I know, this post is long overdue. The seminar happened a few months ago. Also, I did not my own camera – so I got the pictures here from the photographers who took shots of the seminar. The RA9292 PDF is located within this post.

Last April 24, 2010, I was able to attend one of IECEP’s seminars, which was held here in Baguio City. IECEP stands for Institute of Electronic Engineers in the Philippines, an institution where one of its main goals is to keep registered electronics engineers in the Philipines keep abreast with the latest technological advancements in the field.

What is a lady programmer like me doing with these group of engineers?

IECEP seminar: Can you spot me in the picture?

If you have been poking around my site long enough or had read me through my about page, you might have read that I am an electronics engineer by profession. My past jobs earned me enough skills for me to do the job of a programmer and later, a web designer. However, this does not mean I was not able to practice pure electronics-related job throughout my career – I was once a maintenance engineer in a semiconductor company before I discovered the beauty of earning from blogs and freelancing.

For now, it seemed that the most active IECEP members are instructors: I got to meet again my former college instructors. I also saw several instructors from several universities and colleges in my place. That was expected, I thought. These instructors need to maintain their licenses to keep their jobs.

What really surprised me is that I met a former classmate: she turned out to be an instructor who is working at one of the colleges in the low lands.

The RA9292 Myths

One of the most interesting highlights of the talk was how the Philippine law known as RA9292 or “Electronics Engineering Law of 2004”. I was pleased that this was discussed (I am guessing that IECEP had been explaining this for the nth time to its members).

This Republic Act 9292 was known to have created a stir among Filipino electronics engineers. I heard various complaints in the internet and off the internet. In general I could cite these major myths that are going around:

Myth number 1: Licensed electronics and communications engineers were downgraded to electronics engineers. The name was changed to electronics engineer to reflect the ever-changing fields of electronics engineering. One of the most notable changes was that ICT (information and communications technology), aviation and maritime engineering fields were included. This change was not well defined in the previous act.

Those who finished related courses such as computer and mechatronics engineering must take the ECE board exam to be able to get the license and append the title of engineer to their full names.

Yay! I realized that I did not really got out of my field of expertise!

Myth number 2: Renewal of electronics engineering license is useless if you are into occupations that don’t need licenses. Not for long, as IECEP had already taken further steps to include electronics engineers as one of the signatories in building plans – alongside architects, civil engineers and sanitary engineers. also, there is that future plan to make electronics engineering license recognized not only in the country but on neighboring southeast asian countries as well. Soon enough, engineers working in private companies here in the Philippines need to hold licenses to be able to continue their work.

However, for those working overseas and don’t have plans to work in the Philippines soon, it’s not really practical to maintain this license. It’s best to get licensed from the chosen country of work.

Myth number 3: Don’t bother renewing your electronics engineering license – you need to sweat out CPE points for knowledge that may be unrelated to the job.

CPE point system had been implement in other courses for quite a while, and it is but normal to implement the same in electronics engineering. The purpose of this point system is to make sure that electronics engineers are updated with the technical developments in the field, not only in their field of expertise. Like as mentioned in the previous myth, it won’t be long before licensed electronics engineers becomes a requirement in any electronics engineering occupation.

Myth number 4: If you are in the IT (information technology) field, aviation, maritime and (insert the name of an electronics-related field here) fields, you don’t need to maintain the license. Not true. See myth number 1.

The “Electronics Engineering Act of 2004” is definitely an improvement over the previous RA 5734. It really defined well what electronics engineering is all about. Although I like this change, there are still some issues that IECEP must continuously look after:

1. Electronics engineering licenses are still useless except in occupations that require licensed engineers. In many private companies this is still true. I hope IECEP should take the necessary steps so that engineers hired in companies should truly be licensed engineers in the first place. These individual engineers too, should prepare and not wait and complain when they began to realize that they’d lose their jobs just because they aren’t licensed engineers.
2. As a result from item number one above, companies should let their engineers be trained for their additional CPE points. This means paid time away from their job and even paid expenses to the place of training!

newly elected IECEP officers - some of them are my former instructors

Electronics Engineers can go into self-employment!

