We live in uncertain times and freelancers and small businesses are looking where to save costs, especially when cloud services can add up eating profits.
In my role as digital consultant, I have recently come across more and more clients asking me for alternatives to Microsoft Office 365, Google apps, Slack and Zoom that won’t cost much or even anything at all. Here are my recommendations for your consideration.
Caveat emptor
Running some of the options mentioned below will mean they need a place to live. Which in turn means you need to be comfortable with running a server yourself to host…
Our plan to build a single computer for all our needs, including Windows 10 gaming PCs running as KVM virtualised guests on Linux.
Four desktops, four laptops and three ipads. That’s for two kids (7 & 9) and one adult. Quite a lot of computing power and that’s not even including the servers and Raspberry Pi. Or the router. And wifi access point. And NAS.
So, there’s lot of tech in my house and when we are looking to ‘downsize’ for life in a tiny house, we need something… fit for purpose?
Meet Axel, the ‘turbulent advocate’ according to 16 Personalities! Does this test do me justice? How accurate are these things anyway?
In an effort to find out more about myself I have followed a friends’ advice and taken one of the many personality tests online. I don’t know about you but I always struggle to find a way to complete these things properly. …
Work to pay a mortgage and buy shiny things while doing a job you loathe or spend time with loved ones, living a happier life while saving the planet?
The alarm rings at its usual time. My tired eyes strain to make out the shape of the rectangular room. It is 6.45am and my body has been busy reminding me for 45 minutes that it wanted relieve.
While I crawl out of bed to start the normal routine and gently wake up my kids, I wonder what terrors lie ahead for me today.
School runs, planning, meetings, emails, more meetings…
This post serves as a bit of a mental note, hence the brevity. I know this is a hotly contested topic, so I’ll keep it nice and to the point: here’s my quick guide on how to optimising Wordpress (caveat emptor — your mileage may vary).
Goals
- Serve Wordpress pages as quickly as possible
- Keep things simple and easy to manage
- Don’t pay for plug-ins — pay for quality
Measuring success
- I use GT Metrix to measure and compare results
- Other tools, especially Chrome’s build-in Lighthouse, are available and may provide “better” insights but are harder to share.
Plugins
- General optimisation: Autoptimize
- Takes care…
Following on from my recent thoughts on using social media less and generally ‘detoxing’ my mind by reducing the time I spend on staring at my fondleslap, I have some good news to impart.
And for my next number I like to return to the classics
I can’t help but being inspired by people making brave choices and taking a more challenging route through life, which holds more rewards. Especially when they are just 17.5 years old (at time of writing). I just read Corey Simon’s article on what happened when he deleted his social media and come away convinced that I have been wrong.
Wrong about having the latest iPhone, because I don’t need to be connected and take pictures of my kids all the time, while looking cool with the latest fondleslap in my pocket.
Wrong to be posting rants and raves into the…
Actually, that’s misleading and I apologise. I knew that I wanted to drive an electric vehicle (EV) since I first spotted the BMW i3.
Fiverr.com is probably the centre-ground of the online gig economy, like Uber IRL, it provides a market place and platform for budding freelancers. Services you can get for more or less than $5 are ranging from advertising on body parts to Zumba workouts and everything in between. So why would somebody with a full-time job post a gig on fiverr.com?
Because I fancied trying it out. There are many things people — friends or clients — ask me for and this platform should make it easy to tap into a potentially much larger audience. …
Axel Segebrecht
A braver take on digital life. All views are my own.
