I’ve spent the afternoon drawing digital artwork for use as background for powerpoint slides. It’s good to have such diverse skills and experience.

It’s opening my eyes to the skills I hold, and the huge breadth of knowledge expected of a modern web developer though. You’re expected to know not only how to wrangle HTML, but also client and server side code, design databases, and now draw digital artwork from scratch.

A few years ago each discipline would have been handled by one person or team - now (as a freelancer) you are expected to be good at all of it… or at least you expect yourself to be if you are me.

Following me breaking my backside for the last few weeks doing a day job and freelance work, a few of the projects have started to pay off - with money arriving into our second bank account. The idea of channeling “extra” money elsewhere is to stop it getting swallowed up paying for swimming lessons, ballet lessons, groceries, household cleaning supplies, and god knows what else.

When I walked in from work the night before last from London, and met my other half who was fighting with three uncooperative children who had been pressing her buttons all day, I fetched the second bank account card.

“Here. We split the contents of the account fifty fifty. Go spend half of it on yourself.”

I went upstairs to get changed. By the time I came back down, a clothes store was on the computer monitor in the study, and several items of rather lovely clothing were already in a shopping basket. Somebody was stirring something on the cooker, and looking 1000% happier than she had been.

Money doesn’t solve everything, but is sure works well as a sticking plaster sometimes. Especially when you’re not earning any more, and feel guilty about spending anything out of the bank account on yourself… despite it being a joint account, and despite me repeatedly telling her not to worry.

I have no clue how much we have in the bank - I just go out to work. I tend to leave well alone, seeing as I’m married to a qualified chartered accountant.

I’ve not spent my half yet. I’m resisting the temptation to buy an iPod Nano. I need new work shoes, but that seems far too sensible. I also need new clothes. The XBox 360 just got dropped in price too.

Decisions, decisions. What would you spend it on?

Continuing with the line of thought that I should farm out anything that I can to external services - allowing me to concentrate on only that which is important, I ordered a set of Moo mini-cards a few days ago to assist in my freelance activities.

I’ve bought mini-cards before (for myself), but have never bothered with their card holders before. The design is such that you can open it, and get a card out one handed. Pretty clever stuff.

I’ve recently had several people asking me to help them build websites. Given that it’s kind of “what I do”, and that my employer only pricks their ears up if numbers far in excess of those being suggested are mentioned, I am probably pretty safe earning a few beans here and there.

It opens another can of worms with HR at work though - who take an interest in the amount of work we are doing. They (quite rightly) see freelance work in the same light as our normal professional work, and worry that spending time and energy with computers away from the office will impact our performance within it. Where that understanding falls down of course is in the realisation that computers and the internet are my life.

I spent on average 12 hours each day in front of one screen or another. 7 of those hours are working. The remainder are spent variously surfing, learning, absorbing, playing and communicating. Without those hours I would have nothing like the knowledge I have of HTML, Javascript, CSS, and a raft of other technologies and products. Attaining that knowledge through more conventional channels would take perhaps a day out of each week, and would cost tens of thousands per year in training costs.

So. I’m going to start doing some freelance work. It therefore made sense that I have some kind of base on the internet to market myself…

Beckett Web Design burst into existence during coffee breaks today. It’s amazing what you can do in a couple of hours given a little know-how, a little knowledge, and a few ideas.

I am also looking at SugarCRM as a centralised client relationship management solution that I can use going forwards. I have used Basecamp in the past, but it annoyed the hell out of me. I heard about SugarCRM while listening to one of Leo Laporte’s TWiT podcasts.

Although I haven’t advertised the fact yet on the site, I’m guessing the advantage I have over most web design bods is that I can write code… invent databases… that kind of thing. I can also make websites look pretty too - which apparently is quite rare - to have both skills.

So! If you want a website built, fiddled with, altered, changed, designed, or otherwise monkeyed with, feel free to get in touch - you can even send an email to my shiny new address - jonathan@beckettwebdesign.com.