Finally! I get paid for my signature – just like other professions. This is only true if I decide to upgrade my license to professional electronics engineer (PECE). Professional electronics engineers get to sign building plans like any other civil, geodetic and sanitary engineers: during the seminar I was able to see how those building plans look like, but the emphasis of the talk is that each PECE have to be very responsible in approving and signing their building plans, because the responsibility also falls on them.

This development is indeed great news, as it is another promising pathway for me to start a career on this area, in addition to, or as a replacement to my current job as a freelance web designing and blogger.

Download RA 9292 Electronics Engineering Act of 2004

Silence is golden.

It has been several months since I’ve published posts on any of my blogs. Although some of you might have noticed my brief updates through Plurk, Facebook or Twitter, I was not able to manage having time to create longer posts for any of my blogs.

March 2010: Dad got stroke

At the start of this month, just nearing the end of the Panagbenga festival, my father was suddenly down with stroke. This unfortunate incident definitely changed the way things are done at home. But that’s just the way life is: my parents are getting old and I suddenly realized that I have to assume the responsibility of being the sole breadwinner of the family.

Me and my dad

Ironically, a blessing that came after that is that I suddenly got lots of freelance work to do: I never ran of jobs to do up to this time. It was not also difficult for me to find new clients to work with.

I have been actively paying Philhealth contributions since I’ve established my freelance career, thus making me an active member. My dad was declared as my dependent in the first place, so my mom and I managed to get a good amount of discount from Philhealth (plus their senior citizen’s discount) from the total hospital bill.

Indeed, if are one home-based freelancer or blogger based in the Philippines, it is wise to continue Philhealth contributions. Philhealth contributions only cost P1200 each year or P100 per month. You’ll never know when unexpected situations arise.

April 2010: Meetup with Baguio’s Ruby on Rails Programmers

I was glad to meet some Ruby on Rails programmers – all from Baguio. I only knew one of them, Kat, at the beginning, but when I came to the meeting place I met the others: George, Dennis and Rad.

The group first met at a cafe, but since the order came too late we decided to eat dinner and discuss at a restaurant near Burnham Park.

These guys are into Ruby on Rails (ROR) programming but I am not. However, I am still grateful to Kat for warmly inviting me to this group (though I really wish I to have a photo opportunity with her; who wants her pretty face included in the picture?).

If not for the numerous projects and backlog blogging work I have these days, I will seriously consider learning ROR as I had learned that this skills this opens up better opportunities and higher hourly rates in freelancing.

Meetup with Rails Programmers, Kat took the picture

I strongly urge home-based workers to attend as many meet-up events as they can. It’s less lonely that way.

May 201o: attended an IECEP seminar

Some of you may get the initial impression that I finished a computer degree, but I did not. I actually graduated with a degree that’s related to that: electronics and communications engineering (ECE) – where the main focus of my course is on electronic circuits, communications equipment and a little on computer hardware. After graduation I was able to pass the licensure exams, so I’m holding a PRC license as an electronics and communications engineer.

My knowledge in computer was all from those years of work experience I had, as well as having near-perfect grades in my computer subjects. Some would say I should have taken IT course because I’m better at software programming but I did not regret the decision to pursue electronics and communications engineering instead.

One weekend I attended my very first seminar as an IECEP member. One of the speakers explained why electronics and communications engineers are now simply shortened as electronics engineers. The shortened name doesn’t mean that the scope of this profession is now limited: the implementation of R. A. 9292 (Electronics Engineering Law of 2004) widened the extent of this profession, such as the inclusion of ICT (information and communications technology) in which my freelance web designing and programming jobs are still applicable. Learning this, I am happy to know that I’m still practicing my profession as an electronics engineer.

Some would argue that the high cost of maintaining IECEP membership plus the PRC license isn’t worth pursuing these days; but I believe that in due time, this will change. I hope I’ll be able to get to the Electronics engineering license would become an internationally recognized license. For now, I simply maintain that license because I believe it gives me more leads to opportunities that may arise in the future.

New IECEP Officers

Oh and I met one of my college classmates and some of my college instructors and had a brief chat with them.

June 2010: Got an Acer Aspire 4740G Notebook

Because of my dad’s stroke, the way we do things as a family became different. One of the things I had to do is to try working away from home. I had been content in doing things using a desktop terminal for almost three years, but now I had to go out more often than before. I find myself being in the middle of many long hours of waiting and idle times when I am in town.

