JuicyFly

I've moved sites!

2008-03-03T20:47:00.001Z

I've finished my web move, and my blog is now hosted completely on my own site, www.maltpress.co.uk.

This blogger site will no longer be updated. Thanks for reading - now carry on over at maltpress.co.uk!

About to change!

2008-02-29T14:29:00.002Z

There's about to be a big change on my website - and my blog. I'm going to be moving the blog off blogger (it's a great system, but I want it all centralised) and to a completely WordPress driven site. There might be a bit of disruption on the site over the weekend but normal service will be resumed as soon as possible...

A new poem

2008-02-20T15:41:00.000Z

Yep - I've done my first poem in about two or three years. Because of Stephen Fry's excellent book The Ode Less Travelled (look it up on Amazon, it's a good read). I've not done it using any particular techniques - I very rarely do, I'm a painfully unskilled poet - but I enjoyed writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it.

NAMED AFTER A BIRD

We live opposite lives, me
and Gregory.
Just out of step.
At night he warms me up
And by morning the opposite is true;
From red to blue and back
(Him, not me).

I fill him at night from the kettle
And twelve hours later it's me
Plus milk and sugar
Which would make him sticky
And not enhance his action.

Sometimes we look at each other
Him with his unblinking
Felt eyes
And me with my watery alives
And we wonder how we lasted this long
Wanting different things.

But that's what we need -
Me to fill him,
Him to warm me.
The perfect complimentary relationship
With a faint smell of rubber.

Difficult times

2008-02-03T14:26:00.002Z

The past few weeks have been incredibly difficult for me - an ill cat (he's now fine), car troubles (ceaseless), money worries, a slow-down in work, some other personal stuff... all of which has resulted in me being in a bit of a grump for a while.

I had a major grump yesterday, ranted a bit, and found myself with my fingers hovering over the keyboard with a job application form in front of me. It's the closest I've been in 14 months of self employment to jacking it all in and getting a real job just so I have some money in the bank and can stop the horrid letters from the Student Loans people.

But then I remembered that I'm a bit of a pig-headed idiot and I don't give up. Giving up is stupid. Changing - that's the way to do things, but not giving up. There's always a way out, and while a "real" job is certainly one way out, I think I've become too antisocial now to be easily re-integrated into working society. Most employers frown at the idea of turning up to work in your pyjamas, showering half-way through the morning, not shaving for weeks at a time if you can get away with it, and the other fine distractions I have.

So I'm getting positive. I'm making proper aims, and proper things to look forward to. I'm planning how to achieve what I want. A lot of stuff I want I know I can't have; I know what I want might change with time. But I'm going to put it all down now and see where I get to. I will get through this difficult patch. Honest.

Blog in haiku

2008-01-30T17:54:00.000Z

Work is very hard
Too late to roll in mist now
Not sure what is next

A new year...

2008-01-03T13:06:00.000Z

2008, eh? Amazing how quickly it comes around. I can remember feeling smug this time last year for getting through my first ever self-employed Christmas.

Last year I made a few business plans and a few personal plans. Let's see how they panned out and make some new plans to not keep to:

Business plans

Find a designer to work with. Kind of - I've made quite a few contacts this year and I can certainly point people in the right direction for design. I'm also having someone whose design I admire look at my site for me.
Go limited. Nope - and I'm still umming and ah-ing about this one. At the moment I don't see the point. I'm getting by fine, I'm getting work in, and by working as part of consortiums I'm getting the weight of a bigger company behind me when I need it.
Refine what I offer. It's not really been about "what I offer" this year. I am going to get new business cards, and re-do the focus of the website, but other than that there's been little activity on this front. I do what I do, and what I'm asked to do; it's nice like that. I have started to focus my writing work away from my main website, though, and I approach it quite differently.
Sort out an office. Moving house was a great thing to do - the new place for my desk is excellent and I'm very happy here now. No need for an office, although I'd love one, and there's a brilliant building on the A10 I'd like to do up. Anyone got £300,000 to invest in me?
Join a professional body. Yep - I'm now a fully paid up member of BIMA, the British Interactive Media Association.
Upgrade the PC. Got a load more memory, decent graphics card and - most important of all - a really nice big flat screen monitor. Hurrah!
Market. I spend what seems a painful amount of time looking for new work now, even when I'm busy. Once bitten - twice shy.

So - an OK year, plan wise, but successful for the one thing I didn't really put in the plan - keeping going and enjoying it. It's been a great working year with huge, huge amounts of potential this coming year. New plans? OK then:

Sort out dull money things. I need a pension. Humph. I am nearly 30 and I do not have a pension. This is not a good thing. I also need income protection insurance. Luckily, a good couple of months mean I have a better bank balance than I expected - I've managed to pay the first instalment of quite a big tax bill (lots of confusing stuff about having 6 months in hand or something) without dipping in to the money I had put aside for that very purpose. When I know what the next tax bill may be, I might have enough put by to properly invest for my dotage.
New website, business cards, letter heads and compliment slips. I often find myself wanting a compliment slip but have never had any; I am also bored of the design of my site. This is currently being fixed by some very nice people.
Blog more. Both on this blog and on www.willwordforfood.com
Make more distinction between my "normal" work and my writing. The two are quite different at times; plus I like the idea of Will Word For Food and want to really take advantage of it.

So that's business... what about personal? Here's what I planned and how I did:

Get back on the stage - nope. Oh dear. Perhaps this year?
Live like a monk - extreme! - that was January. I can't remember last January. Didn't really stick to it last year though - went abroad a couple of times, met a lovely girl and made the most of it.
Fence in a couple of competitions - Didn't happen. Far, far too busy. In the later part of the year I hardly even fenced on club nights.
Pay off my credit card - Not yet - although I'm doing OK. Got to keep plugging away!
Take more photos - Yes. Then my laptop died and I lost them all. :(

Not bad - I did have a most excellent and incredibly fun year. I did a lot I didn't plan to do, and it was ace, so in some ways I'm loathe to put down plans for the coming year... but I'll do it anyway.

Do my "things to do before I'm 30" - that's pretty much it, except to add:
Learn to dive - some friends have been amazed I have a degree in marine biology but have never dived. Apparently I will enjoy it - so that's on my list of things to do. Perhaps it will tie in with the plan to go south of the equator at some point...

So that's it - big ambitions for business, realistic ones for my personal life. Let's hope I manage some of them at least!

Busy again

2007-12-03T17:12:00.000Z

Another workload update - I'm currently busy until the New Year, but I'm happy to talk about any work which might come up in 2008. Give me a call or drop me a line - we're rapidly approaching the end of the financial year and it's time to use up budgets!

Things to do before I am 30: a note

2007-11-06T13:16:00.000Z

Here are some things I want to do before I'm 30.

Go south of the equator
Drive at over 100 miles per hour
Ride a motorbike
See the northern lights
Be on TV again
Meet someone famous
Drive to Scotland
~~Change my car~~
Pay off my credit cards
Get a pension
Get a six pack.

Please suggest more. I have just under 11 months at time of writing.

Edit: car died. Got new one. Not what I had in mind, but hey-ho - at least I've changed it.

Party hard!

2007-11-06T10:07:00.000Z

Just a quick one to say that the party was a great success, and thanks to all who made it. Hopefully there will be many photos to come, but in the mean time you can find mine here.

One today!

2007-11-01T13:09:00.000Z

Yep, today's my first anniversary, officially - so how am I celebrating?

By doing my VAT return, sorting out my start of month accounts, and doing my normal work... what joy, eh?

Still, these things have to be done, and I actually enjoy my accounts - one of the real surprises in all this.

I've just read through the blog archives, having a look for anything I could write about the first year coming to an end. It's interesting seeing how things have changed, how I've taken up all sorts of things and never followed through (jogging, swimming... well, physical activity) and how every now I get very, very excited about how the business is doing, plan loads, and then things get quiet.

With that in mind I'm going to re-write my business plan, but first lunch, and then some work.

Another award! Kind of

2007-10-12T16:38:00.000+01:00

I'm afraid I can't take any credit for this, but the Strathclyde Pension Fund Office website - which I wrote the content for earlier in the year - has just won the Website Design Award (Public Sector) in the Professional Pensions Scheme of the Year Awards 2007.

It's great news because the team there are lovely, they work very hard, and they really care about their clients. Well done to them all!

One year. What have I learnt?

2007-10-10T16:57:00.000+01:00

I got an email today out of the blue asking for advice now that I'm a seasoned businessman. Stop laughing at the back. I am, honestly. I've been going a year.

This was my reply:

1. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Keep every contact you make and - as long as you have the time and it doesn't get in the way of earning - do them the odd favour now and then. You'll never know when you need to call in those favours. Dad taught me that.

2. A friend who'd started a business a while ago told me one thing when I started - "it always takes more money than you think it will". I dismissed him out of hand. What money could I need? I had my laptop, a big pad of paper and some felt pens. Then I hit a quiet period. If you can - or as soon as you can - build up a "war chest" of about 3 months' money, because when the work dries up (whether it's for seasonal reasons - you'll be busy at financial year end and quiet in summer in some sectors) you'll be stuck without it. So yes - it does always take more money than you'd think.

3. Never stop looking for work. When I started I got two really nice, big chunks of work. They paid the bills and let me have fun, and it was interesting work. There was travel and glamour and I got caught up in and sat back, thinking I had it made. And I stopped doing what I'd done to get that work in the first place - calling people, applying for work, trawling websites. After that things dried up and I had no work for a while - and got into money troubles.

4. Money moves at an odd pace. You have to get used to cashflow. I spent the whole of September working - only one day off all month - and I've not seen a penny of the money yet. I've not even invoiced for it. Remember it's never as simple as do job - get paid. It's find job, negotiate, do job, issue invoice with 30 day terms, wait, chase, eventually get money, so the bank balance is anything up to 60 days behind the workload, and certain people you want to give even longer terms to because they're nice people and they're as busy as you. You're either rushed off your feet and poor or quiet and rich - and when you're quiet and rich you have to hold on to that money because you won't know how long it's supposed to last for.

5. If you work for friends don't be afraid to charge them what you charge everyone else.

6. Your last employer may well be your first client. Be nice when you leave and keep in touch with them.

7. You never stop learning - so keep a log. I hadn't done this and my girlfriend got sick of me telling her about mistakes I was making over and over again - so she suggested I write a project diary. I have a blog hosted on my home PC now where I write - and rant - about projects I've done. When I undercharge, things I do wrong, things to note... keep it personal, for yourself alone, and keep it up to date.

8. Listen to people. Everyone has ideas and opinions and you don't have to use them but you'd be surprised where good ideas can come from - and who might know someone who might know someone else who needs you.

9. Don't pay for something if you can get it for free with a little work. There are services to get government contract alerts sent to you and they cost a fortune - but if you actively look you can get the same info for free. If someone has an old desk, printer, keyboard, whatever you need - take them. Be smart and professional for your clients by all means - but everything else just needs to work.

