So why am I now considering it again?  Is it just the Christmas merriment making me more receptive to trying something in the hope it’ll be better this time round?  Or have I left things long enough to allow for technology to catch up, enabling me to take full advantage of the services on offer to transform the way I do business?

If you were expecting an answer to any of those questions, I’m afraid I can’t give you any.  At the moment it’s just an idea, the merest germ of an idea at that.  I do still have my Skype phone, and very nice it is too, but I don’t have any Skype credit any more so I can’t test the connection quality to see if things have improved.  That said, I did have a partial video conference with my Dad a while back (with video streaming from his end but not from mine, as I don’t have a webcam), and that seemed to be ok, though with a little delay in the sound.

It’s a very tempting idea, using my internet connection as a phone, but there are a number of factors to consider.  For a start, all my clients know my existing business mobile number, so I would have to keep that anyway.  Calls on Skype would certainly be a lot cheaper than calling from my mobile all the time.  That said, I hardly use my business mobile for making calls, but perhaps that’s because it costs me lots… maybe if calls cost me less I would spend more time on the phone.  But I do need to be sure that the quality of the call is good enough to present a decent professional service to people when they call (or when I call them).  My current internet connection is pretty basic if I’m honest; a broadband speed test I did today showed that my download speed is just over 1Mbps, and upload speed is around 340Mbps.  So not great by modern standards.  It ought to be enough for Skype, as long as I’m not trying to do anything else at the same time.  What happens if I’m uploading a big file via FTP and someone phones me?

So, although Skype is cheap, there is still an overhead involved.  I would need to buy credit, or go onto one of their monthly plans, which costs money.  I would need an incoming Skype telephone number so that traditional phones can still reach me (I’d get one included with a monthly plan, but I’d have to pay for it separately otherwise), which costs money.  And I’d probably have to consider upgrading my internet connection so that it could cope with the increased traffic, which costs money.  So although in the long run I might end up saving money, I would need to invest in it first to see any sort of effective return.  Swings and roundabouts.  And the occasional climbing frame.

Has anyone else had experience of using Skype recently?  Has the revolution taken hold yet, or are there still too many problems?

After a few e-mails and phone calls to the publishers, Cornerstone Vision, I ended up sending them a small advert, and I’m pleased to report that it’s in this month’s Month!  The newspaper will be delivered to churches in Essex and East London soon, so you’ll be able to pick up a copy free from any Anglican church in the area, or of course you can download it to view on your computer.  And my advert appears on page 3!  How cool is that?!  I’ve got another two ads lined up for further issues too, so hopefully I’ll see some return on that.

So far my business has been going quite well without the need for advertising.  Most of my clients have heard about me through word of mouth or through links from web sites I’ve designed.  I did send a load of e-mails out to churches last January, and got a couple of new clients that way, but this is actually the first time I’ve actually put any money into advertising properly.  I did debate whether paying for additional coverage on Yell.com would be of benefit, but it turned out to be rather expensive and not necessarily targetting the sort of people who would be interested in my services.

Advertising in The Month should in theory be a much better approach for me.  Since I specialise in providing web sites for churches and Christian organisations, it makes sense to advertise in places where those people might look.  And it turns out to be fairly affordable too – for three ads in non-consecutive issues it came to somewhere in the region of £170.  So as long as I get at least one client from it, I’ll make my money back!  That’s not bad.  I wait with baited breath…

And, as if that wasn’t enough, I’ll soon be able to boost my business slightly by being able to offer web hosting packages too.  I’m still putting the details together and making sure I know exactly what I’m doing (after all, there’s no point providing hosting solutions if I can’t offer quality), but it’s gonna happen fairly soon.  I’ve transferred my business web site to the new server, and I’ll be transferring my existing clients there soon too, and once that’s done I’ll be able to start offering a range of packages to everyone else too.  With a 20% discount for churches, naturally.  It’s all quite fun actually, putting all the packages together, and should make my web design services all the more attractive, being able to provide a full package.  Of course, whether anyone actually takes me up on these offers is another matter, but only time will tell.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time recently investigating all the hosting options available to me.  And there are lots.  Buying individual hosting packages from companies isn’t really an option, as there is so little markup that it’s just not worth considering.  A reseller package is far more suitable, allowing me to set up hosting packages for people without having to worry about the server itself, which is completely managed by the hosting company.  A step up from that and you’ve got Virtual Private Servers (VPS), which gives you a lot more control and room for expansion.  Above that is a Dedicated Server, which is a VPS without the Virtual bit.  I’ll go into more detail on that in a bit.

