Blog
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 10th December 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 10th December, 13 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things freelancing, tech and live. This is some of what we talked about: Raising money for your product Deciding how much your morals influence how you invest Using AI to learn in programming Closing down a Ltd […]
Discovery phases and a lot of AI chat – notes from 3rd December 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 3rd December, 11 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk tech, projects and handling clients. This is some of what we talked about: Using discovery phases to push back against fixed price projects Building apps that weren’t affordable in the pre-AI/LLM era Cajoling AI tools into doing what you want […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 27th November 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 27th November, 13 freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: AI use affecting the lower end of the design market Trying to work out how to get better clients Trying to find any […]
Freelancers meet up notes for 20th November 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 20th November, 17 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar to talk all things self employment, clients and tech. Thanks very much to Laura and Haze for taking notes when I couldn’t make it at the last minute. This is some of what was talked about: Data Science C++ remembrance from 90s Recovering […]
Freelancers meet up notes for 13th November 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 13th November, nine freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar to talk all things freelancing and tech. This is a little of what we talked about: Working on a great codebase! Fixing up an old codebase No work and then too much work Fixing cars Using Websockets in Laravel AI video creation Letting […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 5th November 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 5th November, eight freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk client, tech and various other things. This is some of what we talked about: Great Python programmer available for work Storybook 10 is out Watching a non-programmer use Claude and Codex to code a Javascript app Fireworks displays & the […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 29th October 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 29th October, 12 freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things tech, business, and the random things we’ve been doing recently. This is some of what we talked about: Local UX groups – UXUp, is UX Brighton a meet up still or only a conference? Various […]
Freelancers meet up notes for 22nd October 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 22nd October, twelve freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar in Brighton to talk all things self employment, tax and a fair amount of nonsense too. This is some of what we talked about: Would a crypto currency collapse actually make the economy drop? The AI industry finances are iffy at best […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 15th October 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 15th October, ten freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things tech and self employment. This is some of what we talked about: Paying tax on account Trying to get your business to profitability Render.io for making React/JS sites indexable by search engines Payment gateway integrations and the […]
Freelancers meeting notes from 8th October 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 8th October, thirteen freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar to talk tech, business and all things freelancing. This is some of what we talked about: LLM / Token instances on DigitalOcean Sonnet 4.5 AI as a whole field The market is still very quiet Seeing your clients shrink Speculative work Creators of […]
Productivity and office space, and notes from our meet up on 1st October 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 1st October, 12 freelancers met up in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Ruby on Rails drama How Python avoids one party being over controlling When clients or bosses don’t understand that technology has limitations Tilly […]
Marketing as a freelancer, having a perfect memory and more – notes from our 24th September 2025 meet up
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 24th September, 12 freelancers met up in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things freelancing and tech. Do you really want a perfect memory? PyCon Putting on events in VR Analysing adverts to learn marketing Books for learning marketing: ‘Ogilvy on Advertising’ and ‘Tested Advertising Methods’ Christopher Lash: Culture […]
Freelancers meeting notes from 17th September 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 17th September, 14 freelancers met in the beer garden of the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things tech, self employment, and plenty of random stuff too. It was lovely to be in their beer garden and hopefully we’ll get another chance to use it before the weather gets too cold. This […]
Meeting notes from The Skiff on 10th September 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 10th September, 13 freelancers met in The Skiff coworking space to talk all things self employment and tech. Thanks very much to The Skiff for offering us their space and providing some drinks and snacks too! I was busy talking and forgot to take many notes, so take this as a small sample […]
AI assisted programming, a Spanish Galleon and other notes
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 3rd September, 11 freelancers met in The Eagle pub, Brighton, to talk all things tech and self employment. This is some of what we talked about: Having a good network for work Pensions Brighton AI meet up Spanish Galleon at Shoreham Port Business partnership challenges Is AI suited to helping write atomised / […]
