The first block of PHP tutorials are more general and covers the basics of PHP as a language, such as variables, conditionals, HTML forms, loops, arrays, strings, functions… While the second block of tutorials are all about performing a particular task, such as creating captchas, building forms, and even building a complete CMS.

Now remember, take your time with each tutorial and enjoy!

A Simple PHP Tutorial

It doesn’t matter what kind of information you are looking for, it is always best to start at the source. This, of course, applies to learning PHP as well, the very site of the PHP programming language: php.net.

I am not saying this tutorial is the easiest, but it is a great tutorial for getting started with. It is more like a general introduction to PHP than a complete guide. It is split into the following sections:

• What do I need?
• Your first PHP-enabled page
• Something Useful
• Dealing with Forms
• Using old code with new versions of PHP
• What’s next?

The tutorial should only take you about 15 minutes to complete – providing you don’t check all the hyperlinks to the other pages. If you do, it will probably take weeks to complete.

PHP for Beginners

This tutorial is a much longer and more in-depth that the tutorial above. It covers all the basics of PHP, such as variables, conditionals, HTML forms, loops, arrays, strings, functions, security, file manipulation, MySQL, user authentication. At the end of the tutorial you will find chapters on how to code sample apps, such as polls and online forums.

This is a long tutorial and you may have to go through some chapters more than once, especially if you are new to PHP. So, you will need at least a day or two to go through it all.

Introduction to PHP

If you are a fan of video tutorials, then you will love this PHP Course. There are over 200 videos available and they cover absolutely everything about PHP.

The series covers all aspects of PHP, such as how to install XAMMP, how to create your first PHP file, input/output, variables, conditionals, operators, loops, commonly-used functions, strings, arrays, sample applications, etc.

It’s a huge resource and if you want to learn absolutely everything, you will need weeks to cover it all. Each video is reasonably short, though – from 1 to 10 minutes, so you can watch a couple of them in a day, revise them on the next day, and thenmove onto the next video.

PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner

This is another complete PHP course that walks you through the basics. As with the other courses, it covers everything – variables, operators, loops, functions, arguments, MySQL, object oriented programming, sessions and cookies, error handling and security.

It even includes two tutorials for building sample applications – such as a simple web application and an RSS news aggregator. Similarly to the other complete courses, this one will take at least a couple of days to read, learn, and revise.

MySQL PHP Tutorial

The tutorials so far include sections on MySQL and how to use it with PHP, but since PHP and MySQL are used together [almost] all the time, it wouldn’t hurt to cover a tutorial that focuses solely on MySQL.

This tutorial explains how to create a new MySQL database, connect to it, create users and give them permissions, write a simple script, create and populate a database, retrieve data, escape characters, print column headers, count fields and rows, write and read images, and use transactions.

If you are already familiar with the SQL syntax this tutorial should only take you 2-4 hours.

List Files & Directories with PHP

Lists of files and directories are very common in web development. This tutorial will show you how to list files and directories with the glob() function, a combination of the opendir(), readdir() and closedir() functions, and the scandir() function.

You will also learn some advanced file/directory listing techniques – SPL iterators, such as the FilesystemIterator, the RecursiveDirectoryIterator, and the GlobIterator.

The tutorial isn’t as complex as it might at first seem, but you probably should budget at least 45 minutes to complete it. It could even take longer, if everything is not working as expected and you need to make some fixes.

Automatic CSS3 Prefixer & Compressor Tutorial

CSS files are text files but they can be very large. That is why they will benefit from some compression. Additionally, instead of writing all CSS3 properties with browser-specific prefixes by hand, this can be automated with PHP.

This tutorial will teach you exactly how to do this: Generate CSS3 properties with browser-specific prefixes, how to concatenate all the CSS files to save space and reduce load time, and how to do both automatically when a web page is requested.

The estimated time to complete the tutorial is about an hour.

Create Your Own Captcha in PHP

This short tutorial has been written in a typical programmer’s fashion, meaning it has little to no explanation, short to missing comments, and the assumption that everything is obvious and clear.

However, aside from this, it is a useful tutorial and the slightly more advanced programmers might love it just because it uses few words and plenty of code.

Getting Started with PHP Regular Expressions

And now a tutorial on everybody’s favorite: regular expressions. Unfortunately for everybody who hates them, regular expressions are pretty useful, though often you can bypass them with other techniques.

The tutorial in the link explains what regular expressions are, the Perl compatible regular expressions, the basic syntax of PHP regular expressions, how to use regular expressions in PHP, useful regex functions. Additionally, the tutorial includes a cheat sheet where all the basic stuff is gathered in one neat place.

The tutorial could take you an hour or two to complete but this depends on your familiarity with regular expressions. If you are a total stranger to them, expect to read some sections multiple times and, naturally, this will take you much more time.

Simple Banner Rotator With PHP, jQuery & MySQL

This tutorial goes beyond PHP, but since in real life that is exactly what you need, that is why the tutorial is included here. First you need to create the database schema, then the XHTML code, then the CSS, and only after that you will move on to the PHP side of things.

The tutorial will take you at least 2 hours to complete, and that is if you don’t have to make a lot of modifications to the code.

Build a CMS in an Afternoon with PHP & MySQL

If we are honest here, this tutorial will probably take you more than an afternoon to complete. Having said that, it also isn’t as hard as it seems.

In order to create the CMS, you do need to be familiar with the SQL syntax and MySQL, so if you do lack knowledge in these areas, first check the tutorials that teach MySQL above and then come back to this one.

The CMS you will be learning to build will have all of the basic features you would expect from a CMS.

The frontend will have:

• Homepage with the 5 most recent articles
• Article Listing Page (archives), where snippets of all articles are displayed
• A “View Article” page (single post), where visitors can read the entire article

And, the backend will have:

• Admin login/logout
• List of all articles
• Add a new article
• Edit an existing article
• Delete an existing article

PHP is fun, and it can be used for so many tasks. These tutorials won’t make you a PHP guru, but they will help improve your skills and hopefully allow you to develop more complex PHP applications.

The post 10 Free Tutorials & Courses for Learning PHP appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

If you you would like to learn the basics of .htaccess, you should check our Introduction to .htaccess article, which explains pretty well everything you will need to get you up and running.

You might also like these useful WordPress SQL Query Snippets or these snippets that make WordPress user-friendly for your clients.

1. Controlling Access to Files and Directories

Password protection is one thing, but sometimes you may need to completely block users from having the option of accessing a particular file or directory. This usually happens with system folders, such as the includes folder for which applications will need access, but no users will ever need the privilege.