Since there are already many WiFi hotspots here in Baguio City as well as 3G/HSDPA signals for USB broadband internet, I decided to invest in more equipment so that I can take work outside.

Initially, I considered buying one of those lighter netbooks around. But I realized that I was already qualified to borrow salary and multipurpose loans from SSS and PAGIBIG respectively (like Philhealth, it is good practice to continue paying contributions to SSS and PAGIBIG to enjoy benefits such as loans). Those two amounts combined were enough for me to purchase a shiny Acer Aspire 4740G notebook that’s powerful enough for me to do web design jobs.

I decided not to get rid of my desktop computer since that equipment still remains to be my first choice in doing freelance jobs. My desktop is hooked to a 22-inch screen which allows me to easily view more details.

One big disadvantage of this laptop is that it is somewhat heavy to carry around. The laptop itself is around 2 kgs, but I’m carrying a laptop plus its bag so I must be carrying 3 kgs. This bulky laptop also makes me an easy prey to robbers: this puts me into a disadvantage in some places such as the public market.

Acer Aspire 4740G

My ideal laptop is the one that’s as powerful as notebooks and as light as netbooks; however, I think that laptop doesn’t exist yet in the computer marketplace.

I had been using the notebook outside of the home since I bought it and I am very happy that I made this decision. Having this laptop around surely made me more productive: those long hours of idle waiting times in town are put to good use – I can finally use those moments to update my blogs!

(I really hope this time there won’t be anyone trying to steal/rob me off these gadgets away from me – again!)

there’s more… I’ll write more on the IECEP and the Acer Aspire notebook in separate posts.

Being a freelance web designer is not something that I expected to land on. But during my early years I really have that strange deep interest in almost anything that involved computers. I am not surprised that even after taking up engineering and passing the boards for that, I still find myself doing IT-related jobs: these past few years I had been offering my services as a freelance web designer.

Many of my friends and strangers ask me: what have you been up to lately? I answer them – I do web design (but I am mostly concentrated on doing WordPress blogs). I also earn from blogs. All these I do full-time right in my home.

image credits to SuziJane

Some people expressed interest in learning web design – either from old friends that I find again in Facebook, or emails from strangers who drop by on this blog. There are also other freelancers who want to learn this skill because they are after the higher rates. In my personal opinion, it is possible to learn web designing to be a freelance web designer, but it is not that easy.

• HTML knowledge: This is actually the easiest part in learning web design. Many people could follow and even memorize HTML tags. Some could even go further into learning CSS. In addition to that, there are various software that help generate web pages such as Dreamweaver, MS Publisher and CoffeeCup HTML. Because this part is easy, some people have that misconception that web design is easy.
• Scripting: Debugging scripts is the reason why technical jobs in IT get higher pay, and IT freelancers are not an exception. Making JavaScripts, Flash, PHP and other programming languages work with web pages is not something for those who don’t like to play with code.
• Databases: Can you get inside mySQL databases or any other database if there’s some troubleshooting needed with the data? Are you able to make web pages work so that data entered by the user is stored into these databases?
• Graphic Design: Possessing graphic design skills is also important as this spells out the appearance of any website.

To be able to learn all that, one can opt to enroll in a full bachelor degree in IT or related courses which can take as long as four years, or simply go to computer schools and go after associate or diploma degrees (that teaches many of the fundamental skills and languages) which usually takes two years. It is also uncommon to find computer schools that offer 6-month courses (or less) on these skills.

One of the growing home-based jobs in the freelance industry are virtual office assistant jobs. These kind of jobs are generally involve doing administrative work such as data entry, customer service, email marketing, research, taking calls, answering emails, arranging meeting schedules and even doing repetitive SEO jobs. Virtual assistant jobs are generally more of secretarial or clerical in nature.

I haven’t tried doing virtual assistant jobs since I started finding freelance jobs online but I remember applying to some of these jobs (and getting rejected for some reason).

image credit to mcmorgan08

Virtual assistant jobs are growing each day and so are people who want to do these jobs – or part-time. Most virtual assistant jobs require working closely with clients online rather than having a prepared set of TODO tasks. This line of job is very competitive, as many people with basic computer knowledge already qualify well for this job.

Have you been a virtual assistant? Please share your experience through the comments.

