We researched the subject and wrote a series of articles, including creating some custom illustrations to show how handmade rugs are constructed.   

You can read the articles online at their website: http://www.handmaderug.com/about-handmade-rugs.htm

Welcome a new blog to the blogsphere!  Richard Young had been thinking about adding a blog to his website for a while and decided to add it this year.  Richard purchased our Blog Add on service to have us set up and design a blog to match his existing website.  He’s already begun adding posts to his blog - you can visit his blog at RichardYoungMagic.com/blog/

RipTideSystems.com is an informational site for existing and potential clients of RipTide Systems, a network services and solutions company based in Temecula, California.  Dave and Vickie Walker, the owners of RipTideSystems.com, wanted a very professional “technology” look for their site.  We used RipTide’s existing logo and designed the site around it. 

Pictures can say so much with any words and in RipTide’s case, high quality images of cutting edge technology hardware, the logos of their partner software companies and photographs of their office immediately and visually convey the high level of professionalism of the company.  We also created an award badge for the home page of the site to commemorate their nomination as Small Business of the Year in 2007 in the Temecula area.

Visit RipTideSystems.com

NorthPoleStation.com is one of our own websites that has been in the works for some time.  The site offers printable Christmas stationary (yes, it is misspelled - I’ll explain later) such as greeting cards, gift tags, letters, and a Letters from Santa Claus Kit. 

This is a seasonal site and we wanted it to have a happy “Christmassy” feel to it.  Soft blues, snow, custom graphics of Santa’s village make this a somewhat “childish” and friendly friendly site.  Because it displays so many graphics we kept the design very, very simple. 

We decided to try out another payment processing system on this site, in this case, PayDotCom.com, which offers payment processing using paypal with a built-in affilate system.  We programmed a custom digital delivery system to work with the PayDotCom.com system.  After the visitor makes their purchase through PayPal and PayDotCom, a page is automatically created for their purchase that lists all of their download files.  The files are not accessible through any page but the download page and it can only be accessed using a valid PayPal transaction number.  The site administrator can review all of the purchases, regenerate the download link if the visitor loses their link or PayDotCom fails to complete the transaction.

All of the stationary on the site was custom designed by our graphics designer and set up as PDF and editable word files depending on the type of stationary.

This site was designed to attract search engine traffic using popular keywords for Christmas stationary.  That’s why stationary is misspelled.  The correct spelling for writing materials is stationery but the majority of Internet visitors misspell it.  That’s what they search for so that’s how we had to spell it.  To make a long story short, the entire site was written from the ground up to match keywords obtained from the Google Keyword Suggestion tool. 

All the work paid off handsomely.  The site was launched on November 9th, 2007.  Within 2 days it was fully indexed by Google.com and within the week appearing on the first page of search results of the various keywords it was designed for.  By week two it was getting 1,000 visitors a day, with over 80% coming from Google.com, peaking at 2,300 visitors on December 24th.  Visitors purchased kits right up until Christmas Day, with one visitor purchasing a kit the day after Christmas. 

Visit NorthPoleStation.com

TheCaroler.com is one of our websites.  This site is centered around a printable PDF e-Book containing over a hundred traditional Christmas carols and hymns.  Each page in the e-Book has a link to the website with a midi file and sheet music for the song. 

The design is based on a vintage postcard that was published circa 1907, which has been integrated into the site’s header banner and the cover of the e-Book. 

This site has been set up to funnel traffic to the various Christmas holiday sites developed in 2007.  As well, the e-Book is free, the visitors can give it to their friends and acquaintances and other webmasters can offer it as a free download from their own websites.  This is a viral marketing method that has proven effective for many websites, as the e-Book readers download the e-book and then refer to it year after year.

http://www.thecaroler.com

The answer is that they just seem to be higher.

To make a real comparison, you can’t just take a salaried employees annual gross salary and divide it by the number of working hours in a year to compare it to freelance rates.  You first have to adjust the hourly rate of the salary to allow for the differences between an employee and a freelancer.

