cfyves.com - Adventures in self-employment

New website - My adventures in learning to create income online

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:11:00 -0300

I'm pleased to have my new site online!

The last week and a half, I've been reading and thinking, reading and thinking... all about how I can try to create a second income online.

The point of this excercise isn't to get rich quick. The point isn't even to be "rich" in strickly financial terms.

The reason for this new website and this new journey is to experience something new. I enjoy doing research and I love trying new things. This is part of it. Of course, I do have a goal. And my goal is to try and generate a bit of revenu by doing something I love.

But there is also opportunity to learn, to face new challenges, to meet new people and to share what I find. Share useful information to anyone looking to do the same, share my successes, share my failures... share my experience!

This website will continu to be more "personal".

But my new website will be a blog about trying to create income online.

Join me and let me know what you think!

www.yvesarsenault.com/

Building a Wordpress blog part 2

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:21:00 -0300

Another aspect of putting together a Wordpress blog that I didn't mention in the last blog post is looking for a theme.

It wasn't mentioned in my last writing, but I've already spent a couple of hours looking through different websites and running some Google Searchs to find a theme that I would be fairly content with. I'll likely make some small modifications once I do find the one I'm gonna go with. And so far I believe I've found one that's a strong possibility.

(How about changing this blog's layout???? - I've been wanting to for a while)

;-)

What are my credentials for a theme? Well, I'm looking for something that's about the colour that I want.... a blue as the main colour although I'm still not %100 decided on the colour. Sometimes it helps to see a bunch of themes to help me "clear the path" to the ultimate decision.

Other then the colour, I've been searching for an SEO friendly theme and I've found a few sites that offer SEO friendly themes. I'm not looking for anything really flashy, but something that is easy to navigate and generally nice to look at.

Still enjoying the journey so far.

Building wordpress blog

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:41:00 -0300

As a followup to my last piece on building websites to generate income I thought I'd write a few words on where I've started.

So far I haven't created these sites. Not yet.

One site will require some programming, actually quite a bit of programming and I'm not sure I'm ready to spend the time doing that right away.

I've spent some time thinking about what I'm gonna write about (for those that I will be the main blogger). These are all subjects that interest me quite a bit and I think I will enjoy trying to research and write on these subjects. Plus, it gives me a chance to work on my writing skills which is a good thing for sure. There is motivation on my part for a variety of reasons.

While I've spent time thinking about the content or subjects, I've also had to spend time thinking about domain names. I find this particularly challenging in part because there are so many "domain name bootleggers" who've scrapped up many keyword rich domain names. But luckily I've found a couple and will likely brainstorm a bit more before I begin.

I've also already spent many hours finding blogs and websites that focus on some of these subjects.

Time already invested and I'm enjoying it so far.

Learning the ropes - building income generating websites

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:54:00 -0300

Lately I've been spending quite a bit of time on the internet. Well, I always do... but in the last week I've started to explore some websites that I've never really taken time and effort to discover.

What I've wanted to learn is different methods of building traffic driven websites. One of the goals in this would be to create another income stream.

But I also have been very skeptical of many website's that I've seen where someone is showing me "fool proof methods" to make oodles and oodles of money online. Some will even say that it's very easy and can happen really quickly.

I'm not a big believer in those kinds of messages as I feel they're really just giving people a "make money quick" scheme that likely even hasn't worked for them. Or, maybe it is working for them just because they're generating lots of traffic because of the (almost) empty message they're giving.

I've always been interested in building a few projects online and trying to build a revenu stream with them but was generally not to sure which way to turn.

In the last week I've spent some time looking for bloggers and online entrepreneurs who write about developping blogs and/or other types of websites that generate revenu.

What I've found this last week was quite refreshing. I've found some people who blog about creating money from affiliate programs and google adsense. These websites have been very beneficial to me in short term because I've learned something from them in a matter of hours... reading blog articles and also watching youtube videos (which were quite helpful).

These websites that I've found also have a much more sobering and real message. That it can be done. You can earn money online. But it's gonna take some hard work, some patience and it has to be something you're going to enjoy.

That's a much more realistic message in my opinion. So one of these projects is going to be a blog where I will be writing specifically about what I learn, what challenges I've found, what successes I have and generally what the experience is like.

