing as Amazon tightens enforcement. Staying with compliant platforms from the start saves your account in the long run.

When Does Chartering a Private Jet Actually Make Financial Sense?

Auke de Haan — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:03:11 +0000

Private jet charter has a reputation as pure luxury spending. That reputation is partially deserved — but specific scenarios exist where charter is economically rational, not just convenient.

The comparison that actually matters

The wrong comparison is private jet vs. business class. The right comparison is private jet vs. the total cost of commercial travel for a group, including the value of time lost.

For four people flying Amsterdam to Zurich for a meeting:

Commercial business class: roughly €800-1,200 per person round trip = €3,200-4,800 total
Airport time lost: 3-4 hours each way per person
Constraints: fixed departure times, connection risk, no same-day return for short meetings

A light jet charter for the same route runs €8,000-12,000 round trip. For four senior professionals billing at €300+/hour, the productivity math starts to close the gap — particularly for same-day return trips where commercial would require an overnight stay.

Scenarios where charter wins outright

Remote destinations. Some business locations have no direct commercial service. Getting there commercially means 2-3 connections and a full day of travel. A charter flies direct in 2-3 hours.

Time-critical situations. Medical emergencies, urgent client situations, last-minute deal closings. Charter can depart within 4 hours of booking in most cases.

Group travel with equipment. Sports teams, film productions, companies moving specialist equipment. Cargo flexibility makes charter the only practical option.

Privacy and confidentiality. M&A discussions, sensitive negotiations. Commercial travel creates information security exposure some deals cannot accept.

How pricing actually works

Charter pricing is not like airline pricing. Key variables: aircraft category (light, midsize, heavy, ultra-long-range), positioning costs, crew fees, landing and handling fees, fuel surcharges.

The quoted price is often just the one-way leg. If you're not flying both directions, the operator may charge for the return positioning flight (the "empty leg").

Empty leg flights — when an aircraft repositions anyway — can be 30-75% cheaper than standard charter. Worth monitoring for flexible travelers.

Privatjet Vergleich compares charter options for the German-speaking market, covering major operators, aircraft categories, and route pricing across DACH destinations.

Which AI Tools Actually Work in Dutch? A 2026 Reality Check

Auke de Haan — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:02:00 +0000

The AI tools market has matured. The 2023 pattern of every productivity app adding "AI" to its marketing has faded. In 2026, the signal-to-noise ratio is better — but finding tools that genuinely work for Dutch users still takes effort.

Here's an honest assessment of where things stand.

The Dutch-language quality gap has mostly closed

Two years ago, using AI tools in Dutch meant accepting noticeably worse output than English. Sentence structure, idiom, and register were all weaker. That gap has largely closed for the mainstream models.

Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini all produce Dutch text at near-native quality for standard business writing tasks. The remaining weak spots are highly idiomatic regional language and very specialized professional Dutch (legal, medical). For most business use cases, the quality is good enough.

Categories that have genuinely matured

Writing and content: LLMs are now useful for drafting Dutch-language copy, emails, and articles. First-draft quality is high enough to be a real time-saver.

Code generation: GitHub Copilot and alternatives have become standard in Dutch development teams. The productivity gains are measurable and consistent.

Customer service automation: Dutch-language chatbots have improved significantly. LLM-backed systems handle follow-up questions and context far better than the old rule-based approaches.

Image generation: Midjourney, DALL-E, and open-source models produce commercially usable images. The main remaining issue is text rendering — embedded Dutch text in AI images still needs manual correction.

Categories that are still overhyped

AI SEO tools: Most wrap standard keyword research in an AI interface. The underlying data hasn't changed. Useful for workflow, not for insight.

AI video with realistic human subjects: Output quality is still inconsistent for professional use. Better for animation styles than realistic video.

The practical problem: the landscape changes fast

A tool that was best-in-class in 2024 may have been overtaken or discontinued. Keeping up requires ongoing monitoring.

AI Tool Hub maintains a Dutch-language directory of AI tools across categories, updated regularly, with ratings and use-case guidance focused on what's actually useful for Dutch businesses and freelancers rather than comprehensive coverage of every tool that exists.

If you're evaluating AI tools for a Dutch-language workflow, it's a reasonable starting point for current options.

Room-Specific SEO: Why Hallway and Dining-Room Keywords Outconvert Generic Room Terms in 2026

Auke de Haan — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:19:47 +0000

Most Shopify wall-art shops chase the obvious keywords: living room wall art, bedroom wall art. These are the highest-volume terms, which is exactly why they are the hardest to rank for. After tracking a Dutch niche canvas-art shop (yourwallarts.com) for nine 3-day SEO cycles, one pattern keeps showing up: room-specific keywords nobody else writes about convert better than the obvious head terms.