Adjusting Salaries for Additional Employee Costs:

The annual gross wages are just the base salary for an employee.  Added to this is the employer contributions for FICA and other employer contributed taxes and insurance.  You also need to figure in the costs of supplying the work space, equipment and supplies plus the management and administrative costs associated with having employees.  You can figure this at around 30%.

Adjusting Salaries for Actual Working Hours:

The number of working hours in a year is 2,080.  This is figured at 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year.  The assumption is that the employee is working on their actual job tasks from the moment they hit the door to the moment they leave the office.  This is simply not the case.

You have to first deduct the hours for paid legal holidays, sick days and vacations. 

7 legal holidays per year
2 weeks vacation time
5 sick days

Total:  176 hours

Now you have to figure the time for lunch, breaks and good morning chit chat.  That’s at least one hour per day.  With the remaining 48 working weeks per year, that comes to 240 hours per year.

It is unreasonable to expect the employee to work all eight hours a day without doing some kind of administrative tasks.  Let’s figure at least an hour a day for answering mail, telephones, and so on.  That’s another 240 hours off the working hours per year.

With employees in the Internet technology skills area, there is inevitable downtime for researching new developments, learning new software, installations, and so on.  Figure at least a half hour per day for this over a year.  That’s another 120 hours off the working hours per year.

So really, it’s not 2,080 hours per year. 

It’s 1,304 hours per year.

The Formula for Comparison:

Take the gross annual salary and multiply it by 1.3.
Divide that figure by 1,304 hours.

That’s what that employee actually costs per hour.

Example of Salary Adjustment for Comparisons:

Let’s take a Senior Web Designer, using the job description and salary figures from Salary.com. 

Job Description: Designs and constructs web pages/sites including incorporating graphic user interface (GUI) features and other techniques. Maintains and provides ongoing design of the website, promos and ad banners, seasonal content specials and custom chat launcher design for partners. May require a bachelor’s degree in a related area and 4-6 years of experience in the field or in a related area. Familiar with a variety of the field’s concepts, practices, and procedures. Relies on experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals. Performs a variety of complicated tasks. May lead and direct the work of others. Typically reports to a project leader or manager. A wide degree of creativity and latitude is expected. 

Median Salary for Greater Los Angeles:      $98,000
Additional Employer Costs 30%                  29,400

Adjusted Annual Salary:                           $127,400

Divided by 1,304 hours:     $98.00 per hour

Comparing Freelancers to Employees:

When you are trying to compare employees to freelancers, you always have to keep in mind that the freelancer only bills you for task related work.  You are not billed for chit chat time, coffee breaks and holidays.  You do not have to purchase or maintain their equipment or software or cover their overhead.  They pay for their own education and they do not bill you for that time.  You don’t include them in your insurance plans and you make no employer contributions. 

Most importantly, you do not have to make a committment to keep supplying a freelancer with work.  You also do not have to personally manage their activities or hire another employee to manage them.  Their work is done without supervision.  When the work is complete, they make up their bill and you pay it.  Fast, clean and simple.  You have no further obligations.

Hiring freelancers is ideal for any company that does not have ongoing design and development work.  But you will have to pay the freelancer a rate that is comparable to a salaried employee if you want the same level of quality or better.

 

A blog is usually written by a single author, who is referred to as a “blogger” although many blogs are written by companies or groups of writers.

Each time a blogger writes a new article on the blog, it is posted online with the title and date it was written.  Each entry is called a “post”.

In most blogs, the most recent post appears at the top, with earlier posts below in date order.  Whenever a new post is written, a new link is created and automatically added to the navigation menu for easy access.

The navigation menu usually shows the most recent posts in one section, then the links for the posts organized by categories.  There are often links to other blogs or websites, which are grouped as “links” or “blogroll.”

There are personal and commercial blogs with the subject matters varying wildly with everything from family news and photos to detailed product information to consumer advice.  There are funny blogs, rant blogs, political, press and media blogs, hobby blogs… there are blogs on just about every subject you can think of.

