Advancing my career.

I got to thinking that, well , my job sucks, and i have this other skill that most others in my city don't have. Web design. So, I want to leave fast food, and get into freelance web-design. So, does anyone have any advice for getting into the field? I have some prior costumers that will help get my name out, but I think I need more exposure, and yes this summer I did a few sites , anywhere from $33-$50 an hour. So, I know that there is money in it, but I am not sure what else I should do, besides continue learning more and more. oh, and by the way, yes I still need to set up a site for my portfolio.

EDIT: and please don't bother flaming, I am looking for real advice.

Connections, professionalism and efficiency are important.

Also; how old are you again?

i agree with you, and to answer your question, i am 17.

Hey, im am 17 aswell, and want to start web design company (freelance stuff mainly).

First off you should find out what are your strengths and weaknesses.

Then once you find them out , work on your strengths to create your own site as a way to get work and to be part of a portfolio.

Then work on improving your weaknesses, e.g. if its coding in a certain langauge improve it.

Then start putting your site out on the net, on forums etc and advertise as much as possible, and maybe put some flyers out about your site.

Thanks, CD p.s. if you want to do some work together pm me ;)

**Coder Disaster wrote:**Blah

What have you like, EVER, accomplished?

get a good CV dont be afraid to sell yourself (no one else will) dont bullshit in interviews it comes back to bite you in the arse

@spyware Fuck off , you dont know anything about me, if you want information about sites i have worked on PM me.

I need to get into something too. I'm kind of afraid that without college it's not going to happen. Odd jobs are ok, I have found a few sites where you bid on stuff to code for people.

Coder Disaster wrote: @spyware Fuck off , you dont know anything about me, if you want information about sites i have worked on PM me.

If you need to prove yourself just post it public. I'm not taking PMs anymore. Idiot filter.

I dont need to prove myself. If he wants help or to work with me i can provide him with samples.

Coder Disaster wrote: I dont need to prove myself. If he wants help or to work with me i can provide him with samples.

Maybe he'd (or she'd, who knows) work with you if you weren't such an ass-act.

Although, you might just totally fit in with yours31f.

Have fun, "disaster" (that's a NEGATIVE word by the way).

Lol, good one you really insulted me, i was offering help , if he wants he can take it . Im not here to be nice or to prove my skills.

yours31f wrote: I got to thinking that, well , my job sucks, and i have this other skill that most others in my city don't have. Web design. So, I want to leave fast food, and get into freelance web-design. So, does anyone have any advice for getting into the field? I have some prior costumers that will help get my name out, but I think I need more exposure, and yes this summer I did a few sites , anywhere from $33-$50 an hour. So, I know that there is money in it, but I am not sure what else I should do, besides continue learning more and more. oh, and by the way, yes I still need to set up a site for my portfolio.

What level of web design skill do you have? A little HTML and javascript wont get you very far as those are easy enough for just about anyone to learn.

I would say that the best thing you could do right now is to finish your C++ site. If you get it up and running it'd serve as a good sample of your work.

Just out of curiosity, what fast food place do you work at?

yours31f wrote: I got to thinking that, well , my job sucks, and i have this other skill that most others in my city don't have. Web design. So, I want to leave fast food, and get into freelance web-design. So, does anyone have any advice for getting into the field?

Alright, well… I work in web design, so here goes.

I have some prior costumers that will help get my name out, but I think I need more exposure

You're right. Set up a professional profile on any of the networking sites abound online (LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc.) and start meeting people. Best way to market your web design, though, is with a website… selling your services. Hit up freelancer sites online and do some gigs… then, add them to your portfolio. Don't even think of trying to be halfway successful with it until you've done at least 10 professional-grade websites (db backends, complex CSS/JS-based navs and designs, even a little Flash would be nice).

and yes this summer I did a few sites , anywhere from $33-$50 an hour.

A few sites won't cut it. Do more… freelancers sites are your friend when it comes to getting work on your doorstep. Also, once you meet the above criteria regarding professional-grade websites, raise your hourly price. You look cheap.

So, I know that there is money in it, but I am not sure what else I should do, besides continue learning more and more.