To do this, paste this code onto an .htaccess file and drop it in the directory:

However, this will block access to everyone, including you. To grant yourself access, you need to specify your IP address. Here is the code:

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is your IP. If you replace the last three digits with 0/12 for example, this will specify a range of IPs within the same network, thus saving you the trouble to list all allowed IPs separately.

If you want to block access to a particular file, including .htaccess itself, use the following snippet instead:

Similarly, if you want to allow given IPs, list them with allow from.

If you want to block access to particular file types, use this instead:

2. Disabling Directory Browsing

To prevent directory browsing, add this:

However, if for some reason you want to enable directory browsing, change it to the following:

3. Speeding-Up Load Times by Compressing Files

You can compress any type of file, not only images. For instance, to compress HTML files, use this:

To compress TEXT files, use this:

You can also compress JavaScript, or add compression to multiple file types with one command:

Alternatively, if you want to compress all of your JavaScript, HTML, and CSS files with GZIP, you can use this:

4. Protect Your Site against Hotlinking

If you don’t want your images hotlinked, add this to your .htaccess file:

Just replace yourdomain.com with your own, and you are good to go.

5. Blocking Visitors Referred from a Particular Domain

If you have users from a particular domain you don’t welcome, you can ban them from your site. For instance, if your site gets listed in a place you don’t want traffic from (i.e., adult sites, blackhat sites, etc.), you can serve them with a 403 Forbidden page. You need to have mod_rewrite enabled, but you should be fine since it is usually on. Add this snippet:

You need to replace bannedurl1.com and bannedurl2.com etc. with the domain names you want to blacklist. You may want to use the [NC] flag because it specifies that the domain name you’ve entered isn’t case sensitive. The [F] flag specifies the action to take – in this case to show the 403 Forbidden error. If you want to ban multiple sites, use the [NC,OR] flag for every domain but the last and if you want to ban a single domain use only the [NC] flag.

6. Blocking Requests from Particular User Agents

If your log files show particular user agents (bots or spiders) you can add a few lines to .htaccess and deny them access to your site:

Replace badbot1, badbot1, etc. with the names of bots from your log files. This should keep such programs away from your site.

7. Caching Files

Another way to speed your site’s load times is via file caching. Here is what you need to add in order to cache files:

You can add more file types (or remove some of them) to the sequence of files listed in this example – do what suits you. You can also use max-age to specify the amount of time in seconds that your files will live in the cache.

8. Disabling Caching for Particular File Types

If you don’t want to cache particular file types, it is easier not to include them in the cache sequence. However, sometimes files might get cached even if you don’t explicitly list them there, and in this case, you may want to disable caching only for them. Most often, you will want to disable caching for dynamic files, such as scripts. Here is how to do it:

Just pipe the files you want caching disabled for, and this is it.

9. Bypassing the Download Dialogue

By default, when you try to download a file from a Web server, you get a dialogue that asks you if you want to save the file or open it. This dialogue is especially irritating with large media files or PDFs. If the files you have uploaded to your server are for downloads, you can save users the trouble and proceed straight to download. Here is what you need to set in .htaccess:

10. Renaming an .htaccess File

If for some reason, mostly security-related, you want to rename your .htaccess file, it is very easy to do it. In theory, renaming an .htaccess file shouldn’t cause problems with the applications running on your server but if by chance you notice such issues after you rename the file, just rename it back to its original name.

You also need to update any entries in the file itself or everywhere .htaccess is mentioned; otherwise you will be getting lots of errors.

11. Changing a Default Index Page

If you want your index page to be something different from the default index.html, index.php, index.htm, etc. this is very easy to do. Here is what you need to add to .htaccess:

Replace mypage.html with the actual URL of the page you want to use as index and you are done.

12. Redirecting to a Secure https Connection

If you are using HTTPS and you want to redirect users to the secure pages of your site, use this:

13. Restricting File Upload Limits in PHP, Maximum Size of Post Data, Max Script Execution Time, etc.

.htaccess allows you to set some values that directly affect your PHP applications. For instance, if you want to impose upload limits in PHP so that you don’t run out of hosting space because of large files, use this:

Of course, you can set the value to anything you deem appropriate – 15M (MB) in this example isn’t fixed in stone. You can also restrict the maximum post size for uploading in PHP. To do it, add this:

Similarly, you can change 10M to any value that suits you. If you don’t want scripts to execute forever, you can limit their execution time with the help of the following:

240 is the number of seconds before the script will be terminated, and as you guess, it could be any value. Finally, if you want to limit the time a script can parse input data, use this:

And set any value in seconds that suits you.

14. Disguising File Types

Sometimes, you wouldn’t like users to know the file types of the files on your site. One way to hide this information is if you disguise them. For instance, you can make all your files look as if they are HTML or PHP files:

There is much more that can be done with .htaccess. For instance, you can set automatic translation of your site’s pages, or set the server timezone, or remove the www from URLs, or use fancy directory listings, etc. In any case, before you start experiments with .htaccess, always backup the original .htaccess, so if things don’t go as planned, you have a working copy to revert to.

The post 10 Useful htaccess Code Snippets & Hacks appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

While very often this won’t be a big thing, there are cases, such as when you have creative differences with a client, when you certainly would benefit from any advice how to handle these situations smoothly. I don’t claim the solutions I offer are the best but as my experience shows, they do help to deal with creative differences in a civilized manner.

The Client Is(n’t) Always Right – Why Creative Differences Could Be Good

First, let’s clarify that creative differences aren’t necessarily bad. In fact, they frequently help to make a better product. Client input can be really valuable. You might have decades of experience but still there are always cases when the client has a better idea than you do – be it for a small detail, or even for the design as a whole.

You need to accept this as normal. The worst mistake you can make is to take it personally. No, almost always the client isn’t attacking you, your knowledge, or your skills.

On the other hand, if you believe the client is always right, this isn’t so either. You are supposed to know more about design than the client. This means that when the client has a ridiculous idea, you don’t have to say “Yes, Sir/Madam” all the time just to please him or her. When the client has disastrous ideas and you follow them, the end result will be failure, which in turn will hardly please the client.

As you see, things are not black and white. Sometimes the client is right, sometimes you are right. You both just need to find a way to communicate your thoughts, so that you can arrive at a solution that will make the project great rather than get involved in an ego fight.

