When I rise in the morning, it feels very good to realize that it’s a brand new day. New things can occur, and new opportunities can arise. Lately, it seems like my opportunities were shut down; however, I find today that more and more opportunities are being opened in light of the closed doors. This gives me hope.

It reminds me that no matter what happens, the sun will always rise and set. The world will continue to turn as it will, and while things may change slow, I feel like if I keep working hard, and using every opportunity that I receive instead of passing it up, that things will work out okay. I’ll admit that lately there have been times when I’ve wanted to simply shut down; the going is certainly pretty tough right now. However, I keep being reminded of how hard I have worked to get to where I am now, and everything that hinges on my steady work. Read more »

I really hate calling it quits on clients, especially clients that I’ve previously had a decent experience with. However, sometimes you still have to call it quits – whether they aren’t willing to pay you, or aren’t willing to pay you enough for the amount of time which you put into their site.

I’ve recently had to call it quits on a client I’d been working with for some time. In the past they had been a very good client and allowed me my space to work, but whenever said client changed for the worse, I knew it wasn’t fair to my other clients (or even to myself) to continue with the casework. Read more »

Sometimes, you find a client that just really strikes your fancy. Not even just a client, but frankly a person.

I’m glad to say that thus far in the past couple of months, this has happened to me a couple of times. With all of the litigation that’s occurred in my life, there’s nothing more refreshing to me to wake up in the morning and realize that hey… I’m working with this client, or hey I’m almost finished with this design.

It has been quite a storm lately. Sometimes dark and grey, but in times like this, I really feel the spark of hope as it peeks over the horizon. I’ve always believed that things happen for a reason, whether it means a significant meeting of another person, or even a significant email. The theme from Mirror’s Edge, Lisa Miskovsky’s Still Alive echoes through my mind (note that I’ve only listened to the song; I haven’t actually played the game) – it’s a sad, happy song that gives me hope in that it points out that no matter what happens, I’m still alive, and it reminds me that some of the work that I’m doing is for a good cause. Read more »

It seems to me that spammers are getting more and more creative.

One of the most recent spams I received was actually through two IM conversations. The first was on GTalk; I have a GTalk account set up specially for BeLink’d to communicate with clients et cetera without utilizing my personal account. Well, I received a friend request; not sure what it was, I accepted.

Later that day, while working on a site, I received an IM asking if it was a good time to discuss web development software that I had been solicited in the past over my work line. I told said marketer to please remove me from their contact list when they initially called me, and now I was being IM’d by them.

And that wasn’t the last time. I also use Skype for personal, and received a friends request from a random person. I add them… and it turns out to be yet another marketer. Wonderful. Blocked and removed; the major annoyance, however, is that now they attempt to message me and send me notifications, which are… excessively annoying. Read more »

Facebook! Myspace! Twitter! What do all of these bring to mind?

Certainly not those stories of stalkers et cetera, or Internet predators. Of course, there’s always that danger for children, but I’m talking about using social media for practical use.

Networking is important as it can bring us the best opportunities in addition to allowing us to be more familiar with the people we are around. Social media is one form in which networking can be accomplished; through social media, networking is made much easier in that it opens us to the people of the Internet – billions and billions of users all across the world which may provide further opportunities to connect.

As I stated in my last post, some of the best ways to build a good network are to get out there, show an interest, and not be shy. The same is true of an online network; show an interest in other people, and they will show an interest in you. However, there is one other thing which people forget to do: be themselves. Read more »