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Use W8-ben instead of W9

Federal law requires all companies/individuals to hire contractor (freelancers) on W9 unless they are foreigners (international residents, non-us citizens, non-immigrants) , for which W8 form has to be submitted. I see a lot of freelancers do away from big projects that require contractor’s US tax id to work (especially for w9 purpose). But one thing most of them do not know is the fact that they can hire foreigners on W8 bases. W8 works equally well as W9 for tax filing. W8 is designed for US residents to hire foreign resources working off shore.

Next time when you were asked to submit W9, request your client to process W8 instead. W8 entitles you to pay taxes in your home country.

No Comments | Posted in » Freelance

Evil Yahoo charging $35/y for domain name

Since Microsoft’s pull-off from the bid, Yahoo is acting evil. Increasing prices on services and trying to rip its customers. One of the ugliest move came from its Small Business Services. Yahoo is now charging $35/year for domain renewals. The worst thing is you wont even know about it.

Today I got an email from them notifying me of an upcoming renewal of one of my domains. I glanced through it and ignored the content for the first time . Then later I got another email for another domain, but this time I noticed the increased price of domain name renewals they have imposed. I strongly feel that $35/ year is too high for domain names and Yahoo must pull it back to $10.99 else they are to lose my kind of customers who owns 100s of domains and cant afford to pay $35/year for each.

I already started looking for options 1and1 sounds nice but need to research a little bit.

1 Comment | Posted in » News

JPligger 1.2 (Joomla 1.5 and Pligg 9.9 Integration)

Current Version: 1.2 Beta

License: GPL

Description: This mambot will sync Joomla 1.5 and Pligg 9.9 login with ease.

Looking for JPligger for Joomla 1.0.x and Pligg 9.8? See here.

Tested on: Joomla 1.5.2; Pligg 9.9.0
Note : CB is not required for this plugin to work

Detail Description: This plugin will allow you to run Pligg inside Joomla using Wrapper. It will sync user registration, login and forgot password between Joomla, CB and Pligg.

Support: Community Driven and If I find time.

Ideal Installation:

• Use at your own risk! Backup first or use in test environment first.
• Install Joomla in root folder
• Install Pligg in /<pliggfoldername>
• Note DB settings of Pligg
• Install JPligger Plugin in Joomla
• Visit its settings
• Provide details of Pligg DB
• Publish and Save
• Hide Registration through Pligg. Instructions here: hide-pligg-registration.txt

Optional Information: Pligg inside Joomla wrapper view instructions here.

Download JPligger 1.2 Plugin

This project was funded by Guillermo Moreno

No Comments | Posted in » Joomla, Pligg, Project

Freelancers, do you work or sleep?

I have many friends that are into Freelancing and share the same experience. Many times freelancers have to do away with sleep and work 24 hours stretch, just like a resident in a Hospital. I came across a nice tool that will create a pie chart based on no. of hours you spent on daily routine. Have a look.

I have attached mine here.

No Comments | Posted in » Freelance, Freelance Tools

Learn to Sell

Freelancers, its high time. Learn the insights of sales and marketing!

Every wonder why something that you’ve been using to drive sales wont work anymore?  Or why you could never get enough clients/leads? Or why other freelancers get better and more than enough clients? Start your way into sales dude!

Today, in this freaking competitive market, forget about getting a new client, retaining the existing ones have become increasingly difficult. Especially with growing web developers market, keeping yourselves with technology and at the sametime focusing on new marketing trends have become darn too tough (at least for me). Unfortunately theres nothing much you and I can do about it but to keep looking for new ideas to drive sales. Last month, I spent quite a lot of time searching for best possible way to drive sales and to be honest, theres not one proven method. Today, sales knowledge has become a vital expertise for every freelancer. Without it you are just a pony. I know few freelancers are too good at it but I am talking about people who never knew what is sales. So, how do you go about learning this freaking important piece of life?

Buy Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness by Jeffrey Gitomer. I’ve been reading this book when ever I could find time and theres nothing better I’ve read so far that I could relate to my business and strategies. Jeffrey highlights many tools and strategies that every sales guy must practice and be aware of. As a freelancer, reading this book and implementing at least 2 principles is the least one can do. The book is small in size, easy to carry around and has nice little red bits filled with humor. I strongly encourage every freelancer (at least the ones new to sales) in the industry to go and read this book.

vaked.com rates Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness by Jeffrey Gitomer as the most important tool for freelance business!

No Comments | Posted in » Freelance, Freelance Tools, Sales & Marketing

Freelancers must save money!

Getting around in New York could be time taking and also expensive. For all my visits to client locations in NY, I usually used to either drive all the way from NJ (currently located) or hire a cab half way. As you may have already noticed, it was a bad idea, but for someone new in NY, it could be the only way out.