10. Get a good accountant - someone recommended by a friend - and pay them to do your tax return. They'll save you more than you'll pay them.

11. Put at least 30% of everything you earn into an ISA or other high interest savings account. Never spend it. Never be tempted to use it to bail yourself out of a quiet period. This is your income tax. You pay it in one big chunk at the end of the year, not as you earn, and it's easy to forget this. If you save more than you need, put that to the next year's bill. When you stop working for yourself, take the excess, buy yourself a Mars Bar or something. Don't touch it before that.

12. Approach your local business support organisation (www.businesslink.gov.uk should be your first port of call) and do whatever courses they offer. I did book-keeping, marketing, and legal and admin day-long courses for £30 a pop and it was the best money I ever spent. For the business, I mean - going to Florence was the best money I *ever* spent. Or my MG. Or that meal in Paris. Or something.

13. Be anal about keeping records. Receipts, invoices you issue, invoices you receive. The more accounting you can do yourself, the cheaper it will be for an accountant to do your tax return. Learn the basics of double-entry book-keeping at the very least.

14. Be prepared to sacrifice your social life some months - and to sit at home, alone, bored for others. Build your portfolio with charity and club work when you're quiet.

15. Any attempt to do cash-in-hand work for a friend *will* get more complicated than it needs to because you'll need to pay tax on it - and avoiding paying that tax will lead to massive worries about being found out, which really *is* a bad thing. It is possible, but make sure it's worthwhile, and certainly don't go public (like on a blog or something) and say that it happened. Of course, this point is purely hypothetical.

16. Stop thinking of other agencies and freelancers as competition and think of them as friends and colleagues. If you're too busy to do work, recommend someone good (remember your reputation can be tarnished by a bad recommendation) and make sure they know you were involved. They might return the favour, give you work themselves, or otherwise owe you.

17. Enjoy it. And enjoy the benefits. Eat a decent lunch. Listen to the radio when you work. Work in your pants. When you've got 3 months' money as a safety net and you know your income tax is covered, treat yourself a little. Put what you can through the business (a good accountant will tell you what you can and can't get away with). Every now and then sit back and smile. I celebrated (quietly) my 6 months - and I'm having a party for my first year.

18. Things will go wrong. It'll be hard. You'll want to jack it all in at least once a month. You need to remember why you started working for yourself and keep going. It is incredibly rewarding but also depressing at times. Remember that whatever happens now you've made a big, positive change in your life - you're more employable as a failed freelancer than as someone who's never tried. You've given yourself infinite flexibility. If I wanted to leave the country tomorrow and start a new life somewhere I could, very easily, and that's an incredibly liberating feeling. I really do feel that I'm capable of anything now.

*Edit*

19. Don't spend your VAT. I just remembered this one. I did it once, got my VAT bill, and watched everything from my next invoice just dissapear into the VAT man's pockets. Always assume (if you're a low expenditure company like me) that everything you collect in terms of VAT is just "sitting in your account" (like Father Ted used to say) before going on to the VAT man. Anything you do get back is then a bonus. Put it in your ISA with your other tax money.

20. Get a pension and - if you can afford it - income protection insurance. If I break all my fingers in a freak piano accident I can't earn, and then I'm in trouble. That's why I avoid pianos.

Paintballing

2007-09-25T11:54:00.000+01:00

I took a little time off from the busy schedule this weekend to get shot in the bottom, leg, arm and back. Thoroughly good fun:

http://www.pixelwork.com/newsStory.cfm?id=254

Like a bee. A busy, busy bee.

2007-09-13T09:46:00.000+01:00

I'm utterly, utterly snowed under at the moment, so just a quick one: I am currently working at full capacity but happy to talk about work which can take place from 8 October onwards, when things slow down a little, hopefully. If you've got anything you want to discuss, please call or email and I'll fit it in where I can.

Mandatory iPod post

2007-09-06T10:18:00.001+01:00

Yep, new iPods out now, so as a blogger I'm legally obliged to write about them.

There's going to be lots of debate about the iTouch (the stripped-down iPhone) and costs - but, being shallow, I'm going to skip over that and just drool a lot. God, it looks incredible. What an interface! I'd like one, but it's just far too expensive at the moment and I think a 30GB iPod would be a better deal.

The new nano and "classic" both look really nice too - the metal enclosure is a lot more resistant to damage than the plastic, and from my shuffle I know that any little knocks and nicks they get add to the character somewhat. I'm not sure about the new colours for the nano - the old ones were pretty good as they were.

The new nano is a nice size - looks quite squat but not ugly.

So... I want one. A "classic" as my first choice. Please give me work so I can get one... :D

Tacheback again...

2007-08-23T12:46:00.000+01:00

It's nearly September, and September is Tacheback time.

Tacheback runs every year and basically involves being sponsored vast (well, some) sums of money to grow a moustache. The money raised goes towards male cancer charities and you can find out more here:
http://www.tacheback.com/

I'm doing it for the third year now and hoping to achieve something which actually looks OK and not - as one teenager once told me on a train - a "poo-tache". Regardless of that, I need your money, and I need it now. Right now.

You can donate online at https://www.bmycharity.com/maltpress2007 - I'd appreciate as much money as possible because I think it's a great charity. And because I'm going to look very, very stupid and I think that's worth cash.

Come on - stump up.

More about diary software

2007-08-16T11:58:00.000+01:00

Following yesterday's post - and today's comment suggesting a Wiki - I've got a bit of a follow-up.

I've installed a local version of Wordpress, which is running very nicely and will do some of what I want. Coffeelover's comment, however, suggested a personal Wiki, and this is also something worth thinking about - and something I might also try out.

Wordpress seems a good solution at the moment - I can tag all my posts with their project code and keep them all together like that. I can also look at my learnings chronologially, which might be handy.

I've got a couple of problems with the way Apache is configured on my local system at the moment, though, I think - which means I can't directly link to files on the local system. Once I get that sorted I should be OK - except because I use Thunderbird and IMAP email it's difficult to link to emails unless I re-save them in project folders, which is a bit of a stress. They're nicely organised in Thunderbird anyway, though.

Above all, it's resulted in me having a local instance of Apache and MySQL which means I can learn a lot more about PHP and database-driven apps - and, if I try a wiki too (something I've never done) I'll be learning loads from this experience. It also means I have a great local system to test blogs on before launching them.

Diary software

2007-08-15T11:00:00.000+01:00

I'm still learning loads about working for myself - and what's involved in each project. It's been suggested that I keep a diary of my projects - writing notes on each one and what's involved, what I've learnt, how I feel about them etc.

I was all for doing this in a hard-backed A4 notebook I've got - it's just sitting there waiting for something to be written in it, and after hearing an investment fund manager proudly talking about getting through his 50th notebook on the radio the other day there's some kind of romanticism about the idea. Problem is, most of the information I have is stored electronically - and ideally I'd like to link to documents, emails and so on.

If I was a big company with a server and all that sort of stuff it would be easier - I'd have a web-style intranet using a content management system and set up a kind of blog on it. As it is, I have a PC, and a mac, although most important bits are on the PC - or at least final documents can be moved over to it easily enough.

So - any ideas for a cheap (free if possible) blog-type bit of software to keep all my project notes in one organised place?

Getting my money thoughts in order.

2007-08-06T13:41:00.000+01:00

So - I've been reading the Motley Fool, looking at my bank balance and thinking about finances - again. A scare with the car (which turned out to be nothing, thankfully) brought it home to me that at the end of quite a quiet period I've not really got enough put aside at the moment to cover myself for emergencies.

I also found out today that if I start putting money aside for a pension when I'm 30, I'll need to save over £400 a month... which I don't have.

So what to do? Well, one of the first things is to stop reading websites and get on with getting more work in. I really need to have a couple of nice busy months to earn a decent amount and save up for the next quiet period. That, of course, is quite difficult to do when I'm actually fairly busy - so it looks like it's going to be a month or two of not going out.

Which, in itself, will be a good thing. The less I go out, the better off I'll be. Perhaps it's time to live like a monk again? The current situation makes that pretty difficult - I'm doing masses of driving and I have stuff all over the place, and not having my own room makes things very awkward and expensive. But I really, really must stop spending.

And I really, really, must keep working.

Email back!

2007-08-03T12:39:00.000+01:00

OK - for the time being, email is back up, with most of the bounce-backs being automatically deleted. A few are slipping through the net but for the most part things are running.

Over the weekend things may be lost, however, so please copy maltpress@gmail.com into vital emails just to make sure it gets through.

I've got my patience back now - it was wearing a little thin earlier...

Email is down

2007-08-03T09:17:00.000+01:00

My email - and the form on this site, which sends to my email address - are currently down, and if you try them it'll bounce back.

This is due to what's known as a "joe jobbing" attack - a spam-bot, somewhere, has started sending out thousands of emails spoofing addresses from my domain. Lots of them are bouncing back - I received over 2000 emails yesterday - and it's brought my mail server to its knees.

There's nothing I can do but wait it out - I've scanned all my systems and they're all clean, so I know it's not got anything to do with me. I'd suggest all my (Windows-based) contacts do the same - there are a couple of decent online system scans available such as www.kapersky.com or you should really have your own - Panda (www.pandasecurity) is the one I use.

Anyway, the upshot is my email will bounce back at the moment, so please try maltpress@gmail.com - it's my spam-trap but I'll be carefully checking it today.

All over the place

2007-07-16T15:18:00.000+01:00

Well, apologies if service isn't exactly normal at the moment (whatever that is). I'm between houses for various reasons, and it's been pretty hard work with computer at one house and the internet at another. Invariably the stuff I need is never on the laptop when I need it, so there's lots of driving back and forth and confusion over what I'm supposed to be doing.

I'm pretty busy at the moment, though, which is very nice and it marks the end of my horrid quiet period. Of course, I could do with another quiet week or so to get addresses changed and internet sorted - but never mind.

My new project (for myself) should be up and running soon - designs, which I have a go at whenever I get five minutes to spare (not very often) are coming along quite nicely. Expect something in a couple of weeks.

Until then, cheerio....

Moving house

2007-07-10T09:43:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to let you know I've moved house. Once our internet connection is up and running again (early next week) I'll be able to get the address on my website updated. In the mean time, my postal address is:

Adam Maltpress
69 High Street
Stretham
Cambs
CB6 3LD

Site launches

2007-06-25T14:49:00.000+01:00

Some nice news - a couple of sites I've been working on have launched, so I can update my portfolio a little.

First up is the Strathclyde Pension Fund Office, www.spfo.org.uk - I wrote the content for this site back in February. Reading Room, from Manchester, did all the technical stuff and got the content into the site, and it's recently gone live. It's looking really good - and I can still vaguely remember some of what I learnt while up there (mainly that the Scots are lovely and Glasgow is a beautiful city and well worth a visit).

Secondly a site I designed and built - not my core work, but a nice little project nonetheless - has gone live. Old school friend and most excellent singer/songwriter Clara Kousah's website was a labour of love with many man-hours (and much swearing) involved, but I think the final result is quite nice. I'm pretty proud of some of the technology I used, if not the design... you can find out more on my past work pages.

