I keep on finding more and more Filipino freelancers who are willing to get paid with a regular wage each month doing freelance work long term. Usually, there isn’t any written deal – the arrangement is that they get to have fixed payments every month regardless whether the freelancer had performed work or not. There isn’t any defined job scope: the client is free to throw in any work to the hired freelancer.
I am talking about getting jobs directly from clients and not from freelance sites such as oDesk and Elance.
At first glance one visible advantage of being a regular salaried freelancer is that they are given “guaranteed income” for several months to a few years. The “guaranteed income” that I mention here usually does not involve written agreement to bind the freelancer to the client legally. More often, the freelancer usually get freebies, such as several books, licensed software and even a computer from the client – to learn new skills required for the job. continue reading »
His inspiring experience prompted me to update this blog.
He was just 14 when he built his first windmill.
William Kamkwamba lived in a small Malawian village where there was no electricity. People in his village depended on tobacco farming.
His family of 20 did not have much. He even had to drop out of school because his parents could not afford to pay his yearly $80 worth of tuition fees.
There was much wind in his place, so he thought of putting that into good use for his community. He borrowed a book about windmills from the local library, then he set out to built a small windmill bicycle wheels, tractor fans, car batteries and other junk that he could fit in. He was able to generate electricity for his small community to power up light bulbs, pump water and even charge cellphones and power up the radio.
He was only able to construct his first working windmill in just two months.
continue reading »
I have not been updating my blogs for a while. That was not laziness: like many bloggers my excuse is just I was so busy. I had been hopping into one freelance work after another. In between that I try to manage a few hours finding new jobs for my team members who are doing freelance jobs part time while learning all I can about WordPress blogs.
That freelance experience those past few weeks was a race against time. That had really put my time management skills to test. I had to make the best use of my time. I had finally reached the point where I have a constant stream of clients both old and new ones. When my long term projects runs dry, new opportunities keep coming up. It’s a fact that full time freelancers don’t just work with one client – they have to very good masters of their time to be able to work and earn from different projects coming from different clients.
During that time I was semi-active in social networks, Plurk and Twitter. Since both networks allow only 140 characters, it was easy for me to get interactive without the need to write a full well-researched or well-thought out blog post.
For those very hectic days I just get down to do my freelance work. At the end of the day, I find myself mentally tired to compose a well-researched blog post on any of my blogs.
This next week is yet another busy week for me.
I will not say anymore that I am back to blogging, as other do. I am always here. If you don’t find me on blogs, you could always contact me through other social networks, or through my email. Some of you are even in my chat. If you don’t find my updates here, you can always interact with me in Plurk or Twitter.
Some people wanted to know whether this strange word exist: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanocon is supposed to be the longest word in the English dictionary. I ventured out on my own to for some little research to see if this is listed in known online dictionaries. No, this word is NOT listed in any of those dictionaries.
This word looks like something that is coined out in the medicine-related professions, which may be why those general-purpose dictionaries did not list down this word. I tried looking into the some well-established medical dictionaries online and got the same results – their search engines turned up nothing.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanocon is noun that’s supposed to mean a lung disease that was caused by breathing in fine particles of siliceous volcanic dust. The same word is also spelled as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. I am unable to find out further if this is indeed true, as there are no reliable online resources that back up this definition. Someone mentioned that this was featured on a TV show, but this isn’t listed even in some news sites.
I heard that this was coined by someone named Everett Smith in 1935 just for the fun of investing a new longest word in his time.
If anybody had found an established online dictionary that lists down this word with its formal definition, let me know.
In just more than a decade of working with various employers, never did it occur to me that my next job is to be a full time freelancer. During college I was more interested in finishing the degree that I’ve chosen and be successful in that field. I’ve discovered my talent way back in high school but I kept ignoring the fact that I love to work with computers more than building electronic circuits.
Anyway, I ended up working in both fields. I gained four years experience as an IT specialist, and the three years in a semiconductor firm just in time when the awful global financial crisis started. After that stint I became a freelancer.
I didn’t have a plan
Before I quit the last job, I was offered a huge freelance project from a potential client. I was looking forward to working on that after I had submitted my resignation. My plan was to earn income from that and use the funds in some business venture that I like.
That plan A failed and the project did not push through. I did not have a plan B. I was running out of money. I just decided to edit my old dusty resume from my aging hard disk and apply to some job openings in my location. Not long, I got some interviews from big established companies. One of them even gave me a lusty job offer which I eventually declined because I have that gut feeling that there seemed to be something bigger than grabbing that opportunity.
After that, there was silence. I did not new interviews from other companies that I’ve applied to anymore. At one time I regretted making the decision not to accept that job offer. For a while it seemed that I am on a crossroad: I was unable to decide where to go and what to do and how I was going to support myself and my kid. continue reading »
