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Category: Workflow

Posts in this category present useful tools and resources for a professional developer’s toolbox. The section also contains useful round-ups, tutorials, tips and freelancing-related articles that will help you improve your workflow and daily routine.

Popular tags in this category: Freelance, Tutorials, Tools, CMS, Jobs.

Getting Clients: Approaching The Company

Getting Clients: Approaching The Company

A defining factor in any freelancer or agency’s success in gaining new business is their ability to market their skills effectively. In this three-part series, we will explore ways in which designers can strategically promote themselves to get new clients. Securing new business by approaching companies can be a very ...

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Getting Started With Content Management Systems

Getting Started With Content Management Systems

The need to update websites faster to keep content fresh has been ever growing. Ever since the first business owner wanted their Web designer to update their website faster, content management systems have played an important role on the Web. Why does this matter to you? How do you know ...

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Invoice Like A Pro: Examples and Best Practices

Invoice Like A Pro: Examples and Best Practices

Your invoice should be prim and proper, so that you can get paid by your clients efficiently. While invoicing is not a fun task, it's a necessary one: by keeping clients informed of your expectations, you will get paid punctually and reinforce your professionalism. After going over some best practices ...

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Website Maintenance Tips for Front-End Developers

Website Maintenance Tips for Front-End Developers

One of the biggest advantages of online media over print is the ability to change, update, and enhance online media at virtually anytime, with virtually no negative side effects. In fact, if a website or web application does not continually offer its users an ever-evolving and growing experience, that site ...

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Web Conferences Roundup: Events from Around the Globe

Web Conferences Roundup: Events from Around the Globe

Each year, thousands of developers, designers, and programmers from around the world gather together at conferences and events to share ideas, promote the latest technologies, and discuss best practices, standards, and emerging trends in their respective fields. For those of us who have had the privilege to participate in one ...

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How To Identify and Deal With Different Types Of Clients

How To Identify and Deal With Different Types Of Clients

In business, being able to read people and quickly get a sense of who you're dealing with is an invaluable skill. It turns your encounter with a client into an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the upcoming project and how it will need to be handled. It is one ...

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How To Persuade Your Users, Boss or Clients

How To Persuade Your Users, Boss or Clients

Whether you are getting a client to sign off on a website’s design or persuade a user to complete a call to action, we all need to know how to be convincing. Like many in the Web design industry, I have a strange job. I am part salesperson, part consultant ...

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Freelance Contracts: Do’s And Don’ts

Freelance Contracts: Do’s And Don’ts

In the world of freelancing, the entrepreneur has to take on a number of tasks for themselves that would normally be handled by a separate department at a bigger company. Most of these tasks are not part of the creative processes that freelance workers are used to, but rather are ...

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How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism

How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism

Winston Churchill once said: "Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." Regardless of where you work or who you work for, being able to take criticism is part ...

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40+ Desert Island Web Development Tools

40+ Desert Island Web Development Tools

What would you do if you were suddenly stranded on a desert island in the middle of nowhere, with only a USB drive, a dial-up internet connection, and a barebones computer with no software outside the operating system installed? Of course, you'd use the internet connection to call for help ...

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SVN Server Admin Issue: Fix It!

SVN Server Admin Issue: Fix It!

A few months ago, Anton Isaykin in collaboration with the company 2comrades discovered a serious security problem that is quite typical of big projects (we do not name names here). To test it, they obtained the file structures and even the source code of about 3320 Russian websites and some ...

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How To Find Time For… Everything!

How To Find Time For… Everything!

Time management is one of the most important skills a freelance worker can learn. With a good time management system you can easily find the time to do the things that are important to you, whether in your professional or personal life.Successful time management can be challenging, especially to those ...

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Why Web Developers Don’t Need A Mac

Why Web Developers Don’t Need A Mac

As Web developers, we never stop hearing about the Mac. A lot of people love to talk about their Macs, but despite the “elite” status of the Apple computer, is there any need for a Web developer to splash money on one? A few weeks ago, Mark Nutter wrote here ...

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Five Reasons Why <del>Designers</del> Developers are Switching to Mac

Five Reasons Why Designers Developers are Switching to Mac

Designers and developers have many choices to make when it comes to getting work done, from what frameworks, languages, and image editing software to use, to what platform to run. The latter is an oft debated and controversial topic and the mere mention of it risks setting off flame ...

