Whilst I was at the Highland Fling conference yesterday (report and notes to come after Easter Break), this site had dropped the CSS and proudly showed off its naked code, part of CSS naked day.

Of course this can be done anytime, by disabling the stylesheets and images in modern browsers, or using the firefox web developer toolbar, but delegates at the conference were reminded by Brothercake that people in Australia can only get phone line that give maximum of 14.4bps connection, resulting in browsing the web with a text only browser.

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An exciting move for me, and a natural progression for most freelancers is to get a office for their business.

I have moved into the bustling North Laine area of Brighton. I have a second floor office on the corner of Jew Steet and Church Street. And no, it isn’t a shared workspace community.

I been in there 3 days and it’s a bit like moving house, you have to live and work there a while to get a feel for how you want everything around you. Of course, i’ve bought the obligatory Ikea office bits, a nice lamp and have room for my macbook and windows laptop.

The office has meeting facilities and room for my folding bike, its a really nice ‘next step’ in my freelance life.

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or “ethical ways of making your business or freelance life more eco-friendly” and save costs at the same time.

I thought I would compile a list, as the topic of ethical business has been in conversation recently with colleagues at the Brighton Farm and Vine Brighton.

I’m hoping my ideas will save you money, as well as making you become more aware of the resources you use, and the importance of our individual impact on our local and international ecosystems.

Here’s the list:

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Having to travel on trains quite regularly in the UK, I always have to learn about the forever changing rules regarding bikes on trains.

I picked up a leaflet from the train station which you can download here > http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/passenger_services/cyclists.htm

It lists the many different rail companies here in the UK, with their many different rules for traveling with bicycles.

By far the most important part of this post is the details of organisations promoting bicycles on trains:

• Bike2Work
• Sustrans
• The National Body for Cyclists - CTC
• A to B Magazine

These are mostly charities that receive government and private funding for their projects. You can get involved with the events they have thru the year.

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The number of views on my flickr account reached 10,000 a few days ago. In less than 8 months.

The most popular images being Brighton scenes..

Here’s my most viewed image which is also my most commented image:

Photo Title: Brighton in Snow - from the ‘Brighton snow!’ photoset

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As you will see from my upcoming.org account, there’s a fine list of events this year I’m either attending or watching.

WebDD > Already attended. In my home town of Reading.

The Future of Web Apps

The second year for this event from Carson Summits. What looks like to be a fun filled business, news/media and technology 2 day conference. Some fantastic speakers, some of who I saw last year at @Media2006.

The Highland Fling

A first for the Scottish Web community - This inaugural Highland Fling conference will cover the topic of progressive enhancement. Two of Brighton’s own regular speakers, Jeremy Keith and Andy Budd address the the subjects of Ajax and CSS3 respectively.

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Looking back at 2006, it was a very busy year, some excellent projects that I was fortunate to be asked to contribute to.

Spanning two cities, Brighton and London I quickly developed a good idea about what each job required. News International, Ebay and Emap my clients, the work for which I was nominated for, for this award.

However, I was none the wiser until one morning in January I was notified that I was a finalist in the Xchangeteam Freelancer of the Year Awards. I was quietly excited, but was too busy to think any more of it.

It was only until I was travelling up on the train from Brighton to the London event, with my girlfriend, Fiona, that I started to wonder how far I’d go. I was up against 150 other freelancers, obviously some other very established freelancers based in London.

This was a National contest with expert judges looking at our skills in relation to adding value to business as well as contributing to the freelance movement.

I must say meeting some friendly faces helped to calm my nerves, but no sooner had we arrived than the award ceremony started.

Each category winner receiving their award, to a rapturous applause. Then next was the New Media /Digital category, for which I was nominated. The description of the winner sounded familiar, and then my name was announced.

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