Discuss and Explain Your Points of View

The major way to understand each other is to discuss and explain your points of view. Very often this is all it takes to solve differences of any kind. Here are some points to consider:

A suggestion or demand might sound ridiculous till you hear the reasoning behind it

Not everybody is able to verbalize his or her thoughts precisely and this is a common reason for confusion. When you add to this the fact that generally clients are not familiar with design terminology, it is quite possible that what the client really means is quite different from what you think he or she means. For instance, you might find it ridiculous to have fancy fonts for text because you think the text is the text body itself, while the client in reality wants fancy text for the slogan, or for some quotations you will put as an image inside the text. You just need to clarify what each of you means. When you do it, it might turn out you have no creative differences at all!

Accept that the other party also has likes and dislikes

You might be a genius designer but this doesn’t mean everybody else, your clients included, is a loser with no sense of colors and composition. You like red and orange, your client likes blue and green. You like rounded corners and headlines with a background, your client prefers things simpler. These are all natural and they are not a reason to fight. If you are working on your personal project, you are free to choose everything you want but when you work for a client, you do need to respect his or her likes and dislikes.

The worst you can do is to start convincing the client about the cuteness of red and orange and of rounded corners and headlines with a background. You might manage to force your view on the client but basically this is useless – the client will hardly be happy simply because he or she likes different things. Of course, if the client wants a disastrous combination, you should try to convince him or her this combination is not OK but try to use hard facts for it. For instance, you can say that these shades of green and blue don’t go well together and offer to replace them with other shades of green and blue that are a better match.

I remember once I was designing a site for a friend of mine. The guy was obsessed with black backgrounds but I somehow managed to convince him black is not user friendly – text on a dark background is more difficult to read and besides, black is too necrophilic and makes the whole site look depressing. As far as I remember, the site had dark blue background as a compromise for a while because dark blue is less depressing than black, though it is still far from what I would personally choose as a background but later he decided that it is black and nothing else. Of course, I wouldn’t take a gun and make him remove the black background – if he likes it that much, let’s leave it like that, the world won’t end.

Don’t throw in your decades of expertise as a proof you are right

Sometimes it feels easier to convince a client you are right because you have lots of experience. While there are many cases when years of experience can help you, basically clients aren’t interested in this.

When they don’t like something, they don’t care about the hundreds and thousands of sites you have made. If you can use your experience to convince a client something is wrong (i.e. my attempt to convince my friend that many experts think that all equal light text on dark background is more difficult to read, though there are others who don’t think so), this is fine. But if you throw in your experience as an argument per se, it feels like you are telling a child “I’m right because I’m older!”, don’t expect a client in his or her right mind will accept this.

Both of you might need to make concessions

Compromise is the ground to mutual understanding. Of course, it depends on what you have to compromise. If the client wants really stupid things (i.e. text body in 20px font size because this will make it easy to read) and won’t negotiate, there isn’t much room for compromise and you might have to resort to the advice into the last section of the article.

If I continue the example with the site of that friend of mine, the concession he made in exchange for the black background was that he gave up on his idea of animation and sounds. It wasn’t “Look mate, I accepted your black background, now it is your turn to accept my conditions!” kind of negotiations. Rather, I just managed to convince him that these animations and sounds are annoying at best and they are so last century. I know that many novice designers and clients with no knowledge are fascinated by everything that jumps and screams and this was the case with this guy – he simply didn’t have much experience as a user and he was fascinated by sounds and animations.

“If there is a will, there is way.” This might not be true about everything in life but for most cases of creative differences, it is. If you manage to communicate your views than it becomes easier to see each other’s point of view. Of course, don’t bet on a happy end in all cases but more often than not you can solve creative differences via communication and negotiation.

End the Project, If the Creative Differences Are So Fundamental

It is best if you manage to solve the creative differences with your client and work happily ever after, but unfortunately, this isn’t always possible. Sometimes creative differences are so fundamental that no negotiations can bridge the cap.

, In this case, the only move is to end the project. This is really a last resort but sometimes you just have no other options. If you continue to work together, this will be a torture for both of you. Under these circumstances, the wisest is to end the project, especially if it is still in the beginning and go your separate ways.

The post How to Deal with Creative Differences with Clients appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

The problem is that they are at times far too obtrusive and users do hate it when bombarded with constant popups. This is why you do need to find the right balance between using popups for marketing purposes and keeping your visitors happy. Here are 10 basic rules to follow to make your popups that little bit less annoying.

1. Make the Popup/Modal Simple

Since a popup is really visible, you might be tempted to include lots of things in it. This is a huge mistake! First, when you include lots of things on a small place, it gets cluttered and it becomes very easy to miss the important stuff because of all the minor details that are burying it.

Second, the more stuff you put in a popup, the higher the chance the user will leave. For instance, if you are using a popup to gain newsletter subscribers, it is wise to ask the user to enter his or her email but don’t make the popup a form with dozens of text boxes for the user to fill in. If you are asking for too much data, the user will simply close the popup and he or she could even leave your site completely.

Therefore, the elements you can include in a popup are your logo, a field for the email address, optionally a Name field, a Subscribe button, and of course, a Close button. If you really must, you can include a short video in the popup but since this will make the popup load slowlier and is more obtrusive, be really careful when doing it.

2. Put the Close Button in a Visible Place

For users, the Close button is the most important component of a popup they don’t like. You don’t have to make the Close button huge but you do have to make it big enough and above all – put it in a visible place. You might think that if there is no Close button, as in the screenshot below, you will get a higher conversion rate but this isn’t so. When a user doesn’t like the popup and he or she sees no easy way to close it, the only thing left for him or her is to leave your site. This way you are losing not only a sale but also a visitor.

3. Don’t Place Popups on Absolutely Every Page

The more often a visitor encounters a popup, the more irritated he or she becomes. Therefore, unless you want to make your readers hate you, don’t place popups on absolutely every page. Your choices here vary depending on the popup plugin you are using but almost any good popup plugin/script allows to fine-tune the display schedule. You can choose to display a popup on particular pages only, on every Nth page, after the user has performed a particular action (i.e. has spent 30 secs or more on the page, which suggests that he or she is interested in the contents of the page), etc.

4. Allow the User to Opt-out Completely

Some popups allow you to give your users the choice to opt-out completely from popups. It is a good idea to give your users this choice because if they don’t want to see popups, you can’t make them want it. Don’t cry for the lost sale – when users don’t see popups, they might click on other ads instead, so this isn’t junk traffic.

5. Don’t Use the Popup as a Laissez-Passer to Your Site

A couple of weeks ago I occasionally stumbled upon the unthinkable – a popup that says you can’t move forward unless you fill in an offer. I suppose this was some kind of an affiliate offer of the type that makes commission for the site owner but I was just shocked by this approach. I am really sorry I didn’t write down the URL of the site to give it as an example of a very bad popup use but unfortunately, I can’t imagine this is the only site that uses this totally unacceptable practice.

