What I just learned was that the reason for my JavaScript conflict was that I was calling jQuery and a number of other scripts at the top of my document. By moving them to the bottom, it allows the MailChimp scripts to resolve and then jQuery and other scripts get called last, which has allowed me to bypass the conflict so all of the scripts are now happy and playing nicely together! Hope this post will help save someone else from spending hours trying to get both MailChimp and their other scripts running together!

I wanted to post a little discussion on the topic of “fair rates” for web design. It is my hope that this video is a help to web designers who are just starting out and also people who are currently shopping for a web designer and are unsure of what to look for and what to expect in terms of skill, price, and a number of other factors. Hope it helps!

A discussion of fair rates for web design and what to expect as both a client looking to a hire a web designer, and also a web designer just starting out and trying to figure out what a fair going rate is.

The workshop will be held at Kirkwood Fitness & Racquetball Clubs (1750 Kirkwood Highway, Newark, DE 19711) in Newark, Delaware area (45 minutes South of Philadelphia and 45 minutes North of Baltimore) just minutes from I-95. View on Map.

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Join the dance community, friends, family and fans as we celebrate LIFE with an extravagant evening of belly dance performance and a scrumptious three-course Middle-Eastern dinner at Casablanca Restaurant in New Castle, DE.

You and all your family and friends are cordially invited to join us for this rockin’ celebration! Anyone who wants to go even further in helping our cause, please don’t hesitate to purchase VIP seating, closer to the stage. The additional money is going to a great cause!

Purchase Tickets Now!

Featuring performances by
Sarah Skinner and Many Other
Lovely Dancers!

This 2 1/2 hour performance is a benefit for Breast Cancer Research. All proceeds will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Fund and all guests, dancers, family, and friends alike will be helping to raise money to fight for a Cure with their donation. Ticket price includes a donation for the cause, the three-course meal and the 2 1/2 hour performance.

Additonally, Sarah Skinner will be performing a veil dance featuring veils hand-dyed by Shaula of (http://silkdancer.com). Shaula has donated the veils in honor of a friend who is currently battling breast cancer. The veils will be available for sale at the show after Sarah performs with them. All proceeds will be donated to help fight breast cancer!

In loving memory of Kate.

The following stipulations apply: the Magento Dark Icon Set may not be resold, sub-licensed, shared, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. If you love them, please show some love and link back to them if you want to share them with someone else.

If I had known when I started designing this site that the result would be hours and hours of re-creating .GIF images with ugly white fringe pixels I just might have done something different. I searched high and low for a nice freebie dark icon set that was licensed for commercial use. Fortunately for you, there was none to be had!

The file is a zipped Photoshop Document (.PSD file) which contains large (approximately 400 px on a side), 32px, 24px, and 16px size images for your convenience. You will still need to save them as .gif files, but I’ve left them for you to create, because in my case (and many others I imagine), I opted for .PNG icons over the Magento .GIF icons installed by default.

Hope you enjoy them, let me know what you think and if they come in handy for ya!

Download MagentoDARK Icon Set Now

I think when I speak about magic and refer to it on my blog in reference to my work, I’m not talking about incantations, spells, and the like.

I’m talking about
“Do you BELIEVE in magic?”

I’ve been thinking about this question alot lately, because I think it’s a question that alot of people would give an emphatic “yes” to, however, I think alot of those people are at the same time not at all interested in incantations, spells, and sorcery. Why is that? If you want my opinion (and unfortunately you’re in my “realm” right now so you’re going to get it :D ), it’s because people are looking for something more. I think such a classic and timeless theme that runs through human history. Recently, we’ve seen J.R.R Tolkien write his epic saga “Lord of the Rings” and magic was a major part of the wonder and mystery of the world and story that he told. The same is true of C.S. Lewis and his works. I know that both authors did not actually practice witchcraft, sorcery, or tarot readings, yet magic was a central theme to the stories they told.

The funny thing is that I do believe in witchcraft, sorcery, tarot reading etc. and their ability to affect the world, but I’m not really convinced that the effect is positive. Obviously there’s plenty of controversy surrounding that issue and I’m not interested in adding to it, however, I will say this:

The fundamental problem of witchcraft, sorcery, and the like is not the tapping into the supernatural, it’s the motivation behind it.

