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…

This afternoon I took the opportunity to put work on hold briefly while I went outside and mowed the lawn.  It has needed doing for a while now, and I’ve been putting it off, but today I figured I ought to take advantage of the sunshine and get out there while I can.  Looking at the forecast, the weekend isn’t going to be too promising.  The lawn actually needs treating at some point, as one half of it looks to be more moss than grass.  We’ve got some moss-killer, it’s just a case of spraying it on and letting it do its job.  I didn’t get round to that today, but I did cut the grass and do the edges, so the garden is looking nice now.  I also noticed that the peas in our vegetable patch are beginning to grow too!  We’ve got carrots and parsnips in there too, but I only planted them last week so it’s no surprise they’re not topside yet.

This weekend is going to be pretty busy too.  Saturday I’m off to a friend’s stag do, which promises to be lots of fun, if somewhat energetic… I’m not giving any details, just in case the person in question doesn’t know about it all yet.  In fact, part 2 of the stag do is on the Sunday, so it’ll be a hefty weekend of fun and frolics, and a fair amount of driving too.

Also on Sunday I’m skipping church.  Doesn’t happen often, but occasionally I take a day off to go to a Mini event, pretty much all of which tend to be on Sundays.  This weekend it’s the Manningtree High School Vehicle Show, and Colchester Mini Club will have a stand there with several of our Minis on display, mine included.  Which means at some point I really ought to clean the car.  I’ve also got a couple of electrical items to install eventually, now that I’ve got all the required bits and pieces for it: I’ve got a rear brake light to go in the back window, some LED side repeaters, a cigarette lighter socket, and all the necessary wires and connectors for installing it.  All good fun.  But since I’m going to be out all Saturday I’m not sure I’ll have time to install them before the show.  Never mind.  It’s not a particularly big show, and apparently it’s going to rain anyway.  Ah well, there’s always next time.

On the computer front, I’m now testing out Firefox 3 beta 5.  It’s not quite finished yet, and isn’t even a Release Candidate, but it’s interesting seeing where they’re going with it and what improvements they’ve made.  For a start, it’s much quicker than FF2 was on the Mac, and significantly faster than previous betas too, which is good.  Speed and responsiveness was one of the main reasons I stopped using Firefox on the Mac in the first place and switched to Camino.  There are still some bugs to iron out before it goes live (I’ve seen some problems handling frames), but the big thing I don’t like at the moment is that it won’t work with UNO.  For those of you who don’t know, UNO is a cool little extra that straps itself (harmlessly) into Mac OS X Tiger and allows you to unify the messy interface, getting rid of the brushed metal windows and allowing me to make everything look consistent.  Unfortunately, FF3 seems to break UNO – it’s not dangerous or particularly problematic, just an annoying visual thing.  Basically, UNO is supposed to unify – join together – the top part of the window and the menu bar underneath.  As standard FF3 does this anyway, which is nice, but as soon as UNO is working, regardless of whether it’s actually supposed to be doing anything with Firefox, that unity is lost.  Curious.  Without UNO, FF3 displays unified, but nothing else does.  With UNO, everything displays unified except FF3.  Grrr.  As I say, not a huge problem, just a niggling frustration, but one I’m hoping will be sorted by the time FF3 is released properly.

Finally, on to this blog.  Astute blog readers will notice that I’ve changed the theme back to the way it was last week.  Sorry.  It just got to the stage where I was annoyed by enough of the new design to warrant just reverting back to the previous design.  I’m working on ideas for a refreshed theme, which I’ll be designing myself (rather than picking an off-the-shelf theme), and you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve found a way of testing themes without the general public seeing them, which should allow me to develop it and test it before actually letting it loose on you lot and letting you pick holes in it.  So, again, apologies for messing you around with visual styles, but hopefully the end result will be better.

