Egganomaly

Hi guys,

I’m in google wave since the first wave of invites.
This week google presented me with more 30 invites for wave that i want to share with my readers.

To get an invite you just have to post a comment in this post and leave your email in the email box, i’ll send 20 invites to the first 20 who comment.

Google Wave is “a personal communication and collaboration tool” announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009.[1][2] It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking.[3] It has a strong collaborative and real-time[4] focus supported by extensions that can provide, for example, spelling/grammar checking, automated translation among 40 languages,[2] and numerous other extensions.[4] Initially released only to developers, a “preview release” of Google Wave was extended to nearly 1 million users beginning September 30, 2009, with the initial 100,000 users each allowed to invite from twenty to thirty additional users.

People Invited:

1. Renato Garrau (via facebook)
2. Margarida Guerreiro (via facebook)
3. Juan Suarez
4. April
5. Vitor Komura
6. mgenov
7. Pedro MIguel
8. Bruno Cardoso
9. Jose Deleep
10. kenneth
11. Jared
12. Mahesh
13. Farhan
14. MCIMaui
15. Gonçalo Santos
16. Luís Sismeiro
17. Bruno Garcez
18. Ricardo Gomes
19. Magnus
20. Hugo Lemos

I’ve some more invites but i’ll give them other time.

Thanks all.

The guys from frelancefolder wrote a good post about freelance work, four ways to help you keep your work coming. It works for me, hope it works for your too. If you need any help just send me an email or write a comment.

Method One: Break Down Traditional Barriers

If you were at a conference or a meeting, you wouldn’t just start pushing your business cards into other people’s faces. Before sharing business information about yourself there is usually some initial form of communication.

If you are linking to your own articles or promotional messages constantly, that’s like throwing ads into people’s faces. You can’t think of your links as billboard or TV ads (that people don’t necessarily want, but are forced to see anyway). The Internet world doesn’t work like other media. On the web, people have too many options to be held captive by an advertisement.

Be generous and allow yourself to break the traditional barrier of always promoting yourself. Give to others, rather than always asking. You will soon see exposure, loyalty, and referrals coming your way.

Method Two: Share Referrals and Link Out Often

When it comes to promoting your freelancing services, it’s key to be seen by others in your field. If you are a freelance writer who is too busy to take on any more work, refer a client who is looking for a writer to a colleague who is looking for work.

<>Be sure to tell the client to let your fellow writer know that you referred them. When the other freelance writer finds out that you referred them, they will get in touch with you. When time comes for them to refer a client to someone, they will think of you first. Sharing referrals is a good way to build loyalty from other freelancers in your field and get your name out there.

Another key to getting exposure and marketing your services is through blogging. As you may already know, some people create posts with “must follow” lists of “designers, writers,” and so on.

When you mention someone in a post, they usually come back to thank you for mentioning them. You can also mention others in your blog posts by linking out to relevant articles written by others.

Freelancers are a community of like-minded people who work in different fields, but have similar goals. Help them when they are in need and they will help you to grow your business.

Method Three: Be Transparent

It doesn’t matter whether you are a corporation or a one-man team, transparency in today’s world is key. When you are using different social media and networking platforms, make sure you allow others to see the true you. Be yourself and do not try to sugar coat anything you are saying.

If your office is in the basement and happens to be a storage area, do not tell others you have a gorgeous beach view. What’s the point of lying? Sure you might fool some into thinking that you are doing well, but in the long run lying is not going to help. Be yourself. Do not sugarcoat things.

If you are not knowledgeable about something, but want to talk about it, don’t act like you are an authority on the subject. Being genuine has bigger rewards for you and your freelancing business than being a “poser.” Let your true self be seen so that your potential clients can see not just the work you do, but also the real person behind the work.

Method Four: Embrace Giving

This is a tried and true method. The key to building a thriving community around you and your freelancing services is giving to others.

We are all busy. We all have our plates full. At times, we end up sleeping at our desks. However busy you are, try to squeeze in a few minutes to reply to an email that asks for your input or tweet back to someone who has a problem with something that you might be able to help with.

One of the best ways to keep your name visible on different platforms is to be there when people need you. When someone has a problem and they turn to you, be there for them. If you can’t be there, at least direct them to someone who might be able to help them. They will be grateful to you for your help and your helpfulness will eventually get your name out there.

