Three years ago I stopped blogging and I haven’t written anything outside of Twitter or Facebook since. Three years ago I had just published my first book and had announced that 2010 would be the ‘year of freelance’ after leaving my previous employer who had taught me to hate the web. I got to the point where I love what I do again and was looking forward to what was to come. The three years since I made the decision to leave have been the best of my life. Here’s a high-level highlight reel: I married Vicky, my girlfriend (and best-friend) of eight-years I spent…

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I recently received (another) equity based request for my services. We all get them from time to time, some more than others. This one was based around (reluctantly) giving away a small piece of equity in an idea in exchange for developing it all for free. Not something i’m very fond of doing unless I truly love the market they’re getting into (gaming, advertising, tv, films for example) or it comes with convincing financial statements. Here’s the straight forward and simple reply i’ve put together which was used in this situation (and will be used in similar future situations): Thanks…

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Roy Rubin, the CEO of Magento posted the following picture onto his Twitter quietly around a month ago making my smile go ear to ear the entire day. Take a look a look at the Magento book wall at Magento HQ: That’s right! Magento 1.3: PHP Developer’s Guide is in the top left, hanging on the Magento HQ book wall! Also hanging there in the bottom left is Magento: Beginner’s Guide which I previously wrote a review on.  It’s great to be featured alongside other books to have made an impact on the Magento Community. 

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Design, develop, and deploy feature-rich Magento online stores using Packt’s new Book Packt is pleased to announce Magento 1.3: PHP Developer’s Guide, a new book that helps PHP developers build applications that interface with the customer, product, and order data using Magento’s Core API. Written by Jamie Huskisson, this book is packed with examples for effective Magento development. Magento is an Open Source, e-commerce web application that was created by Varien, and built on components of the Zend Framework. Magento is the hottest and most powerful e-commerce software and has gained popularity in a short period of time. Users can…

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Today I’m happy beyond belief to announce the release of my first book, Magento 1.3: PHP Developer’s Guide published through local Midlands based book publisher PackT Publishing. I’ve been a heavy user of Magento ever since it was in the very early releases and have launched every e-commerce site I’ve done since it was made available in the software. Magento has, in my opinion, set the standard for open source e-commerce on the web since its very first release. The book is packed full of development focused chapters that will lead you through core aspects of Magento development, each of…

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Often enough when you’re a Magento developer you can find yourself in a position where by a client is overwhelmed with options. They don’t know where to click, what all the fields are or mean and simply don’t know where to start. Typically with Magento training I have to provide around a week of my time per project for training a client on the subtle aspects of Magento, through from managing static blocks, to pages, to categories and products. Managing orders, importing and exporting, it all needs to be taught well so a client isn’t confused when they’re left to…

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This is likely the most often used excuse for giving the client something you don’t want to give them. To give them something that in your best opinion isn’t what they want at all. As developers, or people in the profession of giving people websites of quality (and I say that because some companies couldn’t care less), we need to learn to avoid this phrase. This especially applies to smaller companies. We’re in the position where by the majority of the time a client will come to us asking us to provide them with what they want. It’s not often…

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Developers when young in their career are keen to impress. The words “I’ll get on it straight away” are often used and the client ends up being impressed as a result. This works very well and everyone ends up happy when the workload is kept low. The problem occurs when growth accelerates and the developer has to learn to say “it’ll be two weeks” to a client who wants it within two days. When “I’ll get on it straight away” means that you’ll likely reach the job in a few hours rather than a few minutes. There are several ways…

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An ex-designer colleague of mine came to me the other night and asked me for some advice. He’s a freelance designer and has a set fee for a project he’s working on, but has ran into some trouble over the final design. This was his situation: he was two months into a big project the project involved one sole contact of the client the project involved one developer, who also does design all management and communication is through Basecamp he is almost near the end of the project and the developer (who also does design) asks “hey, mind uploading the…

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Meetings are a necessary part of life when working with web sites, especially when a freelance PHP developer. But sometimes they can get a little out of control and they take up more of your time than you wanted to give, they go off topic or just end up being the horror of your otherwise excellent workweek. This article is a few of the steps I use to make sure meetings aren’t the hell they could be when a client comes over for a chat. Allot a set amount of time First off, make sure there’s a time limit. “Let’s…

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