I often joke that Twitter is my only source of news these days, but there is some news I’m simply unprepared to hear. I was absolutely horrified today to learn of the death of Debbie Metrustry, known up and down the Irish internet as @debbiemet.

In our first interactions, I didn’t know her last name was Metrustry and thus the source of her username. In my mental shorthand for people, she was Debbie Well Met, because absolutely everyone who had the pleasure of meeting her loved her. I’m not kidding about that. I know people say it all the time of those who have passed on, but in the snarky, gossipy, tight-knit world that is the Irish internet, I don’t know a single person who didn’t spontaneously smile and have a good word to offer whenever her name was mentioned.

Death is a cheater, but in her case seems particularly perverse. Debbie was young; sure, there was the occasional complaint about arthritic bones, but she was overflowing with enthusiasm and purpose. We all give lip service to the idea that “you only have one life” but Debbie had, in the last two years, really grabbed hold of that reality and made drastic changes to turn her life into what she wanted it to be. She was working through a career transition, was  newly dedicating herself to running, she had started a major move from Dublin, and she’d just bought land for her dream eco-house in Tipperary.

In many regards, she was just (re)starting her life; it seems cruel beyond belief that she will not live out the dreams she was building while the rest of us are left here, free to carry on in our own lives with efforts that seem so weak compared to her heroic mountain moving.

I was looking forward to seeing her again in three weeks, and at the moment I still cannot believe I will not.  I’m quite sure we’re scheduled for lunch in March and quite sure she’ll pop up in my Twitter DMs any moment now. Anything else is incomprehensible; when she’s not there, I know I will think of her as just away, dancing until dawn.

I have called the funeral home but there is still not a date, time, or specific information about services for her and details are below. Regardless of those arrangements, I’ve checked in with a few mutual friends and there will be a BTW (Blogger, Twitter, Whatever) meetup in her honour, most likely on the day of her services. I’ll post more information when it’s available but for the moment, like so many others, I simply cannot believe we’re making plans around the funeral of this woman.

Because really, she’s supposed to be here, dancing into her future.

Funeral Arrangements:
Viewings: Sunday and Monday until 8 PM
Kirwans, 21-23 Fairview Strand, Dublin 3 [map]
Service: Tuesday, 16 February, 2010 at 2 PM
Glasnevin Crematorium Chapel [map]
Burial immediately following

BTW Meetup:

Tuesday, 16 February 5 PM onwards
Le Cirk, 32 Dame Street [web]
Buses from Glasnevin: 140 [map]
Please RSVP at BTW [here] or add your name here.

When I mentioned a few weeks ago on Twitter that I was suddenly doing more voice over work than I ever expected for clients, this was really not what I had in mind.

Last week, a very hesitant but nice-sounding man rang and asked for me by name. It was pretty much the normal thing – he’d heard of me from a friend, I came highly recommended, was I available, etc. The conversation got muddled very quickly though, because as it turns out, he was very much not looking for a website.

I’m not sure if he was looking for in-call escort services, out-call escort services, or phone sex, but he was definitely seeking a service I am entirely unwilling to provide at my current hourly rate. Possibly he was looking for dominatrix services, because I got quite irritated trying to get him to say what he was actually after, and it didn’t seem to put him off one bit.

As pranks (or harassment) go, this all worked out quite well for me as I am not a huge fan of the telephone to start out with. The more it rings the less I like it. So as more and more calls started to come in, I happily turned off my mobile and switched off all the phones in the house. The one I couldn’t turn off is now in pieces on the kitchen counter. It’s been there for a week.

Our house phone mailbox is now full, and my mobile has a truly silly amount of voice mail.

Things I’ve Learned:

• People appear to have plenty of money to spend on entertainment, even in a recession;
• A surprising number of people do not withhold their numbers when phoning out for something decidedly more indulgent than a pizza;
• I really should convert my work phone to a premium rate service…

So, if you’ve been trying to reach me and have not been able to, your message is in quite a queue and it’s likely I won’t be retrieving it, so you may want to drop me an email or try again. Happy phoning!

