Being able to work from home is a very attractive prospect as you don’t have to deal with a boss at work. Managing your own time and work load offers independence and less stressful working conditions. However, before you do decide to undertake a freelance web career, there are a few aspects to take into account.

Your first step will be to ask yourself if you have all the necessary tools to start off with, which include the software applications such as a website, e-mail and basic computer skills you will need for working online. Creating your own website has become easy now with the many options you can find on the Internet. Although it may be easy, you are still far from rendering your website marketable and getting your work paid for. Working on the web means you should be comfortable with as many devices and tools and using them to your advantage, according to the work you intend to undertake.

You will need a deeper knowledge of Photoshop skills if you are working with images and graphic designing, or be experienced in SEO principles and color schemes that will drive readers to your website. If you are not an expert, you can miss out many important components that are needed when building a website these include: keyword content and quality, a user-friendly browsing system, screen-size adaptability, the loading time of your websites as well as the different devices used and accessibility to the website.

So, before launching into a freelance activity on the web, make sure you develop your skills as much as you can to be able to deal with all the above issues and then start tackling easier and less demanding project to enhance your practical skills.

It is natural to feel at loss when you begin. It is important you keep in mind that you will have to build your skills as you go and not feel submerged by the numerous sources, devices and software the web is flooded with. Try and focus on just a few areas at once in order to understand these more thoroughly and get the simpler tasks clear such as CSS and HTML basics, as well as web designing fundamentals. If you do not feel tackling these issues and you prefer sticking to quality writing then you should learn the basics of applying SEO techniques.

Whatever it is you wish to focus on, you will need to do some research to determine what it is you really like to deal with and where your qualities lie. You can do this by browsing through the blogs and forums or discussion groups to look for valuable advice the various users can provide you with.

When you choose your web profession you should be working on three basic tasks: taking in information, asking yourself questions and giving the various options a try. Read as much as you can and try the skills that interest you in order to determine, which can work for you.

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Speed Development Using Following:

1.    MVC Framework

The framework of a website is similar to an architectural plan. There are two basic ways to develop codes; the first is to put everything that you need into a file. The second way is to write the codes separately according to their right place.

There are several PHP developers and MVC framework programs available, such as:

•    Code Igniter: open source web application.

•    CakePHP: rapid development framework providing extensive architecture for development, maintenance and deploying applications.

2. Validation Tools

It is not necessary to own several operating systems in order to test your website development. While browser shots tend to run very slowly, there are free browser testers that allow you to use a number of different OS and browsers to use for testing your website.

Some validation tools that are useful are:

•    W3C Validation Tools: this site has a unified validator, a mark up validator, and a link checker.
•    Firebug: use to inspect and edit JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

3.    Text Editor

When it comes to editing your text, you can spend hours going through it on your own or you can use one of these programs to do all of the work for you. There is several great text editing programs available such as:

•    Notepad++: supports several languages and is an all in one editor.

•    Vim: this is a program that will take some time to learn how to use, best for people familiar with programming.

4.    Image Editor

It has come to the point that if you are a web designer, you will have to focus on the aesthetics of a page. It is not only about the functionality anymore. If you want to get ahead in the business, you will have to learn to do it all. One of the best tools available, one because it is free and two because it provides you with several tools to use such as Photoshop, is Gimp.

5.    Code Generators

You may think that a code generator defeats the purpose of learning coding language in depth. However, these generators merely help speed up the process. Beginners and experts in the field can learn a lot from using this type of tool when developing their site. There are several sites that can provide you with the codes that are needed with just a few clicks. Some of these sites are dbQwikSite and PHP Maker.

6.    Join Forums

One of the best things to do whether you are a beginner or an expert is to join forums and learn from others in the field. This is the best way to get answers to questions or problems that you may be having. If you have friends in the business, collaborate with them to increase your knowledge in the field as well.

There are many tools available to help you develop your craft efficiently, just take the time to look for them and always be willing to look for help from other people as well.

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Photoshop Tych Panel

The Photoshop Tych Panel is a great help when you need to resize and put the images to scale. This tool will automate the process of creating the image, offering plenty of layouts you can use to format your images in.

Mr. Stacks

Mr. Stacks is used to create storyboards, PDF documents and stacks rapidly for all types of presentations and CDs you want to provide your client with. This script is useful for animation series and storytelling for design usage and advertising.

How to generate CSS positions for Sprites

Generating CSS positions for Sprites is a Photoshop plug-in which creates sprites using the CSS file you have made. With this tool you can add the sprite locations and create special effects including hover and click.
Pixel Proliferation is a special tool for the management of screen resolutions and will simplify your work greatly. The toolset offers a range of PS5 marquee-tool presets for all the more common screen resolutions.

Golden Crop

Golden Crop is a Photoshop Script which makes using division rules and simplified visual guides. You need to have either, Photoshop CS2, CS3, CS4 or CS5 installed to use this tool.

Automatic Tile Cutter

The Automatic Tile Cutter will help you create and name each unique image amongst hundreds of tile images saving you a lot of time if you were to do it by hand. Each image and tile will be named and ordered as you wish, avoiding tiresome work.

