Photoshop is probably, hands down the best graphic design software ever invented....or maybe that is just my opinion but I am sure that a lot of people will agree. Adobe developed Photoshop in the 90s and have released new versions that never disappoint. Graphic designers use Photoshop everyday to earn a living but they earn that living because they know what they are doing. It took a long of practice and studying to learn to accomplish some of the things that you see online. For some it may have been easy but for most, Photoshop is known to have a steep learning curve that makes the new designers run for easier to use software like Gimp or Corel. Well, I for one can tell you that Photoshop can knock the socks off of the competition if the designer really knows that they are doing.

How did people get so good at Photoshop if there is such a learning curve? First off, it took time....don't expect sell your artwork of design a Website because you now have the tool to ...

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The attraction of local clients is one of the most important things that a freelance business can try to accomplish. This goes for all walks of life from your web designers, graphic designers, programmers and many more businesses. Pretty much any business you can start needs to have a strong local presence. If you are trying to start up a freelance business then I suggest you start small and work with the people who may know you or know people that know you. Local people fit this bill.

Starting locally has many advantages. you can get away with more word of mouth advertising to get your name out there, you can meet your clients (one of the things that I think the clients likes the most....someone to put a face with, you can read more about the importance of this in our Simple Design Process blog article), you know where and how you will be paid so that you are less likely to be stood up, and lastly you a...

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Software development has come a long way in the past few years and has allowed typical computer users to easily learn how to use a computer, design basic web pages and start businesses online with little or no previous experience. Usually a little software company can give small businesses what they need with custom software but most of the time, it is the big corporations like Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Google, and Adobe that provide the world with intelligent, usable software that helps revolutionize how people use computers and the internet. Trust me, I am not saying it is easy to design a website from scratch because it isn't, by any means, but tools have been developed to let normal computers users develop simple, template based websites with ease.

I will be the first to say that I am mostly self taught. I started with learning how to style a web page with tables to using only style sheets to do ...

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Anyone who uses the Internet knows about Google and their many wonderful services built for everyone in every walk of life. Their services range from one of their newest creations, Google Voice to one of their oldest, Google Search. You can see a list of most of their services by going to their "More Google Products" page. If you have a Google account, you can use your iGoogle page to organize a lot of your Google services and there are a lot of browser extensions that let you organize your Google services as well. 

I use Google services to help keep Zero 3 Computers running smoothly and to help keep me on track where ever I am. That is one of the good things about having a centralized source for all of your needs....it goes where you go, all you have to do it login to a computer. There is no need to carry around a laptop or risk losing a jump drive to manage your documents. Now all you...

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Have you ever been so sure that you would get the job that once you were told that you had been passed over for another designer your heart sank? Well, if you have not had the chance to feel that feeling yet, you should prepare yourself now....because it is coming. All designers, even the best of us get rejected for another designer. Even if you had the better design, the better price, sometimes it is hit and miss, and this time, you missed. Everyone has those days when you get rejected, so don't let it get you down, instead, leave a lasting impression on the client because they will come to you first if they need a new design or the current designer just doesn't work out.

In this article we show you what to do to make sure that you stand out above the competition when you are one of the ones that were turned away. This is harder then you may think, but could prove to be worth while in the long run. Hopefully you don't need this list to often, but trust me,...

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When you start out on your own as a freelancer, everything you do may seem very daunting task. Trust me, this is usually the case. Whether you have many years experience working for a larger design firm or you are fresh out of college. Every new site design is a different experience with a different client need. You need to know your stuff in order to make the process go as easy as possible. That may be a lot of stuff to know. That is where we come in with this article.

In this article we will give you some of the best resources that we have discovered in our time as developers. You can use this article to boost your knowledge or just brush up on something that you may have forgotten over the years. This list will contain some of the best resources for Javascript, Ajax, CSS, XML, and HTML as well as server-side coding languages like PHP, ASP.NET, Perl, mySQL, and SQL. This resource should contain almost anything tha...

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How often have you had a client tell you that they need a site and they need it fast, but they do not know what it will accomplish, what they want it to look like, and how they want it to be used? Probably, more often then not. Everyone knows they want a website because either their business is not visible enough by their target audience or they just do not want to be behind the competition....but most do not actually know why they really need it. As a website consultant, you are suppose to help them through this part, but it makes it so much easier if they know what they want and how they want it.

Hopefully a client will educate themselves on undertaking a website and it's costs vs it's worth. Fortunately, for website designers, the worth a website to a business usually far exceeds the cost and can help them become more productive and have a better presence online as well as offline. In this article we will give you a rundown of the top 10 considerations for your clie...

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A robots.txt file is a great tool to limit the capabilities of a search engine spider. This helpful file can block certain files and directories from being spidered for your website visitors. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc first look at your robots.txt file to assist them in finding all of the files in your site. If you do not have a robots.txt file then they just feel around until they find a page that they can index. So, it is in your best interest to have a spider friendly robots.txt file in your arsenal of SEO tools.

In this article we will show you how to properly write a spider friendly robots.txt file that will help you get listed on the major search engines and can help improve your page rank. Remember, without a robots.txt file, a search engine will spider your site until it finds a page without links....then it stops. Hopefully the search engine spider has found all of your pages before hitting the road block, but if you are unlucky it could hit...

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Throughout the typical design process I get asked this simple question all the time. "How important is fresh content to Google?" The answer is always the same, content is key and stale content loses value over time. Blogs and CMS websites have become key to many people's upward drive on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This is because Blogs and CMS websites are constantly updated and content driven, thus their ranks are higher then a static site that has not changed since it was created 10 years ago. This is not to say that your site will become a high position seo driven site just because you have a few pages that you update everyday, no, this takes work and content that evolves with the needs of you visitor base. If you write articles on things that do not have anything to do with your site as a whole then you will most likely lose those points need to excel in Google rather then gaining them.

Internet marketing is a ...

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Welcome again to our monthly video section for website design on Youtube.com. This month we will be focusing on the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor known as Dreamweaver. We will be viewing videos that use the CS4 version of Dreamweaver, because this is the newest version and has a lot of good features that make it stand out above the other WYSIWYG software.

Dreamweaver allows you to visually or directly in code, develop web pages with content management systems and accurately test for browser, scripting, and code errors and compatibility. Make your websites XHTML compliant with enhanced CSS implementation tools and develop faster, cleaner code using Dreamweaver's code hints. Well, enough of me sounding like a salesperson, let's get on with the videos you all came for.

The month's videos will feature great Youtubers (some of which were showcased last month) with easy to follow videos that showcase some of the newest and best ways to achieve what...

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