One last thing that I would like to stress — do not ignore someone just because they are new to blogging, web designing, etc. Help them when you can because when they succeed they will remember you as the one who helped them learn the ropes.

Via freelancefolder.com/

There are hundreds of books and resources available on the topic of breaking up with a love interest. There are even ones exploring the topic of breaking off a toxic friendship and dumping bad business relationships. But, I have yet to find anything out in the ether on how to kick a hobby to the curb. Noting that, I proclaim this Unclutterer entry as the authoritative work on breaking up with a hobby (I’m a little goofy this morning, just go with it). I call it:

You’re Just Not That Into Your Hobby

Do you consider yourself a tennis player, but the last time you touched your racket was when Bill Clinton was president? Do you like the idea of being a scrapbooker but have never made a complete scrapbook? Are you keeping canvases for masterpieces you may one day paint, yet all of your paints are dried and your brushes deteriorating? Is your guitar missing strings and in a case at the back of a closet? Do you have areas of your home set aside or filled with stuff related to a hobby that you spend less than 10 hours on a year?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you are just not that into your hobby.

It can be difficult to admit, but if you’re not averaging at least an hour a month pursuing a hobby, it’s time to let it go. The space you’re sacrificing in your home is too valuable to store things you don’t use. If you don’t have storage issues, it’s still worthwhile to get rid of your unused hobby stuff. Every time you walk past it I bet you think, “I wish I had more time to do X.” You don’t need that stress and guilt. If it were really important to you, you would pursue it.

Five steps for deciding if now is the time to ditch your hobby:

1. Identify all of your hobbies and all of the things associated with them in your home, garage, and office. You may benefit by collecting these items and laying them all out in your front yard or an open space in your home to see how much space you’re sacrificing.
2. List all of these hobbies and then estimate how much time you’ve spent pursuing each of them in the last 12 months. Be honest with yourself.
3. Any hobby with an estimation of 10 hours or less should immediately be moved out of your home. Pack up the equipment and head to a used sports equipment store or an appropriate charity. If the hobby stuff is valuable, photograph it and list it for sale on a site like ebay or craigslist.
4. Any hobby with an estimation of 24 hours or less should be carefully reviewed. If you went camping one day last year, you would reach the 24-hour mark for camping as a hobby. However, is one day of camping worth all of the space used to store your tent, sleeping bag, and all other accoutrements? On the flip side, if you spent one Friday night a month last year playing Bridge with friends and averaged about two hours of playing time a sitting, it’s probably worthwhile to hold onto a deck of cards.
5. Any hobby with an estimation of more than 24 hours also should be considered for review. You may realize that you’re spending so much time and space on your hobby that you’re neglecting things more important in your life, like time with your spouse or children. It’s okay to break up with these hobbies, too. In most cases, however, you probably have a healthy relationship with your active hobbies and you’ll decide to keep up with them. You still will want to evaluate how much stuff you have for them. If you have more supplies than you could use in a lifetime associated with that hobby, it’s time to weed through the collection of stuff. My rule of thumb is that you should never have more than one year’s worth of supplies for an intense hobby — and less than that if you can manage.

There is a caveat to my assumption that you’re just not that into your hobby that I feel I should mention as a footnote. The truth may be that you really like your hobby, but somewhere along the way you misappropriated your time and let it fall by the wayside. Instead of making chairs in your woodworking studio, you’ve been watching television. If this is the case, make new priorities and recommit to your hobby. Turn off the t.v. and head to your studio. Decide to re-evaluate that hobby in six months. If in six months, however, you’re still watching t.v., then it’s time to admit that watching t.v. is your hobby not woodworking.

via unclutterer.com

This is a set of graphics that represents the world statistics if the world population were 100. The creator of this project is Toby who graduated in graphic design from Central St. Martins, london in 2008. He do photography and illustrations. You can find some of his job in National Portrait Gallery in London.

This is a self-initiated project based on the scenario – If the world were a village of 100 people. There are a few different versions of this text in circulation about the world’s statistics. I found the data very striking and neatly summarises the world that we live in. So I used information graphics to re-tell the story in another creative way. I designed a set of 20 posters, which contain most of the information. I used simple vector graphics that related to a statistic in order to present the information in the simplest and most accessible way.

You can found the other graphics here.

