Now that I've put iTunes back on my computer I decided to join Last FM to spread my music tastes to the world! I've only added up to the C's into iTunes (I have a lot of music!) so the figures at present are a bit distorted, plus it's early days. However if you want to take a look at what I'm listening to right now feel free – Last FM Profile.

I've added a new little plugin to allow my visitors to be more active during their time here. Comment Karma allows you to rate a comment that's been left here. It's nothing serious really, just a kind of karma points on each comment. If it seems popular I may knock up a bit of a script to get the top commentators from the database (if I can't find a plugin for that!), and give them a bit of exposure.

So, after each comment you'll see a thumbs up and a thumbs down icon. Simply click the one you think the comment deserves and your vote should be added (note you need JavaScript running for this to work).

I'm talking about populating a site with products here. I've been working on rejigging an existing site and have 100+ products to put up for sale on the site. However a thought just came to me. Even though I can get new products (when I nag the illustrator for them!), I can't necessarily get a new set of products every week or fortnight.nnSo a thought just came into my head. When I relaunch the shop section of this site with all of the products should I actually limit the initial number and then add say 5 extra each week for a few weeks to make the site appear to be consistently added to? I could easily set this up to be automated by using a date threshold so I'd still set everything up but simply post date half of the products. This would hopefully provide more stickyness if visitors were aware of new products being added on a constant basis. Of course on the other hand this slows down the exposure for the products that are held back.nnIs there a better benefit for either option?

Going away often, or even using multiple computers means that your whole perfected setup of browser, bookmarks, email accounts and favourite software needs to be duplicated somehow. I use two laptops at home, one for business and one for personal, I also go away a lot and try not to take my main laptop when I don't have to. So since converting a spare laptop harddrive into a portable drive, and also getting a 1GB pen drive late last year, it means that I can easily drop my work onto one of the drives and just put that in my pocket! So I've got a nice collection of portable software which I run and figured I'd list it out here incase anyone fancies grabbing a copy even to take to work (afterall, most IT depts don't want Firefox running as it's not as easy to track – so I've been told!).

• Mozilla Firefox – Web Browser
• Mozilla Thunderbird – Email Client
• FileZilla – FTP
• Xampp – Webserver, PHP (4 and 5), MySQL and more
• Irfanview – Image view and basic editor *
• PSPad – Code editor, good for scripting

* Irfanview is not strictly portable however I run this on my main computer and simply copied the directory from Program Files to my portable drive and it worked so I'm including it!

My feedreader now is Google Reader hence why I've not listed an RSS reader. There are plenty more applications available such as OpenOffice and the GIMP. You can find these and others at Portable Apps. This site stays on top of updates too such as Firefox and Thunderbird, which is really good.

With Firefox, I imported my bookmarks in which is handy as I don't want to rebuild that list! I've also added the basic extensions to the portable version too. Firefox simply runs like a normal version, you can update it, add extensions and themes, and save bookmarks.

Of course this is only useful if you have a computer to put your portable drive into! About 75% of my business trips are down to London which means we stop at my parents in Buckinghamshire. I then hijack my mum's laptop, simply plug my drive in and away we go Alternatively if I have to go down to the office that I contract for I can just plug the drive in there.

If you're often on the move or work between multiple computers, this is a great way to save time and hassle. Also as a sidenote, PSPad is a great editor for PHP. If I could combine that with HTML Kit we'd have a winner!

My business is there to make money. I don't really have many direct overheads (direct meaning that the overheads are caused by being in business), I don't pay wages I just employ freelancers who are also trying to build up their business. I earn enough to cover my bills and save a little. Luckily my outgoings for where we live are not that high.

My opinion is that a business should earn the same amount as it would (in theory) pay out in wages. I think one of my clients once said a business should earn double what it pays out (so 66/33 cut) however I'd be happy with it being a 50/50 cut for now.

So if I've earnt £x, the business should have a turnover of at least £x*2. Why at least? Well there is not just my work to take into account as I employ Dave virtually full time, so the business should be making double what he gets too. However going by the past 6 months, whilst the figures look good and are on target to increase last years figures, they don't add up to what they should for a business that's meant to be making money.

So why do we seem to be working so much but the turnover doesn't seem to show this? I can only assume it's a mix of quoting too little and also spending more time on work than we realise, or should I say believing we spend more time on work when really we're managing to waste time.

Clients sometimes don't help with time management. I'm finishing off two websites right now, both of which should be up and running and both of which have been delayed due to them still populating the sites with information and products.

One problem I have found is clients change their minds after they've signed your quote. Yes this is understandable, as you work on their site you come up with ideas, they come up with ideas and suddenly your workload has doubled. Despite writing on a quote 'changes to this quote may mean the final cost being reassessed' it seems to go unnoticed. I've got a meeting with a client on Thursday who's added 3 extra dynamic product sections to their site that weren't quoted for. Despite reusable code cutting down some of the time, each section is very different from the next and so I still need to discuss the extra costs now involved. This is the part of business I hate as I'm just a programmer and am really not a business person! I feel bad asking for extra money, even though my business is due it, and I definitely don't want to annoy the client as there are several more projects being lined up with them and they're good clients to work with (ie. hassle free!).

That aside, how do you manage your time? Even though I try to avoid reading blogs and forums between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner, I still feel like I don't get as much done during the day as I could/should. Perhaps it's all the phone calls and emails I have to deal with too (which reminds me, Matt I'll reply tomorrow – I promise!). I really do feel like I lose time during the day however, and I don't know where the time goes.