15 Tips for Web Designers on Starting a Freelance Business

15 Tips for Web Designers on Starting a Freelance Business: "This tutorial will definitely prove to be a great directive boon to help individuals looking to start their freelancing activities in making themselves able to face the various challenges they may face. View Post"

Simplify Firefox: Experimental Add-on Hides the URL Bar

Simplify Firefox: Experimental Add-on Hides the URL Bar: "

LessChrome HD Offers a minimalist take on browser chrome

Mozilla Labs has released a new experimental Firefox add-on, dubbed LessChrome HD, which hides the URL bar to give webpages a bit more room. The idea is to only show the Firefox user interface when needed, the rest of the time the screen real estate is given over to the actual webpage.

The LessChrome HD experiment is available through the Mozilla Add-ons site and you can even try it out without restarting Firefox. LessChrome HD works in Firefox 4 and above.

LessChrome HD doesn’t dispense with the URL bar, it’s just hidden. Moving your mouse anywhere into the window chrome will reveal it, as will the old cmd-L keyboard shortcut or cmd-T to create a new tab. Mozilla refers to this as an “on-demand interface.” In other words, it’s there when you need to navigate and disappears when you’re just reading something on the page.

LessChrome HD is somewhat similar to the new hidden nav bar option in Chrome 13 and seems to hint at a new UI design direction for browsers: hiding the URL bar. The extra screen real estate is useful if you’re using a small screen laptop, but even if you’ve got a massive monitor the minimalist user interface helps focus your attention on the web page, rather than the web browser.

Not everyone likes this trend. Software developer Dave Winer likens the missing URL bar trend to building a house without a backdoor, writing that the URL bar is “the way you can be sure you can get somewhere even if all the powers-that-be don’t want you to go there.” I’d argue that LessChrome HD and Chrome 13’s URL bar experiments are more like hiding the backdoor than eliminating it. That said, I’d hate to see this become a default in any web browser. It seems to work well as it is — an add-on for those that want it, while those that don’t can safely ignore it.

See Also:

• Chrome 13 Introduces Experimental Hidden Nav Bar Option


• AwesomeBar HD Packs More Awesomeness into Firefox


• Mozilla’s ‘Home Dash’ is a Dashboard for Your Personal Web

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Simple Budgeting for Lazy People

Simple Budgeting for Lazy People: "

Post written by Leo Babauta.

I haven’t written about finances in awhile, because these days I barely think about them.

That’s because for several years, I focused on getting out of debt — and these days, I live completely debt-free and worry little about finances. It’s a beautiful thing.

However, recently a reader asked me to write about Simple Budgeting, and so I thought I’d revisit the topic. I’ll talk about how I deal with finances these days, and then a Simple Budgeting method for those who aren’t exactly debt-free yet.

How I Deal with Finances

As I said, these days my finances barely register on my brain. Now that I’m out of debt, it’s not a major issue for me, and I’ve automated most of my finances.

Here’s what I do:

1. Income is streamed into my checking account automatically. My income is all electronic, so I never deal with checks. In a couple cases I’ve purposely set up electronic payments when previously I was sent checks.

2. Savings & investments are automatically taken from the checking. If it’s not automatic, I might forget about it. Forgetting about it is a good thing when it’s automatic though — I will check every few months and see how my savings and investments have grown.

3. I often make major payments all at once in the beginning of the year. Because I’ve been able to grow my savings account, now that I have zero debt payments, I have a good cushion so that I can pay things like rent or other major expenses all at once in the beginning of the year. This way I don’t worry about the payments each month, and I don’t spend money I might need for these payments.

4. Other bill payments are made automatically. If I don’t pay in one big lump sum, I’ll set up automatic monthly payments. I never worry about paying bills. I just make sure there is enough in my checking account at all times to cover the total amount of my bills.

