I blog about how to get out of the daily grind, start your own business, and do better and more meaningful work. Some of the posts have led customers to me; so yes, the written word is still as important as ever in these days of newsfeeds and TL;DR!

• MAZE: Surviving on your art in Berlin. Guest blog post for MAZE Club 2015/10/8
• La Voix du Nord: I'm on tour in the north of France and Belgium, coding, performing, and training webjays to use our software. 2014/12/2 (in French)
• Forbes: These apps I built for Midnight Code, to demonstrate undetectable file transfers, are scaring some people in the security industry.
• The Register: I managed to stir up a bit of controversy with an Australia vs Finland vs Germany interview. Take it all with a grain of salt - I love all three countries ;). Maybe more to come...

• ST VITO. Our technology/music/dance project is getting lots of gigs, and I'm not mostly working on my own any more: we have an amazing, talented team! We've updated our costumes and concept with the help of the brilliant fashion designer Jasmin Lepore - we now have the most advanced LED costumes in the world (that I've seen)!
• People are actually reading my blog about starting your own business! Find out how you can start doing what you want to do, instead of being told what to do by someone else.
• Hands-free Browser App Store rankings:
  • Overall top 5 in 6 countries.
  • Utilities top 10 in 18 countries: top 5 in France, top 20 in Germany, France, Belgium, South Africa, South Korea.
    
    
• My customers are really nice.

I'm an Australian freelance software developer based in Berlin. I build software, do trainings, and consult for companies and individuals from around the world. I've been doing freelance software development for about 15 years.

I am currently also consulting for the Mobile Health and pharmaceutical industries; using the latest hardware and software to augment and revolutionise human health.

New technology opens up endless opportunities every day; billion-dollar companies can now be run by a handful of people. A small, talented, specialist team can often outperform a large, traditional organization.

The world is filled with frustrating amounts of inefficiency, waste, and bureaucracy. By riding the wave of the current technological revolution (and adopting the latest methodologies with which use it effectively), life can be made easier, happier, less expensive, and simpler, with surprisingly little effort. My customer's dreams are regularly manifested in a day; or for the really ambitious ones, a week.

To keep myself, and my customers, competitive, I work across a spectrum of technologies. I do everything from robotics to web development, but I tend to specialise in graphics and multimedia.

Let's write a proposal together!

If your expertise is in something other than software, I'll work with you to select the right technology and design for your project and budget. I can also help with the technical aspects of your sales and marketing. Your "specifications" can be as little as the expression of a desire to "make something cool".

How I help you

You know your own business well, so I listen and learn in order to create something that helps you to do what you do, better. I think projects should be undertaken with as little waste of time and resources as possible, with stress-free customers and a great final creation as the goal throughout.

My engineering philosophy

The major problems which remain in software development are not technical, but organisational and social. A great product is made by considering the needs of the customer, the end users, and the developers who will maintain the project in the future. Even the best-programmed piece of software in the world would still be a failure if it didn't serve the needs of those who used it and paid for it.

A well-engineered product, whether it is a piece of software, a mechanical device, or anything else, is one which can be clearly broken down into its individual parts. Changes in one part should not require changes in others.

I'm on LinkedIn, and if you have a support question about one of my products or want to contact me, you can use the email

Martine Neddam (aka Mouchette), Artist www.neddam.org "James brings luck, good fortune and happiness to the projects he works with!"

Michael Shamgar, CEO Nocturnal Entertainment Pty Ltd "Having worked with James for over 10 years, I can strongly recommend him as a person of the highest ethical and technical standards. Direct, hard-working and efficient, James is a great communicator and always delivers the goods."

Anne Roquigny, Media arts curator roquigny.info "I am a media arts producer based in Paris, and founder of the WJ-S project. In collaboration with James, we have built a software service which is being used to hold events, workshops, and conferences around the world. James has delivered a solid product, and solves the technical challenges of the project quickly and reliably. More importantly, he takes time to understand my vision for WJ-S, and makes sure that his technical efforts serve the project in the best way possible."

Jason Held, Director Saber Astronautics "I've worked with James for many years on space simulation and web projects. When a difficult problem comes up, he is able to draw on a range of skills from his experience on many very different projects. I explain what we need, and it gets done without fuss. James' deep expertise in software, high degree of professionalism, and strong work ethic makes him stand out."

Here are some projects I'm involved in which can be booked for events, conferences, workshops, or parties.