If you're still learning, your work will reflect it. Polish your skills, then break into the field. When you're a freelancer, there are no entry-level positions… you have to come out of the gates being proficient.

thank you for the insight. I REALLY appreciate it. I needed the help.

@ ynori7 : I believe your right, I talked to some people at a local tattoo shop and they were interested but they want to see my portfoilio, which isn't too great right now, so I told them I would build one and bring it to them, so I guess it's time for me to get busy coding. and to answer your question, I work at whataburger.

So this is my offer, I am willing to do (at the current time) 5 BASIC sites just to refresh, Please note that these will not be extremely detailed as they will pertain to my learning of new languages (such as php and sql), so if you have a smaller personal site that you want made just pm me the details and i will get working on them.

I figure I will get some free sites in, to get a portfolio going.

any other advice is welcome.

yours31f wrote: So this is my offer, I am willing to do (at the current time) 5 BASIC sites just to refresh, Please note that these will not be extremely detailed as they will pertain to my learning of new languages (such as php and sql), so if you have a smaller personal site that you want made just pm me the details and i will get working on them.

I don't want you to do a site for me, but you could do a site to better yourself. Design a basic blog in PHP with a MySQL backend, documenting your hurdles along the way… then, that will be your starting blog content. You'll also learn a bit about web security along the way, while you're protecting those GET variables and blog comments… not to mention your blog manager / CMS.

Also, that will give you a tool with which to document your later work, which will give your work more credibility and give you a regular status as to your progress.

ok. i agree. So anyone know of any good e-books on the topic?

For web design , sorry no, but for web coding my favorite are tizag.com and w3schools.com

sorry i meant php and sql

Then definetly tizag and w3schools , also phpfreaks.com , the forum and tutorials are good.

Well just a thought, i could probably learn better and more secure, if I was to learn from someone here. So, If you are willing to give me hands on lessons, Please let me know.

I can help you on it if you want in security etc.

yours31f wrote: Well just a thought, i could probably learn better and more secure, if I was to learn from someone here. So, If you are willing to give me hands on lessons, Please let me know.

You're not going to find a lot of people (if any) that would be willing to teach you from basically scratch. It's not difficult to learn PHP and MySQL, but you have to get in there and get your hands wet. Design the HTML / CSS layout of your blog first, then you will know what you need to code for by what you made room for. Single out the goals and research them.

Okay i will get started, but i will still be looking, if anyone is interested.

I can help with any problems you have and can show you some things , but you must be willing to learn and try things your self.

WELL, i need help, i looked all over and cannot finsd out where i went wrong.

what it does… it readsthe url and sets the body of the page to what ever is in the page variable.

URL: cthecode.com/index.php?page=tutorials.htm\ but that still comes up as the index or ibody.php.

any help thanks

$_get['page']; if (isset($page)){ require("parts/".$page.".htm"); } else{ require("parts/ibody.htm"); } require("parts/footer.htm"); ?>

Learn to assign variables.

Turn off smilies and your problem is you havent defined $page

Add error_reporting(E_ALL); to the top of the page, it will point out every error.

$page = $_get['page'];
if (isset($page)){
require("parts/".$page.".htm");
}
else{
require("parts/ibody.htm");
}
require("parts/footer.htm");
?>

You keep doing require("parts/ibody.htm";); Why?? It should be require("parts/ibody.htm"); And thats the code fixed ^^

thanks i will try that.

yours31f wrote: so its a problem with the variable, but what problem, like i said i have looked it up but don't see what i coded wrong? I have a feeling its the $_get["page"]; but whats wrong with it.

I realized you didn't read the post above because you started reading this thread before that reply was there, but I still smirked at this.

Still doesnt work :(. i think it may be something like the way im trying to load the page. Its like it completely skipping my If(isset… and going straight to else every time.

did you add the error_reporting(E_ALL); to the page?

yes and i fixed the 1 error.

see what you can tell from there…

cthecode.com

try

<?php
$page = $_get['page'];
if (isset($_GET['page']))
{
require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/$page");
}
else
{
require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/ibody.htm");
}
require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/footer.htm");
?>

nope i get a syntax error on line 12 that would be

require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/ibody.htm";);

then i reomoved the require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/ibody.htm" [ ; ] );

and i get the page to load but with the same error.

