If you are a freelancer and wanting to build up your portfolio and posts by using an image, but worried because you might get sued for copyright, then here are the top websites list where you can find images to be used for free, and not just free but also a copyright-free. Some websites allows you to download and use the photos for private use (example: background photos, Instagram use etc.) This also includes creating business cards, thru website creation and even posters. Freerange:You can register here for free and once signed up, high-resolution images will welcome you for free in which you can use depending on your needs and niches. If you are a photographer or aspiring photographer, Freerange also offers Google AdSense revenue sharing when you contribute. Not only you share photos but also you can have some revenue because of Google AdSense. Also, the team behind launched another website that specialized in vintage called Vintage Stock Photos. Before, the content actually requires payment but it has now changed so for now, you can find more than thousands of bucks worth of quality vintage photos available with no extra charge. Unsplash:it is a side-project started by Crew, Crew is an online marketing agency that is dedicated to make your designs into reality. Aside from providing free stock photography, Unsplash also takes in and publish graphic design works that is being done by their users with their so-called MadeWith section. Pexels:Started in 2015, Pexels is a website that aims to help in which has grown to have developed a reputable stock photo library. Pexels is also unique because it doesn’t display images located on the Pexels Website but also outsources images from high-quality websites such as Gratisography, Little Visuals and more. Pexels screens their image to ensure the users to have the highest quality image available. You can also download high quality videos from the website. Flickr:Flickr is also one of the famous website that has greatest image libraries in the internet. Although flickr is not for public domain images, you can find here the highest quality images from the users. Life of Pix:Created by LEEROY advertising agency in Montreal, Life of Pix is free public domain photography. Also, their so-called Life of Vids website contains impressive video footages that are also available for free. Two birds in one stone. StockSnap:Created by the people from Snappa, every photo that you can see in StockSnap is free to use. This website provides an excellent and high-quality images, and even extensive library of free images. With hundreds and even thousands of images that is being uploaded every week, StockSnap is definitely not just your ordinary photo website. Pixabay:Pixabay is a great website resource for both beginners and professional photographers. Pixabay allows easy access to camera search which the users are allowed to explore images based on the camera used to take them. Pixabay is also used to integrate images from another image hosting sites. They also gather the best and high-quality images for free to use in your personal or commercial use. Burst:Burst provides a sleek interface to explore as it also aims to have a very wide selection of the images base on the users preferred categories. It also provides from low to high resolution images depending of the user’s needs, whether it will be used for commercial or personal use, or even the user’s own website or their clients'. KaboomPics:KaboomPics is the user’s most favorite website among all. Why? Because it provides impressive and breathtaking images, from the UI design to the image reservoir, you can find a lot of images that will make your eyes and mind impress. They also feature a color picker search engine and color palettes for the images as well. KaboomPics offers informative images to be use for ideas in photoshoot, blogposts, and more. AvopixAvopix has more than 56000 free stock images under Creative Commons CC0 (Public Domain) that is free to use. Whether if it's for Personal or Commercial use; it also does not require attribution. You do not need to worry for using images for your website, for personal, or for your social media.
