Advice on Starting a Company (and Mixed Rants)

Business Startup Show - 28th & 29th November

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:40:00 +0000

Once again, the Business Startup show hits London. this years show (2008) is expected to be the biggest so far, with guest speakers, contacts to be made, and information to be gained. Its being promoted as the UK’s largest exhibition for people starting and expanding a small business. Just one day at the Business Startup show will help you make contacts, help your business run smoothly and most importantly: make you more money.

Date: 28th November - 29th November
Region: London
Location: Olympia, London
Website: http://www.bstartup.com/
Contact: Simon Chicken: 0870 351 7998 simon@bstartup.com

Top six ways to get your web site boosted

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:28:00 +0000

For those that use their web site for their day to day marketing, here is a list of the 6 most important search engine ranking factors as voted for by 37 of the leaders in the world of organic search engine optimisation...

The original list was put together at SEOmoz by Rand Fishkin, CEO & Jeff Pollard, Web Developer back in April, 2007 as 'Search Engine Ranking Factors V2'.

I'm don't totally in agree with the order of this list, personally ranking some factors differently than the 37 SEO experts, but overall there is no argument with the fact that applying these 6 basic techniques will help get your websites better rankings in most search engines.

1 - keywork Tagging

Keyword Use in Title Tag - Placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page's HTML header. Good titles help everyone. They help the search engine categorise your site, they help the searcher know what to expect from your page, thus helping to increase CTR (Click-Through Rate) and they get better SERPS (Search Engine Ranking Positions).

2 - Internal Links

Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure - Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page. A good linking structure makes certain that important pages get enough emphasis in the same way good navigation structure on the web page helps visitors get around your site slickly.

3 - External Links

Global Link Popularity of Site - The overall link weight/authority as measured by links from any and all sites across the web. Encourage people to link to your site by becoming an authority on your subject. In short, make a great website.

4 - Anchor Text

Anchor Text of Inbound Link (or making the text of important words the URL link to other pages) - These pieces affect Google's weighting of links from external websites pointing to a page. Absolutely, but difficult to control.

5 - Keyword Use

Keyword Use in Body Text - Using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page Yes, this is important, but do NOT, whatever you do, 'spam' the targeted keyword(s). Only use the keyword phrase throughout the page where it makes sense. Search engines are sophisticated beasties and will apply topic analysis to learn what is truly relevant.

6 - Site age

Age of Site - As measured from the launch of indexable content seen by the search engines. With the concept of 'authority' weighing so heavily in search engines' ranking factors these days, it is unsurprising that this factor featured in the top six. Of course, the age of the site is not something you can do a great deal about, but perhaps it's worth bearing in mind that your website should be considered a long-term project. Don't just paste up a site and then leave it. It shouldbe regarded as an ongoing investment, not a one-off or single-quarter project. Retain the people, processes and budget to keep it working for your business after the initial implementation is complete.

A Rant - Microsoft bloats our development environment

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:16:00 +0000

This week, I have come to realise that Microsoft have lost the plot. For this week, they made available, the various patches to their Visual Studio 2008 development environment, including patches for Silverlight, Framework, and the actual development environment.

When I started computer programming, Visual Basic was a joy. It was small, lightweight, fast to develop in, fast to run programs, and fairly forgiving for bugs and typos. Now, Visual Studio, their latest and greatest development environment is a bloated, slow old cow.

Take the graph on the left, this compares the install sizes (on disk) of VB6, VS2003, VS2005 and VS2008 (all features installed), the install size (distribution file size) of a typical program to display a grid for entry from a SQL Server table, and the 1st patch release size of each product.

When I used VB6 (and I started on VB3), I could write a program which fitted on a floppy disk (1.4Mb). Now, with VS2008, its coming close that I can no longer fit the smallest program on a CD (640Gb), once you have all the frameworks and other bloat included.

The same program in VB6 takes up 120kb of RAM to run, and for a sample test, runs in 10 seconds. The same program (same features and functionality) in VS2008 takes 6 seconds just to load, and 32 seconds to run, and adding together all the required frameworks, takes 980Mb of Ram.

Ok, VS2008 may have some nice features, but at what cost? So come on Microsoft, stop creating this bloatware for us to use, and give us something thin, fast and easy to use again.

Business Podcasts (the best I have found)

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:29:00 +0000

When I am out on the road (driving, sitting on the train, etc), I tend to listen to my MP3 player rather than the radio (I prefer my taste in music than the DJs, or spend my time listening to adverts for soap or sales).

One of the many things my home server does (when its not running my web sites, downloading emails and sending them to my PDA, or running my applications) is downloading podcasts.