Don’t use the popup as the entrance pass to your site, especially if you are asking the user to make a purchase. This simply doesn’t work – users aren’t that stupid!

6. Avoid (Completely) Sound and Flash in Popups

A text and image popup might look too lean to you and you might be tempted to spice it a bit but you need to do it with caution. I remember many years ago when the Net was young, every design newbie rarely missed to include music and animation on their page. This was really irritating and I would classify it as a thing of the past but unfortunately every now and then I do see tasteless use of sound and Flash on the Web, including in popups. As with videos, do it only if you absolutely have to.

7. Test Multiple Popup Versions

You might be a genius and think that you will hit the nail on the head the first time you try but if you have a more realistic view on life, you will admit that you can never be sure you made it the first time. This is why, before you start splashing your popups to all your visitors, do some testing on a small sample with multiple popup versions and see which version converts best.

8. Make Your Popups Fast

One of the worst mistakes you can make with a popup is to make it so fat that it takes ages to display and millenniums for the page to load. Videos, sound, and Flash do contribute to a fat popup but even images alone (especially if they aren’t stored locally but are downloaded from somewhere else) can make a popup slow. Speed is one more reason to keep your popups simple.

9. Consider Exit Popups

No matter how merciful to your users you are, on-page popups are irritating. In order to avoid this, you can consider exit popups. Exit popups are less irritating because they are displayed only once – when the user is about to leave your page. However, since exit popups come in several flavors, be warned that JavaScript exit alert boxes (shown in the screenshot below) are certainly irritating, so you may want to cut their use as well.

10. Test Your Popups

Usually good popup plugins/scripts are already tested for you and all you need to do is add your text/images and you are ready to go but if you want to make sure everything is fine, you need to test your popup with different browsers or even on different platforms. If possible, you can ask a small group of your most loyal users to test them, too, so if there are any glitches, you will spot them before you launch the popup for everybody to see.

When used wisely, popups do a great job. Just be careful not to pass the line between use and misuse, and you will be on the safe side. Only then you will be able to enjoy the benefits of popups rather than deal with angry visitors.

The post 10 Rules to Follow for Popups and Modal Windows appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

However, before you do so, it is best if you not only know the advantages of hiring subcontractors but also some potential issues to watch out for. To help you with this decision, here are some pros and cons to consider.

Increased Productivity

Increased productivity is probably the main reasons you would opt to use a subcontractors. As practice shows, you can’t multiply your capacity with that of your subcontractors because the more people work on a project, the more communication overhead exists, but the idea is that with their help you will be able to finish more work in less time.

Offer Clients a Broader Range of Skills

The diversification of skills you offer to your clients is another major reason to use subcontractors. Even if your skills are in many areas, almost always the skills you have in one area are sharper than the ones you have in other areas.

For instance, if you are a designer that codes but coding comes second to you, it makes sense to hire coding help. It makes even more sense to hire help for stuff you are not good at all – for instance copywriting or SEO. This way you broaden the scope of projects you can take on and positions you better on the market.

Working with Subcontractors is More Efficient

As I mentioned, you don’t necessarily hire subcontractors only for tasks you can’t do personally. You can hire them for tasks you can do yourself but simply don’t have the time to do on your own. A good reason to hire subcontractors is if you pay them less than it would take you to achieve the task personally.

For instance, you can code but you aren’t very good at it, and it will take you two days to write a simple script. You make $100 a day on average, so it means this script will cost you $200 in lost profit. Mostly, this is due to your limited experience as a coder because an experienced coder can finish the same script in just a couple of hours for $50.

In this case, if you hire coding help, you will save the two days you would have lost in coding attempts, which means you lose only $50 but don’t lose the other $150 you would have lost if you did the job yourself.

More Flexible than Hiring Permanent Employees

Another benefit of hiring subcontractors is that this gives you more flexibility than hiring permanent employees. You hire contractors for a project or two and after that everybody goes their own way. With employees, it is much more challenging, and you might end in some legal trouble if you dismiss them, thus leaving you with the option to pay them a salary even when you no longer need their services anymore.

Additionally, when you don’t hire help on a permanent basis, you don’t pay benefits, while with employees this usually isn’t the case. However, you do need to check this in advance because legislation varies extensively. Ask an accountant about what is applicable in your jurisdiction.

Could Be More Beneficial in Terms of Taxes

Tax legislation varies worldwide, so don’t take for granted that the money you will pay to subcontractors will relieve your tax burden. But more often than not it will.

An accountant who knows your applicable laws is the person to contact for answers to this question.

Disadvantages of Hiring Subcontractors

Communication Overhead

One of the first things you notice when you start hiring subcontractors is that it will increase the time you spend communicating.

Most often, you need time to answer your subcontractors’ questions, check their progress, and review their submissions. It may turn out that this takes up much more time than you bargained for. Your overall productivity might suffer.

You Need to Plan in Advance

You can minimize communication overhead if you plan the tasks in advance and give your subcontractors a detailed task description.

However, this also takes time! Sometimes it is easier to do the task yourself than to plan it in details in advance and then pass it on to somebody else. If this is the case, subcontractors are of no use to you.

Quality Could Be an Issue

If you work with the same subcontractors over and over again, you will come to trust and rely on the quality work they do for you. But when you work with someone new, you just never know what to expect. I’ve had one or two cases where I was shocked by the work I got back.

I did give detailed instructions, the subcontractor didn’t ask me any questions before the delivery, and when I was presented with the deliverables, I was just speechless – we obviously had two very different visions of what quality is.

It is true that I could never have imagined that a simple project could be screwed in such a creative way but when the deadline was pressing me, I definitely didn’t appreciate this kind of creativity.

Might Not Be Available When You Need Them

Since subcontractors aren’t your permanent employees, it is possible they are not available when you need them. On the other hand, if you agree on some kind of schedule and availability, this will benefit both of you. So if this is possible, do it. For instance, if it is a long-term project, you can agree to 5, or 10, or 15, or as many hours as the project requires. This you can plan in advance.

As you see, there are many factors to consider before hiring subcontractors. In some cases, subcontractor help could be your best bet, for others this could be a decision that could literally bury you.

Evaluate your situation, consult an accountant if necessary, and only after this decide if hiring subcontractors is good for your freelance business or not.

The post Things to Consider When Hiring Subcontractors appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Rather, I hope that by giving my opinion and hearing yours, too, we will be able to understand each other better and work more smoothly together. What is more, very often the same person is a contractor on a project and a client on another project, so roles change pretty frequently, which is good because it is easier to walk in the other party’s shoes.

