Jun 19, 2008 | Work
I’ve posted this before, but we are really having no luck with finding suitable candidates at the moment, so I’m trying again …
I’m looking for a Junior Web Designer/Developer (possibly two).
Ideally, I would like to hire someone with no experience, someone who’s entirely green and looking to break into the industry.
I need someone who can design and who has an understanding of web technology and even better, someone who can design and code AND has their head around SEO.
This is an entry level position and starts as a 3 month contract with the possibility of permanent employment after that.
If you’re interested, please go to our listing on Bizcommunity.com for more info.
To clarify, when I say “no experience”, I mean no commercial experience in the industry. You should know HTML/CSS basics and would possibly (ideally) have built something for your own online portfolio. Also, the mention of JavaScript and SEO understanding is there as a nice-to-have, not a prerequisite.
I realise that this may look like a tall order for someone with no experience, but please don’t let that put you off! We all need to start somewhere and I am not looking for someone who already “knows it all”; I am looking for passion, talent and potential.
Jun 17, 2008 | Work
I’m a busy lady. Between running my business from home, employing 5 people, co-ordinating with contractors, trying to keep up with new technologies, managing projects, raising 2 teenage boys, looking after the house and trying to squeeze in an hour or two of leisure time each week, I am completely swamped!
Sometimes I wish I could clone myself …
Anyway, I can’t actually carry on like this or I’m going to burn out again.
I REALLY don’t want to let stress immobilize me again so I need to make some changes in my schedule in order to free up more time for myself.
At the moment, one of the most important things I have to do on the work-front is catch up on new technologies. For various personal reasons, I have managed to fall behind in this area. I am probably about 2 years behind the game, which in terms of the fast-paced web industry, is a lifetime. So, what I absolutely HAVE to do is spend a decent amount of time researching stuff that I am not yet totally familiar with and train myself to the point where I am comfortable in applying new technology and confident that I can successfully implement it on both my own and Clients’ websites.
This is critical for me – my business is my lifeline. I rely on it 100% to earn a living and if I’m not on top of my game, like I was a few years ago, I am going whither and die! Getting stuck in old technology is seriously a death wish for any web company.
In order to do this, I have decided to only work a 4-day week. I got this idea from a post by Christopher Mills on his (very cool) iMod site, where he puts forward the concept of allowing web developers to only work for 4 days of the week: Hiring PHP developers outside the box. Ok, he writes in the context of securing a much sought-after PHP developer and providing a great incentive … that’s not what I’m thinking (obviously) … but what I am thinking is that if I can reach my work goals in 4 days (which is totally possible), then I can devote one day per week to training myself.
It would work for me. Because I work from home, I have lots of additional distractions that eat into my day so if I can setup a structured time to do my training during the hours that the kids are at school, and let my team know that I am NOT to be disturbed during that time, then I can do it. I can start making some decent progress instead of trying to fit in a few minutes here and there, which is definitely NOT working for me. I feel like I’m getting no-where fast. And feeling stuck really sucks, it’s not good for me in any way.
So, that’s my plan! It’s at times like this that I am SO glad I don’t work for anyone else =)
And with that, I now have to run off and fetch Son#2 from school …. Later.
“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all!” —Michelangelo
Jun 11, 2008 | WordPress, Work
You know you’re a web junkie when the first thing you do after opening your eyes in the morning is reach out for your phone to get online … even before you light your first smoke for the day.
So I smack my alarm clock on the head at 6.40am and immediately grab my phone so I can log in to my Twitter account to quickly check out who’s around and what’s happening before I have to stumble down to the kitchen to make the boys’ school lunches.
And there is a tweet by Rafiq (Web AddiCT and MXit man who has, just by the by, been up since like 4am this morning … oh, to be a spring chicken again!), a tweet that gets my brain ticking and reminds me that I have a oh-so-much to learn. He quite simply states: Trackbacks are super.
Hmmm …
Now I’ve seen bloggers post trackbacks on their sites before, but I haven’t really paid much attention to them. Perhaps I should … I don’t really know what they are except that I’m supposed to use them to link back to a post (?) I’m not sure why though. Surely it doesn’t make SEO sense to do this? Do all WordPress themes support this? How do I implement it on my site? Should I even bother? Questions, questions and more questions.
I need to find some answers, dig around and get to the bottom of the trackback issue …
So that’s my new mission. That, and trying to figure out how to dress for this really shitty Cape Town weather without looking like a complete frump!
If anyone has any useful info to pass my way (about trackbacks, not winter fashion), please let me have it!
Hope you all have a good one …
(Why White Wednesday? Dunno, it’s just a reference to the color I’ve always associated with this particular day of the week… yesterday was aqua, tomorrow is purple-grey …)
May 27, 2008 | WordPress, Work
OMG! I’ve just had a brainwave!!
My previous post had me rambling on about looking for a new WordPress theme, my plans to teach myself how to create my own themes in the future, how it could benefit my Clients businesses, blah blah blah …
I’m such an idiot! What about MY business??
There’s a large part of my business that would benefit enormously from having a blog attached to it! It could easily be used to keep our audience informed of new developments, it would provide additional exposure for our existing Clients, it would help encourage potential new Clients to climb on board with us, it would allow us to branch into other, related avenues of the business AND we could generate additional revenue through advertising.
Why on earth didn’t I think of this earlier? Somebody slap me please …
OK, in my own defence, I have been horribly out of the whole web loop for a while. Jeeesh …. things have progressed so much and so quickly. ACK! It’s all rather frightening. I won’t go into any gory personal details here and now, but let’s just say that I let things slide for a while and now I have a LOT of catching up to do to get back on top of things.