It then mixes them into my MP3 collection, which I refresh once a week, so I have new tunes and new pods to listen to each week.

After a lot of trial and error (there are a lot of podcasts out there, but some are not updated for months, or change subject (one month it’s a business podcast, the next month its about buying gold))), I have found a few good and consistent ones.

Can I therefore recommend to you, the following podcasts…
Small Biz Pod (UK) - http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/
A new podcast is added every week or two, and interviews people who have set-up their own company, the issues they faced, how they went about it, what they learnt. Generally, very useful stuff. The web site also has many good posts and a good forum. No adverts, but some cheesy music for the last 5 minutes.
FreeLancers Switch (USA) - http://freelanceswitch.com/podcasts/
Currently, my favorite podcast for tips and tricks. You have to get through the first 5 minutes of everybody saying hello and what they have been working on, and after that, you get to the meat of the discussion. Every POD, the subject changes, and they have listeners who ask questions, give advice on marketing and other useful stuff. However, it appears on a hap-hazard basis. On the plus side, there are no adverts.

Build your Business Radio (USA) - http://www.wsradio.com/internet-talk-radio.cfm/shows/Build-Your-Business-Radio.html
Published on a weekly basis, and with some useful tip-bits now and again, but generally, is people who appear to tell you what you already know, or come on to talk about specialist subject to advertise their web site or service. Every 15 minutes, there is a commercial break (which can be annoying), but I listen to this as it does have some good sales and marketing techniques, once in a while.

Happy listening.

Finding Work and Contracts - Part 5 - Being Visible

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:31:00 +0000

When I was on the other side of the fence, as a head of major projects, and looking through all those CVs of both permanent and contract people, working out who I wanted to interview, who I should employ, who I should reject, there was always one final thing I did before I made a decision…. I goggled them.

A quick search on google with the persons name in quotes can reveal an awful lot about a person – where they have worked, what they do in their spare time, what they have done in the past, and what they are up to now. I can recall a few times where I was all set to meet somebody or offer them a contract, only to find that they had a web site selling pirated software, or had a blog ranting about their last two ex employers, or even a case of one person who said they were cleared to work in the UK, to find there name on a pending deportation list (all of these are true).

So its worth typing your name into Google and see what comes up, and if you can, trying to get your name off of the bad stuff. At the same time, if you find yourself with a few spare few hours, it worth creating a few ‘white papers’ to see if these can listed in various paper sites, such as the new Google Knol (http://knol.google.com/) which credits you with the papers, and makes them appear on google searches (finding that they person you are interested in is credited as being knowledgeable on their subject can only help).

Its also why, if you look for my full name in this blog, it will not appear.

Finding Work and Contracts - Part 4 - Contract web sites

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:05:00 +0000

Now comes the time to search out contracts and work. There are a variety of ways of doing this, and lots of web sites out there, some better than others – it all depends on what you are looking for.

For me, the cream of the crop is contractor UK web site at (http://www.cukjobs.co.uk/csw/index.phtml), which pulls together contracts from a wide range of other sites and makes the contracts searchable by skill, location, time period, etc with the ability to apply to each on line (you even get a good confirmation email back for each applied to so you can track your applications). Now you could start sending your CV to different agencies, but I find that within a few hours of using this web site to respond to half a dozen contract posts, your CV will have been automatically uploaded to most useful agencies, CV portals and job sites.

There are some other useful locations for finding contracts, so may I also suggest you try the following:

http://www.it-consultants-direct.co.uk/ – Allows you to upload a tweaked CV (tweaked to make it more of a sales brochure) for people looking for contractors to find you.

http://freelancers.net/ - A peer to peer contract listing web site. More work than Contractor UK, but worth looking at

http://www.jobsite.co.uk/ - Lists a range of jobs, and whilst not as good as the Contractor UK search, has the ability to upload your CV and skills and let agencies find you

http://www.monster.co.uk/ - Very much like jobsite, allows you to upload your CV for agencies to find you. More aligned to permanent work, but still worth an upload.

or... as a desperate alternative......

http://peopleperhour.com/ – A very small contractor bid site. Generally peer to peer – small companies wanting documentation put together, pages developed, etc. However, contracts tend to be very low value and short

Finding Work and Contracts- Part 3 - Know your costs

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:04:00 +0000

So you have the CVs ready, and you are ready to find work. But before you jump into the pool, there are a number of important decisions that need to be made before you can start applying for contracts. The biggest is how you are going to charge – do you charge on a fixed price or on an hour/day rate. If you are going through an organised contract (say an agency), then the choice wont be your own, but if you do get to choose, a few words of warning.

