Building Websites as a Career?

TheRealRazzy said:

lol, I noticed that to

Maybe Jazzc is trying to tell him to open a thread up over there....

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I just quoted his post which had the link. He later removed it from his

Yeah i figured it out later, as i remember now DP has that infolink type of stuff going

Zapdos said:

If you want to be able to talk with likeminded people, then use skype. You won't have the benefit of doing cubicle warfare but you still get to chat.

One thing to think about though: Will you be able to stand your clients, handle pressure well and not back down from what you agreed on? When creating an ecommerce site you need to have a clear vision on what needs to be done and what doesnt. Then the clients usually want deadlines and if you don't meet them they get mad. Lastly, they love to change things on you and try to make a bunch of changes. If you're a "nice" person you'll quickly lose your mind. Have a guideline and stick to it.

Lastly, do you enjoy working for others or for yourself? If you can make any type of website, consider creating your own project.

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Thanks Zap,

E-commerce would be a future goal...as i know little to nothing about building shopping carts. And i see your point about being firm with clients changes, deadlines and personalities. Sounds like it could be some pressure. I've heard stories from my friend of clients who try and change plans mid-way through the project. Having guidelines makes a lot of sense.

jazzc said:

I just quoted his post which had the link. He later removed it from his

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Yes....sorry about that. My kid brother originally started the thread idea on another forum...of which i copied much of the context. I told him to change it and i removed the link to that site. I don't know how the link came over...but i removed it. He's looking into doing the same thing....so we are both in the same boat (although i think he's much further than i am in programming).

saxgod said:

€1 per day. Its actually a phenomenom called 'coworking'. You do your own work, but there are multiple people there, mostly from small (one man) startup companies, and you can socialize and network if you like. This is actually a nice thing since many of these startup companies don't have websites yet

Its one of my hats yes. But I only do development, i don't do design. Unless its really simple, but i am very bad at design. So i outsource design and implement it in html
For the rest its mostly coding for regular apps and some network (tcp/ip and stuff) consulting. And then i also have a dayjob as a sysadmin/netadmin

I am very fluent in PHP but i'm currently switching more to ASP.Net MVC (C#) for bigger projects.

Same in my country, allmost all the freelance jobs posted on linkedin that are related to webdevelopment are drupal jobs (custom coding of modules or extensions), and they pay rather good (up to €115 per hour if you are good) and most of the time its like 40h per week for a few months (at their offices)

I didn't know Aquia yet, thx

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Thanks Sax,

You sound very focused and talented in IT and programming. My God...how did you learn all those skills?

I will check into that co-working idea in my area. Many Thanks!

Daisysiegal said:

Thanks Green,

Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, etc...all have said you have to love what you are doing to be successful. IF you don't....you won't put in the hours needed to be a success.

btw..What is the Third Sector?

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You're absolutely right! And third sector means any job that provides a service (as opposed to extracting raw materials which is first sector and manufacturing goods which is second sector).

you can make millions of $ if you do it good, market it as it should and be better than the others

tejsin said:

you can make millions of $ if you do it good, market it as it should and be better than the others

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Yes...i guess there are some who have made millions. At some meetup i attended someone said that a RUBY contractor (i guess the company was composed of 3-4 guys) had a few clients and they were billing over 100k a mth.

Hi Daisysiegal

I started out using Drupal Gardens...and found the site to be very slow. Any changes that i made to 1-1.5 mins to upload (sigh). I also found the sites to be very slow and since i was considering e-commerce sites, i wasn't sure how effective Drupal was (again...speaking as a beginner who just used the free site Drupal Gardens).

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You cannot say that Drupal is slow just because the free sites offered from Drupal Gardens aren't fast! doesn't seem fair to me! If you'd like to have a look at a better performing free drupal install head over to appfog.com install drupal with a few clicks and be amazed...

If performance is an issue for drupal than have a look at following modules: (all of these modules work on shared hosting)

- http://drupal.org/project/boost
- (http://drupal.org/project/labjs)
- http://drupal.org/project/httprl
- http://drupal.org/project/cloudflare
- http://drupal.org/project/entitycache
- http://drupal.org/project/css_emimage
- http://drupal.org/project/filecache
- http://drupal.org/project/boost_expire

If you run drupal on a vps or dedicated server - and performance is an issue: make sure to check out the following modules:
- http://drupal.org/project/apc
- http://drupal.org/project/memcache
- http://drupal.org/project/varnish
- ...

ALSO. After reading some of the posts on Drupal site...i lost confidence in Drupal after reading complaints about modules that were dropped of just didn't work.

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What kind of modules do you mean? I hear this the first time...

cheers olystyle

Daisysiegal said:

Thanks Sax,
You sound very focused and talented in IT and programming. My God...how did you learn all those skills?
I will check into that co-working idea in my area. Many Thanks!

