Nisadas

I’m pretty sure that the Sri Lankan online community includes more than a few freelancers who primarily operate off the web. Even then, there’s probably just a handful of freelancers or even small businesses that have given any thought about their invoicing. I’ve seen plenty of individuals and SMEs sending out invoices which are clearly MS-Excel spreadsheets or even MS-Word documents (Excel makes sense, but why anyone would go through the extra hassle of using Word is beyond me).

That’s why I thought of sharing a resource for invoicing which some of you may find useful – CurdBee. The objective is simple – if you’re doing some sort of business, it helps to look professional. So what better than a free solution that allows you to send out professional looking invoices?

Of course, you needn’t take my word for it, check out what the rest of the web has to say:

• Manage Client Invoices and Accept Payments with CurdBee by Rick Broida on BNET.
• Included in WebWorkerDaily’s list of 10 apps you can’t do without
• Featured on ES Developed, in a post about CurdBee’s new features.
• Used as the billing method at WeAreAGoodCompany.

P.S:

In the interests of full disclosure, I used to work at Vesess - the company behind CurdBee – for around a year, ending November 2005. The only reimbursement I would get out of publicising their service is the satisfaction that I was part of a small Sri Lankan company which is now able to offer world class solutions.

During my days at Vesess, making presentations was pretty much 80% of what I did. Design support was from Prabhath, while tweaking the overall focus was done with Lankitha’s support.

My experiences in debating lent themselves to an advantage in presenting in front of an audience, which sometimes led people to think I had an innate talent in presenting.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Being an inherently shy person and a Geek to boot, social interaction was never my forte. That is probably why my mother encouraged me to join in debating and Interact. During my stints in both organisations in school, I studied my seniors as well as others in how they presented themselves, developed relationships and handled situations. These self-taught lessons would thereafter be mashed together with my own perspectives to define my own style of doing things.

So while I may have had some experience in speaking in front of an audience (which in many cases is the biggest hurdle of them all), I was by no means an accomplished presenter. However, thanks to the internet I was able to expand my learning and thought I’d share some of my favourite resources with you:

1. Seth Godin did an ebook called “Really Bad Powerpoint”. A google search would yield the .pdf file, while his article can be found here.
2. Garr Reynold’s did a summary of a book by Dr. John Medina – “Brain Rules” – on Slideshare, which can be found here.
3. Garr Reynold’s site “Presentation Zen” does a good job of highlighting the work of one of arguably the world’s best presenters – Steve Jobs.
4. You can watch Steve Jobs demo the Macintosh in 1984 on Youtube by clicking here and you can watch him demo the iMac here. Both are interesting to watch. If at all, I identify with Steve not so much in terms of presentation skill, but in terms of receding hairline…

On a completely unrelated note, many thanks to Jack Point for linking to some cool retro songs!