I believe students and new graduates are now given more options to pursue other means of income online, even if they haven’t gained work experience. This may not apply to all students, but at least online freelance sites as well as blogging makes it easier for them to gain extra money.

I did not have that kind of option to earn extra money when I was still a student. The only option visible for me to earn more income is to follow the traditional way of earning money: be a working student. However, a working student is required to lessen the number of units taken up each semester until the entire course is finished.

Things are now different: some students figured out that they can earn online and even earn as much (or even much more) as what salaried employees get. As a result, I keep on finding more students who are interested in getting jobs from freelance sites.

One of the most common questions I get from them is: how do I get freelance jobs if I have no work experience and portfolio to show to clients?

Obviously, to gain an edge in the competitive world of freelancing, they have to build their portfolio.

image credit to patti haskins

Working Examples

This is probably easiest way to produce samples. The more samples to show, the better.

A single sample is NOT often enough. Have at least five examples for demonstration purposes. Make the demo samples as good as the real ones.

Volunteer Work

This is committing to do work for free. Usually, friends and family ask for professional help and the freelancer is often expected to work for free or with little compensation. Why not turn this situation into something that can be placed as a work experience as well as one of the strongest items in the portfolio?

Another way to work for free with non-profit organizations. This is usually favorable to web designers: do a website project for these organizations free of charge. In return, try to ask for a certificate or other written document for that work experience.

This way, new freelancers are motivated to do quality work than that simply offering a set of demo samples. Implemented projects speak strongly to a potential client than a bunch of demo samples.

School Projects

School projects may also be another strong proof of work. If you happen to compose a good school project (and better yet, if you had completed that project on your own), then it can be added as a strong item in your portfolio.

Successful freelancers started out with nothing on their portfolio. They had been probably to built their work experience probably through one or more of the items listed above.

At first glance $1/hour payout for a freelance data entry provider is better than most office clerical jobs that are offered full time. One can just make a quick computation of how lowly paid an employed worker is by just taking the total monthly salary divided by the number of hours spent on the job each month. But, is being a freelance data entry provider better than being employed as a data encoder or clerk in a huge multinational company?

In getting self-employed, there are other important factors which must be taken into account. Success in freelancing means that one must be able to understand one’s personal and business cash flow – the resulting hourly rate should be competitive as well as still make a good living.

Look at the Freelance Job Marketplace Rates First!

Typical rates of data entry providers run anywhere from $1 to $5 per hour on many freelance sites: most offers seem to favor hiring to those who are willing to take the lowest $1 per hour rate. Personally, I didn’t think this kind of pay is enough for the freelance data entry provider to live comfortably – which is further confirmed with the estimate I had outlined below (assuming that the freelancer is honest and wants to update all contributions).

This computation assumes a single freelancer living alone without any dependents and doesn’t even need to rent a place to stay.

TOTAL: P 15,625 / month or P 187,500 / year

Estimate number of working hours per week = 40 hours /week (understand that not all of those 40 hours are billable hours)

Estimate average number of billable hours per week = 5 hours / day x 5 days = 25 hours /week

number of hours worked each year = 25 hours/week x 46 weeks = 1150 hours /year

Assuming $1 = P45 conversion,

minimum hourly rate of full time data entry personnel = P 187,500 / 1150 hours = P163.0435 per hour or $ 3.62 / hour

Clearly, this is not even enough to even cover other monthly expenses such as rent, loans, insurances, education and training and even on buying personal wants such as jewelries and gadgets. With that kind of lifestyle, this particular freelance data entry provider shouldn’t settle for data entry jobs rates that are below $3.62/hour. Non-productive time such as training should also be considered.

Most often, determined freelancers start out by offering data entry first then moving on to learn new skills in writing, forum and Craiglist postings and social media marketing and other jobs that meet the freelance job demand. Those who have IT knowledge can even further get training on programming, graphic and web development.

How much should the recommended hourly rate be?

The computation above is just the minimum rate for the given lifestyle, but how about the recommended hourly rate? The recommended hourly rate is, of course, greater than the minimum hourly rate because one or more of the following are considered:

• Actual work experience
• Job difficulty/complexity of project
• Job skills required for the job
• Workload: higher hourly rates is recommended for those working for one or more freelance jobs at the same time

I get my recommended hourly rate by observation: if I easily get hired at every job I’ve applied to then I know my hourly rate is low. If I get rejected one after another, then I know my hourly rate is just too high. Set a rate which result to 50%-50% rejection as much as possible!

