I’m no expert on the topic, but after having virtually neglecting my family life for many years and “losing the love I loved the most”, I feel that I can at least speak on the topic.

Freelancers

This is the way I am currently making my living.  I am 100% freelance and while making enough money to survive,  I hope to be more successful in the future to be able to fully support my family and have some savings when I get old.

For freelancers, the most important aspect of being able to delineate your time is to setup specific times to perform work and times for family.  Stick by it as “religiously” as possible. Things will come up occasionally “after hours”, but make sure your significant other understands that fact and make sure (100%) that he/she is OK with these occasions.

Since I unfortunately don’t have many day-to-day familial responsibilities as I used to, most of my work is performed in the afternoon and late at night. I usually sleep from 5-6am to 12-1pm.  I get my work done and still have time in the early evening to visit my wife, daughters, family and participate in social activities.

If married, getting your work done during normal business hours is key. Have a dedicated office space to stay “in the zone” or if possible, rent a low space office outside the home so you can separate your work by location.

Fulltime + sidework

This was the way I operated for many years before and after I was married and had children.  I worked for many corporations, contractors and agencies and still had a “side job” hosting websites for friends, family and numerous clients.  Before I streamlined my hosting operations, it was consuming MANY evenings, sometimes days of my time when problems arose.

The actual design work wasn’t too time consuming, but the fact that I was on call virtually 24/7 could overshadow a vacation when the phone rang or during a holiday when it was hard to assist clients.  Laptops started going with me on vacation, to visit family and virtually anytime I was away from home.  Sometimes I even had to “clock out” of my day job to serve my personal clients.

Managers

I know many people who are in management, from team leads to program managers and VP/CEO’s of companies.  Some of them are able to balance their lives well, but many others are hopelessly attached to their Blackberries or work laptops, checking and responding to email at all hours of the night, while still being at work before anyone else.  Some are “heroes” to their families, some have had their life crumble before their eyes.

The managers that are usually the worse offenders are  younger ones (25-45) who feel like the HAVE to work unlimited hours for “the company” so they don’t lose favor in the eyes of their superiors.  In extreme emergencies, I agree they should respond, but for normal daily operations, disconnect and enjoy life a little.  There’s always tomorrow and most likely nothing major is going to change from 7pm to 7am.

Conclusion

I’ve made many mistakes in the past, many mentioned above, and am doing my best so they never happen again.  My hosting operations are solid and streamlined.  I rarely have problems with that unless it’s an upstream provider.  I’ll send out one email to the affected parties and just wait for service to return. Design work can be scheduled appropriately.  As long as my clients don’t expect a full website whipped out in 24 hours, I am able to schedule and get them done in a reasonable timeframe.  Prioritize your work based on income, urgency, etc. and you shouldn’t run into many problems.

Full, honest and open 2-way communications is KEY in a relationship. Whether or not you have children, your significant other still needs to know that you are giving him/her adequate time without “pining” to be back on the PC.  Offer as much time as possible outside of work obligations.  Make a plan, understand his/her needs, keep a normal schedule… Don’t be creeping into bed at 2am, disturbing their sleep.  Be sure to make the time you spend quality time. Not just sitting around watching TV.  Make dinner, go for a walk, go to the movies, visit extended family, find a mutual hobby, etc.  Turn off the phone or silence it.  Stay away from computers.

Losing one impatient client is better than losing your family.

I feel that with the “death” of the XServe Server and the uncertain future of Mac OS X Server OS, Apple should delve into offering hosted services to pull in entities who are now scattered among numerous other services such as Google Apps for Domains, commercial hosting, and numerous other third party hosted or self hosted apps, which require a lot of maintenance, multiple accounts, billing, etc.  Many of my IT associates who have switched to Apple laptops and desktops have commented to me that they hate still having to use non-apple apps to complete their daily business.

For example, the MobileMe interface already is an attractive and functional interface for email, contacts, calendar, iDisk, Photos and location services.  How much harder would it be to allow a company to signup and fully attach their own domain to the MobileMe framework.  Perhaps even create a separate enhanced version of MobileMe in their [Apple's] newest “cloud” datacenter in North Carolina and, over time, have an ‘a la carte’ offering of additional new services that users need/request.  Maybe even allow developers to write custom Apps that can be cleanly integrated into the web interface and a matching app for the iOS device(s).

Keep the price reasonable, no more than $1-2/mo per user, which would be very attractive for small businesses, special pricing for larger corporations and perhaps discounts when Apple devices are purchased and attached to an account.  Perhaps 1 year for free when any iOS device is purchased to draw users in.

The advantages of this would be numerous, it would give small businesses and organizations a unified and complete “Apple Branded Experience” on their Mac PCs, iPhones, iPads, etc.  Almost everyone I know has a Mac device of some kind and many would prefer to use their own domain.  Apple does offer the capability of attaching a domain to your MobileMe webspace, but that does not extend to customization of the other services.

Also, with minor modifications to the existing MobileMe framework, it would bring a whole new potential residual revenue stream that millions of users could utilize.  It may also spur additional companies and users to buy Apple hardware knowing that all these services are so well intergrated. Adding similar features as Google Apps for Domains and improving upon them would make it a very attractive alternative.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do use and am VERY happy with Google Apps for Domains, but it would be nice to have some competition from another major player to keep things interesting.  Google does accomplish a lot of what I’ve stated in this email, but it’s not as “pretty”, well integrated and cost effective for those with many needs.

