Visit the actual post: faceVision FV Express Combo: HD Video Conferencing for the Masses

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of faceVsion Technology USA. All opinions are 100% mine.

Any experienced freelancer knows that communication is the key to building successful projects which, in turn, results to keeping good clients. My means of communicating with clients at present is through email, instant messaging services, voice and video calls. I haven’t explored yet the possibility of using video conferencing to work with other people. One reason is that leading video conference solutions such as Polycom, Tandberg and Radvision are way above what home-based individuals like me could afford.

Video conferencing would have been such an awesome and better communication tool to use – especially when working in groups!

Before I became a freelancer, I had co-workers. Approaching the boss or a co-worker at the right time and mood sometimes help me accomplish a piece of work, or even get an assignment that I want. Obviously, I should avoid talking to the boss or co-worker who is in the middle of a foul mood.

Things are different when using emails or instant messengers. We simply don’t know if we are trying to talk to a person who just had a lousy day. Without video we take words at face value, and not based on the kind of facial expressions we see.

Fortunately, HD video conferencing is becoming affordable. I have stumbled earlier across faceVision technology USA which claims to be the HD video conferencing solution that is affordable to the masses. One of their most affordable products is the faceVision FV Express Combo which is worth only $149.99 at their faceVision on line store.

At a glance:

• Native 2 megapixel sensor with autofocus
• Up to 30 fps True HD (720p) video calling experience
• True plug & play experience
• Auto-focus
• 28mm wide angle
• iF award-winning HD camera
• For Notebook PC

FV Express Combo product image

FaceVision FV Express Combo is Gmail-friendly, so these Gmail users will be pleased to find out that this gadget could deliver high-quality video resolution over the internet without any special software. The presence of H.264 hardware encoder and decoder chip is what gives this faceVsion gadget the capability to stream HD videos over the internet. Moreover, owners should be pleased that FV Express Combo HD Video Conferencing doesn’t behave like Microsoft Cinema and Logitech Pro 9000: both of the latter devices are capable of taking high-resolution videos but are not able to stream these at the same high quality.

FV Express Combo is available through shop.facevsion.com and other value added partners. On-going promotion with $10 off any purchase, using the promo code of FVTBTS2 while checkout. The promotion ends 09/30/’10.

Visit the actual post: How to Receive Money via Western Union in the Philippines

The procedure also applies to those who wish to receive their Google Adsense payouts.

If you are looking for information on how to send money via Western Union, then check out this post from an OFW: How to send Money via Western Union

Long ago, I decided not to blog about my experience in getting my Google Adsense paycheck via Western Union. However, I decided to write this post because I had this one rare chance of receiving money from a friend who is working overseas.

I live in Baguio – a city that’s around five to eight hours away from the Manila, Philippines – but there are plenty of Western Union branches available to claim money. However, most of these branches close as early as 6 PM. It’s always good to make a call to your preferred branch before the closing time. Not all branches are the same.

Before going to your preferred Western Union branch, it is important to be prepared. Here are the things needed before going to any Philippine-based branch.

1. Identification card: One ID is usually enough but I often carry a bunch of IDs in my wallet just in case. Employment and school IDs with the latest photos are accepted as well as government-issued IDs like driver’s license, PRC ID, postal ID… the usual stuff. Also, Western Union employees do not care if you are under the age of 18: what matters most to them is that the ID should belong to the person receiving the money.
2. List of information: Ask the person/institution sending the money should provide this. In particular, be sure to take down the following – MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number), full name of the sender and the exact amount of money to receive. The sender pays for the send charge involved in the transfer; the only deduction to expect is the Documentary Stamp Tax (DST) which is not a huge amount.
3. Fill-out “To Receive Money” form: Use the list of information above to fill out the form.

In any outlet you are given the choice to receive the amount in Pesos or in US Dollars. I usually have the amount converted in Pesos rather than getting the US dollar amount. Some people prefer to receive the amount in US Dollars then go to their favorite money-exchangers, which, they say, gives higher exchange rates compared to Western Union’s exchange rates.

I haven’t personally tried tracking money transfers online but Western Union provides one to their customers: Western Union Money Transfer Tracking

Visit the actual post: IECEP: There’s More to Electronics Engineering than What Meets the Eye

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

Visit the actual post: Acer Aspire 4740G: Work Away From Home

This post was written using this notebook.

As soon as I learned that I was able to get a salary loan from SSS and a multipurpose loan from PAGIBIG, I went out looking for laptops that satisfy that budget. After those few years of working at home at a desktop computer, maybe it is time for me to get out of my home and explore the world, right?