On the fixed price contracts, this is where you work out how long it will take, multiply it by your day rate, add a little risk money, and that’s your quote. But if you are going down this route, things to consider are:
Your minimum billing time – if you get into a phone conversation with the customer, do you charge them, and if so, how long do you bill a ten minute call for (a good rule of thumb is a minimum duration of 15 minutes)
Revisions – you need to think and agree as part of the quotation/contract, how many versions or revisions will be included. Otherwise, what happens if the customer wants changes, after changes after changes
Underestimated – what happens if your maths were wrong, or it goes wrong because of something out of your control? Who pays?

Whether you are going down a contract fixed price or on an hour/day rate basis, it is critical you need to know your costs. If you earn above your cost, you will make money, if below that figure, you will slowly go bankrupt.

To work out your costs, use a simple spreadsheet like the one shown (this one can be downloaded from www.touchstone-systems.co.uk/costworkout.xls), and fill in the light blue areas. This lists all your companies outgoings (salaries, tax, etc – add as appropriate) to show your costs per month/year. Work out how many days you can work in a year (the spreadsheet does this for you – but don’t forget to take away from your available days holiday days and public holidays), and then the % of time which will be chargeable. Note, it is extremely unlikely that you will be 100% chargeable. Somewhere between 75-80% is a good rule of thumb to deal with unchangeable preparation meetings/quoting time/time between contracts.

The calculated day/hour rate shown is then shown as the minimum you need to charge to break even. This tells you what value contracts you need to be looking at.

Finding Work and Contracts - Part 2 - The Killer CVs

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:09:00 +0000

The next step to getting the contracts to roll in is the Killer CVs (note the plural of CV). There are five steps to making the Killer CV as follows:

1) Multiple CVs. If you have multiple skills and possible multiple jobs that you can be doing, you need a CV that highlights the skill set for each different position. Myself, I have one CV for Business Analyst roles, one for software development, and one for Business Intelligence (data warehouse) roles. The only difference between them is the order that my skills are listed (most relevant for each part at the top, the introduction (see step 2) and the experience highlighted for each job I have done in the past). Don’t go overboard – you don’t need more than 2 or 3 versions of your CV.
2) An introduction. At the top of your CV include a paragraph describing yourself, your skills, experience, work style and goals. Make this paragraph in the 3rd person such as “Fred Blogs offers over 16 years of IT experience, with skills ranging from SQL Server to juggling…” etc. The point is that it acts as an introduction to anybody reading the CV, and most agencies generate one if its not there for prospective employers to read. But if you do it, it makes your CV easier to use for the agency (therefore more likely to pass it on) and you get to select the words to use.
3) A summary of your experience. Now, when you first created your CV, I bet you listed all the schools you attended, all your exam results etc such as “Maths O’Level B, English O’Level A, etc”. Well, unless this is your very 1st CV, employers are more concerned on your experience. Therefore your qualifications should be as short as possible (such as “8 o’levels (English, Maths, etc)”) and then create two other lists, one showing technical knowledge and level (SQL Server - Expert, Oracle – Expert, ASP.NET – Expert, Java – Intermediate, HTML – Novice) etc, and then another summary list of types of system/work you have done (so mine says “Systems worked On: Electronic Document Management, Health Systems, etc, etc, etc)
4) Detailed Experience – the bulk of your CV. For each previous job or contract (most recent first), show the company name, dates you worked for them, position held, and then a summary of the work/duties
5) References. Now, if you followed step 1, you can cut and past the reference text from the Linkedin references and place the text with the name of the person, and date comments left at the end of your CV. For completeness, I also include the URL of my linkedin profile, so that if they want to see more detail on me, they can follow the link and read more references.

Once you have these sections, triple check your CV for spelling and grammar, and make sure it does not go over 4 pages. If it does, remove some of the older jobs or summarise some of the text. The image on the top right is the front page of my CV, and shows the block of introduction text, my name, address, contact details, qualifications, experience summary, skills list – all on the first page.

Finding Work and Contracts - Part 1 - Preparation for the killer CV

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:28:00 +0000

So you need to find some contract work, and wondering the best way to go about it? Well, this is the 1st part of my multi-part guide to finding and getting a contract in this difficult climate. It’s a technique that I have used before and works, and now, I am personally running through these steps again to find my next contract.

As the title says, the first step is some preparation for the killer CV. Now when I was recruiting people (permanent or contract), I loved a CV which did all the work for me. Gave me all the information, without being too long, and saved me having to fish for more information. I still recall one of the CVs that impressed me the most included 3 references at the end, with the full reference text and contact information.

So, to generate your own references ready for the Killed CV, you need to go back into your past, with people you have done work for before, and ask for a reference. The best way of doing this is via the Linkin (http://www.linkedin.com/) website.

