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Have you read Carl Hiaasen's "Basket Case"? There is a character that makes a living with a webcam, a 900 number and, I believe, $4/minute.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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-Buy 100 pairs of underwear -Wear each one in turn -Sell them to purvs on eBay under the heading "My used underwear"
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I thought you were moving out and starting college right now.
I'd focus on those new things for a month or two first. If you absolutely must work, then you should look for a job on campus, or in the library. Or look for a movie theater job or fast food job.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
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If you have to pay money upfront, which you do for just about all online money making schemes, it's a scam. Do NOT pay. No matter how legit you might think it is, it's probably not.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Though I wouldn't work unless I absolutely needed to. If at all possible, just do school as that will almost certainly have a far greater impact on your life.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I can open a graphics shop online where I make website layouts and stuff. I am starting college already, I moved out of my house last week. My mom is helping with expenses, but I don't want to depend too much on her, she does have a life of her own. I think I'm too old to not contribute to my life fund financially.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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When I graduated from high school I got multiple letter from companies offering jobs requiring no experience and pay slightly above minimum wage. I assume they were telemarketers.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote: I can open a graphics shop online where I make website layouts and stuff.
No, you can't. I have seen your webpage.
If that is a good indication of your approach to quality web design -- and I'll admit that this is a big "if," as my personal page quite flagrantly violates a number of what I consider to be sacred rules of web design -- you aren't good enough yet to make a reliable living at this sort of thing.
You may someday BE good enough. And if you throw enough money at marketing, you might sucker some people into it NOW. But you don't have enough startup cash to promote yourself heavily enough as a freelancer at the moment, and you don't have enough design talent to take the world by storm.
I'm not saying that you aren't talented, by the way. I'm saying you are not, based on what I've seen of your work at this point, talented enough to make a reliable career of this sort of thing in the rather ruthless web design market nowadays. There's no shame in that, and you shouldn't interpret this as discouragement; if you want to do this sort of thing as a career, there's nothing stopping you from acquiring those skills in the future.
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I'd be glad to give you more constructive -- and specific -- advice if you can tell me what kind of salary you're going to require, and how much time you're going to be able to devote to a job given your other concerns.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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My brother does this type of stuff off and on and he says he gets lots of complaints from people who hired high school students who will no longer update the sites. Most wont actually hire my brother because they want to pay what they paid the high schoolers, which is pocket change to my brother.
Moral is that experience means more than just being able to do a job, it means being able to finish the job and still be around when more work needs to be done.
If you want a real paying job, go somewhere on your campus, like the library or anywhere with a computer lab. Most computer lab consultants get to spend all day in front of a computer just answering minor computer questions.
I see most of my campus consultants playing games. I pity them. They use state of the art computers (3.0GHz PC and G5's) loaded with expensive software (CS2, everything Flash & Macromedia, and even Maya). And they play online Java games...
Most departments have a graphic artist who does the department fliers and such, and larger departments (like a library) will actually have web/graphic teams. My library had a graphic student on staff (she just graduated). If you can debug computer problems that is a big bonus too. It might get you snared up into tech support, which can really suck if you are too low on the food chain. "Hello? My computer wont print."... (after an hour of phone support...) "Oh, it wasn't plugged in! Thanks!"
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I haven't done much to my site, it doesn't really reflect how much webdesign knowledge I have. ;P Actually I'm very good at it, at least I consider myself to be, and I have been at it for the longest time so I am confident that I'll be able to design a few things and sell them. If I displayed a few samples of my HTML and image manipulation knowledge, how many of you guys would buy something? I'll make signatures for Philotic Web if you guys are on it for a max price of $5 transfered to my Pay Pal account. There is no shipping and handling fee of course ;P
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I have experience with Maya as well, so I might even use that on my Portfolio and I do have some designing experience too since I designed the senior ads for my school's all-color yearbook.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Which I am currently revamping. I just transfered my domain to a new registrar and am currently in need of someone that will host my portfolio. Will anyone donate some space on their server? I need 20 megs, PHP and MySQL to install the Coppermine image gallery. Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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My brother has a server and it is pretty hard for me to get him to host things for free, especially when $4/month can get you what you need.
Exactly how good is your php? I get the vulnerability reports from SANS and bad PHP coding dominates the webapp holes every time.
$5 isn't going to help your tuition... it barely buys lunch at Subway.
I was going to redo my website but I've been spending all my time reading this forum.... Where exactly is your portfolio?
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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My financial aid is paying my rent and tuition right now, then only thing I need money for is food and personal items.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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BTW if anyone sews, I strongly encourage making your own version of Bunny of the Month Club screwy stuffed animals. They're the cutest things, but I can't justify $50 a pop.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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You want someone to donate server space so you can try to sell your work? Do you not see how that is somewhat out of line?
And most people here are, by definition, pretty computer savvy. A large percentage probably either do their own graphics work or know someone who will do it for them for free. Heck, there have been threads posted of people offering to do photoshop stuff for free for fun and practice. I don't think this is your best market for that sort of thing.
Now, there are other markets, certainly, and I don't mean to discourage you completely from this venture. . . but if you need to make enough money to eat off of, you're probably much better off getting a campus job. If you're lucky, you'll get one where they'll pay you to study.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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If you need money for food, now's not the time to try to become an entrepreneur. Just swallow your pride and take a phone job or something. Just because you have no experience doesn't mean no one will hire you.
Posts: 276 | Registered: Feb 2003
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There are always jobs available. Its just a question of you being willing to do telemarketing.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I agree, although some student jobs suck, you need money. So I'd suggest getting any job presently- once you have a job you can be more choosey about your next one.
Posts: 944 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Haven't several people around here had luck selling items there -- creating their own store? I think Chris Bridges is one that does that as kinda a hobby.
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I've earned a total of $12.50 at my Cafepress store in a little over a year. They don't send you a check until you hit at least $25, though.
Posts: 276 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Wow. I thought Cafepress was better than that. If you are good with photography, check out iStockphoto.com. Your first check comes when you hit $100. Meaning, they expect you to earn more money. But sometimes it can take 6 months before you have enough photos that start generating enough money. Business related photos (people in suits) sell well. Flowers don't.
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Maybe Cafepress is good if you have enough people buy your stuff. I don't.
My point is simply that the internet is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It's just another place that requires hard work, dumb luck, or both in order to make any money.
Posts: 276 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I should get a work study, the problem with my campus is that its a very small school. I'll go talk to my people about it though, in case there are any jobs available. As for the portfolio thing, I guess I never thought about it that way, having some free space in order to sell my work. I never saw myself as an entrepeneur. I don't want to put up a graphics shop just yet, I just want to put a gallery. But I understand why you said what you said, ElJay and to be honest, I agree with you. I guess I'll just have to kiss my site's board goodbye then since its using the only database my host gave me. Oh well, a portfolio is more important I guess.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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