31 Days to Start Freelancing - day 3

Continuing the exercise 31 Days to Start Freelancing
Day 1. Make an Inventory of Your Freelancing Skills
Day 2. Examine Your Freelancing Resources
Day 3. Set Your Freelancing Goals


Specific

• Grow the number of visit on my blog
• Grow the number of customers, followers, ...
• Get better at writing (marketing, new ideas, style)
• Gain experience, to be able to avoid mistakes, and be able to teach
• Write down as much as possible to be able to write a book about the experience
• Learning new skills

Measurable

• Learning one new skill each month
• Write a blog post at least per week
• Gain 1 new follower each week
• Read one new book each month (in English)

Attainable

• one new skill - to be able to write about it
• writing one new post each week, (currently achieved)
• Getting new follower and more visit (I still have to figure how)
• Reading is definitely something I should do

Realistic

• If I could write a book about the experience and publish it that could make an income
• Offering Freelance job for web-design
• Teach in small class or offering small training at home could be done too

Time-bound

• Getting a least 500$ net (bare minimum) per month after 6 months (March 2011) otherwise it's not worth it.
• Would like to still be able to enjoy week-ends.

31 Days to Start Freelancing - day 2

Continuing the exercise 31 Days to Start Freelancing


Day 1. Make an Inventory of Your Freelancing Skills
Day 2. Examine Your Freelancing Resources

• the office equipment, software and materials you already have : a mac-mini
• how much money you have at your disposal to invest in your freelancing business : None
• people who can give you support : 2 friends
• how much time you can devote to freelancing : 4 hours a day

31 Days to Start Freelancing - day 1

Freelancing is an attractive option for unemployed, and it make sense to consider it.
Having little idea on how or where to start, I was lucky to find what looks like a solid list, here on the Savvy Freelancer - 31 Days to Start Freelancing | The Savvy Freelancer:

Because I'm serious about this business, I'll post my answer (or as much as possible) on my blog, making it public, will certainly help (I hope)...

Day 1. Make an Inventory of Your Freelancing Skills

• Speaking/Reading/Writing English
• Speaking/Reading/Writing in French
• Experience with PC
• Experience with Mac
• Experience with Linux
• Basic knowledge in development (java, C, Basic, html, php)
• Knowledge of Office suite (spreadsheet, word processor, database, powerpoint)
• Writing blog post
• Writing white papers
• Reading technical documentations
• Able to deliver training session
• Good experience of the call center environment (not that I want to be back there though)

That's pretty much it, really

Expendables

Just finished watching "The Expendables", the comeback movie with Stallone by Stallone, firsts impressions : mixed, it's like Rambo (the last sequel) all over again - basically a mercenary operation to destroy completely a stronghold (not Vietnamese this time, but from an island named "Vilena" don't search for it on google, you will be surprised!)

Anyway, the operation is just about kicking ass, planting explosives, and kicking more asses ... pure testosterone. The kind that has been made a gazillion times

But there's a message delivered by Mickey Rourke (Tool) about how they were losing their soul, that keeps coming back with an echo along the movie, there's Jet li complaining that he hasn't got any family, the big super villain that says later that he's "empty inside".

What transpires out of this traditional movie, is tired heroes, and that something is cracking about the good old logic of making moneys no matter what, and losing his soul in the process, ... that makes the film watchable.

Also there's a very good chemistry between actors (all veterans of the genre) special mention for Jet Li, and Jason Statham who are especially both good
Another special mention to Hale Caesar's weapon... impressive.


In a nutshell (warning : spoiler)
There is an issue in an Island governed by a corrupted General, Stallone's (Ross) mission is to eliminate him - he goes there, fall for the general daughter's comes back home, think about the situation and finally decides to rescue her (very similar to the last Rambo, if you ask me). He comes back home, no casualties, everybody's laughing ... The End.

But that doesn't explain the title at all - mercenaries are expandable canon fodder ? not in this movie, they're just pretending to be tired ... and want to fight for a good cause.

Click and Priority Inbox

What an odd coincidence, last week I finally watched the movie "Click" (2006) with Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale and Christopher Walken ...  An amazing movie, of course with some hilarious (gross) jokes (Thanks to Mr Sandler) but the topic being quite heavy ... setting Life's priorities correctly... it was quite good to have an easy laugh here and there.

Is there anyone on his death bed, that would say "I wish I had spent more time at work" ? I mean ... really ?!

At first in this movie, I thought the main subject was to build a collection of Adam Sandler's gag with the "universal remote", and making some cool effects, fast forwarding in your life, having commentary, changing the volume, jumping chapters ... etc ...

But when Christopher Walken explains that skipping chapter has consequences and that we're on autopilot during that time, it rings a bell - it's actually true, to feel that we skipped some days, week, months maybe and then realize ... wow! what happened which day are we ?! is it already September ?!

And then this trick with the "universal remote" which acts according to your past actions and preferences, well spotted too - same thing, we live according to our habits, the habits we built when we were younger, the habits we inherited from our parents or relatives, great metaphors.

We should be more aware of our habits, they could be really mischievous.

And then I stumbled upon this Gmail new feature to setup a "priority inbox" ... according to our preferences, and then I thought ... that next giant "universal remote" could be Google someday?!

Gmail - Priority Inbox

Thougths

Outside the weather is getting gloomier and gloomier and my memories goes back to these early morning, waking up tired, having breakfast, jumping in the shower, taking the bus, walking a bit in the cold, and finally arriving at work and starting to warm up ... doing a job I hate.

This is the normal life, this is what I've known for 15 years, and ... always felt there was something wrong with it. Basically most of us are living a lie, pretending that having a crappy job is normal, because everyone has to work and everyone is miserable.

The truth is ... taking a few steps back and asking ourselves the right questions is harder, way harder and therefor we prefer the norm.

What do I really want to do in life ?
What makes me happy ?

And then I thought blogging is the way, and then you might be wondering "Why blogging is so vital when unemployed ?" - because it helps staying focused, it helps keeping the mind edgy.

The other good thing is it allows to receive feedback, because honestly being unemployed it's so easy to become isolated ... it's also a way to express the feelings and an opportunity to raise our voices, an opportunity to show courage and stands for what we believe in.

That post  Are You a Courageous Blogger?,  inspired me these few lines ...

Digg Vs. Reddit

Like I said, previously I'm unemployed and a redditor ; (which tend to lead to some exaggeration on the time I spent browsing ... but that's not the point today).

Today I want to talk about Diggg - it seems that our natural enemy (I'm joking of course!) has made a catastrophic v4 release - ahah!

I've got to confess, I've never quite like digg.com, it looks like facebook filled with comments from youtube, (I found worse once ... mixx.com (just awful).

Therefor I've always been faithful to reddit. And it seems that the glorious day of reddit has finally arouse since digg.com is losing his traffic.

Here's 2  charts to rest my case :

Source : Digg Vs. Reddit: The Numbers – Chitika Research

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Napoleon Bonaparte

Reddit FTW!

The Tourist and the Fisherman

Here's a little story for the people still in the "Rat's race", it's called :

The Tourist and the Fisherman

An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.
Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."
The tourist then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"
The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."
The tourist then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."
The tourist scoffed, " I can help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you could run your ever-expanding enterprise."
The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"
The tourist replied, "15 to 20 years."
"But what then?" asked the Mexican.
The tourist laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."
"Millions?...Then what?"
The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Borrowed from reddit (thanks guys!)