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Who is the person in your life that helps you be the best freelancer in your world?

Is it a loving spouse that goes to work every day, providing your family with the extra income you need to make sure the mortgage is paid, food is on the table, and your kids are not dirty urchins picking the pockets of the fine folks on the streets of London?

Maybe you’ve got a good friend that promotes you to his customers and business associates, and his influence is so vast that you doubt that you will ever be short of work from these contacts.

Or perhaps you have an amazing client that loves what you do, pays you handsomely for it, and trusts you to spread your creative wings on every project.

Have you said thank you to these folks lately?

Here are a few simple ways to let them know you are thinking of them, and that you appreciate what they mean to you.

• Supportive Spouse – Take a night to appreciate them.  Have the kids stay with friends, make your partner their favourite dinner, tell them why you are grateful for their support.  To someone that has to go into a real job every day, listening to you gripe about how rough your life is while working from home might be a bit difficult.  Let them know you couldn’t do this without their support – be honest, where would you be without them?
• Fantastic Friend – If you can afford it, take them out for a nice lunch and give them a gift that lets them know you appreciate what they are doing for your business.  It’s not about how much you spend, but make sure you show them how much you appreciate what they have done for you and your business.  If you can’t afford it, maybe you need to look at your rates again.
• Perfect Patron – Find a new way to promote your clients business.  Make sure your friends, family, and former high school crushes all purchase products from this client.  The more they succeed, the more you succeed – and that’s the best way to say thanks.

What are you doing to show your gratitude to the people around you?

Simple Patch Tools

Creating: When all you want to do is build a patch file that contains only the changes you've made today. Installing: I typically want to take a backup of the files that are going to be overwritten so that I can quickly undo the patch if necessary.

In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, Travis King and Thursday Bram look at the drain of working two jobs and how to grab the eye of a video agency.

Ask FreelanceSwitch is a regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.

Hit it!

Question #1

Hi I moved to Spain about 3 and a half years during that time I’ve landed a few projects I have a 2 year old kid and my wife works so I had to find a job at a local pub to provide for them I just work at nights, so is there any advice you can give me when it comes to focusing on my career when I find myself working more than 45 hours a week. Although I feel the desire to work on projects that come to me, I’m just too exhausted to get them done.

-Celso

Thursday: Trying to manage a freelance business at the same time that you’re working full-time on your feet is definitely not easy. At best, if you’re serious about making the switch to freelancing full-time, you’re going to be in a position where you have little time to spend with your family. With that in mind, the most important advice I can give is to raise your rates. That may sound a little unconnected, but here’s the thinking: if you’re working what can easily amount to two jobs, it needs to be worth your while, especially when you’re spending time away from your family to do so. That has to be worth your while, so you need to bump your rates up.

You have to be worth that higher rate, of course, but most of the freelancers I know really aren’t charging all the market can stand, so the odds are good that you can increase your rates. Ideally, a higher rate also means that you can cut back on hours at your day job.

The other piece of advice I have is to get up earlier if you can — work on your freelance projects before going into the day job. You’re just about guaranteed to be exhausted when you get home from work, making it slower going on freelance projects. If you can hit them when you’re freshest, though, things often go faster. On the down side, you’ll have less energy for the day job, but if it doesn’t require as much creative thought, that isn’t always a problem.

Travis: It sounds to me that you’re nervous about starting your freelance career, and with a young family to support, I don’t blame you.

I was pretty terrified too when I started freelancing. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if there was a 2 year old in the mix. Because I’d probably be all “What’s this 2 year old doing here? Is he mine?”

The truth is, it will be pretty near impossible to get beyond were you are now unless you commit to making it happen. So either you’re going to need to cut back on your hours at the pub and work like crazy to build up your client base, or you’re going to have to continue to burn the midnight oil to make it happen.

Currently, you’re like a man trying to straddle two row boats as they slowly drift apart. You’re going to have to pick a rowboat and jump in. After all, other people are waiting for rowboats and nobody likes a rowboat hog.

Question #2

I would like to know which is the best way to introduce yourself and your company to publicity agencies when you work with video and motion graphics? Who should I talk to in the publicity agency? What material should I present and in which way?

-Daniel

Thursday: Because I don’t work with video or motion graphics, I went straight to Mel Rainsberger, who takes on freelance film and animation projects. She told me the following:

First thing first, find out if the agency does any video in-house or if they hire outside agencies. Most agencies aren’t big enough to justify all the expensive equipment needed to offer broadcast quality video production. Many prefer to hire studios dedicated to video/animation because they only have a need for video 3 to 5 times a year. Even big studios / companies might farm out their video needs because the cost of building an in-house studio can run into the millions of dollars.

