by divinemisscopa

So what is freelancing really? Back in the day of kings and queens, everyone served the king. Even the nobility served the monarchy and the lesser of these nobles, knights served him as soldiers in the military.

Some of these knights, through great acts of bravery or other means, were able to secure their freedom and serve as hired soldiers. These men, masters of the art of war and use of the lance, were named freelancers. Literally, gun for hire.

Today, the term freelancer is use more mundanely in reference to writers, designers, developers, etc. While the modern day freelancer is less martial in nature, they still represent an important concept, Personal Freedom. They have broken away from a norm, the employer / employee relationship, in favor of personal responsibility and expansion.

While this may sound romantic right now, becoming a freelancer is a real life decision that can impact you and those around you in a very real way. It’s important to look at the whole picture so you can make an informed decision.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of freelancing.

The Cons:

1. Less Scale. A large company can afford to do more because of scale. While your old company is buying new furniture at a huge price break, you’re on your own buying at full price. You’re alone in every expense. Sure you don’t have to spend gas on the morning commute, but you don’t have the company car. You don’t necessarily have access to others with knowledge either. Before you could walk down the hall and Berry could answer any JavaScript question you had. Today, you have to ask on forums or read a book.
2. Less Vacation. There is no such thing as a paid vacation. If you’re not working, you’re not making money. In fact vacations will come less often and be shorter. If you’re not careful vacations won’t be as fun because you will have work still in the back of you mind.
3. Less Stability. You get work when you get it and you don’t have deep pockets to hold you over that lull in work like the old job did for you. You’ll end up spending 30%-50% of your time marketing yourself just to keep the work coming.
4. More Responsibility. You don’t get to sleep in whenever you want. You don’t get to take a sick day to watch your kid rock out at her band’s first gig. The buck stops with you, there is no wiggle room. You make all the decisions and take the credit whether the results are good or bad.

The Pros:

1. Freedom of Projects. No longer will you have to attempt to write exciting and sales inspiring copy for that project you didn’t like to begin with. If you don’t like a potential customer’s product line or stance on an issue, you can simply turn them down.
2. Freedom of Time. This is a miss-conceptualized topic among many. You don’t get more lazy time as a freelancer, you just more choice in how you spend your productive time. If you just like the cubical, then buy yourself one. If you like to work in open spaces, drive over to the park and work among the birds and squirrels.
3. Freedom of Funds. You decide where the revenue goes. You can combine work and pleasure for business tax breaks. Get a client in your old home town and a trip home becomes a business trip with tax perks. Want to donate some of your efforts to a non-profit, now you have the choice of which organization gets your assistance.
4. Freedom to Move. If you work it right, you can have clients from all around your country, or even the world allowing you to live wherever you like. No longer must you live on the north side of town because that’s where the office is, you can live where you want.
5. Freedom to Expand. Grow your knowledge where you want, not where the boss wants. Before the boss liked PHP and that’s what you “liked” too. As a freelancer you can learn Ruby and actually produce paying projects with it.

The general gist of this article can be summed up as follows. Can you break out of the employee mindset? If you try to freelance and think like an employee at the same time, you will fail.

Freelancer’s are just people who are willing to take on responsibility for every aspect of their life and the freedom they gain from that outweighs the down side of that responsibility.

This is something you must look deep within yourself and determine. Are you willing to take ownership of yourself? There is no right answer, just different answers. If you like to sleep in, feel you have the right to free time and stability, then you don’t need to freelance.

Do you understand the balance between responsibility and freedom? Do you have the internal drive to be successful without someone pushing you? If so, then you should consider the freelance way of life.

I’ve been working like a maniac trying to keep up with the deluge of new projects and new clients. One of my clients works for AT&T, yeah! The New AT&T, the one doing all the cool stuff like releasing the iPhone first, renaming Cingular and releasing U-verse to an ever growing customer base.