Now - onward and upwards!

More for the new project

2007-06-14T16:34:00.001+01:00

New site designs have started, which is very nice. It should look good - at least to non-designer me.

More content keeps cropping up, too, and I'll be moving these posts over to the new site when I can, but here's today's "gnnnh!" moment...

Questions, which should not be asked.

Gnnnh! I think there should be a tax on superfluous punctuation. That'd nip the problem in the bud.

A good rule; read text out loud and treat punctuation as a breathing exercise. A comma is a short pause. A full stop is just that - stop and start again, with a longer pause.

Now read the above sentence again.

Of course, it's far more complex than that - the above sentence with a question mark on the end would be possible, and it almost seems that the writer is introducing the topic of questions and then introducing a sub-clause - which ones shouldn't be asked?

Beyond all that - and a grammaticist (if such a thing exists) would give a better explanation of the faults of the above sentence - the comma just means the sentence reads wrong. And that's frustrating.

Erm....

2007-06-12T16:22:00.000+01:00

I'm thinking of starting a new project to publicise my writing - get a bit of a face and name on the internet for my writing. It's going to involve examples of good and bad web copy - of which there are plenty.

I've just stumbled on this little gem, about how membership of an organisation might be able to help people:

By keeping a finger on the pulse so you can keep both hands on the wheel.

Erm... what? Not only is that pretty meaningless - and as such there's no purpose to it at all (there's a far better explanation of why to join further down the page), it's mixing metaphors fairly, too. The issue of whose finger is actually on the pulse is the most interesting - does the organisation keep a finger on the pulse? How does that help? Do they keep telling you how you are all the time, or only tell you when you're dead?

Point to note, #1: put the content at the top of the page. Leave the bizarre marketing speak for the bottom - if at all.

Long time since updating

2007-06-07T15:49:00.000+01:00

It's been pretty busy here - mostly trying to get new business. This week in particular has been extremely hectic, and it's only starting to slow down a little as I wait for other people to get back to me with things. It's a shame the bank balance doesn't reflect the amount of work I've been doing, but it should pay dividends in the future.

It's actually been pretty stressful this week, but also enjoyable - I've been working on a rare design/build job for a change, and it's nice to get to play with a bit of PHP. I've also been playing with a bit of Flash/ActionScript, which isn't something I'm very familiar with, but which has turned out to be very interesting. I've built - using examples online and a bit of tweaking - a Flash MP3 player. I'm quite proud of it. My grasp of PHP XML parsing and regular expressions is improving greatly too, and my GIMPing skills are getting a lot better - it's just the visual creativity I think I lack. Any more work like this and I think I'll outsource the design side of things.

Before I sign off, I thought I would post the following YouTube video made by a friend - it's a great little vid and it's got a good message. I'm planning on 10% less living beyond my means. And possibly 10% less wasting time on the internet.

Six whole months!

2007-05-01T09:41:00.000+01:00

That's right - from an invoicing and tax point of view (which I suppose is good enough) I've been running now for six whole months. It's still scary and exciting - which is why I started, I suppose - and I still love it.

In that time I've driven many hundreds of miles; typed many many thousands of words; met lots of lovely new people and spent an inordinate amount of time going to, or at least trying to go to, Ikea. I've learnt how to do my accounts; I've started to learn how to sell myself. But not like that.

And now for the next six months. I'm planning to get some more big clients all on my own - which is a nice feeling, especially when I can develop a relationship with them (and because I get all the money, hurrah!). I'd like to travel a bit more, too, and I have six months to clear my debts - something which I don't really think is going to happen, but I have to keep trying.

Anyway, it's quite a milestone for me - so please, charge your coffee mugs and join me in a toast - to six happy and successful months!

clonk whirr sob

2007-04-19T19:07:00.000+01:00

Yes, car woe once again. I was actually physically stranded as I started to write this - stuck in a (very nice) office owned by some very nice friends and colleagues who do excellent work and who let me sob there quietly while I awaited rescue.

My clutch has gone. Where, I'm not sure, but it's gone - it was certainly there when I left in the morning, ha ha ha. I'm not sure if going to Swansea finished it off completely, but it must have been on the way out for a while, which is a shame. Oh well - these things are sent to try us, and it's certainly trying me at the moment. I need to arrange meetings many miles away, which is a bit annoying, but I have to earn.

I never even got to go to Ikea to get my new chair. Humph. Looks like it's a Staples special - I've got a money off voucher, so that's OK. I might start a business account with them.

*edit* - whoops, I didn't edit the draft properly. resulting in some bizarre present/past tense-confusion.

Ow!

2007-04-17T13:19:00.000+01:00

I'm very aware that this blog is slowly becoming me whinging about how ill or in pain I'm in, but I think that's probably something to do with me getting older. Not old (yet), but certainly older.

Anyway, my back and shoulders are utterly messed up at the moment and no amount of ibuprofen seems to help. I'm having rather odd spasms in my lower back at the moment, which aren't painful, but do feel very strange.

I think it's all to do with my posture and the fact I've been working a lot in the kitchen - using my laptop more and more now I'm having real PC troubles. There's no technical support here - I have to do it all myself or ask my brother to do it - and to frank I don't have the time at the moment. It's very tempting to just go out and get a Mac, to be honest.

Rather than that I think I might go out and get a decent soft wheely chair at some point. Perhaps a trip to Ikea is in order...

Bleurgh. Working while ill.

2007-04-12T10:34:00.000+01:00

It's funny how illness strikes when you've got deadlines to meet and loads to do. All those months of not having enough to do - and wondering if I could pay the bills - and now I'm snowed under I'm unwell. Ah well.

So that's why I've not blogged for a while - very, very busy at the moment and having huge amounts of fun. Late nights and lots of learning - can't get better than that. And it'll be over this weekend, when I'm off to Swansea to see some old uni friends, and then I've got a quiet week next week to recover. Unless, of course, anyone would like to give me some work. Just nothing which requires me to breathe through my nose or shout a lot.

Always at work...

2007-03-21T16:26:00.000Z

Today I decided to have a change of scenery and do some work in Cambridge. There's a lovely cafe called Ta Bouche, which does good food, plays decent music, and has free wireless. I think I've plugged them mercilessly before. Anyway, it's a great place to go to get out of the house and approach a subject fresh if I need to.

While I was working, a girl sat at the table next to me and I overheard her talking about the business she's starting up... "great", thought I, "an opportunity to make a contact, maybe get some work, and spread my opinions far and wide". Details were exchanged (well, given, by me) and I felt very stupid for not having any business cards with me.

And then I got home and looked in the mirror and felt even more stupid. My god, I look a state - unshaven, in desperate need of a haircut, and not exactly dressed like a professional. It's a much needed reminder that I should always be thinking of the next client - and that I might bump into them anywhere. Something new for the to-do list: get a haircut.

Back with a vengeance

2007-03-12T16:29:00.000Z

Yup - I've got my concentration back. I've been working hard again now and things are going nicely - just won a new contract, which I might be able to give some details of when the project's finished. It's given me a real boost and it's a lovely bit of work with some very nice people, so I'm really looking forward to getting my teeth into it.

I'm about to nip into Cambridge to sort out a new phone which will help solve two problems at once - getting lost and keeping up with emails on the go. T-mobile are the only carrier I can find to offer an unlimited data plan, and the cost is fantastic too. I don't make hundreds of mobile calls at the moment, but I think that might be as much because I'm on pay as you go as any other reason. I'll be keeping the same business numbers, so that won't change - but hopefully I'll be getting a fancy phone with GPS on it too so I can find places a lot easier....

The concentration drought continues...

2007-03-05T17:16:00.000Z

...and I don't know why, or what to do about it. I'm going to try working somewhere completely different tomorrow to see if that helps.

Thing is, I've got some really interesting work to do. It's something I can really get my teeth into and I want to make a really good job of it. But inspiration just won't strike at the moment. I've made a start - so I'm not staring at a blank bit of paper any more - and I even know what I want to say... it's just saying it which is causing problems.

I think what I might do is continue the reading and research now, play a little bit with sIFR and have an early night. That might help. And I just have to hope I get it back tomorrow.

Concentration

2007-03-02T12:43:00.000Z

For some reason I'm having real trouble concentrating at home at the moment. I know I have loads of work to do, but I just can't do it. It's not even as if I'm being distracted by anything in particular - I'm just not able to work at home very well. One solution - although it's going to end up very expensive - is that Ta Bouche, a coffee place/restaurant/bar in Cambridge has free wifi, good food and attractive passers-by. I'm thinking of becoming a regular there so I can cheekily ask to plug my laptop in and not be limited to three and a half hours' work.

I have loads on at the moment - writing proposals, doing work for existing clients, the usual month-end admin stuff, and concentration just isn't happening. I think I might hop on the bus soon. Especially because Clare Grogan is standing in for Nemone on 6 Music and I don't really like her.

My whiteboard is working out well - it's always full and I update it every day as things happen. Very reassuring to know I've got enough work to be able to do that. More work would always be appreciated though...

Oh, and I'm thinking of going limited before the end of the year. If I can maintain my levels of work for another couple of months and build up a bit of capital - and if I can get through my tax self-assessment...

Email issues and doing digital

2007-02-26T16:05:00.000Z

Hello! If you've tried emailing me today, I might not have received your mail. I'm in the middle of changing hosts and I'm not sure I'm getting all emails. I'm relying on an ancient Hotmail account which all my emails are automatically forwarded to at the moment... things should be back up and running tomorrow, with luck. In the mean time, phone is the best option for getting in touch.

I've treated myself today - I went out and bought a Pure DAB radio. It's fantastic - BBC 6 Music in stereo without dropping bitrate every five minutes, lots of buttons to press, and great reception even without the arial up! How ace is that - I'm listening to Lammo at the moment and it's never sounded better.

Plus I get XFM now. How cool is that?

New toys, and organising myself

2007-02-15T16:53:00.000Z

I discovered the other day that while managing an individual project is fine - and, to be honest, swapping between several projects is OK too - I wasn't very good at keeping track of them, especially the issue of giving things project codes. I reached a critical mass of projects where they just stopped being easy to keep track of in my head.

So, after much asking of advice, I've got a new filing system, involving job bags, a new project (and quote and invoice) numbering system, and a new toy - a whiteboard. It's all gridded out and different colours. I feel like I'm in CSI, which I've always wanted. Ideally one day I'll work in an office with a big glass wall I can write on, but until that day my little whiteboard will do.

I've also got my iPod shuffle - my leaving present from my last job. It's a coloured one, and it's utterly, utterly fantastic. I can't believe the sound quality from such a small thing. I need to do some iTunes organisation - I've got loads of Pet Sounds session tracks on there and they don't quite work on shuffle...

Of guilt and money

2007-02-12T16:52:00.000Z

I'm a naturally guilty person. I feel guilty about lots of things. I feel guilty writing about this, because I'm using charity to promote my business, but then again charity is benefiting as well, so not completely and utterly guilty.