If they do have in-house video capabilities, try to find out who the head of that department is. Next, try to find out if they have an opening/need for another video person. If you’ve seen their work, try to tailor your demo reel/resume to the agency’s offerings. Do they do a lot of stuff with kids? For sporting events? How can you support what they already do? Lastly, submit a kick-ass demo reel. Agency folks like to be entertained. Keep it to 2 to 4 minutes and only use your best work.

If they DON’T have in-house video, try to find out if this is something they want. They may be very happy with the outside contractor/studio they already use. You’ll have to be much more persistent and inventive. Try to find out if all of the three big needs are met: faster, cheaper, better. Maybe, their video/motion graphics contractor is really cheap and fast, but their quality is more akin to a local car dealership. Or, maybe their video contractor is very fast and good, but they are looking for cheaper options for smaller projects. You’ll have to work harder to make friends with someone in the agency, get to know them and their agency’s needs. Try to find out if they go to local networking events, or have a blog, or even just start with the info@agency.com e-mail address that’s on their site. VP’s, design directors, and senior-level designers are good places to start as points of contact. Don’t make friends with junior designers or the marketing team. It sounds horrible, but their opinions on hires are not greatly regarded. This is a very hard route to go, and you might have to take an internship with them or even give a discount to prove yourself. Another route would be to join up with their outside contractor, work for that person directly. A good video contractor/studio will always have too much work and if they can send out another cameraman or grip to an event, it’s a plus. Again, a good, entertaining demo reel, a concise resume.

Travis: I’ve never worked in the video or motion graphics arena either, but I’ve watched a lot of movies, which pretty much makes me an expert in anything.

So I, like Thursday, decided to phone a friend to get the scoop on how things work in Tinseltown and called world renowned TV and film superstar Rowdy Roddy Piper (as a fellow Canadian we’re allowed to call Mr. Rowdy once a year with any question). And while he went on a bit of a rant about bubblegum and butt-kicking, I got the distinct impression that he was implying that you should always bring your ‘A’ game to any potential gig.

So here’s what I suggest you do:

• Research the top five agencies that you really want to work for
• Compare your work against the quality of work that they are putting out
• If your work is equal or better to what they’re doing then pitch your best stuff
• If your work doesn’t measure up, then it’s time to buy a pack of bubblegum and start working on your butt-kicking skills

Anyway, I need to call Bill Shatner now and ask him some questions about this macaroni salad I’m making.

You’ve got a 5:00 deadline, 3 pages of copy to revise, 2 logos to vectorize  (or whatever magic you design folks use to make things pretty), and a status report to complete to wrap up another project.  It’s almost the perfect trifecta –your three current projects ending at the same time.  You’re smoking busy right now, but as N.C Winters points out – you might not have enough work tomorrow to warrant getting out of bed.

So what are you doing to keep fresh projects coming your way?

I’ve still got that new freelancer smell, but a few things that I’ve been trying to do seem to be working so far:

• Tweetdeck Alerts – anytime the word “copywriter” is mentioned on twitter, I get an alert that pops up.  I quickly scan it, and if it’s someone looking for a copywriter I’ll send them a quick note.  This would probably work with keywords like logo, graphics, template, etc.  This has been a huge source of new business lately – small and big jobs.
• Job Board Mailing Lists – Most of the sites that I’ve found have an option for daily notifications about new postings within your search parameters.  They seem to be delivered at the same time each day, so I set that time aside to review the postings and bid on the ones that interest me.
• PPC Campaigns – Not a lot of luck for me here yet, but I’ve been playing with Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, and Google ads.  There are a few trial coupons out there, so you might be able to get some exposure without spending a dime.

Are you waiting for your next assignment to find you, or do you have some great ways to score your next project?

Installing Lighttpd With PHP5 And MySQL Support On Fedora 13

Lighttpd is a secure, fast, standards-compliant web server designed for speed-critical environments. This tutorial shows how you can install Lighttpd on a Fedora 13 server with PHP5 support (through FastCGI) and MySQL support.

Being a freelancer has its perks. You are your own boss, meaning you can work at home and set up your own hours. As great as that sounds, working at home also has its downsides. The main problem is that it’s hard to be productive when you keep getting distracted by the 7 billion wonders of the internet.

We at FreelanceSwitch have offered many tips to increase your productivity, but these tips can only take you so far. Sometimes you just need a good tool or two to keep you on the right track. Here are some personal productivity tools guaranteed to enhance your performance.

