Anyway for the Google Wave Invites. I recently acquired three Google Wave invites and I decided to give them away on here. So.. if you want a Wave invite, comment on this post and I will randomly chose 3 people from the comments below to send the Wave invites using random.org. All you need to have in the comments is your name and your email address, I will do the rest. Just so you all know I have the invites I attached a quick screen grab of the wave from Google below…

PS. I will draw the winners two weeks from now. Thanks, Jake

UPDATE: If I get over 50 comments on this post I will give away 5 instead of 3. Thanks

Overview Reports

Coda

This is just a completely AWESOME app, it is fast as can be, simple and lightweight, and extremely easy. When I was on Vista I always used Dremweaver but I have to say this app makes dreamweaver look bad. The first thing I love about this is the built in file viewer. With the built in file viewer if you want to put a link to an image just grab the file in the sidebar and drag it to the code view, and it will automatically add the a href right to that file. Another thing is the lightweightness (word?) of the app, it is extremely light weight and runs as fast and wonderful as you could want. I have been running this app for about 1 week now and it has never crashed or even paused on me. Check it out at http://www.panic.com/coda/.

Photoshop Cs3 For Mac

Now I know Photoshop is not only for mac but this version pretty much is. Compared to the PC version this version is just great. Usually on my vista machine I would have to wait forever for the brush’s to load or for a extension to load and with this I never have to wait it loads automatically. Another thing about this version are the Automator actions that are for CS3. They can greatly increase productivity and add a TON of different actions and extensions. If you want to see the automator actions pack you can download it at http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/photoshopactionpack.html.

MAMP

MAMP is a great application that lets you easily get a web server running on your local machine. It lets you set up your new WP install or helps you get your e-commerce site up and running. Its very easy to use and is very quick to set up, I highly recommend it! See it at http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html.

Firefox

Firefox needs to be in every web designers arsenal. It has to be the best browser ever. The things that make firefox the best is the plugins that are available for it. The best web design plugin would have to be Firebug, it lets you edit web sites on the go in the browser. See it at http://www.firefox.com.

ColorSchemer

Colorschemer is a great application that helps you to match colors. It is great for anybody from beginners to print professionals. It gives you a dynamic color wheel so that you can pick and choose your colors with absolute procession. See it at http://www.colorschemer.com/

Billings

Billings is a great application that helps you with all of your invoices and billing. It includes 30 templates so that you can customize your invoices to match the quality of your business cards and web site. It costs 40$ but I think it is well worth it. See it at http://www.billingsapp.com/index.html

These are all the apps I have so far, but as I continue to find new apps I will add them to the list. If you have a certain program you love leave me a comment and I will see about adding it to the list!

Finally, all you need to do is have them shoot me an email that includes your Paypal address and as soon as they pay me I will pay you. The rate right now is 7% , if I don’t get any offers off this then it will keep going up. When the times are hard to have to get creative :).

There were a couple of tools I used and below I am going to mention each tool and how I used that tool to land some clients. Ok well here we go…

eBay

I never really considered using eBay to sell my design services because all I really thought of when using eBay was there auction format. However once you start to dig around eBay a little more you will notice that they have a format called “Classified Ad”. A classified ad does just what its name suggests, its a classified ad. How it works is you pay 10$ and you get a 30 day listing on an category you would like. I always post my services in this category series “Specialty Services > Web & Computer Services,Web Design“. I have found that if you have a good looking ad layout and you word your ad right you can easily turn viewers into clients. I usually got about 2-3 clients per listing, so that easily pays the 10$ listing price right back.

Craigslist/Gumtree

What? You can’t use craigslist to find clients! Says who? Have you ever noticed that little link on the right side of the page that says “web/info design“ if you have never clicked it, go ahead and click it now. You will see that there are about 1-2 jobs posted each day for each town. Just because you live in Cincinnati doesn’t mean you cant use the Atlanta craigslist, most of the jobs posted on there are nation wide. If you want to visit a different towns “web/info design” page then just go up to the url bar and change the http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/web/ address to http://atlanta.craigslist.org/web/ and there you go you are taken right to the other towns web site. In the past month I have landed about 3-4 clients just from this page.

Forums

If you have ever been a member of a online web designer forum you will most likely see that the forum will have some type of “Looking to hire” forum. For an example of this type of forum visit http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/index.php?showforum=82. You have to know that competition will most likely be pretty fierce, but if you have a good looking portfolio and good communication skills you can get a few clients from this type of online forum. So go ahead and register on a few forums but be careful because most forums have a certain post limit that you must reach before you can inquire for a job.

99Designs

Now I don’t recommend this option over any of the others just because if you do a whole design you are not necessarily going to get paid for all that work. This site is a online competition site which means that clients post there ads of what they want and a lot of different designers post there drafts on to the site and the client picks which ever design they want. Now this form of gaining clients is a lot harder than the other three because you are going against a ton of different styles and abilities, but if your skills are good enough and you are hungering for clients you could do very well on this site. Check them out at http://www.99designs.com.

Strategic Partnerships

Now I never really though of this until it was brought up in a comment below by Wizely. However, its a really good idea! The basic idea behind it is look for partnerships that are going to get you business. So maybe go to Google and type in “Copywriters”, and then email some company’s and propose a deal to them. For example tell them that for any emails they get looking for web design they will forward that client to you, and in exchange any emails you get looking for SEO or Copywritting you will forward those emails to them. Its a good way to land new clients and to also make friends and networks around the internet.

These are just a few of the very many ways to get clients online. Do you have a couple of different ways that I didn’t post? If so then just leave me a comment and I will post your technique along with a link to your site. Also if you like the post then please Digg it using the button right below! Thanks

• The Problem: IE 6 and below does not display transparency in png images.

The Normal Fix: There are many Png Fixes out there but there are a few that I have found more useful. My favorite PNG fix would have to be Drew Mclellans fix. I have found that his fix is the easiest to use and it works the best. The only problem with this hack is that background images cannot be positioned or repeated. However, this problem occurs with 99% of PNG hacks. Check it out at: http://24ways.org/2007/supersleight-transparent-png-in-ie6

The Wordpress Fix: If you are using Wordpress, the problem is a little bit easier to solve. All you have to do is install a simple WP widget and it does most of the work for you! Check it out at: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-unitpngfix/

• The Problem: The double margin bug. This is a very common bug in IE 6. Lets say that I have this…

If you have a div floated and you also are giving it an margin, IE 6 and below will double the margin. So, IE 6 would see this .Cat div as floating right and with a margin-right of 40px!

The Fix: Some common fixes are to add display:inline to the div. However, this is not that practical to use, So what I usually do is to add some padding to the parent object. So, just remove the margin from that div and add some padding to the other object you are trying to get it away from.

These two bugs are the two major ones that are affecting IE 6 and below right now. However, there are still tons more out there. I will continue to add to this post as I find some other bugs and there fixes. So be sure to stay tuned!