The pattern

In cycle 10 we wrote content for two NL queries: wanddecoratie eetkamer (dining-room wall decoration) and wanddecoratie hal (hallway wall decoration). Both come from Google Autocomplete suggestions that the Master keyword list explicitly named. Neither was covered by any blog post on the site after 9 cycles of content production. The top-ranking competitors? 550 to 850 words of editorial text, no FAQ schema, no sizing math, no light-condition guidance.

Why bigger competitors skip these

Three reasons. First, hallway and dining-room search volume is genuinely smaller than living-room or bedroom (under 1k monthly searches in NL versus 5k+ for wanddecoratie woonkamer). Second, the keywords don't fit nicely into product-category structure: every Shopify shop has a living room collection, very few have a hallway collection. Third, the room layout creates real content constraints (sizing for a 100 cm wide passage, light strategy for a hallway with one bulb) that generic SEO writers won't understand.

What converts better

The long-tail behaviour of hallway and dining-room searches is buyer-specific. Wanddecoratie hal smal is someone with a 100 cm wide hallway who needs portrait-format art right now. Canvas eetkamer dressoir is someone with a 160 cm sideboard who wants to fill the wall above it. These queries have intent baked into them. They are also harder to game with thin AI-spun content because the answer has to be specific to the room.

The structural lever

For every cycle going forward, the SEO automation now does three things differently: (1) live Google Autocomplete on 2 NL room-specific seeds per cycle, surfacing genuinely new buyer queries; (2) competitor word-count + FAQ schema audit before writing, so each new post is structurally better than the top result; (3) explicit internal back-links from existing room-specific posts to new room-specific posts, keeping topical relevance tight.

Niche room-keyword content compounds. After 9 cycles the site sits on 68+ live posts covering 30+ buyer-specific Dutch queries, with strong internal linking between them. None of those rank yet on the Master list head terms, but the long-tail traffic builds month over month.

Practical takeaway

If you run a niche Shopify shop and you're competing against Posterlounge or Etsy on head terms, stop. Instead: open Google Autocomplete, type your category + a room name, and pick the 5 long-tail variants nobody is covering. Build one buyer-specific 1200-word post for each, with concrete sizing math, FAQ schema, and 3-5 internal links to your other room-specific pieces. That is what a real defensible SEO position looks like in 2026.

Two underrated private jet markets in Germany 2026: Hannover and Paris

Auke de Haan — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 08:39:22 +0000

Two private jet markets that most German charterers underestimate in 2026: Hannover Airport (HAJ) and Paris Le Bourget (LBG). Both have specific data that surprised me when I researched them this week.

Hannover (HAJ, EDDV): the quiet workhorse

Hannover is the 24/7-operable jet hub for the VW-Continental-TUI axis. Numbers that matter for charterers:

Runways: 3,800 m main + 2,340 m parallel, CAT-III ILS on both. Anything from a HondaJet to a Gulfstream G650 lands without restriction.
GA operations: 24 hours, no GA night-flight ban. The 22:00-06:00 quiet-core program ("Kernruheschutz") applies to airline traffic only.
2026 hourly rates: Very Light Jet €2,500–3,500/hr, Light Jet €3,500–5,000/hr, Midsize €5,500–7,500/hr, Heavy €8,500–11,500/hr.
Standard routes: HAJ–Sylt 45 min from €4,500 one-way (Light Jet), HAJ–Mallorca 2h 45 min from €13,500.

Full cost breakdown with all DACH outbound routes and the 24/7 GAT operation: German guide on privatjet-vergleich.de covers the full FBO logic and route-by-route market pricing.

Paris Le Bourget (LBG, LFPB): Europe's largest BizAv hub

LBG handles ~50,000 business-aviation movements per year, ahead of Geneva (~35k) and London Luton (~30k). Three details that matter:

Six FBOs with different positioning: Signature (largest, US loyalty), Jetex (Gulf/premium), Dassault Falcon Service (Falcon owners), Universal (transatlantic flight planning), Advanced and Landmark (mid-tier).
Night restriction: 22:15–06:00 with special-permission-only operations. After-midnight arrivals route to Orly (ORY) instead.
2026 DACH-LBG market: Frankfurt 55 min, Light Jet €7,500–10,500 one-way. Munich 1h 15 min, €9,500–12,500. Berlin 1h 35 min, €10,500–13,500.

Full rate table for 8 German hubs, the FBO selection logic and the empty-leg corridor (DACH–LBG is a classic empty-leg market with 50–70% savings): German guide on privatjet-vergleich.de.

Why this matters

The 2026 German charter market is concentrated on Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Vienna. Secondary hubs like Hannover and route-specific data like the LBG FBO matrix are underdocumented in English-language aviation press. If you're charter-shopping for a 2026 trip from Germany, these two pages are a useful reference.