FocusBooster

FocusBooster is Pomodoro software based on Adobe AIR app that makes use of the popular Pomodoro time management technique, and can drastically improve your productivity. This technique is designed to improve your focus and concentration as you work on a specific task, splitting up your work into intervals. Here’s the Pomodoro technique in a nutshell:

1. Choose a specific task to work on
2. Work on said task for 25 minutes
3. Take a short 5 minute break
4. Congratulations, you have finished one Pomodoro! Repeat as needed. Take a longer break after completing four Pomodoros.

FocusBooster keeps track of the time for you so all you have to do is focus on the task at hand. After turning FocusBooster on, work hard for 25 minutes and wait for the timer to go off. When the timer buzzes, it automatically start a 5 minute countdown so you can have your well deserved break. Go out and get some fresh air, feed your cat, browse the web, and relax. When the break’s over, it’s time to get back to work! I find that using a Pomodoro timer has helped me become more productive so I hope you’ll benefit from it as well. Being the lazy slub that I am, if it works for me, it should definitely work for you. You might not be a big fan of the 25:5 method described above, so you can use the app to change the times. I know you all want to work 10 minutes and have a 50 minute break, don’t you? If you don’t want to download the FocusBooster desktop app, be sure to check out their online version. Productivity on the go!

VirtuaWin

Some people find multitasking very productive, but having a cluttered desktop isn’t going to make things easier. Instead, you multitaskers should use a program like VirtuaWin. VirtuaWin is a Virtual Desktop Manager that helps you multitask without having to Alt-Tab every few seconds. The tool sets up virtual desktops on your computer, allowing you to organize your Word documents into one desktop, your browser in another, and so forth. Think of it as having multiple monitors hooked up to your computer. Switch tasks with ease by using your mouse or hotkeys to change desktops and get some work done! You can actually use any Virtual Desktop to become more productive, but I like VirtuaWin because it’s not a resource hog and very customizable. I prefer performance over eye candy.

Note: VirtuaWin is a Windows only program. Mac users should use the built-in Spaces or download VirtueDesktop. Linux users have Compiz to play with (those lucky dogs).

jDarkroom

When writing, it’s easy to become distracted by all the pretty colors and icons on your desktop. To combat this, I use jDarkroom, a cross platform fullscreen text-editor that doesn’t have all those distracting buttons and toolbars. It’s just an empty screen with text on it. It looks simple, but really helps you concentrate on your writing. With nothing else to look at, you’re forced to focus on what you’re writing. Configure the program and access all its tools by using shortcuts or the F# buttons. You can open documents, save, copy/paste, undo/redo, change color settings, and other basic functions. jDarkroom is a cross platform program that replaces the Windows only Darkroom and the Mac only Writeroom. If you’re too lazy to download jDarkroom,you can check out the online alternative, Writer.

x.minutes.at

Have you ever had one of those browsing sessions that was only supposed to last 5 minutes but ended up lasting a couple of hours? Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. Blame it on the internet for being so darn addictive. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re browsing, so whenever I want to limit the amount of time I spend on a website, I use the web tool xMinutesAt. Using the x.minutes.at/ format, you can specify the amount of time you want to spend on a website by replacing the ‘x’ with a number and adding the URL of the website after the ‘/’. For example, if I want to spend 7 minutes browsing FreelanceSwitch, I’d go to 7.minutes.at/www.freelanceswitch.com. When my 7 minutes are up, I’ll be presented with a popup telling me to get back to work. You can even see the time remaining in the tab box, so you can manage your time better. Very simple way to limit your internet browsing.

LeechBlock

LeechBlock is a highly customizable Firefox addon that gives you full control over your browsing habits. It takes the xMinutesAt idea to the next level. With LeechBlock, you can limit the amount of time you can spend on certain websites and block the websites when your time is up. Add multiple websites to your block list and specify when you can access them (changing the time and day of the week). I find this to be the perfect method of getting things done online without having to deal with all those distracting websites. And this is just one solution for managing distractions.

Snoopon.me

Sometimes, it’s best to have Big Brother watching. Well, it’s more productive anyway. I’m sure you’d all change your browsing habits if your boss was looking over your shoulder, right? Snoopon.me is a nifty program that takes screenshots of what you’re doing and uploads them online. Download and install the program (works on Windows and Macs). You can then invite “accountability partners” (including your boss, family, friends, fellow writers, etc) to view these screenshots and comment on your work habits. I know some of you are already wary and thinking “But what about my privacy?” But don’t worry, Snoopon.me gives you plenty of control over your own privacy. The screenshots are small enough so text on your screen can’t be read but big enough for your accountability partners to know what you’ve been looking at. You can disable your screenshots from appearing on the front page and set the larger screenshots to private. Snoopon.me only keeps track of the 48 most recent snapshots and deletes the rest, and you’re able to turn the program on and off. If you really want, you can even delete snapshots(though deleting all your time wasting snapshorts defeats the purpose of the program). Use Big Brother to your advantage!

