Helibo

FreelanceSwitch is celebrating they’re 1st Birthday with a competition open to everyone with staggering prizes! In total there is $1,500 worth of prizes, making a total to $500 each.

So that’s 3 winners, 3 different packages to choose from. And it gets better!

Each package is based around 3 different but the most saturated online careers. Writers, Designers and (web) Coders.

So if your looking to give your career a boost with $500 worth of amazing presents, head on over to FreelanceSwitch and enter now!

At 20:00 GMT earlier this evening, all entries were inputted in to a system where at the end it would automatically select one of them.

The winner of our first competition at Helibo has now been notified, whose name is Josh from standxhtml.

We hope to get some more competitions out in the future, but we will need your support.

*Note: Sincerely sorry for the lack of updates, still awaiting on a developer for the theme. Bare with us as more content is being prepared!

Whether your a designer, programmer, marketer, or other Internet related job role, you need to have a moment where you keep yourself fresh from the busy times.

I myself am currently working in a very good company. I’ve always said location is everything and where I am situated is in one word, brilliant. Surrounded by woodland and wildlife, the open air is one way to keep my mind and consciousness awake.

A month and a half of working as a project manager, and the time has flown by. The atmosphere of the office is very relaxing, but behind the curtains where so damn busy. But by staying afresh I am able to stay on top of my work.

How do I do this?
Because of the location, my colleges and the environment itself, I tend to just go outside every 2 hours for a few minutes, to catch the air and clear my mind.
Another thing I have started to do is go outside and do something, take a run, shooting, football, golf. These are also things that keep me fresh and more energetic.

As some of us will know, being in a company where you are sat in a cubical or in a not-very-well-painted office, you become a clock-watcher. Your eye’s start to go baggy, lazyness casts a shadow over you, illness such as cold or flu or coughing start to take place when your in this situation.

Helibo’s advice to you is to stay afresh, become more lively by doing different things. In the Internet / IT industry, our work is always different each day. But doing exactly the same thing each day can become painful to your health.

Here’s 5 tips on what you can do.

1. Every 2 hours, go out and sit down for 5 minutes. Breath in through your nose, and out through your mouth. As daft as it may seem, believe me, it works!

2. Take 15 minutes and go for a stroll, just walk at a slow pace for about 100 metres, and then back.

3. If you have a bicycle, go for a quick ride.

4. If your a smoker, stop now, and have 2 breaks a day. 1 in the morning for a sit down, and 1 in the afternoon for something else. The easiest way to stop smoking, is to simply stop buying them. Try it for 2 days, do different things instead of smoking. I myself managed to do it, so can you!

5. And lastly, ask your colleges if they’d like to do the same advice. Maybe play a game of chess, cards together. Simply 5-15 minutes things on a daily basis can lift you from the ground.

If your doing something different, what is it that keeps you fresh?

*sidenote: sorry for the lack of updates*

Just a quick update so first of all I would just like to say that Helibo like’s to give something back so we are now a do-follow blog! So get posting those comments!

Also I would like to thank everyone for there support, writers and readers.

On a side note, our Web Consultation service has been doing quite well, and we have decided to increase the pricing for this service as we believe our Web Consultation is at great value.

Last but not least, a free theme should be launching very soon. We’re just waiting on a developer to finish it, then it will be yours. I would suggest you grab an rss feed and you’ll be the first notified about the new theme!

It should go without saying, that you should insist on getting your web design exactly how you want it, first time round. When I say first time round, I don’t mean that you should expect your designer to produce exactly what you want in your first concept, I mean, that you should be sure he delivers to your exact requirements after the number of revisions required. In the past, I have foolishly approved a design, finished payment and received the files, only to decide a couple of weeks later, that the design was going in the wrong direction, and wouldn’t be suitable for my site. This, is a pain. It poses two fundamental issues: Time, and money. Not only have you wasted time waiting for it to be completed in the first place, and sheded out money that has now gone to waste, but you now have to wait longer for a new design to be completed, and pay yet more money. We can only blame ourselves in this situation, but there are some ways to avoid it!

Get the opinion of other web developers, and even peers.

Post your design up for critique on forums. See what the buzz is, and what kind of feedback you’re getting.

Choose a design you plan to keep.

When reviewing your design: you should have the mentality that the design you choose will be the design you keep and use for a reasonable amount of time. Don’t think “This bit’s not that good, but I’ll get it redone in the next version”.

Make sure YOU know exactly what you want.