Too often we get stuck in inaction — the quagmire of doubt and perfectionism and distractions and planning that stops us from moving forward.

And while I’m no proponent of a whirling buzz of activity, I also believe people get lost in the distractions of the world and lose sight of what’s important, and how to actually accomplish their Something Amazing.

And so today I’d like to humbly present a few little rules of action — just some small reminders, things I’ve found useful but by no means invented, common-sense stuff that is often not common enough.

1. Don’t overthink. Too much thinking often results in getting stuck, in going in circles. Some thinking is good — it’s good to have a clear picture of where you’re going or why you’re doing this — but don’t get stuck thinking. Just do.
2. Just start. All the planning in the world will get you nowhere. You need to take that first step, no matter how small or how shaky. My rule for motivating myself to run is: Just lace up your shoes and get out the door. The rest takes care of itself.
3. Forget perfection. Perfectionism is the enemy of action. Kill it, immediately. You can’t let perfect stop you from doing. You can turn a bad draft into a good one, but you can’t turn no draft into a good draft. So get going.
4. Don’t mistake motion for action. A common mistake. A fury of activity doesn’t mean you’re doing anything. When you find yourself moving too quickly, doing too many things at once, this is a good reminder to stop. Slow down. Focus.
5. Focus on the important actions. Clear the distractions. Pick the one most important thing you must do today, and focus on that. Exclusively. When you’re done with that, repeat the process.
6. Move slowly, consciously. Be deliberate. Action doesn’t need to be done fast. In fact, that often leads to mistakes, and while perfection isn’t at all necessary, neither is making a ridiculous amount of mistakes that could be avoided with a bit of consciousness.
7. Take small steps. Biting off more than you can chew will kill the action. Maybe because of choking, I dunno. But small steps always works. Little tiny blows that will eventually break down that mountain. And each step is a victory, that will compel you to further victories.
8. Negative thinking gets you nowhere. Seriously, stop doing that. Self doubt? The urge to quit? Telling yourself that it’s OK to be distracted and that you can always get to it later? Squash those thoughts. Well, OK, you can be distracted for a little bit, but you get the idea. Positive thinking, as corny as it sounds, really works. It’s self-talk, and what we tell ourselves has a funny habit of turning into reality.
9. Meetings aren’t action. This is a common mistake in management. They hold meetings to get things done. Meetings, unfortunately, almost always get in the way of actual doing. Stop holding those meetings!
10. Talking (usually) isn’t action. Well, unless the action you need to take is a presentation or speech or something. Or you’re a television broadcaster. But usually, talking is just talking. Communication is necessary, but don’t mistake it for actual action.
11. Planning isn’t action. Sure, you need to plan. Do it, so you’re clear about what you’re doing. Just do it quickly, and get to the actual action as quickly as you can.
12. Reading about it isn’t action. You’re reading an article about action. Ironic, I know. But let this be the last one. Now get to work!
13. Sometimes, inaction is better. This might be the most ironic thing on the list, but really, if you find yourself spinning your wheels, or you find you’re doing more harm than good, rethink whether the action is even necessary. Or better yet, do this from the beginning — is it necessary? Only do the action if it is.

via zenhabits.net

Nice campaign for the delivery service that is free now. Hope they turn this service free soon in Portugal, here we have to pay 80€ for the delivery. I’ll buy new furniture for my room this month and it will be a bonus if i dont have to carry everything on my car.

The Mac’s always been a strong platform for design applications, but it’s now also the obvious choice for web developers.

A built-in Apache server and the ability to run Mac OS X and Windows browsers simultaneously (the latter via virtual machines) takes you part of the way, but high-quality software products for development really make the Mac stand out in this space.

If you’re new to the platform or fancy some shiny new tools for working on websites, our list below details the best you can buy.

Direct Link

“I’m a multi-tasker. I’m not very good at it but I try very hard. If you’d suddenly spring up on me and took a look at my screen, it would often be very clustered with several applications running, work half done; not to mention having loads of screenshots and bookmarks on my desktop to remind myself of the tasks I have yet to complete.

I try to organize myself by using to-do lists but planning only brings me one step closer to finishing my work. Persistence and determination are the key to getting things done. Unfortunately, I have very little of those. I was born that way, I’m afraid.