Conclusion

Use any of these tools to increase your productivity, or better yet, use a combination of tools. Keep in mind that having the right motivation also plays a huge role in being productive, so be sure to check out our tips on how to stay motivated. Now get back to work and make your boss proud!

What other tools do you use to increase your productivity? Do you think these tools are effective? Share your thoughts below in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe!

(Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog)

What do Alex Trebek, teachers and Googlers have in common? Last week, these individuals and groups all came together at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA to celebrate exploration and learning.

Google hosted its first Geo Teachers Institute, an intensive two-day workshop in which 150 educators received hands-on training and experience with Google Maps, Google SketchUp and Google Earth, including features like Mars, Moon and SkyMaps. Attendees from around the globe not only learned how these products work, but also discovered tips and resources for introducing these tools to students and using them to conceptualize, visualize, share and communicate about the world around them. Through this event, teachers were hopefully inspired to bring the world's geographic information to students in compelling, fresh and fun ways.


John Hanke, VP of Product Management, addressing the audience of educators

As part of our continued effort to collaborate with teachers and help students get a better sense of places across the globe, we also announced that Google Earth Pro is now available to educators for free through the Google Earth for Educators site. Educators from higher educational and academic institutions who demonstrate a need for the Pro features in their classrooms can now apply for single licenses for themselves or site licenses for their computer labs. A similar program exists for SketchUp Pro through the Google SketchUp Pro Statewide License Grant, which is currently being provided via grants to 11 states, and available to all others at the K-12 level at no cost.

In conjunction with these exciting Geo-related events and announcements, the Geo Education team also thought it’d be timely and fun to test Googlers’ geographic knowledge by hosting the company’s first ever Google Geo Bee. With help from National Geographic, 68 teams relived their school years and took a written geography exam, competing for a spot on stage with Alex Trebek, who hosted the main event. The competition was based on the group version of the National Geographic Bee for students, which Google has sponsored for the past two years. Questions included those like “Which country contains most of the Balkan Mountains, which mark the boundary between the historical regions of Thrace and Moesia?” and “Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the United Kingdom, is located in which mountain chain?”


The winners of our Google Geo Bee: Ian Sharp, Marcus Thorpe and Rob Harford

The final three Google teams (the Tea-Drinking Imperialists, the Geoids and the Titans) all showed off their geographic literacy and answered a plethora of diverse and complex questions. In the end, it was the Tea-Drinkers who emerged the winners when they figured out that Mecca was the answer to the clue, “Due to this city’s location on a desert trading route, many residents were merchants, the most famous of whom was born around A.D. 570.” And they didn’t just walk away with bragging rights; thanks to Sven Linblad from Linblad Expeditions, they also won an amazing adventure trip to either the Arctic, the Galapagos or Antarctica.

Through all of these education efforts — for teachers, students and grown-up Googlers alike — we hope people of all ages never stop exploring.

Posted by Tina Ornduff, Geo Education Team

This is part of our summer series of new Search Stories. Look for the label Search Stories and subscribe to the series. -Ed.

Having been a new dad for six months now, I’ve quickly come to learn two valuable parenting lessons. First, being a father is truly a full-time job—and second, sleep is completely overrated. Whether buying the latest bottles, binkies, blankets and bibs, or just blogging about the whole magical journey, becoming a father has been the most invigorating and moving experience of my lifetime.

This week, I’m excited to help introduce our latest search story, New Baby. The video really captures the joys (and costs!) of becoming a new parent. I’d like to share my heart-felt compassion with new dads everywhere (and of course, my wife and the other mothers out there who are the true heroes.) We will all rest when they head off to college—in the meantime, enjoy!



Posted by Murali Viswanathan, Product Manager

Imagine it: you’ve been given the chance to look into the future and bring back one tool that will help you be the Best. Freelancer. Ever.

What is this tool?  Heck if I know.

What is the one tool that will help you become the best?  Even if it hasn’t been invented yet, what is it that you would like to see?

• Practical AI that can create copy that converts 99.9% of the time?
• Design software that directly interfaces with your cerebral cortex to produce the perfect image?
• Instant credit check to see what your client’s likelihood of paying will be like when the project is completed – before you start the project? (I’m thinking minority report meets credit score.)
• The ultimate espresso machine – perfect beans, perfect crema – exactly 5 seconds before you realize you want one?

