In January 2000, odds are that you didn’t own an MP3 player, digital camera or even a cellphone.

And the iPhone might as well have been a cardboard prop off Star Trek. But today, the iPhone is not only dully common, it’s the prototype on which most modern smartphones have been built.

But as of 2007, U.S. households were more likely to be use a cell than a land line.

Time has voted the Android over iPhone for Time Gadget of the Year

Here we are about to start a new decade, and the predictions are almost a sci-fi cliché at this point, but by the end of the next decade, it’s easy to imagine a contact lens, like any other contact, that could fit on your eye to provide a heads-up display (HUD) over much of your life experience.

For computers in the next decade, the mobile OS will be indistinguishable from the desktop OS. Portable computers will be but aesthetic shells for your omnipresent connection to information and processing power in the cloud.

Read more at Popular Mechanics

Your visitors spend around 5 seconds on your web site to figure out whether it’s for them. If they visit your site, you want to make sure they are not waiting for pages to load.

Web site speed test sites are useful as they help measure the download size, as well as simulating the time users have to wait for web pages to download on various internet connections. Remember, depending on where your users are, they may not always be on broadband connections, check your web analytics to be sure before using large images or rich media like video.

How it works

The tests loads a complete HTML page including all objects (images, CSS, JavaScripts, RSS, Flash and frames/iframes). It mimics the way a page is loaded in a web browser.

Enter a URL to calculate page size, composition, and download time. The services then calculates the size of individual elements and sums up each type of web page component.

The iWeb service goes one step further by offering advice on how to improve page load time. The service incorporates the current best practices from Website Optimization Secrets, web page size guidelines and trends, and web site optimization techniques into its recommendations.

Top three speedtest web sites

1. Pingdom
2. iWeb speed test
3. Web page analyser

Screenshot showing speed test report from Pingdom.com

Unfortunately due to the number of electronic items the average geek, freelancer and employee travels around the world with, it’s hardly surprising sometimes these items get lost or stolen.

Whilst costs can be covered by either business or home insurance, it’s not much fun filing a police report and having to deal with file and data loss.

Now you may actually have the chance to track your Apple product, whether it’s an iPhone, Macbook or any Apple computer with isight built in there are some fantastic anti-theft software available to reunite you with your hardware.

• iPhone iredhanded or undercover
• MacBook, MacBookPro, iMac undercover

Accurately locate your stolen Mac

Undercover uses advanced technology developed by Skyhook Wireless to locate your Mac based on Wi-Fi positioning. In addition, it also transmits network information, enabling their recovery center to accurately track and locate your stolen Mac within a range of 10-20 meters.

The software also sends screenshots of your stolen Mac at regular intervals. These screenshots will sooner or later reveal the thief’s identity (e.g. when chatting, reading and writing emails) making it much easier to work with the police in order to recover your Mac.

See who’s using your Mac

Undercover will transmit pictures of the thief and his surroundings every 6 minutes, making it even easier to identify the current user. It’s like having a private detective working for you.

MacBookPro recovered in only 3 days

Orbicule recently posted a story on their website about how a MacBookPro was recovered in just three days, thanks to the network information, iSight photos and screenshots (which captured the thief’s email address) provided by Undercover. If you or your users carry around expensive Mac portables, Undercover might be just the insurance policy you need.

The cost for this? £41 for up to 5 Macs..

Apple’s response to reporting a lost Apple product discussions.apple.com – Basically, there isn’t one, but the message is using the software here makes the chances of recovering your products much, much higher.

There is also a windows equivalent of this type of software, in case anyone you know may need this anti-theft protection at lojackforlaptops

Like most web developers and small businesses I’m always on the lookout for the best web services that offer great value for money and make our lives easier and more productive at the same time.

If you are looking to start your own web hosting services, ideal for designers, developers and entrepreneurs.

All come with 24/7 support and are UK hosted. Instant setup and activation.

Fasthosts – 6 months free

• Save £300 normal price £50 per month
• Unlimited reseller hosting, bandwidth, web space, and email
• Host unlimited websites, email and domain names in UK data centre and resell everything under your brand name
• Windows or Linux OS

www.fasthosts.co.uk/reseller

Poundhosts – 20% off virtual servers

• Full administrator, remote desktop access
• Provides both dedicated and virtual servers, and latest Windows server 2008 bringing cost of hosting on windows the same as renting a Linux box
• From £24 per month

The resellers receive a special offer for 20% discount on services, for the life of the order. The discount code is PHCustVS which can be entered at the order stage.

www.poundhost.com

Heart – Host unlimited domains and web sites

• Unlimited web space, data transfer, mail boxes, mysql, ftp accounts, sub domains, databases
• White label system, fully brandable
• £29.99 per month

www.heartinternet.co.uk

Streamline – 50% off most popular packages

• Unlimited webspace, bandwidth, mailboxes
• Includesecommerce web site builder
• £2.99 per month – normally £5.99

www.streamline.net

Which one is the best for you?

