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Coming soon: New WordPress Blog for Experts

We are living in economically hard times. Customers don’t spend as much money on software development as they did in the past. International coders and programmers are available for cheap rates and it’s hard to compete against these.

I have found that I may be able to make a living by offering my specialized expertise on the international market, even if I charge only low rates. This is possible when I focus on one specific domain of knowledge and when I’m able to optimize my work flow to create more results in less time.

For that reason, I specialized on WordPress. I have chosen this type of software, because it’s a content management system as well as a blogging solution. WordPress is easy to install, runs on almost every web host and there is an exceptional number of free plugins and themes available on the internet.

To optimize my work flow even more, I specialized on WordPress themes only, even if I could also script plugins as well. This gave me an opportunity to focus even more on some special knowledge that is needed to accomplish the task. Creating a Theme for WordPress not only requires good PHP and MySQL database skills, it also needs a very good understanding of HTML, CSS and some JavaScript.

After I created a couple of custom themes, I learned a lot about the system. This makes me now even more proficient in doing this sort of work. Many customers have special needs, it might be a graphical challenge like adjusting a text box or image pixel-perfect to the customer’s needs. It might also be a database challenge like compiling a special set of data from the content stored in the database.

After performing over 30 jobs on vWorker.com and over 40 jobs on oDesk.com, I can say that I have learned a lot, not only about WordPress, but also about these virtual work platforms and my customers. Not all have been pleasant to work for, but finally I could satisfy everyone by completing their projects successfully.

The next step that seems logical to me, is to share some of the knowledge that I’ve learned from these projects with other potential customers. There are some reasons why this makes sens to me:

• I did some extensive research on specific problems to solve for my customers. Some of these solutions are not easy to remember if it happens that I may need them again, so it would be nice if I could look them up somewhere.
• Potential customers can check my level of proficiency just by scanning the number and topics of problems solved so far.
• Other coders may have similar problems and will be able to find a solution for their customers too. I’ve got some good ideas for my solutions from other people’s blog posts, so it’s only fair to return the favor.

To build-up this knowledge base, I have decided to install a separate blog. As software I will use WordPress (what else?) and add some useful information on a regular basis.

So, please stay tuned, I’ll announce the URL for the new blog here as soon as it’s ready to launch.

02/02/2011 13:49:15, von Marian , 540 words, 1418 views   Categories: HTML, News

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7 Free Useful eBooks That Every Blogger Should Read

After a long time of silence from my side (I was busy developing WordPress Themes for customers), I'm now back sharing some interesting stuff.

This is what I found this morning in my RSS reader. It's an article from makeuseof.com on some useful free eBooks that may be of interest for Bloggers.

7 Free Useful eBooks That Every Blogger Should Read

I checked all the links and found that all these books are really free and don't even required you to leave your e-mail address (except for one about Search Engine Optimization).

For all who don't want to give away their read e-mail address, here is an extra tip: http://spamgourmet.com/ is a free service where you can set up a fake-email that will redirect a specified number of emails to your real account and just trash all subsequent mails. It's a very good solution if you need a one-time email to sign up for a free book, since you'll never get spammed with follow-up mails.

11/29/2010 07:33:24, von Marian , 167 words, 1186 views   Categories: quick tips

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I am now top worker at vWorker.com

As I could see this morning, vWorker has made me "top worker" on their platform because of my record that I have with projects I have done there.

That's very flattering and I hope it will help me to get some more interesting projects via this platform. As you may know, I'm using platforms like these when I don't have more urgent and well paid projects in the queue. It's a good pastime and I can also improve my skills by doing real projects for real people. It also helps to pay my bills as long as I can get enough projects done.

Here is a ranking of platforms that I like to use currently:

oDesk.com - I like this one most because of the good user interface and they don't take too much commission of off my bids (they charge employers a fee of 10% on top of my bid). There is a restriction of 20 bids per week, but I found that that is acceptable to keep me busy applying constantly to new projects.

vWorker.com - I like this also, but less than oDesk. Their advantage is, that they use an escrow service, so payment can be guaranteed as long as I deliver within the given time frame of the project. They take a higher commission though, for all my bids, I have to pay 15% or $3.00 (whichever is higher) if my bid gets accepted.

These two are my favorites. These I'm using too, but don't have much success there yet:

eLance.com - Too restrictive because I can only bid for 10 projects per month.

freelancer.com - A new platform that I'm trying out. They have a limit of 30 bids per months and I haven't won a bid yet. Most projects are for low budget (mostly $30) and I don't have a record there, so I don't expect to catch up on this platform soon.

scriptlance.com - Haven't found a lot of high-quality projects there. I'll keep watching this.

10/21/2010 13:11:03, von Marian , 331 words, 1495 views   Categories: Just for fun

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How to create a safe password

That's an article that I have just found in my RSS feed. It may help all of you folks who find it hard to remember so many passwords for all your Web 2.0 and social services that you have accounts for.

10/20/2010 07:23:47, von Marian , 40 words, 1178 views   Categories: quick tips

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Strange Facebook fbml bug in Internet Explorer

I am currently working on a facebook page for a customer of mine. When I came to build the "for fans only" page, I stumbled over a strange bug that seems to come up only with Internet Explorer (all versions) and only if the facebook page is rendered between the fbml tag

<fb:visible-to-connection>

Code herunterladen

Here is what I do:

I create a fbml page in Facebook.
I enter this code:

<fb:fbml version="1.1">

<div style="
background: #DDD;
padding: 15px;
">
<p>Some Sample Text</p>
</div>

<fb:visible-to-connection>

<div style="
background: #DDD;
padding: 15px;
">
<p>Some Sample Text</p>
</div>

</fb:visible-to-connection>
</fb:fbml>

Code herunterladen

I visit the page in firefox and it looks as expected (both texts are black on gray background).

