February 9th, 2008 at 04:59am
Under Uncategorized
I personally haven’t felt the need to sign up with the various “get a freelancer” sites. The bidding process seems a little overwhelming and a lot of the sites seem geared towards low cost workers from foreign countries. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a low cost worker from a foreign country, mind you. I just can’t pay my mortgage on those rates. I may change my mind on using those sites in the future, but I’ve had good luck with some other places.
Craigslist
You can find anything on Craigslist. Including some really icky things. What did my husband call it? The Internet’s Rest Area. Yeah. You know what I mean.
I live in Northing Michigan and the Computer Gigs for this area on Craigslist are kind of meager. But once I started looking in other areas of my state I found lots of jobs listed.
SitePoint
Aww, I love SitePoint. There are other webmaster forums for real professionals on the Internet, but this one is just my speed. The volume of posts is just right for me and they really focus on professional practices. Love it.
They have a Looking To Hire area where people can post jobs, both full time and freelance. I got my first remote gig from that site.
Freelance Switch
Freelance Switch not only has an excellent job board but they have all kinds of resources and information for the Freelancer. They let you see the jobs posted but in order to contact the poster, you have to pay $7/month. That’s seems pretty inexpensive to me. There have been some really interesting jobs posted on Freelance Switch. I haven’t got a gig from this site yet, but then I’ve only contacted one prospective client.
Authentic Jobs
Authentic Jobs has a great mix of freelance and full time (often telecommute) of web design and development jobs posted. There’s not much else to say. They do one thing very well.
Fresh Web Jobs
This one is kind of low volume, but I added it to my RSS reader anyway. They seem to have more designerly type jobs posted but there are programming positions listed regularly enough that I keep them on my radar.
There you have it. Five places to look for jobs online if you are a web developer or designer. Just don’t go stealing work from me. 
By Tonya
February 8th, 2008 at 11:17am
Under Uncategorized
As a loner/introvert it’s always hard for me to connect with new people. I have no idea what to say. I’m terrible at small talk. I’m even introverted on the internet. I rarely posted on forums or newsgroups, commented on blogs or generally participated. If I wanted to know something, I did the research and found my answers. Someone surely has asked the question before.
I’ve come to a realization though. Almost every client I’ve gotten is because of a relationship with someone. My dad, my best friend, my gym (that I’ve been going to for a year and half before I worked up the nerve to ask them if they wanted a website). All have been a valuable source of leads for me. That is my real world social network.
It’s time to expand and I’m looking for ways to do it online. I’ve created this blog, obviously and have been actively posting on sites around the internet. Asking questions on forums, commenting on some blogs, and generally trying to be more visible.
I pretty much ignored the whole Social Networking thing until about 6 months ago at which point I created a Facebook profile and ignored it for the next 5.5 months. That is all about to change!
My Space? Twitter? LinkedIn? Facebook. There are many sites that have a social networking component. These sites let you easily form groups with people that share your interests or hobbies and keep in touch with each others activities.
Stay tuned for a analysis of the top Social Networking sites and how to use them to your advantage.
By Tonya
February 3rd, 2008 at 01:17pm
Under Free Software
I’ve been doing .NET Windows and PocketPC application development for the last 4 years and before that I did classic ASP development. To say I drank the Microsoft Koolaid is an understatement. But when I decided to start freelancing in the web world I made a choice to learn PHP because I figured I would land more projects that way.
Since we were broke, I needed to find some free tools to get me started. What I found blew me away.
Aptana Studio
Wow. I can’t believe this is free software. They have a $99 version, but the Community Edition has completely met my needs. It is an IDE (Integrated Development Evironment) for web stuff. HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Ajax and Ruby. The intellisense features rock. Microsoft has made me soft in the head with intellisense. I mean, who has the space in their head to remember all those silly codes? Thank you, Aptana, for making it super easy for me to pick up PHP and JavaScript with your awesome code completion tools!
The FTP and Synchronization tool is awesome. It seems like there was a built in FTP tool in (don’t laugh) FrontPage way back when, but I never used it because my server was in the same building as me and I just dragged my files over. And now, when you publish a .NET app to a server it sends the whole damn thing again cause you need to compile it and all that junk.
Not so with HTML, PHP, JavaScript and CSS files. I can change one at a time and send them to the server as needed. At first I was toggling back and forth with my FTP client software, but that got to be a pain in the butt. So I invested the few minutes it took to learn how to set up the FTP features and I don’t have to switch back and forth any more. Huge time saver.
Apache Friends XAMPP
When I first started with PHP and MySQL, I needed to set up Apache, PHP and MySQL on our laptop and I dutifully did. I had a few troubles as I recall, but some googling helped me out. I got it all done in a few hours.