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ACER Swift 7, the thinnest and lightest laptop, beating Apple’s 12-inch Macbook when it comes to portability. This laptop is a pound lighter than iPad Pro with Apple’s Smart Keyboard being attached to it. But in all these new aspects, is it worth the price? Let’s find out! Basic Specs: Display: 14-inch (1920x1080) IPS touchscreen Processor: 1.3GHz Core i7-7Y75 (Kaby Lake) Graphics: Intel HD 615 Memory: 8GB LPDDR3 Storage: 256GB NVMe SSD Security: Fingerprint reader (Windows Hello) Ports: 2 USB 3.0 Type-C, 3.5mm headphone jack Wireless: 802.11ac, Bluetooth Cameras: 720p HD camera (front-facing) Battery: 45.8Wh Operating system: Windows 10 Home Dimensions: 12.9 x 9.3 x 0.35 in. (8.98 mm) Weight: 2.54 pounds (laptop); 3.10 lb with power brick; 3.56 lb with brick and sleeve Colors: Black, White Price: check with your local stores as it varies per country and availability. If you are looking for a laptop that is easy to carry, especially if you are the kind of person that is on-the-go, or even for a student, ACER stepped up the game in tech by releasing this Swift 7 laptop. ACER also emphasizes that they used magnesium-lithium and magnesium-aluminum alloy used in making this Swift 7 are lighter and stronger than aluminum alone and having the same thickness. Also, the cover is matte with a single LED to indicate its battery life. Swift 7 display has 14-inch 1080p screen, a 1.3GHz Core i7 processor, 8gb or 16gb ram 256gb to 512gb ROM. There are also two USB-C ports and a headphone jack. They also included a three-port dongle adapter with USB-A, another USB-C and an HDMI port. The LCD touchscreen panel is protected by Gorilla Glass. But if you are expecting to have it to a level like a Retina display, it is not. But it is not that bad at all. Since Swift 7 is being marketed as the thinnest ultrabook, they really did a good look on it is thin but there’s still a noticeable area as it is kind of wobbly when being open or closed, or even being fully reclined to being perfectly flat. When being viewed on the side, Swift 7 has its limits as the thickest portion of the chassis is unable to take a USB type-A port. For the sound and speakers, Swift 7 is supported by Dolby Audio. So it is required to have external speakers or headphones if you want to achieve the “bang” sound. For fingerprint reader, there is quite an issue to it as some users of this laptop doesn’t recognize their fingerprints, making them re-key their finger to it. But there’s a catch, ACER managed to have a chassis with a 45-watt battery, the CPU, motherboard, and SSD. If you are a minimalist and wanting to have an aesthetic feel, this laptop is perfect for you. Keyboard and typing experience which is somehow very poor in performance. The landing areas for the keys were too small which makes it very uncomfortable especially if you have big hands. Function keys are scattered within first and second rows. Delete key is just as small and Backspace next to it. It’s not surprising but a bit disappointed even if the laptop is designed for being thinness, I believe ACER could have done it better. Also, the touchpad precision is totally a mess and disappointing, and its glassy features remind me of like the Surface devices. For the camera, ACER made it’s webcam down to the body of the laptop and pops-up when it is used. If you are worried about being watched, this camera is blocked when not in use. But the downside, if the camera is used, has a nose cam effect. Not very great in dealing with video chatting either. For the performance: Swift 7 is like owning a notebook but with a processor. The challenge is that Swift 7 is no match with tablets like Microsoft’s Surface Pro 6. Swift 7 easily gets heat up during large file transfers but is cool when using it on a daily basis. If you are a gamer, then this laptop is not for you. Final Verdict:ACER really reached out to their goal in making this Swift 7 the thinnest and lightest laptop in the market, making it very portable as possible. If you are the type of person that is on-the-go, this made me really appreciate that they had heard and made this laptop possible. But for the cons, ACER disappointed me especially with the keyboard, the webcam, and its performance as they could have done it better. Price-wise? This laptop is a NO for me. I’d rather settle for another laptop with weight as the performance is better, build having a quality, long-life battery, and a usable webcam with the same price as Swift 7.