Although I’ve been designing and developing websites since 1996, I’ve only been freelancing for the past two years. I thought most of the learning curve was going to be about taxes and time management, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Most of what I’ve learned is actually about my own professional strengths and limitations, in ways that didn’t become apparent until I struck out on my own.

Here are five things I’ve learned that I wish I’d know then:

1. Work Good Projects with Good People

This took me a long time to figure out, and along the way I seriously cocked this one up a few times. The biggest mistake I’ve made is working with people I really, really like on projects I liked a whole lot less. These projects tend to be the very last ones finished, and the people who really, really liked me to start out with probably like me considerably less at the end.

Lesson: Love both the people and the project.

2. Agencies Suck

The money is often tempting, but these projects almost always go to shit. The agency sits between you and the client, and any client large enough to employ a PR or advertising agency is probably less of a client and more of a committee anyway.  Not a single agency project from the past two years appears in my portfolio. And not a single one ever will, because I am never taking another agency job ever again.

Lesson: Do not return agency phone calls.

3. Clingy Clients Cost Money

This one was hard to learn, because I get a lot of calls from people who are being screwed over, have serious site problems, or are completely clueless. And I really, truly want to help these people but I have learned to be a little more streetwise about why they are facing the problems they are facing. There are clients out there who will very sweetly suck all your time, energy and patience and while they may be nice people, they are not good clients.

Lesson: You can’t help everyone.

4. I’m Not an Ass (Wo)man

Probably the most important thing I’ve learned in the last two years is that back end design is not a good long-term project for me. I have always previously done this work leading teams, and now I know why. I can certainly look at your back end, spot the problems, and help you reorganise it to be much better, but if I have to design and code every screen, I’m going to die of boredom and you are going to die waiting.

Lesson: Learn your professional limitations.

5. You Can’t Work All the Time

I’ve tried. My jaunt to Florence in December was my first vacation since my honeymoon five years ago. But I’m 37, and it’s become obvious I cannot maintain the same pace I could at 27. I have been seriously ill three times in the last two years, which is something of a record even for me, and I’m pretty sure it’s my body’s retribution for relentless 18-hour days. Scheduling time away from work is very hard, but it also recharges my creativity and focus.

Lesson: If you don’t make time for down time, you’re going down anyway.

A quick one on the domestic front:

Darragh Doyle is doing a sponsored skydive to raise money for elder-care charity CARE local. This sounds like great craic and Darragh is, as always, up for anything whacky. I was also impressed by the €800 raised in donations until I realised the jump is this Friday and Darragh has €2,200 more to raise.

Charities are not only hardest hit in a recession, they’re also first hit in a recession. Donors give less money to fewer causes, and programmes and support shrink exactly when most charities’ clients need them most. Unfortunately, it’s the local, work-a-day charities with low profile and small donor bases – like this one – who often have the roughest time of it.

Honestly, it’s not every day a guy offers to jump out of a plane. If you can, it would be nice to throw a donation at Darragh to support his rather heroic (and hilarious) efforts here.

Also, if I’m reading this right, if we raise enough money, Darragh will stop telling really, seriously, painfully bad jokes on Twitter. That alone is worth twenty quid.

Update: He jumped and raised €2,139! Great video here.

I came back from FOWD London feeling, shall we say, less than fabulous. It took a good 48 hours for me to realise that the slightly sick feeling parked in my abdomen was probably not just post-presentation nerves – though to be fair the hacking, aching and fever were also big tip-offs.

Having just returned from the international travel capital of Europe courtesy of a viral petri dish recirculating air at 30,000 feet, there was comedy aplenty in our house about H1N1 Influenza. In fact, early that week I had a coughing fit at the corner shop and joked to my husband that there was no more deserving recipient of my viral load than the complete and utter cow who runs our local store.

Buying from this shop is not like retail as most humans understand it. Every item purchased is treated like you are personally pulling food directly from the mouths of Ethiopian children, cash be dammed. Packets of tea, milk and bread are snatched from your hand and only given back grudgingly. Every biscuit I leave with is a moral victory.

