monkeyprojects

Comparing like for like with the voyage, the voyage is missing $60 of leather case that Amazon is including this time around

Same resolution but by the looks of it a different thinner display

It does include a leather cover which is another $60 for the voyage. So in many ways the difference is merely $30.

Comparing the uk and us prices this is the first product in decades that seems to have been priced $1=£1

It may well be a cancer buts it's won the battle. Better to accept the mutation to the business model while you still can before the cancer kills it

Nothing like what they have been. And that is the point the only way to scale up at the rate zbenefits did was via dubious means.

Then the day comes when you need to become above board and someone has to be the fall guy. The important question here is not what the press release says but the money being paid....

An utter aside but One colour does have a tragic history:-

#RebeccaPurple or #663399

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/06/digital-remem...

That is a hell of a risky investment given the approach the Chinese competitors are using in China is to block Uber's access to the devices most people book rides on...

see https://pando.com/2015/08/24/wechat-blocks-uber-its-step-one...

their playground, their rules...

You can't know everything and don't need to know everything.

What I offer is a lot of knowledge for the core items I currently use (Dynamics CRM, C#, Javascript, SQL) and a very broad set of knowledge based on 20 years of been there done that seen what happens if you do it that way...

The requirement of any contractor (or consultant) is to convey a sense of competency / trustworthiness that allows the interviewer to believe you either fit the exact requirements or provide enough additional value (in my case 20 odd years of battle wounds and stories of utter disasters) that you are the person who will add the most value....

Concurrency was part of the HMRC's Business Entity Tests which were so hilariously inaccurate compared to IR35 actual rules its was funny.

I guess if you had a small battle and that won it that battle wasn't with HMRC but instead with the Cabinet Office or another government department / quango...

Here you go

The original legislation is tucked away in section 6(1) Employment Agencies Act 1973.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1973/35/enacted

6.-(1)Except in such cases or classes of case as the Secretary of State may prescribe,a person carrying on an employment agency or an employment business shall not demand or directly or indirectly receive from any person any fee for finding him employment, or for seeking to find him employment. (2)Any person who contravenes this section shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £400.

Where to begin

Am I ready - The biggest bit is actually having the confidence to do it and a CV good that will get you past both the gatekeeper (the agent) and the client checking CVs... That means you should have real experience across both multiple employers and multiple market sectors (retail, consultancy, banking for instance) before thinking about it.

Timing -

Never understood this one. Projects have different life cycles so require analysts before project managers before developers before testers.

Outside of the week between Christmas and New Year there are always some companies looking to start projects or requiring another contractor to fix a problem. In fact the only time I've found it difficult to get work is in April which supposedly is a boom period due to new financial years...

Bureaucracy -

The easiest way to find contracts is through agencies. To do that you need either a limited company or to use an umbrella. You don't however need to create this before you get a contract as you can get a company created in about 4 hours..

Getting an accountant

You need one but don't need 1 until you get that first contract. Crunch has a lovely interface and is a good site but frankly I don't think they would be that great if things went wrong as they haven't got many qualified accountants. Look at IPSE or Freeagent for many other possible options..

Registering for VAT

On the flat rate scheme you don't keep 5.5% but rather .2 *.145 or 2.6% as the 14.5 is taken from the income including VAT..

Expenses

You don't need to do anything until you have a contract (as I've continually said setting up a company can be done in 4 hours). You may need to wait before you get paid (although some agencies still pay weekly) but if that is the case you keep the expenses to a minimum, keep a record of them and take the money from the company as soon as it receives that money.

Finding your first client

The first client isn't the hardest. The second one is. Especially when your first client was a short term 3 month contract and they didn't renew you because the work was done. With 1 3 month contract under your belt you then start looking for a contract as your money starts running out. That is when things are difficult.

And I'm out of time but just before I go

Mailing lists and communities

This is my real problem with this article. He doesn't seem to want to be a contractor. He wants to be a freelancer working for multiple companies on various projects. Perfectly acceptable but thats the world of code bunnies doing work for start-ups and advertising agencies rather than contracting in a consultancy firm or government department.

Oh the joys of IR35 and its old ability to attract people into tax avoidance schemes instead of setting up limited companies....

My advice and I've repeated it continually on Contractor UK for years is to only use a proper umbrella company or use a limited company.

If someone says you'll receive more than 65-70% of you contract value from a umbrella company or more than 80% from a limited company they are just lying to you and wish to use your greed to initially grab money off you and then let HMRC take you to court...

For details on proper umbrella companies see http://www.allumbrellacompaniesareequal.com/ . But if you are planning to do this long term start a limited company....