Might seem an obvious thing to say, but if you don’t know what you want: how can you expect your designer too? You need to make sure your designer is clear on exactly what they need to produce for you. Which brings me nicely onto my next point.

Write a fully detailed brief.

Write a document briefing your designer on what you want. It’s good for you both to have a reference to check back to. This makes the design process a great deal smoother, and certainly works much better than briefing your designer over an IM. IM is good for things you missed out or revisions: but I don’t recommend it as a way to brief your designer.
Remember: It’s much easier to change a design before the coding stage, or better still, as a revision. So get it right - first time!

Time and time again, I find sites that look appealing to the eye, but lack structure or consistency. As web developers, we should be building sites that are easy to navigate for our users. That should be our top priority, and then come to the aesthetics.

The best way to do this is keep things simple. First, start by planning a logical structure to your site. Ask yourself: What should visitors see first? Where should their attention be drawn too? Also ask yourself: Do I really need certain things? Don’t put something in for the sake of it, or if you think that your design “should” have it. If you want to be unique, you should aim to be different – not have the same old design features every site has! It over-clutters the design, and leads to a not-so-user-friendly site!

You should also try and create designs that can be achieved easily through CSS – make it easier for the coder, or if you are the coder too – really produce something that fits nicely together overall, as a design and code piece.

A short article from me today, but I can’t tell you what to do with design – it’s an art form; a way to express oneself. I can only point you in the right direction, and let you do the footwork.

Earlier this evening I came across a website called Doomi. After looking at the homepage I thought i’d download the application and see what it’s like.

I was completely blown away. Doomi is the perfect piece of software for me, with great AJAX like features, letting you add, edit and remove to-do items. Best of all, you can even make reminders on each item that you wish to be reminded about.

The only disappointment I’ve found is that there weren’t enough options on that reminder feature. However, the application is amazing!

When I began learning PHP & MySQL, I found myself downloading pre-made scripts from a website and manipulating them to understand the language. I found this strategy very hard to begin with, but eventually picked it up.

I then moved on to tutorials to further advance my knowledge, and I was helpless. I wasn’t able to understand anything about PHP. All i knew was that MySQL is a database that has information in it, and PHP is some code that you have to write to work with the database to do what you want with the information.

I spent a good month or two trying to understand PHP, when suddenly I found myself reading “Advanced” tutorials. Oh no wonder I couldn’t understand.

Ah` what’s this I see?
I finally found the perfect website that I knew would help. I started reading, and within a week I had gone through everything and started to practice. If you have a rough idea of what PHP & MySQL is, then this PHP MySQL Tutorial is perfect to begin with.

On a personal note, I would suggest going through this tutorial at least 3 times, until you understand and are comfortable in writing the basics of php. Then go ahead and try and write a few scripts for yourself, call it a test if you may.

3 years later after following on with more intermediate tutorials, and having the help from someone i knew personally who was sufficient in the language, and I could say I am now a PHP Programmer.

So to finish off, PHP & MySQL might seem extremely hard for you, but if you just take a read at this website a few times, just read the first 3 areas over and over, and you should get a grasp of it pretty quickly.

Good luck to you all if you think about learning PHP & MySQL.

Wordpress made a great move on their face. The websites design is a huge improvement from the old one, much more aesthetically pleasing I must say.

Even the Wordpress Admin Panel and User Login has been updated. Just like I said in a previous post as well, Getting Fresh works!

Read more about what exactly has been upgraded on Wordpress.

That’s right folks, right here on Helibo.com you have the chance to win a book!

As a matter of fact, there is 2 books, but the we are giving the winner a choice between which one you’d prefer. The winner will be able to decide from either one of the following, The PHP Anthology or The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. Both books are from Sitepoint, both in brilliant condition. And to top that, The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is a hard back copy, which are limited edition!

The books have been provided by Adam Roberts (me), which I have read completely and I must say, they are great! And just to note, the Quick Reference Guides are included of course!

Want to get your hands on of these prizes?
It’s simple, all you need to do is post a comment below, with your name and email, your email will be hidden, and in the comment just simply post a link to your website.

How does it work?
You will be entered into a database, which will enable you to be entered for the draw. At the end of the competition, we will have write some code that pull someone out at random. And that person shall win.
Once the winner has been chosen by the computer, we will contact you via email. If you fail to reply within 10 days, a new winner will be announced.

When does it end?
This competition will end on the 15th of April 2008.
And remember, to enter you must have your own website!

What if I have a question?
If you have any questions or concerns, please use the contact form.