Email client about the leave

It is important to let the clients know that you’re having a road trip and might not be able to get back to them in a short time. You surely don’t want to make them waiting and wondering what is going on, why there is no reply since the last email, and so on.

Going MIA (Missing In Action) out of a sudden will give a bad impression that you are irresponsible to the client. Therefore I always informed my clients about my trip/leave and make sure that some heavy jobs has been done before I head off for the trip.

It is as simple as 1,2,3: Take some time, finish the heavy job and take the leave.

Have a mobile broadband

I registered a mobile broadband for home use (at the moment) and travel use. Of course I did not online all the way when I was having a road trip. There are time like lunch, dinner or having rest in the room for the day which can be more leisure with Internet on hand. You can check if there is any urgent email too.

Nonetheless, if you have a Twitter and your client is following you, they sure know what and where you’re heading to too – talk about interactive with client. Well, the worst senario is no Internet connection at all. That means, time to have real fun on the trip.

Take light work only

Jobs like designing stuffs is a big no-no for me. I prefer to take web-developing job with me on the trip.

I am using a laptop as my working computer and working with the touch pad is not recommended at all, and could possibly lead to a waste of time.

It comes in handy when you just want to do some typing work and there is no proper table around you. Hence I prefer to work on jobs that involved using keyboard (such as writing proposal and coding) more than using mouse (talk about designing) when I am on a road trip.

External battery

When you are on a road trip, that means you will spend most of your time outside. Prepare to be on the road without any electronic devices, not even your mobile phone.

Always remember to get external battery or adapter if possible. Once I finished using the battery of both my laptop and my hand phone, I couldn’t do anything at all besides waiting for the time I get back to my room and charge them. Car charger is a very good companion if you’re driving.

Hopefully you can add in your experience too.

There are plenty of software that helps you to create a local server. EasyPHP, XAMPP, WAMP and the like. I personally recommend WAMP as it have not crash with any software I have installed in my computer. EasyPHP has some bug on mySQL connection, while XAMP is a little bit advance.

Installing WAMP

First off, install WAMP from http://www.wampserver.com/en/download.php

Make sure you don’t block the Apache when the notification windows pop-up.

Once you have installed it, look into the folder C:/Program Files/wamp/www if you follow the default setting when installing. www folder works like public_html or domain_html on your normal hosting account.

Leave index.php in the folder, it is a handy little index page for you when surf to http://localhost.

Installing WordPress

Download WordPress from http://wordpress.org/download

Once you downloaded it, unzip it and copy the whole folder into www folder and you’re set to install the 5-minute installation.

Mac user

Mac user has this little application called MAMP, it works just like WAMP but then, it is 100MB over in size, prepare to spend some times to download them

More thinking when you’re rest

I always try to keep my laptop and my mobile phone close to me when I’m taking a rest or a tea time. Mainly because I might have something pop up in my mind and needed to note them down. In Windows, I always has Wordpad readily open for drafting. As for my mobile phone, I used a QWERTY keyboard ready Nokia E71, which give me convenient to write pretty fast on QuickOffice, then later I will transfer it via bluetooth to my laptop.

Draft everything and anything

Anything will be on the draft list. From point form to a sentence. This is the ensure that I have everything write down already, before they vanish. From there on, I will take a little bit of my time scanning through the points, and see which blog they most suitable to, only then I start to write the full content.

Stop worrying about image, video or link

Sometimes, you suddenly though of a news from a website giving you the information, but you can’t online at the moment or wanted to research one it. Try not to do that, most probably those activities will distract you from drafting and ended up you login to your Facebook chatting with your friends instead. Give yourself a personal legend. I would give myself some note in a blanket and later on. When I’m ready to publish the content, I will know what I need to look for, an image, a video or a piece of URL.

Start with a title

People often say that, title is the most difficult thing to think of when you finished an article. That’s probably because they are keen on traffic and catchy title. If not, I would have another point of view. It is often the title that would give you an insight of what the content going to be, what point will you have in the content. From there on you’ll have all the inspiration to write the content according to the title.

Check and follow through Social Media

Twitter is one of my inspiration source. Eventhough the 140 character limitation, these tweeple sure do good with them. Very oftern a quote or a poverb will send you a big inspiration of an article you would like to see on your blogs. I oftern come across a few twitter update that has a link to another useful site. I say “useful” site because it’s not the content of the url the tweet gave me, but the other article on the url. Explore into it, don’t stop on one link and click the X button.

Surely you’ll have your own idea on how to keep your inspiration from running away. Do share your experience and idea on keeping your inspiration in the comment.