Since freelancing is what you want to do for the rest of your life, what tool could you use to become the Über Freelancer?

Integrating eAccelerator Into PHP5 And Lighttpd (OpenSUSE 11.2)

This guide explains how to integrate eAccelerator into PHP5 and lighttpd on an OpenSUSE 11.2 system. From the eAccelerator project page: "eAccelerator is a free open-source PHP accelerator, optimizer, and dynamic content cache. It increases the performance of PHP scripts by caching them in their compiled state, so that the overhead of compiling is almost completely eliminated. It also optimizes scripts to speed up their execution. eAccelerator typically reduces server load and increases the speed of your PHP code by 1-10 times."

One of the benefits that many freelancers with families cite is the ability to stay home with the kids: you can save a fortune on daycare if you have kids just by working from home and not sending the kids elsewhere. But there are situations in which having the kids at home all day may not work out. Trying to take client phone calls or multitask between watching the kids and working just don’t always work out perfectly.

I grew up in a work-at-home household and, whether or not you’re comfortable with the situation as a parent, from the kid’s point of view, it’s not always a picnic. Having my mother home every day was nice, but the fact that I was banished to the basement when she worked with client made the situation a little less pleasant. I couldn’t have friends over at certain times and I’m sure there were days that I’d have loved to have gone to daycare. I could tell that it wasn’t exactly the perfect situation for her, either: she would mark off the days of summer break, barely able to wait until my sisters and I went back to school. What are the options for a freelancing parent?

Day-to-Day Child Care

Just because you work at home doesn’t directly necessitate that you also have to watch the kids all day. There are plenty of freelancers — both moms and dads — that have found arrangements that fit well with their schedules. That can mean keeping one eye on the kids and one on your work. It can also mean sending children to daycare part or full-time. It can even mean bringing in a parent’s helper for a few hours a day or a week. Furthermore, situations evolve as children grow. A toddler who has just figured out walking needs a lot more supervision, of course, than a teenager.

There is no universal answer to the question of whether freelancers need help with childcare. But it is a discussion worth having: there’s nothing wrong with working from home and avoiding the costs of daycare. But if childcare would improve your working situation, it is something worth discussing.

Emergencies and Other Situations

Even if you’re pretty sure that you do just as well with your kids in the house as with them out, it’s important to have an emergency plan in place. For situations like when your child falls sick on the same day that you have an important client, a alternative plan to keeping the kid home just makes sense. Maybe a grandparent is willing to help out or maybe bringing in a babysitter that can help out even when you’re home is a solution. It’s just a matter of finding something that fits.

These questions are important to more than just freelancing parents with children, as well. Some of us choose freelancing because of the flexibility it offers for us to take care of a loved one who needs help. Such situations can wind up as high stress environments very quickly, and arranging to have someone handle at least a little of the care-giving while you do some work can be crucial to keeping yourself sane.

Ultimately, your situation will dictate what your best option is. There are days when you may feel that you’re only working to pay for help, but if you can make the financial aspects work, it may be worth considering.

How do you juggle child care with the demands of freelance work?

Here at Envato we’re pretty famous for building a lot of successful blogs, like this one! We’ve done quite a few now, so last year I decided other people might find our techniques and systems useful. Today I’m really happy to announce my new book How to Build a Successful Blog Business which is a step by step guide to doing what we do, and it comes packed with case studies for our blogs including FreelanceSwitch!

The book covers everything from picking a niche to hiring staff, monetizing to building traffic. Like all my books it’s very practical, but I think the best part is the case studies because they include things like our income and expense graphs, detailed backstories about how our sites came to be, and much more. To give you a taste of what the book is like, I thought you might like to read a little part of the case study about FreelanceSwitch:

Extract from The FreelanceSwitch Case Study

… Our monetization plan for FreelanceSwitch’s early days can really be summed up as: try everything and see what works. We began with privately sold (via email) banner ads, tried other ad programs like Google Adsense and Adbrite text ads, tried affiliate programs, sold Text-Link-Ads (which these days will get you an SEO penalty), wrote a book and sold it, sold ads on our RSS feed, tried ads on the podcast, tried many variations of all the above and eventually created a subscription based job board.

Some strategies were relatively successful. Text-link-ads yielded a solid, dependable income stream for a long time, until eventually we removed them for fear that Google was penalizing us. The book did well and we spun that off as a book business called RockablePress (which is where you got this book). And of course banner ads have made up the staple of our revenue for most of the site’s life.

