Election Fever

We just concluded an election to choose out next president. We ended up choosing the incumbent president for another term. I am not complaining, I too voted for him, both the times!

I in no means think he is perfect or he has the perfect team. But he seems like a man, who seta a vision and lets the others do their own thing. So sometimes he ends up getting the slack for all the blunders that others make. I think as president the buck stops at him.

I respect him for his courage to go all the way to finish the war, non withstanding the pressure applied on him by the western nations to halt it and give the terrorists another lease of life. My vote for him was a show of gratitude rather than anything else.

I think the UNP in the opposition would have been a more business centric party. They are perceived as private sector friendly. But the problem with them is, as much as they complain that the incumbent president keeps all business opportunities within the family, they keep everything within their boys club. A club consisting of the elite in Colombo. 

But the other constituent party JVP, of the opposition was in stark contrast to UNP> So you could have never known how a government of the opposition would turn out to be eventually .

But either way, it would have made no difference to me. I am still pretty much a single person enterprise. And I am not on the lookout for any assistance from any government.

I am not looking at any policy changes in the government. All I want is peace and consistency. I would also like the government expanding the tertiary IT education. I think for the industry to grow, key is lots of skilled people. I know the hassle of finding good people (I am still looking BTW), and having more in the market will really help.

Having this president will help in a way to help us continue our lives without disruptions. A regime change would have disrupted the life flow in a big way. And a lot of people that I had met over the last couple of months, in view of starting businesses were in favor of the current government and some of them would have left the country if there was a change. As for me, I am looking forward to starting some of those ventures now that normalcy has returned to our lives again.

Technorati Tags: Sri Lanka Presidential Elections 2010

Changed the blog layout

I have been thinking about changing the layout of this blog for sometime. I experimented with several of default blogger templates, but none got my fancy for long.

Then after a bit of googling this current template from http://btemplates.com/ caught my fancy. So here it is. It is pretty minimalistic and the font and the layout also captured my eye. I think it is a layout that gives prominence to the content, which it should.

I hope you'd enjoy the layout.

Having a working wife helps!

 

This article on New York Times titled She Works. They’re Happy. sparked me to write this post. The intention of this post is to relate my personal situation with what is described in that article.

 

My wife was working when I met her and there was a lot of speculation form her family and her friends whether she’s continue to work after the marriage. I can even remember, prior to our marriage, when I was introduced to her boss, one of her first questions were where I had any objections to her continuing to work after marriage. And even her parents and her aunts were of the view that she’d give up her job after the marriage. Maybe the fact that none of women among her mom to her aunts had worked after getting married contributed to that fact.

 

But I was coming from a different background where my mom worked till we were quite old, and being the liberal man that I was I always felt that it was her decision. Of course I preferred her to continue to work. She was pretty amazing in what she did and it would have been a terrible waste to just to have idling at home. And she found career success pretty effortlessly and climbed up the ladder, naturally!

 

Then came the notion that she would give up her job once the kids arrived. We always kept our options open. We considered her giving up her job if it was necessary. But being Sri Lankans we had help in raising the kids. Her parents were there to help us. When the second one was on the way, the pressure for her to quit the job was mounting. But we still kept our options open and she returned to work after the maternity leave was over. Thank god for parents!

 

Getting back to the topic, around the time our second kid came around, I switched to becoming a full time freelancer working mainly from home. While my hand in looking after the kids are not as intense as the Walders in the NYT article, I think in a way our roles also have switched. The fact that my wife worked and had better benefits including health made it easier to me to make a bold decision to leave a corporate job. And her health benefits actually came into MY rescue when late last year I had to undergo some surgeries.

 

Also, one of the main comforts that I had in switching to freelancing was knowing that even if I didn’t make a much money, there was always a fall back plan, her job. And being the great woman she is, she always encouraged me to take the leap telling me, ‘I will support you until you get on your feet’. And that was the greatest source of comfort that I had while leaping to become a freelancer!

 

Now that I am at home, I share the responsibilities of taking our kid to school, for dancing, etc. I make my schedule around those responsibilities and it really helps to be able to adjust my schedule as needed. I think in a way, though not financially, our roles have changed. I, the husband is the one staying at home, and she, the wife, is the one going out to work. Of course I cannot take the credit of looking after the kids during the day, as her parents do a wonderful job in that department and let me get on with my professional work. I take up those responsibilities only if they need to be relieved for something.

