toofishes.net

I've wrote about improvements to archweb, the Arch Linux main website code, a few times in the past. I thought I'd do another quick post since I just did a bit of a development sprint of my own on the code in order to do a few things with Django I hadn't done before and to implement some nice new features.

• Package groups support. Package groups not only show up on individual packages such as the gcc details page, but now have both an overview page and individual group pages such as base-devel for x86_64.
• Public developer todo list access. These were formerly tucked away in the developer-only side of the site, but now they are exposed for all to view. My good friend and former Archweb maintainer Dusty started the work on this, and I touched it up today to make the page show a lot more detail on the items.
• Package Differences by Architecture page. This has finally been implemented in the main website. For a long time, the differences page on archlinux.de was the only place to see this information. While not quite as full-featured as that page just yet, this is a good base that can easily be improved to strip out packages in [multilib], screen out minor versions (such as 1.1), etc.
• Client side table sorting using JS. Unfortunately the majority of the tables included by this change were on the developer side of the site, but many of the tables on the site are now completely sortable. The above mentioned todo list page is included as is the package differences page. The "largest" table in the site, package search results, does not have client-side sorting due to the pagination but it has always had clickable headers so this shouldn't be too big of a drawback.

There were many other small changes as well in the past few weeks:

• Maintainers are now shown by full name in the package search and inactive developers are excluded.
• Cleaned up the backend logic for generating SVN and bug tracker links to our various packages.
• Packages marked out of date with an update in [testing] will have text stating such fact.
• The last packager of a package is now included in the web interface (not just the maintainer).
• The mark out of date feature now stores the date a package was flagged; this is yet to be utilized but could easily be exposed in the future.

Enjoy the best distro website out there!

This post is a bit outside the norm for my blog, but it is what has been on my mind a lot lately. I've entered the software development freelancing world, and with that comes all sorts of stuff you never think about when working for a company, whether big or small. Taxes come to mind, but even something as simple as what you can call yourself presents issues. This post and it's followers will sum up some of what I've learned so far on my quest to become a sole proprietor and freelance software developer in Chicago, IL, USA.

Note: some, but not all of the content here is definitely specific to working as a United States taxpayer, so obviously it doesn't apply everywhere. Be glad if you can skip over some of it because it doesn't apply to you.

Time Tracking

One rather critical part of freelancing is earning some level of income. It is incredibly common in software development to bill at some hourly rate, so keeping track of time spent on projects is extremely important for both you and your clients.

Another benefit of time tracking is less obvious at first glance- it allows you to see how much time you are being non-effective. I don't want to say "wasting" as that is pretty harsh, but you'd be amazed at how much time can be spent on things that would probably be better spent on billable hours. Tracking this non-billable time is a great way to realize that even if you feel busy you could probably still take on more work.

As far as tools go, there are many out there, but after a bit too much searching, I arrived at Freckle. It is super-cheap for someone working solo at just $12/month, and very effective at not requiring more input than strictly necessary to track time. I've found the UI very easy to work with and I'm motivated enough to enter my time as soon as I track it rather than having a stack of chicken-scratch post-its with times on my desk. The reporting is also pretty cool to get a visual overview of how you spend your time, and the invoicing is built-in, although it could use a little bit more love.

Contracts

Working under some sort of contract as a "Independent Contractor" (an IRS term) is a good way to make sure you and your client aren't perceived to have an employee-employer relationship. If one or both of you are not in the USA or you are physically distant from each other this is probably not as big of a deal, but then the other benefits of a contract do come into play- your rate is established in writing, as are the expected deliverables. In addition, a written contract can have tons of other clauses establishing liability, warranties, whether parties are required and/or allowed to take each other to court.

Most of the time if a contract is involved, your client will probably have one for you to review rather than you having to draft one up. Obviously this means the contract might be tilted a bit more in their favor, so be sure to review it for any terms or conditions that might set off alarm bells. If there is something alarming, definitely ask the client for clarification and/or modifications to the contract- if they are unwilling then you might want to just walk away.

Every once in a while, you will get the opportunity to write the contract. I saw a recommendation to grab a copy of NOLO Resources – Consultant & Independent Contractor Agreements, and it definitely turned out to be a smart decision. If I am ever in a position to offer up a contract to a potential client, I have a great, well-researched version as a base. The book also has versions for both sides of the Independent Contractor and client relationship, so you can see exactly how getting to write the contract can turn a lot of things in your favor.

