Jake’s Life

With the nearing completion of a major web project I find myself asking those I now to check it out and let me know what they think. Sandro’s tested it on his shiny, new iPhone 3G, I’ve done the same on my Blackberry, and so far so good. I would love to have a few others help me out by going to the site, browsing it, tossing items in their cart, go through the checkout process, then cancel the order just before payment. I just want input on the general usability of the site.

Anyone up to it?

One of my major web projects is 99.999% complete. The site should be live any day now, and this client also has two other smaller sites waiting in the wings for me. In the meantime, I am working on an even bigger project which has presented some unique challenges just because of the custom options for each items in the e-commerce app. It’s definitely testing my problem solving skills.

I’m also half way through with a smaller brochure web site, which should be posted any day now as well.

I got business cards printed and shipped, so they should be here tomorrow.

I also set up a separate domain name for my web design freelancing, www.jacobidesign.com. If you send me a client, I’ll give you 10%!

I recently found this meme courtesy of Urspo. I figured I’d play along for a few!

The task is to highlight in bold the items that apply to you.

• Change a flat tire
• Tie a bow tie (only know the windsor)
• Carve a turkey
• Open a bottle of champagne
• Change the oil in a car (I only know where to add it).
• If asked, you know the name of a good barber
• Have a tailor who knows your measurements
• Tie a bowline, clove hitch, and a square knot
• Chop wood
• Shoot a rifle
• Make a dry martini (HUGE Martini fan, only with Gin…there is no other!)
• Keep a checkbook balanced
• BBQ
• Lay a fire
• Change a fuse
• Polish shoes
• The ability to read stock quotes in the business section
• Keep score at a baseball game
• Jump-start a car (I also know to fry a car’s battery like nobody else)
• Know how to throw a punch (Of course…)
• Own a tuxedo
• Know how to judge a new wine
• Do your own taxes at least once in your life (every year)
• Know how to play poker
• Carry a handkerchief

I thought I’d post an entry with some links to things I’ve found recently that have come in handy in one way or another:

Oosah: Another free online storage service, but they give you 1 TB of data. Yes, a whole TB!

Animoto: Another free service that lets you upload photos, a song, then creates a video of your photos moving to your song. Pretty fun.

Dropcard: A digital business card which allows you to send a text to their number with your recipient’s info. Ex.: Send drop me@jakeslife.net to send your card.

Sandro and I went to see Righteous Kill last night (great movie, by the way). During the pre-movie ads this one from the National Guard was played. The theater fell silent.

Whether or not you agree with the war or the message the song delivers, you’ve gotta admit, it makes you wanna shoot something!

Once a week, if I’m not working on too many things, I’ll post ads on Craigslist or look at a few freelance job directories to see what I can’t pick up. Right now one of my clients, who is still paying me, has not sent me anything in over a month, and she is insisting on getting everything together before she sends anything else to me. My major site that I started last month is almost done, so I’m looking for some things to keep busy with.

Today I was e-mailing back and forth with someone who wanted a mouth watering burger but only wanted to pay for mystery meat. After letting her know what she would be getting for the amount I was asking for (which, as Sandro always tells me, “If they want to pay X, then tell them to go pay for it, but you get what you pay for”), she pulled out the, “Well, I was quoted X by someone else.”

I’m shocked, dismayed, and quite hurt, ma’am.

I decided to pay a visit to CL and see who else was posting on there. I found a few and decided to run my own little secret shopper experiment.

Now, I don’t feel I’m in a position to criticize others’ freelance habits, because I know that I’m not perfect, but here are a few things I found that stood out:

• One of the e-mails I received from one person was from one address, and a short while later from another address. This is probably because the person is using either a smartphone which has multiple accounts routed to it, or Outlook with multiple mail boxes. If I were a serious candidate for business, what address do I send them mail at that I would know without a doubt is going to be checked?
• “Sent from my T-Mobile Blackberry smartphone.” I love my Blackberry, and I would never leave home without it, but my e-mail signature reflects what account I’m using (Ex.: “Jacob [Last Name], [Phone], [URL]).
• The above person you could tell was using a Blackberry. After two paragraphs of describing what I need, I got a short reply asking if I use PayPal as my billing system.

It’s good to be able to see what others out there are doing, and how I can improve my practices to stand out from them. I don’t feel very bad for e-mailing them under the guise of a web customer, because it’s a standard business practice and I am positive others have done so to me.

Things have come a long way since I was freelancing web design before. Back then I used Mambo with several extensions to manage my website, design inquiries, invoices, etc. I chose to look into more modern ways of doing this simply because of the Web 2.0 "revolution" and its offerings. I have a few criteria: The app has to be free (I refuse to pay for software when there are equivalent software that’s free); The app has to be quick to setup and operate; and the app has to give the appearance of professionalism as it relates to clients.

Invoicing

I tried Bamboo Invoices. Bamboo is a PHP app that is hosted on your own web server (or local server setup) that bills itself as simple. It is simple, but to go beyond simple to the point that it’s customized for what you need it gets time consuming. It also doesn’t allow you to process payments through the software.

I finally decided on CurdBee, which is a hosted invoice app. You register, it creates a sub-domain where you can login (for example, yourname.curdbee.com), and once you login presents a Dahsboard where you can view your drafts, overdue, and open invoices. You can brand the colors and logo it shows your clients, which is nearly unheard of with a free app.

To create a new invoice you click a few times, offer payment methods, and it sends an e-mail to the client to notify them. One thing I like about CurdBee is it allows my clients to pay through PayPal by clicking on a link from the invoice.

Project Management

For project management I wanted an app that was simple to use so that I could offer my clients the option of logging in to manage tasks and files, but not have to explain to them how to do it. Again, free was a must.

I looked at a few others before I decided on Project Pier. A self-hosted app, Project Pier lets you create a project, set milestones, create task lists, assign tasks to users, and show progress on completed items, upload files for review and storage, and even create simple forms to gather input from clients. A few useful features it has are RSS feeds based on projects so that you can be notified through your feed reader when something is updated, and tagging so that you can tag any aspect to quickly find later.

The great thing about Project Pier, and why it works for me, is that there are not a lot of features that I don’t use on a daily basis, but it’s not so simple that you have to modify how you manage projects just because the app doesn’t have the functionality.

Fax Service

I didn’t have one until a client insisted on faxing me the contract she signed. OneFax seemed to be the one to use: Unlimited faxes (both incoming and outgoing), an e-mail type interface for your faxes, and an easy way to send PDF’s as a fax. The 90-day free trial worked great.

It’s not often that I go without a blog entry for this long, but the time has flown!

My full time job is working on piling a management position on me. We’re at seven times it’s been offered and turned down, so I have finally decided to give them the “I’ll think about it,” answer. I really am thinking about it, but not sure where I stand on it with where the current climate at work is.

My freelancing is going good. I’m still working on a few bigger projects, with a few others waiting in the wings right now. Dealing with clients has had its ups and downs, and partially reminds me why I stopped freelancing web design a few years ago. Overall it’s manageable and things are going good.

Sandro and I’s plans to move in are still moving along as well. We’re looking at places and have narrowed it down to a few places, one being the apartments I live in currently.