Time usually drips through my finges while working on a website project. I completely forget about working efficiency and project billing. Richard White might abandon my bad freelance habit now. He programmed Slimtimer, an easy to use online time tracking tool.

Once you registered you can start using time tracking right away. It´s dead easy. Add your tasks, tag them and hit the clock when starting your project….

Read more on Slimtimer here or watch the screencast.

Slimtimer is free. Richard confirms there will always be some form of a free version. Currently FireFox, Camino, IE6 and Safari are supported. (IE7 and Opera 9 coming soon).

Note
Infos on german are availabel on Milos´ blog superdeluxe.ch

Update
According to a comment by Scrivs on leihu.com Unmatched Style was removed from 9rules.com.

11.07.06
I have never heard that before and hope i will never read such crap again: Unmatched Style announced a design contest on June 19th 06 with the promise of a grand prize of $1,500. The site to be redesigned was/is Nursing Homes.

On July 6th, the results of the contest were announced – and apparently it was won by Massive Blue – but (unfortunately for designer Sam Brown) a little further down the page Unmatched Style sais:

“...none of the four entries won the $1,500 prize because each was missing a critical piece of the requirements.”

Cool: First get designers to work and then withdraw the price with such a lame excuse.

More on the issue on Matthew Pennells site thewatchmakerproject.com.

Links
Mike Stickel: How not to run a design contest

Andy Budd: Creative pitches are toxic

NO!SPEC

Who ever worked as projectmanager on more comprehensive website projects can not really survive without flowcharts and blockdiagramms. A widespread software for generating diagramms is Visio by Microsoft. Visio Standard 2003 costs USD 199 and for freelancers who only need flowcharts on and off a bit expensive.

Gliffy to the rescue. Gliffy offers diagramming in your web browser without downloading additional software and it is very similar to Visio. Currently the Gliffy team plans to offer two versions of Gliffy:

• Free, ad supported Gliffy with limited feature set
• Subscription version of Gliffy with premium features for the business user

Test it!

Matthew Smith (artist, designer and dear TXP fellow) published a series of great interviews with Nathan Smith, Natalie Jost, Robert Wetzlmayr, me and others on the subject of client-designer relations.

Nathan S. speaks about how hard it often is to get clients to deliver content and how often projects ‘fail’ due to lack of content. I truely agree with Nathan saying: Basically, without fresh content, all websites stagnate, and people will quit visiting. If that is the case, then it would be better for the client to have not had a website to begin with.

Natalie J. outlines here ideal client and Robert W. elaborates on organizing work. I talk about the difference of taste and design and how clients often mix these two pair of shoes.

Update: Matthew added an interview with Rob Sable from wilshireone.com.

Alltogether Matthew asked very interesting questions every new design freelancer can learn from a lot. Additionally Matthew gathered a couple of further interesting readings on the issue.

(Articles image by aqui-ali)

In the January 06 issue of Treehouse Magazine, Chris Campbell sums up important steps on setting up your own business in the fields of webdev and creativity.

He writes:
In an attempt to reduce the number of frustrating hours searching the web for what you need, we’ve written this article to help you with the small business paperwork, the basics of accounting, and an overview of some legal considerations. The topics aren’t sexy, but they’ll get you headed in the right direction if you’re tired of working for the man and want to get out on your own.

Chris recommends a lot of great resources. Most are relevant to United States businesses only. Some, like Garret Dimmons article Steps to Becoming a Freelance Web Developer, give a good insight on becoming a freelancer independently of your nationality.

If you are interested, download a free sample of the Treehouse January issue.

Further readings:
Self-Employment, how the heck do you make it work?