It’s been one of those weeks. A week that had too many good things happen to rule it out as a bad week, but enough bad things happen that you simply cannot rule it a good week.

The Good

• I’ve been involved in negotiations with a local design firm this week who have been in business for over 7 years. The basic gist is that we are discussing a partnership where I would bring my design skill and they would supply the business management and back end scripting skill. It’s still too early to say how this is going to turn out, but we have our first joint client meeting on Monday.
• Earlier this week, I was contacted by one of my ex-coworkers about the possibility of maintaining the web server and web site for a company I use to work for. The ex-coworker said that he had been managing the site, but wanted someone more experienced with its configuration to take over that task. We’re still waiting to hear from the powers that be, but this could lead to a little extra cash flow as well.
• On Wednesday morning, I was contacted by an IT Staffing firm that had a tech come up with an emergency and couldn’t make it on site. This was at 10:30am. They needed me to be on-site by 11:45am. Essentially, my interview and briefing took a total of 15 minutes and I had an hour to get prepared and get on site. In spite of the short notice, I got the job done and am now looking at taking on the metropolitan area where I live as a contractor. This company serves some major clients like IBM and Dell. Out of the deal, I will be earning my Dell Certification for free. My next job is on the 4th, so I’ll have a lot more time to prepare.

The Bad

• The week started off with court proceedings regarding the custody case of my nephew. I cannot go into public detail, but what I can say is it looks like the last year’s worth of battling has been in vein and we are looking at a repeat of last year. I don’t know whether to be furious or depressed.
• By Thursday night of this week, I was down with some kind of weird sinus infection that made me feel like I had the flu. My whole body hurts and I’ve barely been able to get out of bed and function on the most basic level.
• With all of the above going on, I haven’t had time to start the 30 themes project. Maybe it’s best, I’ve felt quite burnt out this week.

The Ugly

• The man in the mirror! No, seriously, if you could seem me right now, I look like crap and I feel ten times worse than I look.

Right now, I’m just focusing on trying to get some rest and get better. I haven’t been this sick in a while and I want it to be as short-lived as possible.

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve started to get the distinct feeling that I’m trying to be too many things to too many people. Usually, most people have a couple areas where they are proficient; however, given my unique life, I’ve managed to become proficient in many areas. The question I’m faced with now is whether I should specialize in one particular area or continue to be a “Jack of all trades”.

At present, my current business model includes Integrator, Web Designer, Webmaster (site development), SEO Technician and Systems Administrator. While I have a good deal of experience in all of the above areas (at least 4 years experience in each), I’m starting to think that I’m doing myself and my clientele a disservice by covering so many areas. Let me clarify a bit.

I’m always researching my competition in an effort to determine what skills I need to be versed in to maintain competitiveness. Without exception, every skill area I have experience with is predominately populated by “experts” who specialize in that particular area. In other words, I’ve yet to find someone who is successful who covers such a wide range of skills that I do.

Originally, my mindset was localized. In the geographic region where I live, the solution providers are, well, crap! There are a few providers that specialize in FrontPageâ„¢ and cater to local, small-time accounts that will never make it to the front page of search engine results. Those who don’t specialize in FrontPageâ„¢, specialize in Flashâ„¢, which as we all know, is not necessarily SE friendly by default.

My original goals were to overtake the local market with quality CSS/XHTML designs that were modern, aesthetically pleasing, easy for the client to update and search engine friendly. However, most of my client base has been from a varied geographical base. I’ve had clients in the local region, but most of my clients have been from different areas of the world. Some have been from Brazil, Australia, France and the USA. Apparently, I’ve managed to attract an international following.

This brings me to the main point of this post. I’m starting to think that I need to pick one area that I can do (i.e.: Integrator, Web Designer, Webmaster, SEO Technician or Systems Administrator) and become an expert in that given field. This is also tempered by the fact that I also own multiple websites, which have provided the most consistent income of all my projects.

