tbergeron

Yesterday something funky happened to me. I received yet another job offer, but this time for a very well known UK company. A dream opportunity.

Basically they'd love it if I would move away from my home and family in Canada to join them there. They're inviting/paying me to meet the team for one day to see if I like it and if I like the project/team/etc.

Following that request, a bit dizzy with the "holy crap is this really happening?!" feeling, I talked about it with my family to see all their faces going pale with fear of losing me forever.

I'm used to traveling, I've spent several months away from Canada for various reasons such as working (not it-related at the time though). They know I always come back home, I love it here but I feel like I'd me missing something huge that could totally redefine my life even if I don't speak a word of that country's main language.

I'm currently 25 years old, I've been working for a startup for the last year and a half and have received a partnership request from my client which is great but sometimes I feel like the project is slowly drifting apart, my client has a job, kids, a wife and way more priorities than I personally do. It's a lot on his shoulders with the investors pushing in his back.

I have also a girlfriend of a few years, animals, a big and full apartment, etc.

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So the reasons I'm asking this here are: - Anyone lived the same? What was your decision and how it ended up? - Did/Do you like the experience of working abroad? - Considering the wall of text I just wrote ^^ what do you think I should do? - How did your family/peers reacted? Are they mad or something?

Thanks to whoever takes the time to reply, this is very important for me.

Have a nice day.

All of this is very frustrating with only a little panel to see my email list. This whole "view" is flawed IMO.

I believe email clients should have something more of a "file browser" view with medium/large icons (enough to content from/title/date/etc) and easy way to put emails to different folders. So you can have a peek at the whole inbox at once and quickly eliminate non important emails.

Also I think email clients are in great need of a very good filter system with easy access. Gmail filters are amazing but I'm having a lot of trouble using Gmail on a daily basis I just don't know why. I think filters should be more easily reachable. So I'd make a "Contains pictures" filter, a "Contains text document" filter and a "VIP" filter for very specific person that I know sends me email only on a very important basis.

All in all, I don't have a clue about how it should look. Every last attempts at email clients I saw were in my opinion disastrous. There's still a few projects ongoing but I still doubt any of these will change this fundamental problem.

It's not about the protocol, emails are fine I don't want another Google Wave I just need a better way to manage these messages. Sparrow is nice, I use it daily even if it's not in development anymore but it's not enough powerful, it has a lot of wasted potential (since development stopped).

One last thing: I tried several other email clients with power features but all of them have crippled UIs and almost no development updates anymore.

So let's discuss, what do you think? How do you manage these tons of emails? What do you use? Any suggestion for me about how I handle them and what I should use?

Thanks and have a nice day!

Two weeks ago, I lost my job because of one of their main client went bankrupt.

EDIT: I forgot to mention: I'm a software and web developer.

I decided it was the time for me to start working for myself and get clients myself so I could make my own money, manage my own time and put more time on my own project for my startup.

One big problem I have right now is, as I'll work for clients, I'll need to send my worked hours to them and manage my own tasks. For this I used to work with JIRA, Redmine and Springloops which are very good solutions. As much as I love JIRA I noticed that I spent way too much time tweaking it than working with it. Redmine is, in my opinion a big letdown on so many points and Springloops is riddled with bugs for the moment (they're working hard on it) and time management is not flexible at all (can't export time between two dates, etc).

So I'm asking out, what are you using? Any tips you could give me? I don't mind paying for it as it'll be one of my main tool.

I tried so many of them, Fogbugz, JIRA, Redmine, Springloops, Basecamp & Basecamp Next, Mingle, Many todo lists equivalent, etc. But never hooked on one.

Here's the most important points for me: Project management with task managements, time estimates, time entries and time entries reporting.

Some points I'd like: Wiki and documents management is also a win for me. Advanced reporting for tasks / projects / efficiency is also a plus but not necessary as I'm always tempted tweaking them for hours.

Really any suggestions are welcome!

Thanks a lot and have a nice day!

- Tom

I've been looking at lots of freelance job boards (such as oDesk, Elance, freelancer, guru, etc). I'm a software/web developer and I'd like to find some fun stuff to work on for some side money to help fund my startup ideas.

That is why I'm asking all of you freelancers out there, which is your favorite? Why is it your favorite? Which one is the safest from a freelancer point-of-view? (I don't want to get screwed).

This is an open discussion, any opinion is welcome!

Thanks and have a nice day!

- Tommy

My name is Tommy and I'm 24 years old. I've been a hacker since I was 14 and an analyst programmer/software engineer since I was 21. I'm a school drop-out (I was actually studying languages and my passion brought me back to programming). I'll try not to turn this into a wall of text ;-)

[edit: I forgot to mention, I'm from Québec, Canada but I can speak both French and English very well.]

Since about three years, I have in mind to start my own thing but I've been waiting for the right idea, the right people and the right tools. Now I have the right people and the right tools, I have plenty of ideas but none of them are in my opinion "worth of being paid for".

What I'd really like to do is to create an online service that would fix a problem in our world right now, something that people would use to help get their work done (I really LOVE productivity tools). But it seems everytime I find some "good" idea, there's already someone who's already doing it right. (I know I shouldn't block myself because it already exists but I know we could build something really amazing).

We are a two very passionate, skilled, focused, and open minded persons, I really believe in us but I really need lots of advice (I've been asking over and over again about it, I always need more advice). I read a lot of books and blogs about startups and entrepreneurship and I always want more.

Here's some question you could help by answering:

1) Is there any good resources / way / book / movie you could suggest to open my eyes a bit more to find new out-of-the-box ideas?

2) Is there any experiences you could share, do's and dont's that would be useful for a young "entrepreneur" such as me?

3) Who are your idols / who do you think succeeded with his/hers ideas that I could get inspiration from?

I'm open for any suggestions or criticism. I believe criticism is the best way to gain wisdom.

Thanks very much and have a wonderful day!

- Tommy