Garf Technology
I absolutely love my work. Trading as “Garf Technology Multimedia“, my business card reads: “Freelance IT Consultant, Journalist & Photographer” but in reality my work has lead me in many fascinating directions including teaching, writing, taking loads of pictures plus plenty of ‘research’. I also offer an affordable data recovery service.
Few points regarding how my business actually works…
- My lifestyle and my business are inextricably linked and the business forms part of my broader set of values and beliefs. It is a lifestyle business.
- My business runs ~100% on open source software with a commitment to contributing positively and freely back to the open source movement.
- >66% of my working time is study, reading, research and development – generating no direct revenue at all. But in the long term, I believe my business would sink without it.
- My business has a fair trade policy with a written commitment to pay suppliers & contractors promptly, to avoid corporations whose business practices I consider to be immoral or unethical and to treat all concerned with my business with kindness and respect.
- >99% of my work comes from word-of-mouth and|or repeat business.
- My business is based on open standards as far as technically possible, eg POSIX (software compatibility), SI (metrication), W3C (webpage design), ISO8601(date), Linux (OS) amongst many others.
- ~80% of my photographic work is part of another project – in house magazines, newspaper articles, websites, WebOnCD projects etc.
- ~80% of my contracts are initially agreed on a handshake.
- I’ve traded for over 30 years and enjoy my work today as much as I ever have.
Point I’m trying to make, badly I suspect, is that you need to consider your business holistically, not just as a means of flogging a product. That’s why this site was never intended as an advertisement for my business. My time is already somewhat committed! Rather, it is a collaborative tool, a means to provide some background information to those with whom I am already working and to those considering doing so. However if you have an interesting and adequately-resourced project that you think I could help you with, then I would be delighted to hear from you .