Bobby Parker 11/18/14 Bobby Parker 11/18/14

My Freelance Tools

There are a lot of resources for freelancers and believe me, I have tried them all. After many years in the business, these are the tools that have floated to the top of my freelance tools.

Save Time Billing

FreshBooks customers spend less time on paperwork, freeing up 2 days per month to focus on the work they love. What would you do with that extra time?

Grow Your Business

FreshBooks is built to support the needs of growing businesses. On average, FreshBooks customers double their revenue in the first 24 months. Woot!

Get Paid Faster

With FreshBooks, you can easily invoice clients from your desk or on the go. In fact, FreshBooks customers are paid an average of 5 days faster.

EVERNOTE BUSINESS

Where great ideas converge

Secure, flexible sharing
Room for projects to grow
Access to everyone's knowledge

Powerful CRM
Manage contacts, organizations, partners, vendors and suppliers. See everything from background, email history, events, projects or opportunities. More
Project Management
Make sure you’re on top of your project at every stage – track project activity and performance against milestones. More
Powerful Integration
Integration with email, Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Apps, MailChimp, QuickBooks Online, QuoteRoller, Torpio, Zapier, and more. More
Macro or Micro View
Look at your business any way you want with task dashboard, activity sets, reports and more. More
Go Mobile
Supporting iPhone and Android phones and popular tablets, the Insightly mobile app has you covered. More
Social CRM
We’ll detect virtually every social media profile related to a contact’s email address. More

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Bobby Parker 11/11/14 Bobby Parker 11/11/14

Photoshop on a Chromebook

In partnership with Google, Adobe is proud to introduce Project Photoshop Streaming, a new technology beta. Initially, this beta will be available exclusively to select North America based Adobe education customers with a paid Creative Cloud membership.

Project Photoshop Streaming enables selected participants to access Photoshop on Chromebooks. Applications delivered via streaming are easy to access and easy to manage. Even better, streaming apps work directly with files in Google Drive, so no need to download and re-upload files - just edit directly in the cloud.

Project Photoshop Streaming includes:

Creative tools: Streaming access to Photoshop with other products coming soon
Access from any Windows device with a Chrome browser or from a Chromebook
Learning tools: Access to Adobe Education Exchange learning content and an in-app Learning panel called 'Learn Now'
Project Photoshop Streaming Feedback and Forum support

Project Photoshop Streaming is an exclusive program. If you are interested in applying, please review the eligibility requirements and application process and submit your application here.

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Bobby Parker 11/11/14 Bobby Parker 11/11/14

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REQUIRING A DEPOSIT

Two important things happen when you say to your client: “I’ll need 50%, up front, to start the work and the balance is due when the work is completed.”

You are viewed as professional: Your client now sees you as a person who has payment policies in place. They respect you, and they are clear on what you expect and how it’s going to go.
A commitment is formed: Your client is fully committed when they pay a deposit. When some one pays a deposit towards something, they are making a commitment to the project. It’s a psychological thing. Without a deposit, there is no real commitment from your client. It’s like buying plane tickets. My trip to Chicago last year was just talk until I plunked down the $500 for plane tickets. Once that money was paid, it was a reality. We were fully committed.

Don’t begin the work without a commitment from your client in the form of a deposit

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Bobby Parker 11/7/14 Bobby Parker 11/7/14

The best one-minute animation you'll see all year

This brilliant short shows just how little time you need to entertain and make a point.

It takes real skill to entertain an audience for over an hour with a CG animation. But in a way, doing so in little over a minute is even more challenging. And here's an example of an animated short that does just that – combining brilliant 3D craft, a clever script and an unexpected ending with fabulous results.

It's the creation of House Special, a spin-off company fromLaika, the Portland animation studio behind such quirky feature films as The Boxtrolls. And it's already won a ton of awards, including Best Minute Movie at Animation Block Party in Brooklyn, Short Film Silver at The Australian Effects and Animation Festival, and Audience Favorite (3D Animation) at the California International Animation Festival.

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Bobby Parker 11/6/14 Bobby Parker 11/6/14

Procedural UVW layout and texture baking tool for 3dsMax.

The Lazy UVW editor is a way to procedurally create seamless textures without having to unwrap uvs. It accomplishes this by using multiple uvw channels to cover pinching, stretching, or seams of the basic uvw mapping options, and the resulting map may be baked down to one channel if desired.

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Bobby Parker 11/4/14 Bobby Parker 11/4/14

Chicago Office Space Renderings

Ah, Chi-Town! I am from Chicago, born and raised, so when I was asked to illustrate an open space in a downtown Chicago High-Rise, I jumped at the chance.

The deliverable was a series of 360 panoramic files, which seems to be making a comeback. I remembered about 15 years ago when I was doing a lot of 360 panoramas, but they seem to have fallen out of favor. The experience on the PC is underwhelming, but on an iPad, using iPano, it's awesome!

Like all of my work, comments and suggestions to improve are welcomed and encouraged. OH YAH, go Bears!

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Bobby Parker 11/4/14 Bobby Parker 11/4/14

Rebus Render Farm

Are you under a tight deadline? I would highly recommend the Rebus Render Farm. Over the last several years I have tested almost all my options, from Amazon to Google, and all the major render farm as a service.

This weekend I was wrapping up the "Chicago Office Space" architectural rendering, the clock was ticking and I was feeling the pressure, so I reached out to the Rebus Render folks. I downloaded the Rebus Render Farm Farminizer software, which checks and starts your render job from inside your 3D software. I clicked render and literally, in a matter of an hour, I had 4 - 6000X3000 crystal clean renders downloaded to my project folder.