If I call up the same page with IE6, IE7 or IE8, I get this:

It seems that only the text within the "for fans only" section is not rendered properly.

Any hints appreciated.

=== UPDATE ===

Meanwhile I found a workaround at least. If I set the surrounding DIV a specific height, then the text will be rendered normal in IE.

10/18/2010 14:05:56, von Marian , 152 words, 4400 views   Categories: Articles

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What do I do for living?

Sometimes, people ask me "What do you do for living?" I usually answer "I do PHP scripting on call". In most of the social networks that I'm registered in, I add "time saver" as the tag line, where other people write "CEO of XY-company". But that's what describes best what I do when people approach me with a technical problem. After the job is done, most of them tell me that I saved them a lot of time solving their problem.

To do things like that for living, I need larger projects, usually worth several thousand dollars over a time frame of several month. I get these by being recommended by other customers. This business is not a steady one, so I may earn $10.000 one month and only $200 the next one. When I'm not working on a large project, I have more free time. That means I can do some research on new technologies or learn some new programming language or software program. It can also mean that I get bored. Without a concrete projects, it's hard to focus on something.

That's why I did so much research on virtual working platform during the last weeks. It helps to fight boredom if you can get a concrete project. And as a nice side effect, you'll get paid too, even if the payment is not as high as for my regular projects. So I developed a habit over these last weeks to apply for some virtual projects. I choose only those tasks where I see a chance to learn something new or where I can improve my existing skills.

As a result of this strategy, I have now acquired a lot of knowledge on how to create and customize WordPress themes. I was able to do that before, but after developing about a dozen different layouts with very specific requirements, I have improved my knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript a lot. Especially jQuery, that I use to apply JavaScript to my WordPress themes, is a valuable framework that I can recommend to everybody who needs to develop web pages. It helps a lot to create designs that should fit in all browser version, including the outdated Microsoft Browser IE6.

After a while, I've got bored with WordPress themes, so I applied to create Facebook fan pages. Facebook can use a special markup language known as "fbml". It's an extension to HTML and it's used to create your own design for a facebook page. I did some experiments with this before, but since I worked on two customer projects, I have now some deeper knowledge on how all this works. I learned about some of the workarounds that are needed to implement a required design. The first one was one simple page with just an image and a hyperlink. The second one did include a contact form, which was not as trivial as it seems to be.

For all who are interested in having WordPress themes or Facebook fanpages created, I currently do them for a fixed price in the range of $60 to $90 per layout. All I need is an image, preferably JPG or PNG, and an original PSD or Gimp file. This offer is valid only as long as I'm bored and don't have regular projects to do.

If you are interested, have a look at the virtual platforms where I'm active and check my portfolio and my ratings:

My oDesk profile

My VWorker profile

10/12/2010 09:15:38, von Marian , 575 words, 1073 views   Categories: Just for fun, Articles

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over 300 dollar earned with Mechanical Turk

Here comes a short report on my latest earnings on Amazon's Mechanical Turk.

I do these tasks from time to time if I get bored. They don't take me very long and most of them are easy to do. They usually get me rewards between 1 and 5 cents each. Even these small amounts will add up over time. So I have earned over $300 during the last two and a half month. Not much, but instead of playing farmville and spending time and money on my virtual crops, I get some nice pocket money.

Unfortunately I can't get this money into my bank account, so I ordered some books from Amazon a few weeks ago and I paid them with the money out of my account. The delivery was relatively fast, from USA to Germany within 12 days, and this was standard shipping, not priority mail. Unfortunately, I had to pick it up from my local customs office, but apart from this little inconvenience, all went fine.

I'm now considering buying an Amazon Kindle, so that I may have my books delivered in electronic form in the future.

10/03/2010 14:36:21, von Marian , 185 words, 1265 views   Categories: Just for fun

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More virtual work

You may have wondered why I don't write more regularly in my blog these last weeks. The reason is, that I was busy researching more into the domain of virtual working.

You may have read my articles on Amazon's mechanical turk and the virtual worker platform vWorker.com. From long years of experience, I already know that it's not enough to know the URL of a working platform. You also have to build up a workflow to be able to get the most attractive offers from each of them.

=> Read more! (More virtual work)

08/16/2010 14:37:26, von Marian , 516 words, 1892 views   Categories: Articles, quick tips

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Google Wave is Dead

This was just in my news feed today: Google Wave is Dead. The editors from readwriteweb.com reported that Google had announced, that they will discontinue development on Google Wave.

I think it's a bummer because Wave was really a remarkable product. But it seems that people did not use it as much as expected by Google. This seems to be another example that it's not enough to have a good product, you have to have a product that people like and use if you want to be successful in the internet business.

08/05/2010 08:26:10, von Marian , 93 words, 1001 views   Categories: News, quick tips

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Free Webinar with Jason Fried (today)

I just found this in my email inbox from the Brazen mailinglist:

FREE WEBINAR WITH JASON FRIED
Thursday, July 29, 11AM EST | 8AM PST
In this webinar you'll learn:

* Why you can't work at work.
* How to break a big idea in half.
* What drug dealers can teach the digital world.

http://www.brazencareerist.com/webinar/jason-fried/watch

07/29/2010 15:49:18, von Marian , 57 words, 902 views   Categories: quick tips

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