Anyway, this all became much less amusing when it started to look like I really might have the charmingly named Swine Flu. The were so many creased brows and concerned tuts that I began to wonder if London had been relocated to a suburb of Mexico City and I had merely missed the good weather. In my more fervish moments, I dreamed it had, and apparently began telling people about elborate plans to open a summer resort in Islington.

It’s now almost two weeks later, though, and my career as a weapon of mass bio-terrorism appears to be drawing to a close.  I am much better, and have a new found appreciation for the ability to breathe and the wonders of being able stand up for a whole 10 minutes. I can also stay awake for an entire three hours at a stretch. And to top it all off,  I officially do not have swine flu.

The bad news is, neither does the woman from the corner shop.

One of the many reasons I have been quiet on this blog for the past few weeks is that despite having any number of things to say, whenever I sat down to blog, the only thing that wanted to come out of my mouth was variations on OH MY GOD I HAVE TO PRESENT AT FOWD PLZ KILL ME NOW.

For those of you not familar with FOWD, it is a big deal. Despite never having heard of FOWD until a few months ago, that fact that FOWD is a big deal was made crystal clear to me by 300 people all saying “Oh my God, you’re presenting at FOWD? That’s a really big deal!”

Though nervous about this gig, I was excited about my topic and happy with my presentation. I didn’t know if the audience was going to be happy with it, but I knew it was what I wanted to say.

Granted, a talk called Stalinist Web Design is never going to be the easiest sell, but I was totally prepared to win, lose or draw on my own merits. What I wasn’t prepared for was getting completely and utterly thrown by failing technology when my presentation refused to advance the split screen (Slide view for the audience, Notes view for the speaker) after the first slide.

This is, apparently, how the universe punishes web designers who refuse to use Macs.

One the plus side, the endless interval between slide one and slide two did mean I got to hear several hundred people sing Happy Birthday to me, which was deeply embarassing but also delightful.

On the minus side, it also meant that when technology was finally beaten back into submission, there were no longer any notes on my visual view. No doubt someone more polished at this than I am would have made a more graceful recovery, but at that moment in time I was so grateful that I had an old fashioned, dead tree printed copy of my notes that I might very well have cried had I not been busy trying very hard not to vomit.

And so for Episode #308 of Do As I Say, Not As I Do, I actually read my presentation directly off the 13 pieces of paper in my hand.

For those of you not familar with the cardinal rules of presenting, they are:

• Never read off your slides;
• Never read directly from your notes – use them as prompts;
• Never blow your nose whilst you are mic’d.

Luckily, I blew my nose beforehand.

Anyway, this turned out to be one of those presentations people mostly either loved or loathed. (The fact more people hated Microsoft totally doesn’t count – that’s like shooting fish in a barrel.) I like people with strong opinions, so I’m as accepting of “was arrogant” as I am happy with “was fabulous.”

Mostly, I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad Carsonified invited me, glad I turned 37 in London, glad I got to meet a ton of genuinely nice and interesting people, and glad I got to speak at FOWD.

And really glad I didn’t vomit.

Saturday night found us at the previously mentioned and now infamous 2009 Blog Awards, where for those of us attending the Ladies Tea Party, copious amounts of food were wonderfully catered by Fuel at the Cork Airport Hotel.

Score one for not having to cook.

Next morning, it was breakfast ala hotel with about 100 other hungover bloggers, and God bless whoever was back there in the kitchen, because it meant I didn’t have to cook it. Hurrah.

That afternoon, in an act of unprecedented forward planning and sheer genius, I had booked Bite Size to cater a family luncheon to celebrate John’s birthday. Not, you understand, because I fail at domesticity; I am perfectly capable of turning out Sunday lunch for 12 people. I am not, however, remotely capable of turning out as much as toast on four hours of sleep and a massive booze and debauchery fuelled hangover.

