Following a successful evening spent with fellow geeks at the ‘Geek (insert drink name here) Thing‘ at Brunswick Square, I wanted to provide a follow up with tasting notes and further links to encourage you to research Cider in your own time, and who knows it may even become one of your favourite hobbies too!

The actual event started off by eating apples..

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One of my aims this year was to write more articles for external sites and magazines.

So here are the comments and insights into freelancing that I have provided FreelanceUK, from the interview questions they asked.

Two articles based on my feedback have been published.

Freelancing Blues? You’re not alone
http://www.freelanceuk.com/news/2505.shtml

Freelancers: we’d never work full-time again
http://www.freelanceuk.com/news/2510.shtml

Let me know your thoughts, I hope I can share my tips and knowledge I have learnt from new working practices and business techniques I have tried over the last few years.

I wanted to list a lot of bits I picked up on, this being my second visit back to India, and first time to Nepal. Hopefully they will make you smile as much as they did for me.

Indian Top Tips

• Don’t deny an Indian person doing their job, security and ticketing staff
• They are all there to provide a service, so make it a pleasure for them and yourself. Smile!
• Most taxi drivers will say that they know somewhere even if they don’t

Jai Indra Festival, Bhaktapur, Nepal

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The following excerpt is from Day 1 of my diary. I led a volunteer wildlife conservation project in partnership with BTCV and RCDP in Nepal over the last month.

I do these projects in different parts of the world once a year, its a fantastic way of meeting people from all walks of life.. Certainly more than just travelling the normal backpacker route:

The volunteers arrive slowly one by one from the Airport to the guest home in the Thamel area of Kathmandu..

Some dive straight into the local food, others enjoy the spirit of South Asia and get lost down all the winding lanes of the capital city. Shops, rickshaws and temples..

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SxSW is of course back for 2008, this time, rather than hearing from colleagues about just how good it was.. I am going!

If you are going you can book your hotel, and book your plane ticket now. Return flights from Gatwick to Texas start at the £300 mark.
Here are the dates:

• SXSW Interactive: Friday March 7 - Tuesday March 11
• SXSW Film: Friday March 7 - Saturday March 15
• SXSW Music: Wednesday March 12 - Sunday March 16

New for 2008: SXSW.mobi

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On average I get around ten New Client Enquiries a week, around 3/4 of the enquiries are from the contact page of my web site.

The number often depends on many factors, the time of year, what my availability shows on my site, and how strongly the client wants to work with me.

I often find, people who ‘generally’ have their act together call me to discuss their initial requirements.

Also other emails are a lot of link requests, and outsourcing to Asia as well which maybe of use to some virtual companies.

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Surprised that no geeks have mentioned the relationship between CSS:

1. the language used to describe how an HTML document should be formatted, and
   
2. the Band from Brazil (link to wikipedia)

Both with the same name.

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