For the above example, I recommended hourly rate should be at $5/hour, which is quite high for Philippine-based data entry providers.

The dollar currency mentioned here are all in US dollars. Happy Holidays.

Did you know that Skype lets you make cheap calls from the Philippines to the US landlines and mobiles at only P1 per minute?

I know for a fact that, Skype to Skype, YM to YM and GTalk to GTalk voice calls stay 100% FREE as everyone may know. However, I just happened to have relatives in the US who do not have Skype, YM or Gtalk installed in their computers and don’t go online most of the time. Our family used to accept calls from them via landline and had to make calls only when there’s a huge family problem. We just could not afford to hold long conversations for some little casual chit chat.

I am aware of that $0.40 per minute deal offered by our telephone company, but we never use that. My parents don’t find it easy to memorize phone number prefixes and $0.40 per minute is still pretty expensive for them to make long calls.

However, when I first signed and tried out Skype, I thought, not another messenger – again running on my PC – again. But as a freelancer that left me no choice but to use that. Other people convinced me that Skype is a lot better when it comes to voice quality than YM.

Later on, I explored the call rates list offered by Skype. Outgoing calls from the Philippines to US landlines and mobiles only costs $0.021 per minute which is roughly more or less than P1 per minute. That’s better than most deals offered by telephone companies and much much cheaper than calling mobiles and local long distance calls. Please note that the call rates don’t include VAT charges.

The cost for calling other destinations is as follows (excl. VAT):

• Singapore: $0.021/minute
• Jeddah and Riyadh, Saudi: $0.185/minute
• Australia: $0.021/minute
• Qatar: $0.376/minute
• New Zealand: $0.021/minute
• Hongkong SAR, China: $0.021/minute
• Ireland: $0.021/minute
• Japan: $0.023/minute
• Japan – mobile: $0.154/minute

Please visit Skype’s call costs and rates for more information.

However calls from US going to Philippine landlines cost $0.198/minute. Even more expensive are calls from US to Philippine mobile phones which cost $0.249/minute.

How to Purchase Skype Credits

The payment is via Skype credits – that is, one has to purchase a minimum of $10 Skype credit to be able to use the service. Skype credits are much like loading a prepaid cellphone unit. A person can even setup auto-recharge Skype credits when they fall to $2.

The credits can be purchased by using a Paypal account (which I did) or through a credit card. In the Philippines, where many don’t have credit cards (I don’t own a credit card either and I don’t intend to have one yet), Unionbank EON card is often a popular ATM/debit card that is now widely used for online purchases. I haven’t tried EON card personally to purchase those Skype credits but in theory, since this is a VISA card it should also work as well.

Unlimited One Country or Unlimited One World

Another option, if you are calling too often, the subscriber should also think whether to pay for unlimited one country deal (applicable only to 40 countries) or unlimited one world. Both costs $5.95/month and $12.95/month respectively but gives unlimited calls. Since I only need to call relatives during holidays, I don’t feel the need to switch to these subscriptions deals.

Magic Jack vs Skype

I haven’t tried Magic Jack myself, but I get offers from people who are selling me these over forums and online shops. My own relatives even use this to call from US to Philippines since this is cheaper than using Skype to call Philippine landlines or mobiles. I also know lots of Filipinos using this little gadget also to call from the Philippines to US. Buying the Magic Jack gadget costs around P2,000 (Ebay.ph) to over P4000 (forums and online shops) [around $50 to $100] and $19.95 to renew subscription each year.

Some notable disadvantages:

• The gadget is useful for making calls from US to  Canada and vice versa.
• More expensive than Skype credit, if you rarely call people in those countries.
• Not effective when the PC is off and doesn’t have forwarded call feature unlike Skype.

Are there other better deals?

I believe there can be other cheaper deals than the one I had just discussed right now. I know for a fact that I’d be happy to know these through your comments.

I keep on getting emails and even get to chat with a few online friends that they want to make a big career change move: quit to job then go to freelancing or problogging (bloggers earning income from blogs such as blog advertisements).