Learn how to read errors. There normally self explanitory.

Edit: If you need php help , why not ask on a php forum ?? Here is one good one, http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php

And here are some tutorials http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials

ok thanks.

can someone go to this page and see what it says my proxy will not let me view it.

http://cthecode.com/db.php

Post the code.

BTW, http://cthecode.com/index.php?page=tutorials.htm: based on the url, I'm going to say you might have an LFI vulnerability…

Edit: NVM, I was wrong. You wouldn't have an LFI. Not just including the $page.

well right now it wont require($_get['page']); anyway.

@yourself , not trying to be a dick , but can you not do anything your self, you keep asking for members to solve your problems, when you havent even tried to solve it your self.

Try learning php first, and if you get stuck try debugging your code, instead of just posting here asking us to solve it.

Apparently, the OP has the amazing ability to turn something as simple and basic as possible into a monumental undertaking. Just post the source of the page that you're using PHP on… all the source, including the HTML, from that one page. Then, maybe we can see exactly wtf you're trying to do.

yours31f wrote:

I believe your right, I talked to some people at a local tattoo shop and they were interested but they want to see my portfoilio, which isn't too great right now, so I told them I would build one and bring it to them, so I guess it's time for me to get busy coding.

Are you suggesting you could go from web designer to tattoo artist

those 2 things couldn't be further apart

Coder Disaster wrote: I can help you on it if you want in security etc.

Coder Disaster wrote: <?php $page = $_get['page']; if (isset($_GET['page'])) { require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/$page"); } else { require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/ibody.htm"); } require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/footer.htm"); ?>

Man I wouldnt take security help from this guy, this code looks mighty vulnerable to LFI…

yea i would have done something like…

<?php

$page = $_GET['page'];
$pages = array('tutorials.htm', 'other.htm');

if (in_array($page, $pages))
{
require("parts/$page");
}
else
{
require("parts/ibody.htm");
}

require("parts/footer.htm");
?>

Yeah, thats another way to do it, means you have to keep that array current though. You could combine allow_url_include=OFF (to prevent RFI) with a stripping function to remove all periods, that would be good, and could be reused across the site.

mambo wrote: [quote]yours31f wrote:

I believe your right, I talked to some people at a local tattoo shop and they were interested but they want to see my portfoilio, which isn't too great right now, so I told them I would build one and bring it to them, so I guess it's time for me to get busy coding.

Are you suggesting you could go from web designer to tattoo artist

those 2 things couldn't be further apart[/quote] No i was talking about making the tattoo shops web site.

jjbutler88 wrote: [quote]Coder Disaster wrote: I can help you on it if you want in security etc.

Coder Disaster wrote: <?php $page = $_get['page']; if (isset($_GET['page'])) { require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/$page"); } else { require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/ibody.htm"); } require("http://www.cthecode.com/parts/footer.htm"); ?>

Man I wouldnt take security help from this guy, this code looks mighty vulnerable to LFI…[/quote]

I never said that was secure, i just fixed the broken code, didnt make it better. He needs to learn this stuff himself, he cant expect people to do it all for him.

I would like to make my code work before I improve it. Thats why it's not secure yet.

One bit of advice i was told about security on websites ,is be very ,very paranoid about it , go over the top if needs be to protect it.

Ok Thank you.

a

How much are you making?

its not that i cant get customers, its that i live in a small (er) town so there is not that many websites needed. all the "big" companies already have sites, but i was making (i think i might have already said this) 33-50 dollars an hour.

yours31f wrote: its not that i cant get customers, its that i live in a small (er) town so there is not that many websites needed. all the "big" companies already have sites, but i was making (i think i might have already said this) 33-50 dollars an hour.

If you had real knowledge and ability, location would not limit you. Quit settling for small-time, petty jobs, and wrap your mind around some real work. Do something amazing in PHP… or, just continue to suck at it and everything else web-related while you con a bunch of small-town dumbasses with your crap skills.

Think I'm flaming you because I enjoy it? Shut up; of course I enjoy it. Pay attention and learn, then hate me. Don't care; my advice comes, regardless. Practice PHP on your own, ask questions when your resources do not give you an answer after a FEW days, then you'll learn how to be proficient.