My entrepreneurshipThe birth of Yktoo Solutions
Following up on the Entities vs. persons story, let’s make a step from abstract theory to a bit more practical view on entrepreneurship.
Let me start with circumstances that pushed me in this direction. In 2016, in the course of yet another reorganisation at ING Bank, which was my employer back then, I was given a choice: keep earning money for someone else—or embark on an adventurous freelance journey.
My entrepreneurshipEntities and persons
In my previous post I briefly listed pros and cons of being an entrepreneur. The next logical question is—what does it actually mean, to be an entrepreneur?
To properly answer this seemingly simple question one needs to take a deep dive into the swamp of Dutch laws, regulations, stipulations, and definitions.
My entrepreneurshipPros and cons
As a follow-up to the post about my professional anniversary and to fulfill my promise I’d like to elaborate on my reasons and the path of becoming an entrepreneur. The story is going to be quite long so I’ll split it up.
In fact the very idea of freelancing wasn’t new at all. Many of my expat friends living in Holland have been doing that for years. That mainly concerns IT specialists as they arguably represent the majority of those who came here from the ex-USSR.
Tutorial: development with Yii/PHP/MySQL using Docker
It’s been about a year since I’ve switched to developing this website (built with Yii 2/PHP/MySQL) using Docker. After just one try I realised that Docker is the best thing happened to development. Well, after Vim, of course.
So I’ve decided to write a brief tutorial on setting up a dockerised development environment, in the hope it could be helpful for those who never tried Docker or experience difficulties getting started.
20 years, and counting
With all that fuss I have missed the important date of 20 years of my professional experience, which happened on March 22, 2016.
The following scan of the first page of my Employment Book (Трудовая книжка, an official register of one’s work experience, which every employee in Russia is obliged to have) can prove that:
Wintersport: La Plagne, France
Touchpad toggle script for Ubuntu
Recently I’ve been busy learning the esoteric editor called Vim and figured out my laptop’s touchpad is causing nuisance when you’re working with the keyboard only—which is the whole point of using Vim. At the same time, some programs are nearly unusable without the mouse. In other words, I wanted to be able to switch the touchpad on and off—with the keyboard, of course.
Some laptops have a special key combination for it, but my Dell XPS 13" doesn’t. Ubuntu also provides a switch in the Control Center, but it’s hardly reachable without the mouse:
Frozen beauty
The New Year’s Eve has seen a light frost of -2 °C in the total absence of snow. The green grass got beautifully powdered with rime.
The whitened trees alongside the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal (Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal), which passes next to Houten, became simply magnificent:
So long two thousand sixteen
The turbulent two thousand sixteen has come to an end. The year that has brought so much grief to our world. The year in which Sun Caged and Stream of Passion ceased to exist. I’m inclined to think it’s good that it’s over.
Happy 2017 to all the readers of this blog! I wish you lots of optimism, persistence and luck!
Following the tradition I’d like to look back on the last year—which has been quite positive on my part. So, in 2016 I managed to:
Santa Run Houten
Yesterday, December 17th, Houten hosted a charity event called Rotary Santa Run. For just €10 every participant got a red Santa Claus outfit, a couple of drink vouchers, and a possibility to take part in a funny and useful event. The collected funds will go to the organisations Jeugdsportfonds Houten and De Nierstichting.
A total of about five hundred Santas of all ages and walks of life have gathered at the central square of our Houten.
The smartest traffic-light
The present trend of dubbing everything “smart” based on mere presence of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or Internet connection is a bit annoying. So we have seen smart washing machines, smart watches, smart smoke detectors, smart toothbrushes and so on. Now traffic-lights are next in line, according to our local press. A news article announces the very first smart traffic-light (slim verkeerslicht) in the country has been installed in Houten.