1. "I Don’t Know What I Want (but I Want It Asap)"

I am perfectly aware there are unpredictable circumstances and urgent things and that a project’s scope can change. I am fine with that but problems start when emergency and unclarity become the norm. In theory, a sequence of emergencies could be bad luck but in practice in 99 per cent of the cases it is just poor planning.

Image credit: Brainloc

It is especially irritating when I have spent a lot of time waiting for instructions what to do, or even worse – working on what we have decided last and then all of a sudden the client decides he or she doesn’t want what we have initially agreed upon last but wants something really different instead and guess what – wants it asap!

I have noticed that even if the scope is fixed in stone in the contract, such clients do try to overturn the previous agreement. Sometimes when I tell them I find this unacceptable, they stop but if they don’t basically, with such clients, I have only one project, if I manage to stand a whole project at all because they are just a waste of time for me.

2. “$10 for 10 Hours of Hard Work Is Quite OK, Right? And There Is More Work for You”

We all have budgets to deal with and to live within and I know not all projects pay well but sometimes what the client is asking for is just too much. I had this problem more frequently when I was active at bidding sites but unfortunately clients like this can be found elsewhere. For instance, once a client approached me with a writing assignment that was paying like $1-1.5 per hour, which meant that even if I worked 10 hours a day on this project, this is less than what I need to pay a day for rent, utilities, food, etc.

Image credit: michaelaw

I rejected the project because I simply couldn’t even think of working at such low rates but even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t take it – I have better ways to kill the time and exhaust myself.

Clients with such ridiculously low rates often use the bait that they might be paying not much (i.e. not even peanuts but rotten peanuts) but they can offer a steady supply of work. Oh, what an honor! I am craving to work for $10 a day for the next two years for sure.

Such clients are not only stingy but they also don’t know how to run a business. For instance, for these articles that would have earned me $1-1.5 per hour from the client, it was quite possible I could earn more from them in just one month or two by publishing them online at a revenue sharing site, for example.

Well, it would have required some promotion in addition to writing, which is even more work for the same handful of peanuts but if I ever took the trouble to work on such a low paying project, I wouldn’t do it for somebody who either doesn’t know how to run a business profitably, or who wants to pay next to nothing for all the hard work I will put in. No, thanks, neither is an option for me!

3. “WE Are Late with the Project!!!” (and We Are Twisting Arms)

Deadlines are to be adhered to but how about avoiding rush because of lack of communication? I really hate it when there is a rush because I got the task approved in the last minute and/or my emails got answered on the third week, and now WE are late with the project.

When I was new to freelancing, I once had a client who changed the tasks multiple times and for one of the multiple deadlines (an urgent one, of course, as all of them were), I didn’t sleep for two days just to finish the task on time. Now I wouldn’t make such sacrifices, even if the world will end but then I was young and unexperienced.

After I submitted the deliverable, I was barely alive because of the lack of sleep. This was appreciated – by serving me another urgent task and by threatening me that if WE missed that deadline, I wouldn’t get paid for the whole project.

Needless to say, this attempt at twisting my arms didn’t pass. I threatened back that if I didn’t get paid for the project, I would sell the deliverables to another client for more money and I would make his life difficult in many other ways. I don’t think mutual threats are the way to work professionally but with some people you just can’t afford to play it nice.

Image credit: maurodifm

We somehow managed to finish the project without killing each other but I learned the lesson that working with brainless dictators is the last thing I want from then on, no matter if they pay top dollar or not. I guess some clients are used to extorting freelancers by using force or maybe holding them at gunpoint but for me this simply isn’t the way to work.

4. “It’s a Small Task, Just a Few Quick Changes”

I do love change and I do love making things perfect but sometimes the seemingly small thing just shouldn’t be changed. There are small things and small things. The small thing that when slightly modified turns everything upside down shouldn’t be touched at all because it drags tons of changes as a consequence. The small cosmetic changes are always welcome, if they are making things better but very often a seemingly small change is neither possible, nor feasible. Still, there are clients who don’t get it and they always insist on making a change regardless of what it takes.

A variety of the small changes task is the quick updates one. Sometimes it is really a quick updates task that takes less than an hour but in other cases it is starting from scratch that takes a couple of days. A couple of years ago an old client of mine asked me to update the site I had designed for her in the past. It didn’t look hard till the moment I saw what I was up to. After I had finished the site, her daughter who had no idea of web design whatsoever, had been updating it occasionally till the moment the mess was so thick that the poor kid was absolutely helpless.

Image Credit: doctor_bob

Updating the site wouldn’t have been such a problem, if she hadn’t edited my carefully crafted and cleaned HTML in FrontPage, Word, or who knows what. I guess you can imagine the mess I found – tables inserted here and there, rows and columns merged and split randomly, bogus tags and attributes, etc. I couldn’t use my old files because the content was outdated and I couldn’t use her daughter’s files because the HTML was a disaster. Basically, I had to start the site from scratch.

5. “Do What I Tell You and Don’t Tell Me It Won’t Work!”

Client input is more than welcome and on many projects it helps to make things perfect but this doesn’t mean that every whim of the client is to be followed. Since he or she has hired me for the project, supposedly I know quite a lot about how to get things done. I do listen to clients and try to do things the way they want them but in some cases there demands are just absurd.

Image Credit: 3rdworldman

For instance, even though I appreciate tasteful animation, I basically hate it when a site has animation. Many clients, especially the ones who are far from Web design and development, are fascinated by everything that moves and screams on their site and they consider this the utmost advance in technology. However, for me or for anybody who is familiar with Web and above all, who is a fan of minimalism, all these screaming and jumping objects are more than what I can take.

I sometimes manage to convince clients that (primitive) animation and especially sounds on a Web site are so last century but there are clients who nevertheless insist on having them. Well, animation and sounds aren’t the worst I can think of when it comes to clients who want ridiculous things and take no No for an answer but it is certainly irritating.

Concluding

Fortunately, the things I describe aren’t the norm for the majority of clients. Still, this hard-earned knowledge about what to avoid in a client has made me sincerely appreciate the nice clients I have. Well, maybe the things I hate aren’t a problem for any freelancer and it will be interesting to hear your opinion about this. Do you hate the same things? Are there things you hate more than these 5? Please, share your opinion.

The post Things I Hate about My Clients appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Yes, GIMP does offer quite a lot, but it is not intended to be a replica of Photoshop. In a sense, comparing GIMP and Photoshop is like comparing apples to oranges.

GIMP, short for GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a “freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.” It doesn’t have all the perks of Photoshop, though new functionalities are being added all the time, and it shouldn’t be regarded as a Photoshop replacement for every required task.