	WJ-S We've been taking this project around the world for performances, conferences, and parties. We bring together dozens of great media artists and performers, wherever they are in the world, to showcase the most thought-provoking, beautiful, and entertaining corners of the internet. The WJ-S system is a hardware and software installation which we set up at a venue. The system connects to a software service which allows performers from around the world to control the visuals and sound in the space. Our project 111oOzOo111 has just finished 6 months of touring around France. It's a massive wall of recycled PCs and screens which brings the best of glitch art, net art, and lolcats, into a gallery context. www.wj-s.org
	ST VITO ST VITO is a multimedia performance project produced by Alma Edelstein-Feinsilber and James. It fuses live music, visuals, sensor technology, audience interaction, dance and theater into site-specific and walking-act performances. We are a group of professional artists, dancers, musicians and technicians. We reach out to the audience, letting them share the excitement and playfulness of public performance. By interacting with us physically, the audience becomes part of the creative process. More details here. The Skin Orchestra project (the original skin touch sensor technology for ST VITO) is a collaboration between Alma Edelstein-Feinsilber, James Hudson, and Patricio Zarazaga.

	My Desktop Life I'm working with Martine Neddam (aka Mouchette) to build a tool for creating online films and artworks which use the latest generation of web technology. www.mydesktoplife.org/news
	WJ-S I'm working with WJ-S to create software for public web browsing performances. WJing is to the internet what DJing is to music. www.wj-s.org
	Flowerworks Game At Nocturnal Entertainment we've made a space gardening game for Wii and Wii U: www.flowerworksgame.com.
	Pole Power App My app for pole dancers, made in collaboration with professional teachers. Includes video exercises and a nearby school finder. It is built around a powerful backend service which could also work for any other sort of dance, yoga, or fitness studio. Pole Power for Android or Pole Power for iOS
	Simply Scan App I couldn't find a good enough scanning app in the store, so I built one. Simply Scan: document scanner and B&W photos in one click, for iPhone and iPad
	Hands-free Apps Use hand gestures without touching the screen to control your music player, browse the web, and show photos. These apps were born out of the necessity of following a complicated and messy recipe for Black Forest Cake. It turns out they're also useful for some people with disabilities, so I'll be developing them towards that direction. Hands-free Browser for iPhone and iPad Hands-free Music for iPhone and iPad Hands-free Photos for iPhone and iPad Hands-free Scroller for Desktop. Free and open source: download it or contribute on GitHub.
	Guide Bot App If you often find yourself hunched over your phone in public, this app might encourage you to look up and realise how interesting and historically rich your surroundings really are. Guide Bot for iPhone
	Postcard Creator App A fun little app to make and send postcards to your friends. Postcard Creator for iPhone
	Cat Orchestra App A wall of singing cats! A quick project to support my friends' band, Hanna & Kerttu. Cute graphics by the wonderful Sophia Halamoda. Android or iPhone
	Nocturnal Entertainment Nocturnal Entertainment. Co-founder and Director. We released a crowdsourced Game Boy Advance game and an online, real-time collaborative development system. We tried this way back in 2002, before the whole Web 2.0 thing: www.nocturnal-central.com

	Irregular Verb Wizard App Learn German verbs really, really, quickly. For iPhone and iPad.
	Frescana App Frescana is a free iPhone/iPad app to discover which vegetables are in season wherever you are. You can also learn about the foods' history and nutritional value, and build a gallery of things you have cooked or eaten. Built and designed with the Frescana team in Berlin. For iPhone and iPad.
	Ampelinis XL An interactive story-book for teaching German children about safety. Made with the eobiont GmbH agency in Berlin. For iPhone and iPad. www.ampelini.de
	ThruGlassXfer Android and iOS apps which demonstrate a side-channel attack for transferring data from a secure location via QR codes. To be presented at the COSAC 2014 security conference. Built for Midnight Code, implementing the ThruGlassXfer protocol.
	Spirit Yoga Apps A pair of Android and iOS apps created for a Berlin yoga studio, built rapidly on a limited budget. A nice example of how a traditional, local business can easily commission software to support its existing business model.

Futurice Mobile software services company, won Europe's Best Workplace 2012. Nokia Building user interface libraries and learning to be agile within a big company. Australian Centre for Field Robotics A creative engineer's dream job, building a robotic art installation. Tantalus Media Made a Playstation game Equestriad 2001, and gained a new respect for horses.

I've written a novel - The Disconnectionist.

A parable for our technological era?

Or an apocalyptic road-trip of mayhem, sex, love, and martial arts?

As a young warrior-priest in an idyllic mountain monastery, Cade longs to possess the technological miracles of his superiors. After all, who wouldn't want the power to read thoughts, dodge bullets, and remotely Connect to any mind on the planet?

When he gains these abilities, he uses them as any teenager would: he wreaks havoc. He flees from the consequences and begins a lonely and dangerous life in the city, protected only by the powers of a dead man's brain implant. Addiction and depression make him an easy target for those envious of his abilities.

A band of strange companions is drawn to him, each made an outcast by their own bizarre desires and fantasies. Their differences are an explosive mix, only partially restrained by their growing intimacy. As they draw closer, Cade's abilities become more unpredictable and dangerous. He will need to tap their deepest secrets as an unfolding conspiracy is turning friends to enemies, and enemies into something horrific.

You can download it as an ebook from SmashWords for free: The Disconnectionist or from iTunes

Copyright © 2010-2013 James Hudson, all rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.