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Came across this on facebook, the service being offered for a whopping £700 is genuinely disgusting. Am I the only one who thinks the quality of the work provided, for that price point, is outrageous? http://www.facebook.com/ReallyFlyBiz/posts/351356528308561

I'm trying to make a multi-page PDF document in OSX, with a custom background. I've made a word document and tried saving as a PDF but the background image is much larger / stretched when the file is saved.. which isn't ideal. Is there an easy way for my to create a PDF, with a custom / repeated background on OSX? Or windows if need be. It's really starting to annoy me.

I thought so. They're up for it. We were going to go down the Limited route initially, but it was more paperwork and accounting than I wanted to deal with. If this is acceptable, then it's the perfect way to deal with this at the moment. One other thing. Is it my responsibility to ensure that the people I work with are paying taxes and such, or do I just need to ensure I am paying and doing all I legally need to do?

Hello, I've recently started freelancing again, after a long break. In the process of sorting out off the tax stuff with HMRC. I'll be trading as a company (but registered as a sole trader). E.g. My name trading as CompanyName I'd like to work with some other people, who will also be self employed. Eg a designer. Is it going o be acceptable if on the company website they're listed as part of the 'team', but they're actually a freelancer I use? I'm presuming this is an acceptable way to do this. I don't want to go down the partnership route if I can help it. I'll just be using the services of other freelancers for aspects of builds, and having them invoice me for the work carried out.

In short, no. Everything I know about development and design is entirely self-taught. Whilst I am doing a degree in Digital Media Development, I'm not really learning anything beneficial. Amazingly, the development area of the course is painfully basic. I chose to get a degree for two reasons. 1) The experience. I've met a lot of different people. Which, honestly, would be worth the money I've spent on it alone. 2) The degree. Despite not technically needing one, and probably never really going to need one as I aspire to running my own company. It's nice to have it as it can open certain doors when required. Experience is much more important than qualifications. For example, I'm currently on my placement year at the moment. Spending 14 months as a software engineer. I've learnt more in the time I've been working here than I have done throughout the previous 2 years of my degree. Picked up a new language, couple of different frameworks etc. If the money, or debt, is a put-off for you then start somewhere basic. A junior role. Get some experience. Teach yourself some new skills. Then you'll have the option to move onto something higher up.

I'm planning to start my own company. I'm not the best at design, so I'll be outsourcing that aspect of the process to a 3rd party. I wanted to know the financial implications of registering as a limited company, compared to merely being a sole trader. The thought of labelling myself as an MD is very appealing. . What reports / returns do you need to provide for both an Ltd and Sole trader ? I'm trying to assess any potential accounting costs in order to make a decision.

I've had a couple of VPS's from them, and never had a problem.

DropBox, I can fully recommend. Excellent service. I've been thinking about this subject recently,and was considering purchasing a NAS with RAID, or a home-server / pc configured in RAID to be used solely for storage. Although I may just pay for a larger DropBox area. £6.50 for 50GB of storage is quite a modest fee to pay for the convenience.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yes, I do understand that . He's recently started moving into the website design area. I wouldn't of thought it would be too hard for a graphic designer to shift onto web design, provided they took the necessary steps. All of my clients will be providing a "specification" which will help outline the design requirements and expectations. Detailing of sites which they like the look of, sites they dont. So that he has a series of designs to use for inspiration, and then put his own "twist" on things. Wireframes and such will also be playing a part in the process. So I'm hoping that that, along with input from me, will be enough to produce some quality work. Time will tell.