Because I've got such an ace job, which I love, and because of other things, I feel guilty more than ever at the moment. So I decided to spread a bit of the joy I have by making a donation to Comic Relief. I'd heartily recommend you all do the same; the money goes to some very, very worthwhile causes, and while it's not made me feel exactly guilt free, it's gone a little way to helping.

My £50 is apparently enough to help 15 African farmers. That's not necessarily where my money's gone, though; about 40% of Comic Relief money helps out with projects in the UK. You can find out more on their (excellently designed) website.

And, if I've managed to make you feel guilty for not doing your bit too - which I hope I have - you can donate quickly and easily online.

Brrrm brrrrrm!

2007-02-11T15:36:00.000Z

I've got a car! It's a nice little Citroen AX. It has five whole gears, a working fuel gauge, and thanks to dad a CD player.

It also has a nasty knock from the CV joint at the moment, but that'll soon be fixed. I'm generally very excited by it. Soon I will have the embarrassment of filling it with petrol and probably not being able to get the cap off, but there you go.

This of course means I'm properly back on the road and ready for more work... which is a very good feeling.

Now for a nap in front of the rugby.

Snow joke, etc etc.

2007-02-08T10:14:00.000Z

Yes... I know. Insert snow pun here.

It's funny how I missed all the snow (well, the tiny bit) in Cambridge the other week when I was in Glasgow. I really wanted some. Now I've learned to be careful what I wish for, because "road chaos" has meant the cancellation of a meeting I was looking forward to going to and a day spent at home, snuggled up in two jumpers (and I'm trying to encourage the cat to sit on my feet) doing other work instead.

It's lucky I'm able to work from home like this - it must be a nightmare for other small businesses who rely more on being able to get out and about. I realise now how critical a single day's work can be - if that's the only day's paid work you get for a month, you're in trouble...

Time allowing, I may venture out with my camera later and take a couple of snapshots of the Dissenter's Cemetary in the village. It looks incredible in the frost, so I can only hope it looks as good in the snow. I have to nip to the post office anyway.

Tomorrow I'm helping some friends move house - let's hope it's a bit nicer.

Oh, and I've just found out fencing tonight is canceled. Damn! It'll be four weeks off in total... I think my legs are turning to jelly rather than the chiseled oak I thought they were.

OK, so they've never been that good. But they ain't getting any better.

Sad farewell

2007-02-05T21:24:00.000Z

It's with great sadness I announce the departing of a much loved Rover Metro at the ripe old age of 89,000 miles.

Head gaskets. Damn them. It's not an expense I need now - a new car - but I suppose these things happen. And it means something shiny and new(ish) to play with - hurrah! That's always fun.

In other news... I'm back from my trip, which was fun and interesting and I got to see Glasgow, which is a very nice city. I'd like to go back. I'm glad to be home and able to eat in my own house, though. There's not much else to report - a few ideas on the go for some promotional stuff, several meetings coming up for other work, and all in all I feel very settled into the self employment thing. It's been nearly three months!

Oh, and I'm now properly VAT registered and completed my first return this weekend. It made my brain proper hurt. It's got to be the hardest maths ever.

Very out of the office

2007-01-29T19:20:00.000Z

Well... it turns out I'm very, very out of the office at the moment. Email access is flaky at best, so the best way to get in touch is to phone or text me. My landline number will go through to voicemail, which I'll pick up when I'm home at the weekend, or I'm available on my mobile pretty much all the time.

Hope you're all well - I am.

Out of the office

2007-01-21T15:00:00.000Z

I'm out of the office for the next couple of weeks - I'll be available by email, or leave a message on my voicemail - I'll be able to check it lunchtimes and evenings. I'll tell you all about it when I get back...

Asimo, ticking things off, and scrabble

2007-01-12T10:36:00.000Z

First up - Asimo. Now, I love the Honda advert with this little robotty fella. So when I saw this on The Register, I was very - well, somewhat - excited to see him in action some more. It was a little disappointing:

What's with the human-like, girly voice? He should sound like a proper robot, all electronic and synthesised.
They missed a trick with him dancing - why's he not doing "the robot"? That's just foolish.
He looks constipated when he runs.

Still, it's quite an achievement - he's a clever little bit of kit.

Secondly, ticking things off. Despite many distractions, I've managed to get mostly caught up with my to-do list and I've ticked loads of things off. Opportunity-hunting continues apace - this is the one part of business I'm doing a lot more of than I thought I would. Paperwork - far less than I thought. Still, it gives me a chance to get in touch with some old friends and contacts, which is always nice.

Thirdly, Scrabble. I'm realising how incredibly bad I am, having bought myself a Scrabble-themed desk calendar with a different challenge every day. I've managed one, so far. Oh dear.

Obligatory iPhone post

2007-01-11T13:41:00.000Z

Ah, the iPhone. Is it just me who thinks it's nothing more than a fairly bog-standard smart phone, but with incredibly sexy design job and thoroughly beautiful looking user interface?

Don't get me wrong - I'm completely caught up by the hype and I'd like one. I like some of the clever features, too - the SMS "conversation" idea is brilliant, as is the voicemail you can listen to in any order regardless of when you get them. But that's just an improvement on standard phone OS stuff, surely? Likewise the music and video - plenty of smart phones can do that, but perhaps not in such a slick way.

So, iPhone - exciting, sexy, cool - but hardly ground-breaking.

Procrastination - an art form

2007-01-11T10:18:00.000Z

I'm discovering a talent for putting things off. Which is not a good talent to have. My methods for procrastination are many and varied, but some notable examples include:

Writing to-do lists - it's certainly not the case that I don't really have enough to do. It's just trying to motivate myself to do things once I've finished writing them down.
Cleaning the toilet - when we moved into this house several years ago the upstairs toilet was a little limescale-encrusted... let's just say it's not got any better. It's suddenly turned into an obsession. I am trying many, many chemicals, elbow-grease, and other techniques.
Shopping - I need to get food today, for...
Cooking - I'm cooking from scratch more. Today it will be mushroom burgers from the Crank's cookbook. I'm not a vegetarian; I like mushrooms.

Still, things are going OK at the moment. Live like a monk - extreme! is going pretty well (apart from all the chemicals I've bought to clean the toilet). I even went into Cambridge on Monday for a meeting, had a wander around town for 45 minutes, and managed not to spend anything. I was extremely tempted yesterday to go into Cambridge and drink tea somewhere with a wireless internet connection... but I avoided it. Plus I've not been out socially all year. I'm quite pleased with that.

Marketing hard!

2007-01-03T10:50:00.000Z

Yes, just like I said I would in my "year ahead" post below, I'm really pushing my marketing at the moment. My target is to find at least two opportunities per day; yesterday and today it's been people I know and agencies I respect. There's a few of them, too, so that should continue for a while.

I've also joined EMMA today - the East of England Multimedia Alliance. Having worked at the East of England Development Agency, I have something of an unfair advantage in knowing about networking organisations like this... and I intend to join as many as possible. EMMA is free, so even if I don't get any leads from it, I've lost nothing. The benefits, of course, include better search engine listing because there are more incoming links; better links with other EMMA members; and a central place to find tendering opportunities. They also run events, so I'm going to try to get along to one or more of those and meet some more people.

Other marketing activity has included updating Maltpress.co.uk to include my new contact details (thanks to Skype, I have my own land-line number now) and - at long last - working on JuicyFly.com a bit more. It's about half done now, and I hope to get it finished tonight. Then work begins on a new toy - some PHP image manipulation - before I re-do Cambridge.IsHome again. Then the empire will be up-to-date, which will be very, very nice.

2006 in review, 2007 ahead...

2006-12-30T13:54:00.000Z

Ah, the end of the year. They just seem to be racing by, to be honest. I said in a previous post I'd set some personal goals for 2007 to go with the business goals, so I'll get on to that in a minute. First up, though, 2006 in review. I doubt anyone's interested; this is as much for me to be able to remember what went on this year.

2006 was the year in which, after over a year of planning, umming and ahhing, general scaredness and procrastination, I quit my job and became my own man. Scary? Yes. Worth it? Definitely. It's been the best thing I ever did. I miss the people I used to work with; and, I suppose, the certainty of the pay, but nothing beats the feeling of working for yourself, in your underpants. 2007 is going to be the year it all takes off. The last couple of months were just practice.

2006 was a good year for music; Wolfmother, who I have on iTunes at the moment, were my big discovery for the year. I've been to lots of gigs, too; the Subways, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, local bands, the list goes on. Theatre-wise, I've seen some oddness. Film-wise, Bond was very good, but little else really sticks out.

I discovered the Backstreet Bistro this year, which I fully intend to go to again, when I have some money. Also, Ta Bouche, with nice food, pleasant staff, and free wireless. I've found a love of The Pickerell, which is a great little pub. I've managed to not go to The Snug, the pub I've been intending to try out all year.

I watched the World Cup in Cambridge and didn't enjoy it. I bought a giant china cat from a charity shop and now keep my pens in it.

I fell in love with Apple computers this year, too; my little Mac laptop is the best investment I made all year.

2006 was the year of living like a month; my budgeting exercise. Not exactly fun, but well worth it.

I said goodbye to two great friends this year; Michelle, who I met, had a wonderful time with, and then watched (well, metaphorically) fly to New Zealand; and Monty, my lovely MG Midget, who I had to sell to finance the business.

All in all, a good year. Wouldn't change a thing. Except perhaps the World Cup bit.

Aims for 2007

So what's next? Here are my personal aims for 2007. I've not actually thought about these at all, so I'm just making them up as I go along. I bet I won't achieve any of them.

Get back on the stage - I'd like to gig a few more times, just to keep my hand in.
Live like a monk - extreme! - that's January. No going out, extremely careful budgeting, buying the minimum of anything and not wasting a thing. Time to clean off the bike.
Fence in a couple of competitions- if I can afford it, I'd like to compete a bit more. It's nice to fence some new people.
Pay off my credit card - somehow. I may alternate months of living like a monk. I'm certainly going to be working as hard as possible and saving every penny I can. Maybe I'll alternate live like a monk (living to a set budget) with live like a monk - extreme (just not spending anything).
Take more photos - I like photos.

And that's it... a modest set of targets. I'm going to print these out and tick them off as I achieve them.