An AI-tastic meet up – notes from 27th August 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 27th August, 14 freelancers met in the Lord Nelson and then Battle of Trafalgar pubs in Brighton to talk all things tech and freelancing, mainly AI tools this time. Apologies to everyone who was there if I’ve mixed up some of the tools in this write up. It was lovely to see Simon […]
Thanks to Hazlitt
Posted by Paul Silver
Thank you, Hazlitt for continuing to help us all by improving the Farm website. Recent updates are to the navigation in this blog area, which means I can start importing my archive of meeting notes. Thanks very much to him, and if you’re looking for a great freelance PHP, WordPress and React programmer, please let […]
Funny Farm and meeting notes from 20th August 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 20th August, eleven freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to chat all things freelancing and tech. This was the funniest Farm meeting in a long time and I haven’t laughed so much in ages. I don’t know whether it was the mix of people, something in the water (or indeed, beer) […]
Looking for PHP work, reducing water use by deleting email, and our freelancers meeting notes for 13th August 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On 13th August, 13 freelancers got together in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk all things freelancing, tech, and whatever was on our minds. This is some of what was talked about: Working on tech to help charities Well meaning government schemes that are a nightmare when exploited by wideboys PyCon plans Getting a […]
Freelancer meeting notes from 6th August 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 6th August, eleven freelancers got together in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk all things tech and nonsense. This was one of those weeks where our conversations drifted all over the place, so my notes are inadequate for what we covered. Still, here’s a taste of the evening: Surprise AWS bills The […]
Why use ORMs and other notes from our freelancers meet up on 30th July 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 30th July, 13 freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to chat all things self employment and tech… and many diversions. This is some of what we talked about: Dealing with recruitment agencies (there is some info about this in this article) Google Ads reps are being very aggressive The Online Safety […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 23rd July 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 23rd July we had a meet up for freelancers in the Lord Nelson pub, Brighton. I was away and Haze was kind enough to make some notes of what was talked about, here they are: The benefits and pitfalls of vibe coding with AI agents Using AI for creative design The influence of […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 16th July 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 16th July, fourteen freelancers met in the Lord Nelson pub to talk all things self employment, tech, and a fair amount of rubbish. This is some of what we talked about: Python conferences and camps Hugo vs WordPress AWS and the potential for surprise high bills Digital Ocean vs AWS Trying to fix […]
Notes from our freelancers meet on 9th July 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On Wednesday 9th July, ten freelancers met in the Lord Nelson pub in Brighton to talk all things tech, self employment and random things that came up. This is some of what we talked about: Concentrating too much on the technology and not on the business logic of a project Odd tech stacks Micropython Rust […]
When to stop and change what you’re doing
Posted by Paul Silver
This is a broad topic, but as general advice it is good to occasionally stop and assess what you’ve been doing and work out whether it is sensible to keep doing that or change. Here’s some examples to help explain: Is your marketing right? An easy one to spot to start with, is your marketing […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 2nd July 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On 2nd July, ten freelancers met in the Lord Nelson pub in Brighton to chat freelancing, tech, and anything that came to mind. This is some of the topics we covered: Wise payment system verification delays The heat Vibe coding drawbacks – feeling no code ownership when trying to debug People diversifying away from programming […]
Fighting spec creep and more – freelancers notes from 25th June 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On 25th June, seventeen freelancers got together in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to chat all things self employment, tech and more. It was especially nice to see Matt for the first time in ages. Here’s some of what we talked about: Fighting off AI bots swamping your site and slowing it down or taking […]
Notes on our freelancers meeting on 18th June 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 18th June, ten freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn to discuss all things freelancing, tech, and a bunch of nonsense too. This is some of what we talked about: State of the market – still too quiet! AI hollowing out industries and how will jobs change? (If we knew that, would we […]
Freelancers meeting notes for 11th June 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 11th June, eleven freelancers got together in the Lord Nelson pub to chat all things tech, freelancing, and a fair amount of nonsense too. These are the topics I managed to note down: Updating task management while you are on a call about a project so others can review is a useful way […]
