Freelance

SnipCart Project Highlighted

Sackwear.com, a Craft & SnipCart project I completed late last year, is this month's featured project on the SnipCart blog. The website was designed by Tim McGrath, Design Director & Partner of 3 Advertising.

I appreciated the ease of integration on this project. I was able to use Craft to manage my data and Snipcart to offload the shopping cart & checkout functionality. They worked very well together.

Read the full post on the SnipCart blog

Filed Under: Freelance, MediaGirl

Clean CSS

CleanCSS is a powerful CSS optimizer and formatter that takes your CSS code and makes it cleaner and more concise.

It works by automatically merging the same selectors and properties and returns to you well-formed CSS code. Clean CSS isn't a validator and won't spot your coding errors so make sure your code is valid first by using the W3C Validator.

CleanCSS is available in English, German and French.

Filed Under: Coding, Freelance, Tools

Project Management

Someone recently posted this list of project management tool to an email list that I'm on. I haven't used any of the tools so don't have much to add but it will give you a starting place if you are needing a project management software.

Project Management Tools

3f Project Management
Web based systems for online project management available either as a hosted solution or for self hosting.

Achievo
Achievo is a flexible web-based free project management tool for small to medium businesses. The Achievo software is open source, and built to be fully adjustable to company requirements.

Basecamp
Web based systems for online project management.

GoPlan
Web based online project management. Manage multiple projects with Goplan's intuitive user interface. All projects are accessible from your dashboard, next to your tasks, issues and calendar events.

Celoxis
Celoxis is a web based project management software which includes a complete management, tracking and collaboration platform. Celoxis is available either as a hosted solution or for self hosting.

Copper
Copper is a web-based project management software solution designed to help organizations collaborate and manage client information, projects, tasks, files, contacts and calendars.

Dovico
Easily manage time and expenses through this web based (Installed or Hosted Online) solution.

Easy Project
Web based project management, task tracking and project collaboration software system.

Elemen Tool
Elementool is a provider of web based project management tools for help desk, bug and defect tracking and time tracking tools.

eProject
Project Management Software & Web Based Project Tracking Tools

Project Perfect
Project Administrator is is a project management software tool that covers all the areas of Project Management that Microsoft Project doesn't. In other words, it covers everything except the schedule. It is not meant to compete with Microsoft Project or project tracking software. It complements and integrates with a scheduling tool such as Microsoft Project.

Same-Page eStudio
Same-Page eStudio provides software for project management, document management, online calendars and contact management that improves workflow and enhances communication between workgroups and clients.

Vertabase
Vertabase Pro features include advanced resource planning, project tracking, time tracking, project dashboards and comprehensive document management.

Wrike
A web-based collaboration tool for task management and project manangement.

QuickBase
QuickBase is a scalable, Web-based project management software from Intuit.

Lighthouse Pro
Lighthouse Pro is a complete Software Development Management (SDM) system which brings togetherall of the tools used to manage software projects in a web-based interface. Their Pro version is free

OpenDen Project Management Software List
A detailed list of open source project management software

DotProject
An open source project management tool.

activeCollab
activeCollab is an easy to use, web based, open source collaboration and project management tool.

Filed Under: Freelance, Tools

LogMeIn.com

A few years ago, I elected to start working on a desktop machine instead of a laptop. This change was great because of the benefits... faster machine, larger monitor, etc. However, when I had to travel, I always struggled with loading all my current project files onto my laptop. Also, I had to move email, contacts, passwords, software... basically everything. This was always a nightmare and inevitably involved me forgetting something important behind.

Just before Thanksgiving before leaving on a trip to Telluride, I decided to look for remote desktop software that would allow me to log into my desktop to grab files or complete any quick tasks. I tested several services out and was pretty disappointed with the results. Then I came upon LogMeIn, which ended up being exactly what I was looking for in remote access software. The best part is it was free!

Here's a quick Flash demo

Now when I travel, I leave my desktop computer on and log into it whenever I need to access a contact, get a password and, if the Internet connection I'm using is fast enough, I can even do work.

Also, I recently found another use for the service... I have clients or other programmers log into my machine when it's more helpful if we are looking at the same content, code or whatever. This is great for demos, training, website reviews, etc.

I've found one limitation and one concern with LogMeIn... The limitation is that only one person at a time can log into my machine remotely at a time so I can't do group training. The concern is that I have no way to remotely reboot my machine if I'm traveling and it turns off somehow.

All in all, I'm very impressed with LogMeIn's free account and suggest the service 100%!

Filed Under: Freelance, Tools

Web Design Contracts

Here is a list of free contracts that I found for website design & related services. Make sure you go through and customize the text to reflect how you do business.

These contracts are perfect for small design agencies, freelancer designers and freelance programmers.

1. Wilson Web Design Contract
2. Independent Contractor's Agreement
3. Web Development Agreement
4. Website Design Contract
5. 4 Sample Web Design Contracts
6. Website Design & Maintenance Contracts
7. Web Site Design contract

Filed Under: Freelance, Tools