Today, I got my New Every 2 phone from Verizon. For the last two years after deciding to get a plan with Verizon, I have used the free Samsung phone that came for free at the time in which I purchased my plan. My little phone was okay aside from horrible sound and its inability to properly recognize its voice, not to mention the occasional lost message and the occasional lost text. All in all, though I tried to remain positive about its prospects, my old phone did not treat me properly.

I discovered this today whenever my fiance and I decided to purchase a twin set of Motorola Droids with the New Every 2 and Verizon’s current “Buy One get One Free” marketing campaign; the guy even threw in some accessories for 20% off.

At first I was very critical about smart phones and could not imagine that they actually had the impact on small business as they would, until I began to discover the worth of my Droid. Read more »

It happens to the best of us. We’re doing great with our business, finish off the last client file, and then…

Suddenly nothing.

We find ourselves scrambling to try and make ends meet, and worry and fret that perhaps going into freelance design wasn’t that great of an idea. Our savings begin to burn up, and we panic.

What can be done? Read more »

One of the biggest sins our society has made is its creation of lies. Lies and slander, even, concerning the educational system in particular. We tell our students that they are preparing themselves for life by getting their college degree, and that by getting this slip of paper after four years of work they will be able to step out immediately into the real world. Just check out the University of California sites – their way of enticing students to pay a higher price for their education is to show very exceptional students who are being hired right out of school.

The problem I have with this is my own experience. I have already learned for myself that the world does not work this way. Part of why I have chosen to attend college in a field other than design is that I know that yes the degree helps, but I also know that design is a very difficult field to enter into, especially without a very strong resume. Read more »

In a past post, I compared several different job boards which I utilized in my daily life. I summarized the most effective job boards as those which cost a freelancer a very insignificant amount of money, did not spam the freelancer, were not overly intrusive to the normal business operations, were easy to sign up for, and did not compare freelancers to one another. Generally speaking the post was met with nods of approval; after all, why should my earnings on one site determine whether or not I was a decent web designer? For all that site knows, I could have already grossed double the amount reflected using a different service. And, additionally, why should I limit myself to one service when I know that job posters will be posting to different sites? And after educating myself and working towards certifications with W3C and Adobe, why should I pay for another web site to certify me?

Then, I recently noticed that CSS Mania had released their own job board. There is no subscription fee; the site is paid for by the advertisements on the main CSS. 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 »