Why Contracting?

I wrote on a forum some advice to a permanent member of staff considering the option of contracting.  The question was "How much experience do you need before you go contracting?".

My answer was fairly short, but I thought it was interesting enough to make into an article to share with you, especially in a time when contractors are getting a bad press.

I left university and after 18 months in two jobs, I went contracting.  Not consulting, contracting.  I was simply a developer assigned to a project to work on the Y2K project (remember that folks?).  I knew I was a good developer and had the confidence to leave the full-time security and branch out on my own.

Rule Number One as a contractor is to have the confidence in yourself to be able to step out and say "I can do this".  Confidence.  Simple.

The knowledge comes second.  This may surprise some people, but the reality is there is always an answer on the internet.  I remember my parents not being too happy about leaving the security of a full-time role and not knowing where I would be working, but I knew that I would be OK, I had the confidence.

I feel that knowledge must be backed up by qualifications.  People often undervalue qualifications, but the reality is that you are able to get a rounded education, the more you look into specific qualifications.  An example was while working within the Lotus Notes Arena, I was able to understand more of the theory and have a deeper understanding of the intricacies, over colleagues without the additional education and research.  My Father was a great believer in education and I am committed to this day to make sure I continue in his three-word mantra... "Education education education".  

Along with knowledge, a contractor is expected to make an impact to the team / project very soon after starting.  Often a day or two to show the processes / governance is all you are allowed before you actually start making progress on the task you have been taken on for.

Contractors get quite a bit of negative press and many full time employees often begrudge a contractor working along side them.  Usually the main reason is down to money.  This simple little thing makes many people jealous in all walks of life, but the issue between contractors vs permanent staff can often be very visible and difficult.

My reply for this is often the fact that we are actually paid more money that the usual member of staff, but we are only paid for the time we are working.  The eight standard bank holidays, sick pay and our annual holiday is not paid, neither are the extras such as Training and Qualifications (remember my paragraph above).  We do have other "perks" such as our subsistence and travel are paid before tax, we can pay ourselves in a way to minimise our tax, but we still have all the additional paperwork, research, accountants fees etc to make this happen.

Anyone can be a contractor.  You need to have the confidence, the knowledge, the qualifications and the self motivation to go out there and sell yourself. 

Is Android too risky for business?

I have both an Android phone and tablet.  I actually have the new ASUS Transformer Prime, which is incredible.  I like widget and the freedom to place anything on my phone.  There are thousands of Apps available in the new Google Play store. 

However, I attended a Bring Your Own Device event last week which discussed the security implications.  One main point that came across was how insecure Android is, for example there was recently an application for a touch (flash light for my friends in the US), which would maliciously send a text message for an extortionate rate.  McAfee were one of the presenters and showed a frightening slide that told us... 

57% of Android users have no security on their phone 
Only 5% have anti virus or anti malware 
19% have some form of encryption 
17% have a password, or keypad lock 

Do you backup?

I provide a solution to backup up to 5 computers automatically in the background.  You can access these files from anywhere - via the web, or even on your smart phone.  All your music, photos and files accessible anywhere, for just £25 per year.  

Empachal Backup is for personal and business use.  It will allow 5 machines to be backed up for only £25 per year, which is under $40 USD.

Imagine the heart ache of losing all your work, your family photos and your music collection. 

Data backup is very important today where everyone saves their important data in their computer or external hard drive. 5 years ago, or even 10 years back, people backup their data by copying the important files from one hard drive to another.

This no longer a common practice because in the world today, we have more and more software engineers which specialized in different niche. There are backup software which can help you to backup all your data securely and safely.

5 reasons to backup your files...

1. Security.  If you manually copy your files from one hard drive to another, someone can just open your backup copy and see your content.  Zipping all the files with password and you can start doing the maths now on how long you need to unzip them. Further more, is those password protection secure? Data backup software today uses strong encryption algorithm such as AES 256-bit where this algorithm is a military class security to protect your backup data.

2. Continuous Backup. If you back up once a week and your hard disk crashed on the 6th day, you are going to suffer 6 days data loss. That is what I don’t want and I am sure you don’t want as well. 6 days can be lots of data and what if you backup only once a month and your hard disk crashed on the 28th day? Can you live with 28 days data loss? This is another advantage of data back up software where it provides a continuous backup. It also automatically detects new files in your hard drive and back it up on the fly when you are using your computer. You will suffer a very minimum data loss unless you disable the backup feature.

