I recently read an article over at The Artistic Outlaw that reminded me what designers go through when freelancing. For those of you that are graphic designers out there, or provide some kind of a service, these 5 ways would come in pretty handy if they were actually honored by your clients. James made a valid point when he said that plenty of people write about becoming better at your job, but nobody writes about how clients can become better clients.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the people that hired you actually let you do your job most of the time, and paid on time? Yes, it would.

Head on over and check out the article.

This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference hits from June 9th to the 13th. In the first week of March, Apple held the “iPhone Software Roadmap” event that made a huge buzz in the tech world with their future plans. The SDK was released to developers for just under a hundred bucks, and things have been kicking along pretty well since then.

Apple demoed a few applications ranging from games to native applications, as well as some great upgrades to their own applications including exchange server support with Mail. Without getting too much into what was discussed, the idea here is that the possibilities that have been unlocked on the iPhone are phenomenal.

I put together a small list of things that I’ve missed on my iPhone. They’re not exactly the most complicated apps out there, but most of them being the most obvious ones for general use. Check out my list after the jump…

Times is an RSS Reader application with a unique approach at how news/blog feeds are presented to you. Dustin MacDonald, known for creating the popular Wallet application is the man behind this cool application.

The first thing you will learn about Times is that it’s very well thought out. The animation and transition effects throughout the application look very pleasing, and makes it a fun application to use. From the perspective of a traditional RSS Reader, your subscribed websites would generally be grouped into one section, while the article feeds would be displayed in a window right next to it. Times takes the approach that aggregates your feeds into a newspaper-like design.

You have the ability to create categories for the different types of websites you subscribe to right next to the ones that already exist. Times comes with a big list of popular websites/blogs you may want to follow, but you can definitely add new feeds and remove existing ones at your command. If you’re an existing user of an RSS Reader, you can import your .opml feeds directly into Times so you don’t waste time creating new feeds for everything. Continue reading after the jump…

You can probably find a million other sources that’ll tell you to “own the stage” and pretend like the presentation hall is your living room. The fact is that, it’s not, and never will be. Yes, my approach to good public speaking is similar to others, but I aim to cover things that they don’t - the things that don’t get too much attention that are just as important.

Chances are, if you’re looking to become a full time public speaker, you would be taking a few courses over at the local University. For those of you that want to learn to speak publicly for self improvement and to boost confidence in your speech, these tips may be for you… Continue reading after the jump.

It’s been a while since I last came across a new application that blew me away like Acrylic’s Times. Created by young developer, Dustin MacDonald, this is a new and surprisingly pleasurable way of keeping up with the latest news from your favorite websites! I’ve been playing with the trial version for a little while now and I can only give positive remarks. The amount of detail that went into this application is very impressive. Basing its ground on Mac OS X technologies like Core Animation, navigating through the fluid interface is simple and delightful.

Get the trial & Enter to win!
You can head over to the Times homepage and get yourself a trial copy of the application. You can also win 1 of 5 copies of this program - Desktop Vibes is holding a giveaway so don’t forget to enter! If you truly care about a new and efficient way of checking your RSS feeds, I think you’ll find this quite handy.

The month of May has reached its point of presence on our calendars, and with it brings warm weather, summer vacation, and more. To me, May is the time of the year where things start to calm down and pick up speed all at the time same. The school semester at the University is coming to an end, and my schedule becomes free for me to do the things I have planned.

With this free time, I hope to pursue more freelance gigs and work on some of my web projects that I have planned. I will also be concentrating on my photography, along with getting into video related work a bit more - The fact that I now have Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, I can hopefully create some good material.

For the remainder of this year, I want to continue crossing things out from my New Year’s Resolution list. I want to travel to at least 2 locations that I’ve never been to, read a couple of books, get some needed accessories for my camera, and put more effort into writing creative tutorials using Adobe software. My Reflective Metallic Text tutorial received a lot of attention all over the web, and I hope to do the same with my upcoming tutorials. I hope to not disappoint. =)

Every since the Master Collection was announced by Adobe, I told myself that I just HAD to have it, and now, I do! Every application that comes with this master suite, I will try to learn and use to their fullest extent. I’ve been meaning to get into video editing and production for the longest time, as I have a high end HDR camera at my disposal. I think After Effects would be pretty awesome alongside video and flash animations.

There are a lot of new features in the whole CS3 suite that have intrigued me to make the grand purchase. Just the fact alone that I can work so easily between all the applications seamlessly makes it worth it for me. On top of that, performance improvements from CS2 to CS3 running on Intel Macs is great, too!

I always hear from people that Fireworks is a good alternative to Photoshop for creating web templates and layouts, and now that it’s even more powerful, I’m stoked to give it a shot! Dreamweaver’s new features supporting advanced WYSIWYG, CSS, and Javascript functions look promising and I’d love to discover the all the possibilities. I have a feeling I’m going to be spending A LOT of times with my new toy this summer.

Don’t you hate it when you wake up in the morning and nothing is working out for you? Things not in place, no hair jell, books to pack, lack of new cloths to wear, etc. These are the things that most people usually go through on a tough morning. Today wasn’t a good day for me at all.

To start off, I didn’t even sleep properly. I would sporadically wake up every hour for about 6 hours with different dreams each time. I usually remember my dreams but I was so disoriented when I woke up, nothing stuck in my head! That sucks because I like to recall my dreams throughout the day and try to figure them out and such.

This morning I had Photography class and absolutely nothing was packed and ready. I had to print out an assignment with a bunch of photos, get my class notebook ready, and prepare my camera and tripod. So yes, I went to class without my notebook. For another class of mine, I ended up not really being prepared because I was supposed to have something completed that I thought wasn’t due until a later date. More after the jump…

So you’re probably thinking this is just another “eat right and work out” blog post, but it’s different because this is my version of it all. I believe that the significance of staying healthy in life cannot be expressed enough! It’s important to always have new sources of motivation, and other people’s perspectives on such matter.

Exercising is beneficial in so many ways but people still fail to take action no matter how aware you make them. Even to this day, the importance of nutrition and exercise is not emphasized enough in our school systems (at least here in the US). Children don’t get the proper exposure to things like how much fun it could be to participate in healthy activities.

Sooner or later, I believe that the obesity epidemic of America is gonna get so bad, the types of actions would have to be taken that absolutely no one will like. Yes, there are many complications in people’s lives, but there’s still not enough effort being put towards bettering children’s lives through activities and education. More after the jump…

In the first part of this article, I discussed things including creativity, technical skill & knowledge, and the business aspect of design. Now, I will cover gaining work experience, finding a good job after graduating, and staying productive as you go about your journey towards design success.

First, I want to start off by saying that succeeding in any field can be difficult without determination and love for what you do. I have seen all too many times people getting degrees in whatever field that and end up doing something completely different. If you’re young and still in the decisive stage, good. This is the perfect time to figure out what career path to choose, and what’s right for you. The Design field is very competitive. It requires lots of communication, ongoing desire to learn, and the ability to push yourself to new limits. More after the jump…