Japan on a Budget for 2 Weeks

Japan was always a must-visit country in my travels. And my two weeks there was everything I’d dreamt of and more. But many people are put off from travelling to Japan because of the expense. Yes, it is expensive, but there are ways to visit Japan on a budget and still see a lot of … Read more

Suggestions for When That Perfect Domain Name or Twitter Username is Taken

It’s happened to lots of us at one point and is becoming increasingly more common. You’re working on a project or come up with a fantastic web project to get started on, so naturally the first thing you do is run to your favourite domain registrar or Twitter itself to see if the domain name … Read more

NSA and Prism in the UK: The politics of a privacy plan

My previous post on personal privacy following Prismgate, "My Privacy Plan", sparked a fantastic discussion over on Hacker News. The comment that most resonated with me – and had the most upvotes – questioned what the political aspect of a privacy plan would look like: "My privacy plan will involve learning more about politics. Who … Read more

Where To Find London Tech Events, Meetups and Hack Days

A friend recently asked if I knew of any upcoming London tech events, so I sent them back a list of the sites I use to keep updated with the latest Tech, Startup and Hack Day events in London. Some of these events listings are for membership-based organisations, such as TechHub and Campus London. Please … Read more

The Jelly Reading List

  Jelly is the new iPhone and Android app from Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone. The basic premise is of "loosely distributed networks of people coordinating via Jelly to help each other." Here’s their video to explain more: I’ve been playing around with the app this morning and found the experience a mix of Instagram and … Read more

Tweetbot, Pocket and Reading It All Later

I love being productive and the feeling that comes from getting the right work done at the right time. A recent productivity hack I’ve been following is to save all reading – including articles, newsletter and books – to outside of work hours, when I have downtime and can concentrate on the material. There have … Read more

Freelance Mobile App Developer Q&A: Nick Nicolaou

(This is the sixth in a series of interviews with freelancers, telling us their stories on how they went freelance. The aim is to help others who are thinking of becoming freelance learn more about what it takes, as well as get advice and inspiration so they can get the confidence and understanding to find … Read more

Find Freelance Work in the Summer Slump

Finding freelance work can be difficult during the summer months. When school is out and the kids are at home many clients take time off for their holidays, meaning new projects and work is put on hold until the autumn. There’s a reason why freelancers call it the "summer slump". But finding freelance work while … Read more

Why I Learned To Code

There’s plenty of posts out there on "How To Learn To Code in Just One Month!", but not a lot for why you should learn to code. One of the problems is that you get articles like this,  with the following unhelpful insights into how others have learnt to code: "I slept an average of 5 hours a night, had … Read more

How to build long-term client relationships as a freelancer

How to build long-term client relationships is a follow up to yesterday’s post on finding freelance work in the summer slump, and a longer term goal to write more about freelancing in general. I’ve written quite a bit about what I’ve learned from freelancing, but if there’s any topics you want to cover just let … Read more