Reseller accounts

There are a lot of companies selling reseller packages, each with varying limits imposed.  There doesn’t seem to be any sort of benchmark or standard package, everyone is offering different amounts of storage and bandwidth at completely different prices.  That all makes it rather hard to make sense of it all.  One company will be offering 4GB of storage and 60GB monthly bandwidth for around £300, while another will be promising 7GB of storage and 40GB bandwidth for less than £120.  Go figure.

Combined with the specs and prices you’ve also got to think about the company itself and how reputable it is.  I’ve spent a lot of time reading posts on the Web Design Forum, where (amongst other things) people praise and demonise hosting companies.  You see, a reseller package still relies on the hosting company for the technical side of keeping the server running and secure and up to date.  A hosting company can be offering unlimited everything at a budget price, but if their servers are offline on a regular basis it’s hardly worth it.  By the same token, a hosting company with an excellent reputation, such as Clook, can afford to bump their prices up.

Reseller accounts are essentially aimed at people who want to sell web space without the hassle of knowing anything about servers or hosting.  It’s all done through a web-based control panel such as Plesk or cPanel, and at the click of a few buttons they can create web hosting packages with no fuss and no technical knowledge.  Of course, it does mean that if the customer does have any problems with the server then they come to me, and I have to go back to the original hosting company rather than being able to do anything myself.

So, reseller accounts are good, but can be expensive if you’re planning on hosting lots of web sites.  And for reference, my list of existing clients with hosting provided by me comes to 22.  Not loads, but enough that a cheap reseller account probably won’t be big enough.

VPS

A VPS can be thought of as a bridge between a Reseller account and a Dedicated server.  It gives you a lot more scope for expansion and control than a reseller package, but without all the hassle of running a dedicated server.  A dedicated server, incidentally, is like owning your own server, except that someone else physically looks after the computer bit; you have to make sure the software is up to date and correctly set up to be secure and efficient, and are responsible if anything goes wrong with it.  A VPS, especially a managed VPS, takes some of that responsibility away, because the hosting company will set up all the software for you and take care of providing upgrades and so forth, leaving you free to get on with using it without having to worry about too much technical stuff.

Of course, it’s not going to be completely hands-off, because you do have root access and are expected to at least have a go at sorting yourself out if there are any problems.  Limits on storage space and bandwidth are a lot higher than a comparative reseller package though.  So as long as I don’t mind getting my hands dirty every now and then, a VPS could work out a lot more efficient and a lot cheaper than a reseller scheme; it would just mean I’d have to make sure I know what I’m doing with the server so I don’t annoy the hosting company with questions all the time!  Technically the VPS packages I’ve been looking at are nicely managed, so the day-to-day maintenance will be taken care of for me, but if I’ve got access to everything it would make sense for me to at least have a rough idea of how it all works.

So there we go.  Lots of stuff about hosting.  I have to admit, part of the reason for this post has been to solidify it all in my own mind.  Those who know me will know that making decisions has never been one of my strong points!  Writing it all down here kind of forces me to bring it all to some sort of conclusion, which is good because it means there is a chance I might make a decision.  With that in mind, my conclusion is that as long as there are no glaring ommissions in my calculations, a VPS will be the way to go.  I can transfer all my existing clients to the VPS and have complete control over it all, and have plenty of room to start offering hosting packages to the general public.

At least, that’s the conclusion I would like to make.  It does mean I’m making a decision, which isn’t easy, as I also then have to act on that decision.  So feel free to comment (please comment!!!) to give your opinion one way or the other.  If you have any experience using a VPS or even a dedicated server and can shed any light on what is involved beyond a reseller package, it would be much appreciated.

It all stemmed from a problem I was having, and searching the net hadn’t provided an answer, so I felt asking some actual people might prove more effective.  And so I found myself wandering around the Web Designer Forum, a UK-based community (well, the web site is based in the UK, the members could be from anywhere I suppose) specifically for web designers like me.  I was able to introduce myself, ask my first question, get some responses, and answer some questions other people had, all within a couple of days of discovering the site.  They seem like a genuinely nice bunch of people, so I’m expecting to hang around this site for some time!