Being unreasonably ambitious

2006-12-10T16:03:00.000Z

Way back in 2004, the organisation I used to work for held one of their series of "ideas talks", getting leading thinkers to talk about business, ideas, and creativity. This particular event - Robert Heller holding an "ideas audit" for three leading regional businesses - called for business to be unreasonably ambitious. Well, I'm working on version 2 of my business plan at the moment and I'm trying to do that. So as we round up 2006 - the year in which I quit my job with nothing to go to, sold the car I loved, discovered fresh ingredients are far, far superior to anything you can get from a supermarket, and won my first awards for something I've done at work - I've decided to set out my unreasonable plans for 2007:

Find a designer to work with. To provide a fuller service, I'm going to need a designer. I also need to find someone who'll be there for small projects - I've got "associates" who are perfect for bigger projects, but I doubt they're interested in little bits of work here and there. A freelance designer who thinks like me would be a great boon to my business. Someone I could learn a bit more design from would be ace in itself.
Go limited. Earlier than I originally planned, I'd like to go limited in the middle of next year. The paperwork as a sole trader isn't as bad as I thought, so I can handle that; the benefits would be great; and the risks seem lower than I thought at the moment, with some decent clients coming in and some good work on the way.
Refine what I offer. Small business stuff doesn't seem to be particularly "me", or in demand, while public sector, strategic work, and content - writing and planning - are working well. I think I might drop the small business side of things. When I've used up a few more business cards.
Sort out an office. Working from home is great, but the cat can be incredibly annoying, it's difficult to concentrate at times, and there's no-where to hold meetings or anything. I'd like an office. I'd like something interesting and different. And room for a decent chair and desk.
Join a professional body. Like CIPR, CIM, or - possibly, but it's too design focussed - UKWDA
Upgrade the PC. And replace it with a decent big Mac running Parallels.
Market. Market hard.

I think that's about it from a business point of view... I imagine I'll write some personal objectives over the next couple of days too.

Even more awardy

2006-12-05T16:52:00.000Z

There are photos of the awards ceremony online now - rather small, but I'm about to email the photographer to get a copy of at least one of them.

See them here: http://www.ipr.org.uk/prideawards/eastanglia/2006/photographs/photographs.asp

Oh dear, oh dear.

2006-12-04T16:33:00.000Z

I've succumbed to seasonal fever... not to the point of looking forward to Christmas, or anything like that, but maltpress.co.uk has been updated to reflect the season.

Of course, it's going to be a little while before the fairy-lights go up in Maltpress HQ, what with me being a grumpy old scrooge who's not a massive fan of Christmas (I think I'm just quite ant-hype; I don't think it's worth all the fuss and pressure put on it... although the parties are fun). Mind you, the corporate world moves at a different pace and it's probably about time to be thinking about sending cards to my contacts. Being a new company, and having better things to do with my time - and not actually having that many contacts yet - I'm probably going to send actual, physical cards to people rather than electronic ones.

I've also updated the site to reflect the fact that I'm now an award winner - or at least part of an award winning team. See the post below for more details. But I'm going to remain smug about this for some time.

Award winner...

2006-12-01T10:17:00.000Z

Last night was the East Anglian CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) PRIDE awards - which I went along to, and at which the project I was there with (Running the Gauntlet) won two gongs. A gold and a silver.

My role in the project was as an internal consultant - providing advice and support for the electronic communications part of the campaign. Because one of the awards was for integrated PR campaign, I'm rather proud of my involvement. It shows that what I'm doing now is something I'm actually pretty good at and I can prove the results I'm capable of getting; a job for today is updating maltpress.co.uk to highlight the award.

I'm also rather pleased that I'll be getting a copy of the physical award which will be taking pride of place on my window-sill. Oh, and the fact that I wore a self-tied bow-tie - although I did have to have help tying it...

EEDA, my former employers, won five awards in total last night - including the Grand Prix overall prize for an internal communications campaign. It was incredibly nice to sit and bask in the reflected glory for an evening.

puff pant wheeze

2006-11-26T18:10:00.000Z

Arrrgh... I've just been for my first ever jog. I've learnt some things:

Fencing doesn't keep me as fit as I thought.
I run like an idiot.
It's not actually as cold as I thought and a fleece might not have been a good idea.
I'm a wimp.

That's right - 0.75 miles nearly killed me. So when I got back I made an Excel spreadsheet to keep me motivated and to tick off how far I do every time I jog. I'm planning to do it every other day, in the morning. Oh yes - that's the other part of this hare-brained scheme. I'm going to get up in the mornings a bit earlier. As it is, I'm at my desk and at work by nine - half past at the latest - and I'm not going to change that. But I am going to have been up and for a run or walk to the shops before that.

They (and by they I mean the BBC, who were the first hit for "jogging" on Google) say that you should have something to aim for. I'm not sure "not having a heart attack on the fencing piste" is clear enough. So I suppose the Grunty Fen half marathon, next September, is a decent enough aim.

Of course, what I really mean is not dying of a heart attack on the Grunty Fen half marathon next September...

The global web - a challenge for the web professional

2006-11-22T16:16:00.000Z

As long as I've been writing professionally - for over six years now - I've been aware of the need to write for people who don't necessarily have English as a first language. Whether it's writing for an international intranet for a pharmaceutical company or for a regional website recently in the news for initiatives on migrant workers, there's always been some reason to bear that in mind with what I do. It's not just about internationalisation - the average UK reading age is apparently 9 years old. Factor in dyslexia and learning difficulties and the non-written aspects of web deisgn and build suddenly become incredibly important.

What's been an interesting challenge recently is working on a website which isn't in my native language, but in Italian, which I don't really know a word of. It really drives home some of the things you need to think about with the language you use and the way people use visual cues on a site. In the research stages of the project I'm working on I've found myself muddling through several sites simply with what little GCSE Latin I can remember and the images the sites use.

It's taught me a lot - especially about the assumptions we make regarding design:

Photos are at first sight a lot less ambiguous than most stick-figure diagrams might be - but there's so much detail in them you never know what's the important bit. There's a photo of a man wearing a pilot's uniform. Does the section it links to relate to men? Men of a certain age? Professionals? Pilots alone? Strip all the distractions and present a representation of an action, a profession, a type of person and things become clearer. Subconsciously we know that if a detail is present in a simple diagram, it's probably there for a reason.
You can often muddle by with words which are similar in several languages. Useful for European languages with similar roots, but of no use with other languages.
Big chunks of text suddenly become even more daunting. They're bad enough at the best of times but in a different language you switch off immediately and start looking for pictures, numbers, anything you can relate to. Use this - make contact numbers, email addresses, maps, names, prices, anything internationally recognisable - stand out by using bold formatting and bullet points.

Working with bilingual sites is actually quite easy, if you have the money - there are plenty of content management systems out there with multi-lingual support, and if you can afford someone to do the translation for you it's not a problem. It's when money is tight but you still want to open your market internationally - or even multi-culturally across one small area - that you need to address the way you write, design and build your site.

Blogger beta

2006-11-20T16:26:00.000Z

You may have noticed (if you're a regular reader) that the blog's had a major re-design. And that my spelling's getting a lot better. Two innovations I'm quite pleased with are responsible for these things:

Blogger Beta is the new version of the Blogger software - and it's really quite good. It's almost as flexible as WordPress (which I use for Cambridge.IsHome, about which more later). The template I'm now using is almost completely as-is from Blogger, and it fits my branding almost perfectly, which is why I've kept it. The new templates available are really very good, and I am pleased with the way this new one looks.

It's also going to allow me to do more clever things with my feeds and the way I parse them on my sites. I can tag posts on here with a particular keyword (much like WordPress allows) and then - when I eventually found out how - I have a feed for each keyword. That means the Maltpress.co.uk site and the JuicyFly site can have different feeds on them and I can choose which site my blog posts go to.

FireFox 2.0 is responsible for the better spelling you can now see, thanks to a lovely inline dictionary function for web forms. You simply download the dictionary you want to use - UK English or US English (or any number of others) and all your sperling misteaks are suddenly underlined in red for you. Lovely.

Joel left a comment below saying some nice things and asking about Cambridge.IsHome. Well, as he guessed, I've been somewhat busy lately. Things are about to change though - I'm about to re-start it, and that begins with a bit of re-design work. I've never yet managed to get a design I've been happy with, so I'm going to spend some time tonight on the mac with the Gimp (and perhaps with some felt-tips first) to get it looking nicer. Then I have some articles planned which I'm actually going to go out and research (well, do) and write.

I would have reviewed The Bluetones at the Junction the other night had I not been late leaving a business event, meaning I only got to see three songs.

Corporate life spoils you

2006-11-19T15:10:00.000Z

I'm finding this out more and more lately. It's the little things which you never think about until, like me, you suddenly have lots and lots of time.

The big things - like regular pay, sick leave, having people around you, IT support - I never took those for granted. I was always grateful for them and knew I'd miss them when I was gone. But the following things, I have discovered, are the ones office-bods never think about until they have to start paying for them from their own pockets.

A decent mouse. I'm getting fed up with cleaning desk-scuzz out of the rollers of my cheap mouse; but an optical mouse costs money I don't really have at the moment.
All the red-tape and paperwork and suspicion. I have to fill in a form to prove I'm an actual business to the VAT man. Not that I mind, really; it's good that they check and, I suppose, if they didn't you could get away with all sorts. But I don't have a dedicated business landline, and that's a matter of suspicion, apparently.
Having cups of tea made for you. I still drink a silly amount of tea, but rarely have it made for me any more. It surprised me how grateful I was on Friday when my brother did it for me.

It's been one of those weeks when I've wondered a little bit what I'm actually doing this for. It's been hard work. But then I look at the other option; wasting my life in a job where I have no prospects or control over what I do; taking the easy route; not feeling satisfied. And I think of the Friday morning I had, in the company of possibly one of the nicest men I've ever met, who made me lovely Italian coffee and put my mind at rest that I'm not alone in this at all. For a couple of hours that day, it all made perfect sense.

Monty makes a choice

2006-11-16T19:14:00.000Z

Well, well, well. What an interesting day.

Got the MG back. Long story. Deeply unhappy about it, but you live and learn. Top tip from today: don't sell a car on eBay, and never sell to someone who's not viewed it first.

Hello and goodbye

2006-11-15T21:30:00.000Z

It's been a difficult couple of days, to be honest. Some hellos and some goodbyes:

Hello - to the new version of Blogger. I'll be sorting the template out tomorrow, and taking advantage of the new-found ability to tag posts with keywords - and to generate feeds for each keyword, which is going to make it very easy for me to choose whether or not to put posts on my websites.

Goodbye - to the car I loved, my MG Midget, once called Monty. It was bought today and it was a real wrench to see it go - there was a tear in my eye as it drove away for a new life. Still, it's paid the wages for this month, which is good - any paid work for November is a bonus.

Hello - to some new contacts, who I met at the excellent EEDA event last night - the Ideas Exchange. Yes, I used to work at EEDA - I ran their website for three years. It was good to see the staff there again, because they're good friends, and I also got to meet some very friendly new people and found out that I'm not alone with the fears and worries I have starting this business.

Goodbye - to the routine of Cambridgeshire Enterprise Agency training courses on a Wednesday. I've done all the ones I can afford now. They were very, very good, and a great way to meet new people.

Hello - to a new phone, which doesn't work. Damn. Back to the shop tomorrow.

Things are going to pick up soon, I'm sure. But for the last couple of days it's been incredibly, incredibly hard work and quite lonely.

Reminisce

2006-11-10T09:40:00.000Z

Yesterday I didn't have masses to do, which was a little dull. I did a lot of ironing, and while I did it I listened to a bit of Bowie. Which got me thinking about the film Velvet Goldmine, which I saw one snowy day in the first year at university, at the Taliesin cinema at Swansea University.