One email I got said that she is planning to quit her job and just go freelancing. She plans to start building work history right after she resigned from her job. She could not explore freelancing while she is employed because the job takes a lot of her time.

I’ve got so many old friends who were suddenly interested on how I earn online these days (both from freelancing and blogging). If they happen to be skilled in Information Technology, writing or even both, then they can be able to get online freelance jobs successfully. Those who are interested in earning from blogs need to improve their writing skills and eventually move to learn SEO. However, their interests were short-lived even if they wanted to learn the ropes.

I helped two friends start their own blogs to earn from them. After that one session, they were not able to update it as often as they should. They were just too busy with the day jobs.

To be successful in this venture, people need to be able to honestly answer these questions:

1. Can I afford to quit my current job?
2. Do you have the right skills and experience to go into freelancing?
3. Am I able to learn new skills quickly with my own resources?
4. Is there a huge demand for my skills and experience?
5. Can I have a social life at home with online friends all around me most of the time?
6. Am I a master of my own time?
7. Do I have the nose for new income opportunities?
8. Do I tend to decide just early enough to get started?
9. Do I tend to be a bit ahead before everyone gets to discover the awesomeness of a good opportunity?
10. Am I thinking about making the preparations for freelancing or problogging over several weeks?

All the questions are essential to the success of a freelancer, but I’ve bolded the most important ones. If you can say yes to most (not necessarily all) of the questions above, then you may be a good fit for freelancing.

Freelancing and problogging always give better returns compared to regular salaried jobs to those play the cards right.

For neophyte freelancers, I’ve always recommended that they learn the ways on how to talk, communicate and negotiate with other people and think the business way. For aspiring probloggers, they just need to start out their own free blogs in Blogger (not WordPress.com – it is a platform that does not let you post advertisements in their blogs) then watch and see over time whether they blogging is for them or not before they waste their time, effort and money on things that may probably not work out for them (talking about perception and persistence!).

I often see VCCs or virtual credit cards being sold usually at the forums to verify one’s paypal account. Many could attest that using these cards are effective, but I learn from Selaplana’s post that VCCs are not recommended. As he says it:

You can buy VCC from VCC providers for only $20 to $60. It’s just virtual (not physical credit card) but its functions are similar to credit card. This kind of credit card expires in a short period of time from 24 hours to 6 months. So, if you’ll use this, make sure to buy a VCC that expires at least in 2 months.

However, I don’t recommend it. There’s a problem with it especially if Paypal will request copies of your credit documents. You couldn’t provide one if you’re simply using the VCC.

Seriously, problems with Paypal happens too often (I get lots of emails on how to lift of Paypal limits, which requires a user to fax personal documents, so there must be a lot of people who encounter trouble with their own accounts) so this further proves that VCCs are not recommended.

I had been able to get my second Payoneer card several months ago (I think last May or June) and I got that activated just before my first Payoneer card expired last August 2009. I got my Payoneer card free through oDesk.

The new card’s physical appearance is no different from the old one. It’s still the sleek shiny and black that looks better than most local debit and credit cards I’ve seen here in the Philippines. Once more, I get to use the card for three years before I get to contact Payoneer again for a replacement card.

I went through the instructions of reactivating the card several days after I received it through snail mail. I contacted Payoneer’s live support to activate that new card and disable to old one. I remember chatting to the support for about 15 minutes just to perform this one. My virtual bank account too, was transferred from my old card to the new one.

Ideally, this card should work with any ATM machines and credit card terminals that bear the Mastercard logo.

I was excited in using this card, only to notice later that they won’t work with Banco de Oro ATM machines anymore. I always get an error message from any of their ATM machines. I’m not sure if they don’t work with BDO Mastercard credit card terminals but I sometimes notice that my card is declined, even if my card has funds loaded in it.

I have no problems withdrawing funds from Metrobank and BPI ATM machines. But I would still love to have my Payoneer card work well with BDO ATMs because these are more accessible to me. Metrobank and BPI ATMs aren’t safe places to withdraw funds here in Baguio.

I keep on wondering if I am not the only Payoneer card holder experiencing problems with BDO ATMs. Right now, the only solution I can think of is to contact both Payoneer and BDO for this concern.

If you had encountered the same problem, suggest on what’s the best way to deal with this or even provide possible explanation why my card doesn’t work with a specific bank ATM, let me know through the comments.