Here’s a link to an article over at Freelance Switch. There are many Blogs about really useful aspects of freelancing life, with tips and great articles.

They have listed 10 of the best. Enjoy..

Erin Caton has designed a pocket cheat sheet / pocket guide for commonly used microformats.

http://microformats.org/wiki/pocketcheatsheet

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One of my aims this year was to write more articles for external sites and magazines.

So here are the comments and insights into freelancing that I have provided FreelanceUK, from the interview questions they asked.

Two articles based on my feedback have been published.

Freelancing Blues? You’re not alone
http://www.freelanceuk.com/news/2505.shtml

Freelancers: we’d never work full-time again
http://www.freelanceuk.com/news/2510.shtml

Let me know your thoughts, I hope I can share my tips and knowledge I have learnt from new working practices and business techniques I have tried over the last few years.

Next time someone is complaining about something, try asking “So what’s the next action/solution?”

If the issue can be changed, there’s some action that will change it.

Complaining is a sign that someone isn’t willing to risk moving on a changeable situation.

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it”. Buddha

SxSW is of course back for 2008, this time, rather than hearing from colleagues about just how good it was.. I am going!

If you are going you can book your hotel, and book your plane ticket now. Return flights from Gatwick to Texas start at the £300 mark.
Here are the dates:

• SXSW Interactive: Friday March 7 - Tuesday March 11
• SXSW Film: Friday March 7 - Saturday March 15
• SXSW Music: Wednesday March 12 - Sunday March 16

New for 2008: SXSW.mobi

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On average I get around ten New Client Enquiries a week, around 3/4 of the enquiries are from the contact page of my web site.

The number often depends on many factors, the time of year, what my availability shows on my site, and how strongly the client wants to work with me.

I often find, people who ‘generally’ have their act together call me to discuss their initial requirements.

Also other emails are a lot of link requests, and outsourcing to Asia as well which maybe of use to some virtual companies.

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Here’s a step by step list of how you can successfully carry out user tests on a budget and achieve great results.

Example of case study

• Usability test start off with user being asked to find individual item..
• The user/tester is normally paid for this, a real user would not take as much time to look for item.

The Comparison of costs betweeen traditional and remote testing:

• Traditional - testing lab required, specialist equipment, travel costs, user incentives.
• Remote tests - online meeting, recruitment, user incentives, better on budget.

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