In fact, I couldn’t even manage coffee (which is just as well as we didn’t have any). In answer to my prayers and a public plea on Twitter, the absolutely god-like Sam Kidd from Sam and Dan’s actually brought me a huge steaming carryout of java. To my door. With a smile. I nearly wept into the cup.

The catering from Bite Size turned up an hour later, when I was just about ready to face the world again, and it was tremendous. Their canapés are like little works of art, the dinner was massive, and we ate gloriously well on Sunday. The guests all ooh’d and ahh’d and dug in, and I have to say that for a dozen well-fed eaters, it was excellent value for money.

Not to mention that we also feasted on leftovers all day Monday, thus escaping yet another day of cooking, which was just as well because I seriously needed the entire day for additional recovery time. (I think I drank my own body weight in tea, water and 7 UP in a futile attempt to re-hydrate.)

Alas, today all systems returned to normal. The last leftovers went to the dog, the last cupcakes went into various happy eaters, and the last of the manky bits went down the insinkerator, thus ending my three day kitchen holiday.

But if I win the lottery, let me tell you: personal chef. All the way.

Mike Kane called me on Wednesday night to say he’d bought tickets, was dateless, and since I was the designer of his shortlisted site, we were going to the Digital Media Awards. On Friday.

Far from being excited, I was deeply irritated. Because here’s the thing: if you’re a woman, you can’t just get a buzz cut and turn up in a penguin suit. Black tie events require Herculean amounts of effort, and I now had one day – Thursday – to do all of the following:

• Buy a frock
• Buy a dress bag for said frock
• Buy shoes
• Buy a wrap
• Get a haircut
• Get my nails done
• Unpack 16 boxes to find my grown up coat
• Remember how to put on make-up

Also, I hate this shit because I do not have a magical fairy godmother, and there’s always a very real danger that unless the shopping gods are on my side, I’ll arrive at the ball looking like a Teletubby wrapped in tulle.

Luckily, the stars aligned and Debenham’s had the perfect frock, the haircut doesn’t suck, and the shoes are truly ace.

Now I’m excited. I don’t even care if we win.

You are cordially invited to join us for New Year’s Eve Festivities as we welcome in 2009, hopefully with something between a whimper and a bang.

• There will be wine, beer and bubbly. If you want anything harder than that, bring it, although we may bust out the scotch at some point.
• There will be food. It will probably be yummy. (Oh hello, winter carbs!)
• There will be peace on Earth and goodwill towards men.

There will very likely also be music, count downs, noise makers and all that good stuff. We would love to have you, so please RSVP in the comments. You are very welcome to bring people along; just let me know how many, so I can plan accordingly.

Where: 18 Gilabbey Street, Cork, Ireland
When: 9 PM until sometime after midnight
Who: You, and whomever else you would care to bring
RSVP: In the comments, as soon as possible :)

You know that deeply irksome trend where people make charitable donations on your behalf instead of giving gifts? Well, we’ve done that very thing with you in mind, dear Internet. You were going to get coal in your stocking, but instead we’ve stuck a few bucks in the g-string of the following very worthy online organisations this year.

• Wikipedia: Does anyone not use Wikipedia? There is simply no better, more accessible or better resource when you suddenly need to know who the hell Lansana Conté is at 4 o’clock in the morning.
• Electronic Freedom Foundation: A lot of current issues including DRM and network neutrality emanate in the US. A donation to EFF helps to fight the good fight on the front lines of the battle for electronic privacy and freedom.
• MySociety works to make government open to the public – transparent, accessible and accountable . The code base it’s built on is similarly open, and is what John is using to bring some of this kit to Ireland.
• Scarleteen: Because abstinence only sex education simply does not work, and no matter how good your relationship with your mum, you probably don’t want to be asking her any questions that include the word “lube.”

If you’re looking to give in the spirit of the season but don’t know where to drop off your hard earned dollars, euros, or drachmas, you might consider the above. Organisations like these can take a beating during a recession, but unless you’re planning to give up your internet connection, your digital rights or sex in the face of economy, we hope each of these organisations will make your 2009 a better place to be in some way.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.