I've toyed with the idea of going freelance for a while. I did some work last year then left it for a bit as I got myself a job as a software engineer. Well, now I'm planning to perform freelance website development in my spare time. I've got a mate who's great with design, as he's a graphic designer. So I want to go in on it with it. So I get him to produce the designs for me, and I can then go on to produce the physical website product. I'm just not sure which way to go with it yet (company wise). I'm thinking: - I register as self employed, and trade under a the name i've chosen NAME X. - My mate also registers as self employed. - I "contract" out the designing aspect to him on a job-by-job basis. ie. Attain a quote for the work, he produces designs etc.. Once we've come up with an accepted design he then invoices me for the work and I pay him that way. - I then use that design, produce the website. This way seemed better to start with. I didn't want to particuarly go down the partnership route at this stage as I need to ensure the balance is going to be right and that we work well as a team. If all goes to plan, then in the future then I think I would take the company to the next level and register as a Ltd. company and go the whole hog. So to speak. But I just wanted to get a second opinion on the way I'm thinking of going about this venture at the moment. Cheers.

Hi, I'm new to the whole "VPS" thing. I have some knowledge and can navigate my way around well enough. Having some trouble getting an FTP server configured and setup for remote access. Was wondering if someone could help me ? Ubuntu 10.10 Cheers, Luke.

Hi, I'm looking for some basic document management / document library software. I've found this: http://boxroom.rubyforge.org/ Which performs the types of functions I require. Don't need anything more than the features offered by this piece of software. Just wanted to see what other items are about. Need something where: - User logs in (authentication via LDAP). [Need to try and integrate this with whatever solution is chosen] - Users are assigned to user groups, and the directories / folders they can view are defined by these groups. - Admin group members can view / delete / add items to the folders. Does anyone know of any solutions that would fit this requirement ? Preferably in either Ruby/Rails or PHP.

True. I know what I'm doing, and increasing / improving on my skillset on a day-to-day basis. So around £20 is probably more accurate. I can get things done relatively quickly. If you were to charge a flat fee, what would be an approximate cost. That you would charge, for example. Classified website, back-end CMS, paypal integration. I know it's a hard question to answer. An approximation is all I'm after.

Generally around £10. Should probably charge more, but that's the figure I've gone with previously due to just starting out. Currently employed as a developer, so could probably charge more. What figure would you expect ?

Been asked to produce a classified type website, for books. You can list books for free, or pay a premium for featured listings and such. Similar to gumtree. Inclusive of design and all coding. How much would you expect something like this to cost ? Likewise with how long it could take ? Approximately. Cheers.

- Disabled JS and it ceases to function. Surely it should degrade to a still functioning site if no JS is available. - Don't see the point in the verification code either. Slows the whole process. - Don't like the color transitions on the buttons. I do like the simplicity of the design, and the color scheme.

True. Put the site up in a few hours at the weekend. Rather late at night. Overlooked the things such as T&C's. Disabled for the time being until I have time to organise some. I can take this as an opportunity to discover what else to add to it, to improve it. Do you prefer sites which you upload files, as is, without having accounts. Or do you like to be able to have an account, organise albums ect..

Saw the domain png.im a litle while ago, and purchased it with the intention of developing it into an image host. Finally managed to make the first steps on this venture with a basic working model up at the moment. It's my first VPS also, so taking a bit of getting used to. But so far so good. Overall design isn't final, nor is the functionality. Got alot I'd like to add to it. Looking for some advice on what you would look for in an image host. What you'd need / want them to provide in terms of functionality. Site: http://png.im Cheers.

Good luck! I'm planning to produce my own take on a "social network" in the near future. Look forward to seeing how it goes.

Works fine on other browsers. Don't see how it would only affect IE. No-repeat works for other images. And tbh, the image has a transparent border.. so if it were repeating it would be from the edges of the images not the edge of the field. Not a big deal, only a slight defect.

There is already a doctype. Adding the no-repeat hasn't changed anything. Not a huge deal, but would like to get rid of the outline if possible.

Apologies. Hadn't noticed. http://ziz.im/s489FK

Got the fields to display now, and everything looks good. Apart from the fact there is some black outlines to the images, which doesn't appear in other browsers. Any idea ?

Spoke too soon. Still having trouble with the two form fields, which have background images applied. You can see what they should look like in Chrome/FF. Any idea how to fix that ? Cheers.

Apologies. Just needed to use z-index. Seems to be fine now. Thanks anyway.