It got me thinking about Swansea and how much I miss it there. I think it was - as much as anything - the fact I could walk through the park every day to get to things. The fact that I was a "regular" in the university coffee shop and my cup of tea was on the counter by the time I got to it. The lovely big house I had. And the lovely heavy rain.

The point of working for myself, from home, was to recapture that a little - to get the independence back and to do my own thing a bit more. To be completely in control. And I'm loving it. Still not a regular anywhere, but once I have a little more cash available I'm going to start working on that. But it's great to have some control.

Today is paperwork day. I'm - surprisingly - quite enjoying it. There's something very satisfying about it.

Some very general updates

2006-11-07T16:47:00.000Z

Things seem to be picking up a little - I have some work to do, which makes a very nice change and will be keeping me out of trouble (and should start to pay the bills as well, which is the most important thing). I'm certainly starting to settle in to the somewhat different pace of life working from home - it's been odd to work a normal day and then not have to do anything until the next one, rather than finishing one job and then coming home to another.

There are still odd setting up admin things to do here and there - today I started my VAT registration process, the results of which I'm now going to have to wait for in the post. That should just about be it in terms of set-up - at least until I'm ready to make the change from sole trader to limited company, something which I'm trying to avoid thinking about but which has an inevitability about it.

I've also got my first fairly big networking event coming up - the Ideas Exchange, hosted by my old employers, EEDA. It should be a good afternoon - catching up with a few ex-colleagues, plus there are some interesting speakers lined up. It'll also be the first real test of my networking and selling abilities and it would be nice to leave with a few more contacts and some possible future work.

Then, at the end of the month, I have the CIPR PRide awards - a campaign I advised on (in much the same way as I now intend to work - web and e-marketing consultancy) is nominated in two categories, although it's really only the integrated PR campaign I can take any credit for helping on. It's a great selling point for me and certainly something I think I should be shouting about more - tomorrow evening I intend to add a link to it from maltpress.co.uk. At some point I need to hire a DJ so I can look my best for the winner's photos... here's hoping, anyway. If nothing else I'll be throwing business cards around like confetti.

And finally, I now have Skype, but not a number for it yet - I'm waiting for some income before I actually spend any money on it...

Anyway, how are you all? It's been ages since I actually heard anything from anyone on here... I know you're out there, I'm rapidly approaching 2000 hits, many of which are mine, but surely there's someone out there...

Corporate social responsibility... kind of.

2006-11-02T15:40:00.000Z

I've discovered the good thing about working from home is the ability to walk down to the shops rather than having to wait until the evening to drive to the supermarket. It only takes five minutes, it's free, it's non-polluting and - best of all - it gets me out of the house.

Plus I'm supporting local shops and eating healthily...

Maybe - hopefully - things will change when I get a bit more work to do and I'll have less time. But until then I'm making the most of it.

In other news, the JuicyFly site is completely refusing to work in Safari 2.0.4, which is thoroughly annoying - I think it's something to do with the variables I'm trying to set, and using display:hidden, but I'm not sure. It's a puzzler. If anyone wants to have a look at http://www.juicyfly.com and see if there's anything stupid - and obvious - I've missed, that would be great.

I'm going to crack on and build the rest of the site and fix that page later. In the words of Brian Wilson (I'm watching the Pet Sounds live in London DVD) "I know there's an answer"... I'll find it when I stop thinking about it, I'd imagine.

Hopping on the bandwagon

2006-10-29T13:49:00.000Z

I've been reading a lot of articles online recently about MySpace. Opinions are divided - it's either the best thing to happen to the web, bringing people together in new ways, or it's the worst thing ever, encouraging grooming, phishing, stalking and - probably provoking most horror - bad design.

So I decided to get my own profile. Not just to see what the fuss is about; not even to see if it is possible to make a nice looking page which is actually readable (it is, but they don't exactly make it easy). Oh no; I was looking into the business applications of MySpace.

In short, there are very few. Very, very few. You can have a rant about it as a web designer because that's the "in thing" (and most rants about it are justified, to be honest), but aside from that - and the special case of the music industry - it's very difficult to see a way a business could make much use of it.

I did think that, perhaps, it would be a way of making a small (well, one page) promotional page about a small business - after all, all "the kids" are using MySpace and there's the possibility of getting some credibility with your customer base by using it. However, there are many site-builder options out there with far more flexibility and just as much customisation available to them - setting up a WordPress or Blogger blog would be a far better option. There's the usefulness of comments and friends as product endorsements, but that's about it.

I said the music industry was a special case. Well, it is. It's what MySpace was created for and it works really well - free samples of music, gig diaries, images and of course endorsements... and if they're from other bands, so much the better. There's also a two-way thing going on here - people want to be listed as the "friend" of a famous band. Bands want to look like they've got lots of fans. Everyone wins. But the model is virtually impossible to extend to other businesses. And you'll see that bands have another website anyway - the only real purpose behind a MySpace account is to give away samples of their music to a very specific audience. And once they have a video, YouTube's the better place to do that.

Anyway, that's my opinion on MySpace - and it's not just sour grapes because I find it exceedingly frustrating trying to get it to look right. Oh no.

Panic! Not at the disco, though.

2006-10-25T16:20:00.000+01:00

So... tomorrow is my last day in the office and from that point on I'm alone and need to find business. I think I'm about ready; bank is sorted, website is sorted, contacts are sorted (although I need more), business cards have arrived, I've had training on legal things today (which made my brain hurt a little and is responsible for the current state of panic) and I feel ready - as ready as I'll ever be.

In other news... the JuicyFly site is coming along now, and I've learnt lots of interesting JavaScript - not just a couple of individual functions, but (long overdue) a lot more about the syntax and putting it to use. You can see it in use on the navigation for the test page I've set up - http://www.juicyfly.com/template.php - it needs cross browser and cross platform testing to make sure it's all OK, but it's getting there. Still a lot to do on this but it's certainly moving now.

All that remains is to find a way to stop the cat constantly bothering me for food. We wormed him the other day. So far it's had no effect.

Business devices as consumer electronics

2006-10-05T09:31:00.000+01:00

I love my Mac. Using it, and reading about BlackBerry's new consumer handset, has got me thinking about the differences between business and consumer electronics, the closing gap between the two, and the interesting consequences for the way we use them.

If BlackBerry can succesfully create and market a consumer device with the purpose of giving you push email and the web on the move, then it means one thing: consumers want access to their email all the time. Even down the pub on a Friday night. So what's wrong with phone calls? Well, nothing, but there are several reasons for email and the web on the go; it's cool (honestly - that's a big factor for the sort of people who'd buy one), the world's growing smaller but timezones aren't (it's easier to email someone in New Zealand than call them) and attention spans are getting shorter. Waiting for someone to get to the pub? Now, rather than eyeing up the barmaid, you can fire off a couple of quick emails, organise the next night out, maybe even keep ahead at work. Blog a bit. Shop online.

So what are the consequences for business? They're two-fold. Firstly, it means small businesses can get hold of business tools for lower, consumer prices, and for phones on cheaper, consumer tariffs which still fulfil our needs. Often we have to sacrifice some functionality or benefit - in the case of the BlackBerry, it's ruggedness and keyboard size. But for a small business that's fine - and it can kill two birds with one stone because our business tools become something we're not ashamed to be seen with out and about.

Secondly, it means people are using our websites and services in new ways. At different times, on different devices, and with different restrictions. Site "stickiness" changes when we come to using a mobile or small screen; before, it was a comprimise between giving people what they were looking for and pointing them to other things to browse to that they *didn't know* they were looking for. On a mobile, though, people don't want to browse for ages. It's about giving them what they want quickly but - after the transaction is complete - encouraging them to return. Doing a site variant for the mobile web is less and less about just fitting it on a small monochrome screen - it's about changing the whole navigational system and user experience.

Being 28

2006-10-02T13:22:00.000+01:00

Being 28 feels no different to being 27, really. Not that I thought it would do.

The beer-belly my brother promised would arrive at 25 still hasn't materialised, but then again I don't drink beer, and I do lots of running about waving swords, which I think holds it at bay. That and living on nervous energy and caffiene.

This coming year's going to be a good one. Much working for myself and general career-based merriment will follow, I'm sure.

Oh, and thanks to anyone who gave me a present or a card. They were much appreciated.

Maltpress.co.uk finished!

2006-09-30T12:06:00.000+01:00

Well... mostly finished. I need to have a rest from it for a bit before I do final testing and see if there's anything which needs re-doing, typos which need correcting, abd so-on. I've also got to do the header images on the home page because I messed up the reds when converting to gifs - and it took non-colourblind people to point that out to me. From now on I design in black and white...

Actually, no I don't. I'm about to start on the JuicyFly site, which is going to push me even more. Maltpress.co.uk is a fairly safe site, which tries to be a good corporate one - it works on all the browsers I can test on, it's standards compliant, it's content-led (the design doesn't detract from what's going on) and it's pretty gimick-free. There are only three complex elements on the site - the blog parser, the contact form (just waiting for sign-off on that from the bloke who runs the server - don't want to open it up to any attacks) and the search.

The whole point of the JuicyFly site is to be something a bit different - to push the boundaires a little more. There's going to be some interesting JavaScript, which I'm playing with now (ByteFX - although there are a couple of typos on that page) and some decent PHP, hopefully. I'm just going to go all out. Work to FireFox, and possibly sacrifice IE a little. Bad, I know, but I'm playing.

Playing is good.

Getting older

2006-09-25T21:29:00.000+01:00

So... I'm nearly 28. A mere week away, in fact. I'm loving it. Getting older, so far, rocks. I'm working pretty hard (in fact, I've worn myself out so I'm about to go to bed, now I've sorted the navigation on my site in Safari - seems to be working well in everything but Firefox 1.0.7 for some reason).

The business is going well, especially now I'm part time at the day job. I've made a list of things to do and got some of my deadlines into iCal. I've bought felt-tips and big paper (surprisingly one of the most useful bits of kit in my arsenal - I've done massive amounts of really good work with nothing more than an A3 sheet and a couple of felt tips). All in all, things are good.

But with birthdays come presents, and I'm rapidly running out of ideas. I don't really want that much material stuff. Mostly because I'm running out of room. I'm using del.icio.us to put my list together, here, but I've not got much on it. What do I want?

That's my plea for human contact today. In the words of Scaryduck, plz to suggest-me-up.

A day off - how odd

2006-09-21T19:17:00.000+01:00

I've not been in the office today - first day of working part time, and it's really odd. I feel kind of guilty for not doing work.

I went to Ikea with dad and I'm now sitting in a surprisingly comfy swivel chair thingy which only set me back £14. Bargain. In all, I only spent £25 and that's including one unplanned buy (which in itself is pretty good going for a trip to Ikea).

Tomorrow work starts in earnest, though. I shall be learning OmniOutliner for the Mac, finishing my website and starting the JuicyFly one (design concept completed, couple of technical things to sort and then build will begin). All very exciting. Then there's an ex-colleague's leaving do in the evening - the warm up for mine.