Busy - The good and the bad

Wed, 13 May 2009 10:06:00 -0300

Been quite busy lately.

Workin' on a few projects. Writting lot's of ColdFusion which I love.

Even the getting up at 4 or 5 am to start work resulting in some fairly long workdays isn't so bad. But when I string several days like that together... a cranky man I may be. And did I mention tired?

Being a one man show, self-employed... being a one income home with family.... packs on some pressure.

I've been working on a project to build some residual income... but until that gets rolling it doesn't pay my groceries. I really like the potential this project brings and others have also thought that it's a great idea. But how to get "at it"??

That's part of the challenge.

Ah well.... coming into the summer months... I'm hopin' for some relaxing soon.

Peace!

Time tracking and the art of knowing time VS production

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:19:00 -0300

Not sure what's out there really. But I can tell you what I've used.. although I haven't ALWAYS used it.

Lately, since I've been self-employed again one thing that's quite evident is time management. And time VS production. How fast can you accomplish the tasks at hand?

I've seen some different project managers, I actually use one now to track tasks... although it doesn't really work as I would like. Since there is no time to build one... I use it. But when it comes to actually (and accurately) tracking the amount of time you're working on your tasks this project manager is not the tool.

A couple (or maybe a few) years ago, I bought a very small piece of software that does just that... as long as you're committed to using it of course.

This program is called AllNetic Working Time Tracker.

I got it from a download site like CNET or somewhere and used a trial version.... I got quite comfortable with it and bought a license for the full version.

This program has always worked well for me. Although I'll admit that I haven't used tools like this all the time... whereas I believe I should have. It would have certainly helped in time management and even in estimating projects (quotes).

I'm writing this blog post right now because I'm actually setting up some tasks in the Time Tracker tonight, for upcoming tasks which I will be charging an hourly rate. Personally I find this tool helps me to be a bit more comfortable because I know that I'll "know" exactly how much time it took to complete the tasks that I have to do.

Just thought I'd share.

Anyone use anything in particular?

What are you working on?

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:26:00 -0300

The last couple of weeks, after the christmas holidays, I went from finishing a bunch of stuff and getting a little bit "slacker" in terms of how much work I have... to now having work lined up for the next little while.

In the past 2 weeks I've had to upgrade software on a couple of servers... PHP, MySQL.. updates... I got to install and learn about APC for the first time.

I also got to work with Magento for the first time. Magento is an Ecommerce platform. Coded in PHP and using the Zend framework. This has prompted me to try to learn a bit more about PHP. Code it a bit more and I'm gonna learn "how it runs" just a tad more.

I've also got a project where I have to merge 2 existing ColdFusion apps... one using Model-Glue and the other a "home grown" kind of framework. These 2 apps then have to be merged into an existing intranet using another "home grown" framework.... user rights... etc.... should be a bit of a challenge in how it's supposed to work.

Then there's a couple of smaller ColdFusion projects.. which should be pretty straight forward.

And last but not least is something I've been trying to develop for quite some time... which I'm going to upgrade. A re-write. It's a ColdFusion app. The upgrade will use ColdBox or Model-Glue for the administrative section. Most likely keeping it's MySQL 5 DB in the backend.

Possibilities for a couple of things in near future too..... so, I will likely be busy.

Et vous??

First day : Adventures in self-employment

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:50:00 -0300

So.. today, as mentioned previously... is my first day into the realm of self-employment... well, first day full time in about 2.5 years.

Have I made a million bucks??

Come on man, not in my first day!! What r ya talkin' bout man???

I've spent some of my day organising myself, with dotProject as mentioned in the previous post, and also thinking about various areas that I want to focus..... started thinking a little bit about a marketing approach.

Marketing is something I've rarely ever done. And something that I'd have to say is so very important.

I'm really looking forward to the challenges ahead.

But today in fact, I guess I have picked up a couple of leads.

I had been contacted about a contract that should last several weeks and it appears as though this is gonna happen.

I've also picked up a small website to host.

So, after my first day, I've made progress!

I'm very excited about this. Last time around, I had no idea what I was doing.....

This time around, I feel much more comfortable.

It's important not to give up, and if there are things that you want to accomplish, you gotta try....

It's better to say "I gave it my best shot" then "I should've tried".
(That's what I think!)