Freelancefolder

Making Your Code as Beautiful as the Design Itself

Posted March 2, 2010 in Productivity, Programming 88 Rockin' Comments »

A website’s design gets all the glory. When someone visits a site, you’ll hear them talk about how awesome the design is–but, do you ever hear someone talk about how awesome the code is? Never!

Regular people can’t see code, nor do they care to see it or what it looks like. It’s precisely this reason that there’s so much ugly code in the web world today. People don’t see it so developers don’t believe that clean code is important, but it is.

It’s quite rare to find a clean coded site, even from huge companies who should have the budget to pay for a good developer. However, it’s just as important to have beautiful code as it is to have a beautiful design.

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A Beginner’s Guide to Web Development

Posted January 8, 2010 in How-To, Programming 39 Rockin' Comments »

The web development field offers a variety of languages from front-end development, like HTML, CSS and Javascript, to back-end programming, like PHP, ASP and Ruby on Rails. So how do you start learning how to code?

In this post, I want to offer a variety of great tips on beginning your journey to learning web code. At the end of the post, I want to share a simple site structure with you to get started in HTML and CSS.

I’ll focus on HTML and CSS in this article. HTML and CSS are the most basic web languages that everyone must learn before they can move on to another web language. Even if you plan to do all backend programming, you’ll still need to use them often.

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10 Ways To Increase Traffic By Changing Your Code

Posted December 1, 2009 in How-To, Programming 53 Rockin' Comments »

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a very complicated science. While no one knows exactly how Google ranks websites, we do have a lot of proven techniques.

Good SEO depends on several factors in your website, but when you usually think of SEO, you probably think of dealing with content and inward links. But did you know that there are several ways to improve your traffic and SEO by changing your code? Increasing traffic and rankings in code depends on three factors:

• Semantics – It’s been debated, but it seems Google gives higher rankings to validated sites, plus there’s less chance for major errors that can cause browser rendering or download issues that could turn visitors off.
• Download times – Users don’t leave your site because it’s taking 20 minutes to download-plus it’s easier for search engines to spider.
• Keywords – Just like regular SEO, it’s important to get those pertinent keywords into your code for good rankings.

Let’s take a look at how you can use all three of these to easily improve your site’s code, traffic and even your SEO rankings.

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20 Must-Read Blogs for Freelance Developers

Posted July 2, 2009 in Programming, Tools/Resources 30 Rockin' Comments »

With all of the other must-read lists here on freelance folder, I don’t think it would be fair to leave out the amazing developers who are regular readers. This post contains 20 must-read blogs for freelance developers, from php to jquery, ruby on rails, css and general web development.

With all of the regular articles and tutorials being posted on these blogs, it’s easy for a beginner developer (or even a designer who’s dabbling with the idea of becoming a developer) to learn a ton of useful information. I personally subscribe to all of these sites and have learned more in the past few months that I think I ever have in my life. They’re definitely worth the RSS subscriptions — trust me, you won’t regret it.

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7 Fresh and Simple Ways to Test Cross-Browser Compatibility

Posted February 25, 2009 in Programming, Web Design 181 Rockin' Comments »

This post is written for designers, developers, or anyone else who has struggled with testing their websites across multiple browsers.

As little as one year ago, there were almost no good options for testing cross-browser compatibility of websites. The tools out there usually had significant drawbacks — either in cost, capabilities, or time required. Lately, though, there have been a lot of newcomers to the browser testing world, some of which offer truly excellent services.

In this article we’ve listed 7 fresh and simple tools for cross-browser compatibility testing, tools that actually make this stuff pretty easy. Not only that, but every single one of these tools can be used for free.

#1 — Xenocode Browser Sandbox

The Xenocode Browser Sandbox is a game-changer for browser testing on Windows-based machines. With a single click of your mouse you can have an open and working browser without any installation. You can test in various IE versions, Firefox, Google Chrome, and even Safari. And really test, too, not just screenshots. To top everything off, the entire service is provide free of charge. Zip, nadda, nothing.

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16 Tutorial And Resource Sites For Web-Design And Web-Dev Addicts

Posted September 10, 2008 in Programming, Tools/Resources, Web Design 18 Rockin' Comments »

In order to stay at the top of their game, designers need to always work on sharpening their skills and learn new techniques and tricks. Fortunately for us there are tons of tutorial and resource sites out there to help us do just that! So I thought I’d make a list of my favorite ones. I know you probably already know many of these sites, but they’re my faves!

Of course, feel free to add to the list! Which ones are your faves?

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Giving Away 250 Beta Invites To ThemeForest

Posted August 13, 2008 in Lifestyle, News, Programming, Web Design 20 Rockin' Comments »

I’m sure if you are a designer or developer you’ve heard of Envato – the company behind massively successful sites like FlashDen or PSDTUTS and NETTUTS.

FlashDen – an open marketplace where you can sell and buy Flash components – has been around for about 2 years and they recently launched AudioJungle which is just like FlashDen but for audio. Hey, why stop there?

They are launching a brand new website soon called Theme Forest and it’s in beta right now. Huge thanks to Collis we have 250 beta invites to give away! :) [Click Here to Read More...]

I Really Need to Find It!!! Resources And Tools For (pretty much) Everything

Posted June 14, 2008 in Graphic Design, Programming, Tools/Resources, Web Design, Writing 23 Rockin' Comments »

I am constantly looking for resources and places to go for fonts, articles, ideas and jobs. I asked Jon if I was the only one and he said no, we’re probably all like that. So I figured I should share some of the sites I have used and abused. These sites are all easy to navigate, and offer a wide range of services and resources. Whether you are in need of a new font or medical insurance that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, its here.

This list is, of course, far from being complete! Please feel free to add to the list by leaving a comment! :) [Click Here to Read More...]

Interview With Adrian Diaconescu of Rubiqube – We Talk About Design, Blogging and Freelancing

Posted May 22, 2008 in Inspiration, Programming, Web Design 11 Rockin' Comments »

Hey folks, I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Adrian Diaconescu of Rubiqube. In this interview we talk design, blogging and freelancing. Enjoy! :)

Jon: Hi Adrian, thanks a lot for taking the time for this interview. Can you tell our readers a little about yourself? Where you’re from, what you do?

Adrian: Like I said, Jon, I’m a big fan of Freelance Folder and it’s really an honor for me to be considered for an interview. Thanks!

Since I started freelancing, this has become my “freelancing pick-up line”: My name is Adrian Diaconescu and I’m a freelance (web) designer based in Bucharest, Romania. I do a bit of everything (Flash animation, web programming, design for print), but my strong point is designing for the web. Lately I started to specialize in Wordpress custom theme design.

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