3. Save space. Again, back to the zipping example, you are going to suffer the waiting time for your files to be decompressed. As a result, if you don’t compress your backup files, you are going to waste a lot of space due to data backup. This problem can also be solve with a backup software because it compressed your files as they back up. You might not save plenty of space due to this, but you are still saving space and even 5-6 GB can be a lot when you are in some emergency.

4. Smart Performance. When you copy files from one hard drive to another, sure you are going to suffer performance decrease.  As a result, you might just “Forget it, let’s do it some other time”. And I don’t have to repeat again what if you happened not to backup your data. So, data backup software today is smart enough. They know all these problems will exists and they are here to help us. Mostly, backup software will use the least resources to backup your data when your computer is busy and only maximize the backup resources when the computer is idle. All these actions are automated.

5. Scheduler. There is no point if you plan a great backup strategy but you forget to back up. As a result, backup software usually comes with a scheduler.  With Empachal Backup, you install a small piece of software on your machine and it will backup up all of your files immediately.  If you update a file, it will be automatically backed up immediately, without requiring any manual intervention from yourself.

Empachal Backup allows for unlimited backup (I have over 120GB) and will retain 30 versions of your files, so if you accidentally delete, or update your file, you can restore a previous copy from backup.

Be Smart. Backup.

Excel: Date to DOTW

Here is a quick tip / reference to how to calculate the day of the week from a date.

=CHOOSE(WEEKDAY(A1),"Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday")

A handy tip !

Visio Mind Map

Today I have been investigating how to communicate a mind full of notes to my project team.  Previous companies have allowed the use of mind mapping software, either in house or on-line.  My current client is a bank and limits the use of the internet and does not allow users to download software of use various web site, especially web applications.  We are a heavy user of the Microsoft Office suite (with the exception of email) and I am limited.   

I am planning to present my current thoughts on the project approach, initial architecture design and implementation phases to my management.  I was going to create a mind map in Powerpoint, but discovered that Visio has a mind mapping template.  I have successfully created two linked mind map pages within one Visio file, which is really useful.  this was achieved by using the double-click behaviour of the shape within Visio. 

I may break down my project onto separate pages within the single file, which is much easier than using my usual mind mapping software with many files.  Does anyone else use this approach? 

One question I do have.... Can you attach some text to a box within the mind map and then print all of the text out as a document, rather than a mind map?  That would be really useful. 

Here are some simplified instructions for those how would like to try. 

1.  Open Visio and from the menu select "File -> New -> Choose Drawing Type..." 
2.  (Using Visio2003) Select Category -> "Brainstorming" and Template -> "Brainstorming Diagram" 
3.  Drag a Main Topic into the centre of your page and rename the text caption 
4.  Make sure you have the "Brainstorming" tool bar and then start adding sub tasks by highlighting the Main Topic and then clicking on the "Sub task" button in the tool bar. 
5.  Continue to add sub tasks to the Main topic, or even to the Sub-Tasks to make a hierarchical mind map. 

Enjoy! 

Project Management newsfeed

I have used a site called Planet Lotus for many years, keeping up with all of the blog articles relating to Lotus Notes.  This site is a valuable tool in today's busy world as it provides a collection, in date/time order, of all of the blog entries created by people in the Lotus Community.  It is a fantastic resource.

I am moving more into the Project Management world, I was looking for a similar resource.  It does not exist.  I am now trying (for free) to get a PM Community together and a collection of feeds to provide for all.

Here is the link.

I'd appreciate a mention to your PM's and hopefully I can grow this into a similar useful community site, just like Planet Lotus.

Pastures New

It is now time to pack up my desk for the second time in the same year.  This is quite strange for me, even through I am a contractor.  Usually I will stay with a company for a year or more, meaning that I never pack up my desk more than once.  This contract was originally for three months, but has lasted six, with two additional extensions.

Yesterday I handed in my notice and have managed to persuade my client to release me tomorrow.  This means I can start my new contract on Monday, giving me eight days of work between now and the new year at the new client.  These eight days should be sufficient to get my feet under the table, understand the project(s) and to get an overall picture of the situation.

The new client is a Bank.  This will bring some increased awareness of risks, issues, overall communication and (of course) Red Tape.  I have already been warned that there will be many hoops to go through and paper work to complete to "get things done".  The upside of this, is that the design phase of all projects becomes a very important and extended phase, with the view that once the solution and plans are accepted, the project is set in stone.  As the Project Manager, it will then be my task (or head!) to make sure they stay on time, to plan and within budget.

I cannot wait.  Exciting times ahead...