Monday July 21 2008
Finding Work
I’m in the process of trying to secure new clients. This is really hard to do when I don’t have any current referrals and live in a country where I don’t speak the local language well enough to network. I am of course networking with the expat population, but my experience is that they are for the most part cheapskates who wouldn’t buy their own mother a drink let alone pay for a web site (blogger is very popular).
I’ve registered with get a freelancer (and added a link to the sidebar), but it seems like either the budgets are too low for what’s being asked or the scope of the project is beyone my skill and knowledge. I have bid for two projects, but am not particularly hopeful at this point. If anyone is reading and would like to recommend another freelancing site I would be very grateful.
In my searching I also found this article by Andy Budd on the 7 habits of a highly successful freelancer web designer. The article is quite old, but still seems very relevant to me at this point.
In other news I’ve set up XAMPP on my desktop for local production. I’ve also set up a no-ip account so I can post a link to my local dev when I run into troubles and need help. It’s not running right now, but is available.
In the meantime, I’ve started mockups of two different personal sites: my family web site which desperately needs a new look and a portfolio site for my teaching (day job). Unfortunately I can’t find the notes I made a few months back about what i wanted to do with the site, so i’m starting fresh.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Jul 21, 2008 at 03:34 PM
General |
| tags:
freelancing,
read this,
personal sites,
development |
Friday July 18 2008
EE Mug
I got my EE Mug in the post today after submitting a video entry for the Show us your Mug showcase at Expression Engine. The video entries don’t appear to be up yet, but below you can see a picture of the mug I got - will be drinking coffee out of it tomorrow morning.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Jul 18, 2008 at 05:34 PM
General |
| tags:
coffee,
expressionengine |
Wednesday July 16 2008
Swatch Sets
I’m setting up the color scheme for my family web site redesign and I decide to explore the swatch palette in photoshop and see about creating a custom swatch set. Nothing immediately obvious, so I googled and this is the best that I could find. The post is a little old so there may be a better way now, but I also don’t want to spend too much time googling.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Jul 16, 2008 at 09:40 AM
Photoshop |
| tags:
photoshop,
workaround |
Tuesday July 15 2008
No comp - no code
I haven’t got a comp back from my graphic designer after having sent the latest feedback a few days ago. Without the comp, the client isn’t going to approve the design. Without approval I can’t slice the image and start coding. The client is also partly to blame, as I haven’t yet received a key image to include in the banner image. What’s a coder to do?
Read some of the books that I have and practice my skills in other ways. I’ll be finishing off the book I bought on typography today and probably re-starting the javascript book because I didn’t understand it the first time around (only made it about 35%). I’ve also started planning out a redesign of my family site. I’ve got the wireframe ready, but am stuck on what I want to do with graphics parts, besides we need to get a new family photo done so I can include that in the design as well.
Saturday July 12 2008
Being a Freelancer
Being a freelancer is a two part series by rubiqube.com about, surprise, freelancing and web design. Part 1 deals with wannabes - guess that includes me - and part 2 deals with client perceptions.