Meeting Notes from 4th June 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 4th June, 8 freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk tech, self employment, and a fair amount of nonsense. This is some of what we talked about: Working with APIs that don’t give you error messages is really awkward People losing their jobs to AI? Perplexity AI tool writing CRUD […]
Meeting notes from 28th May 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 28th May, eleven freelancers met in the Lord Nelson pub, Brighton, to talk all things freelancing and tech. We had one new person along, Geronimo, who works in marketing. It was very nice to meet him but unfortunately it was brief and I didn’t get a chance to properly chat with him. This […]
Meeting notes from 21st May 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 21st May, 9 freelancers in the web industry met in the Lord Nelson pub, Brighton, to talk all things freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Old developers who hate modern dependences Updating an old project is especially hard in Javascript What has “npm audit fix” actually done? Who […]
Meeting notes from 14th May 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 14th May 2025, ten freelancers gathered together in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk all things freelancing and tech, and a surprising amount of baking too. Here’s my notes from the evening: Still trying to get a business bank account due to delays of bad IT Formula 1 Tech conferences Vibe coding […]
Dave’s first speaking event and meeting notes from 7th May 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On 7th May, ten freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn to talk all things freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Matomo – PHP based web analytics package Tariffs and changes since last week Trying to get a business bank account when the bank IT is crap Monzo becoming an […]
Limiting exposure to clients and meeting notes from 30th April 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 30th April, 17 freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk all things self employment and tech. This is some of what was talked about: Clients not testing when asked Typing your code Enjoying digging through an undocumented and messy codebase The best browsers for ad blocking A sudden outbreak of […]
Looker Studio, batching and filtering news – meeting notes from 23rd April 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On 23rd April, eight freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn to discuss all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: What you can claim as an expense Using GnuCash as a UK company Clients who are picky about costs like WordPress plugins, but spend more on devs to […]
GnuCash, task management and more – freelancers meet notes from 16th April 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On 16th April, thirteen freelancers got together in the Lord Nelson to talk all things freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Retainers GnuCash for organising your accounts (free and open source) Trying to buy property as a freelancer Modifying your electric bike battery for longevity Finding old code written by […]
Retainers, tariffs, and our meeting notes from 9th April 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 9th April, eleven freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk all things tech and freelancing. This is some of what we talked about: American tariffs Manufacturing in China The market for Python programming Daft tech tests as part of job interviews Writing your own programming language The Shopify CEO letter […]
Stress and notes from our freelancers meet up on 2nd April 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 2nd April, eleven freelancers got together in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk all things tech and freelancing. This is some of what we talked about: New work! Using conferences as an excuse to travel Stopping the aggressive crawlers for AI bots OggCamp is great Clock change confusion for remote team members […]
Freedom or Fatigue? Navigating Burnout in Freelance Life
Posted by Paul Silver
This is a guest post from copywriter Rosie Buckley The freelance life is exciting; it’s no secret why people choose this path for their career. You can be your own boss, follow a flexible schedule, and work anywhere you want to. Even though freelancing has many benefits, these can be pushed aside if you start […]
Self employment and pensions, notes from 26th March 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 26th March, eleven freelancers gathered in the Lord Nelson Inn to talk all thinks freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Working when tired Getting new work via open source and your network Limited company tax setups Sole trading and claiming expenses Walking as exercise and distracting yourself while […]
Vibe coding and meeting notes from 19th March 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On 19th March, fourteen freelancers and business owners got together in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk all things freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: i360 reopens and is 5ドル for Brighton residents “Vibe coding” and being hacked Will your job be replaced by AI, or will it be […]
Taking breaks between projects and notes from 12th March 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 12th March, six freelancers met in the Lord Nelson. A small but fun meet up, we chatted about various topics: Nepotism as a hiring strategy Turning a mess into a structured project Trying to work around cats Mt Gox payment arrives! Taking a break between projects Working with APIs which have incomplete documentation […]
Working for bad payers and meeting notes from 5th March 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 5th March 2025, twelve freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn in Brighton to talk all things freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Blocking over aggressive website crawlers Local games Using AI to help write your own tools Rust and getting into other programming languages Tesla cars being […]