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My father bought our first computer when I was 5yo in the 80's. This wasn't even a PC, it was a Amstrad Schneider CPC464 (Commadore 64 competitor). I started programming on that thing when I was 7 in Basic; along the lines of:
10 input "what is your name ?", $name
20 print "Hello there " + $name
Been on the web since 1996 (on dialup, ugh), build first (personal) website around then hosted on my isps free webspace (shitty html)
And well... take it from there

olystyle said:

Hi Daisysiegal

You cannot say that Drupal is slow just because the free sites offered from Drupal Gardens aren't fast! doesn't seem fair to me! If you'd like to have a look at a better performing free drupal install head over to appfog.com install drupal with a few clicks and be amazed...

If performance is an issue for drupal than have a look at following modules: (all of these modules work on shared hosting)

- http://drupal.org/project/boost
- (http://drupal.org/project/labjs)
- http://drupal.org/project/httprl
- http://drupal.org/project/cloudflare
- http://drupal.org/project/entitycache
- http://drupal.org/project/css_emimage
- http://drupal.org/project/filecache
- http://drupal.org/project/boost_expire

If you run drupal on a vps or dedicated server - and performance is an issue: make sure to check out the following modules:
- http://drupal.org/project/apc
- http://drupal.org/project/memcache
- http://drupal.org/project/varnish
- ...

What kind of modules do you mean? I hear this the first time...

cheers olystyle

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Thanks for responding.

Yes...Drupal Gardens has been very slow for me and many others. But it a free server...and they are improving the best they can. I never got to the FULL DRUPAL version nor uploaded a Drupal built site to VPS server (which is what i heard runs the fastest for Drupal.

How long have you been using Drupal?
Do you build basic websites using Drupal?
Do you also use Wordpress?

Thanks very much!

Web design is a VERY competitive field, The best option is to do local companies. It is hard to make a living doing this starting out unless you have a good network from people who already know you and know your work. I did real good a few years ago but now it is hard to compete. Why would someone pay me $100 when they can find someone overseas who does i for $25, Of course the quality wont be the same but its about saving money in todays economy.

Hi again

How long have you been using Drupal?

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I use Drupal for about 3 Years now - the reason I started to use mainly Drupal are the following: I always found the community to be very(!!!) helpful and knowledgeable. The CMS (or rather Application Framework / Content Management Framework) is very flexible, secure and easy to modify... Besides its easy to Sell!

Do you build basic websites using Drupal?

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Absolutely - you have to check out / learn how you can make your own installation profiles (or distributions) in drupal! In case you don't know what a profile is: A profile is a predefined set of modules, themes (and content) - when you install Drupal you get to choose between two Profiles: Standard and minimal - This is a huge timesaver! Imagine: You install Drupal and from the very Start you got all the modules you usually work with or fit best for the usecase... Here's a link to the official Drupal profiles: http://drupal.org/project/distributions

Do you also use Wordpress?

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Sure! I am most certain that you will come across clients who have heard from a Partner, Competitor, Friend that there's this super amazing, secure and easy to use CMS - obviously they will want a website wich is made with this particular CMS aswell! Or the client has already some experience with a CMS... Out of this reason I made sites with: Wordpress, Silverstripe, Joomla, Contao, Typo3,... Any of these CMS had their own Pros and Contras but as so often its just a point of view: The one and only CMS does not exist!


cheers olystyle

Oblivion13 said:

Web design is a VERY competitive field, The best option is to do local companies. It is hard to make a living doing this starting out unless you have a good network from people who already know you and know your work. I did real good a few years ago but now it is hard to compete. Why would someone pay me $100 when they can find someone overseas who does i for $25, Of course the quality wont be the same but its about saving money in todays economy.

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Yes....this is another concern.

Does someone in India or a foreign country really have an advantage over someone who builds websites locally?

Have you (or anyone here) personally lost business to a foreign competitor?

Are clients actually happy with the service they get from overseas operations?

I don't know...but this would be a good thread by itself.

I do it as part of my marketing set, I love designing and creating websites! I work from home and love it!

People who love to keep looking at their code editors make it!!
On a serious note I think, to excel in any kind of profession you need to actually love the profession. You need to be satisfied with what you did today ( even if you had a bad day) to be able to stick to this profession. All the senior coders here were "suckers" when they started, but they never gave up. That's the key to web development ( or for any profession).
Coming to theory, to become a great web developer you need to learn fair amount of programming first. Learn the concepts of Object Oriented Programming and Database Management first. That's a must! After you're done with it, start learning MVC patterns ( Model View Controller). Almost all of the big architectures follow MVC pattern ( which might get more complex at certain times, with more abstraction layers). Once you are good in MVC, you can switch back to any 3rd party architectures / frameworks quiuckly( e.g. drupal as you mentioned, joomla, magento, Yii, Zend and so on) and can even build your own..

The only advantage is that their cost of living over there is very cheap so they can do work very cheap. There are good designers and there are bad designers, the card that I always pull is the language barrier.

I have lost A LOT of business to overseas, it wasnt because of my work, it was because of the price difference.

Daisysiegal said:

Yes....this is another concern.

Does someone in India or a foreign country really have an advantage over someone who builds websites locally?

Have you (or anyone here) personally lost business to a foreign competitor?

Are clients actually happy with the service they get from overseas operations?

I don't know...but this would be a good thread by itself.

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