I know, but at what cost, you ask? This was one reason I never pulled the trigger on utilizing a render farm service. My fear was my image would be held hostage for some ungodly dollar amount. Most render farm services have calculators, but they are notoriously not accurate. Each 6000 X 3000 still rendering cost around $10.

There are many good render farm solutions, some are less expensive, but none are as easy as Rebus Render Farm. So, if you are racing against the clock, I would recommend Rebus.

What are the advantages of the Rebus Render Farm?

The RebusFarm increases the speed of your renderings with massive rendering power provided by the Render Farm with its render-node clusters. Our render servers calculate still images and 3D animations in breathtaking speed and excellent quality.

Submitting your render jobs to the Rebus Render Farm saves you high acquisition costs compared to the purchase of expensive local hardware. The render nodes in the Rebus Render Farm guarantee optimal results, and deliver your images a thousand times faster than a single High-End-Workstation could ever do.

With the Rebus Render Farm you can solve your render tasks online in the cloud. Using the Farminizer software, which can be downloaded from our homepage, you can upload your 3D graphics and 3D animations to the cloud where our service takes over the rendering. This online functionality saves you expensive hardware and software licencing costs - the user-friendly Farminizer software and our Render Farm makes it possible!

Render Farm Specs

RebusFarm is the most advanced Render Farm Service in the world wide web. Leading in terms of hardware, price, number of supported software packages, development and service.

Supported Software

Autodesk 3ds Max

V-Ray
mental ray
Maxwell Render
Scanline Render
Corona Render

Autodesk Maya

mental ray
V-Ray
Maxwell Render
Software Render
Arnold Render

Maxon Cinema 4D

V-Ray
Advanced Render
Maxwell Render
Standard Render
Physical Render

Autodesk Softimage

mental ray
Arnold Render

Maxwell Render

Standard Render

Luxology modo

Standard Render

Newtek Lightwave 3D

Standard Render
Kray

Blender

Standard Render
Cycles
V-Ray

Distributed Still Render

3ds Max
Maya (mr)
Cinema 4D
Softimage
Maxwell Render
modo

Standalone Software

Maxwell Render
Indigo Render

Render Cloud

Equipped with the Farminizer Software and the Mobile App you are always a click away from your renderjob, controlling the Render Farm and your renderjob. The facility is connected to the world wide web with 20 Gbit/s.

Hardware

We always use the newest hardware, because we know exactly what you need: Pure computing power. Your renderjob will get the full 49,440 GHz computing power from brand-new Dual Xeons, equipped with 32-64 GB RAM.

1700 XEON x 6 x 2.40 GHz = 24,480.00 GHz
1300 XEON x 8 x 2.40 GHz = 24,960.00 GHz

All CPUs include Hyperthreading which will double the total clock frequency to 98,880.00 GHz. The benefits of Hyperthreading are NOT charged. You will get them for FREE.

Provided Hardware

Total Computing Power

49,440 GHz
Cinebench: 2,23 Mio.

Server Type A:
(650 Pieces)

Dual XEON E5 2630v3 (16core)
16 x 2,40 GHz
64 GB RAM

Server Type B:
(850 Pieces)

Dual XEON E5645 (12core)
12 x 2,40 GHz
32-64 GB RAM

Operating System

Win 7 (64 Bit)

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Bobby Parker 10/29/14 Bobby Parker 10/29/14

5 Ways To Increase Your Value To Your Client

Most of us, designers, assume our client cares only about the quality of our design work. While it’s true that he cares how awesome our design is, the client also cares about other things.

Here are 5 things your client cares about, and how to increase your value to him. Nail these, and you’ll be able to charge more for your work.

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Bobby Parker 10/28/14 Bobby Parker 10/28/14

Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator

A simple calculator to help you find out how much to charge as a freelancer.

How This Calculator Works

The Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator will help you determine what you need in order to support the lifestyle that you desire.

By entering information into each field, you can calculate an hourly rate based on your costs, number of billable hours, and desired annual profit.

Section One asks about your desired lifestyle. This includes how much profit you would like to make annually, how many hours a day you will be working, and how many days a week will be on your schedule.

Section Two asks about your daily and monthly personal expenses. This includes rent/mortgage, and occasional expenses.

Section Three asks about your monthly business and logistical expenses. This includes office rental fees, software subscriptions and communication costs.

Based on this information, you will be given your minimum necessary hourly rate, and total annual salary. Try it out, and see what it will take to live the lifestyle of your dreams!

Charging for Freelance Work

Here at Motiv, we believe that your preferred lifestyle should be the number one factor in selecting your rate, and settling on your annual salary as a freelancer. This tool will assist you in finding this information. All it takes is a little planning on your part.

Take a mental snapshot of the way you want your life to look in a year, five years and ten years.

Once you have a clear idea of your coming goals, you can begin to fill in the blanks.

The calculator is going to factor all of this information in your final result. Knowing what goals you hope to reach will give you the blueprint you need to work the way you want to.

Your dream lifestyle is within reach!

Rate Calculator

Bobby Parker 10/27/14 Bobby Parker 10/27/14

How Much Should I Charge?

A potential client wants a proposal for a design project? Awesome. Answer 5 questions, and know how much to charge to make this project profitable.

Freelance designers are victims of a haphazard pricing structure—without set industry guidelines, designers must rely on past project pricing, colleague recommendation, or generic pricing lists to conjure a “fair” price for the work. Prices are difficult to match to inflation or utility costs, and little consideration is given to the relationship between designer and client.

Aiming to simplify this ambiguous pricing model, learning platformnuSchool developed “How Much Should I Charge?,” a web tool that suggests a freelance base rate and negotiation window, dependent on a designer’s salary goals, costs, and enjoyment of the project.