Right, after all that, I need another cup of tea.  And maybe I’ll see if I can persuade the gerbils out – Ellie’s much better at it than I am, but she’s at work and the girls need the exercise.  Time to show the little furballs who’s boss…

On the work front, things have been exceptionally busy just of late.  A web designer friend of mine recently handed me all his clients, ahead of his year-out move to America (I think… something like that), and I’ve spent the last couple of days sorting myself out and getting to grips with the new web sites.  In particular I’ve had to think more carefully about my client management – storing passwords, contact information, billing and invoicing details, and anything critical to the project.  Before now I’ve done it fairly ad-hoc, writing down passwords in a text document where needed, and remembering most of the details myself.  With my client-base almost doubled, I realised I needed something more substantial.  I looked into creating a database using OpenOffice, but found their database app remarkably difficult to use and somewhat unstable – it got confused when I tried to enter some information, and I hadn’t even got as far as linking tables and doing complex queries!  So in the end I’ve reverted to something simpler, but more effective than what I had before, keeping a document of information for each client, with enough information that someone else could theoretically take over if something untoward happened to me overnight.  Which I hope won’t happen, but it’s good to plan for the unexpected anyway, just in case.

So that’s all kept me rather busy, and I’ve not really done much ‘real’ work – i.e. stuff I get paid for.  I guess that’s just part and parcel of running your own business, you have to do the boring administrative stuff as well as the fun designing bits!

Of course, then there’s all the time in between, which is where it gets more interesting.  As timewasters go, we have plenty in this house.  Not only do I have my computer, which is connected to the internet is thus an almost endless source of entertainment, we also have a lounge.  Lounges are good fun.  Especially considering all the toys we keep in it.

For my birthday my Auntie Julia gave me a special offer thing for LoveFilm.com, giving me free access to film rental for 90 days.  I’ve registered a whole load of films I haven’t yet seen, and they’ll send me an unlimited amount every month, with a limit of only having one film at home at a time (postage is free too).  Ellie already has a subscription to Amazon to do much the same thing, but this LoveFilm one means I can book the sort of films Ellie won’t be interested in – so lots of car chases and stuff blowing up!  I’ve already had 3 films come through, and they’ve all been fairly good so far.

And while we’re sat in front of the TV, why not switch on that black box underneath?  What black box?  You know, that big black box, with a PS2 logo on the front.  Yes, I finally succumbed and bought myself a games console.  I’ve been after one for a while, but waiting for the prices to come down.  With the recent release of the PS3 prices for the old PS2 have dropped substantially, both in the shops and online, and it’s finally become affordable.  In fact, my birthday money effectively covered the cost of the PS2 and 2 games, which is pretty neat.  I’ve been playing GTA San Andreas for a few days now, and thoroughly enjoying every moment.  I’ve also got GTA Vice City Stories, which was a follow-up game using the same engine, but from what I’ve seen isn’t anywhere near as good (despite being newer).  Essentially it’s a PSP game ported to the PS2, and a lot of the functionality in the San Andreas version has been lost.  In GTA VCS you can’t eat, you can’t go to the gym, you can’t get fat, you can’t build up your stamina and strength, you can’t change your clothes or your hairstyle, you can’t shoot using the old-school targeting system, there are fewer guns and cars available, and the map is significantly smaller.  VCS is certainly a good game, but pales in comparison to the original.

In addition to all that (as if three major timewasters weren’t enough) we also have gerbils.  Eventually (and by that I mean within the next few years) we’ll undoubtedly be getting a dog (Golden Retriever, on Ellie’s insistence).  But in the meantime we’ve got gerbils.  Two of them.  And they’re so much fun.  I could sit and watch them for hours.  Except they sleep a lot, so there are times when there wouldn’t be much to see.  Nonetheless, we’ve bought them several toys, and get them out to play regularly.  They’ve even been up and played on my desk when I was supposed to be working – they look so cute hopping around on my keyboard and running around in my in-tray!

Oh, and then there are the usual suspects: multiple musical instruments, a Mini to tinker with, a garden to plant stuff in, friends to hang out with.  It’s a wonder really that I get anything done at all…

So, first of all, a general introduction.  Many things have happened since my last blog post, including (but not exclusively): two trips to theatres, some significant developments on the business front, a somewhat extended birthday, Neddy going to the garage a couple of times, a couple of additions to the Dawkins household, an above-average number of requests to lead worship, and a general realisation that Ellie and I are taking over our church.  That’s quite a lot to write about.  I’ll try to keep some of it brief.  Just to demonstrate that, you’ll notice the lack of information in the spaces between words.  Every little helps.