Photoshop is a commercial-grade application, and as such, should provide more for the money you pay. After this clarification, I think we can continue with the comparison between GIMP and Photoshop, as well as see some outstanding images created with GIMP.

GIMP v. Photoshop

Probably the most useful comparison between GIMP and Photoshop would be to evaluate their features side by side. However, such a task is next to impossible because both programs evolve constantly and a feature that is missing today will be present tomorrow, or possible to find a workaround with a plugin.

Additionally, since I am on camp GIMP and have been using the program for over a decade, I certainly don’t think of myself as a GIMP Pro), and my knowledge of Photoshop is next to nonexistent, it wouldn’t be fair to compare a program I more or less know with a program I am totally unfamiliar with.

Such comparisons are needless because they are not objective. If you want to see such a comparison, here is a review by a designer that is more familiar with Photoshop than with GIMP. The useful thing about this comparison is that it proves that a designer that is familiar with Photoshop isn’t at ease when trying to use GIMP. This isn’t surprising because as I note later, GIMP does have a steep learning curve, especially for somebody who is used to doing things the ‘Photoshop way.’

So, aside from feature-by-feature comparisons, here are some other points that differentiate the two programs:

• Price – The most notable difference between GIMP and Photoshop is that GIMP is free. Of course, if you want to donate, or help with GIMP development, this is more than welcome. The difference in cost is especially important for designers that don’t design full-time and for whom the price of Photoshop could be the equivalent of a few months’ income.
• Hardware Requirements – If you are a hardware maniac and can afford to get all the latest and greatest hardware, then the fact that GIMP is more light-weight and doesn’t require such powerful hardware isn’t a factor. However, for everybody else, Photoshop’s hardware requirements are a bit too much.
• Platform Availability – Since most designers will either use a Windows or a Mac computer, maybe it isn’t much of an issue that GIMP is cross-platform, while Photoshop is available only for Windows and Mac. However, many other pros, the author being one of them, use Linux and in this case even if you want to use Photoshop, you can’t do it directly (running it in a virtual machine is too much of a pain, so this isn’t a likely solution).
• Feature set – There is no doubt that in terms of features, Photoshop has more features, though the GIMP community does create lots of plugins, so it is quite possible that for many of the features that come with Photoshop, there is a GIMP plugin. Additionally, many of the features in Photoshop are not used by the majority of its users, or are used very rarely, so it turns out you are paying for something you don’t need. GIMP does have all the basic features, such as layers, channels, tons of filters, masks, and many more, so if you are worried it lacks vital features, this isn’t the case. There is even a GIMP plugin – PSPI – that allows you to run Photoshop plugins in GIMP, so functionality can be easily added, if required.
• Ease of use – This one is pretty subjective. It is believed that with Photoshop many tasks are easier to accomplish, while GIMP has a steep learning curve. Even though I am quite familiar with GIMP, I have to agree on this. I’ve noticed that if I don’t use a particular feature for some time, even if I knew it before, it takes me some time to refresh my memory about its functionality. Well, to be honest, this is true for almost any program I use, with Linux commands topping the list – I don’t use a command for a week and then it is gone from my memory.
  If you find the GIMP interface too confusing, you could try GIMPshop. This is GIMP with a Photoshop-like interface (unfortunately, it is available only for Windows and Mac).

These comparisons can give you an idea if GIMP could be a Photoshop alternative or not. The choice of GIMP is like love – you don’t necessarily fall in love with the most beautiful or smartest person – you fall in love with somebody that is well suited to you.

If GIMP is good for you or not – you will only know this after giving it a try. What do you think?

The post A Case for Using Gimp appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Fair Use and Protection of Ideas

First, without going into legalese definitions, let me say briefly that not everything that looks like content theft is. For instance, the so called ‘fair use‘ allows you to freely use portions of work for commentary and criticism. With parody you can legally go even further in ‘borrowing’ and creatively twisting ideas from other authors.

Another case that is not classified as content theft is when you present an idea, not a finished piece of work. Ideas can’t be copyrighted, though some manufacturers gladly file suits against competitors for, let’s say ’rounded rectangles used for displays in smaller devices’, as if they were the ones to discover the rounded rectangle as a shape. So, if you write on your blog about what designs, videos, ebooks, or other stuff you plan to release and see that somebody else releases the same titles, this is cannot be theft. If you had designs, videos, ebooks, etc. to a completed project and find that somebody uses parts or whole items of them elsewhere, now this is theft.

Put Notices that Your Content Is Copyrighted

In addition to fair use and ideas in a non-physical form that can be used and this isn’t theft, there is one more case where users might be confused if a particular item is copyrighted or not. With so many quality in the public domain, it’s possible to get misled that everything you find online and offline is free to use.

Anybody who knows at least a bit about intellectual property (IP) will presume that if an item is not explicitly listed as belonging to the public domain then it isn’t. But in order to avoid even the slightest confusion about your content, always put notices that it is copyrighted. These notices won’t stop real thieves, but if you don’t have any copyrighted notices, even unintentional thieves might get encouraged.

Protect Your Content by Making It Harder to Get and/or Reuse

If you make it harder for thieves to get a hold of your content/work, this will stop at least those of them that are after the low hanging fruit. Measures, such as watermarks, disabled ‘Save As’ and copying, or using low resolution images can provide some protection. But to be honest, their effect is far from comprehensive. Still, they will make it a bit harder to get your content in a split second and reuse it right away. Unfortunately, these are the best options we have at our disposal, if we are to protect our assets.

Watermarks

For images and videos, watermarks are the most serious way to make it harder to reuse a stolen image. While a watermark is not stopping thieves from obtaining your work, when your URL/logo is splattered across the image/video, you are at least getting some exposure. Sure, this doesn’t compensate for the theft but some free publicity is better than nothing.

Watermarks are easy to create. You can make a separate image file with your URL or company name and add it as a layer to your images or videos.

Watermarks might be the most reliable of all the methods for protecting your images/videos but unfortunately it’s not rocket science to remove them, if you really want to. Some watermarks are simple to clean, while others might require a little bit more work. If a thief is determined, they will succeed. This is why, when you design your watermark, think how to make it harder to clean – this will provide more protection.

Good watermarks have to be unobtrusive but they also have to cover the important aspects of the image/video. If these two conditions are met, you can rest assured that you’ve done your best to protect your images/videos without irritating viewers.

Disable Save As and Copying

The next best protection you can use for articles and images/videos, is to disable ‘Save As’ and ‘Copy’ from the context menu of a browser. Usually you do this by deploying some script to disable the right click. Disabled ‘Save As/Copy’ works if your thieves are not technically savvy because if they are, there are ways to bypass this protection.

