I apologize for the missed posts this week things got a little hectic with all that is going on and I decided to just take the week off. So I’ll be back on Tuesday with some fresh new articles and posts for you.

The Autograph Hounds
I’ve been in talks with the management team (my father) and some other third party suppliers about some advertising and marketing moves to help get The Autograph Hounds closer to a successful launch date. Things are looking up for some interesting things happening whenever I do get around to finalizing the functionality of the site.

Prudential
My co-op experience starts with Prudential Financial on Tuesday. Over the past few days, I have been dealing with the bureaucracy and politics that are inherit with an overly large company. But I’m finally through it all and at least at this point all set for starting on Tuesday.

Personal
Today is my 21st birthday. Woohoo! Balloons and streamers falling from the ceiling! Okay, not so much. Never been a huge fan of birthday celebrations, or any celebrations for that matter, so it’ll just be a nice dinner out with the family to celebrate one more year.

That’s all for now, stay tuned next week for some real content.

Maybe it is just me, but I am never satisfied with the work I do. I am constantly finding myself tweaking and revising each and every project. The saving grace is when it comes to client work, I have a forced deadline to stick to.

Since I know some other designers have trouble designing for themselves, I figure it would be good to go over some of my tips for handling my idle hands.

Get Away – The obvious and easiest method. If you’re not around your computer, you wont have access to the files to continue to tweak and revise. It is as simple as that.

Get more projects – Picking up some additional work will help cut out the down time when you’re more likely to go back and over analyze your work.

Learn something new – Another great way to pull your mind away from over thinking your work is to set a goal for yourself to learn something new. Be it professional or personal, if you are focused on spending your free time productively, you are less likely to go back to your projects.

When it comes to being an entrepreneur timing is everything, this is one of the paramount principles behind starting your own business. Because I am a developer, I have been considering if now is the right time to be a developer.

In the current state of things, it would seem that now is the wrong time to be jumping into the web development industry. Freelancers and “studios” seem to be popping up all over the place. It is definitely an easy industry to get in to. It is also an easy industry to succeed in, because there is no clear superior force in the industry. There is no true definitive market leader for the industry.

At the same time as all of these new developers are entering the marketplace, I have heard a number of entrepreneurs claiming that they cannot find developers to help them carry out their ventures.

So right off the bat, you would think there is a void to be filled, right? This seems like a perfect gap to capitalize on to unite the entrepreneurs and the developers. Not really, there are already a number of websites already working in this capacity. This is definitely a dilemma in the developer-entrepreneur relationship.

Guess I’m in the clear, entrepreneur and developer all in one.

It is now 2:00am, and I just realized that I missed my posting deadline. I apologize for that, but it is not without reason. This is the last week of the quarter here at RIT and a lot of other projects are coming to a peak now that I will be heading out on my six month internship. So I figured now was as good a time as any to start posting an update for my projects and other things in my life.

In This Update:
Going to Prudential
The Blog
RhYnO Productions
The Autograph Hounds

Going to Prudential
As I’ve posted before, I will be going on a six month internship with Prudential. It will be a great experience, but it also has added a lot of other pressures as I wrap up this quarter and get ready to head out. This week I started dealing with the paperwork and forms of the Human Resources department. Tedious work, but a necessity with such a big company.

The Blog
I am doing my best to continue to develop this blog and site both on the front end and back end of things. Running the blog off of my own script and not off of a pre-fab solution is proving to be more of a challenge then I originally thought. It is only when you do not have the simple things do you realize that you want or need them. I’ve also started to document the previous changes and future plans. This should allow you to see not only where I am going with this site, but where I have been.

RhYnO Productions
As some of you may have noticed, I have finally launched a new version of my studio‘s site. Right when I initially decided that she needed a change in appearance, we got hammered with client projects. So the design of our own site fell to the wayside as we kept up with our clients’ needs. But finally, I managed to find a lapse so I could release a new version. It’s a rather quick release, but should hold those over who have been emailing me asking why we had a blank page or a coming soon image.

The Autograph Hounds
Another good thing about the six months back at home will be reuniting with my father and brother for more development of The Autograph Hounds. Up to this point it has been very slow goings. We all have other higher priorities at the moment. But the six month stint should give us some time to really sit down and hammer out the plan for the future so we can once again get the ball rolling.

I, and others I know, have found success starting up businesses that cater to the competitive and professional gaming crowd. I think there is one big reason for this success. To this crowd, it is much easier to put a face and personality to your company. This can make your company much more appealing to the target consumers.

Most of the gaming world is based around online forums and IRC chat rooms. This gives the consumers a chance to get much closer to the staff of the start-up. You of course run the risk of always having to be in a personable and business-oriented mood, but what entrepreneur isn’t?

To some consumers, being able to identify and relate with the company is everything. It gives them a sense of security that they know who is getting their money and who they are getting a product from.