Perhaps Apple could even purchase a VoIP company and add that to their portfolio of services.  With an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and an old Mac Mini, it would be nice to get deep integration of all my communications needs while not being forced onto the @me.com domain.

I guess only time will tell how far Apple is willing to ascend into the cloud.

Square Card Reader in iPhone 4

Guess I’m a little late jumping on the bandwagon, but this past week I discovered Square. Square is a, in my opinion, revolutionary way to accept credit cards, whether it be within a company’s location or anyone who is constantly on the go.

It is very easy to signup and really the only thing to do is verify your bank account, so Square can direct deposit the funds you charge and the waiting time for the reader itself. I only signed up this past week, so I’m still waiting on my reader. Once it comes in, it looks as if it’s compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch, iPod and some Android devices. Just plug it into the headphone jack, open the app and swipe away.

When you swipe a card with the Square reader, the fee is only 2.75% which is quite excellent. Manually entering the card is 3.5% + 15¢, which is bit higher, but still not bad for the convenience it provides. I went ahead and manually entered a test charge from one of my cards and it went right into my account, minus the transaction fee. So even with the higher charge, $20 came out to $19.15.

A photographer friend of mine uses Square and it increased his revenue quickly. An IT associate uses “Square Up” with his clients onsite and does not have to worry about monthly invoicing paperwork and running to the bank to deposit paper checks. You don’t even have to be a “business” to utilize this, even individuals can use it. Square can be very helpful for anything from flea market selling to adding a convenient payment option for garage sales. Heck, you could even sit outside at your kid’s lemonade stand and use it for the “larger” transactions.

I plan on primarily using this “app” when I do work onsite for clients or over the phone if credit cards are the best option for them. I may add a slight surcharge if it’s done manually. But I think with the convenience it provides, it’ll definitely help increase my revenue stream.

Linode has turned out to be the best VPS provider I’ve ever used and it as of yesterday (6/16/10), they upgraded all VPS’ memory by ~42%.  All I have to say is Wow.  Since I’ve been with them, they have upgraded HDD space, which is also nice, but not something I really needed.  RAM is a different story, that is very important for VPS customers.  That much more memory means a LOT and really makes the entry level 512 servers (for only $19.95) much more useful without breaking the bank.

I currently have 5 512MB Linodes (upgraded from 360) and one 768 (upgraded from 512).  I should now be able to do much more with these servers now and offer more scalability to my customers who are paying for their own servers.

Linode, in my opinion, destroys the competition and always seems to be ahead of the gang of “peer” VPS providers like Slicehost, Rackspace Cloud Servers, VPS.net and others.  They may not have the “prettiest” or most user friendly control panel, but they offer a level of flexibility unrivaled by others.

Last week, Congress appropriated 15 billion to help Amtrak “steam forward” (sorry! ) into the the future.

In a veto-proof 311-104 vote last week that mimics a Senate decision late last year, the U.S. House wisely pumped $15 billion into the national rail system, allowing for capital improvements and providing operating funds for the heavily-subsidized service through fiscal year 2013.

While cross-country service will continue – Amtrak serves 500 destinations in 46 states – the House turned a switch and sent passenger rail service barrelling in new directions.

The bill provides about $500 million in each of the next five years for grants to allow states to contract with Amtrak to expand or establish rail service between cities. It also instructs the federal Department of Transportation to seek proposals from private firms to establish rapid rail service between New York City and Washington, the nation’s first foray into high-speed rail.

I’ve taken Amtrak in the past on various trips mostly from Ohio to DC or vice-versa on the Cardinal.  They have been fun and full of socializing with new people from all over the world (mostly while smoking in the smoking car, if they still exist).  From students to lawyers, hackers, rural commuters who were taking the train from Prince, WV to Manassas, VA to work construction, the people and their stories can be mesmerizing.  I even happened to run into a Shawnee “tribesmen” (who rolled us cigarettes when we ran out) who actually knew my old minister who married my wife and I.  Besides being a minister in Oxford, Ohio, he is also the story teller (AKA: Neeake) for the Shawnee Nation United Remnant Band. Small world!

In my few trips, Amtrak service was plagued by delays, mostly due to CSX and other freight lines that hit their crew’s time limit and had to stop, wherever they were, and bring in a new crew.  Sometimes these stops were made in the middle of the night on a single track with no secondary track nearby for them to “pull over”.  Sometimes the delays were up to 12 hours, but at least there was food (and self brought vodka and coke) to pass the time.  Even with the delays, there was plenty to do and we were able to move about the train and stretch, unlike the recent airline debacles this past winter.   Fortunately, I had no schedule to meet, but others did and problems like these turned a lot of people away from rail.

Hopefully this new federal funding will change this and allow infrastructure upgrades possible that will minimize or eliminate these massive delays and bring back the “good ol days” of passenger rail in the U.S.

To conclude, trains are an American past-time, a mode of transportation that made expansion across North America possible.  Most people these days don’t give trains their due when it comes to this “forgotten” piece of history.  Lets embrace this funding and encourage your elected officials not to let it die before it is fully realized.

PS – Gas prices aren’t getting any lower any time soon.

Original Article from quote above