When I went out shopping, I already had set my sights on the ideal computer that I want: as light as a netbook but as powerful as a laptop. Performance was my first consideration; weight comes second. Soon I learned that finding one was difficult at this time.

After scouting around I decided to get an Acer 4740G notebook computer. Any person looking over this laptop gets to see these specifications written at the palmrest just below the right hand side of the keyboard.

• Intel Core™ i3 processor 330M (2.13 GHz, 3MB L3 cache)
• NVIDIA® GeForce ® 310 M 512MBVRAM
• 14.0 inch HD LED LCD
• 2 GB memory
• 320 GB HDD
• Acer Nplify ™ 802.11 b/g/n

And, What Else

There’s actually more to what is written on that, as I am happy to be have a DVD recorder (8X DVD Super Multi double-layer drive), 3 USB 2.0 ports (one of this is located at the right hand side of the computer where a right-handed optical mouse can be placed), multi-in-one card reader (SD™, MMC, MC, MS PRO, xD), built-in webcam and microphone.

The 14 inch LED LCD is at 1366×768 pixel resolution which I find suitable for most office application tasks and blogging work, but sometimes inadequate for web design work (I often need larger resolution monitors for this, that why I still need that maintain that desktop computer with the huge LCD monitor at home).

At times, I would turn this laptop into a portable entertainment center: its 16:9 aspect ratio lets me enjoy movies. I just plug in a high-quality headset to be able to enjoy the Dolby® Optimized sound (3^rd generation Dolby® Home Theater® audio enhancement). The 8X DVD Super Multi double-layer drive is already enough for me to enjoy these high quality videos.

My kid was also at all excited when I got that toy, that she was even willing to pose for the camera as I got home and unwrap that from its box.

Why This Laptop Fits Me

I am a very heavy internet user, a Firefox user with several add-ons installed (for web development), an Adobe Photoshop user, a moderate application multitasker and a very heavy internet user. Since I do freelancing, I had to use the computer more than once a day and it should allow me to easily connect to wifi internet and/or USB broadband internet.

I had been carrying this laptop for a few weeks, checking in at restaurants, malls, coffee shops and other places where wifi and/or broadband internet is available. So far, I am happy with the performance of this computer.

However, this laptop is still quite heavy for me. This baby is weighs at 2.3 kgs without its laptop bag: quite bulky, really. I carry that just like any other ordinary sling bag to avoid getting that snatched from my grasp.

Another disadvantage of this notebook is that it’s battery life lasts only 3 hours. A frequent traveler might to consider buying additional batteries; keeping these batteries fully charged most of the time is an additional thing to keep in mind.

I do not really like working with slower netbook computers even for blogging work so I decided to have this computer despite it’s heavy weight at 2.3 kgs (without the laptop bag) and short battery life (typically 3 hours, if I keep the LED LCD brightness at its lowest level and not plug any peripheral on its ports).

This notebook computer only costs me P33,600 (around US $750) which I bought from a local computer shop along Session Road here in Baguio City. If you are looking for a laptop that just covers only simple office tasks or even blogging then you’d realize that this laptop’s is more than suitable to your needs.

Visit the actual post: Nexx: Unlimited Webhosting Plan at Only $10

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Nexx Online. All opinions are 100% mine.

Weeks before I heard this news from some blogger friends of mine that they were able to buy a new webhost at Nexx which only costs $10. That deal covers Unlimited Web Hosting and a free domain that comes with it. This is the most inexpensive web host deal I had discovered so far.

Normally, Nexx offers webhosting that costs $5.95/month for a year’s subscription (which amounts to $71.40. Pay only $10 for the first year by applying the promotional code SPARK10. This limited offer is good until June 30, 2010.

The only catch I can see here is that the $10 seems to apply only to the first year subscription. However, the value is low enough to attract webmasters like me to try their webhosting plans for a year. Even bloggers who want to try out having their own domains on a self-hosted WordPress would definitely find this deal much affordable for them – this is such a good opportunity for them to try out this platform!

Here’s what is offered in that hosting plan:

• Diskspace: Unlimited
• Bandwidth: Unlimited
• E-mail: Unlimited
• Free Domains: 1
• 24/7 Customer Support
• **Google Adwords Credits: $50
• **Facebook Ads Credits: $50
• One-Click WordPress and Blog installations.

Upon learning this friends did not miss a beat and they had immediately signed up for this offer. I was about to do the same, but I stopped at their payment methods – I was ready to pay but they only accept credit cards at this time – which happened to be all out of funds.

Visit the actual post: Those Weeks I was Away: Ruby on Rails, IECEP and a Notebook

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.