 

I knew when I switched to becoming a freelancer that I was joining a minority, but growing trend. But I never realized that our situation would also put us in another trend group of stay-at-home dads and working mothers! But I am glad to be in both these groups! Welcome to the future of work!

 

Technorati Tags: Stay at home dad,future of work,working mother,freelancing,working from home

Working from my new Home Office

I am currently working during the daytime from my in progress home office. There is a long way to go to bring this up to my dream home office. But I am careful in my spending and hence I am not in a hurry to bring it up there in one go. I think that this will be a constant work in progress. I want to make sure that I spend on it after the rest of the expenses are incurred, now that I have brought it to a comfortable and workable state. There are a a lot more stuff that I would like to put in here.

 

I have found space for my books, stationary, supplies and equipment. Since I have not got the two workstations that I was planning to get for future employees, I still have plenty of space left in my office room. I think I am still only occupying about one third of the floor space. This room looks pretty empty!

 

I have got a white board now. It is a pretty good addition that I wasn’t exactly planning to get. Now the challenge will be to keep it from becoming my kids scratchpad. So I have fixed it slightly above their reach, so at least the top part would be left for my use.

 

I am becoming pretty good at salvaging old equipment. I found an old wireless keyboard and a mouse lying around the house and I am now typing away on that. I am also going to salvage one of the old computers and convert it to a NAS or a media center. It has a pretty good graphics card with a DVI. If I can salvage the video card for the ultimate developer rig, this will certainly become a NAS. One TB of HD space is about $100, so I am thinking of getting my first terabit storage. At least then I will be able to consolidate all my digital photos. I don’t have much of a collection of music or videos, but once I get the NAS, maybe I can start building a collection.

 

Then I am, thinking of resurrecting my hackintosh. I never went anywhere with my hackintosh earlier. But I think now I can afford to spend sometime developing an application for the iPhone or at least use it to test my web apps on Safari!

 

I am finally working on a multi-monitor setup with my Laptop monitor and the LCS. I am already experiencing the productivity gain. I can actually multi-task with this setup. And the added screen real estate is amazing. I am now more than determined to build the UDR (ultimate developer rig) with multiple monitors. If I have three monitors like my LCD, that will be awesome. Only thing I am not sure about is whether my desk has enough surface area to hold them!

 

Tech-wise I have two different pieces that I need to put together. That is I need a Wireless Router and a good UPS. I think if I add those two, the rest can grow with me over time.

 

It is a good feeling to work from a place which actually gives you some kind of a GTD feeling. It is more like an office than a living room of a house and hence has lesser distractions and helps in getting the tasks done. I am actually going to finish setting this place up after I go through the GTD books tips on setting up your cockpit. Cos this, is going to be my cockpit!

 

Technorati Tags: Home Office,Home Office Technology,Working from home,Freelancing,Home Based business.

Home Office Tech

My home office is nearing its completion. My books are stacked, the desks are stationed, got a white board as well. Tomorrow I am hoping to set up the equipment in there. So I think it is a good time for a post on technology/equipment and their rationale to be used in my home office.

 

Computers:

I am currently working off of a Laptop. I recently bought a 23” LCS display to use along with that. I have now also got a wireless keyboard and a mouse as well. So I will be working on a Full KB, mouse and a large LCD screen. But I want to migrate to a desktop computer pretty soon. One of the reasons that I decided to not to spent on office furniture was to spend that money on an ultimate developer rig. I am fed up of working on cramped real estate and input devices of laptops.

 

Once I make the move to the desktop, I am going to primarily use the laptop as my mobile computer. Even for that, both my current laptops are pretty heavy and big. So I will consider trading in my old laptop for a netbook. But that will have to wait till I get to building the developer rig.

 

Apart from my main development machine I am hoping to setup two different computers. One is a Hackintosh, until I get my hands on a Mac Mini or a MacBook. I seriously need to do some development for the iPhone. And also I am planning on running another computer as a media center/ backup computer with a RAID array to act as my Home Server.

 

Connectivity:

I currently have a Lanka Bell 2Mbps connection to my homeoffice. This will be sufficient for me for some time. So far, I have not had any major issues with the connection and touch wood, I hope it stays that way.

 

As a backup I have a data plan on my iPhone and it is also configured to tether. So in case of a failure I have a backup connection that will be fast enough or somewhat better than my main connection. Only issue is it will be a bit cumbersome to share it and also the issue of disconnection when a call comes in.