Some strategies were less successful and one was a downright disaster. Among the many affiliate programs we tried, one was for a template site called TemplateMonster. While they are a very successful service, it turned out that our audience hated the company. When we added a “templates” section to the site which was a library of 3rd party templates for sale, the reaction in our comments was extremely annoyed. Though it immediately started yielding revenue, we axed it days later. After all our site was about making freelancers happy, not peddling third party products that they mostly despised!

While banner ads remain to this day a great earner, they have always been by nature variable. We get a good return for the traffic we serve, but we’re dependent on a handful of advertisers who come and go and result in some great months of revenue and some not so great.

The Subscription Job Board Model

From the very beginning FreelanceSwitch was meant to have a job board. On launch day I created a placeholder page that just said “jobs coming soon!” Later we contracted a developer to build a completely free job board that had someone approving jobs (to prevent spam) and it flourished – though being free didn’t exactly have a great return on investment!

When it came time to monetize the job board, the standard model would be to charge advertisers for posting a job. This is how most job boards work and it’s great for full-time jobs because the advertiser is looking to pay a large salary over many years, so what’s a hundred dollars or so for a listing fee in comparison?

But for freelance jobs we found that many of the projects that were being outsourced were rather small in size. Imagine if you paid $100 to advertise a project that only paid out $250 to the freelancer! The economics for small jobs just don’t make sense. …

Extracted from How to Build a Successful Blog Business, by Collis Ta’eed

 

Read More Extracts

You can read more extracts from the other case studies over on Nettuts+, Psdtuts+ and Mac.AppStorm (the other sites covered in the case studies). You can also read a sample chapter by heading to our sales page for the book.

 

Get the Book!

You can learn more about the book, as well as find out what top100 bloggers like Darren Rowse from Problogger and Daniel Scocco from DailyBlogTips are saying about it over on the epic sales page that we’ve constructed! Get Blog Business!

 

Also: Envato Birthday Bundle 2010!

And while I’m here with news about my book, I thought I’d also mention that next month we’re running our annual Envato Birthday Bundle for 2010 and it’s going to be EVEN bigger than last year with over $400 of value selling for just $20! Find Out about Envato Birthday Bundle 2010.

So watch out, it’s going to be a big August!

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

As we seek to expand the most comprehensive search experience on the web, we've made a number of recent enhancements to your search results. Ultimately, what you're looking for isn't limited to text websites; you may be looking for a tweet, a video or a place—and we want to make sure you can find all of it. This week, we've made it easier to find definitions and images.

Dictionary search feature enhancements
When it comes to dictionary-related searches, both content and precision are vital. Recently, we expanded our dictionary search feature to all global English users, giving you quick and easy access to even more useful dictionary information. We added implicit triggering, which means you can simply search for [flummox] and find the definition, you don't have to search for [define flummox] or [what is flummox]. We've also improved the definition result snippet to show more details such as parts of speech and pronunciation. Stay tuned for more enhancements here, including an expanded mobile experience.

Example search: [stupendous]


Our biggest redesign yet for Google Images
Our focus on comprehensiveness extends itself to our other search properties, including Google Images. Over time, Google Images has become a very popular source of visual information. For many of you, Google Images has become a great tool for inspiration, learning, and even shopping. And, today, we've indexed more than 10 billion images -- so you can imagine the depth.

With this in mind, we have introduced a new design for Google Images. You'll now see a dense, tiled layout that makes it easy to view many images—up to 1,000—on a single scrollable page. In addition, we made the thumbnail previews on the results page larger, so all you have to do is hover over an image to get an even larger view. You'll also find more information about the image, and other image-specific features in the thumbnail preview. Once you click an image, you'll be taken to a new landing page that displays a large image directly over the website that hosts the image—so you can instantly learn more about the source and context.

Example search: [sunflowers] or [new york]

We hope you enjoyed this week's changes making your web experience even more comprehensive. Stay tuned for more search enhancements next week.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

Today we’re excited to announce a new edition of Google Apps. Designed with guidance from customers like the federal government, the City of Los Angeles and the City of Orlando, Google Apps for Government includes the same great Google applications that people know and love, with specific measures to address the policy and security needs of the public sector.

We’re also pleased to announce that Google Apps is the first suite of cloud computing messaging and collaboration applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. General Services Administration. The FISMA law applies to all information systems in use by U.S. federal government agencies to help ensure they’re secure. The federal government’s General Services Administration has reviewed the documentation of our security controls and issued an authorization to operate, the official confirmation of our FISMA certification and accreditation. This review makes it easier for federal agencies to compare our security features to those of their existing systems; most agencies we have worked with have found that Google Apps provides at least equivalent, if not better, security than they have today. This means government customers can move to the cloud with confidence.