5. I leave a cushion in the checking for unexpected expenses. And once the bills, savings and investments are taken care of, what’s left is basically groceries and other living expenses. I don’t spend all of what’s left, because other things will inevitably come up, and having a cushion means I don’t have to worry about these things. Building up a cushion took me time — after I eliminated debt, I just continued to spend little so that I could build up savings and a cushion in my checking account.

And that’s about it. I don’t budget anymore, because everything is automatic. I am not quite as frugal as I was when I was getting out of debt, but that’s the freedom of living debt-free — you don’t worry about that stuff as much.

Simple Budgeting

If you’re a bit lost when it comes to budgeting, it’s not that hard. You just need to sit down and do it, and not put it off. Here are the steps I’d recommend:

1. First make a few lists. Lists are easy. The lists you need: list all your monthly income amounts (estimate an average if you have irregular income); list all your mandatory payments (like rent, auto, power, groceries); list debt payments. See how much (if any) you have left over — if there isn’t much, see the next step.

2. Simplify. See what “mandatory” payments you can eliminate. This might take time, but many things are optional. For example, I eliminated cable TV, magazine subscriptions, a car payment (going from two cars to one), and more. Also, see what discretionary spending you can eliminate while you’re trying to reduce debt — Starbucks coffee, eating out a lot, buying magazines or comics, etc.

3. Make savings and debt payments first, each payday. Make that mandatory, even if they’re small at first ($50 each maybe). Try to increase them as you continue to simplify.

4. Make mandatory payments next. Rent, car, utilities, etc. Make them automatic if possible, but if not go online and pay them right away each payday.

5. What’s left over is spending cash. Maybe it’s for groceries, gas, and fun money (eating out, etc.). If you have difficulty not spending your grocery and gas money so that they last for two weeks, put the amounts you think you’ll need in separate envelopes — one for gas, one for groceries, one for fun money.

6. Long-term moves. Over the long term, you want to decrease and even eliminate debt, one debt at a time. This will free up a lot of your money. You also want to start saving for an emergency fund immediately, and build it up over time. This is crucial, as without even a small emergency fund you’ll never smooth out the bumps that inevitably come up. Increase income if possible while you’re getting out of debt. And when you’re out of debt, start investing in index mutual funds (Vanguard 500, for example) to grow your money over the long term.

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Tweetalicious

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Simple Ways to Be More with Less

I’d like to share with you a little but beautiful ebook written by a friend, Courtney Carver. Courtney blogs about simplicity at Be More With Less, and inspires many with her story.

In her new ebook, Simple Ways to Be More with Less, Courtney shares not only her best writings on creating a simple life and living life on purpose … but she has some great chapters from other simplicity authors like Tammy Strobel, Joshua Becker, and myself.

It’s a book for anyone interested in living a simpler, more meaningful life.

Simple Ways to Be More with Less

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How to Show Clients What Your Business Is Really All About

How to Show Clients What Your Business Is Really All About: "

As freelancers, we often have to explain exactly what it is we do.

The quality of your explanation impacts your success. For example, if you don’t communicate well, you could turn off prospective clients, attract those you don’t really want to work with, and look just like any other freelancer in your field.

On the other hand, when you talk about your freelancing business effectively, not only do you attract your Ideal Clients. You’ll also have more confidence about yourself and your business. And that confidence will show in everything you do.

The majority of freelancers don’t know how to talk about their business. Just look at the websites and other marketing materials of most freelancers, and you’ll find the common mistakes listed below.

Mistake #1. They’re All About Themselves

“I’m a designer with 12 years experience in graphic and web design.”

“I’m an expert Rails programmer.”

“I’ve worked with the following Fortune 500 companies….”

These freelancers focus on themselves and show no concern whatsoever for the prospect. The truth is, people don’t care about you; they only care about themselves. They’re only interested in you to the extent that you can help them reach their goals. More about that later.