You are your marketing department and notes from our meeting on 26th February 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
A small meeting of eight freelancers on 25th February, but there was a lot of great chat. The smaller meet ups often end up with everyone in the same conversation, which makes for a variety of views and ways to solve the same problem. My notes from our conversations: Work is sporadic in the current […]
Making APIs, Accessibility, AR use and more – notes from 19th February 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 19th February 2025, twelve freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk all things tech and freelancing. This is some of what we talked about: University of Sussex Hack Day coming up Building APIs for partial testing when the provider has no test version Handling a Brevo ecommerce integration Farm contraction […]
Learning with AI help, server talk and parenting – our meet up on 12th February 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On 12th February twelve freelancers met in the Lord Nelson pub in Brighton to talk all things tech and self employment. This is some of what we talked about: Getting suddenly booked up with work is very welcome! People still using bare metal hosting in 2025? “Get cloud servers because they’re more better” Upgrading your […]
Spotify suspensions, Kotlin and more – freelancers meet up 5th February 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 5th of February, eleven freelancers met in the Lord Nelson pub to talk all things tech and self employment. Welcome to Joan, who came along for the first time. This is some of what we talked about: Insolvency, an unwelcome mess The Brighton AI talk by Anil Seth was very good Spotify suspending […]
University, AI help laziness and hardcore tech, notes from 29th Jan
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 29th January, we seven freelancers got together in the Lord Nelson pub to talk all things tech and self employment. It was a bijou meet up, but the chat was still good. Some of what we talked about: Circular graphs in PostgreSQL Site scraping & RSS & APIs Is there too much box […]
Donations to Open Sources projects and more, freelancers meet on 22nd Jan
Posted by Paul Silver
On 22nd January 2025, 11 freelancers met in the Lord Nelson pub in Brighton to talk all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Donations to Open Source projects as funding for programming Government Digital Services is being revamped Musk’s “salute” at Trump’s inauguration Getting a rat mat to […]
Drupal CMS launches, Toad in the Hole the game – freelancers meet on 15th January 2025
Posted by Paul Silver
Our second meeting in 2025 was relatively quiet, with ten freelancers coming to the Lord Nelson to chat. This is some of what we talked about, I missed noting several topics down as I was too busy talking to interesting folk to remember to write: Drupal CMS 1.0 Bluesky ‘hacks’ to see your followers The […]
Welcoming in 2025 and the Recession Question
Posted by Paul Silver
The evening of our first freelancers meet up of 2025 was snowy, which is quite a surprise for Brighton as we get very little snow. Happily, fourteen freelancers made it through the slush to meet in the Lord Nelson Inn in Brighton. This is some of what we talked about: Snow! The City of London […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 18th December 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
Our last freelancers meet up of 2024 saw 15 of us meet in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton. This is some of what we talked about: Writing straight HTML and CSS with no Bootstrap/front end framework Cooking gluten free pastry (Laura’s recommendation: coconut oil) Having work suddenly cancelled or put off A project […]
Notes from our freelancers meet on 11th December 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 11th December, 14 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to chat all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Being expected to quote for a build before designs are made The Apple design methods The rarity of a native Brightonian Not underselling yourself works! (Positive […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 4th December 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 4th December, 16 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: The business of vouchers Full time freelancing is very possible A very varied education Handling birthdays in a big family Brexit effects on the car industry […]
Freelancers networking notes from 27th November 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 27th November, 16 freelancers met in the Lord Nelson Inn, Brighton, to talk about the tech industry and freelancing. This is some of what we talked about: Insolvency of the Brighton i360 Games consoles for family use Digital life balance When a client cancels a project Banter VR game pitching Farmers and inheritance […]
Freelancers meeting notes from 20th November 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 20th November, a dozen freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: It’s cold! Lapses in productivity Putting code in helpers vs models Bluesky and Mastodon Deleting your tweets and X account Integrity AI and Drupal Upgrading an […]
Growing into an agency, notes from our 13th November 2024 meet up
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 13th November, twelve freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton. This is some of what we talked about: Can you / do you want to retire? Jewellery as a hobby and business Bitcoin valuation spiking Should you grow into an agency? Trying to work as a collective Trying to get […]
Should I grow into an agency?