Well, after a couple of months of development on our old laptop it became apparent that it wasn’t up to the job. Well, it was apparent right away, but we didn’t have any extra cash so I slogged through. I used to get up, launch Aptana, go make coffee and get my breakfast and then come back to work. Maybe. If Aptana was finished loading.
I bought an inexpensive Toshiba Satellite the day before Thanksgiving and had to get it all set up for development. I was concerned that Vista’s onerous security features would cause me some troubles and while I was researching that I stumbled across XAMPP.
XAMPP installs Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl. It also has a nice service manager and installs phpMySql and cPanel. How cool is that? So cool! It saved me hours of time and gave me more than I ever expected.
Paint.NET
I don’t do a lot of graphics but I have to do some. I mean, I create web sites and stuff so there is an expectation that there will be some pretty pictures somewhere.
Well, I can’t guarantee that I will make them pretty, but with Paint.NET I can crop images, add a drop shadow here or there, add a gradient or make icon files. Sweet.
IrfanView
The author calls this “One of the most popular viewers worldwide” but it does so much more than that. Need to resize a megaton of pictures in one fowl (foul? I’m going with fowl because fowl can actually swoop) swoop? How about resize selectively based on some random set of criteria? Check. Change the DPI? Add watermarks? Batch rename? Check, check, check. Add special effects, make a button, remove red eye? I could go on and on and on and on. And on. Seriously, IrfanView has so many features it’s crazy.
The only reason I use Paint.NET slightly more is because I like the magic wand in Paint.NET. There is probably a magic wand in IrfanView and I just don’t know because there are so many other features. Tell me why I should ditch Paint.NET for IrfanView!
Open Office
When I got my new computer it came with Works and a 25 use edition of Microsoft Office. Works probably sucks. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t opened it. Once, a friend sent me a Works document and I spent 45 minutes trying to get a plugin so I could read the thing (on some other computer that didn’t have Works, btw). It was his proposal for a new business. No wonder he didn’t get any feedback. I mean, we all like him, but I don’t think the rest of our circle spent the time to figure out how to open his document. And what about the Mac users? Works is less than useless.
OK, so Open Office is not a development tool, but I still love it. And it’s free. I keep track of my hours in Calc and I create my estimates, proposals, quotes, contracts and invoices in Writer. Yeah, there are some other tools out there for those tasks, but I’m not quite ready for them yet.
So there you have it. Five free tools that will make your life better. Well, maybe, if your a developer.
By Tonya
January 29th, 2008 at 08:31am
Under Business
I had a great client for most November, December and part of January. They took up all of my available hours, although not at my dream rate. It was enough to get us through and made me appreciate my skills. The job kind of dried up more quickly than I expected and I found myself in search of some more work. I have to keep my baby in diapers, for gosh sake.
The problem is, I’m an introvert and my list of contacts is dismal.
First, I contacted a close friend that is starting a new business and put together a small website for him for free. I had the time available and he appreciated it greatly. When he first asked me about a website he asked how much I would charge. He is in a really tough financial situation right now and I knew he didn’t have the dough. Plus, he’s one of my husbands’ BFFs.
I am a programmer, not a designer, and twiddling pixels making graphics is almost as bad as stabbing myself in the eye. But I found a nice template and modified it to match the business cards another friend had designed for him. He was SO happy.
I don’t know why I didn’t think about doing a free site for him before. Maybe because we were in such dire straights ourselves that I couldn’t see beyond getting that first check. But once the burden had eased up a little it was easier to see how I could help him out.
Next, I hit the freelance job boards and finally started sending out inquiries on some jobs that seemed to match my skills. I was completely floored when the first person I contacted gave me the job. It was a small one, but still…I made a good enough impression through email that someone who didn’t know me trusted me enough to do the job.
After I send out a few bids on the job boards I got in touch with one of the local web design companies that has a really “big” name around here. I assumed because they have such a great reputation that they would have all the in house talent they needed, but I figured it was worth a shot.
Well, it was worth it! I don’t have a specific job yet, but the dialog has been opened and we’re working out the requirements for a small program. I imagine that this will lead to some ongoing work as long as I keep my end of the bargain.
I have two more paths that I have just begun to explore and those are local networking groups and creating a MasterMind group (ala, Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”). With the help of a friend, we are starting a MasterMind group for local business women. The emails have be sent and we expect to begin meeting in a couple of weeks.
I will also be attending my first networking lunch in a week or so. This will be a totally new experience for me. As I said, I’m fairly introverted and haven’t really spent any time out in my community making a name for myself. That’s changing now and I’m glad for it.