Glass Menagerie

This is a show Ellie has been working on in Ipswich, which finished last week.  She managed to get a couple of tickets for the penultimate show, and I quite enjoyed it.  A little random in places, but that’s all good and familiar.  Some fairly convincing American accents, plenty of imagery, clever lighting, and rather eerie music.  Not much to report really, but it was a good evening out.  Ellie and I joined the cast and crew afterwards for drinks, so that was a good opportunity to meet people and put faces to names.  And if I was lucky I got the right name with the right face.

Keeping busy with business

A couple of Saturdays ago I met up with a group of Christians in Colchester working in internet business, whether that be hosting, web design, SEO or general management.  It was a good meeting, lots was discussed, and it looks like I’ll be getting a little more work out of it.  One of the other guys is trying to get rid of all his clients (in the nicest possible way), and it looks likely that he’ll pass them on to me to look after.  Not a lot of work involved really, just annual billing for hosting and the occasional request for updates.

The major development, though, is a business link I’ve made with another web design company based in Hornchurch.  It’s run by a Christian chap, and his company deals mainly with high-flying businesses, so quite a different clientele to me.  He’s been rushed off his feet recently, and is really looking to find someone he can employ full-time.  Clearly I can’t give up my current commitments to my existing clients, so that wasn’t really something I could consider, but he’s now outsourcing to me and passing a fair amount of work my way.  It’s nice to have some variation in my work, and doing business web sites involves a very different approach – whereas churches spend forever thinking about things and passing everything through PCCs and committees and suchlike, businesses want it all done yesterday and are prepared to pay for the privilege.  It’s been quite exciting, and I’ve been doing a fair amount of PHP as a result.  All good stuff.  And it pays well too.

I’ve got a brand new combine harvester

Sadly I never did manage to find that song on the internet for free.  Ah well, never mind.  I had plenty of other folk music to satisfy my taste and provide a background ambience to my birthday party.  Yes, for those of you who didn’t hear (and therefore weren’t invited – sorry), my 25th birthday was celebrated this year with a fancy dress party (no surprise there) on the theme of ‘farmers and country folk’.  It was a good laugh, with people dressed up in chequered shirts and flat caps, eating home-made cakes (courtesy of my lovely wife) and kettle chips, drinking tea and cloudy lemonade (not at the same time), with Devonshire folk music in the background and a dog curled up in front of a roaring fire.  Yes, you read that right.  It was cheating a little, perhaps, in that the dog was a toy and the roaring fire was a screensaver on my computer, but the effect worked well.  Photos are up on Facebook.

Present-wise, the highlight was most definitely the radio-controlled Mini I got from three of my friends who clubbed together.  So much fun!!  I’ve driven it round the lounge more than a few times already, and had fun doing handbrake turns and powerslides and all sorts of things you’re not really supposed to be doing with radio controlled cars.  I also got some chocolate and another guitar strap.  Ellie’s present to me didn’t arrive in the post though, so I had to wait for that.

Gee up, Neddy

Neddy, my Mini Sidewalk, has been feeling considerably under the weather just of late.  Acceleration has been rather sluggish and uneven, he’s been leaking oil, and the fan belt has been slipping very conspicuously.  I had every intention of getting the work done myself, as none of it is particularly difficult.  But, as the lateness of this blog entry testifies to, I just never got round to it.  In the end I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to pay someone else to do it for me, and ended up taking my Mini to Wivenhoe Garage.  Last week they replaced the top engine steady bushes, replaced the oil and filter, and fitted a new rocker cover and gasket (which should stop the oil leak).  Yesterday Neddy went in for stage two, which involved replacing the alternator (bearings were gone, and it turned out to be cheaper to buy a new one than get the bearings replaced) and flushing the coolant.  Neddy is also lined up to be given a closer inspection by a tuning garage next week, which will involve interrogating the ECU to find out just how happy it is, and may involve putting it on a rolling road to get it properly set up – the new alternator has certainly helped a lot, but I’m fairly sure more power can be eked from the 1275cc block yet.

