Although this post is over a month overdue, I really wanted to get the word out about this great site since its really worth a look for anyone that wants to make some money while you do what you do best or want to get some work done at a decent price!

The Question

Have you ever wanted to tap into design talent around the world and get something designed without incurring absurdly exorbant costs? Or are you a designer that wants to get paid decently for what you do? Then 99designs is the place to visit…

The Reach

There are over 15,000 talented designers from around the world at your disposal that design everything from logo designs, business cards or web sites.

There is good new for designers as well, prize money up for grabs by designers: $54,309

How it Works

Step 1: Create your Design Brief Few simple questions form your design brief. A design brief is just a summary of what you need designed. It costs USD$39 to post your brief on 99designs.com

Step 2: Set Your Budget How much you’re willing to pay the winning designer to purchase their design. This is called the prize. Prize amounts generally range from $50 to $500 depending on the type of design you require.

Step 3: Work with the Designers Once your design brief has been posted to 99designs.com, designers from around the globe will submit design concepts to compete for your prize. It’s your job to rate the designs and provide feedback to help the designers deliver what you want.

Step 4: Choose Your Favorite Design At the completion of the design contest (which is a maximum of 7 days) you will choose a winning design and pay the designer the prize amount. The designer will send you their completed design along with copyright to the original art work.

That’s all there is to it. Take a look at some of the design contests currently running and see why 99designs is the best choice for your next design project.

If you are wondering where I was for the last 2 weeks where I conveniently disappeared from the face of this planet…

Well as much as I would love to say that I was abducted by aliens and had probes stuck in places that I would find hard to explain about…

But I was actually busy with getting a job! A job you ask? Yes! A Job! I am employed now. It was always in my long-term plan to have a steady income and this is most definitely the conventional way to make money… although getting employed was least likely choice for me, I figured earning money doing what you love to do is fair enough.

Getting a job is a funny business. Most people prepare for it with all the possible resources they can muster, whereas others just walk-in without a worry on their minds. With both the above cases the chance of landing the job completely depends on the way you approach the situation. In my case, I walked in and got the job simply because I followed a few basic guidelines:

* Did a background check of the company, the kind of business they are into (IT, HR, Training, etc)
* Spoke to a few friends within the company to understand their work culture
* Prepared a few Q&A scenarios of the most likely questions they would ask
* Made a mental note of a range of how much I would be expecting in terms of a payment package
* Finally, got a good nights sleep before the big day!

I hope that this may help anyone else that is looking to get a job or change their jobs.

On another note, I made a few changes to this blog today by adding an “Advertising Zone” on the right bar. I don’t expect it to kick in for another 24 hours since that’s how long it takes to get activated and populate with relevant ads.

Hoping to post a new review soon, so stay tuned for that… I promise it would be a real treat for the creative souls out there.

Google Doctype is an open encyclopedia and reference library. Written by web developers, for web developers. It includes articles on web security, JavaScript DOM manipulation, CSS tips and tricks, and more. The reference section includes a growing library of test cases for checking cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility.

Google Doctype is 100% open.

* Open source
* Open content
* Open to contributions from anyone

Click here for more information

Hello everyone! I have decided to have a Blog Festival to give you the opportunity to have your articles featured right here side-by-side to my articles.

Here’s how it will work:
1) Must be the original works of the author
2) You can submit as many as you like
3) Can be about anything at all (except for stuff that I can’t publish like porn and all)
4) Leave a comment here and send your entries to asela at crystalaxis dot com
5) Closing date is on 31st of May 2008

Since this is less of a competition and more of a way to get your ideas out there, there will not be any prizes given out. But you never know… I might just change my mind as and when I feel like it!

So start sending in your entries soon…

Microsoft has launched its Worldwide Telescope yesterday bringing together images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and few others right to your desktop.

“The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe,” said Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, in a statement.

The program allows users to travel the galaxy on their own or take guided tours of destinations out-space developed by astronomers and academics. It also provides a number of different telescopes and easy switching between different light wavelengths.