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Breaking: Internet Explorer 8.1 Eagle Eyes Leaked

Breaking: Internet Explorer 8.1 Eagle Eyes Leaked

Smashing Magazine tries to be at the forefront of new and exciting developments in the wide world of the web. You might have heard that we met with the IE 8 Chief Strategist in the past, so it should come as no surprise that we like ...

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35 Useful Source Code Editors Reviewed

35 Useful Source Code Editors Reviewed

To edit HTML- and CSS-code you only need a simple plaintext-editor — the rest depends on your skills and your creativity. However, to make your life a little bit easier, you can use some more comfortable source-code editors with advanced editing features. These features can effectively support you during coding, ...

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15 Useful Project Management Tools

15 Useful Project Management Tools

by Cameron Chapman There is a huge variety of project management applications out there. Most are general purpose apps, not aimed at any one industry. But there is a growing number of project management apps aimed specifically at one industry or another. Applications geared to creative types are becoming more readily ...

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10 Easy Steps To Advanced Photography Skills

10 Easy Steps To Advanced Photography Skills

By Trey Ratcliff (aka Stuck in Customs), one of the most famous and renowned HDR photographers on Flickr. In his article Trey describes some professional insights and useful photography tips that he collected over the years of his career. A camera does not work like an eye; film does not work ...

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Google PageRank: What Do We Know About It?

Google PageRank: What Do We Know About It?

Everybody is using it, but (almost) nobody really knows how it works. Google PageRank is probably one of the most important algorithms ever developed for the Web. With billions of existing pages and millions of pages generated every day, the search issue in the Web is more complex than you ...

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25 Useful WYSIWYG Editors Reviewed

25 Useful WYSIWYG Editors Reviewed

When it comes to coding editors, it’s damn hard to a get a clear overview of all the benefits and functionalities different editors have to offer. However, in the end everybody needs one, so it’s important to know which editor is best tailored to your personal needs. WYSIWYG-editors are often criticized ...

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15 Helpful In-Browser Web Development Tools

15 Helpful In-Browser Web Development Tools

There are many useful Web development tools that integrate in your browser. These in-browser tools are commonly known as add-ons or extensions. Though add-ons and extensions aren’t just for Web development, many of them out there are designed specifically for Web developers. In-browser tools vary greatly in the ...

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50 Useful Design Tools For Beautiful Web Typography

50 Useful Design Tools For Beautiful Web Typography

Typography is elegant when it is attractive and communicates the designer’s ideas. When chosen wisely and used carefully, it can be very effective in supporting the overall design. Designers are always exploring different techniques with type: some use images or sIFR to produce very beautiful typography, while others prefer CSS ...

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Online Generators

Online Generators

One can discuss whether web-generators are useful or not. On the one hand, they don’t challenge our creativity, but on the other hand they make our life easier and save our precious time. However, it doesn’t matter really. What matters is that we use them if we have to solve ...

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10 Weblog Engines Reviewed

10 Weblog Engines Reviewed

Choosing blogging software can be a scary process, especially if you are new to blogging. There are many different types of engines and content management systems (CMS) that could be used. Picking the software that you’ll need is not an easy task, given the wide variety and types on the ...

Read more... | 160 Comments
8 Useful Tips To Become Successful With Twitter

8 Useful Tips To Become Successful With Twitter

Twitter is the new big thing. With everybody from Britney Spears to Barack Obama now on Twitter, it is safe to say the social networking platform has gone mainstream. For many users worldwide Twitter has become a crucial tool for maintaining contacts, exchanging opinions and making new connections. But what ...

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The Ultimate Collection Of Free Vector Packs

The Ultimate Collection Of Free Vector Packs

Designers love freebies that make life easier and help them create higher-quality work. Free vectors are useful, free vector packs even more so. Fortunately, there are plenty of talented graphic designers who are willing to give away their work (or samples of it) to benefit the rest of us. In ...

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The Roadmap To Becoming A Professional Freelance Web Designer

The Roadmap To Becoming A Professional Freelance Web Designer

Becoming a freelance web designer is a common dream among many designers, although it takes quite a bit of talent, business savvy, committment, and time. With all there is to consider when becoming self-employed, one can become overwhelmed — enough to deter themselves from trying at all. Realizing many Smashing readers ...

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