Mistake #2. They Stop at Features

Features are observable characteristics of the services you offer. For example:

• 450-600 word articles


• logo design


• WordPress installation with design customization and plugins

Of course, prospects are interested in knowing exactly what they’re going to get by working with you. The problem comes when that’s all you tell them. You see, while your prospect might be interested in articles, logo design, or a WordPress install, that’s not all they care about. They want those things to achieve bigger desires and goals.

It’s your job to find out what those desires and goals are, and how they tie up to the services you offer. You’ll learn how to do that below.

Mistake #3. They Go into Details Prematurely

Another mistake freelancers make is giving too many details before the prospect is ready. An example is publishing your rates on the home page of your website. Getting into fees and costs before the prospect is properly “warmed up” can mean the difference between having a new client and losing one to a less expensive competitor.

What to Do Instead

Now that you have an idea of what NOT to do, let’s get into the positive side of things and discuss what to do. How DO you talk to prospective clients so they understand what your freelancing business is really all about–so that they hire you?

In the following sections I share some of the positive action items that you can do to market your business:

Item #1. Focus on Your Prospects

Effective communication begins by understanding your prospects. Jeanna Pool, author of Marketing for Solos, says you need to know their pain, problem, and predicament. It’s one of those Ps that drive prospects to consider hiring a freelancer. Know what their 3Ps are, and you’ll know what “hot buttons” they’ll respond to best.

Approaching prospects with an understanding of their pain, problem or predicament is the perfect way to attract their attention and earn their trust.

For example, see how appealing the following sounds, instead of the “I…” statements we have above:

“You know article marketing can do wonders for your site’s traffic, but writing articles isn’t easy for everyone.”

“Is your business logo so outdated, it’s embarrassing?”

“You want a website to help promote your business, but you don’t want to pay an arm and leg for one that will be obsolete in a couple of months.”

Take the extra effort to really get to know your Ideal Clients, and you’ll be a better freelancer.

Item #2. Sell Them the Benefits

Your prospects want more than the specific services you offer. They want the benefits of those services. Benefits are changes in your clients’ situation, which they’ll experience as a result of your work.

For instance, a prospect doesn’t only want an article. He really wants to increase his site’s search engine ranking, attract more traffic, and have more subscribers to his newsletter.

Another prospect isn’t only looking for a new company logo. She wants to stop being embarrassed by her ’90s-style branding and connect visually with her target market.

That business owner isn’t just after a website. What she ultimately wants is to get prospects and customers even when she’s not cold calling.

Talking about the benefits you bring to clients will get prospects excited about working with you… even when there are dozens of less expensive competitors out there.

Sit down for a few minutes to brainstorm what benefits you can promise your prospects. One way to come up with ideas is to look back at previous clients. What results have your clients enjoyed as a result of your work?

Another way is to keep asking yourself, “So what?” For example, you write search engine-optimized articles. So what?

Then the articles I write will get plenty of traffic. So what?

Then more article readers will click on the link in the articles and discover my client’s site. So what?

Then my client will have more subscribers and prospects to market to. So what?

Then my client will sell more of Widget X and make more money. So what?

Then my client will be able to send his children to college, which is his lifelong dream, because he never went to college himself. So what?

Then my client will feel fulfilled as an entrepreneur and parent.

Keep drilling down until you can’t go deeper any more. By the way, when you do this exercise, you have to make assumptions about your prospects. The more you know about them, the better you’ll get at mining the benefits they care about.

Item #3. Give Details When Your Prospect Is Ready

People don’t like to be sold to. This is why we don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of our work, unless the prospect is good and ready.

You’ll know they’re ready by their response. Let’s say you just told a prospect that “I’m a graphic designer who helps businesses create visual brands that resonate with their target market.”

If the person’s eyes glaze over, then they’re not ready and may never be interested in what you have to offer.

On the other hand, if the person’s eyes widen, they flash a smile and say, “Really? Tell me more”–that’s your cue to say a little more about what you do.