New banner

2006-09-17T18:20:00.000+01:00

There's a new banner I just made. I'm having fun with The Gimp and - I admit - probably overdoing the reflections and drop shadows. Oh well - I'm enjoying it. :)

Comng along nicely

2006-09-16T23:16:00.000+01:00

Maltpress.co.uk is coming along nicely, and there's going to be more to see as soon as the server's up and running. In the mean time, have a load of this... i made it tonight with a little bit of Gimping and some patience. And quite a bit of fun.

I'm very nearly part time.

2006-09-13T11:13:00.000+01:00

I've only got a couple of days left as a full-time employee. It's seeming more and more real and - to be honest - more and more scary as time goes on. There's still so much to do.

Mind you, everyone's been very supportive and I'm getting contacts all over the place. Friends of friends, colleagues, all sorts. It's very encouraging.

I'm off to Ikea next week with dad to get a couple of office things, and also to spend a bit of time with him - while I have loads to do in the next couple of months, I also know I've not had much time off at all since I went to Budapest earlier in the year. I've worked at least half a day most weekends since then and many, many evenings, so I'll ease myself in that first weekend.

And then panic a bit.

A list will appear soon of all the things I have yet to do. It'll be quite long.

Stalk-me-up

2006-09-11T09:56:00.000+01:00

The internet's a wonderful place to share things and to find out about other people. You could probably learn more about me than I actually know just by looking at stuff I've made available. What I've been listening to, thanks to Last FM; what I've been taking photos of, thanks to Flickr; and now what books I own thanks to LibraryThing.

I'd read about it a while ago on Geoff Jones' blog and thought it would be a great idea to actually sort my bookshelves. So this weekend - having cleared an old chair out of my room and created enough space for a much needed second shelf - I decided to catalogue my books.

It was fun, and I got to dust them all off as well. Plus you can stalk-me-up proper now by looking at what I have on my shelves. I'm half way through at the moment, with 130 books, and most of the fiction yet to come.

I wonder if there's a way you can use LibraryThing plus the Amazon API to estimate the value of your collection? Now that would be scary... good for insurance, but scary.

40 years

2006-09-07T15:47:00.000+01:00

It's the 40th anniversary of Pet Sounds being released this week.

Best. Album. Ever.

Anyone who disagrees - I'll take you. It's the only album to ever make me cry.

Humph.

2006-09-07T13:29:00.000+01:00

I had to say a very difficult "see you soon" (6 months, probably) to Michelle this morning, which has put me in something of a low mood. Along with being very tired. At the moment I'd like nothing better than to crawl into bed and sleep for a few hours - but I'm at work. Still, major deadlines have been met and now it's full steam ahead on handover things now. And setting up the business properly.

There's not much more I can say really. I'm thinking about preparing for my birthday in just over a month but shortly before that a colleague is leaving and shortly after I'm leaving - so it'll probably be a low-key, friends only affair.

Pip pip old bean

2006-09-06T10:25:00.000+01:00

Hello all.

So... a safe choice for the Mercury Music Prize. I don't think my love of Thom Yorke's Eraser is any secret, but to be honest I'd have been happy with (almost) anyone else but the Arctic Monkeys winning. Not that I think they're bad; just that they're an incredibly safe choice.

Of course, winning isn't necessarily a good thing all the time. What's happened to the excellent Anthony and the Johnsons, who won last year? Not much, really. And not winning never harmed Radiohead any of the times they've been nominated.

Personally I'd have liked to see Richard Hawley win; he's a talented bloke and - somehow - seems to fit the mood of the Mercurys better. Don't ask me to explain that - I don't think I can. He just seemed more right.

Anyway, as the Grauniad explained today, sales for everyone have gone up since the shortlist was announced, and if it gets people listening to something new then that can only be a good thing. Now, if we can stop the Arctic Monkeys being so damn precious about what they do and start just enjoying themselves, we'll be on to a winner.

Other stuff: I have a book on Neuro Linguistic Programming to read, so I'll be manipulating everyone I know before long; Michelle leaves this weekend, which is very sad (but incredibly exciting for her); time is ticking by until I become part time, which is very exciting for me; and my moustache growing is going slowly (but, thankfully, surely).

What about you? Tell me something. Please. Let me know you're out there.

How to live like a monk

2006-09-01T11:40:00.000+01:00

Following a little "live like a monk" confusion, I thought I'd reitterate the rules.

Inspired by Alvin Hall, money-saving guru and wearer of turtle-necks and bad trousers, as well as BBC3's "Spendaholics" (I love that programme) I thought I'd address my budgeting before the business starts up.

Unlike Spendaholics I won't be standing in my old school's car park shouting "what about me?" and nor will the nation be laughing at my habit of buying utter tosh for no reason. However, just like that show I will be living to a strict budget, calculated using complex algorithms and much picking of numbers out of the air. Once it's gone, it's gone, and at the end of the month anything left in my account goes into my savings. Direct debits and standing orders tick over as normal.

It's very good for me - in that I save money - and it also makes for some interesting evenings and days out saving as much money as possible. I find interesting free things to do and see. Hurrah!

And while we're on the subject of money, I've been convinced to do Tacheback again this year. It's all about raising money for male cancers by growing a moustache. Which I already have, but I'm about to shave off so I can start afresh and everyone can laugh at me as I pass through the facial equivalent of the dodgy mullet - the pootache. Photos will appear on Flickr, I'm sure. You can sponsor me here.

So, all in all, I'm not going to be leaving the house this month.

Live like a monk - part the second. Ish.

2006-08-31T09:21:00.000+01:00

Well, I did two successful months of living like a monk. Then I met Michelle, and gladly threw all that out of the window, having a most enjoyable month not living like a monk whatsoever (although I did drink more wine than usual, which is a bit monkish I suppose).

Anyway, incredibly fun though it has been, I still need to save more for when I work for myself, and time is ticking away. So I'm reviving live like a monk month.

It'll be an interesting experiment again - I start working part time in the middle of the month and it'll be good to see how that affects cashflow. I have a horrid suspicion it's going to be tough. Still, I can at least start doing local shopping at the butcher and greengrocer's in the village, which should mean less petrol money.

So... off to the bank to get the cash today, pick up the footpump to get the bike tyres inflated, and time to get prudent.

Crivens

2006-08-29T10:42:00.000+01:00

Well, had an update on the server issues.

Looks like Maltpress.co.uk, JuicyFly.com and Cambridge.IsHome.co.uk will be down for at least a week, as will my email. If you do want to get in touch, eggy_little_man@hotmail.com will be working so you can get me on that. Can't be sure I'll get to stuff particularly quickly, though, so be patient.

Apparently the server's currently in bits - physically rather than just metaphorically for once - while things get fixed.

When it's all back up, though, hopefully there's going to be a spanky new www.maltpress.co.uk in place with all sorts of cleverness going on.

Sob!

2006-08-28T14:24:00.000+01:00

Maltpress.co.uk has been hacked. Well, the server it resides on has been, so for the moment some of my icons and banners have gone AWOL. Sadly that also means cambridge.ishome.co.uk has gone, as has www.juicyfly.com. Bums.

The very nice man who runs it is - I'm sure - currently at work on it. I hope. My email's down at the moment too.

It's very frustrating because the new-look website is coming along very nicely at the moment and I wanted to show it off to the world. :(

Eeeek!

2006-08-25T19:35:00.000+01:00

catchase
Originally uploaded by Maltpress.

I've been helping Tracy with her Gimping. We had fun. She made this.

Photos

2006-08-24T11:42:00.000+01:00

I need photos of me for my website. I think. I'm not sure - yes, it'll personalise my site, but most of the photos of me I have ever seen are of me looking somewhat rough, drunk, tired, or all of the above. None of which are particularly professional aspects of myself to show the world.

So - do I need a picture of me on the site? I know I need imagery, and I should start taking some snaps here and there to fill it. I feel a little uncomfortable "posing" for a picture for the site, so maybe I could go through my friend Tracy's photos for a decent one, although there are some terrible haircuts in there (and terrible facial hair, and lots of pictures of me bending over... don't ask...)

The other option is to ask my better half to bring her snazzy camera when she comes to see me next. She's a very good photographer. Although sadly it's the last time I'll be seeing her before she leaves for New Zealand for a year (followed by six months travelling) and there are probably better things to do with our time than taking photos.

Stop sniggering, you smutty devils.

Anyway - todays plea for human contact of some form is as follows: do I need a photo of me on my business website? And what should it be like?

The thank you project

2006-08-16T20:41:00.000+01:00

I'm bored. I've being doing something exceedingly dull all day for work and it's really tough. Now there's nothing on TV. So I'm going to start a project I thought of a while ago and never did.

I'm going to email or write (actual postal letters) to people who've made me smile or whose work I've enjoyed over the years. Authors, musicians, comedians... whatever. It's a bit brown-nosey, but I figure these people take a lot of rubbish and rarely do people ever just say thank you.

I'm going to look like a wierdo stalker, I'm sure. I'm not. I don't idolise celebrity. I think the cult of celebrity sucks. I just like talented people who are good at their jobs. When I do something good at work people say thank you. Other people deserve that too.

I'm going to start by thanking Thom Yorke for The Eraser. It's a lovely album and I like it.

Most enjoyable weekend

2006-08-14T12:04:00.000+01:00

I just had a most enjoyable weekend. Friday was spent as tour-guide and sober person for a colleague's night out with some non-Cambridge friends; although there was lots of pressure to find nice places to go, the people were very nice and we ended up having fun. A late, late night though.

Saturday meant a trip to London to see my lady friend for her friend's birthday. I've not done a train trip to London for ages, and it made a really nice change. Also meant there was a chance for a nap on the way. The evening was spent first in a Carribean restaraunt in Camden, and then in the Jazz Cafe; both were incredibly good fun. I even did dancing, which isn't like me at all. Maybe it was the wine.

Anyway, the end result is that I'm getting the work/life balance a bit more on track. Which is jolly nice. And it's mostly down to my friends.

Breaking my site

2006-08-09T21:46:00.000+01:00

Clever me. I managed to truncate my blog post on a link element and break my website layout by effectively removing a div tag. Chances? Low. Rate of occurence? High.

Think I've cracked the navigation though...

Some designs I like

2006-08-09T16:13:00.000+01:00

Following on from yesterday's post, I've had a look at the navigation on the site and I think I know what I'm going to do with it now. I thought I'd also point out some nice looking sites which - although they don't have the "oh my god - I've never seen anything like that before" factor which I'm beginning to think I'll never find - are nice looking sites.

This one has navigation which I might "pinch" - I can see how to work it using A List Apart's "sliding doors" technique and some .pngs - and with a little more work can do it with gifs for proper cross-browserness. Anyway, it's a pretty site, if a little busy. Does kind of have that "nothing new under the sun" feel about it though.