What did all this result in? Another local programmer contacted me about taking on a client that he didn’t have time for so I have a new, probably long term, client. And I’ve opened a dialog with a local web design agency. I also passed some work on to a colleague that I don’t have time for (and it’s not really my cup of joe). He’s not planning on going full time freelance as I am, but he could use some extra work now and again. Share the love. That’s what it’s all about.
By Tonya
January 27th, 2008 at 03:53am
Under Niche Marketing
I’m currently bringing in about 95% of the money in our household right now. I made more than Bill and one of us was going to stay at home with our son, Sam, when he was born. I took 8 weeks of medical leave and then Bill took a permanent one from his job as Network Engineer for a local TV station.
Let me tell you, it’s tough (financially) going from a two incomes with no kids to one income and a whole new person to provide for. We were barely making ends meet and we had a couple of big bills coming up (bi-annual insurance and propane) when I started freelancing this fall.
If I am to quit my job to freelance we need to get our heads above water and pay off some of our bills. I work full time, have a two hour round trip commute and do my freelance work every morning from 4 AM to 6 AM. So my plan is to start creating niche sites with AdSense and affiliate links to begin to make money from the billions that are spent online.
Caroline Middlebrook has an excellent free eBook on creating niche sites with WordPress. I highly recommend it. It has step by step instructions to get you started and several “gotchas” that you should be aware of when creating niche site. Reading it impelled me to “get off my butt” and do something. I was suffering from analysis paralysis and information overload, but I finally just put a site out there.
By Tonya
January 8th, 2008 at 07:38am
Under Business
In order to grow any business it is important to create and grow a list of contacts. My contact list is dismal. When I decided to start a freelance web development business in the summer of 2007 I told about 3 people what I wanted to do. I am so fortunate that those people knew people and I landed a couple of great gigs out of the gate. That really saved us financially.
One job in particular was a freelance programming job that established several things for me.
TRAITS
1. Confidence
In my day job I am surrounded by computer professionals and everyday is a learning experience. I’m ALWAYS learning something new. That leaves me feeling behind the curve. But in reality I forget how much I already know or how quickly I can learn something.
This job involved Google Maps, JavaScript, AJAX and PHP. I’ve been working with C#.NET for the past 4 years. Was this a problem? No. My level of experience was a great asset and I quickly got up to speed on the unfamiliar platforms. The project manager was more than pleased with my work and will use me in the future when the need arises.
2. Experience
Building my portfolio in the web area is very important for my business. The more sites I can point to that I’ve worked on the better. Also, I’m not much of a designer. I’m a programmer. I would prefer to work on the technical aspects of a website. This job was pure coding, baby and a GREAT reference site.
3. Testimonials
I got a great testimonial from the project manager that I will use on my business website. I think the power of a satisfied customer speaks for its self.
The jobs have been completed now and I need to find some more paying jobs. I have one in the works for later this month… a website for a condominium association that I wrote the proposal for in November.
So what am I going to do to get another paying gig? Well, I’ve had a few people on back burner. Unfortunately I back burnered them too long and when I contacted them this week, they had found someone else. That’s OK, though, because I wouldn’t have been able to give them the attention they deserved any earlier than now.
STEPS
1. Review Outstanding Proposals
Review and contact prospects about outstanding proposals (Ha, there’s only one outstanding proposal at this point). Seriously. Send off some emails to people who have mentioned they want a website. Call them up. That’s what I did. I was nervous as heck, but just making the calls and sending the emails sets things in motion. Even if none of the people want your services now, they will think of you next time it comes up, for themselves or their contacts.
2.Work on a trade site
I trade with www.truebalancelifecoaching.com for business and life coaching. Shann is a wonderful resource and encouragement!
3. Pay It Forward
Work on my “Pay it forward” sites. These include www.thplumppumpkin.com and www.grandtraverseconsulting.com for a friend. This keeps the “work” attitude going.
4. Begin Networking
Actively begin networking online and in the community. I’m going to join my local chamber of commerce and I’ve signed up at http://internetbasedmoms.com. Now I just need to go introduce myself!
By Tonya
January 3rd, 2008 at 01:04pm
Under Uncategorized
It’s a new year and I have a plan. A plan to become self-employed by October 1st. I’m a computer programmer and web developer. I’m quite certain the world needs my skills.
I have a full time job and I’ve started freelancing. My husband stays home with our 1 year old son. I love every day that I am at home with them. I want to do that every day.
In order to prove that I can make enough money to support us as a freelance programmer and web developer, I have set a goal of paying off our (late) property taxes by January 31st 2008 and paying off the outdoor wood boiler we purchased to heat our home by October 1st 2008.
75% of all the money I make as a freelancer will go towards these bills. The other 25% will help us make ends meet (we are struggling with becoming a one income family).
By Tonya