Posted by Paul Silver
This has been a reoccurring theme through the history of the Farm group. Once you’re doing at least fine as a freelancer, should you grow into an agency? I’m basing the below on the agency I used to work for full time, and the many agencies I’ve known over more than twenty years freelancing. The […]
How much work do you get done, and more… freelancers meeting on 6th November 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 6th of November, twelve freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Finding code in heavily abstracted projects Task management systems Padrone ring mouse Finding work for several days a week rather than full time US election […]
Feature flags and more, freelancers meeting on 30th October 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 30th October, 14 freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things tech and freelancing. This is some of what we talked about: Figma’s iffy UX means you can incur costs unexpectedly When client relationships go wrong The Rocky Horror Picture Show Doing tasks that your client doesn’t understand […]
Notes from our freelancers meet up on 23rd October 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 23rd October we had a small meeting with nine freelancers meeting in the Battle of Trafalagar pub in Brighton. I was along for a shorter time than usual as I was getting over a cold, here’s what we talked about while I was there: Sharepoint – much better to work on than it used […]
Notes from the freelancers meet up on 16th October 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On a very rainy Wednesday evening, 12 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar, Brighton. This is some of what we talked about: The challenges and benefits of working within the charity sector Ideas for finding work What did you do before freelancing? Jobs that are a grind Recommended: the TV show “Alma is not […]
Juggling client comms & meeting notes from 9th October 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 9th October, thirteen freelancers in the digital sector met in the Battle of Trafalgar in Brighton to talk freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: “PHP bad” – competitiveness in programming languages Stopping smoking (congrats!) Slim PHP microframework Juggling clients and their foibles Having enough clients that if one stops […]
Freelancers meet up notes from 2nd October 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 2nd October, 15 freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar in Brighton to talk all things tech and self employment. This is some of what we talked about: Dealing with a very dead EV car Travelling near(ish) Israel is tricky right now Amazing diving pictures Puppy! Programmers not actually getting much productivity boost […]
Working out what you want to do, a visitor from Wales & more…
Posted by Paul Silver
On 25th September, 17 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things freelancing and technology. This week we were joined by Jeni for the first time in years, as she moved away from Brighton and couldn’t come back during the pandemic. It was great to see her! A very welcome visitor […]
Freelancers meet up on 18th September 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 18th September, ten freelancers met up in the Battle of Trafalgar. I couldn’t make it as I was ill, thanks very much to Hazlitt for his notes on what was talked about: I’ve got a new client! Dead electric car, they disconnected the meter My best client is closing down The new iPhone […]
Working for companies in other countries, job security and more
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 11th September 2024, nine freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar in Brighton to talk all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: Power problems and laptop problems Debugging very old PHP code Brighton Fibre connection debugged with a very strong torch Memorising (pointless) things Strange cheeses […]
HMRC mistakes and more, freelancers meet up on 4th September 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On Wednesday 4th September, twelve freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things freelancing and tech. This is some of what we talked about: HMRC mistakes are a massive pain as you can’t easily get hold of them WordUp Brighton – WordPress Interactivity API Brighton Fibre vs Hyperoptic […]
Freelancers meeting notes for 28th August 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 28th August, fourteen freelancers gathered in the beer garden of the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to chat about work they had on, finding new work, and a bunch of other stuff. Here are the topics I managed to note down: Pass the parcel with ethernet connectors Orkney and archeology Consulting work […]
Is the problem people? Freelancers meet up on 21st August 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 21st August, thirteen freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things tech and freelancing. Here is some of what we talked about: Moving a project from Laravel 6 to 11 Getting paid for estimates/quotes Domain records – what to change in DNS when you move website […]
No-GPT learning, freelancers meet on 14th August 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 14th August, 15 freelancers met in the beer garden of the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to chat all things self employment and tech. This is some of what we talked about: The Eisenhower Matrix for prioritising tasks Learning React Trying to break into tech Farm history Coworking in Thailand Chiang Mai […]
