I have a fantastic prize to give away, provided by UPrinting.com. Together, we are offering 250 Custom Stickers or Labels. All you have to do is comment telling me what you would use the stickers for. The possibilities are endless.

The Prize:

250 Stickers/Labels for One (1) lucky winner
Sizes: 2” x 3.5”, 2” x 4”, or 3” x 3”
Paper: 70lb Label Matte
Specifications: Full color front, blank back; 4 Business Day printing
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents only

Stickers are a great way to promote your blog or your business. Use them as address labels, event stickers, campaign giveaways, the list could go on! Channel your creativity and come up with unique sticker designs!

Contest closes 8AM CST on March 1st. Winner (chosen at random) announced by 8AM March 2nd.

The first point I covered in the presentation was to hire an an accountant,  but it goes further than that. Not only do you need an accountant, but you need a lawyer as well. You may be asking why I consider this outsourcing, and it is a valid question, with a valid answer, and to answer it, let’s look at dictionary.com’s definition of outsource

outsource – verb - to contract out (jobs, services, etc.)

Well, that pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it. Hiring anyone outside of your company is considered outsourcing.

Let’s take that a step further. Why would you outsource your bookkeeping to an accountant, and your legal issues to an attorney? That’s easy. You outsource those things because there are very strict laws about how certain things are done, and these two people, your accountant and attorney, are experts in those laws, and can keep you out of a mess should you do it yourself, and make a mistake.

So, if you are willing to outsource your bookkeeping and legal issues, why not outsource other aspects of your business as well? As a web designer, I have a rather specific skill set, and have on occasion been approached about projects that were beyond my skill set. What did I do? I took the job and hired someone to do the things that I couldn’t. I paid for it of course, and didn’t make as much on the project as I would have if I had done it all, but at the end of the project I had a good client, and a new working relationship with the person that I hired. Win, win.

I will clarify that by outsource I don’t condone outsourcing work to a sweatshop in some third world country. I would recommend hiring someone locally (you can meet face to face), or at least hire someone you know, and you know can and will do a good job.

Over the next few weeks I will do a series of posts based on the outline from my portion of the presentation, but will lead with the video of the presentation.

Go to the address bar in your favorite browser and type one letter. Mine:
A – http://agent.point2.com
B – http://barcamp.pbworks.com/BarCampSaskatoon
C – http://ca.movember.com/
D – http://dailybooth.com/dashboard
E – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
F – http://www.flickr.com/
G – https://www.google.com/voice#inbox
H – http://www.hotels.ca/
I – http://www.imdb.com/
J – Nothing here
K – http://kylesteed.com/2009/wallace-vs-steed/
L – http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/
M – Nothing here
N – http://www.nfldailydose.com/
O – http://openswitch.org/
P – http://www.patriots.com/
Q – Nothing here
R – http://riderville.com/
S – http://smartinvoice.com/
T – http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard
U – http://www.ubuntu.com/
V – http://www.varialhosting.com/
W – http://www.whoishostingthis.com/
X – http://www.xe.com/
Y – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ5DfWN3fWU
Z – http://www.zu.com/live/2009/11/news-events/news/rider-pride-running-rampant-around-the-world/

Clients Barb and Shelia Powell wanted a micro-site to promote their tag-team sessions. While they left the design up to me, they had input along the way that shaped the finished product.

What I did:

CSS, HTML, JavaScript, PHP

View the site: Sacred Connections

I have been freelancing for several years, and love it… Ok, so I love most of it, there are parts that I hate doing. For example, I love getting paid, but hate having to bust peoples balls to get paid. I love writing good clean code, but hate having to muck it up to make it work in IE. You see where I am going with this. As with every job, freelancing has it’s ups and downs, but for those willing to deal with the downs, freelancing can be well worth it!

Having said all of that I asked a few friends what advice they would give for new freelancers, or freelancers just starting out, and it is below.

But first, my advice.