Aspiring Social Media Content Creator? or maybe a Social Media Manager? or just wanting to update your socials using a tool that can easily make your design visual come to life? Here's Visme to fill-in that missing spot. Read: Glow up your presentation using Visme App. One of the confusions a lot of people have with Visme vs. other tools such as Canva, Adobe Photoshop, etc; is that they often think of Visme as just a Presentation or Infographic tool but it is so much more than that. Visme is used to create Graphs and Charts, Flyers, Scatter Plot Maker, Survey Results, Social Media Posts, Video/GIFs, and more. As for this post, we're going to tackle on the features of Visme which is the Social Media. Which we're gonna compare it with Canva. As you can see, they do have the socials on Top of the ready-made canvas. We're just gonna tackle here about the Facebook Covers, Ads, Event Covers, Posts, and Pages. Take this for example. 4 free ready-made template for Facebook Covers. A limited one for Free accounts. Let's talk about the Pros and Cons for creating Social Contents using Visme. I had a chance to explore both Free and Business/Premium account of Visme and I must say, I'm quite impressed at how this tool can actually help those business-aspiring users in creating their Social Posts having an upgraded account. Aside from creating a blank template/canvas, users can choose a ready-made template which the user can modified or just post it directly on their Social Accounts. The downside is for Free users. I just tackled the Free templates on Facebook Platform above which is somehow a NO for me. They got a very limited number of Free templates which somehow isn't good for those who are students, aspiring Social Media freelancers that updates their Social Portfolios, and for those freelancers with clients who doesn't provide a budget for account upgrading. In comparison to Canva's free account, users can have a countless number of templates that they can post (this for example for the Facebook Covers) in which a great way for starters. And now, let's explore creating a Facebook Post. On the left side corner, there's the basic ones such as the Header and Text, Fonts, Stats and Figures, Diagrams etc. that you can place on your template. You can always customized, remove those graphics/drawings and replace it to your liking. And so, I tried exploring the Graphics using the Search bar. Typing an specific name, which I made the piggy bank as an example. and compared it with Canva. Visme has both Premium and Free Graphic Icons for an specific user's needs. As for me, I'll be needing the saving related icon which I typed the basic one -- Piggy Bank. Of course, in comparison to Canva, they do have lots of Free ones as stated unlike the Visme that has a very limited number of Piggy Bank graphic on both Free and Premium. But it's just for Graphics and One specific Category and that doesn't mean it applies to general categories. With regards to Photo Categories, this just saved me as they got lots of photo free stacks that can be used either for Background or for a graphic image. Finally had lots of options not just in General Categories, but also in Specific Type. In Visme, you can have the list of option on what format are you going to download your graphic. Since this is for Social, I'll be downloading this as an Image. We do have 2. JPG format and PNG for Premium. Downloading it in High Resolution also requires a Premium Account. Final Verdict:Using Visme in creating Social Content has a 50/50 for me. As I've mentioned, I had a chance exploring everything using Free and Business Account. Of course you get what you pay for, which you can avail their plans by clicking here. But honestly speaking if you have a Free account, they had a very limited templates, limited graphics, saving option like the PNG and High Resolution which you needed to upgrade to Premium account. In Canva, those mentioned above can have it using Free Account. Saving options such as PNG image and High Resolution is FREE in Canva.
Will I use it for my postings? YES but only for alternative if Canva is down. I know Visme is continuously improving their services, and hoping to see changes in the near future. And so, I've been testing out new things and how will I improve creating contents on both my portfolios and my client's account. So I'm using Canva, and Adobe Photoshop. Till then, I was introduced about Visme. So, what is Visme? Imagine combining Canva and Powerpoint. Mixed it together and Voila! Visme has been made. Making the beginners and also the pros life easier. Here's a Quick Introduction about Visme: What's the Difference Between:Visme x Powerpoint: We've all been using Powerpoint Presentation since school days. Gradeschool, Highschool and even during College days. But we're now in a world wherein everything upgrades. So why not upgrade your game, right? There are so many reasons why we used presentations. Maybe for school or work stuffs, or even to simplify your portfolio. However, it's getting boring having the same visuals and designs. Now there's this Visme to simplify yet tons of designs that you can choose from. Since I don't use Powerpoint presentation anymore, and I'm pretty much sure we all have an idea on how Powerpoint works, let me give you a quick summary for using Visme. One thing that I love using Visme Presentation the most compared to the regular Microsoft Powerpoint, is that aside from choosing the never-ending same visual design on the local MS Powerpoint, I can easily choose what type of Visual Presentation should I get in Visme. Whenever I feel like I'm going into a simple one yet wanting to have an elegant look, or just love taking my level to creative ones, or even wanting my presentation to look like an infographic. Visme can handle it at the same time without me running out of ideas. Perfect for those beginners and pros. To make things simple, Visme made everything mixed in one. The purpose of this is to allow those non-designers (like me) to create designs basing on what's been on the creator's mind. Visme provides a handful of different designs, for presentation, social media posts, infographics for Pinterest, and of course, animated posts. All in one app.
