Awful situations can teach us a lot, and it’s almost inevitable that at some point in your freelance career, you’ll suddenly be dragged into tough client situations — situations in which you find yourself standing in no man’s land, with no alternative plan at the ready.
I’ve always been able to retain two or three clients because of my flexibility and humble behavior. I’ve worked with them for ages and never thought about increasing my clientele, just because of stress and workload, I suppose.
The worst situation imaginable knocked on my door just a few days ago, when one of my trusted clients suddenly flew off with no firm reason. He came back a few days after that, but that span of time was a nightmare for me because I depended on him for a large portion of my bread and butter. He was once a reliable client, and his reasons for leaving are still vague.
Freelancing is a notoriously unpredictable business. I’ve learned a lot along the way, and I know that every problem has a solution. This article discusses actions you can take to ensure you’re ready for when the tide turns.
Awful situations can teach us a lot, and it’s almost inevitable that at some point in your freelance career, you’ll suddenly be dragged into tough client situations — situations in which you find yourself standing in no man’s land, with no alternative plan at the ready.
I’ve always been able to retain two or three clients because of my flexibility and humble behavior. I’ve worked with them for ages and never thought about increasing my clientele, just because of stress and workload, I suppose.
The worst situation imaginable knocked on my door just a few days ago, when one of my trusted clients suddenly flew off with no firm reason. He came back a few days after that, but that span of time was a nightmare for me because I depended on him for a large portion of my bread and butter. He was once a reliable client, and his reasons for leaving are still vague.
Freelancing is a notoriously unpredictable business. I’ve learned a lot along the way, and I know that every problem has a solution. This article discusses actions you can take to ensure you’re ready for when the tide turns.
14Dec10
Smartphone Browser Landscape
Users expect websites to work on their mobile phones. In two to three years, mobile support will become standard for any site. Web developers must add mobile web development to their skill set or risk losing clients. How do you make websites mobile compatible? The simple answer is to test on all mobile devices and fix any problems you encounter. But with at least ten operating systems and fifteen browsers out there, it is impossible to do that. Nor can we test only in iPhone and Android and expect to serve our market. PPK surveys the mobile web market, as well as phone platforms and their browsers, and shows how to set up a mobile test bed that works.
26Jul10
Summer Nights
With a return of summer I find myself contemplating another year gone by. With everything always moving so fast its hard to think I’ll have the time to spend on persuits and hobbies I enjoyed in the past. Black and White photography was one of my favorite things to do when I was in younger. I liked it because I was good at it and it was a challenge not unlike computer programming, although an analog one at that. With my recent resurgance of physical activity I realize the benefit of balancing my digital life with my analog life. I wish I could do B&W photography again, maybe even Tai Chi. Well that will have to wait and for the time being I’ll have to be happy with my Blackberry B&W filter. Not to bad is it? Paul
Feature Fountain at Garrison Crossing
Google’s approach is quite inspirational. It’s not centered around policing content when a complaint is filed as you may have been led to believe but rather giving the digital rights owners the power to choose how their content can be used before the copies are posted and it’s all thanks to technology that compares different aspects of each video like background music or a video clip against known content. If you consider that it’s not just comparing complete parts, but parts of each content and also that it has to perform this function on each part, every time a video is uploaded, for multiple countries, the computational power needed for one video alone is mind blowing.
BTW, “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TEDx program and the annual TED Prize. “