In a nutshell, I’m feeling like I’m trying to do too much and I’m starting to think that I need to pick one area and become an expert at doing that one thing. The problem for me is that I love doing all the different things that I do.

• I love building sites that are informative and entertaining
• I love working will clients and helping them make their Internet goals a reality
• I love tackling tough integration projects and finding ways to make applications work together
• I love digging into systems administration tasks and finding new ways to optimize performance, security and stability

Of the above, I’d have to say that building informative and entertaining sites is my favorite thing to do; however, this is also the most challenging of the above. The issue is not so much content, but traffic. It’s relatively easy to build a content-rich site that focuses on a specific niche. The real challenge is driving traffic to that site. I was able to do this with MyWebResource, but that site covered so many areas of web design that it was almost impossible to not get a lot of traffic. More granular niche topics are not so easy.

At this point, my #1 concern is providing enough revenue to provide for my family; nevertheless, I have to think about long-term goals as well. Do I want to be known as someone who can do many things well, or do I want to be known as someone who is a skilled expert in a particular area? That is the question before me and one that I cannot make lightly. Regardless of my choice, there will be consequences and a significant learning curve. So, at this point, I have to decide if there is a greater chance of providing a reasonable living for my family by specializing, or by being a good “General” solution provider. At this point, this is a very tough call to make. Regardless of the choice I make, I’m going to have to make sacrifices, but one sacrifice I cannot afford to make is being available to my family. Family is my #1 priority, as it should be.

I´ve shared numerous times on other sites about how I like 1and1, my current hosting provider. I still stand behind 1and1 for most websites that are well suited to a shared hosting environment. However, once your site reaches the level of complexity and traffic that my sites receive, shared hosting is not the best solution. In fact, I´m really surprised how well they have held up on a server that has over 700 other websites hosted on it.

However, given that a couple sites have gone down several times over the last few days because the server simply couldn´t handle the load, I think it´s time to move my more DB intensive sites to a more appropriate platform. Specifically, I´m moving them to 1and1´s VPS III solution. The short specs are as follows:

» 50 GB Hard Disk Space
» 512MB Guaranteed RAM
» 2000 GB Traffic
» 100 Mbit Bandwidth
» 1 SSL Certificate
» 2000 E-mail Accounts
» Plesk 8 Reloaded
» 1 Dedicated IP Address
» Unlimited MySQL
» Full root access

In other words, I will have the flexibility I need to configure my sites the way I want for $59/mo. I was skeptical at first, but after spending 40 minutes on the phone with 1and1´s technical support yesterday asking them tons of questions about their package, I´m convinced this will be a good fit for all my DB intensive sites. If/When the sites get to a point that they are too big for a VPS, I´ll move them over to a full dedicated box. 1and1 has full dedicated servers for as low as $99/mo.

I´m really excited about this move because it will allow me to implement enhancements on my sites that I´ve had to put on the back burner for months because my shared hosting package only allows for 100MB databases. Also, I knew that, if the sites were to get any more popular, I would start getting DB connection failures. Soon, this will no longer be an issue.

I´ve got a large amount of work ahead of me over the coming days because this site is not the only site that will be moved. I´m moving all of my DB-intensive sites over to the new server. I´m not going to drop my 1and1 shared account completely though. They´ve been a great host with great security features. I´ll continue to use that package for my sites that have little to no DB requirements and for storage of files. After all, I get 300GB of storage and 1.5TB of bandwidth for dirt cheap. I would be a fool to not take advantage of that resource.

I will do everything I can to ensure that this transfer is as seamless as possible; however, there is a chance that there may be brief interruptions in service on this and my other sites. Please excuse any interruptions and know that once this transfer is complete, many more resources will eventually be added to help compensate for any inconvenience.

Unfortunately, as part of this transfer, PkbCS.com will be temporarily unavailable until the new VPS is provisioned. Until the server is up and ready to go, if you have any questions about paid services from my company, please contact me at contact[at]mywebresource.com. I will respond as soon as possible.