Aja Lapus

Tag: beginning

  • On Freelancing

    Everyone has to start somewhere, right? I know I started markup programming since I was 14 years old. Now, I think I have the skills and knowledge to make money from it. Well, actually, I knew months back that I could start making money with my work but I really do not know where to start. One major thing that stopped me was my lack of skills in image manipulation and design — I just do my XHTML really good. And since I thought possible customers were more into design than markup, I stopped a while until I have the skills — the skills that I still do not have that much even right now.

    Then I have encountered XHTMLized. There I saw an opportunity that I could just make the XHTML out of the customers’ designs that they can’t turn into beautiful markup. I have done this for a volunteer work with TomWeb on the UST Nursing website and with my friends’ blogs, and now I know I could do this for a fee.

    XHTMLized starts their service at $149 — that is PhP7600 on the average! Wow! I can not make that money even with my 4 months’ allowance! Now I am definitely starting my career!

    Well, I still won’t stop volunteer work for my school [TomWeb] and for my college [ESC WebTeam] and for my close friends, but for other people that need me: I am going to think about how much it would cost first. 🙂

    I know I’ve done free service a lot in the past few years but please consider that I am in dire need of finances right now. And, if I am not going to start making this as a career, I may not be able to start making this as one in the future. I need support for this from you [my friends and readers], maybe you could refer me to anyone who wants to build a business out of a website [those are usually the ones willing to pay for good design and markup] or someone who has just a lot of money and wants a good XHTML+CSS design.

    Here are my specifications about my work that may be of interest to those who are thinking of availing my services:

    • I use XHTML 1.0 Strict, unless the design restricts me to do so then I’d use the Transitional DTD.
    • I use XHTML purely for content, using CSS for design.
    • I would accept designs in almost any image format [JPEG, GIF, PNG, preferably PSD for Adobe Photoshop].
    • I would also accept designs in HTML or XHTML that the owner wants to be cleaned up for better Search Engine Optimization and accessibility [for text-only browsers and screen readers].
    • I would make the XHTML look similar [there is no same in rendering between different browsers] in major browsers — Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Mozilla Suite, Netscape Browser; and if possible, Camino and Safari.

    I do not intend to compete with those people at XHTMLized. I just want to start my career. Besides, I’ve linked them twice already — my thank-you’s for giving me the idea.

    Here are my details if ever you wanted to contact me privately; or just post a comment below if you don’t mind telling it in public.

    Thank you!
    — Aja Lorenzo Lapus, freelance programmer.

  • Neophyte

    After learning so much HTML and CSS, I felt like I was ready for something more, something dynamic. I became interested in server-side scripting (one is PHP) but was unable to learn it myself because of its natural complexity compared to markup languages. I know its tag starts with <?php and ends with ?> but nothing more except for the obvious if-else statements. I think that is one reason I joined TomWeb for they told me beforehand that I need to learn ASP (another server-side scripting language) from their 35-hour (plus) training.

    I’ve been blogging and making websites for so long. I already knew WordPress long before the time came that I was able to use it. I have been using Blogger for those months without WordPress that its very people-friendly interface made everything a snap for me. But like what I have said earlier, I need something more than just HTML. I happened to be a self-proclaimed technophile, now I know I still have much to learn. When I was trying to utilize every feature of WordPress after I had it installed, I bumped in to something familiar and unfamiliar at the same time — PHP.

    This new domain I’ve bought is a very good experience for me. It helps me develop my interests and, of course, my knowledge about things going around the Web. It also rekindles my interest in self-studying PHP. Well, I don’t know any more reason why it is a very good experience; I just don’t want to terminate this paragraph so soon. 😆

    So, yeah, I am a technophile and a neophyte at the same time. I hope you have no problems figuring that out. I, for one, have none. 🙂

    I think this would be a good quotation: Everyone has to begin somewhere, so… begin.

    And, by the way, I have finished the primary template for this web log. I just haven’t finished its comments part. And since I so love comments, I will postpone template change until I figured out how its PHP code works so I could put it in the new template. 🙂