Diamond and Pearl

No, we haven’t been splashing out on fancy jewellery.  Ellie and I went to a pet shop on Saturday to buy some bird food, and ended up going back on Monday to buy some gerbils.  A little spontaneous, perhaps, but definitely worth it.  Expensive too, given that we had to buy everything in one go, but they’re apparently very cheap to keep after that.  We’ve got a fantastic cage, with a plastic bottom which gives them plenty of room to dig around in the bottom without sending sawdust flying out into the lounge, and a barred cage on top giving them two further levels to explore.  They’re so much fun!  And very cute, too.  I really must take some photos of the girls soon.  They’ve settled in really well already, and we’re beginning to introduce our hands to them and encouraging them out so they can play.  All good fun.

I have not forgotten you

Leading worship is one of my many passions, as my friends and family will know.  I’ve been a keen musician for years, and it’s been a natural progression from there to leading worship.  I led worship at the CU, I led worship at the Anglican Chaplaincy, I led worship at Orchard Baptist Church.  Pretty much everywhere I went, that was my focus, my responsibility, my blessing to the Body of Christ.  Until I came to St Margaret’s, that is.  Apparently they have a policy of not letting anyone ‘new’ lead worship, at least until they’ve been observed and checked out for at least a year.  It’s been over six months now, and I was beginning to think that maybe God didn’t want me leading worship any more.  Then, within about a week, I had two requests to lead worship.  One was a Christian event organised by a friend from the CYFA camp Ellie I go to in the summer, which sadly I was unable to agree to since the event fell on the same weekend as my birthday.  The second I did agree to, though, and that was leading a short worship slot for the Lent Course on Tuesday evening.  It was only 10 minutes or so, so only three songs, but it was still the first time I had led worship at the church, and despite what Christians generally say I’m pretty sure they were all judging me.  The response was good though, which is reassuring – I’ve been learning to lean on God a lot recently, and it was so wonderful to be given the chance to serve again.  So it sounds like they might ask me to lead again.  God apparently does still want me leading worship after all.  So much for the year of waiting!

The Great Dawkins Takeover Bid

In addition to being told that I wouldn’t be asked to lead worship for at least a year, when Ellie and I first started coming to St Margaret’s the vicar was quite insistent that we wouldn’t be asked to do anything in the church at all in the first year of our marriage, telling us to focus on our marriage first.  As we expected, and as I think our vicar is beginning to understand now too, that was never going to happen.  Ellie and I are both the sort of people who like to be active in the church community, always happy to be doing things.  Very soon after joining the congregation Ellie found herself leading one of the youth groups, and I quickly got myself into the worship band playing guitar and bass.  Ellie also does sidesman every now and then, and we’ve also done teas and coffees after the service.  Ellie has been asked to work the projector in a few weeks’ time, I’m down to MC an evening service next month, and both of us are on the rota to preach in the near future.  We’re not complaining, it’s what we love doing, but it just seems funny how little of the church is left for us to get involved in!  Not bad for being at the church for almost seven months.

Birthday part 2

Remember I said that Ellie’s present to me was delayed by the post?  Apparently that was a rouse.  The postal service wasn’t involved at all.  Ellie wasn’t going to work yesterday at all, despite what she’d said.  About lunchtime yesterday I got a text message informing me of the treasure trail she had planned, and told me where to find the first clue.  In the middle of a book in our bookcase I found the first clue and some instructions, and before I knew it I was hopping on a train to London with no idea where I was going or what I was going to do when I got there.  Once I got to London I followed a set of cryptic clues, sent by text message, which led me from one location to another on a route from Westminster tube station, along a whole load of roads I’ve never been down, through China Town, and eventually found my wife at the end of the trail, who took me round a corner and revealed my birthday present – there, a little way down the road, was the theatre showing Les Miserables.  It’s a show I’ve wanted to see for a while, and I really enjoyed it.  The treasure trail was superb though – a little random, but lots of fun.  I did feel a little conspicuous running through London looking all around for random objects, then stopping and texting on my phone, and then waiting for the next clue to come back before setting off again.  It was like being a secret agent, following some obscure set of clues.  Les Mis was superb – very sad, but very good.  Especially given the main part was being played by the understudy that night.  I won’t give the story away for those of you who haven’t seen it, but I would encourage you to go and see it if you’ve not already – some fantastic music, a very dense plot, some heart-rending moments, some funny bits, and quite a powerful resolution.

So thank you, Ellie, for a wonderful birthday present.  Suitably random.