This one's a whopper - huge page sizes and very over the top but looks really nice. But one of millions doing that "tattered edges" thing. Again. Yawn. But the photo background really inspired Cambridge.isHome

Very pretty, but photo-led - and it's not a content/text friendly site. Everything's below the fold, which some people claim is no longer an issue, but it winds me up.

It's got the cross-hatching thing going on - but it's got some really stunning elements on it too. The splash page actually has a purpose to it, too, what with needing Flash to make the most of the site, and with the Google Earth KMZ. There's some lovely simple and clean design on the site too. Plus the KMZ and Flash map are really well executed.

Thing is, I've not done anything particularly new on Maltpres.co.uk (coming soon) - and even by looking at other brand new sites I doubt I would be able to. I'd just like to see something new and different.

Menus and all that

2006-08-08T10:52:00.000+01:00

I'm struggling with Maltpress.co.uk re-design stuff. I can't figure out how to get my menus looking good. I've tried A List Apart's Sliding Doors technique and - while it's good looking, easy, surprisingly code-light and generally very good, it doesn't fit with the way the site looks. I've done most of the page without thinking where to put the navigation and now I'm paying the price. I'm sure there's a simple solution, though, which is going to look good.

I'm having a look through CSS Beauty for inspiration at the moment. There's some lovely stuff on there. I always have loved the site, although patterns are obvious - everyone has that same diagonal cross-hatching thing going on. Everyone has soft-look buttons and gentle grads and subtle tints.

Today's plea for some kind of human contact comes in this form: point me at a site which looks incredible, and isn't your bog-standard web 2.0 soft focus, reflecty-picture drop-shadow fest.

One day someone will talk to me.

Stress and stress relief

2006-08-03T10:22:00.000+01:00

I'm not known for being a happy person in general. But at the moment I am. Things are going well for me. As you can see below, I've completed probably the biggest project of my working life so far. I've handed my notice in and all sorts of exciting prospects await me. I'd like to not be stressed for a little while.

Problem is, I'm still wound tighter than a tight thing after that big project. The nervous energy which propelled me into the early morning shouting at IE and Firefox last week now has no-where to go.

So - if there's anyone out there - I'm after suggestions for relaxation. I'd like to come home from work tonight and think about nothing work related whatsoever.

So far I've tried washing, ironing, cleaning the bathroom, and trimming my beard. None of these have helped yet.

Ideas, people! I need ideas!

The biggest thing I've ever done.

2006-08-02T09:37:00.000+01:00

...so far, that is. I've just launched (well, yesterday) a jolly big website, which I've been working on for months. I'd like to say "single-handedly", but the design work was done by Pixelwork, who provided me with some lovely (but empty) HTML pages - about 12 of them I think - which I then built the site from. It took a jolly long time. There was much heartache. I spent many late nights working on it.

But now it's live. There's still loads to do but there's a real - and somewhat nerve-wracking feeling - that I'm entering "the next phase" of my life. What that phase is, and what's involved, I have no idea whatsoever. But it should be interesting.

I'm going to take it a little easier than I have been doing for the next couple of days. There's still stuff to do but there's more time to do it, so I get to have a bit more of a play with things. I want to try adding an ASP RSS parser - something I've done quite a bit in PHP but never in ASP. I've got the code, so it's a copy and paste job - but should get me more used to the ASP syntax when I tweak it.

Day off

2006-07-29T12:37:00.000+01:00

Well, certainly the morning off. I've only just got up and I'm sitting in my pants. Hurrah!

The site build I've been working on for the past few months is coming along really nicely now. I'm launching on Tuesday, so watch this space.

I've also handed my notice in. Hurrah! Maltpress Web Consultancy is go. Because I have nothing really to go to, I'm working a long notice period. As part of that I'll be using up the masses of holiday I have left, so I have roughly a month of working three-day weeks towards the end; that'll be the time to get all my final things set up. I'm looking forward to it. In general, I'm very excited (if a little scared) about the whole thing. It's been a real relief to hand my notice in and, if nothing else, it means I can get advice from people at work about things... there are some really good designers, marketing bods and managers there whose brains I'd like to pick.

Right - I'm going to shower, get on my bike, go in to Cambridge and meet an old friend. Then I'm buying iWork, coming home, finishing the website ready for Tuesday, and relaxing as much as humanly possible.

Pip pip!

Done it

2006-07-28T17:13:00.000+01:00

...quit my job. Eeek. In three months' time I'll be unemployed, unable to sign on, and having to fend for myself.

Does anyone want to buy an MG? Or give me some money? Or hire me? Or just tell me it'll be OK and I won't be poor at Christmas?

Still here.

2006-07-27T21:54:00.000+01:00

Still swearing at Internet Explorer (actually, swearing at Firefox and nested relative font sizes... although technically correct it's still annoying when you're working to IE...)

Still hanging in there on the day job... by days... more to follow...

Still working very very hard trying to get a site launch done on time despite technology...

Still enjoying the radio over the internet.

Very, Very. Very...

2006-07-14T17:39:00.000+01:00

Tired. *Yawn*. See?

BBC 6 Music is ace. This afternoon, I've had Dandy Warhols, Weezer, Menswear, and the new Thom Yorke single.

I've also been told to stop using the word "monster", which is a shame. Because all of the above are indeed monster.

A rant and a hurrah

2006-07-13T15:43:00.000+01:00

Rant: "does what it says on the tin". If one more person uses this phrase to describe anything - except perhaps a tin of buzz-word spouting marketing person poison - I will scream. They even said it in Hollyoaks the other day. Is nothing sacred?

Hurrah: Javascript in another language - it just makes me smile to see "new String(Request.Form("messaggio"))". I don't know why.

Doing drawing, listening to music

2006-07-09T12:05:00.000+01:00

Redesign work continues apace at the moment. Cambridge.ishome (still experimenting with the capitals) build should start Wednesday, when I have a day off work. Maltpress.co.uk rebuild has started and, despite a few early IE/Firefox issues it's now working on both browsers, and on Macs too.

Yesterday I set up my office round at Dad's house; I'm about to go buy memory for the old computer I'll be using and a wireless thingy too.

I'm learning GIMP more than ever before. My CSS and HTML are coming along very well. PHP holds no fear for me. I'm saving money well, helped by not driving in to work any more.

All is well with the world.

Damn him. Damn his eyes.

2006-07-05T12:20:00.000+01:00

This bloke got there first - it seems he's doing all that I want to do and being all that I want. JuicyFly should be what this bloke's brand is. And, damn him, damn him all to hell, his design stuff is utterly incredible. Doesn't work in IE, but hey. Maybe it will in IE 7.

As lame as it may seem, my goal is to kick ass at anything thrown at me. As marketing fluffers would say, I want to provide compelling and unique design that ultimately helps your bottom line. But that's crap, I'll let my fingers do the talking, thanks.

OK - so I don't do design, I do information architecture and "stuff" - but that's an ace philospohy to have. Good on you, sir, but damn you some more for getting there first.

To celebrate a month of not spending done well

2006-06-30T00:00:00.000+01:00

Let me kill your connection:

Ace. Utterly ace.

I love YouTube.

Last night

2006-06-28T09:15:00.000+01:00

I watched the Spiderman 3 trailer on my mac.

It was almost *too* good. Shiny.

Once again...

2006-06-26T11:21:00.000+01:00

I'm glad I got out of pharma marketing. I'm sorry to say nothing in this article surprises me in the slightest; it's stuff I've actually helped people do. I feel dirty. Thing is, most people involved are good people under pressure to perform because that's what they get paid for, and they want to pay the bills. No one person ever goes out there to say "let's make everyone afraid of some natural feeling which is rarely a problem - then we can make money". They say "how can we make more money for our company so we can research new drugs?". No-one gets around to researching the right new drugs, though. They're all thinking about making more money in order to do something altruistic. And the altruism never surfaces.

That's business, and it sucks. At least it sucks when you're talking about people's health. To be honest, Coke can do what they want, because it's my decision whether I buy their product. They're not telling me there's something wrong with me which can only be cured by their product. And if they try, I know they're a consumer product and I shouldn't trust them. We all think that we should trust pharma because they wear white coats.

Here endeth the rant.

I'm having a confidence crisis at the moment. A recruitment agency told me I don't have enough commercial experience to run my own business. Now, the plan is to do it part time for a while while I get that experience, but it's one of those things you don't want to hear. Especially when it's a fear I have anyway. Still, if commercial stuff means getting back into pharma and things, that's probably for the best.

I think I need to focus on the positives for a bit. Last night I did some work on Cambridge.IsHome and fell in love with WordPress, and my Mac, all over again. I could just kiss them both. If one wasn't some zeroes and ones and one wasn't a box made to hold zeroes and ones.

A proper update for a change

2006-06-19T20:32:00.000+01:00

I thought I should take five minutes out to do a proper update for a change. I'm in the middle of doing some site-build work for my day job, trying hard to get caught up with everything and the site launched on schedule. It's been hard work and there's a bit still to do, but things are coming along nicely and the end is in sight. I've started to become quite good at the RedDot content management system now.

I've also found working from home suits me brilliantly. I get more done at home in the evenings than I do in the office during the day - simply because it's impossible for colleagues to ask me to help them with anything. My problem is I can't say no - whatever people want help with, I'll help them with it, whether it's my job or not. Sitting in the kitchen of an evening with the stereo on, plugging away at a website, I'm getting tonnes done. I can have a straight four hours on the site build and get more done than in a normal working day. I can also get caught up with my emails.

Cambridge.IsHome is ticking over at the moment, and not much more. I've got a load of photos to convert to banner images, and would have more had my camera not decided to commit bizarre battery-saving suicide the other day (I think it's salvagable - if not, it's just the memory card which needs replacing). There's a lot planned - regular features, a weekly update (although I need to sort out the timing on that), a contact form, and soon a .kmz file I'll keep updated with links to venues and things I visit. I keep thinking there's a lot of potential with the site. Once I reach a critical mass with content, I'll start promoting it around town a little. Then there are some seasonal themes I need to get prepared - Halloween (which I already have an article planned for), Bonfire Night, Christmas... I know, I know. Planning too far ahead already...

As for Live Like A Monk Month, I had a shaky middle to the month but things have sorted themselves out well. I think I'll make it now, and I've not even had a really bad time or anything. In fact, the only monk-like elements to the month are the head-shaving and the chastity. And the filthy habit, ha ha ha.

So... eleven days to go until the end of the month, when it'll be all change for me again. The back of the day-job site build should be broken by then, I can spend again (although I think I'll choose to keep the budgeting thing going), and I should have my own sites slightly further along by then too.

Oh, one last thing - I'm advertising the Midget. Contact me if you want it - adam@maltpress.co.uk

Whoops

2006-06-15T01:02:00.000+01:00

I've only just noticed I deleted the top banner from this site a little while ago. Damnit.

I'm not going to fix it now: I'm off to bed, it being an ungodly hour. Sorry everyone. I have deadlines which I really want to exceed - the sooner I meet them the sooner I can leave my job. :D

In the mean time, ha ha ha ha...