For instance, if a thief uses a not so popular browser, the script might not work and the protection will be broken. Even if this doesn’t happen, if somebody is desperate to get your article, for example, he or she can easily make a screenshot and type it from there.

Of course, this is a lot of effort for a thief and this is why I’m saying this measure will chase away only the thieves who are after the quick thefts, or the low hanging fruit. Still, if you manage to eliminate the quick thefts at least this is more or less a success.

Submit Low Resolution Images

If you sell high-resolution photos and designs, you might want to show publicly only their low resolution versions. You can use this strategy to protect offline content as well.

For instance, a friend of mine got burned once when she submitted some designs to a competition (or when applying for a job – I don’t remember exactly), only to see them reused by some unscrupulous company. Since then, she submits only low resolution stuff – this is good enough to show her abilities and isn’t easy to reuse for quality projects.

For photos, 72 dpi, 600×400 images are a good combination. Yes, not much detail will be seen but images with such parameters are hard to resell. Sure, they can be posted on some site without your permission but at least you won’t find them competing against your originals on the photo stock sites you make money from.

Consider Google Authorship

The newly released Google Authorship service is one more option to consider. It’s too early to say if this will be working or not, but at least the start is promising. When you claim your stuff in your Google Authorship profile, this doesn’t guarantee it won’t be stolen but the comfort is that at least you will rank higher in Google searches than the copycats. You can also integrate your YouTube videos in your Google Authorship account.

How to Handle Content Theft

All these ways of protecting your content don’t guarantee it won’t be stolen. In the unlucky case this happens, you’d better know how to handle the theft.

Very often you will be unaware of a theft. One of the ways to learn when your articles (or photo/image descriptions) gets posted somewhere else is with the help of Google Alerts. Set these alerts with excerpts from your articles/descriptions and when a match is found, you will be notified.

After you become aware of the theft, the next step is to contact the site owner (if the content is posted online). Sometimes a cease and desist letter is enough to see your content taken down. If this doesn’t help, consider contacting the hosting provider of the thieves. Cases when accounts have been shut because of copyright violations are not unheard of, so going this extra mile is worth it.

For online content, you do have one more option – report it to Google. A DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) complaint with Google will frequently lead to the removal of the content from the index of Google. This won’t physically remove the stolen pieces from the server but when they are deindexed by Google, they won’t be getting a lot of traffic – and certainly won’t rank higher than your originals, which is really irritating to see.

The ultimate step is to sue but this is so much of a pain that you will want to do it only for really precious items and when you can prove your case at 100%.

Basically, this is what you can do to protect your content and to handle content theft. None of these methods are foolproof but this really is the best that we have. And yes, it’s an endless battle, but we’ve got to fight it.

The post Protecting Your Content from Theft appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

While the subscription model is certainly not a panacea and it does have its downsides as well, not to mention that there are many cases when you simply can’t apply it, it’s a good model to build your financial health on. If you manage to avoid the pitfalls, the subscription model can offer a lot.

Why the Subscription Model Is Good for You and Your Business

The main advantage of having subscribing clients is that this brings a regular supply of work (thus income) to you. This model is a form of repetitive business, the best of which is that it is scheduled at regular intervals, allowing you to plan both your workload and your finances.

If you have 3 subscribing clients at $30 a month each, this might not be much but it is guaranteed money. Of course, you can have many more than 3 subscribing clients and charge more than $30 a month, so that the amount is more tangible but you get the idea – every month you are entitled to your subscription fees.

When you manage to find subscribing clients, you sell your services in advance. You don’t have to look for work or have unpaid downtime. The existence of subscribers could be a huge time-saver because you don’t have to get familiar with a new project, don’t have to draw contracts, don’t have to negotiate. All these activities you can’t avoid with new clients and new projects are eating into your time for real work and the more you minimize them, the better.

Pitfalls of the Subscription Model

The subscription model does work but it also does have its pitfalls. First, your type of business might not be suitable for a subscription type of charging, though honestly almost always you can adapt your business, so that it can be.

For instance, if you create sites and you offer ongoing maintenance, this is a good candidate for a subscription service. However, if you just create the site, turn it to the client and have no more involvement because the project doesn’t require it, or because you hate the very mention of the word ‘maintenance’, then you won’t be able to take advantage of the subscription model.

Another issue to watch for is your fee structure. Basically, it is best if you have a fixed monthly fee and incident charges. If you have only a monthly fee, and there are lots of work, this can drown you. If you decide to avoid this by offering a high monthly fee, your clients will rightfully frown because they will have to pay you this fee even when there is no work needing done.

Workload balance is especially tricky with subscription services. If you manage to find many subscribing clients, you might get overbooked. It happens frequently that many of your clients need more service than what’s offered in the subscription and this could be hard to meet, if you have filled your schedule to the limits. Of course, you can always hire help but this isn’t issue-free either.

Additionally, when your schedule is filled with subscription work and better opportunities pop up, it’s quite possible you will miss out on them. Sure, if you are to choose between missing great opportunities because you are filled with subscription work and having no work at all, the choice isn’t difficult but if you value diversity of projects, these missed opportunities will be an issue.

How to Find Subscribing Clients

One of the hardest things about the subscription models could be finding subscribers. However, it could also be very easy to do – it all depends on the type of services you offer and your sales skills. One of the easiest ways to find subscribers is to simply tell your existing clients (and any new clients you land) that you offer ongoing maintenance, or any other form of subscription services, and the chances are they will be interested.

If the subscription service is not directly related to your present business – i.e. you decide to start a site where you offer premium images, rather than expand in the direction of offering site maintenance – you will hardly be able to use your existing client pool of clients for whom you have created sites in the past.

The reason is that your new service is more suited to designers rather than end-users. In this case you can’t use your existing client base. Instead, you need to find new clients. One approach is to advertise your services – for instance with PPC ads, or post in forums where designers gather. This is harder than converting your existing clients to subscription clients but if your service isn’t of interest to your existing clients, you have no other choice.

However, the hard part doesn’t end here. You need not only to attract subscribing clients but also to keep them. Obviously, you need to offer good quality for your services but this alone isn’t enough. If clients don’t need your service, even if the quality is good, they will leave. Therefore, always factor some drop rate – you can’t retain 100% of your subscribers even if you offer out of this world products/services.

One way to ensure your clients stay longer with you is to offer discounts for pre-payment. For instance, you can offer 1-month fee for $30, 3-months for $80, 6-months for $150, etc. Of course, you can’t avoid refunds (unless you explicitly state there are no refunds but this will make it harder to attract new clients), so don’t count on prepayment as a way of tieing up your clients.

