Myths about Freelancers
There are so many misconceptions about my line of work. Not the Web Development. The word ‘Freelance’ confuses many who don’t understand the concept, so I’m going to kill some myths for you:
It’s difficult to contact them – Why? They have the internet. They have phones. We may get signal issues from time to time if we go through a tunnel but mobile problems are nothing a visit to o2.co.uk or the Orange shop won’t fix. And generally they do answer calls, unless genuinely busy. And even then they will call you back.
Freelancing is risky – Admittedly there is no guarantee of work but if you don’t feel like you’re getting enough business from freelancing, keep a hold of your full time job too, or downgrade to a part-time job and balance the two. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
A freelancer won’t meet a deadline – Actually most are very professional and self motivated, so yes they do stick to deadlines. How would they make any money if they didn’t?
Freelancers aren’t reliable – Okay, so they don’t necessarily get up at 6.30 in the morning to commute, but freelancers understand the concept of reliability. And freelancers can balance their workload to suit the best times for them. The work will get done. It doesn’t matter when or where.
Freelancers results aren’t to the same standard – Aren’t they? Freelancers tend to become so once they have the skills and experience behind them that gives them the confidence to work on their own. Most spend money on bettering their skills. Otherwise the competition would trample them.
So don’t write a freelancer off based on misconceptions. If they weren’t good at what they did, they wouldn’t have a business. Freelancer doesn’t mean ‘slacker.’
Read MoreHire Me? No, seriously.
So, despite already having a job, I’m looking for a job within a field which is more relevant to my experience.
My experience being that of a PHP developer (mainly using the CakePHP framework) and a forum software enthusiast (I’ve even written my own forum software for kicks). Personally I think that I’d fit perfectly into a support team role, or even a software development job. Those are the types of jobs I’m looking for. I’d also make a semi-competent server-guy person, as I’m pretty familiar with ubuntu and debian-based linux distro’s as I have administrated several of my own servers only from the command line.
If you need examples of my work you need look no further than this very site. My websites are all listed here, and my code is available for all to look at here. Can’t get much better than that.
Anyway. Thought I’d throw that out there. If you are hiring, or even if you know of anyone who’s hiring and want to do your good deed for the month, drop me a line. 
IP.Board 3.2 – Change the Shortener to kwn.me
Well Invision Power Services have made some of the code in 3.2 different, it now uses their own URL Shortener – topic.to – as the shortener. Seeing as I run my own URL Shortener, I want to run it for my community. I’ve posted this tutorial before but IPS have changed some things, so I figured I’d create a new post.
Here’s how:
- Download the kwn.me IPB API files from here
- Unpack and Upload the “kwnme” folder into /admin/sources/classes/url/apis/
- Edit /admin/sources/classes/twitter/connect.php
- Find on line 220:
$data = $shorten->shorten( $url, IPS_URL_SHORTEN_SERVICE ); - Replace with:
$data = $shorten->shorten( $url, 'kwnme');
(if you want to change to bit.ly, just change ‘kwnme’ to ‘bitly’)
Read MoreAnti-Social
Well, I didn’t think it was possible for me to be more anti-social than I already was before I got my job, but fuck me it’s happened.
I’m working most nights now, and when I’m not working I’m either too tired, sleeping, or too depressed to do anything online. I’m missing my online friends.. online, and the only people who I seem to talk to in real life are .. well, my work colleagues. Offline social life = +1, online = -1.
Of course because I am so busy I am neglecting to talk to friends, so they don’t talk to me, it’s fucking brilliant really. Defaulting on responsibilities and not being able to do the things I used to like to do online, just depresses me even further.
The problem for me is that, even though I’m not working as much as I could be, the shifts are spread out over the week in an awkward way, I will have a shift on a Monday, then a Tuesday, then nothing ’til the Sunday, so Wednesday through Saturday I have free (In this hypothetical scenario), but then I lack the motivation to do anything.
So to the few friends I have left (you’re possibly reading this), I understand you not talking to me if I’m not around much, and when I am around, I don’t contact you, so what can I complain about. Fucking depressing.
Read More30 Day Challenges
So after 30 days of coding the site, releasing little sneak peaks on twitter, referring to it everywhere as “Super Secret Project”, I’ve finally got the site to a stage where I can launch it.
I coded the site in 30 days, that was my “30 Day Challenge”. If you register on the site you can read that here: http://30daychallenges.net/challenges/info/2. It’s a nice story to tell, but a lot of long nights coding were involved, and a lot of poking from my friends, so once more, thanks to them 
I’ve set myself another challenge to continue, you can view my progress on that one here: http://30daychallenges.net/challenges/info/51
You should probably read this blog entry on the site itself: Welcome to 30 Day Challenges, feel free to comment over there!
I started following people with the twitter account a few hours ago so you may have noticed already. Why the odd name? Cos it matches the short URL which I’ve integrated to certain parts of the website, which is 30d.me
I really have high hopes for the site, personally I love the idea, but that’s just me. If you’re confused about it I suggest you read this blog entry, the FAQ, or this Getting Started page.
Read More
Recent Comments