Is ATW's way the only true method of escaping the bench?

[milanbenes]

for subtlty I like the new Passat cc

what does the jury think to that one ?

Milan.

[newblood]

for subtlty I like the new Passat cc

what does the jury think to that one ?

Milan.

It is a killer , just one word - awesome. In 3 years if I am still alive and had any luck finding work - will consider it.

[gingerjedi]

So you realized this 10 years ago , are in the .net arena ( top paying rates ) and still drive a 7 years old passat? No offence but are you impotent or married or what ?

A good tip I wish I'd listened to when I first started contracting:

Pay off the mortgage, have zero debt and get your outgoings down low as possible because when you're on the bench the bills still need to be paid.

Leave the petty oneupmanship to the permies and laugh on the inside when they look down on your 7 year old Passat.

At least you're a free man!

[Stan.goodvibes]

I can speak only for .Net contracting, my strategy has been to be deeply technical in vertical areas of .Net and slowly but surely build up the number of .Net verticals which I am deeply technical in - the offshore centers have got technicians, but so far, certainly in the .Net area, the offshore centers lack good numbers of technicians with the deep technical skills, and in fact those companies work against their employees becoming deeply technical because the technicians are expected to climb very quickly into managers and project managers, which so far, leaves the door open for us to stay in the on shore regions deeply technical - who knows for how long this situation will last but so far the strategy is working and touch wood it continues to work

So you enjoy going deep then? lovely.

[PAH]

I think the days of knocking together a website and making a fortune are long gone. Anything worthwhile needs substantial amount of effort.

I'm hoping you're wrong. One of my longtime dreams of escaping contracting has been to come up with a simple website that can be maintained by myself with my feet up round the pool somewhere sunny.

Had a couple of attempts at it in the past, mainly while between contracts but not yet found anything simple enough that will also pay the bills.

For inspiration I've seen this, a simple website seemingly run by one guy who makes millions a year via Google AdSense. I'm sure there are plenty others doing it on a smaller (but big enough to live off) scale.

http://highscalability.com/plentyoffish-architecture

[DimPrawn]

I'm hoping you're wrong. One of my longtime dreams of escaping contracting has been to come up with a simple website that can be maintained by myself with my feet up round the pool somewhere sunny.

Had a couple of attempts at it in the past, mainly while between contracts but not yet found anything simple enough that will also pay the bills.

For inspiration I've seen this, a simple website seemingly run by one guy who makes millions a year via Google AdSense. I'm sure there are plenty others doing it on a smaller (but big enough to live off) scale.

http://highscalability.com/plentyoffish-architecture

I have a plan Z at the back of my mind offering website owners a report on their website covering:

1. It's ranking and traffic with respect to rivals and SEO advice on how to improve.

2. How well the website works in all major browsers (including iPhone and Opera on Wii), any issues, javascript errors, usability issues.

3. How (X)HTML and CSS compliant the site is.

4. Any large pages, large images that slow the site down.

5. Accessibility to visually impaired surfers.

6. Any possible security issues found.

7. Any pages that fail to load, any links that are dead.



The idea being I will sell the reports to businesses and public sector companies (bigger sites will be charged more) and the beauty is this business can be based anywhere.

Please don't nick my cunning plan.

[PAH]

Please don't nick my cunning plan.

If it involves spending 5 years downloading the whole internet first I think you're safe. The smarter money uses bolt-ons (Google Analytics style) to do the same task in a fraction of the time.

[DimPrawn]

If it involves spending 5 years downloading the whole internet first I think you're safe. The smarter money uses bolt-ons (Google Analytics style) to do the same task in a fraction of the time.

Are you saying I've wasted the last 5 years of my life downloading the Internet?

[PAH]

Are you saying I've wasted the last 5 years of my life downloading the Internet?

Only on the non-fleshy bits.

[AtW]

Are you saying I've wasted the last 5 years of my life downloading the Internet?

flip off!