Search results matching tags 'My Life' and 'Technology'

Announcing Custom Community Systems

michael — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:34:00 GMT

I’ve posted a couple times about my wanting to take my part-time business full-time and the responses, while few, were encouraging.

Well, I’ve made the decision, I’ve given notice, there’s no turning back now. Starting September 1st, Custom Community Systems, LLC will be a live full-time business for me.

The decision essentially came down to me being unable to support the clients I have, due to lack of time. I’ve spent the last year building a client base that I fear I may start to slowly lose because of my inability to warp time and create a 32 hour day. I thought for sure that we’d have that technology by now, but alas, no such luck.

I hope that my current clients can bear this out with me, and I aim to provide the best quality work, and fast response for each and every one of you in the future.

In the coming 6 weeks, I’ll be building out my company web-site and collaborating with others to try and build out development teams where needed.

Thank you to those who have provided the encouragement I needed to take this step.

Stuck in indecision

michael — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 13:02:00 GMT

I’m at a cross-roads, a serious moment of indecision, and I’m hoping that I can get some advice, words of encouragement, or a serious dose of reality here.

As many of you know, I’ve been moonlighting as a developer/designer for web sites running CommunityServer for a while now. I have a full-time job, that I love with a great salary and the benefits are amazing. But lately, the number of clients contacting me requesting work for CommunityServer has become overwhelming. I just don’t have enough time in the day to take them all, and as such I’m turning clients away, I think there may be one or two that I haven’t even responded to yet (I’m really sorry guys, I’m trying to keep up). The problem is that there is just too much demand and too little time, and trying to manage that and maintain any level of personal life is becoming a problem.

So I’ve been thinking about the possibility of working for myself. Quitting my job, and focusing on developing my own business. I know several people who would be very happy with that decision. The problem is, that when I started this, it was hobby work, just something to keep a little extra cash in my pockets, no stress, a client would contact me once a month maybe, and as such, I didn’t worry too much about the billing rate, and I undersold myself.

I’ve done the best I could to calculate out what billing rate I would need to better my current salary situation (because let’s face it, why take the risk if you’re not going to be doing better?), including benefits, bonuses, vacations etc., as well as the cost of managing a home-run business, and I’ve come up with a billing rate of close to $100 /hr.

So the question stands, can this niche market bear a billing rate that high? Right now CommunityServer is booming, I mean the growth is seriously crazy, but is it a short term deal? Is all this activity simply because of the new version? Will the work continue to come in once version 2.0 has become ubiquitous?

I have so many questions, so many fears about falling flat on my face, becoming essentially unemployed. But on the other hand, I’ve got enough client requests right now to keep me busy for many, many months ahead. Of course, they are all expecting my old rate. If I upped my rate to $100, how many of those clients would then dry up?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Going to take a few more days off

michael — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 22:15:00 GMT

Well, I have to start apartment hunting again. I've just found out that my landlord is selling the beautiful Lake house that he's been renting me. I can't blame him, the market is up right now so you gotta get while the gettin's good, right? Anyway he's being pretty nice about it giving me a couple months, or until the house is sold.

Additionally I've got to start packing for my trip to Orlando where I'll be attending TechEd and getting my mind filled with tons and tons of Microsoft propoganda. I may do some posting while I'm down there depending on how much time I have to think about things outside of a technical realm.

But I'll definitely be posting things inside of a technical realm, just not here. So for anyone interested in what's going on during TechEd, you can watch my Developer's Blog over at OnTheSoapBox.net

Domain Switch (DNN and MyBlog now gone)

michael — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 22:41:00 GMT

Today Trefry.net switched domain hosts. All seems to have gone as planned, and nobody should have noticed a thing.

As part of the move however, I have finally decided to dump DNN (DotNetNuke) once and for all. Not that it's a bad platform, it's fine, but for my needs CommunityServer was just a better fit. Unfortunately, this also means that the MyBlog module is gone as well. It's time, I haven't done any work on it in many, many months, and others have taken the code and carried the torch for me.

You'd probably be much better off getting the code for DNN 2.x from http://www.crisafulli.org/Default.aspx?tabid=44 anyway.

I believe there is also a DNN 3.x version available at http://www.dnnportal.de/Default.aspx/tabid/176 the site is in German however, and he has renamed the module "NewBlog", which is fine, he's done a lot of work with it.

Thank you to all who supported MyBlog throughout it's product-life.

General Disclaimer

michael — Mon, 01 Jan 2001 05:03:00 GMT

I make no effort to check sources, it is not my intention to present evidence, it is not my intention to be an accurate source of information. I am not a large scale political blog, nor do I aspire to be. If my sources are innacurate, it stands to reason that I am also inaccurate. Do not take anything I say at face value, if you are so inclined, check the sources yourself, find the evidence yourself.

What I do intend to do is comment. I comment on anything I find interesting or outrageous. I present my personal opinions and nothing more.

If you find anything contained herein offensive, then I'm truly sorry you don't see things my way.