Registering an Assumed Business Name

In order to do business as anything but yourself (e.g. "John's Smoothies" instead of "John Doe"), you need to register this assumed name you are doing business as. It usually involves registering with some unit of government, paying a fee, and publishing your intent to use that name as a way to do business.

In Chicago, you need to do the aforementioned registration with the Cook County Clerk. They have a surprisingly helpful page documenting the steps for Assumed Business Name Registration.

So what do you actually have to do to get registered? For those of you living in Chicago, you can follow these steps exactly, but for everyone else it will hopefully give you an idea of some of the hoops you may have to jump through.

1. Grab the two necessary forms: the application and the legal notice to be published.
2. Make sure you fill them out correctly. Make sure you use the exact same name everywhere, whether it be the assumed name or your name (obviously the two names will be different). This includes between the two forms. I can't stress this enough as I messed something up only slightly (I forgot "Jr." in one place) and had to jump through a lot of hoops to avoid re-filing and re-publishing and waiting another month and a half for everything to go through. Think twice about signing before you proceed to the next step- the notary may want to see you sign it in person.
3. Get it notarized. I got lucky here because my former office manager is a public notary, but ask around and you will probably find someone that can help you out, otherwise currency exchanges are a good bet.
4. Bring it in to the Cook County building downtown at 50 W. Washington, in the basement, to suite 114 (e.g. concourse level). They were surprisingly pleasant to work with, perhaps because my application was in good shape and had no problems. Bring $50 or a check for that amount.
5. Now the not so fun part- you have to get it published in a paper. You have to do some digging yourself on this, but lucky for you I've done a fair amount and will share it with you. The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times come to mind first, but be ready to pay for that privilege. The Tribune wanted $270 for the required three consecutive weekly publications.
6. Be happy again when you realize a much better option is to contact the smaller but local Chicago Reader. Their rate, at $100, is much more in line with what I would expect, and they even do the work of mailing the county clerk directly with the proof of publication. Give them a call at 1 (312) 828-0350 and let them know you want to publish an Assumed Business Name notice, and they will be glad to help you out. My ad ran for three weeks in the printed paper and also showed up online.
7. Wait for it to be published for three consecutive weeks and then be happy- you can officially operate under your assumed name!

That is it for Part 1, but I have at least one more post coming on a few more topics worth discussing. If there is anything you would like to hear more about, just ask and maybe a future blog post will come out of it.

I've had a new laptop for nearly nine months now, and my Asus Eee 701 has been regulated to living in a dresser drawer for most of that time. It has gotten to the point where maintaining the kernel is more of a chore than I want it to be, especially since I can't test it near as much as I used to.

So this post is a call for volunteers – does anyone want to continue maintaining the custom kernel? Obviously everything needed to build it is out there in the open in my Eee git repository, but I'd be willing to continue hosting it on my server. At the very least, I'd want to set up redirects so those already using the repository don't have to update their URLs.

I opened my door today to a package I wasn't expecting, and thanks to the greatful Arch user that send me book number two from my Amazon Wishlist. The first one came nearly two years ago from an anonymous donor. This time I received The Memory Book, and although I know who donated it, I don't want to put there name up here unless they let me know its OK.

Thanks! Hopefully I'll start learning to remember things better as I have not been doing a great job of that lately...

I returned home from ArchCon 2010 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada earlier this afternoon, and I'm glad I had the chance to attend and speak at the conference. Yes, it was not the world's largest Linux conference by any means, but it was a great size for the first time doing this and I'm looking forward to future gatherings of Arch Linux users and developers in the same room.

Dusty already did a great writeup of some of the happenings of the weekend, so definitely give that a read if you haven't already. Yes, plenty of beer was consumed, but we had a great excuse to do so and I can add three more people to the "Arch Developers I've Drank With" list: Dieter, Jason, and Kevin.

I delivered two presentations, and you can view the slides and video recordings for both. Of course, you should check out as many of them as possible as we all had some great and informative talks. They can all be found from the ArchCon 2010 website.

• Arch Linux Projects – Slides – Video Part One, Two, Three, Four
• Hacking Pacman – Slides – Video Not Available

Thanks to everyone who organized things, thanks to all of my fellow presenters, and thanks to all of the attendees – I'm glad things went extremely well over the weekend. Additionally, it is always great to put some names and faces together and I was definitely able to do that this weekend. I also hope my talks (and those of others) not only encourage people to chip in and help with development and direction, but let them know just how easy it is to do so.