Get advice and give advice

I spend a lot of time in all those webmaster forum. Before this, I wasn’t really a web designer yet, but a designer. Works a lot on logos, t-shirt design and web page design (no coding yet).

I spend time wandering on forums to get advice. It is also one of the way I interactive with those designer/developer who also now in my MSN list. I’ve even have a PHP programmer as my partner years ago, and we still planning to work together.

Do free work

I know it sound bitch. I started off with a lot of spec work, this is, somehow, to polish my design skill too.

While learning new tricks on designing, I also learn to get used to most important technique. Forum and some contest website always a good to go.

Being a freelancer now, I sometimes, calculate my rate too. If the cost of the project is low due to their budget, I would know what and which kind of design I will go for the low budget. It helps me to create an eye on design according to the budget.

Learn one CMS at a time

Even if I’m good in XHTML/CSS, I probably won’t get too much static website to build nowadays. Looking at the prespective that most company likes to update their website on their own, or perhaps, a cooporate blog.

Get more knowledge on CMS, e-Commerce or so. It’s always an added advantage to get lean a CMS script. WordPress is a good start, since it has the most tutorial on the Internet.

It is not easy to start up to become a freelancer. I get lots of bomb and critic when I started out and still getting them. But that’s is how I grow. The more the client are demanding, the more I know how to handle client and web design trend.

My wife and I are freelance web designers and yet we still survive even without much of internet connection for this 2 weeks.

Work on design, or design something

Design and more design. Either work with the current client’s project or just create a new design, such as a free theme be released for public. If any creative-block strikes in, go have a short break. Take a walk outside or have a cup of coffee in the pantry will do. Have all the time in hand to get inspiration.

Sometimes when I want to take a break from sitting in front of the computer, I will get my sketchbook and start doodling on it. I actually don’t have the habit of sketching before doing the design in computer. But when I do, the result will be an amazing one. Hence, I’ve started to spend quite a lot of time in sketching and mind mapping my proposal when I’m not with computer and Internet.

Take a walk, do some exercise

It is important to let your body sweats some times.

Most of the time, my girlfriend and I are sitting next to each other and worst, don’t talk much when some urgent works approached. So the best thing to do is to take a walk, have some long conversation or work-out together.

Movies, celebrities gossip, music, karaoke

Spend some quality time with the family and watch a movie, either at home or in a cinema.

As a freelancer, very oftern we find a movie title that click, but can’t find a time out to watch it because of “tons of work” ahead.

Clean up your machine, table and all the mess

I’m sure there were lots of “Tomorrow” while working on the desk. It is the time to do all those work. A clean work station can really boost productivity. From whipping the computer to cleaning up all the paper work on the table is a good start.

Learn more script

Even if you’re good in one particular CMS, you probably won’t get only WordPress to build nowadays. Get more knowledge on CMS, e-Commerce or so. It’s always an added advantage to get more experience on lots of CMS.

I once had a client asked me to design their MODx CMS script, which I have totally no experience at all, I have been working with him for a few project, mainly, WordPress. You can’t tell if a client would continue working with you if they look ahead with another freelancer and feel more comfortable with them instead. That’s a totaly lost.

I’ve personally downloaded some common CMS and e-Commerce script on my localhost readily to study them once I’m out of Internet.

Blogging has become a profession, no body ever thought of it at first until a few successful blogger like problogger did it. Search any search engine with your questions or doubt, the result floated with no other than blogs. Weblog has taken a giant step in a few years, a lot of professional bloggers are out there sharing and guiding beginner to success in this profession. Isn’t it funny to see how a profession is taught through web?

I have been blogging for the past 5 years, I have to admit, I started off without the thought of earning a cent, until 4 years back when I stumble to Google Adsense then PPP (payperpost), all those are a way to get earning with some simple rules and tasks. I tried to share my experience and tips on how to get “approve” in the blogsophere to my fellow friends, but when you have hot topic in town, they tend to look for the easiest and fastest way instead.

I wonder how you starts your blog and in which area you attack for your earning? Please share in comment

P/S: 6e42tyvf5b. Claiming my blog to technorati

Privacy or no?

Some may agree that with Internet, there’s no privacy. But some people logged into Twitter to void their own privacy by telling the whole World what they’re doing and where are they. Who to blame? Twitter was a “How are you today?” platform for members to provide daily information; Facebook was a social network where friends link to each other. Nowadays they are becaming an IM as well as a marketing tools. Weblog has PPP (pay per post); Facebook has group to mass market a certain product or service; Twitter, will have a PPA (pay per advertise) sooner or later.