If you have never used Linked before, its rather like Friends Reunited, but for work people. You register yourself, and then do a search on the company you worked for/did work at, and add the contacts. From finding (and being accepted to link) to one contact, you can go through their network and find other people you know, and suddenly you will have a network of a few dozen people.

Once you have built your network up (and it will take a few minutes of your time), the next thing is to use the Linked recommendation service to ask for recommendations from them (linked in makes this easy, and even generates the wording for the request for you). Hopefully, you will get glowing recommendations back which you can use on your CV (and don’t worry if you get negative references, you can select which you accept or rejected).

Linked in also has the bonus of making you findable if somebody does a web search on your name – and the references you decide to post will be listed right there in your profile.

So get going, and get those references now.

Finding the Skills that are required

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:02:00 +0000

If you are wondering what the current crunch is doing to the contract industry, what contracts are available in the UK (or your specific area), what skills are in demand, or what skills you should be looking to advertise/train up in, then here is the perfect web site for you.

ITJOBSWATCH (http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/) allows you to perform analysis on IT skills in the UK, and what contracts have been posted over the last 12 or so months, how many contracts are out there, what the day rates are etc (the graph on the right is SQL Server day rates over the last 4 years).

It does not actually show you the contracts, but the analysis is very useful to see what rates you can expect, what skills are in demand, and how the number of jobs/rates have changed over a period of time. Very useful to select the skill you will be needing to win that work.

16 Things to do in the Down Time

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:25:00 +0000

So, things are getting tough, and contracts/work/jobs for small businesses are becoming harder to find, but they are out there and in the next few blog entries, I am going to be listing lots of useful resources or places to find jobs and contracts.

However, in-between contracts, it is important to stay activate, and as a self employed or small business owner, when things turn slow, that’s the time to turn to housekeeping and there are lots of things to do to keep your small business in peak condition.

Organise Your Home or Small Office
Since there is often little time to do so when the days are busy and work is flowing in, tidying up the home or small business office is productive and therapeutic way to spend your non-working days. This may involve anything from organising files (both paper and electronic) and contact lists to purchasing new home office equipment. Whatever it may be, use the time when business is slow to get things in order within your home office setting. Go through all the useless piles of papers, magazines, and other junk that have been getting in your way for as long as you can remember, and get rid of them once and for all. Remember the organisational mantra: Do it, Ditch it or Delegate it. Your goal is to reorganize your office in a manner that will allow you to find what you need in 60 seconds or less. This will optimise your time when work starts pouring back in.

Plan, Brainstorm and Be Creative
How often do we have a free block of time to just sit there, think and plan for the future? Perhaps one of the most constructive things which freelancers can do while business is slow is to brainstorm. Think about what your goals are for the following year. What will you need to do to meet or beat those goals?

Search for New Jobs
Perhaps one of the most constructive things which freelancers can do while business is slow is to search for new jobs. Depending on the type of freelance work one pursues, this can involve cold calls, searching the Internet for job opportunities, handing out flyers, putting advertisements in the paper or using our contacts to expand their client base. In the next few posts, I will cover this in more detail.

Training Refresh
When you are out on contracts and job every day, your skills will become rusty, as you tend to be doing the same thing in the same way over and over. Use the off days to attend workshops and courses on the latest technologies and skills to bring your CV up to date.

Add additional new Services
During slow business times, it may be worth looking for new ways to make money for your business. This might mean that you learn a new skill or that you start doing work that you don't necessarily enjoy or is outside your comfort zone. However, it is important to stay within the remit of your skills and small company remit (Programmers should not go off adding sales and marketing skills).

Web Site Creation, update or refresh
Your best self promotional tool is the Internet. If you don't have a web site, then you need to create one. If you already have one, when is the last time it was updated? The new free time gives you this opportunity.

Create a Blog
A blog is just as important as a web site and can be used as your web site if you want. Blogs can be created free and quickly. You would do much better with your own domain (for SEO purposes), but if you can't handle this than you should pick up a Blogger or WordPress account.

Review Your Marketing Materials.
You should stop to analyse why you are not currently busy with projects. Now is a good time as any to set some time aside to review your marketing materials. Is the design too flashy or outdated? Is the information still relevant?

Rethink Your Business and Marketing Plan
Revisiting your business and marketing plan is always tedious and something that you probably aren't going to be too excited about doing. However, if business is slow, you might be going through a slump because the market has changed. Another possibility is that your business focus has changed without you even realising it. Take the time to analyse your marketing and business plan and hopefully something good will come out of it.

Work on Your Financial Records
Now is the time to work on this tedious task. Find all of your receipts, credit card statements, and bank account statements. Get to work placing all of your revenue and expenses into your bookkeeping system.