A New Way of Communicating

All this advice may seem strange and unusual for you. However, learning this way of communicating your business will make you a more successful freelancer.

Use it when you

• write the copy for your website, brochure and other marketing materials


• talk to prospects in a networking event


• ask past clients for testimonials


• put together case studies to document how you’ve helped clients

You’ll soon realize this isn’t just a way of talking about your freelancing business. It’s a whole new way of thinking–one that’s centered on your clients, their problems, and their goals. You’ll also soon find out, this approach works much better in attracting and keeping clients.

How can you become more client-focused when talking about your business?

Tell us about your a-ha’s and next steps in the comments below.

Image by Kimba

Related posts:

1. How to Use Skype to Win Clients and Grow Your Freelancing Business


2. How to Use a Facebook Fan Page to Promote Your Freelance Business


3. Turning Around Your Freelance Business with Lead Nurturing

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HTML5-Powered Web Applications: 19 Early Adopters

HTML5-Powered Web Applications: 19 Early Adopters: "

HTML5, rumored as Flash killer, is a brand new web technology that raises a revolution lead by Apple in web application development. It contains canvas element for images and animation drawings, support video and audio embedding, and includes storage database for offline web applications. Most important of all, you don’t need a plugin to get all these features, your latest browser supports that.

Sounds pretty cool, but what HTML5 can do actually? Well, this post is going to satisfy your curiosity about the power of HTML5 by showing you a series of practical HTML5-powered web applications such as drawing application, chart creating application and time management application. So there’s no technical document anymore, let your eyes witness the true potential of HTML5!

19 HTML5-Powered Web App

DeviantART muro

Muro is HTML5-based sketching app that works in all modern browsers, and you can dive in and start drawing on a blank canvas, all without Flash or any other plugin. There are several brushes available to everyone, but to access more advanced features, you’ll need a DeviantArt account.

HootSuite

HTML5-based social media dashboard with some great features: geo-location tweet searching, choice between new and old style retweets, connection to Google Analytics, drag and drop editing, custom interface and much more. Perfect online tool for professional brand management.

X-Worlds

Something cool and interesting for kids of all sizes. You can submit a drawing of your character and watch it transform into an awesome illustration. Be the next X-world superhero!

Aviary’s Image Editor

HTML5-powered photo editor which is easy to use and surprisingly powerful. Beyond its use of HTML5 (as opposed to Flash, Silverlight or other RIA frameworks), what sets this app apart is that it’s designed to be portable so developers can directly integrate it into their sites or apps.

CSSWarp

CSSWarp is online tool that allows you to attach any text to a curved path or a circle, then create warped text with pure CSS and HTML.

Flickr Browser

Flickr Browser is an unique HTML5 app for browsing Flickr photos with cool approach.

CSS3.0 Maker

A great app for developers. It makes use of sliders and even a live preview area to generate cross-browser markup.

Coolendar

A HTML5-based calendar web app. Simple and clean interface and useful features for effective time management.

Twimbow

Twimbow is a colorful, HTML5 and CSS3 based Twitter client with a focus on filtering. The interface looks similar to TweetDeck and Seesmic, but its main distinction lies in its colourful interface. You can assign different colours to different users and groups, and also change the colour of tweets by adding a color tag!

Sketchpad

Sketchpad by Mugtug is a Pixelmator-like application that has desktop-like tools, colour selection, patterns, swatches and much more.

CloudCanvas

Cloud Canvas is a free HTML-5 based cloud image editor. This is a fully featured online image editor that allows you to create and save digital media. All content saved will be in PNG and XML format and stored in Google Documents.

Lislis Painter

Another interesting web app based on HTML5. Basic tools, layers and other features make this app an useful sketching tool online.

Scribd

This version of Scribd is a Flash and HTML5-based web app that provides in-browser access to all sorts of documents and e-books uploaded by users.

