Check it out

Now there are web design conferences every month, in every corner of the world (almost) and, coming soon, a web conference which exists only online. There are even unconferences, like the upcoming BarCamp London. Who’d have thought it?

I don’t have the cash to fly around the globe to the big ones like SXSWi, although I did go to RailsConf in Berlin last year and I’d really like to be going to RubyFringe (just how cool is that website?) in July. Luckily, the UK, and in particular London, has more than it’s fair share, so I’m taking full advantage in the coming weeks:

FreeAgent is an official sponsor of both The Highland Fling and Future of Web Design this year, so we’ll all be there at both events, hunting down freelancers and trying to spread the word.

Looking forward to it already!

But what is it?

FreeAgent is an online accounting and small business management service that simplifies the running of your freelance, contractor or consultancy business by effortlessly handling client and project management, invoices, bank accounts and tax.

Up until now, FreeAgent has only been available for UK Sole Traders, Partnerships and Limited Companies. The Universal version changes all that so now companies across the globe can start using FreeAgent to organise their business finances.

Universal supports configurable Sales Tax and VAT/GST and allows this to be reported on. What it doesn’t yet have is the full business and personal tax capabilities of the UK version (writing bespoke accounting engines for each country is no easy task as you might imagine!), but this is something we’ll be rolling out in different countries over the coming months, probably starting with one of Ireland, Canada, Australia or New Zealand.

Technology

This release gave us the perfect opportunity to upgrade our server hardware and we’re now in the right position to be able scale with demand reasonably effortlessly. I’ll be delighted when we have to test this out ;-)

We’ve also moved our main domain from freeagentcentral.co.uk to freeagentcentral.com to reflect our new ‘global’ status, although .co.uk will remain active for the time being.

If you’re a freelancer, contractor or consultant running a small business and you haven’t yet tried FreeAgent out, then head on over and sign up for a 30-day free trial. Your data is safe and secure and you can cancel whenever you like.

We reckon it’s the easiest way to organise your business finances and, to paraphrase one of our happy users, “it will make you feel smart, not stupid, about your company’s finances.”

So, a lot of content has been removed for now but I’ll be incrementally updating the site as and when over the coming weeks (i.e. months).

Happy New Year, reader!

Here’s some music I loved in 2007 (which wasn’t necessarily released in 2007)

• Brett Anderson – Brett Anderson
• Chromeo – Fancy Footwork
• Arctic Monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare
• Róisín Murphy – Overpowered
• The Coral – Roots and Echoes
• Thurston Moore – Trees Outside The Academy
• Grantura – Waves
• Radiohead – In Rainbows
• Hot Chip – DJ Kicks
• Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
• Tommy Guerrero – From The Soil To The Soul
• Larry Levan Live At The Paradise Garage (Strut)
• Midlake – The Trials of Van Occupanther
• Cara Dillon – After the Morning
• Sigur Rós – Agaetis Byrjun

Fairly ordinary, I think.

I clearly haven’t spent enough time buying/borrowing music this year and I have no doubt that I’ll have even less time in 2008. Time keeps speeding up. I’m starting to see why most people (especially parents) just listen to whatever music features in the discount shelf in Sainsbury’s, and why Heart FM is so popular…