A knock-on effect of this is that it also counts as advertising for my business web site, the URL for which is slipped into my signature.  Incidentally, my site recently had a major upgrade, so if you haven’t had a look recently then I encourage you to take a peek.  It’s got a revised look and feel, a proper company logo (at last), and some set packages for web sites rather than doing it all on an hourly rate.  Obviously each project will need to be taken on individually, and even if people request a package I may advise them differently if what they want and what that package offers differs wildly, but it should help people see just how much – or indeed, how little – web sites can cost.

Sorry, shameless plug over!

Anyway, the main point I was trying to share is that I’m enjoying being part of a community again.  Now that I’m selling my Mini, my involvement with the Colchester Mini Club has diminished, much to my disappointment, and I’m missing contact with the outside world.  Okay, so an internet forum isn’t quite the same as meeting with real people, but it’s better than nothing!  And it is something else I’m genuinely interested in.  I’ve also been able to answer several people’s questions so far too, which is encouraging because it suggests I may be better at this whole web design thing than I often give myself credit for.  Humility and business rarely walk hand-in-hand when you’re trying to sell your services!

Running your own business means a lot of extra effort, relative to a ‘normal’ job.  True, there are the benefits of being your own boss, working the hours that suit you, taking holidays when you fancy, setting the prices you like.  But in addition to being a Web Designer I also have to handle the accounts, pay the tax man, and do all the boring day-to-day stuff that proper businesses would palm onto someone else.  Thankfully, because my business is relatively small and simple, this doesn’t take too much effort.  Mr Tax Man doesn’t bother me unduly, and the general running of the business tends to just happen.

Of course, there are ways of making life easier for myself on the business side of things.  For instance, keeping track of the business’s money is something I’m keen to do, since numbers are not my strong point, so having a system in place that makes it all blindingly obvious is a must.  So far I’ve been relying on spreadsheets to log the work I do, with a different spreadsheet for each client.  It works, but it’s not particularly efficient.  I’ve looked around on the ‘net, and not found anything that fits my requirements exactly, so I decided I’d make my own.  Nothing like reinventing the wheel every now and then, just for kicks.

And so mWork was born.

I did look into making a mammoth super spreadsheet, with each client having its own sheet, and a summary sheet that brought it all together, but the more I played with it the more I felt it really needed the power of a database.  So I started fumbling around with the database app that comes with NeoOffice (the Mac version of OpenOffice, a free office suite like MS Office).  Unfortunately, the more I fumbled the more confused I became, and the more I hated the software.  Then it occurred to me – I could create this sort of thing really easily in PHP and MySQL.  So I did.

Rather than hosting it all online, where any old cracker could potentially get at all my data, I’ve kept it on my local computer.  There’s a lot of PHP, some clever CSS, a relational database handled by MySQL, and so far quite a lot of hours of work creating the thing.  I’m already using it, though at the moment in parallel with the old system, just in case.  The beauty of it is that if I find I’m missing a feature, I put it in.  If certain information is important, I make it more obvious.  If the data isn’t very useful, I find another way of using it.

One particular area I’m quite pleased with is the various bar graphs I’ve used, with some funky PHP and CSS.  You’ll see from the screenshots just how beautiful they are.  For each project there’s a bar graph showing three bars: one for the amount I estimated for the project, one for the amount I’ve earned through the work I’ve done so far, and one for the amount paid so far by the client.  Putting these side by side visually really helps to get a quick overview of how far through the project we are and to keep tabs on projects that might overrun; if I go over the estimate the middle bar turns red.

There are similar graphs for the monthly and yearly reports, which show the activity throughout the month or year in question.  The yearly report shows hours worked, amount earned and amount received side by side, giving a nice (if colourful) progress report.  At the moment the yearly report works on a Jan-Dec year, but I suppose actually a more useful measure would be the tax year, as I could then use that information directly to plug into my Tax Return Form.

In addition to all that fun visual stuff there are tools for adding projects, updating project information, adding work logs, adding expenses that will be passed on to the client, logging payments made by the client, and so on.

There is still work to be done before it’s finished, naturally.  But at the moment it’s fairly solid and seems to be working well.  I don’t think it’s the sort of thing I would make available to the general public though – it’s tailored specifically to my needs, and might not suit everyone else.  Besides anything else, I’ve spent so long developing it that I would want to charge people to use it, but that involves taking money from people and I’m not so hot on that!  You can tell I’m not a businessman…