Google Body Browser

Google Body Browser is a cool web app powered with WebGL for study use. WebGL is a cross-platform low-level 3D graphics API that is designed to bring plugin-free 3D to the web. It uses the HTML5 Canvas element and does not require Flash, Java or other graphical plugins to run.

LucidChart

LucidChart is a great online tool for creating charts and diagrams. It works very fast and smooth, a perfect tool for team collaboration online.

Diagramo

Diagramo is an interactive online application, which allows you to make diagrams and flowcharts from within a web browser. It also allows you to create, edit and share diagrams, organizational charts, network diagrams and graphs. The diagrams can be saved for a lifetime.

Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator

Colorzilla has designed this very easy to use CSS3 gradient generator. It uses sliders and color pickers just like Photoshop and is highly recommended.

Citicles

Citicles is an experimental HTML5 visualizator that aggregates basic information about a city and displays it in a simple circle design. Each circle encloses the city’s population, temperature, time, elevation, latitude and longitude.

Tiny Fluid Grid

This grid generator with great design lets you generate a grid framework using simple options and even includes a preview page for you to make sure your grid looks perfect.

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The Evolution of Email [Infographic]

The Evolution of Email [Infographic]: "

Over the last 40 years email has evolved quite a bit; take a peek at this infographic to chart significant milestones in the history of email.

Provided by the Microsoft Outlook team, the above infographic does a solid job highlighting key moments in email history. As we get closer to the present, however, you have to take it with a grain of salt as it becomes a little Microsoft-centric given the origin of the image.

Evolution of Email [via MakeUseOf]

Improve Your Photography by Learning the Elements of Exposure	Mac OS X Viruses: How to Remove and Prevent the Mac Protector Malware	How to Block All Cookies Except for Sites You Use

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20 Great New Firefox Extensions

20 Great New Firefox Extensions: "

There’s no question that one of the premier features of the Firefox web browser is extensions. Since Firefox’s inception they’ve been a part of what differentiated it. And even now, when every major browser on the market offers some kind of plugin architecture, the depth and quality of Firefox’s add-on catalog still reigns supreme.

The best part of Firefox’s add-on community is its continued dedication to creating new and exciting things. We’ve rounded up 20 Firefox extensions you may not have heard of before. Perhaps a couple of perennial favorites made our list too, but for the most part we’ve culled together some of the latest and greatest that the add-on community has to offer.

Awesome Screenshot

by Diigo Inc.

Awesome Screenshot

Much like the Mac app Skitch, Awesome Screenshot lets you take a screenshot, and then annotate it with circles, boxes, lines, doodles, or even text. Once you’re satisfied with you creation, you can either save it as an image to your desktop, or share it with with a public URL.

Tab Scope

by Gomita

Tab Scope

Tab Scope is a simple, but extremely useful utility. Just hover your mouse over any tab, and get a floating thumbnail preview of the contents of that tab.

Apture Highlights

by Apture, Inc.

Apture Highlights

The power of the Web is having copious amounts of information at your fingertips, right? Apture Highlights takes that to a new level. With this extension installed, highlighting a word or phrase gives you a pop-over window of background information pulled from your favorite sources across the Internet.

InstantFox

by InstantFox

InstantFox

If you’ve got Chrome envy after checking out how efficient having a combination address and search box, then InstantFox is the answer to you’ve been looking for. Using short one letter keywords you can configure what site you’d like to query, followed by your search terms. Simple, and efficient.

FoxySpider

by Foxyspider

FoxySpider

FoxySpider is your own personal web crawler. Cool, right? Give it a URL and something to extract and it goes to town. It’ll even display its results in nice gallery format, perfect for images, videos, or music.

QuickFox Notes

by InBasic

QuickFox Notes

If you spend a lot of time in Firefox, and want an integrated note-taking system, look no further than QuickFox Notes. Great if you need somewhere to jot down brief notes while designing a website or scouring the Net for research. If QuickFox Notes is right up your alley, take a look at the release notes, there are a lot of great features to explore.