While writing the first two paragraphs, I checked my mail several times, fired up Safari, updated my Twitter and browsed Facebook. See, I told you I was a multi-tasker.

But deadlines are deadlines. If you have a project due Tuesday — then there’s no choice but to complete it by Tuesday. Sure, you can try to push the deadline but there’s still one!

To help with the situation and motivate me to clear the work that are currently pending, I’ve come up with 6 great (and free!) tools, categorized into 3 groups.”

Direct Link

Hi guys,

As some of you know the egganomaly project stopped months ago, my friends and collegues from egganomly had no more time to post in the blog. Then i started a sub-blog for myself, the josepereira.egganomaly.net, where i’ve been posting for the last 9 months. have been very good times, i enjoyed every moment i spent writing to the blog and answering the comments and emails.

But today everything changed.

I’ve decided to take egganomaly to life again. From now on i’ll write everything here, no more josepereira.egganomaly.net, now is just egganomaly.net. Don’t forget that this will be a one man team only with some guest posts in the middle.

Hope you guys like the decision i made, its easier for you to remind the URL, and you must agree with me its a catchy name.

Farewell

One of the coolest things about being a freelancer is that we have the ability to work as much or as little as we want. We can look at this blessing in two ways. Either this means that we can spend more time with our families, or more time to manage projects and make money.

My private school teacher worked from 8:30am-6pm and then one hour in the night. He did not mind working almost 12 hours of being bossed around by the bitchy principal simply for his set wage of £40K…and he thought he had hit the jack pot!

Freelancers have the ability to be able to go above and beyond this as we have no boss to order us around but also because everything we make is ours. The private school I mentioned provided a service for a price, and the only person really making money was a rich snob. He could afford to pay high wages because he was making silly amounts of money. A freelancer is in the position of the rich snob, as we provide a service for money and we do not need to give employees a cut.

This gives us the advantage of being able to excel more-so than others and get rich faster. I understand that many people will feel wrong to be motivated by money, as most of us entered this field in order to do something we enjoy. I, however see no harm in using money to motivate you, because ultimately we need it.

1. The 10% Rule

Paul McKenna and many other self-help gurus will tell you of an ancient concept if you want to make money. This concept spans the millennia and even then the 10% rule applied.

The concept is simple. From your monthly income, put 10% out of reach. Out of reach means make it untouchable and live nine tenths of the life you were living before. Save the 10% and build it up until you can take advantage of number.

2. Invest the 10%

You should trust yourself more than anyone else. When investing the 10% ensure that you invest it in such a place which you know will definitely make you money. If you want to invest in something you have no idea about, don’t! Instead invest in yourself.

Use the money to market your freelancing business and grow your business to new levels. If you are an entrepreneur, then you may want to carry out a project with this money. There are several positive ways in which you can spend this money, whichever you chose stick with it.

3. When You See Returns – Reinvest

Whatever positive investment you do with your money, when you see a return, don’t use it, reinvest it!
It may be that you began a marketing campaign and this boosted your income by 40%. When you get the extra cash, do not got running to buy a new TV, instead be wise and reinvest it like you did in step two. Only when you see returns on your returns, you can enjoy these and spend them.

4. Expand

By learning new skills you will expand your skills and by investing more into your business you will expand your business. More growth leads to more income.

5. Charge More

Freelancing has really been bruised by so many people in third world countries charging next to nothing. Many clients have decided to compromise quality for a cheap job.

Such an odd phenomena, bearing in mind that if a client wants a redesign of their site (for example) they go to someone who is dirt cheap and does a dirty job. I would ask the one who practices this weird behaviour why they redesigned in the first place?

Unfortunately, this price drop has made many freelancers to cut their prices, which in turn reflects the entire market forcing all of us to drop our prices.

A simple solution is to stay true to your pricing theory, thinking independently of what some dude in another country is charging. Even if you are in a developing country like the sub-continent, Africa or South America, I would urge you to charge more. By all of us charging what we are worth, we will lift the entire web-freelancing industry and be paid fair prices.

If you double your prices, and due to this half of your clients leave you, you are now making the same money for half the work! Up your price tags!

Conclusion

Becoming a well-off freelancer all depends on your mindset. You should start by telling yourself that you deserve more because you are worth more. Once you have a clear mind of exactly what you want to achieve, you will be heading out toward your goals every time you think about them.

via freelanceshack