via Kitsun Noir – Brand New Tron Legacy Trailer
There are some really great movies coming out this year (IronMan2 really soon) but this one is…. Oh man! Can’t wait!
UPDATE: Changed the link of the video to YouTube since the one I had linked up to on Vimeo is no longer there.
Unfortunately, my first attempt at freelancing left me unhappy, in debt and desperate. I took several full-time jobs between my last attempt at freelancing and this one to teach me some valuable lessons and make my way out of debt.
I made many mistakes the first time around and, like any good freelancer, I learned from them and now I am a better, stronger worker. In this post, I’ll share some of the mistakes that caused me to fail as a freelancer the first time around.
Read the full article: Why I Failed at Freelancing
This is a really good article on starting out in freelancing without the experience of working for others. Often people ask if they should start freelancing right after school thinking they know everything ’cause they’ve got a few sites under their belt. I’ve always told people not to do that. Go work for someone else, learn the ropes, learn how to DEAL with people; either easy clients or the pain-in-the-ass ones. There are ways of getting rid of those (See Adii’s great article on Pulling The Plug on Bad Customers) but if you’ve never had to be the Boss, it’s hard to show authority and deal with them.
So what’s different now that I’ve left my full-time job again and have been a successful freelancer for a few years?
- Experience. After working full-time in the field for almost five years, I am professional, experienced and can speak with authority in my field.
Before giving John his quote, you ask a little more about the project. After chatting for a few minutes, you ask him about his budget. A fair question, you think. After all, you could approach the project in so many ways. Without knowing the budget, knowing where to begin is impossible. In your mind, building a website is like building a house. Without knowing the budget, you can’t possibly know how many rooms the client can afford or what materials you should use to build.
John, on the other hand, is instantly suspicious. Why would you want to know about his budget? The only reason he can think of is that you want to make sure you don’t charge him less than what he is willing to give. Besides, he doesn’t really know his budget. How the heck is he supposed to know how much a website costs?
Read the rest of this really good article: Is John The Client Dense or Are You Failing Him?
Finally an article that’s not about lists and crap other sites have already discussed! Great article for both the new freelancer and the old. Speak English to your clients! They don’t give a crap about accessibility or web standards. Just give them the site they need.
I should’ve been a little more specific in my tweet. I was talking about designers who don’t have even the most basic HTML and CSS skills to turn a flat design into an actual site. Not people who intentionally choose not to code; those who can’t. And I’m also referring only to front-end code here; of course it’s ridiculous to think that designers should also be amazing back-end programmers (although there are exceptions).
This quote is from Elliot Jay Stock on his post Web designers who can’t code, a debate he started up yesterday morning on twitter. What a great way to start the day!
As Elliot pointed out, it created quite a stir on twitter. My favorite reply is this one by Andy Budd which Elliot has also quoted:
However if you’re designing fairly large scale sites it’s often not desirable, possible or practical to do the coding especially if the complexity of the various components (e.g. complex JS functionality) outweighs your technical ability.
Now, quite a few have opened up their blogs to keep the discussion going:
Reading all those and the comments are sure to keep you away from doing any work so… beware!
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