Because of my connections established within the company, I’ve been receiving product information at an alarming rate. I’m under several agreements that will prevent me from talking about certain AT&T topics to early, but from now on, I will be posting about those topics as soon as I’m allowed.

Let’s get started with the iPhone. First of all, there is no waiting list. That’s right, first come, first serve. Also, many people have been wondering why Apple went with AT&T Wireless to release the iPhone exclusively. The answer is public perception.

AT&T Wireless, formally known as Cingular, has always been an “A” credit service. Customers must have excellent credit or be subject to hefty deposits, often as much as $750. How does that matter you ask, a phone is a phone is anyone’s hands right? The iPhone has a hefty price tag and most initial users are going to be well-to-do business professionals, or at least someone who’s daddy is a well-to-do business professional. Why not release the product to a customer base who already fit the bill.

There’s another reason which comes to mind, that is the public perception of the company. Most consumers are conscious of the amazing growth that AT&T has just undergone. You might harbor company loyalty in different industries, but AT&T has been part of the American dream for a very long time. As an associate of mine likes to say, the American dream is Baseball, Apple pie and AT&T.

AT&T lost that luster for a while, but now, under the leadership of Ed Whiticre, the company has grown faster than the PC industry. The Bells have been brought back together again, a Hurculian feat. People want to be part of legends and Ed Whiticre’s AT&T has become one.

Lest there be any doubt who is helping who… the AT&T brand is more powerful today than Apple will ever attain.

Further Reading

• AT&T Wireless
• Apple iPhone
• Digg for iPhone

Mrs. Cotton soon pulled the race card even though several of the school officials recommending that her daughter be delt with, are black themselves.

Needless to say, the NBPP soon arrived to fill the courthouse lawn with shouts.

You can check out the New Black Panther Party for yourself online, but brace yourself for some very strange mixtures of socialism, Islam, Black Pride and general racism.

Also check out the Paris News article. And an idiotic article in the Chicago Tribune as well.

If you are a Digger, check out this cool comment about the issue.

Click for larger image.

My personal favorite is the iPod Concerto Table by Lovegrove & Repucci.

• Lovegrove & Repucci
• TechBlog

Prince Released his album “Crystal Ball” exclusively online in 1997, an industry first. Long before iTunes or MySpace, Prince used the internet to promote, debut videos, build fan relationships and distribute music.

The converted 747 dropped its payload of 20,500 gallons of water at an altitude of 500 feet, flying at 180 MPH.

The super tanker can fly faster, higher and farther than current planes in use and drop seven times more water.

Direct Link to NASA

Apparently, someone at DARPA did and designed and patented a “controllable launcher”.

The patent abstract reads:

“A controllable launcher for propelling a payload through a predictable and repeatable trajectory to a desired height. The launcher has an energy source for propelling a carriage and a piston in substantially opposing directions and a controller for controlling the trajectory of the propelled payload to enable the payload to land gently at a safe impact distance from the edge of a destination structure.”

I bet medieval kings would have given their right hand for one of these.

• NewScientist.com
• US Patent Office Listing
• Morning Orbit

Just wanted to give a shout out saying that updates are coming soon, including posts about:

• Explaining Google’s Orkut
• Fresh Logic Studio’s Atlas
• The Aiken Flat Screen Television from 1951
• Much, Much More….

The basic premises is to compare item prices while shopping, not a new idea for sure, but PriceHeat does something interesting. They have used Amazon.com as a catalyst for the online shopper.

You simply add a link to your links bar on your browser and go shopping at Amazon. Once you find an item you like, simply click the PriceHeat link and you are presented with not only Amazon’s price, but the prices from competitors. Sometimes Amazon is cheapest, some times not, but you always find the best deal.

I did a search on Amazon.com for Achtung Baby by U2. $12.98 isn’t so bad for a CD, but with PriceHeat I found that Walmart had the exact some album for only $9.72

• PriceHeat.com
• PriceHeat Blog
• Zulu Review