Copy Paper Items into Digitized Format
Do you have phone numbers all over pieces of paper and sticky notes covering your desk? Are you a chronic note taker (but on paper)? Now is a great time to put your paper items into digital format. You might want to consider getting a PDA or an iPhone to reduce your paper clutter.

Look for Ways to Cut Costs
Now that you have some free time on your hands, you can take the extra time to research more economical options to your business practices. Some things that you can take a look at are:
• Look at other Internet Service Providers in your area to make sure that there isn't a plan available from another company that better suits your needs and your pockets.
• Look at your telephone provider and plan
• Don't forget about your cell phone plan.
• Office supplies costs much less online because you can sort by lowest price.
• You can buy toner and ink to refill your printer cartridges. This is much cheaper than buying new cartridges and much better for the environment.

Brainstorm Ways to Obtain New Clients
In addition to searching for new jobs, contractors should also take this slow business period to think about ways to gain the most amount of new clients in a short period of time. This may involve reconsidering your advertising methods, checking the available finances to see what resources you can use to gain more clients through advertising and looking over the current offerings to see if the business can offer more valuable services.

Network and Make Business Connections
This is the best time to make more connections for your business. This can take the form of exchanging links, posting on forums, joining community sites, posting your articles to article banks, using social networking sites, etc.

Take a Holiday with the Family
Since many contractors work for a fixed period of time with few breaks, holidays are usually few and far between. When business is slow, this is the optimal time to get away for a little while and reconnect with the family.

Take the Time to Have Some Fun
If you don't have the time or cash for a holiday, then at least allow yourself to have a little break from work. Use this free time to take a walk, go to the park, walk around in the shops, go to the movies, go out with some friends, go to the spa, or whatever floats your boat. Soon you will have more work than you can handle, so why not take advantage of this free time.

Its time for a rant (its been a while). - DRM

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:42:00 +0000

One of the things I am thinking of buying (for holidays, and general use) is an e-book reader. When I go away, I tend to take half a dozen books or so with me, and I read quite a bit as well around the house, so having a device which emulates paper, weighs less than a quarter of one book, and can hold 100 books sounds like a good move to me. The Sony PR505 is getting good press, and I was all but sold, but then hit the wall - in the form of Digital Rights Management (DRM).

DRM is copyright protection, and is designed to stop the pirating of movies, TV show, tunes and in the case of an e-book reader, electronic books. DRM means when you download you movie or book, it work on your computer only (or in the case of i-Tunes, your ipod only). Which is fine, but when the cost of an item is close or the same as a real life item( CD, DVD or printed book), are we all not paying more for less?

If I read a good book, I can pass it to my wife to read. If I buy a CD, I can play that CD at home, put it in my car, lend it to a friend or take it to a party. If I buy anything through a DRM tie-in, I cant do that, my hands are tied. Not only now, but in the future. If I buy a dozen e-books with Sonys DRM, I am fixed to a sony reader. If I change readers in 4 years time, I have to purchase the same books again. This does not seem right.

Which is why I believe that DRM is not only wrong, but encourages people to find ways to crack the DRM, or use non-DRM (illegal?) sources instead. Its also why I don’t understand people who purchase tunes from I-Tunes.

Will it stop me buying the Sony e-booker reader – probably not. Will I be purchasing DRM locked books – most unlikely.

Top six Free Tools - Six of Six (Limewire)

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:22:00 +0000

For the final free tool of the month, I am going to return to one I pointed out a year or so ago, but I always go back to – Limewire (http://www.limewire.com). If you have never used it before, give it a try. Limewire is my favorite peer-to-peer file sharing program. If you want to get hold of a single, album, program, picture or movie of your fav celeb (or anything else electronic), then Limewire is the thing for you. The software is free, and the files are free.

Now technically, yes, everything you download is breaching copyright infringement, and I would never tell anybody to do that. However, if you say want to try out photoshop CS3 before you buy the software, or want to play a new single over and over to see if you really do like it, Limewire is the place to go.

However, one very important word of warning. Only give Limewire access to a new ‘work’ directory for your downloads – never to an area like “My Documents”, otherwise whilst you are using limewire, people can search, find and download your documents.

Top Six Free Tools - Number 5 (360degrees)

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:40:00 +0000

This is one for anybody who has ever wished for more workspace on their desktop. As a software developer, the standard Windows screen is very restrictive, and even the Windows option of running two screens side by side can sometimes be too small. So may I present to you 360 Desktop - http://www.360desktop.com/

A free download which places a skin over Windows. What it does is make the windows screen a lot bigger by allowing you to scroll around a virtual area. Very useful if you have lots open at the same time, say word and excel together, or want to put two spreadsheets side by side, or just have more space to work. Again, Its FREE

Top Six Free Tools - 4 of 6 (LAST.FM)

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:24:00 +0000

Today, may I introduce you to Last.FM - http://www.last.fm/.