They would happen anyway as part of any divorce settlement and may get more if you have children.

Tax planning really should not be a reason to go contracting. You can get more money by moving to another permanent job elsewhere.

Valid reasons to me for going contracting would be to remain technical, to continue learning new technologies, to avoid permie politics and appraisals (which is why I contract)..

They don't need to be a director just a shareholder.

No it won't..

IR35 is explicitly contract by contract based... In theory (and in practice) you could be working at 3 places at the same time and 2 of them would be outside IR35 and 1 would be inside it...

There are a lot of old wives tales and myths around IR35 http://www.contractoruk.com/ir35/top_ten_ir35_myths_debunked... shows a few of them. And sorry for posting links to the same two sites but that is where the real information is from people who have operated this way for years...

Professional working day = fine if you client is nice can result in being expected to work stupid hours for no benefit..

IR35 equipment is an utterly irrelevant point. The real factors are:-

Right of Substitution (I can replace myself with Fred and the client can't complain) Mutuality of Obligation which means that the client doesn't need to pay if they have no work for you to do regardless of the length of the contract Where you were last. you can't be a permanent member of staff on Friday and start back in the same desk as a contractor on Monday morning.

Lots of stuff regarding IR35 can be found at http://www.contractoruk.com/ir35/ and http://www.ipse.co.uk as IR35 is why the latter exists...

As a contractor of many years standing (I started contracting when the internet appeared in 1994) I started reading the article hoping it was correct and finished it with my fingers covering my eyes in fear. Sadly I don't have time to correct many of the misconceptions and total inaccuracies it contains.

Its a shame really as good articles are hard to find and I'm sure many americans would find the differences between the UK and US markets very interesting...

However if you really want to be a contractor https://www.ipse.co.uk/advice/articles/starting-out has a lot of advice on starting out.

http://www.contractoruk.com/first_timers/ also has a lot of advice although as a new starter I would avoid the general part of their forum...

And there is a reason why people use limited companies. You can work as a self employed person but many clients stop when HMRC come knocking while agencies have been legally barred from employing people as self employed since the 1970s...

It probably actually is a problem but most people don't realise it.

Even when people are incredibly careful people do unwittingly post things that allow others to identify them. They may not reveal much in any individual post but when you combine a few together its a problem.

1 prime example is a friend who posted an invite to a house warming party then a week later posted from their holiday abroad...

Yep, but its not easy to escape from abuse. Until people accept they are being abused they will deny it.

Having witnessed the destruction of a street vendors stock when he failed to run quick enough the last time we were in Florence I don't think there is any tacit understanding.

Its a game of cat and mouse. And when the cat arrives the mouse loses out... But there are an awful lot of mice and very few cats...

$2 a year for a permanent advert within someone's house which also generates sales.

Sounds like a win / win for both P&G and Amazon...

The answer to that as some one past 35 is that I code because I like to know I produced / created something.

Testing - Just confirms it works PM - Just ensured its delivered Programmer - I did that....

Yes I could earn more money as a PM but I'm happy with what I get attached to the sense of achievement of "I created that".

True but once you've got that original library of books on your reading device on what app are you going to purchase additional books on?

On my ipad I have iBooks, Marvin and Kindle. The first app I open is the Kindle due to the 180+ books that already sit on Kindle's cloud. And I doubt that is going to change.

As an utter aside I do have an e-ink reader. I went from an ipad and kindle to an ipad mini and then back to the former. Reading on an e-ink device a fall asleep reading on an ipad mini the light kept me awake...

The barrier to entry against the Kindle that is on my bedside cabinet and many others is virtually impossible to remove.

Amazon offer a painless way of adding books to the device. Buying a book takes seconds and it magically appears on the front page of the device waiting to be read. Its one reason why book piracy didn't go as insane as music piracy, the means of adding books was easier than the device

The Apple Lisa had a mouse so if we are looking for inaccuracies that is a better argument to start with..

Surely its comic sans. It adds that certain something to most pieces of code...

That is your average contractor contract rate. The actual cost will be 10-20% more than that to cover agency costs (so £350-£600) a day.

Permanent employees will probably cost less than that. Say £50k a year or approx. £250 a day...

I think its simple. Unless the person is interested in Mono they don't develop for it and don't have any interest in supporting it.

Many people use C# to develop applications for Windows and don't, won't or can't support other environments....

And while there are thousand of useful C# programs I doubt many don't have direct python / Linux competitors readily available that do near enough the same thing.

While they may have spent a long time learning 'The Knowledge' that was in the days before Sat Nav.

Like many other things The Knowledge has been superseded by a computer.