Here is a closer look at the system requirements:
2GHz or faster processor
2GB of RAM
1-10GB of free disk space
Graphics card with 128 MB RAM or 256 VRAM
Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista
Net connection
Macs must run Windows OS

Ironically, they can make a piece of software that can go to the moon but can’t seem to fix their own operating systems like XP or Vista.

Atleast we can be glad that we don’t have to billionaires or book a ticket on the next commercial shuttle out of orbit to experience all this.

Google launched their own version called Sky sometime back too which also comes with an add-on for Google Earth.

Check them all out and let me know what you think right here…

In a turn of events by Facebook to appeal to the greater mass of people, they have removed the Networks tab from within the top navigation. Apparently, they didn’t do the job right and kept some trailing trash to clean-up later. I was still able to click on edit (between the Profile & Friends buttons) and then go to Networks and change or add a new Network to my preference.

I could even go to the friends tab, click on All Friends and who ever that was already part of the old networks still showed up. I personally preferred the Networks since it created a geographical segmentation that would otherwise be out of control with every tom-dick-and-harry creating a group for whatever they liked. This is the same reason I left Hi5 and several other Social Networking sites.

What is happening to Facebook you might ask? Well… I can’t give you a good answer for that right now but I suspect that if things go the way they are right now, FB is going to turn out just like Hi5 and all the other Social Networking sites that couldn’t survive the pressure from the people that are insecure about themselves online and FB will eventually loose a lot of members in the process.

This is in addition to the thousands and thousands that will also leave if ever Microsoft succeeds in the take-over of FB.

What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to share.

Its always a nightmare when you have to work with a team from varied backgrounds, it gets even worse when you are worlds-apart. Well just be thankful that 4 brilliant people had the same problem you have, and instead of just sitting around they decided to do something about it!

Introducing Twiddla!

Twiddla is a free, real-time online collaboration tool. Just click and go: no plug-ins, downloads, or firewall voodoo. It’s online when you are. Mark up websites, graphics and photos; brainstorm on a blank canvas; meet with your virtual team easily and instantly… all in real time, all online. All you need is a computer with an internet connection and a web browser. They do the rest.

Messaging
Twiddla is a free, real-time online collaboration tool. Its beauty is in its simplicity and accessibility: no plug-ins or downloads, no need to work around complex firewalls, no advanced scheduling. It’s available 24/7 and the only requirement is a computer with an internet connection and a web browser. It’s browser-agnostic, user friendly, and free.

Users can:
* mark up websites, graphics and photos
* brainstorm on a blank canvas
* meet virtually, easily and instantly
* chat with other users
* talk with other users live

There are even separate Twiddla buttons that you can place on your browser and your site. After using it for a while, I was so addicted that now I don’t do anything without it. Give it a spin and share your experience with many others.

Team WhiteBoarding with Twiddla

I happen to be one of those rare people that actually like American Idol! Although I don’t agree with the judges sometimes, I like Simon and his honest opinion when he tells them about how they really sound to the human ear drums – just noise.

But I feel that there should have been some desperate way to keep Kristy Lee Cook simply for the fact that she can sing really well and she looks gorgeous!

Having said that, I also feel that David Archuleta can do much better with his selection of songs and with his fresh voice and considerable range. He should be able to easily top the votes if he sang something like Gallery by Mario Vasquez. Not only would there be more crazy girls to scream his name, he might actually win American Idol.

Let’s see what happens this week on American Idol!

Who Is Hosting This is a tool conceived by Stan Schroeder (editor at Mashable) and programmed by Gordan Orlic (Zend PHP and MySQL certified developer), it enables you to find out who is hosting any web site. Simply type in any domain name, and you’ll get a link to the company that’s hosting this particular domain. It’s that simple!

Although they started in June 2007, the official launch was on the 4th of July 2007 when the site got Digg’d. By September they announced that they had successfully integrated WHT with BuiltWith.