It’s an IM, in a way

Correct me if I’m wrong, with reply-enable and comment-enable, who wouldn’t take the grant of it to keep writing? Twitter gave 2 choices, you can either reply on Twitter or send a private message, all using only one form. Facebook status is closely linked with Twitter. So you ask if it is an IM, I would say yes.

Research, survey, focus group, you name it

How many of you did a research or questionaire using Twitter? As long as you have some niche followers, you’ll definitely get responses. This created a thin line between qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative is a research depending on majority, qualitative research, a quality answer or a common one, focus group. Twitter is known for very personal, as well as Facebook, but we don’t know how quality the answers are.

Marketing tools

How can’t they become a marketing tool when most of them are widely used/seen/visited everyday.

Both Twitter and Facebook was estimated more than 7million visitors per day by StatBrain. Many companies have Twitter and weblog, especially freelancer. Most of the freelance web designers that I know has a Twitter account and ready to showcase their portfolio and knowledge on their field.

In the end of the day, the whole thing is depend on how you look at the service itself. Some people like the interactive Twitter and Facebook has, especially games developed in Facebook, championing each other in certain game. However, I personaly don’t like social network site too much. These social network is selling their database for profit, your email, time online, location and etc are all in their system tracking. Or you have a better idea of how they profit from with these free services.

Anyway, speaking of blogging. From my previous surfing, they stated that every seconds there’re more than a thousand blog created with fresh content. Back in 2000, when the word “weblog” started to introduce to the whole world, I was thinking to myself that, sooner or later, all my search result from Google are going to be weblog instead of the real informative / respective company websites. Now it happen. From there on, the whole Internet started to transform, more and more opportunities are coming in. Here are some of my humble observant list…

1, Advertising revenue

More and more advertisers looking for blog as their advertising media. Simply because they (blog) are ahead of advertisers listed in Google. Well, one can argue that the advertisers can straight away advertise with Google using the infamous Google Adwords. Yes, they can, but having a limited budget, one advertiser can get more exposure on the Internet (read: including regions and countries) than Google Adwords can provide.

2, Attention

I don’t know how truth is it. But in Jack Neo’s movie “I’m not stupid 2″, the story tells a teenager gets his attention from his blog. With the help of Twitter, this become a stronger point. Be it product attention or personal attention, a blog is a free publicity of everything.

3, Dependency

Ok, this is the part I hate but love the most. How many of you depend on blogs to give you: 1, humor of the day; 2, news of the day; 3, inspiration of the day; 4, research of your hobbies. Really, RSS is useful because of blog. If there’s no blog, there’s no use of RSS, unless you’re with Times, CNN and etc. I have to admit, I read blog more than any other else to get my daily knowledge (yes, a little over emphasizing, but it’s true).

4, Design improvement

I’m a advertising student, coming from a advertisement field, I saw the improvement in advertisement is creativity and photo quality. On web design? Not only web is becoming more demand over the world, the design also keep on changing and changing. Check into web archive for Geocities design…

1996 to 1999, nothing much improve. Still using the same old structure. How about a year later just when blogging are started to booming the Internet?

Not to mention, check how they look now. By the way, a more advance improvement, you should check Yahoo! archive too

I wonder how web technology can improve as well. Ajax was introduced in 2005, which only a 4 year-old technology that already been wildly used on most new website nowadays. Hope to see more of those coming out to ease a web designer job… I mean the Flash based web has been declining since… Erm… Save for next time

After finishing my work in the evening, I opened the script again (only 2 files), put in a login form, upload it on my blog and do some test on few more blog, to make sure it is easy to setup for a WordPress powered blog.

If you also have the same mind like us about how WordPress uploader taking space and time, you can download the script here. Everything is pretty much self explain with a some read me file in there.

Mostly when I did my own blog/project design, I don’t care much about IE6 and how it would look like. I mean, come on, it’s 8 year-old! In Internet, you should multiple year to 12. Basically IE6 = 8 year-old x 12 Internet year = 96 year-old. Time to go!

Technically, we, web designer, are very much depending on how Microsoft gonna take the step to release their Windows 7. From my observation, Windows 7 coming out too quick after the release of Windows Vista. This is to top their failure on pursuing people to upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows XP, and not to mention the IE update. Very quick, Windows 98 stuck with IE5.5, Windows XP stuck with IE6, Windows Vista has a great IE7 at least and Windows 7 is gonna ship with IE8. As you can see there, IE7 seems to stop just a while. Ah… It’s the mindset! When people started to notice that they are way behind, they will definitely catch up a little bit, this little bit is what web designers are hoping for, really!