Potential riots and equipment budgeting – freelancers chat on 7th August 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
Having missed two Farm meet ups due to holiday and illness (they went fine, but no notes from them), I was delighted to make it his week although with a riot rumoured to be happening nearby, the starting of meeting was a little anxious. Happily, the riot did not happen, and an anti-fascist protest against […]
Not a huge success? Really? Our freelancers meet up on 17th July 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 17th July it was warm enough for us to meet in the beer garden of the Battle of Trafalgar in Brighton. Fifteen of us were there across the night, spread over three of their picnic tables. This is some of what we talked about: The protections of having a Limited company Chasing money […]
Applecare win and more, freelancers meet up on 10th July 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the evening of the Euros 2024 semi-final between England and Netherlands, I expected a low turn out. I was wrong, there were 17 of us in all. While the football match played inside the pub, we enjoyed various chat across three picnic tables in the beer garden. Topics of conversation: The election result and […]
Freelancers meeting notes for 3rd July 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 3rd July, twelve freelancers came to our meet up in the Battle of Trafalgar. This is some of what we talked about: Finding work when you can do lots of things for clients Breaking down your work to niches YunoJuno Marketing via your own website Finding new clients Networking where your clients network […]
Freelancers meeting notes for 26th June 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 26th June, fifteen freelancers met in the beer garden of the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things tech and freelancing. There was a lot of different conversations going on, this is some of the topics I managed to note down: Using frameworks and libraries vs writing all the code in a […]
Meeting Notes for 19th June 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 19th June, eight freelancers met in the beer garden of the Battle of Trafalgar to talk all things freelancing and tech. Some of our conversations were: Using Clickup for task management Relocating to a different country Seagull stories Taking a long time to complete a Masters or PhD PHP in the modern world […]
Dealing with old code, learning multiple languages and more… freelancers meet 12th June 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 12th June, 14 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar to talk tech and self employment. This is some of the many conversations I noted down: Balancing work and health Old PHP in the wild Finding clients with old code – not as lucrative as hoped Moving to a full time job Work/life […]
Windows Recall madness and more… freelancers meeting on 5th June 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 5th June, eight freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar. A small but good meet up, we covered quite a few topics including the recent news about Windows Recall, a feature coming with certain new Windows computers. Here’s broadly what we talked about: Windows Recall madness Photoshop alternatives Proud dad moment: child in first […]
Freelancers meeting notes for 29th May 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 29th May, ten freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub, Brighton to talk freelancing and all things tech. Although there weren’t as many of us as usual, this was a lovely meet up and I got to play with the iPhone app Sky is making. I promised not to talk about what […]
Freelancers meeting notes for 22 May 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 22nd May, nine freelancers met at the Battle of Trafalgar to talk self employment, tech, and elections. This is some of what we talked about: Pensions – moving, paying in, hassles and positives Problems with old school server setup Storing your code – Github vs Gitlab vs others Deployment systems UK election is coming! […]
Freelancers meet on 15th May, 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 15th May, 12 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub, Brighton, to talk all things freelancing and tech. Some of our conversations included: Git desktop vs CLI Losing energy for streaming Do you just not like AI or are you too old for this shit? Working on a client project when you’re […]
Freelancers meet on 8th May 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On Wednesday 8th May, eleven freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk business and tech. It was great to see Sul for the first time in ages and to hear about the internship he’s recently completed. Here’s some of what we talked about: Payment problems Tesla robots Speculative investments Not sure […]
Meeting notes for 1st May 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 1st of May, nine freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk business and tech. Trying to build up and subcontract to other freelancers House renovations and fixes The Bank of Dave Mutual project catch up Finances for your children Dealing with an awkward project manager Linting your code PHP version […]
Meeting notes for 24th April 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 24th April, nine freelancers gathered in the Battle of Trafalgar to chat freelancing, tech, and a bunch of old nonsense. Here are the topics I noted down: Trying to get funding for Open Source work Managing to market yourself Open Source AI projects Gadgets a go go: new phone! New step counter! Bad […]
