As freelance designers, self-discipline is one essential characteristic to cultivate. Granted that you have the benefits of a flexible timetable, it is highly critical for you to be firm in your daily dealings to keep your business going well. Maintaining high motivation for your work is hence a topmost priority.
(Image Source: Fotolia)
But hey, who doesn’t have the downtime? Sometimes it’s easy to lose heart when you’re not getting by with freelancing, or when it didn’t meet your expectation of flexibility. That is why it is crucial for you to know what serves as motivation for freelancers like yourself.
As a part-time freelance blogger myself, I could relate to a few common issues regarding the lack of motivation. Fortunately, I have found for myself a few solutions that I could apply when I feel I’m running low on battery, and I’m willing to share to you my remedies in this post, full sharing after jump!
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Well, it’s now 11:11:11 (EST) (or 11:11:11pm GMT +8.00 if you are from Malaysia/Singapore/Hong Kong) of 11-11-11! Say thank you to yourself for being able to live until now, and also a thank you for Steve Jobs if he had made your life more beautiful and meaningful with his Apple products. To celebrate this very special “11” moment, we decided to share with you an interesting stuff: a detailed infographic of Apple’s products from year 2001 to 2011 – 11 years in the making!
![preview Evolution of Apple Products (2001 2011) [Infographic]](http://media02.hongkiat.com/apple-evolution-infographic/preview.jpg "Evolution of Apple Products (2001 2011) [Infographic]")
Ever wonder the invention date of your iPod? Well, it’s 2001! Not only iPod, in this infographic you will get to know every famous product that Apple has released in these 11 years.
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Water is beautiful, but creating its effect digitally from scratch can be dreadful, due to the complexity you have to deal with. However, there are always time when you, as a professional, have to create the water effect, be it for personal use or commercial project.
(Image Source: Morteque)
Well, the good news is that there are always hope for you, and the hope is always come from the Internet. Knowing the difficulty of water effect creation, many passionate designers have gone so far to create tutorials and wonderful resources to aid you in achieving artistic and realistic water effect.
In this post we have compiled a list of water effect tutorials that show you the brilliant ways to create water effects ranged from droplets to rain to waterfalls. At the end of the tutorial section we also got Photoshop brushes for you to even speed up your creation process, so take a jump and get them all!
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In this generation, we prefer to tell our stories through the lens of a camera than through the complexities of the written word. It’s either that or we just forgot how to spell words properly. Then again, nothing explains the serenity of a blue sky or the grace of a galloping horse quite like having that moment locked in time – be it by a DSLR or a point and shoot.
That kind of explains why almost everyone knows a photographer, or is one nowadays. Much like the art of photography, the art of giving also needs sources of inspiration. Forget the thousand-dollar lenses or the hundred-dollar filters; try your luck with the following gift ideas for the avid photographer. And even if the receiver isn’t a fan of photography now, you could very well turn him or her into one, with these awesome gifts.
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In the first part of our iOS tutorial I took you through a guided tour of the iPhone app development. We got a deeper look at Xcode 4, and also took a very short tutorial on building iPhone app. The beginner tutorial was written for anyone who is looking to get into programming iOS apps.
Today, we’ll get into the second segment of the topic, where we will be building a fully-functioning iPhone application. The app, with a tabbed navigation, will convert temperature units and distance units. Don’t worry if you’re still new to the Xcode. It does not take very long time to comfortably adapt into the interface. I’ll be explaining each step in detail so you shouldn’t get lost, either!
At the end of the tutorial you will get an application which can’t be pushed into the iPhone since it will need you to purchase developer program, but we can run it inside the iOS Simulator on a Mac OS X system. I’ve offered the project files for download which you can also refer when you are not sure about certain step. So you want an app, let’s get started!
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How many of us had the time when you were covertly playing certain game on your workplace’s desktop, only to reflexively press Alt + Tab button at the first hint of your boss? If you are slower by a second or two, your boss would’ve caught you and gave you a good work ethic lecture.
(Image Source: Fotolia)
Well, it’s not uncommon for employers to frown upon such distractions, but what about Facebook minus the games? Can employees still work productively if they are allowed to use it freely? Also, more than games, the Facebook gives you an outlet to express yourself to others while you are stressed at work. To put simply, can it be a truly effective tool for work-stress management? We’ll discuss about this.
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RSS feed logo is one of most commonly used logo in web design, due to the function it referred. You saw many tutorials on drawing the RSS feed logo using graphic software like Photoshop, but how about drawing it purely using CSS3? Yeap, you heard me :-)
In this opportunity I would like to show you the easy way to create a standard RSS feed logo with just CSS3, so follow the tutorial with comprehensive steps and graphics to get your first CSS3 feed logo!
Here’s a preview of what you’ll be creating in a minute. You can also download the source files at the end of the tutorial.
