I have to admit I’m biased when it comes to jQuery. Let’s face it, write less, do more, it’s as easy as that. if you’re a CSS coder or designer, jQuery is awesome. It’ feels natural calling a class name or an id just the way you would writing a css rule. There is really no excuse not to add behavior to your site, expecially since the advent of jQuery.
jQuery Widget
So I have been building this large list of jQuery links for sometime now and it will continue to be updated on my urls section. But here it is:
Recently I had an issue trying to get a certain favicon to show up in IE7. It turns out the favicon.ico file I was using was not valid! Now I can’t remember where I generated it from, there are a number of sites out there. So here’s the steps you need to take to create a working favicon in ie7 and other modern browsers.
To set up a favicon on your site:
As a mac user, I still need to use a PC sometimes. One of the features people tend to awe over is expose for the mac. Apple Expose allows you to switch from different windows very fast and easy. Sure, I could use alt-tab, but after using mac’s expose, I longed for its cool abilities. So I did a search on the web for ‘Expose for Windows’. Turns out there are a number of PC exposé applications out there. But alas, I found the best one.
You should use Reflex Vision- http://www.reflexvision.net/. It is only $9.99. Well worth it if you want to set up a Exposé mimic on a PC.
How it works:
Reflex Vision uses F9 , F10, and F11 for the functions of Exposé. I used my logitech mouse software to assign these to a keystroke so I can use the mouse.
The Trial version of Reflex Vision Exposé for Windows:
The Trial version gives you 100 uses. That’s enough to test it out. theres a myriad of features. Check them out here- http://www.reflexvision.net/ .
I created a list of the best web design, development, and management books out there. No particular order of importance was assigned to these. I own all of these except Jason Beard’s Principles of Beautiful Web Design. His book is more for developer’s looking for help on aesthetics of websites. Anyone working freelance, I highly recommend Freelance Switch’s How to be a Rockstar Freelancer. As for CSS, nothing compares to CSS Mastery. Site Point’s Ultimate CSS Reference is a handy book to have for any web development team.
As many of you may have heard, Microsoft has been hard at work trying to give what the web designers and developers have been asking for; a standards compliant browser. It looks like IE8 is going to be released sooner than anyone has expected. A lot of us are excited about this. I found out recently that Microsoft has released a beta version for web designers and developers to test out. Visit the Internet explorer 8 beta download page.
Finding work and how to get going.
For anyone who is a little lost out there when starting their freelance career. I wanted to give some more resources and explain a bit more on freelancing. The Monster List of Freelancing Job Sites is an excellent blog post made by Freelance Switch. Often times, just the existence of a profile/portfolio combination on these job sites will get you noticed. People will start to look for you.
During some blog reading I found some interesting news from adobe.
The development of Adobe Thermo. What Thermo does is allow designers to take designs made on Photoshop and rapidly create a functioning prototype web application/ site before it goes into development. It outputs MXML code ( what Flex applications use). The news is about 3 months old, but I’m sure not everyone has heard of it.
Seeing this makes me wonder where xhtml and css will be years from now. CSS frameworks are one thing, but what if the designer can simply output perfectly good xhtml and css code? Makes me wonder about how the job market will be for front end designers in the next 10- 30 yrs.
More information at Adobe Labs
I gathered a good list web applications that are great at helping anyone, who’s starting a business or just works for himself/herself. Check them out:
There is a few more out there, but these are some of the applications I found, right now I am only using Harvest, works well and has a widget.
I know theres some out there, at least some of my friends that are looking for freelance work or just want some extra money. I’ve been doing some research lately, found some great articles on Freelance Switch. Its an amazing site filled with loads of information. I recommend it to anyone doing freelance work. I’ve read a few articles, stuff like improving productivity and overall great advice. I love the 12 breeds of clients article. It’s great information and helps you become prepared for dealing with clients.
Other than that what I can say from my experience is to get you name out there, get a good looking website, something simple to show your work. And don’t stop learning and researching. I’ve used ifreelance and found that to be a great way to start getting freelance work. For time tracking I use Harvest its works well for me. Also elance seems like a great way to find clients as well. The pay is a bit higher in most cases than on ifreelance.
Update 01-01-08:
I found a free ebook courtesy of Ignite Living: A Humans Guide to Freelance Living check it out.