Membership Sites As a Form of Subscription Service

One of the forms of subscription services that requires special attention are membership sites. This form could be suitable if you offer electronic goods, such as images, articles, templates, etc., or consultation-types of services, such as tutoring. However, you need remember that a membership site is very hard work and you need to have a good number of subscribers in order to stay afloat.

There are many platforms to build a membership site on but probably the easiest is to use WordPress and a membership site plugin. There are a bunch of good ones – free and paid – and setting them isn’t rocket science.

The second most difficult thing to retaining subscribers is the regular supply of content. In some cases it might take you just a few days a month to create the monthly content but in other cases this could turn into a fulltime job (unfortunately, not necessarily accompanied by a fulltime income).

Anyway, membership sites and the subscription model as a whole are really promising and it makes sense to try them. They might not make you a millionaire but they allow for a steady income, so for a freelancer or a small business they are a viable option.

Image Source: Vintage retro grunge sale labels via Shutterstock.

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Always Respond to Questions and Inquiries

One of the biggest communication mistake is to ignore questions and inquiries. This is not only rude and can really irritate the other party but it also interferes with the work process. Just imagine how it feels, when you need an answer and you aren’t getting it.

Two Choices Of Green Highway via Shutterstock

Additionally, when you don’t respond to questions and inquiries, this could be interpreted that there is something fishy to hide and this is why you are not responding. So, if you want to be a good communicator, always take the time to respond when somebody is asking.

Go For Email Communication When Possible

My observations are that marketing people (no offense, guys) prefer face-to-face meetings or in the worst case – (lengthy) phone calls. These grounds aren’t the top choice for techies because we usually don’t excel in live communication. This is one of the reasons why you’d better stick to email and go for face-to-face meetings and phone calls when you really must.

Additionally, all equal, email communication takes less time than in-person visits and is more accurate than the phone. With email, you have your conversation in writing and when in doubt, you can check later what you discussed. Anyway, if you have to use phone calls, always make sure you have confirmed in writing what you agreed upon because if there are arguments later, everybody can claim they did or didn’t say a particular thing and dispute resolution becomes quite tricky.

Mail Keyboard Button via Shutterstock

Email is great for communication but you also need to be aware of its downsides. First, you need to make sure that your emails are as clear as possible because it is so easy to be misunderstood when you use written text – you don’t have gestures, facial expressions, even vocal exclamations at your disposal, so you need to make your text easy to understand, while at the same time avoid ambiguity.

I believe most techies know this but it won’t hurt to remind again. Email isn’t lost frequently but it does happen for legitimate messages to be wrongfully classified as spam. This is why, always check your Spam folder for messages that don’t belong there. I myself frequently dig nonspam messages out of my Spam folder. Even though I mark them as Not Spam, messages from the same recipient continue to be classified as spam. You can imagine how frustrating is not to get an answer because your message ended in the Spam folder, so just develop the habit to check this folder at least once a week.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Stupid Questions

There are many cases when miscommunication occurs because the parties involved make the wrong assumptions. In order to make everything absolutely clear and leave no room for uncertainty, when in slightest doubt, always ask to clarify. Even if the question sounds stupid, you’d better ask it. It is much worse when you assume rather than know and when you or the other parties take the “It Is So Obvious” approach that can lead to real misunderstanding.

Girl Thinking via Shutterstock

Limit the Use of Technical Lingo

For a non-technical person, technical jargon is one of the things that makes it the hardest to understand a techie. This is why your only option is to avoid technical jargon when communicating with non-technical people. Of course, sometimes you just can’t avoid a tech term but in these cases, you might have to explain in layman’s terms what the technical term means, so that the other party can understand.

Follow-Up

If you don’t get an answer, don’t be shy but follow up. The reasons for not getting an answer can be numerous – starting from the other party not getting your email at all, to forgetting to answer it, to needing more time to prepare their answer, to not answering it on deliberately. You are not a pest, when you follow up – you just need to do it in order to know the answers that you have to know. You should do it politely but do follow up, if after a reasonable time (i.e. one or two business days, for example), you have no answer.

State Your Availability

While there are some reasonable times when you are supposed to be available for communication (i.e. workdays 9 to 5 in general), this doesn’t mean you must be available at these times. For instance, if you start work at 10, or finish at 4, or work in shifts or at weekends, make the other parties aware of this.

Available Now Office Note via Shutterstock

If you are on vacation, a business trip, or you are absent for whatsoever reason, set an autorespondent. It is best, if you inform about your absence in advance, when this is possible, of course, so that the other party can plan what to do while you are not available. If you work at weekends but take days off from Monday to Friday, you also need to state this.

Sometimes we tend to make ourselves available to clients at all times. This is wrong because we do have a personal life and nobody expects you to be available 24×7. However, if clients get used to the fact you are always available, they will start to expect you to answer emails anytime.

Don’t Allow Others to Manipulate You about How Poor Your Communication Skills Are

Finally, while very often techies aren’t the perfect communicators, there are also cases when we are good enough but somebody is just trying to make us believe we are not. For instance, in one of my jobs before I became a freelancer, I had a co-worker who had such an acute attention deficit disorder and who wanted everybody’s life to revolve around her that I joked I needed a restraining order against her. She was constantly demanding my attention on all possible counts – starting from what clothes to wear, to how to clean viruses from her computer, to how to make friends, etc.

She was not only a pest but she was also very malicious and when after a couple of weeks of being terrorized by her constant presence around me, coupled with some dirty tricks, I just stopped paying attention to her and simply ignored her, unless work was involved. She complained about this to the owner of the company and I had a very unpleasant conversation with him about not being a team player and not being able to communicate with my peers. Since I knew this cheap trick, I didn’t fall for it – I’ve witnessed too many times how somebody is accused of all mortal sins because he or she doesn’t obey all the idiotisms a crazy boss and stupid coworkers can come with.

So, if you do know how to communicate, don’t allow to be manipulated. In another company, a coworker of mine, who was fresh from university and this was her first job, believed she lacked communication skills and was almost suicidal. She worked on a joint project with an external company that ended in failure because the reps of the other company just didn’t give a damn and were hard to find, not to mention do some work on the project.

My coworker was flawless in her communication but when the other party is always sneaking and failure falls upon, there must be somebody to blame. So, my tip is learn how to communicate in order not to become victim of all sorts of manipulators, who want you to take the blame for their mistakes. We’ve learned much more difficult things that this, so it isn’t that hard to get some communication skills and make our lives easier at the office or when communicating with clients.

The post Communication Tips for Techies appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.