Firma

At the very least, I want to put a company name on my current freelancing work, so I have something to build gradually. I spent some time investigating the various types of German companies, and I think I've reduced it to either an e.K. or a GbR. An e.K. is a bit crappy-looking because it's specifically for one-man companies. I think a GbR must have 2 or more partners, but opinions vary. A GmbH looks even more professional, but you pay more tax, and you need 25,000 euros starting capital – I almost have the cash, but that's what I plan to live on for the next year.

Like thomasvs. says, it's really hard to come up with a company name. It's hard enough to find a company name that is not used, but it's almost impossible to find any word in the dictionary that is not already registered as a domain. And those made up words are so impersonal.

Munich Blogs #2

The guy who runs ToytownMunich emailed me. It's a kind of blog-based news site, though it doesn't have actual personal blogs. There's loads of fascinating local information there, and he seems to put a lot of work in to it. But the comments section is mostly full of unpleasantly small-minded British people.

I think I'll try to set up a Munich blogs aggregator because there isn't a working one at the moment. I'll also try to install my own blogging software instead of using advogato. I generally avoid doing that kind of thing, but I want to use topics/categories and make things a bit prettier.