Take Berkeley Lab, a member of the national laboratory system supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. It’s managed by the University of California and conducts unclassified research across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Berkeley researchers collaborate with scientists around the world, so emailing version upon version of documents among collaborators and trying to juggle disparate files is difficult. Berkeley Lab researchers have been using Google Apps to share documents that live in the cloud, and can view and edit documents and spreadsheets simultaneously knowing they are always working from the latest information. (Read more from Berkeley Lab’s Chief Information Officer on the Enterprise blog.)

And we’re not stopping with FISMA certification. Google Apps for Government will continue to evolve to meet unique government requirements. Google Apps for Government stores Gmail and Calendar data in a segregated system located in the continental United States, exclusively for our government customers. Other applications will follow in the near future. The suite is a “community cloud”—as defined by the National Institute for Science and Technology—to support the needs of our government customers. Google Apps for Government is available now to any federal, state or local government in the United States.

With reviews of our security controls in place, government agencies can more easily take advantage of all the benefits of one of the world’s best cloud computing systems. Google’s cloud offers higher reliability, best-in-class disaster recovery and access to a steady stream of innovation—all of which can provide substantial improvements over existing systems in addition to significant cost savings. And with no hardware or software to install and maintain, Google Apps for Government allows agencies to redeploy resources to technology projects core to their mission of serving the public. This new edition should give governments an even stronger case for making the move to the cloud.

Update July 27: Clarified details regarding the source of our certification and accreditation.

Posted by Kripa Krishnan, Technical Program Manager, Google Apps for Government

Humans have always been fascinated by the night sky. And Googlers are no exception. Over the years, Google engineers have used their 20 percent time to create Google Sky, Moon, Mars and most recently Google Sky Map for Android. This handy app, built by engineers in our Pittsburgh office, turns your Android-powered phone into a live map of the night sky. You just point your phone to the sky and it gives you information about the stars and planets that you’re looking at. Since we introduced the app a year ago, Sky Map has been downloaded more than 5 million times.

On Sunday night we had a wonderful opportunity to share our passion for astronomy with our community in Pittsburgh at the Deep Sky Urban Star Party, held in the abandoned swimming pool at Leslie Park in Lawrenceville. We loaded up a bunch of Android phones with Sky Map and joined the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh—who brought along their telescopes—and several hundred local residents for a night of stargazing.

As a Sky Map engineer the biggest thrill I get is when we get emails from people who have used our app to show a planet to their children for the first time. At the Star Party we were delighted to have the chance to show people around the night sky in person. It was great to meet so many people who were both excited by astronomy and interested in Google’s technology. Thanks for all of your ideas for new features, and a big thank you to the Leslie Park Pool Collective and all involved for organizing such a fun event.


Photos by Jason Parker-Burlingham

Posted by John Taylor, Software Engineer

The Perfect Desktop - OpenSUSE 11.3 (GNOME)

This tutorial shows how you can set up an OpenSUSE 11.3 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

Trolling the archives of FreelanceSwitch is a great thing to do if you’re trying to avoid doing actual work.  So because you’re a super busy freelancer, I’ve taken the time – hours and hours, just for you –  to grab a few of the more, shall we say “interesting” posts and gems from the crypts.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Guide to Freelancing 10 awesome steps to reframe how you look at your freelancing career.  Also very useful if you think your head might explode if you are forced to watch anything else Twilight related.

The Six People You Meet In Freelance Internet Writing Hell Any post with a reference to a Commodore Vic 20 is going to get my vote.  Unless it’s up against a TRS-80.

More Surefire Ways To Get Yourself Fired By The Readers Of FSw Laser pointer + your boss’s crotch = hello freelance world!

10 Reasons Why Your Last Collaboration Did Not Work Ego is probably #1 for me.  Looks like it’s #1 for you, too!

What Disaster School Taught Me About Freelancing At first, I thought this article was going to teach me how to cause disasters.  Turns out, it’s about preventing them.  Oops.

If you’ve got an idea for a future off-beat post, please let me know! Or – if you found great success from one of these articles, we’d love to hear about that, too!

Sometimes, you’ve gotta be that “in your face” type of freelancer. By that, I mean client follow-up. You may have to duck in and check up on clients to make sure you’re getting the work. Especially in business, the early bird gets the worm. A client may not always think of you for a project first, so it’s good to stay visible without being obnoxious.