Thanks to the great service of hopstop.com, it saved me quite a lot of money today. Where it takes around $80 to $100 for the cab ride from La Guardia Airport to Northern NJ, I was able to save upto $90 using public transportation and was home in less than 2 hours (not bad at all). Hopstop.com is now my favorite freelance tool to get around NY. There are other sites like hopstop.com, Google is working on creating something similar for Chicago and would possibly include sates like CA, NY, WA very soon. Google’s service is in fact based on Google Maps. Watch the video to learn more about this new tool from Google:

No Comments | Posted in » Freelance, Freelance Tools

Freelance Jobs you can’t miss!

I spent few hours in getting my hands on Drupal for a new idea I had with a site for Freelance Job Feeds. Before I talk about the site, let me tell you, Drupal is a lot different than any other CMSes (especially Joomla). Although I am new to Drupal, going around it was too time taking than I thought. But the modules I used for the purpose of this site were actually a great fit.

Coming back to the site I just made. You can look at it here: Freelance  Job Postings

The site is totally made in Drupal with major work involving with module Feed Aggregator. The site is built on a simple logic, all freelance job postings under one roof. I got RSS and Atom Feeds linked in to the site to provide real time job postings from sites like ifreelance.com, getafreelancer, elance.com, getacoder, rentacoder.com etc. Over the next few days I plan to spend some more time on design, layouts and better feed integration. Hopefully this site will benefit someone.

No Comments | Posted in » Drupal, Freelance, Freelance Tools, Project, eBusiness Ideas

If only I could grow money in my backyard

Today, the philosophical me was having good time thinking about how one’s life can change while in pursuit of wealth. Looking at myself few years back, I was never a reader, listener nor a thinker. Life has taught me valuable lessons throughout including importance of loving your family, loving what you do, and being honest to name a few. I wonder how things would be if one could just make money planting money in my backyard. One thing is for sure, it wont be this much fun to live.

Get on an adventure. Enjoy life!

No Comments | Posted in » Freelance

JPligger - Joomla & Pligg Integration Mambot

Current Version: 1.0 Beta

License: GPL

Description: This mambot will sync Joomla and Pligg login with ease.

Tested on: Joomla 1.0.13; CB 1.1; Pligg 9.8.2

Looking for JPligger for Joomla 1.5 and Pligg 9.9? See here.
Note : CB is not required for this mambot to work

Detail Description: This mambot will allow you to run Pligg inside Joomla using Wrapper. It will sync user registration, login and forgot password between Joomla, CB and Pligg.

Support: Community Driven and If I find time.

Ideal Installation:

• Use at your own risk! Backup first or use in test environment first.
• Install Joomla in root folder
• Install Pligg in /<pliggfoldername>
• Note DB settings of Pligg
• Install JPligger Mambot in Joomla
• Visit its settings (In admin > Mambots > JPligger)
• Provide details of Pligg DB
• Publish and Save
• Hide Registration through Pligg. Instructions here: hide-pligg-registration.txt

Optional Information: Pligg inside Joomla wrapper

• Link your Pligg in Joomla wrapper
• Use on /<pliggfoldername> in Wrapper Link Field
• Set width and height to 100%, no scrollbar, yes to auto height.
• Remove Pligg Header. Edit /<pliggfoldername>/templates/<yourtemplate>/header.tpl (Remove as much as you can. Trail and Error)
• Remove Pligg Footer. Edit /<pliggfoldername>/templates/<yourtemplate>/footer.tpl (Remove as much as you can. Trail and Error)
• Remove unwanted Siderbar modules. Edit /<pliggfoldername>/templates/<yourtemplate>/sidebar.tpl (Remove Login/Registration Module and others as much as you can. Trail and Error)
• Fit Pligg into wrapper:
  Edit CSS file of your Pligg template
  Find Contentbox and edit its width, find Sidebox and edit its width, find Wrap and edit its width
  Note: Depending on your joomla template width, set wrap width to max. Then split the max width between Contentbox and Sidebox. Also remember that there is padding in between so take that into account as well.
• Thats all you need but if you want to dig down and integrate fully, there are more things that can be done.

Download JPligger Mambot

Download JPligger Plugin for Joomla 1.5 and Pligg 9.9 here.

9 Comments | Posted in » Joomla, Pligg, Project

PonyGallery Category Photos View (English)

This is a modification to PonyGallery ML 2.5.1’s exclusive module Modul PonyImages Version 1.0.4

This is its translation in English. If you are looking to download PonyGallery ML, please visit here.

I’ve spent hours translating this great module in English. You may download it ponyimage in english.

No Comments | Posted in » Joomla