Is a music recommendation site. Unlike Pandora (a now USA only site which works by computers analysing music), its done by recommendations, as in “If you like that song, then you should like this song as it's very like it”. You set-up an account, and download a patch for your fav music player (Windows Media Player, WinAmp, Squeeze boxes, etc). As you play music on your PC or device, as you get to the end of the song, the song you have listened to is uploaded (the name and group) to your last.fm account. After a few days, it then analyses your music taste and recommends groups you may like, groups you like who are in events around you, new or old songs you may like, and can even build a web based radio station of your existing music and songs/groups you may like. ALL FREE

Top Six Free Tools - 3 of 6 (mDIGGER Mobile Newspaper)

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:15:00 +0000

Todays great FREE tool that I use on a regular basis and can recommend is only for people with 'smart phones' (Windows Mobile, iPhones, Sympian, etc). Its name is mDIGGER - http://www.mdigger.com/ and it provides a mobil newpaper to your device.

Again, its free. Sign up, select what you are interested in (pick channels from things like sport, web news, international news, money, business, your own RSS feeds, Sky News posts, BBC headlines, etc) and it downloads a virtual (very easy to use) newspaper to your smartphone for reading on the bus, tube etc. The content is compressed and downloaded onto your phone, so you can read the headlines, and drill into the articles showing the full text and pictures when you are on the go and don’t have to worry about phone signal etc.

Top Six Free Tools - 2 of 6 (WatchthatPage)

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:21:00 +0000

For todays FREE tool that I use on a regular basis, can I introduce you to "WatchthatPage" at http://www.watchthatpage.com/. This is an automatic web site monitoring tool, which pushes changes to you.

Add your favourite sites to its list, and if anything changes on the page, it emails you to let you know with a copy of the changes. I use it a lot for any software I use (if new versions become available, it tells you), or clubs I belong to (again, new events on a page get sent to you). Stops you having to visit pages to see if anything has changed.

There are a few restrictions, the pages it can monitor have to be static (html, psp, etc) rather than pages that you log into to see content (such as your hotmail account, or amazon recommendations page which are both built as you access them). But for saving time in checking on pages which have been changed, its the bees-knees.

Top Six Free Tools - 1 of 6

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:36:00 +0000

One thing you may notice about this blog, is that it will always take a back seat when there is real work to be done. But when do take the time to add a post, the posts I make will bring you things that will be cutting edge or things to save you time or money.

The next 6 posts (one per day) are going to detail 6 of my favorite FREE tools that I use to save me work or bring me information. They are all good tools. And the first is EverNote – http://www.evernote.com/

This is a ‘store it on the web’ facility with a difference. Apart from being free, it can work through a browser, through an App on your Windows or mac machines, or on your mobile phone. You can capture to it useful web pages, text, email, pictures and even send it photos from your phone. Once it has them, it then does really useful OCR on the text, indexes and you can find it by searching on words in the text. So, take a photo of say a business card at a show and upload it (send from your phone via MMS or email), then you can search on their name and find it. Or find some useful text on a web site, capture it, and use it again and again.

Have a copy running on your work PC and home PCs, and when you see useful text on a web page, highlight the text and press capture, and it syncs the text in all your Evernote locations. I use if for storing multiple types of infromation, but find it most useful for copying code examples, so they are always to copy into my own applications - wherever I am.

Payment Protection Insurance

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:51:00 +0000

So, as the finance crunch/recession deepens, and we all (except for Gordon ‘the clown’ Brown and Alistair Darling) tighten our belts yet another notch, as inflation leaps to 3.3% (I am still predicting between 4% and 6% by the end of the year – see posts below), a word on insurance.

One of the things that have been hitting the headlines over the last few months has been the increase in ‘payment protection’ insurance. Whether it’s to cover payments for cars, electrical purchases, or your mortgage, the sale of payment protection insurance has jummped over 600% in the last 6 months.

Whilst that’s all fine and good for most people, if you run your old business (from one man band contractors, to those that own their own shop or multi-million pound empire), read the small print carefully. It is very rare that those that run their own business are protected in any way by these packages.

After all, you’re your own boss, so if you make yourself unemployed, its by choice (so your not covered). And if your business fails (or starts to fail) and you cant make your payments, it will be deemed by the policy that you yourself caused the problem (by miss-managing your company), and therefore again you are not covered.