Status-4-Evar

by Sparky Bluefang

Status-4-Evar

Status-4-Evar is a HUD (heads up display) especially for Firefox 4. With the new UI, some of the previously prominent status bars didn’t make the cut. If any of them were mission critical for you, then Status-4-Evar will get them back up and running for you. Or maybe you just want to add some more status bars, ‘cause lets be honest, who doesn’t like a nice HUD?

Less Spam, please

by benoitb

Less Spam, please

We all sign up for stuff on the Internet. But we may not always want that new web 2.0 startup to have our email address. If you’re a touch on the paranoid side, or just can’t stand the mere sound of the word spam, Less Spam, please is for you. It lets you generate a real disposable email address on the fly.

Pickemfirst Fantasy Sports

by Pickemfirst

Pickemfirst Fantasy Sports

Ok, I admit it, I love fantasy football. Any of my fellow sports nerds will agree, snapping up the latest and greatest players can be a full-time job. Pickemfirst is here to help, offering news, tips, and alerts for the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL.

AwesomeBar HD

by Mozilla Labs

AwesomeBar HD

This one comes with a little word of warning from Mozilla Labs. It’s still in the experimental stage, but I think it’s worth the risk. A different take on the combining of an address bar with a search bar, backed by intense user studies and research, the AwesomeBar HD is definitely worth a try.

Vertical Toolbar

by Gomita

Vertical Toolbar

A different take on adding toolbar icons to Firefox, the Vertical Toolbar extension is a nice approach for those who need lot of buttons in their UI.

Grooveshark Remote Control

by Peregrino

Grooveshark Remote Control

A must-have for any frequent Grooveshark listener. This displays the currently playing song in the bottom of the Firefox window, with playback controls as well. If you’re on a Mac, it even includes Growl support, informing you on the newest track being played.

Tab Badge

by Geoff Lanjow

Tab Badges

Tab Badge pulls in unread counts from popular websites and adds them to their respective tabs. Very handy if you use services like Facebook, Twitter, or Gmail for communications.

Speak Words

by Mozilla Labs

Speak Words

Don’t let the name fool you, there’s no speech recognition going on here. Instead, this add-on autocompletes what you begin to type into the address bar. Helps you get to your most frequently visited sites even faster.

AdBlock Plus

by Wladimir Palant

AdBlock Plus

Always a favorite, AdBlock Plus is the go to extension for blocking ads from your browsing experience. It’s really the best around in my opinion, without question.

Video Download Helper

by mig

Video Download Helper

If you find yourself archive lots of web-based video, Video Download Helper can expedite that task. Pulling in videos from all the big sites, it’ll make your life a lot easier, trust me.

FoxTab

by The FoxTab Team

FoxTab

Replicated the Top Sites feature from Safari, or Speed Dial from Opera, FoxTab does it with some 3D pinache too. If you’re into the whiz-bang super cool eye candy, you can’t pass up FoxTabs.

iMacros

by iOpus

iMacros

Automation. That’s the name of the game. iMacros turns Firefox into a browser-based automation tool. Even if you don’t think you need it right now, keep it in your backpocket, it’ll come in really handy someday.

ShowIP

by Jan Dittmer

ShowIP

Perhaps more of a niche add-on, ShowIP gives you the IP address of the current site that you’re visiting. But if offers more than that. You can get more detailed information like whois, netcraft, and more.

Test Pilot

by Mozilla Labs

Test Pilot

I couldn’t do a roundup of Firefox extensions without mentioning Test Pilot. With it you can help Mozilla Labs in their on going research products. You get to have a hand in shaping what the next version of Firefox becomes. If you want to be on the absolute cutting edge, there’s nothing better than Test Pilot.

Wrap Up

Ok, so even with this nice long list, I’m sure we missed something. If your favorite extension didn’t make it, tell us in the comments. Go ahead, blow our minds!

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