Still on Freelancing

Ho Hum. It is currently 11:44 pm here, and normally I would have been sleeping sound this time of the day. But no. Here I am, in an internet cafe, having to send a revision of a project. Argh.

Yesterday I had to do this too. Normally, I would do online freelancing on early mornings and afternoon, but a problem with mistaken deadline (my fault) caused me to suffer this fate. Well, suffer may not be the correct word. I guess 'work more' would be more appropriate.

Oh well, since job's done, let's do a review of everything I have learned and/or experienced and whatever about freelancing as a web developer:

1. I registered to Rent A Coder at December 16, 2006 (at least that's what my profile page says. Today is January 3, so I have freelanced for about 20 days or so. Currently I have won four projects (all in progress), none done completely, and countless of lost bids (hehe).

2. One thing I must learn the hard-way: 1-2 days-deadline projects are just not for me. Not because I can't do them. But this is because I do not have the constant internet connection to communicate properly, anytime I had to. Plus, having to work for deadline this tight is deadly (yesterday I had to go up until midnight to submit a job. This is not healthy for me).

3. For some reason, I never won anything at Get A Freelancer. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm far more active at RAC rather than at GAF, but the atmosphere is kind of different. I think I like RAC's way of hiding other people's bid. In GAF, being able to see how much other people bid and what they say in their bid gave me bad feelings sometimes.

3. Up to now, I still don't have any clear idea on how I'm going to receive my pay money. Via Western Union, yes, but I actually don't know how the whole mechanism work. Good thing I have my mentor here (whose blog post kicked me into the whole freelancing scene). I guess I will have to investigate more to him (ha ha).

4. And, for some strange reason, I think I had my specialization go more into WordPress lately. Before freelancing (like 20 days ago), I know very little about WordPress (uh oh, the secret is out!) but today I am so actively looking for projects on things like WordPress plugin making, WordPress Theme building, and so on. Currently I have done a plugin and two themes, which I think is not bad for someone who just learned WordPress. Plus, I'm not trying to praise my own self here, just want to point out that WordPress is indeed so elegant and easy to learn, and I love it.

Anyways, that's the chronicle so far. I had more works coming my direction, so I guess there will be more stories on this in the future. Stay tuned.

Labels: freelancing