The mystical realms are a place where, in my opinion, all of us are born to live and breathe and thrive. However, I don’t think anyone wants to take a journey into that realm (as my friend did once) and end up trying to jump out of a car going 65mph because they’re tripping face on acid and perceive demons in the car trying to kill him. I’m just sayin’, the spirit realm is the place to be, but you have to enter through the proper door to get the GOOD stuff.

At the end of the day it’s the motivations: it’s control, manipulation, self-promotion, and self-righteousness that are really holding us back as a worldwide community… Not so much the mystical or the magical or the supernatural. What we REALLY need to do is awaken people to the reality of the presence of the SHING DING of HEAVEN! More on this later…

I am a freelancer, and like many other freelancers I have a fairly regular interaction with other web professionals through Twitter. As a result, I have a definite bias, but I see alot of freelancers suffering from burnout and having difficulty figuring out how to manage their time and balance their various roles and responsibilities in life. This post (at least in part) is my two cents on the whole phenomenon, which is very real.

Raises and Benefits

There is a group of web professionals that are very interested in security, stability, raises, and benefits. These people often have families that they need to care for and are under alot of pressure in that department of their lives. They are excellent at their trade but for them, it is a high priority that their work end at a certain time each day so they can invest in developing strong relationships with their spouse and children. Others in this category include those who place a higher value on relaxing and enjoying life than working hard.  That makes web design a great career for people with this personality type.  Being a web professional is a great way to get that freedom; you can even work from the road or while on vacation etc.

The struggle for this group of freelancers is that despite being sincere in their passion for their trade, they are more interested in web design / development than they are interested in business.

Ay, There’s the Rub

Being more interested in web design / development than business is a serious problem for many freelancers.  There’s something misleading about the term “freelancer”.  It’s not quite “self-employed”, not quite “entrepreneurial”, and just a bit vague.  If you’re a freelancer then you’re a business owner.  Period.  The question that really needs to be answered is this: “What is your dream?” 

If things like security, stability, and comfort are important parts of your dream, then it’s my humble opinion that the “freelance” (a.k.a. business-owner) lifestyle is not the one for you.

Why?  Because one of the basic tenets of business is “Work hard now, reap the benefits years later”.  If you want to be successful as a freelancer, it should be your goal from the outset to develop a strong brand and be developing a strategy to gradually turn your business from a one-man operation into a studio with specialists in a variety of industry niches.  I warned you at the start that I wanted to make some polarizing comments, but take heart, for there is hope.

Why We Do the Things We Do

I think it’s a great idea to sit down and make an honest decision, “Am I interested in security, stability, and comfort or am I interested in making a mark, sacrifice, hard work, and being a leader?”  I think taking the time to commit to one or the other could help many freelancers bypass years of confusion and frustration and ultimately, failure. If you’re doing the freelance thing right now make the best of it, but have a plan.  Is your freelancing a time to develop a strong portfolio and expand your knowledge / marketable skillset in hopes of landing a better full-time design / development gig?  Is it to establish a strong brand identity and a steady influx of clients to the point where you need to bring other people on staff in order to handle the influx work?

My personal goal is the latter.  Of course many people never have life circumstances align in such a way that they are capable of making the huge sacrifice to move from freelancer to entrepreneur.  I am very grateful to own two companies, a fitness & wellness company that is profitable to the extent that I am able to invest more time in my still-growing “DreamStar Studios”.  I’m currently mapping out a plan to make the transition from “DreamStar Studios – Freelance Designer Brian Feister” to “DreamStar Studios – Private Design Studio”.

Maybe it’s just my sense of adventure and romance, maybe it’s my unreasonable and silly love of a good challenge, but I’m going for it.  There are some of you reading this that should too!

For your pleasure, I have enclosed 64px, 32px, 24px, and 16px .PNG images of each icon.  This way you can adapt them easily to their environment, though they work best on very dark backgrounds.

Fiery Fairy Icon Set by DreamStar Studios is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.