Google Consent Mode v2 and learning vs marketing, meeting on 17th April 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 17th April 2024, ten freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things self employment and tech. It was great to see Carl for the first time in years, he was back in town on other business. Some of the topics we talked about: Google Consent Mode v2 What causes delays […]
Using recruitment agencies to find work, bad sleep and more from 10th April 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 10th April eleven freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things freelancing, and many things about cooking too. Some of what we talked about: Clarity website visitor tracking Big companies and awkwardness – Microsoft, Google, Apple Spreading vacancies out to job boards E-learning Businesses we’ve worked in Going […]
Meeting notes for 3rd April 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On Wednesday 3rd April, nine freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar to talk all things self employment, tech and… cooking kept coming up a lot too. It was great to see Mike for the first time in ages. Here’s some of what we all talked about: “Quit” by Annie Duke is very good […]
Meeting notes for 27th March 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On Wednesday 27th March, the Farm met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub, Brighton. Ten people came to talk all things freelancing and tech. Here is some of what we talked about: Being made redundant Life in rural Portugal Building boar proof fences (no, you can’t just eat them) Being a “technology tart” – learning […]
Discovery phases, self marketing and more, meeting notes for 20th March 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 20th March 2024, thirteen freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar to talk all things freelancing and tech. I was delighted to see Elliot, who was visiting Brighton after moving to the West country five years ago, and Paul for the first time in ages. Here’s some of what we talked about: Building products […]
Meeting notes from 13th March 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 13th of March, 14 freelancers gathered in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to swap notes and chat. This is some of what we talked about: Mailgun and support Making websites low carbon A ‘responsive’ site that serves different HTML via PHP WordPress and getting speed from it Mt. Gox payments are trickling in […]
Learning new skills as a freelancer, our meet on 6th March
Posted by Paul Silver
On 6th March 2024, twelve freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub in Brighton to talk all things freelancing. This is the topics I managed to note down: “Work no longer falls in my lap” – searching for work in the current economy Proxy header problems impossible to diagnose with Safari’s browser tools […]
Rokit AR demo, LLM use and ethics, and more – meeting notes from 28th Feb
Posted by Paul Silver
On Wednesday 28th February, 2024, ten freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar, Brighton, to talk freelancing and tech. This is some of what was talked about: Science fiction books and films The Apple Vision Pro A break in Thailand Oliver Sacks Reaction videos – the good and the bad Watching easy media when you’re […]
Working in VR, meeting notes from 21st February 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 21st February, 13 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar, Brighton, to talk business, tech, and random nonsense. This is the topics I managed to note down: Insight Time meditation app Politics and the economy Work levels Focusing down the services you offer The Rose Hill Tavern How disturbing are phone calls in coworking […]
Meeting notes for 7th February 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 7th February, 11 freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk tech and all things freelancing. This is some of what we talked about: Retrocomputing Living in rural South Africa Living with the wildlife in rural South Africa Online communities which florish on hate Brighton AI meet up Endless projects Politics and […]
Meeting notes for 31st January 2024
Posted by Paul Silver
On 31st January, ten freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk all things freelancing. This is a selection of what we talked about: Project problems A run in with a local “character” Can an aged PhD in AI be turned into being an “expert” in the LLM world? Dealing with someone […]
Meeting notes for 24th January
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 24th January 2024, nine freelancers met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to talk tech, business and various nonsense. We welcomed James along for the first time. Some of what we talked about: Don’t forget to “defer” your Javascript Teaching your spouse Python Chasing money? Use a “Letter before action” and a “Without […]
Meeting notes for 17th January
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 17th of January 2024, 14 of us met in the Battle of Trafalgar pub to chat all things freelancing. This is some of what we talked about: Turning your competition into customers Advertising your services Being full of work (a nice change) Photography meet ups? Projects coming to an end Physio and recovery […]
Meeting notes for 10th January
Posted by Paul Silver
On 10th January 2024 we held our freelancers meet up in the Battle of Trafalgar, 12 people attended. My notes, although I missed a lot as a lot of conversations were going on: Overrunning projects Suddenly booked in with lots of new work (woo!) Klarna payments development Working out a mix of booked days and […]