The Real Ryan J. Parker

So I’m in the process of making a transition from my 9-5 job to working from home. I originally anticipated making this transition sometime next year so that I can finish my math degree, but my 9-5 has been forced to reduce its workforce. Unfortunately for me, I was one of those to be reduced. My wife cringes when I say the words laid off, but that’s what they call it. At least it comes with a severance package.

My first attempt at working from home will be freelance programming. This seems to be the best way for me to generate income in the immediate future, so I created profiles on eLance and Guru:

ryanjparker.elance.com
profile.guru.com/994494

So far I like eLance the best, but I haven’t even been doing this a week, so that is subject to change. I’ve had a small success so far, as I accepted my first eLance project on Friday.

To be honest I haven’t heard rave reviews about freelance coding services, as the feeling seems to be that most people want the world at a cheap price. Hopefully I can avoid those sorts of projects.

My plan is to develop one of my own websites during this process, WhichTeamWins.com and work on some open source software. Hopefully I can generate some meaningful income (either directly or indirectly) through those projects as well.

I’m interested in hearing from anyone that has made a similar transition (successfully or unsuccessfully). If anyone has any tips I’m all ears!

The video at http://thewebsiteisdown.com/ is hilarious on many levels for me.

First, the nonchalant attitude the guy gives with respect to the people calling him is classic. The “I didn’t read the e-mail you sent me so I deleted it from your sentbox to make you think you didn’t send it to me” is another goodie.

Top it off with the fact that he keeps going back to pwn n00bs on Halo and it is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in some time. It really hits home with me. I give it 5 stars!

For what seems like forever now, I’ve used the iGoogle home page to keep updated with the latest from the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Over time I’ve had a tough time keeping up with all of the subscriptions, but I never really felt moved to try anything else.

That changed, however, when my iGoogle feeds stopped updating properly.

Today I finally imported the RSS feeds into Google Reader, and I’m in love. The interface is great. I can quickly navigate to the content I’m looking for.

If you’re stuck in the stone age like I was with the iGoogle Homepage, it’s time to give Google Reader a shot!