If you have such a policy, it was most likely miss-sold to you, so contact the company it was taken out with, and get your money back. Note, you still need your business insurance (don’t skimp on this, the fine for not having it can be £1000 a day), and it does not effect your home, business or car insurance, just Payment Protection insurance.

Business Startup Show (also for existing small companies)

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:15:00 +0000

If you are currently thinking about starting your own small business here in the UK, or already own a small business, there is a show which may be worth attending. Its called the “Business Startup Show, on the 25th and 26th of April, in Excel, London.

Now I have not been, but as the tickets are free, its open on a weekend and there is lots of advice there covering a full range of topics (startup, marketing, accounts, promotions, advertising, etc). Even if I come back with one or two ideas or contacts, it could be a useful day.

If you are interested in attending, FREE tickets can be found on the events web site here:

http://www.bstartup.com/index.asp

The sad loss of the hardest worker in my company

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:27:00 +0000

Its with a heavy heart that I have to report the demise of one of the most important members of my little company – my home office server. Last night, whist trying to print some reports on my laptop, I got disconnected messages from home/wireless network device.

When I went upstairs to investigate, I found the server, the computer that effectively runs my home and small business had crashed – in the biggest of ways. The main disk was trashed (making a horrid scratching sound), and CPU had failed. It looks like a fan had failed, and the server just cooked itself.

My server did such a lot. As well as storing music, movies, grabbing radio broadcasts, pod casts and other home stuff, it redirected phone calls to my office answer service, sent and received faxes, worked as a document store, as an email exchange system (with remote web access), copied emails to PDAs, acted as a support engine for my customers (get documentation, log issues etc), and so much more. It really did more work than a person could.

And it was at this point that I thanked my lucky stars that I had made backups on a regular basis, otherwise now, as a software consultant, my business would be dead in the water. However, it does mean that emails are being routed around to free email viewers whilst I wait for new a new server to arrive.

So my advice to you following the crisis which I went through yesterday (panicked calls to HP and DELL (bless dell for running a 24 sales line and dealing with my order as an emergency – server to me in 3 days) is two fold:

1) Backup, regally, and multiple copies of your computer data
2) When you think you have backed up enough, back up some more.

Warning: The Taxman can soon enter your home

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:30:00 +0000

Changes are being made to the law to allow the UK TaxMan to gain automatic legal entry into people’s homes if part of their residence is set aside for business, under new laws to be published today (3rd April). Under the Finance Bill 2008, HMRC officials can “inspect” the assets or records of a home-based business if they believe the inspection is “reasonably required".

However, this change will also confirm that there will be no right of appeal for the taxpayer against such a visit, which would normally require notice from the Revenue of just 24 hours. Various law sources on the web are worried that small business owners will not be able to object or, in the spirit of the law, assert that the visit is not “reasonably required” if they have no right to appeal.

So, to put this into a real word situation, you can be sitting there, enjoying the latest epsiode of Lost after a hard days work, there will be a knock on the door, and the taxman will gain entry (whether you like it or not), and can have a rummage around your records, look at equipment, and do whatever they want - and you cant say no.

Credit Control - Getting those Invoices paid

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:31:00 +0000

Cash flow is the life blood of your company. Get this wrong, and you will find your bank empty, not being able to pay bills, and having to go cap in hand to the bank manager for bridging loans. As things get tougher, so more companies and individuals will slow down on paying suppliers, including you.

It will also eat into your working time, as you (or your partner) will spend wasted time chasing for payment of invoices. But cash flow, and credit control, is one of the things that can be planned for in advance.

Having learnt from the companies I worked for in the past (what they did right, and what they did wrong), before I issued my first quote, I worked out how I wanted to be paid. Here, I provide a few tips which I hope will help you. As I type, I have no bad debtors, almost all invoices are paid early, and I spent almost no time chasing for payments.

Get the terms and conditions right. When I send out a quote, I always include a full set of my T&Cs. Most are fairly boring to cover myself legally, but one of my T&Cs states that the moment an invoice is late, I reserve the right to charge interest on the payment from date of invoice, at 2% above the bank of England base rate, invoiceable at the end of every late month. I also charge per late payment invoice the sum of £25 administration fee. If it’s in your T&Cs, they can’t argue that.
Make it easy to pay. When I invoice, I put on the invoice my bank account details for BACS/CHAPS payments, and my company address for cheques. No excuses for not having the information to pay me.
Make it clear on the invoice. I include on my invoice the terms of the invoice and I am very specific. I used to put “terms of 21 days from invoice date” – but what does that mean? Now I put “Terms of 21 calendar days from date of invoice”, and show the payment due date. These are in bold next to the invoice amount.
Remind them. If it gets within 5 days of the payment being due, I send a ‘don’t forget’ email, with a copy of the invoice, reminding them of the amount, the date due and put in there somewhere, the phrase “..to help you avoid the late payment charges…”. Tracking what’s due is easy if you enter your invoices with the date of the invoice (transaction) is the date payment is due in your excel invoice spreadsheet or money tracking program (I use Microsoft Money). Anything above the ‘today’ line needs chasing.
STOP. If all else fails, don’t be afraid to put them on stop. A nice YOUR ON STOP notice from your accounts email address at the appropriate time with an email stating that ‘no more services can be provided, support offered or deliveries made until outstanding invoices are settled”. You don’t have to feel bad about this – its they who have not paid their bills. But putting them in an awkward position where projects may slip because of non payment can really focus the mind.