 

Phone:

My primary phone is my mobile. I do not want to have a land line as there is no one to answer the calls in my absence. Nothing annoys me more than an unanswered fixed business line. But in the case of a mobile, people will understand that there are instances that the phone cannot be answered.

 

Backup Power:

This is one of my main concerns. In my previous home I used full days worth of work due to day long power cuts, and they were frequent too. But in my new home office, the power cuts are very rare. Therefore backup power is not a major concern. But in any case, as I am planning to switch to a desktop, I think it will be wise to invest in a UPS. This will be one of my major investments that I will make in the very near future, maybe soon after the developer rig.

 

Storage/Backup:

One of the other main pieces of technology that I want to invest in is on a external HDD. I am still debating between a couple of low capacity drives vs one high capacity drive. I am for the low capacity drives to use them as backup drives for my main computer as well as the laptops.

 

I would really like to use a cloud based backup solution, but I am not comfortable with the payments to be made on a monthly basis. But in case I start using one, it will probably be Mozy.

 

Network:

I am setting up a wireless network at home to allow me to work from anywhere. I am very keen on working off the designated office, but I would also like to spend sometime in front of the water fountain in out garden. We have setup a pretty nice garden with a deck and that would be ideal to spend sometime there, at least when you want to do some reading on the net. I am currently going to setup a wireless G network mainly due to the fact that I am using my existing routers. But I would life to upgrade to a Wireless N network sometime in the future. But it is not a priority at this point of time.

 

At the same time I am setting up a wired network between my desktop computers so the data transfers are not limited by wireless speeds between them.

 

Low tech:

A white board is a must. That has already been sourced. I haven’t had a white board in my home office ever and I miss having one each time I go to a meeting where there is a whiteboard.

 

Notepads – I have a thing for yellow legal pads. I actually scribble on paper when I design logic for the programs I write. It helps me to focus and clarify my thoughts.

 

Pens – I am a sucker for fountain pens. Hence I always have a couple at least inked and ready to hit the paper!

 

Other Office Stationary – As a person who is trying to put GTD into practice, I am going to have enough office supplies and stationary to do the filing without procrastinating.

 

Filling – My current desks have enough drawers for files, supplies and stationary. But one thing that I want to purchase is a good enough filing cupboard. I think every home office needs one!

 

Racks – I am a sucker for books and I have a pretty decent collection. So it is a must for me to have enough rack space for my books. I recently discarded a lot of obsolete books and kept only those that I felt were needed and were not outdated. But I purchase a couple of books every month so the collection will grow. I currently have enough space for my library, but as it grows I will need to add more space to store them.

 

Technorati Tags: Home Office,Home Office Technology,Freelancing,Entrepreneurship,Contracting,working from home,home based business

Setting up a home office

When I went freelance one of the main things I resolved to do was to work from home. This was more out of circumstance rather than to be hip. But it blended in pretty well with the things that were going on with my life. But at that time, my workstation consisted of a large dining table and a few racks in the upstairs family room. And we were living with our in-laws. Somehow, the setup never seemed permanent.

 

We moved to our own place a couple of weeks ago and while planning out the house, one of the main things we considered was a dedicated home office for me. And the house had an ideal room for this which was an intended guest room which is kind of cut-off from the rest of the house. This was ideal as it would allow me to to separate my work and personal lives and even would allow me to allow clients or staff to visit me without getting those activities disturb or blend in with my personal life.

 

I wanted to have a separate office in order to have a place that will demarcate my work life from my personal life as well as allow me to get things done. This was going to be my personal space and it was important for me as a person working from home, I felt the need to have some personal space for my self. All of us, at some point or the other run in to our offices to get away from home and a office was more or less out own kingdom. I needed to create such a space within the home and it was going to be my Home Office!

 

While the house was being renovated, I spent numerous hours on the Internet going through home office setups, reading numerous articles on productive home office setups to work stations and desks and even Feng Shui.

 

One of the best home offices that inspired me was Mitch Haile’s home office in Boston. Unfortunately my home office was not so big, but I really wanted to create a workstation that was a U.

 

I also wanted to have enough storage space to stack my book collection, enough room to keep all my computers (not many now, but hoping to add a few over time), a cozy chair for reading and couple of workstations to allow two people to come over and work at my office. So it was a challenge to fir all of these into my intended office room was only 14’ by 10’10”.