You decide. As a guide, you would be best going for dedicated hosting for high traffic sites, and for solid site security.

The extra money you pay for some of the larger hosts is for the quality of support and response to hardware issues at their datacentres.

If you are just running small static sites or personal projects some of the smaller hosts and the smaller costs will be adequate.

In my opinion Poundhost has probably the best value for money on offering dedicated and scalable cloud based (virtual) servers which are very flexible in the features you can add and remove using a state of the art control panel / dashboard.

Disclaimer: I am not getting commission on this, you will see no affilliate codes here. I just want to give let you know the best offers out there at the moment, honest.

Like any skilled freelancer, you should always be aware of what you can have in your toolbox to use on your current and future projects.

How many times has a client or colleague asked ‘Do you know how to do this?’. You can confidently reply with a firm ‘Yes!’ more often the case. As a front end developer creating smooth interactions and event handling are possible to achieve quite rapidly with Jquery.

“jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development”

If you haven’t already used it, or even if you have – below are three of the most comprehensive lists of Jquery Tutorials and Examples that I’ve seen, in a kind of Smashing Magazine ‘ultimate’ list way:

1. 50 amazing jquery examples
   
2. 51 best of jquery tutorials and examples
3. Ajaxrain.com

There are other links that are just as useful for other web code and services on our delicious account.

Should we add any other resources for jquery here, tell us below?

Everyone has a list of essential applications for their Mac.

And to emphasize the “Free” in freelancer most of these that I’ve listed cost nothing, or at least free for the standard version.

If you’ve just got yourself a new Mac and totally clueless what to install, or if you are looking for alternatives for some applications you are currently using in your Mac, the following list might come in handy as a useful reference guide.

• Daily essential Mac Apps from Remy Sharp
• Open Source Mac
• 100 free useful applications for mac part 1

Some of these apps have been converted to iPhone apps to, which can work seamlessly with cloud based services.

So we cannot ignore the job cuts around the world, and we have to think about reducing our overheads what ever size business we are.

However, as a freelancer, you should think about the time now and the opportunities times like these offer. Times to enhance develop, collaborate, and push forward innovation. Some of the best innovations are done during times of economic downturn.

Innovation can be done cheaply, picture this – two geeks in a garage, wearing sweaters, trying to get an online experiment to work on an old macbook.

‘Innovation inspires, educates and entertains societies’

That’s the amazing thing about being based in Brighton, UK. It’s all about small groups of people working collaboratively at co-working locations across the city or at events like barcamp.

However, I want to think in terms of a revolution, rather than a downturn.

As good things usually come out the end of revolutions like this, the Industrial revolution, the Internet revolution, now this financial revolution - we don’t actually know what will come out of this – I feel this is why a lot of people are worried.

I hope the ‘downturn’ doesn’t mean that peoples creative taps are turned off. We are currently in a time of radical change, now is a chance to connect with people who you may not have done with before.

How can you connect and innovate in a downturn?

• Co-working places – Find out if your town or city has shared office space, if not start one up. Co-working is a great idea for individuals and companies looking to save on costs, and also be in a position to grow your business through networking opportunities learn more >>
• Bootstrapping – A business is one sure-fire way to build a sustainable business under these circumstances. By bootstrapping, you can be more open to ideas, and also responsive to market and technological changes, if you are small you can move direction quickly, and if you get it wrong you’ve got less chance of losing vast amounts of money learn more >>
• Idea marketplaces are where your ideas from weekend projects and bootstrapped efforts can be offered to larger organisations and companies that want to add your innovative ideas to their list of services. This is also an excellent way of getting noticed by your peers, and competitors so fantastic for your reputation/brand.

How to ‘bulletproof’ you business in a downturn?
Freelancing is not an easy option. That’s why I love it, it’s a challenge that the freelance, and larger business community face together. Freelancing means fluctuating fortunes, financial roller-coaster rides, and a constant fight for success. Listen to your customers, show that you care, and once the storm is over you will be able to smile and reflect about what you have learnt along the way.

As a freelancer approach large companies to see if they have any work that you can help them with, find out the name of the marketing or sales contact, and send them an email: “I appreciate you may have in-house designers, however if you are overworked or need fresh ideas – we have a creative team that.., all at lower costs..” or an html email newsletter showcasing what you services you can provide. This is a cost-effective way of marketing, and also gaining valuable contacts and potential clients in your industry.