This is especially true if you have a client that gives you ongoing work. I don’t follow up much on clients that need a one-time thing. If I’ve written the website content for a restaurant, there’s not much else they may need other than maybe a brochure or a new menu at some point in the future. They have my contact information if they need me.

But if you work with ongoing clients–such as marketing or advertising agencies–the pipeline is rich for continuous work. So what can you do if you don’t hear from that client in a while? Get in their face. A little. Nicely.

This can be hard, to be quite honest. I’ve “ducked in” on clients and have been assured that more work is coming–and then it never turns up. Instead of getting forceful or becoming a pest, you otherwise need to let go and stay in touch. But you can’t bully a client into giving you more work–that wouldn’t look so good for your business. That’s why I’m offering up a few ways to stay visible to your clients.

Contact the client directly. When staying visible, you don’t want to gravel for more work. The best way to do this is to open up some communication but not regularly hound the client for projects. When I’m feeling disconnected from a client (and wondering where my next big project is), I like to email or call to check in. I simply let them know that I am checking in to see how everything is going. I tend not to call because I don’t want to put anyone on the spot, but calling may be a good option if your relationship with the client is based largely on phone conversations. Otherwise, keep it brief and let the client know that they can contact you when something comes up.

Follow up on a previous job. Another approach to staying visible is to email or call, but instead of feeling awkward wondering if the client is thinking you are begging for work is to follow up on a project you recently did. Most of us do this anyway, but it’s a great chance to let the client know you care about their projects. A simple message to let the client know you wanted to follow up and see if they needed anything else on the project, or to inquire about how the client liked it, will keep your name fresh in front of your client’s mind.

When not to use this tactic: A year after you wrapped up a project for the client. If you don’t hear back after a duck-in or two, it’s okay to contact the client but it is likely that inquiring about the project may seem awkward. Chances are, they are well beyond the project you did for them.

Ask about additional services. I only do this if the client mentioned during project creation time that they were considering adding things in the future. For example, if you did a website for the client and they mentioned creating a brochure or adding a blog, that’s a viable reason to reach out after the project has wrapped up. Don’t wait too long to check in on something like this–you want to secure the work when they client is still singing your praises. And obviously, if the deal went sour, I’d rather not set myself up for potential rejection.

Send out an email campaign. So after you have ducked following a project, it’s good to stay in touch. Instead of emailing about work, why not stay visible by sending out your regular newsletter? This way you don’t have to seem desperate for work but again, you are staying visible. This is why it is good to get your clients to sign up for your email newsletter campaign. Sometimes I sign my clients up automatically and simply let them know if they want out of the newsletter, I can take them off or they can quickly unsubscribe. But sending out an email is a useful way to stay visible but not be a pest.

Timing is everything. After you’ve made your initial “duck,” it’s good to step away for a while. The client knows how to reach you. As much as you want to ask if you’ve done anything wrong or if they can “pretty pretty please” give you more work so you can pay the rent, it’s best to stay professional. You don’t want to play hard to get like you are dating, but you don’t want to be in their face too much.

Cope with the silent treatment. If you have a client that is just not responding, try to keep your insecurities at bay and focus your energies on other clients–or getting new ones. Chances are that all of your clients won’t stay with you forever. Losing a few here and there doesn’t mean you have done anything wrong–it’s just the way this business goes. They may not need your services anymore, and yes, they may have found someone else. The last thing you want to do is demand they give you more work, or explain why they haven’t done so. They have the right to use others in the same profession as you–as frustrating as that may be. By staying on the ball and remaining professional, hopefully a duck-in produces more work. If not, there are plenty more clients out there who will appreciate all of your follow-up efforts and won’t think you’re a “quack.”

Last November, we added legal opinions to Google Scholar. Legal opinions consider serious issues and help refine the laws that govern our country—but they can also be surprisingly entertaining. We’ve shared some of these for your summer reading pleasure on the Google Scholar blog.

Rimes v. Curb Records, Inc., 2001 the opinion is written as a series of songs to be sung to tunes by LeAnn Rimes. It starts:
LeAnn Rimes
A very rich and famous star
Wasn't so rich in times afar
But what a talent she had!
Read the rest on the Google Scholar blog.

Posted by Anurag Acharya, Distinguished Engineer

Script For Automatically Setting Up A Perfect Server On OpenSUSE 11.3 And Installing ISPConfig 3

Here's a little script that automates the task of setting up a Perfect Server - OpenSUSE 11.3 x86_64 [ISPConfig 3], and in the end it also installs ISPConfig 3.