Visit the actual post: How to Earn Money from Your Blog with CPALead

People living in various countries could use CPALead to earn income, but the requirements and step-by-step guide below applies to most (but not all) bloggers who are residents of the Philippines.

This is the reason why I signed up with CPALead not long ago. There is a huge gold mine waiting to be discovered from this hot (but not new) site!

Click the image below to view a probably happy CPALead user who earned $80,000 – or more than P3,000,000 in just a month!

In CPALead it is uncommon to see bloggers earning more than $50 per day, and there are a few who earn over thousands of dollars – evidence of these earnings are seen in the CPALead forums. Some bloggers swear that this income is far better than what they had been getting from Google Adsense, even for some people consistently at less than a dollar a day.

What does CPALead look like? Usually a CPALead powered site or blog shows a pop-up window that asks the users to complete a survey before getting to view or download premium content. The most popular use of CPALead is through TV shows, but it was also determined that CPALead is also used in movies and download links to eBooks and software.

Anybody who owns Paypal accounts will be pleased to know that CPALead pays via Paypal (and yes, they give payouts in thousands of dollars), so this is one way to get assured that CPALead is 100% legit (Paypal readily freezes accounts that give massive and huge payouts).

What you need before signing up

• A website or blog with quality content. You don’t just  submit a blog or website without anything on it and expect CPALead to approve that. Also, that website or blog DOESN’T NEED to be the one that you intend to power up with CPALead.
• A Paypal account: Sign up here for a FREE account (if you do not have one yet)

Step-by-step instructions in signing up

1. Use this link to get to the CPALead site: sign up for a FREE account at CPALead (this opens up a new window, so you can still return to this step-by-step guide).
2. Fill the information asked in Step 1. Most users who prefer being paid through Paypal would stop and ask about name on check and minimum for check fields. Here’s what to do:
   • name on check: simply type in your Paypal account name (this is usually the full name associated with Paypal account)
   • minimum for check: simply choose $50 as the minimum check amount for the meantime. You can change from Check to Paypal payment method later, after the entire account is set up.
     

     Click Continue to proceed to Step 2.

3. Fill in the contact information asked in Step 2. Again, click Continue to proceed to Step 3.
4. Fill in the website information asked in Step 3. Ifyou have an existing blog or website that you have even if you DO NOT INTEND to use these with CPALead. You can open up a CPALead powered site later.

   I actually submitted The Lady Programmer to CPALead even if I am not using any surveys here and it was approved. Later, I opened up another blog with CPALead survey on it.

   

   Click Start Earning Now to submit the information.

5. The next window logs you into your new account and you can see the dashboard. The popup appears, requiring you to provide tax information. If you have your tax information ready then click OK to go directly to the tax forms page.

   
   The tax forms page is divided into two columns – one for US and another for non-US residents. If you are a non-US resident like me (I live in the Philippines) then the right column for non-USA residents apply.

   

   • Online Compliance Certificate: This only requires the signature – just type in your full name at the bottom of the form and it’s done!
   • W-8 Online Tax Form: If this form doesn’t show up after signing up the online compliance certificate, then either do one of the following – 1) going directly through this link  at http://www.cpalead.com/dash_forms.php (if you are logged in to CPALead), or 2) search through the FAQ for the question “How do I submit my tax forms?” to get back to that page. Double check all the information before typing in the signature at the bottom of the form.In my case, I only need to type in my name for the signature at the bottom of the form. I did not make any changes to the other sections of the form.
6. To change the preferred payment method from Check to Paypal, choose Account in the CPALead dashboard. Make the changes as shown in the image below (click the image to view a larger version).
7. The next thing to do is to add the widget to the websites/blog that you intend to earn with CPALead. This is located in the CPALead dashboard, then click Widgets. Click Create New Widget then follow the instructions and options provided.

   For a typical TV show blog/site with embedded videos, choose video as the content type then choose webpage with video. Click the screenshot below for a closer look.

   

   I will NOT go further into discussing all the settings of the widget, as these settings are plenty and self-explanatory, such as choosing the skin, monetization methods, designs and other customizations. Once that you had decided on how you want your widget to look like and behave, you will be given instructions on how to add the widget to your website’s templates.

Other Notes:

• CPALead can be used with along with Google Adsense (see CPALead FAQ).
• Not all blogs/websites can be monetized effectively by CPALead.

Visit the actual post: How to Become a Freelance Web Designer

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.

Visit the actual post: Have You Worked as a Virtual Assistant?

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.

Visit the actual post: How to Get Started in Freelancing Without Any Work Samples

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.