Be prepared. (Yes, I was a boy scout way back when.)

Be prepared by having several clients lined up for your first day of going solo. Be prepared by having retained an attorney and accountant, you will need them sooner rather than later. Oh, and when you retain said attorney have them start working on a contract, and find out which parts can be changed (and how much they can be changed) to suit different clients. Be prepared to explain that you are actually working, not just goofing off. Just be prepared!

And now for advice from Twitter.

• @devolved - Don’t try to be cheap, try to be good.
• @travis_king - Do nothing without a contract and downpayment!
• @chrisboudy - make sure u give ur clients want they want and not what you think they want (advice)… the designer is the expert and should give there advice, but I’ve seen alot of projects where designer… does not fully understand what the clients needs are, creates something, and at the end client is unhappy
• @papaverine - Possess massive amount of patience at all times.
• @geofharries - ABB + ABM = Always Be Billing (billable work is most important; then bill monthly) and Always Be Marketing (whether subtle or loud)
• @brendonsinclair - So I’d check out my competitor’s clients and find out who’s not happy.
• @rich97 - Find your specialty and immerse yourself in it. Eat, breath and sleep your chosen subject. There’s no way you can fail then.
• @mariancall - Keep a different client # and file # for each project, and keep track of the finances very carefully…Freelancing often feels like 80% admin/finance and 20% creativity. So make your admin painless for yourself.
• @gogreenbeth - I’m not a freelancer I have hired a few. Be confident in your work and yourself if you are not sure of your skills, I won’t be
• @davemcnally - have a client base ready before leaving the full time job
• @erisds - Routine, r outine, routine, rou tine, routine…
• @johnonolan - plan for everything to take twice as long as you think it will – because it usually does

Well, there it is, now go and do it.

Oh, and one more thing. NEVER be afraid to ask for help, it may cost you, but it could save you a client!

I have played around with several IE6 update scripts, and was never perfectly happy with any of them until I found IE6Update. It displays like an ActiveX warning in IE6, and leads users to update to IE8.

My biggest problem with IE6Update is that it leads people up upgrade to IE8… so I updated the warning message, and the javascript to lead users to download Firefox.

The warning message:

“Internet Explorer 6 can’t display this website properly. Click here to download Firefox 3 to see what you are missing. Trust me, you won’t regret it.”

The Files:

Download

The code:

Add this just before your closing </body> tag.

<!–[if IE 6]>

<script type=”text/javascript”>

/*Load jQuery if not already loaded*/ if(typeof jQuery == ‘undefined’){ document.write(“<script type=\”text/javascript\” src=\”http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js\”>
</”+”script>”); var __noconflict = true; }

var IE6UPDATE_OPTIONS = {

icons_path: “/ie6update/images/”

}

</script>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/ie6update/ie6update.js”></script>

<![endif]–>

Once you add that to the page(s), upload the pages along with the IE6Update folder, and you are good to go.

That said I decided to make one more DestroyTwitter theme today, this one celebrating the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, with the color taken from the logo.

Vancouver 2010 DestroyTwitter Theme

Download .zip | Download .rar

As always you can follow me on twitter: @chrispowell, or if you want a DestroyTwitter theme, send me an email, or hit me up on twitter.

Spring DestroyTwitter Theme

Download .zip | Download .rar

As always you can follow me on twitter: @chrispowell, or if you want a DestroyTwitter theme, send me an email, or hit me up on twitter.

I would much prefer being treated like a six year old. Not being talked down to, just being VERY VERY clear about what is needed:

• What page needs changing (URL link!)
• Does it appear in multiple places?
• What does it say now?
• What should it say?
• When does it need to be done?

This isn’t a hard list of questions to answer, but sometimes when something is broken the client just wants it fixed, because as the article says, their website is their world. This has given me a few ideas that I will likely spend the weekend implementing, so that I can help my clients help me to get things fixed a little bit faster.