Many blogs feature photos, images, audio and even video. Many blogs display syndicated news content, full blown shopping carts and art galleries and other sophisticated interactive features.

A popular feature of blogs is the comments feature.  Visitors to the blog can respond to articles or posts and leave links to sites related to the post.  Not all blogs enable comments, many turn them off because of problems with spammers. 

Socialization is one of the important aspects of blogging.  Bloggers often link to other blogs that they find interesting or informative.  People make friends online and become part of entire networks of blogs.

Blogs are extremely popular for several reasons:

• They are relatively easy to install and set up
• You don’t have to have much technical know-how to manage them
• Writing posts is usually as simple as writing a document in your favorite word processor
• It’s easy to get a blog listed on blog directories such as Technorati
• Search engines visit directories like Technorati and so quickly find your blog and index it
• Online visitors like the more personal approach of a blog

To give you an idea of the wide variety of a blog, here are some example blogs:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
http://mckenzieartstudios.wordpress.com/
http://smartwebcenter.com/blog/
http://www.thecyberworldtimes.info/blog/
http://www.theplugg.com/
http://christakay.wordpress.com/

 

Web Designer

A Web Designer is one that has skills and talent in the areas of Web Page Design and Layout.  The Web designer may or may not be particularly artistic in terms of creating artwork that will be displayed on the web page, but they usually have a good eye for layout and the ability to design and build attractive and functional web pages using various web creation tools and clipart libraries. If the Web Designer is not particularly artistic, but need custom or unique graphics or logos, a Graphic Artist may be called in to do the art work.

The secret that most Web designers would like you not to know is, building and designing a simple web page is not particularly difficult when using the appropriate tools. It can be like using a fancy word processor to create a newsletter. Once you are familiar with a web design tool and if you have a little creativity, you can produce your own web pages. This is evident by the number of web pages already on the internet. Basically, the tool creates the HTML code needed for each web page and the Designer provides the creativity and data input. Graphics in many cases come from clipart libraries or from a graphic artist.

Having said all this, it is important to have a good web designer that can build a page or site to fit your needs and make your site stand out. A good web designer will consider many factors in creating a web page that the novice will not.  Things like logically organizing the information on the page and the site, ease of navigation, load time over slow modems, etc. Think about the sites you may have visited that a page seemed to go on and on forever and took a long time to finish loading. You simply don’t see these problems on well designed sites.

Web Developer

A Web Developer is someone that uses programming skills and tools similar to someone that writes computer software. The Web Developer goes beyond simple web design. They actually create programming code that may run on the web server, on the client (the users browser), or both. Code running on the server is never seen by the user, but will do things like customize a page before it is sent to the user’s Web Browser by pulling information from a database or other source. A search engine is a perfect example of this. You go the search engine website, type in your search words,  code run’s on the server to search a database for sites that match the words you typed in, the code then formats a page with the appropriate information and links and sends them back to your browser. Page Counters, calculators, games, database access, login screens, interactive web sites are just a few of the examples where a web developer may be needed. In short, if you need a web page with these type of features, you need not only a Web Designer, but you also need a Web Developer. This may or may not be one person or company.

You’ll probably find the titles “Web designer” and “Web developer” to be used interchangeably. This isn’t accurate. Designing a Web site is actually very different from developing one.

There are two major components to designing a Web site: the “front end” and the “back end.” While there can be quite a bit of crossover, for the most part design refers to the front end, development to the back end.

Front End Design

The front end is what your customers see: The “pages” that display the graphics, the images, and the text on your site.

Web designers concentrate on the front end, choosing appropriate images and fonts for the site and determining how images and text should be arranged.

A Web designer’s strength is the appreciation for aesthetics. A designer doesn’t have to be a technical whiz. But one should at least have a strong understanding of what will work visually on a computer screen, and what the technical limitations are in designing for the Web.

A good Web designer will also have experience in collaborating with a Web developer.

