November is Will Aid month

If you’ve been thinking of getting a will, November is a good month to do something about it. Will Aid is an annual scheme whereby participating solicitors have agreed to write basic wills for no fee, on the understanding that you make a donation to charity (£95-150). A basic will covers the vast majority of […]

Posted in Law

Life update

Four months in and freelancing is going slowly, though I’ve picked up another regular contract and received a few more enquiries now that the quiet summer holiday season is over. I’m also in the process of getting a custom design for my PHP Developer site, as I don’t think it sells me as well as […]

CV feedback request

As I’ve recently picked up a few new technical skills (e.g. configuration management with Ansible) and started freelancing, I’ve updated my CV again and would be grateful for any feedback, either via the comments or email. HTML and PDF versions can be found at pwaring.com and the Markdown source on GitHub. The CV is intentionally […]

Freelancing so far

I’m now half-way into my first month of freelancing and I think things are going reasonably well. I have regular work for at least one day a week, plus a few other potential projects lined up, which is more than my initial pessimistic forecast. I also have dates for my two financial adviser exams, at […]

The long road to freelancing

I’m roughly half-way through my notice period at my current employer, which feels like it is going very slowly. I’ve got one big project to finish before I leave—processing, registering and labelling the Raspberry Pies which we give out to new undergraduates—but other than that things are fairly quiet. Officially my final day is 30th […]

Full time freelancing

Most people will have seen this news already on social media: earlier this week I handed in my notice at the University of Manchester and will be leaving at the end of June. I enjoy working there, but sadly there isn’t enough work to keep me busy, and whilst the department I work in does […]

Initial thoughts for Nanowrimo

For those who haven’t heard of it before, National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) is an annual event held over the course of November, in which participants aim to write a novel in a month. More specifically, the target is to write 50,000 words (around 1,500/day), which is likely to form the backbone of a novel […]

New job

For those who haven’t seen on social media, I have recently accepted an offer for the position of Software Support Officer at the University of Manchester. The role is new, so I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing, but broadly speaking it involves helping students with final year projects and encouraging them to do […]

Another book clearout

Having moved again I’ve now found myself in the possession of books which I either don’t read or have electronic versions for me to purchase. If you want any of the books and can pick them up from me in person (posting is too much hassle), post a comment or drop me an email. They’re […]