Don’t call it a comeback

Three years ago I stopped blogging and I haven’t written anything outside of Twitter or Facebook since. Three years ago I had just published my first book and had announced that 2010 would be the ‘year of freelance’ after leaving my previous employer who had taught me to hate the web. I got to the point where I…

An easier way to respond to equity based web development requests

I recently received (another) equity based request for my services. We all get them from time to time, some more than others. This one was based around (reluctantly) giving away a small piece of equity in an idea in exchange for developing it all for free. Not something i’m very fond of doing unless I…

Magento: Beginner’s Guide, a solid introduction to managing Magento stores

Often enough when you’re a Magento developer you can find yourself in a position where by a client is overwhelmed with options. They don’t know where to click, what all the fields are or mean and simply don’t know where to start. Typically with Magento training I have to provide around a week of my…

“Because it’s what the client wants”

This is likely the most often used excuse for giving the client something you don’t want to give them. To give them something that in your best opinion isn’t what they want at all. As developers, or people in the profession of giving people websites of quality (and I say that because some companies couldn’t…

Prioritising development

Developers when young in their career are keen to impress. The words “I’ll get on it straight away” are often used and the client ends up being impressed as a result. This works very well and everyone ends up happy when the workload is kept low. The problem occurs when growth accelerates and the developer…