hackbash

Not far into September I went fully freelance. I’d been trying to pluck up the courage for ages.

Although I went part-time in March, I was still missing deadlines, and still working too many weekend days. That either meant I was over-committed, or just plain shit at managing my time.

So deciding to quit and do nothing other than work under my own management was scary.

Self-organisational skills aside, there’s a surprising number of unknowns when you take the leap:

- Will friends come through on promises to pass work my way?
- How much time should I schedule for each job?
- How many jobs will it take to see me through the month?
- If I’m charging for my time, how much is it worth?
- How many days do I set aside for contingency, planning and admin?

It’s gone surprisingly well so far. Here’s what I’ve found:

- Yes. Without fail. Thanks.
- Be conservative.
- Do the sums. Don’t forget to save money for tax.
- Pick what you can earn on a good day of being paid by the word.
- A day a week seems wise.

I’m wary of giving out freelance advice because, as mentioned above, I suspect I might be a bit shit.

That said, if I’m late with copy now I’ve got no-one else to blame. I’d better start listening to myself.

This is my favourite of all Microsoft continuity announcements.

You may not have noticed it; it’s normally only displayed momentarily on the status bar.

However, if you have a printer that’s slow to respond you’ll often have time to read it and reflect on its irony – hell, even make a cup of tea – while Word prepares not to intrude.

Tags: continuity, rant, Word

This is great; an error message from Google (in US English) telling me it couldn’t provide content in my language (UK English).

I’ve whinged about regional settings before, but it turns out I’m bilingual. Who knew?

Tags: American, English, Google, language, UK, us

…the first assignment of a crack police comedy squad ends in tragedy

Tags: comedy, police, seige

I thought I’d take a moment to share this story from the Mail – apparently it isn’t from 1974.

Susanna Reid had to stand in for Andrew Marr after he was late arriving for the paper review part of his weekend show. I guess that’s vaguely interesting to those with an interest in politics or media, or anyone who’s a fan of Reid. How did she do?

The 39-year-old host was wearing a chic dress, just the kind of outfit that has helped her to acquire an army of fans during her time on the BBC

Great, but, er, why was Marr late?

On BBC Breakfast News on Sunday Susanna is usually behind a table – so, to see rather more of her was no doubt be a treat [sic] for her fans

No, but, surely as an experienced presenter there was a difference in the programme’s style? At the very least there’s a weak Marr/Reid coalition joke to be had, no?

Susanna’s internet fans think she is the sexiest presenter on the BBC and regularly post up videos of her wearing short skirts or unintentionally flashing her bra through her blouse on air.

So we learn that Reid has many fans, all of whom she’s won because she has tits and legs.

How does the BBC work? I don’t know if a 15-year-plus veteran such as Reid – who has a degree in politics, philosophy and law, which she followed with a postgrad diploma in broadcast journalism – gets any bonus for standing in, but I do hope she spends it on something pretty.

Tags: Andrew Marr, Daily Mail, sexism, Susanna Reid

Tags: infographic

(from BBC News)

Tags: chancellor, economics, George Osborne, Mervyn King

The election’s over and we’re in for a hung parliament. It looks like we may get a Tory/Lib Dem coalition. It’s probably not a great result for anyone, but there is a chance it could deliver electoral reform.

Did you vote? How do you feel about the result and its potential implications? Please complete our short electoral reform survey so we can work out how different things might have looked under PR, and whether there’s a case for electoral reform.

Tags: election, electoral reform, proportional representation, survey, UK, vote

What it is about me and marginal constituencies? Between elections I’ve moved from Guildford (Con majority 347) to Hove (Lab majority 420).

Back in Guildford it was an easy choice. In 2005 the incumbent MP was Sue Doughty; a Lib Dem who I’d voted for in 2001 and whose policies strongly reflected my beliefs – particularly in her opposition to the war in Iraq. She lost to shadow health minister Anne Milton, whose chief distinctions are to vote against gay rights and yet look like Julian Clary.

In Hove it’s a two-horse race between Tory Mike Weatherley and Labour MP Celia Barlow.

Stonewall research shows that Celia has a great voting record on lesbian, gay and bisexual equality issues, but a look at her entry on They Work For You reveals an MP who has also never voted against the Labour whip.

This means that Celia:

-Voted moderately against laws to stop climate change.
-Voted very strongly for allowing ministers to intervene in inquests.
-Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.
-Voted very strongly for Labour’s anti-terrorism laws.
-Voted very strongly for replacing Trident.
-Voted very strongly for introducing ID cards.

So why would I vote tomorrow for a Labour candidate with whom I utterly disagree on some of the most important issues of the day?

I’m not sure that I can, but our electoral system is fucked: the alternative may be seeing the Conservatives come back into power – and knowing that I’m one of the few thousand people in perhaps 20 constituencies who could have done something to stop it.

GRAPHICS: both from BBC News

Tags: Anne Milton, Celia Barlow, election, Guildford, Hove, Julian Clary, Paul Elgood, Sue Doughty

I’m aware I’ve posted a lot about Word lately, but since buying the new netbook I’ve been determined to knuckle under and really try to work with Microsoft’s software rather than just bleating about it. It’s been wild.

I’ve discovered what many of you will know: Internet Explorer is beyond rescue, Windows 7 is fine after a bit of tweaking and – a surprise to me at least – Word can be quite good if you can be bothered to change the behaviours that annoy you*.

The remaining one on my list was Word’s default behaviour when pasting text you’ve copied from another source – it tries to preserve the formatting, which normally means the wrong font and point size for your document, and often the wrong alignment.

You can paste text-only on a case-by-case basis by choosing Paste Special from the Paste menu of the Home ribbon. You can also customise the Quick Access Toolbar as I’ve done on the right, to include a Paste Special shortcut (and one for Word Count, in my case). Do this by dropping down the little black arrow thing you see to the right of it.

But try as I might, I can’t think when I’d actually want the default behaviour of preserving the source formatting, and it’s easy to change it:

-Click Word’s nameless round button
-At the bottom of the menu that appears click Word Options
-Click Advanced in the left-hand pane
-Under Cut, copy, and paste (Bonus points are available here for not giving a fuck about the Oxford comma), drop down the box next to Pasting from other programs, and change it to Keep Text Only
-Click OK to save the change

*For the record, Scott Lawson has pointed this out on multiple occasions and I chose cheap insults rather than to listen to him. What can I say? Some people just won’t be told.

Tags: formatting, Oxford comma, paste, Word 2007