 

I think I spent the most amount of time trying to decide and design my ideal workstation. The challenge was I wanted it to have all the space I wanted as I would be spending majority of my wake hours there, but at the same time didn’t want it to take more than half the room. I wanted to leave half the room for the other two workstations that I wanted to setup for my future team.

 

So I tried out many of the tools to plan out my office. The most recommended was Google Sketchup, but I found it too cumbersome to use. And I for some reason the plan kept getting distorted and I found it too difficult to design some of the elements that I wanted to design. For example, when I designed a rack, Sketchup ended up converting it to a cupboard.

 

Then I found this great online software, called floorplanner.com. And here is the design I did with it:

And due to financial factors I am furnishing the office in two stages. The first stage will consist of repurposing some of the existing furniture. I am still a bit torn between the look that I want to have for the office. I am torn between a more modernistic look with sleek modern looking furniture and a more stately look with more antique looking furniture. The furniture that I have done exactly fall into either category. So I guess the look will have to wait till I redo the office some day. But right now, I am not keen on spending money in an office room. I should be able to complete the setting up by the end of week and hopefully I will be able to post some photos once it is done.

 

The next major component is the technological aspects of setting up a home office. I think that deserves a post of it own. Here too I am planning on using most of my existing equipment. But there are a couple of things that I want to spend money on, one of them being a kick ass, high performance desktop machine. I am getting tired of cramped keyboards and screens of the laptops. I need to setup a multi-monitor workstation to boost my productivity. But that is a post of its own.

 

Technorati Tags: Home Office,Setting up a home office,Freelancing,entrepreneurship,starting up

Targets for 2010

I spent sometime thinking about where I wanted to be at the end of 2010. I have never really approached a new year like this, like a business approaches a new financial year. But now that I am in business for myself I have to start thinking more like an entrepreneur with a more business like approach.

I think any business does a financial forecast as well as some kind of a strategic business planning. So I too am going to focus on two key areas: Financials and Growth.

Financials

Personally I had a financial goal of earning $2500 a month. I had set this as my ultimate earnings goal while I was still working a conventional job. I never achieved this as an employee but as a freelancer I have achieved this target for the last 5 months.

But when thinking like a freelancer it may not be practical expect a regular monthly income at the same level. Therefore I am going to set myself an annual revenue target of $36,000. That roughly translates to $ 9,000 a quarter.

Growth

I want 2010 to be the year that my freelancing grows out of being a single person operation. I have talked about career progression for a freelancer and in my view the ultimate progression for a freelancer is transforming the business to a company.

Employee –> Own Boss –> Boss

I would want to take make that transition happen in 2010. Now I already have a company registered under my name, but it is a dormant business, without any employees or a business to speak about, as I still operate as an individual, charging my clients as an individual and my capacity limited to what I can do. But in 2010, I would like to grow my business into a company, with employees and an operation with a sizeable income earned in the name of the company.

For this, I have a couple of opportunities where I have been invited to join in for joint ventures and partnerships. I am going to actively pursue these opportunities in 2010 and become part of a new venture or bring my company to life.

Apart from these I have a whole load of personal goals that I want to achieve in 2010, mainly to work some of my personal weaknesses and generally working towards becoming a better person, husband, father, brother and son. But those I shall keep out of this blog in order to not to give in too many clues as to who I am!

Technorati Tags: Goals,Targets,Diversification

Just Do It!

The new year is a time to set focus for the year ahead. Immaterial of historical evidence of ones ability to keep or achieve goals, all of us set new year resolutions. It is the time of the year that we all look ahead and set big lofty goals and resolute to get rid of all our bad habits.

As a freelancer who is looking forward to a full new year for the first time, it is also time for me to set goals as where I would want to be at the end of the year. It is also the first time where I am technically in full control of my destiny.

If I were in employment, I would not be able to set a goal for my income or the type of projects that I want to work on. Those will be in more decisions of the management that i would have reported. But as a freelancer I have a better chance and control of where I want to be by the end of the year.

I am still working on financial and growth targets. But loosely, I have decided on a larger goal or an intention for the year. When I started out freelancing one of the things I wanted to do was to spend some time working on some of the personal projects that interested me. So this year, I want to “just do them”. Not bother of success or failure, but work on all those game changing ideas that I have. Not to over analyze and get bogged down in analysis paralysis.

So I welcome the new year with a new motto- “Just Do It”, be what may be!

Technorati Tags: Goals,Resolutions,New year,feel the fear and just do it anyway