My top 6 secrets to succeed as a freelancer

After two years of working as a freelancer on Scriptlance.com and successfully completing over 100 projects,  I’ve been able to settle on a number of very important values and keys to succeed as a freelancer. Although they are not true secrets but they are very important things to always bear in mind while working as a freelancer.

My top freelance secrets

Here are my top 6 secrets to succeed as a freelancer:

1. Communication is KEY:
   • As most of the work we do as freelancer is with people we don’t meet, it’s very important to keep a very good level of open communication with them. I believe this is the most important value to consider, and here some quick tips for using it effectively: Read more >>

WordPress 3.0 vs. Joomla: Round 2

After writing my article Where Joomla beats WordPress, I noticed that some readers commented saying that with the release of the new version of WordPress 3.0 the battle will have a different outcome in favor of WordPress.

So, I decided to wait until WP 3.0 has been officially released to be able to do another comparison and see who wins this time.

Wordpress vs. Joomla: Round 2

Here are the new winner features in WordPress 3.0 that gives it the upper hand over Joomla:

Read more >>

Escaping the maintenance mode trap :: WP Quick tip 6

It happened to me once and it almost drove me crazy.

I was upgrading some plugins via the automatic plugin upgrade feature and something wrong happened to my internet connection and when I tried to open my site, I got an error message says” Maintenance Mode”

I did everything I could to solve this problem but no good, and I was left clueless thinking that my site was gone.

What caused the Maintenance Mode Problem?

After doing a lot of online search I discovered that while doing automatic upgrades WordPress creates a .maintenace file that get disabled after the process is successful, however, when things go wrong during this process, the file isn’t removed and it prevents you from accessing your site.

Solution:

Going to your site files using ftp and delete the .maintenance file found in the WordPress root/base folder and everything should be back to normal.

Maintenance Mode

Hope you enjoy that.

WordPress 3.0 Thelonious is here now!

I’ve just been notified that the official release of WordPress 3.0 named “Thelonious “  is finally here!

Here is a video that tells you all about the new features and cool things it offers.

Watch it and enjoy!

N.B.:

Did you upgrade yet?

I usually like to upgrade automatically from the WP Dashboard automatic upgrade, however I like to do two things before actually upgrading.
1. Backup my database
2. Try it out onto my test projects to make sure nothing breaks, and then I upgrade my live sites. ( I know hundreds of people have been testing it for months, but I just like to be safe than sorry!)

I guess now it’s time to make a second review on the comparison between WordPress and Joomla to see who wins this time!

My favorite Resources for learning WordPress

To keep up-to-date with WordPress’ ever evolving and growing knowledge I have to stay tuned to a large number of favorite sites which I will talk about briefly here, and I urge you to visit them if you’re into WordPress like me.

1. Css-tricks.com: My personal favorite site which I spend hours every week checking for new articles, watching the famous video screen casts which offer in-depth teaching for various topics including WordPress. You will also love the code snippets part and the very live Forum. Managed by Chris Coyer, who is doing a wonderful job!
   

   css-tricks.com

Read more >>

Protect your health while using computers

Being a very keen computer user I have started to suffer from a lot of health-related problems like eye strain and dryness, backache, pain in the hands and arms, neck ache, and I am sure a lot you who share the love for computers might be suffering from the same problems.

Today I found a very nice video that was presented in the Wordcamp 2010 in San Francisco by John Ford, and it truly amazed me, exactly what i was looking for, giving very useful tips on how to preserve your health and stay healthy while using computers, so I thought I would share it with you here on my blog so more of you could see and benefit from the very valuable advice he gives in it.

Please, share your opinions and comments about it below.

Have a healthy life and take care of your bodies.

Mamdouh