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!).

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Automysophobia is the fear of getting dirty. Most people could probably tolerate an amount of dirt in their body, thinking that they can wash that away later. However, automysophobic people don’t feel that way: they get sick, dizzy, nauseated, breathless and even feel get that feeling that they’d rather die than get dirt in their bodies.

People suffering this extreme fear definitely seek psychological help. It surely gets in the way of living a normal healthy life.

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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.

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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.

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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.

I haven’t tried any of those fixed salary arrangements; I’ve always preferred working by the hour or set fixed priced rates with an agreed scope of job. I think that arrangement is fair for both clients and freelancers: in hourly work, clients get billed only for work, while freelancers get paid only when they do work; in fixed priced jobs, clients get work done for what is agreed, while freelancers get to work only at the agreed scope. I think this arrangement is fair and protects the interest of both parties.

On the other hand, a salaried freelancer, whether full time or part time, puts the freelancer at the mercy of the client. The client thinks that he can just throw any amount of work to the freelancer to get more out of the monthly billing. The freelancer may soon realize that he should raise his rates, but could not easily do so because he feels he is indebted to the client – will all the payout and freebies that he got for the work.

Besides that, I think this salaried freelancer feels like he is an employee than a freelancer.

Right now, I had tried to make deals with potential freelancers to convert their monthly salary arrangements to fixed prices.

For as long as there are freelancers who are willing to accept salaried arrangements, it may be possible that there might be time when this practice becomes the norm. Pursuing a freelance career may not be an attractive option anymore.

Are you one of those freelancers who are willing to get paid monthly regardless of the work volume? If so, are you satisfied with the arrangement or do you have regrets in accepting these offers?

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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.

Because of this, William’s work had caught the attention of local and international journalists. Not long he was several invitations in the US, to simply share this experience.

He is now out of his teens and he had already built and upgraded several windmills in his place. He was also able to continue his education through an elite African school.

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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.

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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.

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I found an ebook search engine today: eBook Search Queen. The site is straightforward: any visitor seeing that page will be able to do three things: use the search feature for a particular eBook, or delve into those last keyword searches on from the list or just browse through the material by country.

Those eBooks is not limited to using the PDF format – type in some keywords to search pdf, TXT, PPT, DOC and RTF eBooks that are available on the site.

Since I am into WordPress themes I was happy to see links to WordPress-related eBooks. I was able to visit some of those links and grab a number of useful eBooks right now. The site isn’t limited to a particular topic or niche – you can actually search for anything that satisfies your interest.

If you are a keen observer, there’s this little button at the upper right hand corner of the page that says “add to search engine list”. For some reason that little button is not working yet. It looked like the button is a recent addition to the site. I hope this gets to be implemented soon so it would be convenient to interested users.

This eBook Search Queen search engine is another a decent addition to my list of eBook resources.

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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 – 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.

The first streams of income

One day, someone gave me some jobs to do – writing jobs. They’re quick, seemingly easy jobs, but at that time, I was not used to writing odd stuff. I took that job anyway and learned how to churn one article after another. These writing jobs are not really high paying jobs and didn’t beat the paycheck that I received in my last job, but these articles were still worth doing. Not long, I became curious on where my writing stuff goes. That was when I learned that these were used as articles on blogs which give really serious money – the most successful bloggers were even able to quit their day jobs. Soon enough, I started my own blogs and began writing stuff that I like.

I did not stop at earning from blogs. One day, I was looking at my near-empty wallet and got hold of a sleek black card which I got it free from Payoneer – the oDesk Mastercard. I suddenly remembered creating an account in oDesk when I was still working as an employee, after an IT friend mentioned that it’s possible to get freelance jobs this way. Back then, I realized that I did not have time to do freelance gigs after work.

As I was learning the ropes of blogging and freelancing, I was reading business books to learn how businesses work and got inspired by successful Filipino entrepreneurs. I stopped thinking as an employee, adapted the entrepreneurial mindset and spirit and applied what I have self-learned: Build several streams of income. Set attainable goals, plan and take steps to achieve those goals. Network effectively and don’t burn bridges – keep in touch with old friends and set out to meet new ones.

As months and years went by, I discovered that freelancing is what I love doing and what I’m best at. I’m juggling freelance jobs from several clients each week as well as squeeze in some writing time to update my blogs.

I could say I just got lucky enough because my existing IT skills were easily aligned to the type of jobs that clients are looking for. The global financial crisis had semiconductor and electronic companies drastically reducing their workforce. I would probably end up as another unemployed person in these times with no idea on what to do next.

Risk it all, or play it safe

I was really willing to risk it all, quitting the job and letting destiny decide, and this was where it led me. I never tested the waters; I plunged in and went on with the flow of the tide which led me to an island that holds riches I never even imagined.

I understand that not everybody is willing to risk it all as I did. Some people may want to try out first and see whether it worked for them or not. Of course, there are also others who aren’t up to risking it out and want to be sure that they are on the safest side.

This may not be the best route: it’s either I just got lucky or I just know where to dig for those riches.

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