It is the dawn of the 2009 working year. After spending a few days celebrating the new year, I spent the morning going through my inboxes, answering E-mail, and seeing what some bloggers out there have written over the past few days. In NetNewsWire, I discovered Goldfish, by Greg Storey. Greg suggests that in 2009, a year when many good designers, coders, and everything in between are losing their jobs, those of us who are fortunate enough to have more work than we can handle ourself should spread some of the wealth by hiring or sub-contracting to those who have lost their jobs.
In this new year, it is simply not going to be enough to just meet your bottom line, but to help others who may not be in a position to be so entrepreneurial or carefree.
There in the comments on Greg’s post, there are commenters who are having a rough time and commenters who are still doing well. To those having a rough time, reach out to those who are doing well, it is likely that they will have some work that needs doing.
I have work that needs doing, more than I can comfortably do myself. I do a lot of development in collaboration with designers and occasionally take the lead on various projects. If you are an (X)HTML/CSS, PHP, or Flash developer, give me a shout. If you are a designer, I may need your skills too, so you should also give me a shout. You can use the contact link on this page, (look up), or E-mail me at john at johnbeales dot com.
2009 has the potential to be the worst year ever, but it also has the potential to be the best year ever. Tough times lead to change and opportunity. Seize the opportunity.
Goodbye to the old Summer Fun theme!
After over two years it is time to say goodbye to the old “Summer Fun” theme.
This new theme has been created in my spare time over the past couple of months. It is designed to highlight what I post. The sidebar, footer, and metadata all fade away unless they’re moused over, there is lots of white space, and with the introduction of ClearType I have updated the fonts to be more like a printed book. The new theme also uses no images!
There will, of course, be some tweaks to be made over the next while as I get some feedback, but for now, enjoy!
A couple of weeks ago an article about hacked WordPress sites came up in my WordPress admin dashboard. I hadn’t been paying attention to all of the noise that was apparently going on about hacked blogs, but this article got my attention, and I read it. I learned a lot about how to see if my blog was hacked, but a lot of it consisted of searching for strings in all of my wordpress files, which would involve downloading them all to my computer. What a pain in the ass.
Well, that was two and a half weeks ago. Times have changed. Donncha has come out with the WordPress Exploit Scanner, (currently version 0.1). It does the work for you! Download it and check your wordpress blog. I did, (and I came up clean).
The time has come for me to expand the shop a bit, and I am looking for some help, so, I am looking for a few coders who want to work with me making ideas into websites.
I need people who are good at some or all of:
- LAMP development
- Standards-Based (X)HTML/CSS
- Javacripting/DOM Scripting (Including AJAX)
I am also looking for someone to help out with a tricky custom theme for a Drupal site. If you’re experienced with Drupal, please mention it in your E-mail.
Abilities in other technologies or languages may be an asset. If you are a younger developer looking to to learn or an experienced developer please apply!
You will work on both old-school websites for businesses and new-skool social networks.
You can be anywhere in the world. I don’t have an office, so you will be expected to work remotely. Working hours are flexible, so long as you get the job done and it works how it should I’ll be happy.
What I pay you will depend on what you do, (of course), and your skills and experience. Hours will fluctuate depending on the current workload, I can’t guarantee full-time hours, but there may be times when you have as much work as you want, (and maybe more, although I’ll try to get another person when that time comes).
To apply for a position send me an E-mail at john at johnbeales dot com with whatever info you think I will need to make a decision about you. I’m looking forward to lots of responses!
I have finally upgraded my copy of WordPress, and I took it all the way to the new version 2.5!
I’m looking forward to playing around with the new features, and maybe even a re-design. What I’ve seen so far looks great though. More will be published soon.