Are you looking to start your new year with a fresh set of prints to help promote your design business? Today, our friends at UPrinting are kicking off 2012 by giving away business cards, posters, or postcards to 36 lucky Tuts+ readers. To enter, all you have to do is submit your entry using the form below and select which prize you would prefer.

Update: The winners for this giveaway have been selected. Thanks to everyone who participated.

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View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Insight Design Conference-Quite Strong by Design Collective Quite Strong. In this video two members from the group, Jennifer Sisson and Jana Kinsman, share tips and and ideas on self promotion in the design industry.

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Almost everyone uses social networks for personal or business purposes. Communication via social media is taken for granted. Even employers check freelancer’s reputation with the help of social means.

Today we’ll explore top apps for better social media management. However, we will go beyond solutions like Hootsuite as it is a well-known brand on the social media apps market. The tools in this roundup are easy, useful, and affordable for freelance social media experts and are rising stars you should get your hands on.

Bizo Switchboard

Bizo Switchboard

Bizo Switchboard is more than a just a free Twitter link shortener. It helps you get the most out of your tweets and promote your website, blog or your freelance services. As you publish a URL, Bizo Switchboard shortens it and makes a unique bar, which pops up to anyone who clicks on your link in the tweet.

The bar contains your Twitter account name, your message and “Follow” button. Switchboard bar can be customized to meet your website color scheme. Besides, Bizo Switchboard shows statistics such as link impressions and click through rates. Continue Reading

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at The day I turned down Tim Berners-Lee by Ian Ritchie. In this video he goes over one of his biggest fails, not buying into Tim Berners-Lee idea that his World Wide Web would take off. This is a short story about information, connectivity and learning from our mistakes.

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It was just a few years ago when the major bottleneck for websites was producing content — you had to be an expert in web design AND a good writer to put content on the web. Video production was even more difficult with bandwidth issues, dozens of formats to consider, and that doesn’t even include the cost of shooting, editing, and post-production.

Today is completely different. Content is incredibly easy to publish, both written and video. Now that’s not to say it’s particularly quality content, but it’s definitely easier than ever. And the biggest opportunity for freelancers is to start producing video.

Video content is much easier to get to rise to the top of Google rankings, especially when you post your videos to YouTube and use their code on your site. Give it a shot. Run any how-to search; if there is quality, relevant video available, these will be at the top of the results.

If you’re strongly considering getting going with some video work, here are some ideas to get you started, and don’t forget to check out the resource links at the end of this article, especially if you would like to try out any of the tools recommended inside.

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View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at The Benefits of Creating Talking Head Videos for Your Blog by Darren Rowse. In this video he discusses the benefits of creating simple videos on your blog. “Talking head” videos are easy to make, a great way to deliver information, while showcasing your personality.

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Video has become a must-have for every website or blog aiming to enhance its presence online. It’s a common practice that video-related orders are often assigned to freelancers, and these are not only simple video editing tasks, but the preparation of how-to’s, demos, screencasts, video embedding and distribution as well.

Freelancers need to be better equipped with all kind of software assisting with all those video tasks.

The reality is that most freelancers can’t afford the pricey Adobe suite of programs. Still there’s a great deal of similar desktop and online video tools available for free. Among them there are free video makers, editors, screen recorders, downloaders, and converters – in a word, everything that is needed to get your client’s video live on the web.

Here is a roundup of the most popular video software and services recommended for freelancers’ everyday use.

Windows Live Movie Maker

Windows Live Movie Maker

This renewed easy-to-use program is a real find for both amateur and savvy freelance video-makers. The program offers numerous opportunities for video production: it lets users turn photos, video clips and music into a polished movie or slideshow, add visual effects, and edit videos. The tool is also ideal for publishing video clips to YouTube, Facebook or Windows Live SkyDrive straight from the software interface. This is a Windows only app. Continue Reading

Like a lot of freelancers, I do a bit of volunteering in my community. All of it has been with established organizations.

That changed during an impromptu outdoor meeting on a muggy July morning. I was part of a group of neighbors who were talking about street flooding during rainstorms. Not the sort of conversation that you’d expect for a desert city like Tucson, Arizona, but take it from me: When we get rain, our streets can turn into raging rivers. Or lakes.

Our conversation focused on solutions to street flooding. And, since this is a desert, we don’t want to send scarce rain water whooshing away. We’d like it to stay around and nourish trees and shrubs that will shade and cool our city. Call it water harvesting – we in Tucson do!

Just about everyone arrived at this meeting on their bicycles, and the group was curious about what’s been happening on the water harvesting front. So, I suggested a bicycle tour of public water harvesting projects. The group thought that was a great idea.

Read on to discover how haphazard an event can come together and still be successful. Or jump to the bottom to read through five lessons learned, which will help you organize your next event. Continue Reading

Facebook is a good place to communicate with friends and get new job offers. Freelancers should not miss an employment opportunity on Facebook. The social network app section is a real treasure box with multiple handy applications.

These are some of the best Facebook applications that help freelances boost their productivity, enhance their business pages, show off their portfolio and attract new contacts. Since many freelancers work with social media as experts, account managers and analysts, the list below has both apps for personal profiles and Facebook pages.

Welcome Page

Welcome

A welcome page has become a must-have feature for every Facebook business page. It’s a space to say “Hi” to new fans and encourage people to click the “Like” button. There used to be an authentic Static FBML app developed by the Facebook team for welcome page creation. But it does not exist any longer, so a freelancer should choose an alternative application for welcome pages such as: iFrame, iwipa, TabPress, Wildfire, Welcome by Word of Social, etc.

The setup process is simple: switch to your page mode, install an app, add content, images, links and publish the new welcome page. Most of these welcome apps are either free or require a small fee for a logo-free welcome tab. Continue Reading

View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Less Stuff, More Happiness by Graham Hill. In this video he makes the case for taking up less space, and showcases compact living spaces, while demonstrating cost savings and lifestyle living alternatives.

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One of the challenges of being a web designer is dealing with other people’s babies.

Sometimes a single client meeting, and a Google search is all it takes before you are tasked with creating a new design to wrap that baby in.

And most of us get pretty good at it. We take a look at their current design material, what the competition is doing and we’re off.

But coming up with written content is a whole other matter.

Content can be a thorn in a designer’s side. The main reasons poorly written client content makes its way into a project are a lack of: time, skill, backbone, expertise, and budget. Let’s take a closer look at these issues. Continue Reading

We love the community of readers we have at FreelanceSwitch and your opinion is incredibly valuable. This week, we’re giving you the chance to have your say about the site, and win a few fantastic prizes at the same time! Read on to find out how to get involved and stand a chance of winning an impressive prize package…

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