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When the first iPhone was released it took the tech world by storm. Since then it has been almost 5 years and the smartphone market has ramped up in popularity, with even the Microsoft has gotten into the competition with its Windows 7 OS and partners. With so many Internet users on their smartphone nowadays, it’s common sense to expect the number of mobile website to increase aggressively.
(Image Source: Web Design for Mobile)
However, designing for the mobile web is a completely different operation with common web design. Our websites are designed for huge screen, but the smartphone’s screen size is way too small compared to that, thus leading to annoying usability issues. New design standards and practices are greatly required for a better mobile site design with smooth user experience.
In this guide we’ll be looking to design a user-friendly site for smartphone’s mobile browsers. I will be talking about the best practices and useful developer tool for you to design a better mobile website, so let’s get into it after jump!
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Say you’re starting a new online shopping site, and you imported thousands of products. Now you need to tag and categorize them, a job which seems tedious and will take many hours of work. You could do it all by yourself, or you could outsource it to crowd, and the action of outsourcing a task to the undefined public is recognized as crowdsourcing.
In crowdsourcing, you can outsource the task to not only a small group of person, but also tens of thousands of people. That’s the genuine advantage of the crowdsourcing, bringing in mass intelligence to solve problems of all kinds with affordable price. The question is, is it really intelligent to use crowdsourcing? What are the tasks well suited for crowdsourcing? What are the quality crowdsourcing services?
In this particular post, there’s gonna be an answer for all these questions. Full discussion after jump!
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Just as freelance bloggers like me face writer’s blocks, freelance designers also experience their creative blocks from time to time. It can be extremely frustrating especially when you’re running out of time to submit your work to the client. There you are, staring hard at your project, hoping that somehow or rather, your original design idea would magically pop up in your mind.
(Image Source: Fotolia)
Well, rather than waiting for that to happen, there are certain things you can do to facilitate the process. Sometimes all you need to do is take your attention off the problem, and voilà, a great idea jumps into your head! The question is, what should you do as you draw your focus away from the issue?
Below are some quality tips I have gathered to help you break free from such a block, have them applied well to get your creativity back!
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So you’ve got your resume noticed, confidently answered the top ten interview questions and your dream company is offering you a job offer. Your heart leaps with joy and you can’t wait to sign the contract in a week’s time. At the back of your mind though, there’s this persistent question lingering. You can’t help but ask yourself, wait, is this the right job for me?
(Image Source: Fotolia)
It’s normal to have such doubts, especially when you know that half or even more than half of your life will change once you accept a new job. Your decision will affect the way you spend eight hours or more at work for at least five days a week. It’s no kidding matter. For one thing, you must question some of the most fundamental aspects of work and see if they will eventually meet your needs and wants.
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Since 1980s, the art form created by pouring steamed milk into a shot of espresso, or so called latte art, has been widely welcomed within the modern society, which thirsts for elegance and beauty. With the strong need of the society, the Baristas, coffeehouse bartenders, have sought for creativity and evolution for the latte art since then, resulting in plethora of patterns and even variants in the industry.
(Image Source: R. E.)
Why latte art? It’s just not only about showing the artistic talent of the baristas, but making the latte more visually appealing, sexy, and apparently more delicious. And for this post, we’re gonna deliver you 40 very delicious examples of the latte art. No words, no description, just the art. Enjoy them and if you’re like me, you might feel the aroma floated from these charming examples!
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Apple has been a leading industry in the mobile world for years with its iPhone and iPad series. Despite the hype it can create with every official release like iOS 5, it’s also holding a large portion of market shares in the mobile platform, and this is probably the reason that most clients will want their app to exist in the Apple’s app store, thus becoming the reason for developers to learn and build the iPhone app.
(Image Source: Apple Developer)
The good news is, iPhone application development is not as hard as you might think, and this post exists as a comprehensive guide to walk you through the complete process of building an application for iPhone. We’ll be discussing the reasons, phases, and tools for developing the app, and ultimately you will follow an easy tutorial to design the basic iPhone application using the Xcode 4.2.
So whether you’re learning for business or you just have an amazing app idea that might make you a millionaire, let’s get started on building your first iPhone app!
Note: You will need a computer with Macintosh Operating System (Mac OS) for Xcode installation, application development and app submission, there’s no way you can do it on Windows legally.
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In the good Ol’ days, Flash rules the multimedia application on the web, but the arrival of HTML5 changes everything. Although the web generally agrees that Flash and HTML5 have their own advantages and specialties, in fact we’ve seen more websites are implementing HTML5 instead of Flash, even for web games. Cool features of HTML5 like Canvas, Audio and Video elements make the web gaming possible without Flash, and you do not even need the plugin to play the game!
To show the true gaming potential of HTML5, we’re gonna show you 40 interesting and addictive web games including Angry Birds for you, and they’re all powered by HTML5! Get ready to spend few minutes or an hour to have fun with all of them. Free games after jump!
Note: Latest version of Google Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer are strongly recommended for playing the games.
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