Well it’s nearly 12 months since I braved the market, through caution to the wind and decided to start working for myself.

Like many in a similar situation, I went through the roller coaster of emotions. One day it would be the best decision you have ever made, the next- career suicide! Add in the fact that we had our second child on the way in 2 weeks, and things start to get really interesting. There has definitely been no shortage of advice nor a shortage of people to give it. Most has been incredibly useful, with the odd piece of ‘my god what were you thinking’.

Raz Chorev sent through this article from the Wall Street Journal- How to Succeed in the Age of Going Solo. There is some excellent advice in the article, from getting your own work space to joining business networks.

Probably the one thing that was missing from the article was a very simple piece of advice- don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sound’s simple, but when you decide to go it alone, it is often a hard (or even embarrassing) thing to admit and ask for. Start with people in your own network. You will be surprised at how wiling many are to lend a helping hand, or refer you to a professional resource that they might be using.

For me is was the financial and administrative side of the business that was taking a lot of my time. Perhaps the fact that I failed accounting first time around at university was a sign of things to come! First thing I did was chat to my accountant- Mr TaxMan (yes that’s his alter ego and you guessed it- phone number 1800-Tax-Man, gotta love him just for that).

Next was to reach out to friends on Twitter asking for sites/ software that people would recommend to help manage quoting/ invoicing. Many recommended Zoho Invoices, and I am extremely happy with it. Lets me do all my quoting and invoicing online, as well as managing reminders for late payers.

There are hundreds of other situations that you can get help for, and entire industries are popping up to service these exact needs. Virtual office space, desk shares, virtual assistants, time management and copywriting- the list goes on.

For all those that have taken the plunge and are going at it on their own, just remember that you don’t need to do it all alone. The sooner you can identify your own weaknesses, the sooner you can get on with the job of building a successful business.

For those that didn’t catch the latest announcement from Microsoft at the E3 expo about their new Xbox. They have squarely taken aim at the huge success of the Nintendo Wii and it’s motion sensor controlling.

Microsoft is hoping to take things to the next level by incorporating voice and facial recognition and doing away with a controller altogether, thus letting you be the controller.

Check out the video demo below for an overview of the new functionality.

In addition to the game play aspects of the unit, the new Xbox heavily focuses on being a movie player and delivery system, with full HD movie downloads from the device. Time will tell how many of the displayed features make their way out to Australia, but things look promising.

Well this is my first post using the wordpress mobile app for the iPhone.

There are some great features that I am testing out, including the very convenient landscape keyboard.

Having the ability to post directly from my phone is going to open up an entirely new type of posting for me which I am very much liking forward to.

Check out some of the screen shots below:

Google today previewed a new product called Google Wave. As Google terms it, it is a “new tool for communication and collaboration on the web”. Little vague, but put simply, they are not only combining the best elements of email, instant messenger and social networks, they are doing it all in a browser environment.

The basic idea is that you can communicate by any means and it is all centralised in one place and different people that might join a conversation at a later date can see the history of a conversation and respond to a particular point in the message not just simply replying to a long email message

To get a better understanding of how this works, check out the sub-site over at http://wave.google.com. You can also sign up to be notified of when it is ready and even help out with bug testing and some user surveys.

The video below is the full developer demonstration of Google Wave. Video is about 1 hour and 20 mins, but the first 30 mins focus on the UI.

UPDATE: Excellent review over at Tech Crunch of Google Wave- “Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web”