That is my top 5 tips for getting your invoices paid. If you want some more suggestions, there are another 7 more complex suggestions on the byte web site here:

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/finance/43_2/7-credit-control-tips.shtml

Save Thousands of Pounds with the Cash and Carry

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:12:00 +0000

As belts start to tighten up and down the country with the (don’t mention it) recession we are just entering, so its always prudent to look at our own spending habits to see if costs can be cut, savings can be made or we can purchase items from better (cheaper) locations.

This weekend, I did such an exercise, and I could happily spend a week bashing my head against a wall for not doing it earlier. You see, I had like the majority of the population, happily dragged myself into my local supermarket once a week, and spent my usual £70 or £80 a week on food and so on, and dragged it home grumbling how the price of everything was going up. All this time, it had never occurred to try out the local cash and carry.

Having your own small business, as long as it’s a Limited company, allows you to join your cash and carry, purchase items in bulk, and enjoys the massive savings that comes from the larger purchases. I was worried about how big the bulk buy would be, but it turns out, not that big at all.

Take for instance, chicken breasts. We get through a lot of chicken in our house, paying the supermarket £4.99 for the 500g of chicken breast for our curries and what-not. At the cash and carry, they sell the same quality of chicken breasts, without the display trays (in a big bag) at £1.99 for 100g (our bag weighed 10Kg). A saving of £60 just on chicken. We just decant them into small ‘meal size’ portions before putting them in the freezer.

When you get into soap powers, toilet rolls, fabric softener, mince, canned tomatoes, you are talking BIG savings on things you personally buy. And they are the same named brands you buy at the supermarket – just in slightly larger boxes or packs.

To invest in this massive saving, I purchased a cheap (£100) freezer for the garage (now stocked full of chicken, mince, bacon, peas, chips, etc), and a few cheap sealable plastic storage boxes (£10 for a 60litre box). Even with this outlay, on the one trip to the cash and carry, we saved a hundred pounds or so. Next time, as we have already paid for the freezer and boxes, we will save a few hundred. It also means when we do go to the supermarket (for bread, cheese, milk, etc), the shopping will be far smaller and less work to get home.

The two biggest cash and carry chains are booker (http://www.booker.co.uk/) and Macro (http://www.makro.co.uk/). I am sure if you Google cash and carry and the name of your own town, you will find one listed. So go on, use your company to save yourself thousands of pounds of your personal money over the course of the year. Just don’t forget to charge office supplies (sugar, toilet roll, polish, etc) to your company – they are legitimate office expenses.

Everything goes on line and digital thanks to Squeezebox

noreply@blogger.com (JaffaB) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:07:00 +0000

Last week was the week of the Budget. And whilst Alistair Darling gave his ‘great bugger all’ speech (I note that he has not introduced the ‘shared income tax’ as described below), I was busy changing my life. Not in a big earth shattering way, but in a technology way, but with the introduction into my household of a Squeezebox Classic.

This small black box has replaced my bedroom stereo. Instead of having slots for tapes, or CDs or a radio tuner, all the information is ‘streamed’ from my home server. With my PS3 doing the same in the living room, and this streaming in the bedroom, the radical change was that my household is now all digital and on-line.

All CDs have been completely ripped to MP3 (and now sit both on my home server, and in a box gathering dust upstairs), all tapes have also been captured to MP3 (though an audio capture software tool and a bit of wire between tape deck and laptop) and binned, and everything is electronic and streamed.

Ok, maybe not a major change, but the effect in our household is fairly dramatic. First of all we now have lots more space and less clutter with 6 shelves and 5 draws empty of tapes, cables, remotes and CDs (lot more space for DVDs), and also the big old stereos which used to live in the living room and bedrooms have been sold (not for much I have to say). Also, playing music anywhere is so much easier – we can play any track or any album quickly and easily.

As for the squeezebox, well apart from the name, it’s a wonderful device for playing music, stories, articles, podcasts etc. If you have the means, I can really recommend one. It has, changed the way we do things in my household.