They have also included two nifty toys in the tools section for anyone that wants to have this great site within easy access within your favorite browser. Their FAQ section answers some more questions most of you may have about this site.

Don’t just take my word for it, go have a look for yourself and leave a comment here.

Who Is Hosting This (opens in a new window)

I started my web development career at 21 with MegadynamiX (Pvt) Ltd (LK-based IT solutions provider specializing in web development) as a trainee web developer on the 10th of February 2000.

After my 6-month probation period was over, the Webmaster who was there left the company for a better position and I was promoted to the post of Webmaster and put in-charge of the day-to-day web development activities . Over the next few months, I was tasked with training the 4 university interns with the inner workings of building a website, where to host the files and the standards to follow in the process.

During this time we worked on a lot of websites and portals for various clients. One of the stars of the time was when we made a one-stop portal called “LankaWorld”. Although its no longer active today, it was making headlines in months where we hoped it would take years.

After serving at MegadynamiX for over 3 and half years, I left the company to join Confifi Management Services on the 12th of August 2003 as their Group Webmaster, taking with me some good lessons and whole lot of experience. Confifi Group was a hotels and resorts management organisation based in Sri Lanka. Although most would think of this switch as career suicide, I thought of it more like a challenge. As expected, I was faced with a lot of challenges, frustration and reluctance by my fellow employees to embrace the ever evolving web technology since most of them had little or no exposure to Information Technology back then.

I worked my way through each problem, eventually leaving Confifi on 25th of April 2005 to join OpenWorld after having served for 1 year and 7 months, during which time I learned a lot about the inner workings of hotel chains, customer management and public relations.

OpenWorld was one of the best places to work, I was given a pre-warning though that I would not learn anything new but the pay was extremely good so I took up the challenge to try something different since now I had the best of both world under my belt.

A UK-based IT solutions provider for the global travel and hospitality industry, with branches worldwide. OpenWorld served the likes of InterContinentals, Raffles, Dorchester’s and many more hotel chains. I was recruited to service the Raffles and Swissotel Hotel chains for a greater part of my time and it proved rewarding for everyone, since my contact at Raffles was very impressed with the way things were being handled.

After serving at OpenWorld for over 2 years, one fine day the CEO of OpenWorld dropped a bomb on everyone saying that the company was running at a loss and that he had no choice but to close down the company on a global scale. Although we knew that this was not possible since the company was making millions, we all started to look for jobs.

At the peak of my career I was frustrated and angry, I promised myself that I would never let this happen to be again. Now I was in financial trouble as well since I had got married only 3 months back. So I looked around for another job but in fact my skills were now out-dated and out of style. Eventually, I found a job through some good recommendations of my ex-colleagues at OpenWorld. TravelByte Technologies also proved to be a short career when they closed down 3 months later.

By this time, another friend of mine who had gone to Dubai over a year back mentioned that there was a position with the company that she was working for, as a Web Developer to build a tourism, business and recruitment consultancy portal. After a few months of negotiating, I was on my way to Dubai to start my life fresh without making the same mistakes all over again. With the help of some of the best people I ever had the privilege of working with, including my ex-colleague from OpenWorld; we launched the portal.

Six months later, I was dragged into the same pit all over again. I was once more tricked into believing that I could come back to Dubai in two weeks when I came to Sri Lanka in November 2007 for a short holiday.

Although it was inevitable that they would not need us once we had completed the portal, giving people the benefit of the doubt is what we should always do. Anyways, I am now in Sri Lanka trying my best to overcome my past mistakes and get my life and my web development career back on track with an outlook to a prosperous future.

Lessons Learned:

1) Never ever trust people that offer you the world
2) Always trust your instincts
3) Make as much money as you can when you are young (never tell your boss that you are NOT interested in money)
4) Save as much money as you can, because you never know when you will need it next
5) Never give up on yourself or your dreams
6) Always Think Positive!
7) Be aggressive about what you want in life and never settle for anything less than your worth

Do you have a story that you would like to share? Please feel free to drop me a line…