Back End and Development

Web developers work on the back end, making a site work. It’s not visible to visitors, but is essential to enhancing the visitor’s experience.

Back-end functions include making images change or move, allowing visitors to view different pages or enter data on themselves, or performing sales transactions.

If you’re hiring a Web developer for your Web site project, learn to speak the language. Make sure the resumes of those you are considering include the following skills:

• HTML (for the text and layout framework of a Web page)
• Web imaging (how to create and compress images for the Web)
• Javascript (writing programs that run as part of Web pages to do tasks like validating form fields before submitting a form)
• ASP (customizing a Web page for a particular user on the server before it is sent down to the user)
• Java/C++ (writing programs that are embedded within a Web page to do things that Web pages cannot do — like playing space invaders in a Web page)

Whom to Use?

Can an individual be both a Web designer and a Web developer? You bet! There are plenty of talented individuals who are adept at both. And for the sake of convenience, not to mention your budget, you may prefer to work with these hybrids.

However, if your heart is set on a snazzy design that puts your competitors to visual shame, your best bet is to hire a separate designer with strong graphic experience.

Or say you want to include complex e-commerce transactions that require special programming skills. In this case, you may end up with a top-notch Web developer who has absolutely no interest or experience in graphic design.

What Are Your Options?

If you’ve never designed a Web site, could you be capable of handling both ends of Web design? Quite possibly!

Then again, taking on such a big undertaking could be foolhardy. It all depends on your goals.

Do it yourself.

In-house design is certainly the cheapest route. If your needs are relatively simple, some excellent software packages can guide you through the whole process.

Outsource it all.

If you want animated graphics, interactive tools, or complex e-commerce functions? You’ll need an expert in CGI scripts and important Web programming languages like PERL.

Combine the two.

Your third option is to do some of the work in-house, and contract out for the tasks your company can’t handle. Look around your company. Do any of your staff have experience with graphic design software like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator? Maybe he or she can design the images for the site, and then use a contractor to work the images into the overall design.

Or are you a better-than-average photographer? Scan and use your own photos for your site, or use a digital camera and upload the images onto your site moments after you take them.

Keep in mind that if you’re already thin on resources, even if you have some capable people in house, it may still make sense to use contractors and save your full-timers for what they’re there for: growing the company.

But be creative. Got an intern who built her own homepage? Or one of your staff’s high-school-aged kids — you might be surprised at how capable they are of putting a page together.

And don’t forget ongoing maintenance. No matter who designs and develops your site, you can’t just put it up and leave it there. A good site creation plan should incorporate the long term.

 

We also explain our design and programming philosophy in depth and give clients and fellow developers insider information.

Enjoy!

24kVintageArt.com brings paper prints and postcards from bygone eras to high-resolution life with the help of cutting-edge digital scanning and imaging technology. These images are available for viewing in online galleries, or are reproduced as printable greeting cards, desktop wallpapers, clip art, canvas transfers, mugs and other gift and decor items.

This is one of our own web site development projects which was launched in November 2006.  It features:

• Static image galleries to attract visitors
• A Christmas Countdown script written in PHP
• Membership site with free and paid membership subscriptions
• Graphics work on restorations and enhancements
• Custom order form and processing system for personalized jewelry boxes
• Downloadable high resolution greeting cards in PDF format
• Custom Headers and graphics design elements
• Matching blogs on Blogspot.com and WordPress.com
• Matching design on CafePress
• Matching design on FinerWorks.com
• Matching design featuring vintage art from Art.com
• Custom eBooks & Graphics that can be downloaded

The site is currently in phase 1 of its development.  The phase 1 objective is to establish 24kVintageArt.com on search engines and to build up a free and paid subscription base.

Phase 2 is scheduled for mid 2007 and will include:

• Build out of CafePress store items
• Release of shopping cart for ordering prints, both framed and unframed
• Custom tile products based on the vintage images
• Marketing Campaign for the 2007 Christmas season

Visit 24kVintageArt.com