The Image Processor Script
The Image Processor Script in Photoshop CS4 allows you to quickly and easily change the size and convert many images into the PSD, TIFF and JPEG formats.

Open With Photoshop 0.8

Open With Photoshop 0.8 is a Firefox add on and a new tool for both graphic and web designers. With this tool they can open up an image on the Web using Adobe Photoshop just by clicking it, saving a lot of time and work.

foxGuide

FoxGuide is an extension of Firefox, which will display guides both horizontally and vertically. It allows you to move about or take out floating guides on a webpage as you would do with Photoshop. These guides will help to lay out all the elements symmetrically and improve the overall layout of the page with enhanced structure and design.

GuideGuide 1.0

GuideGuide 1.0 is a practical extension of Photoshop that helps web developers to work with rows and columns as well as midpoints in CS5 and CS4. Downloading Cameron McEfee’s GuideGuide will help you locate mid-points; create rows and margins as well as columns, making it easier when you work with Photoshop.

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Websites that can provide useful tools

DesignersMX

Designersmx is where you should go to keep in touch with the latest web designer trends. It is a great source that provides insight and is easy to sign up with, allowing you to contribute with your own creations and glance through other contributors’ work.

Method & Craft

Method and craft proposes a view of how various web designs are created and what lies behind the process of achievement. Techniques are also explained and presented in detail and how these have contributed in the different qualified professions.

Shady Characters

Shady characters is actually a blog, whose main objective is to clarify the functioning of punctuation marks in web designing and offers an interesting point of view of how punctuation works within a Website.
An Illustrated guide provides a resource of reviews that covers famous picture books. These are divided into categories, such as reading level, art styles and covers.
Where do you want to work today is where web designers should go and browse to find contractors and freelance work. Here one can find different work settings that offer a change of milieu, which can stimulate creativity.

Little Big Details

The little big details provides facts that will help to improve the handling of websites as well as mobile applications. This website is extremely useful and offers design samples, which you can also impart with others and provide personal propositions.

CV PARADE

CV parade is helpful for web designers who wish to learn the process of creating a resume. It offers a unique collection of web designer CVs that are of great inspiration when you are new to the web designing world.
Weekend hacker will provide mailing lists that can help you when you need to find more work to develop your portfolio, whether you are a developer or designer.

Node Cloud

Node cloud offers a resource directory, which lists all Websites concerning Node.js and the possibility to order them by their Alexa traffic, which allows an insight on how popular a project will be.

Designers & Books

Designers and books is a venture that provides brief reviews on books by notable web designers and those the community considers as worthy experts of the web designing industry. This is where designers propose valuable books that have contributed or influenced their styles, ideas and values.

Let’s Swap

Let’s swap is a great Website that can help you find another colleague who wishes to swap your creative piece with his or hers. This is useful if you have had a particular design that has up to now been useless to you. You may swap it for books, prints or any other creative work or pieces.

ideeeas

Ideeeas is a venture that collects concepts from those who propose original and innovative ideas on any subject or area. You will find many constructive ideas on social interchanges that can boost the human edge of your creativity.

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Below are some quick and easy task/time management tools for you to try:

Schedule Your Work Time

Time, like a stream, is constantly flowing.  It is something that needs to be used wisely.  Otherwise you run the risk being left behind.
Since time waits for no one, it is important to have strategies in place for time management with respect to yourself and your work.  It is impossible to get your work completed all at once.  Making it crucial, to set goals for the times that you are working.
A great way to do this is to create a schedule. In preparation of your schedule record, your activities from the second you get up and continue throughout the day.  In the evening take a look at it to see what changes need to be made.

Task Management

Creating a to-do list and abiding by it is the only way to stay sane and stress free.  Below are some applications to assist you with this:
•    Flow: It is not free, but it is very detailed.  They do have a fourteen day trial when you sign up, so you can check it out.
•    Google’s Task application: It comes with a Gmail account.  There you can set deadlines, set priorities and add tasks.
•    Remember the Milk: In addition to a list of things to do it has other features such as, the ability to share and manage your tasks and use Google calendar.
•    IPhone: Has a beloved time management application.

Keep First Meetings with Clients Brief
Reduce small talk and shillyshallying to a bare minimum, when meeting with new clients.  Don’t get sidetracked and speak only about work.  If they become long-term clients, of course you should change that rule.

Don’t Have a Rigid Schedule

Having a rigid schedule in place, ends of being nonproductive.  If you have your day set out from beginning to end, when something unexpected comes up, you will be totally off track.
As a freelancer, you have all day and evening to get your work done.  Leave a little room for interruptions so that you stay on course.

Focus

When you begin a task stay focused on it.  Fight the urge to surf the web.  When you begin a large project set it to be your first task.  This not only helps because you are fresh, you will also get a feeling of accomplishment.  This will become your driving force for the rest of the day.
As a freelancer, your biggest obstacle to overcome will be procrastination.  Your position comes with a lot of leeway, and it is very easy to put off work, for something more enjoyable.  By having a task/time management system in place it can stop you from going down the procrastination road.

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