Visme will create an Embed code for you to place it directly on your website. See? Less hassle than any other software app. Visme x Lead Generation.One of the main difference between Powerpoint and Visme. The Lead Generation. Yes, you saw it right. Visme has the power ability to have and access Lead Generation compared to Powerpoint. Perfect especially for those creators that wants to know and stand out against their fellow creators. You can create a presentation for your webinar using Visme, or a pre-recorded webinar. and use it for your email tools, most likely for your audience to register/sign up. By using this, it allows the user to access and to see what the users collected the viewer's contact information towards his/her content. The user is able to download the data and upload it to CRM platform. Visme x Analytics.Does Powerpoint offers analytics? I do not think so. It's a big difference compared to Visme. Visme offers Analytics for the user's projects. What's great about this is that Visme gives an analytical graphic that allows user to see how their presentations are doing great, comparing one to another. Visual versus Visual. Conclusion:Visme has a lot of improvements, especially when it comes on deliverable contents and slides. But on how the Visme's developers took an initiative to spice up the game, allowing users to expand their visual ideas and letting their ideas comes to life by the presentations, and how Visme makes the beginner's life pretty much easier is already a huge step. Pros: Visme is very easy to use. Which is great for beginners and non-creative users like me. Creating presentations, infographics, social posts as Visme provides a template and voila, make a little edit and you're done. Also, you can choose to save it as a JPG, PDF, PNG, MP4, GIF (beta) and it only takes seconds to import everything and save or print it, without any hassle at all. Cons: No mobile app yet. (on both iOS and Play Store) which is pretty much slower if Visme wants to be moving forward in comparison on both Adobe Photoshop and Canva. Also, it took me a while to navigate and learn its features compared to Canva. It will be great for them to have and edit it in a friendly-navigated ways which makes it easier for the beginners to click and access. I get it that Visme has this Business-theme navigation, but then, as I've mentioned, it's always the Wow and First impression factor makes the user create not only for business type of presentation, but also a presentation that can be used personally. Free or Premium plan, it's great investing in Visme especially if you love creating presentations. You may visit their website here so you can sign-up. Yes, it's FREE. I know you love FREE stuffs like this. On my next post, let me show you a brief content on how I create posts for my clients using Visme. See you soon!
"Each sites works differently. From the pricing, the availability of connections, the premium accounts etc. So these websites below will be listed together with the important information for your guidance."There are a lot of websites that is being used by the clients to hire freelancers depending on their job and their companies. Today, here are the top listed websites that the freelancers and clients chose. Either if you are looking for a job or potential clients, then this post is for you. In these platforms, clients and business owners can browse the top and newbie freelancers depending on their location, specialization and also their budget. The clients can also see the reviews left by the other clients in which helps the freelancer to grow and build trust for their future projects. On some sites, freelancers have to bid for the specific budget in which the clients may choose to go with the cheapest budget or the highest bid depending on the freelancer’s skills towards the tasks that the clients required. Whatever the website is, the purpose of these freelancing sites is not just to help the clients to see the freelancers’ portfolios but also to help the freelancers land their jobs basing on their skills and to build up their profile, experience working remotely and to have a peace of mind working at home. Here are the lists of top website that you can build an account. UpworkUpwork is a free freelance website aiming for small and huge businesses. Working under Upwork also makes you feel safe as they have a protection and you may be able to see the clients having a payment verified and unverified. Also, they have what they call ‘connects’ in which you can use when you submit your resume and cover letter to the clients. Today, if your ‘connects’ are all used, you can upgrade your account to premium to be able to purchase connects. And as of today, Upwork is requiring every freelancer, whether you have a new or old account to have video call verification and passing a government ID to avoid scammers and spam. In that way, not only freelancers will be protected but also the clients. FiverrSimilar to Upwork, Fiverr is the largest website for businesses especially for the client’s budget. The average rate of freelancers in Fiverr compared to other websites is more affordable made for the client’s need. Most freelancer newbies sign up here in Fiverr as their stepping stone especially in building up their portfolios and experiences. However, Fiverr charges 20% fee on both clients and freelancers. Freelancer.comFreelancer.com is also a large website that aims for the freelancers to grow and build their career and their portfolios. The company claims that 95% of their clients hire freelancers from their website. There are lots of jobs posted over 15million and increasing and 30billion users on the website. They use PayPal, Transferwise, etc. as mode of payment. Their payment option can give you peace of mind. Freelancer.com will hold the client’s escrow until the work is completed correctly. But since there are many experienced freelancers here, you may have to step up your game and build your portfolio pretty well. Most people think that this website is a place to build up portfolios and increase connections, LinkedIn is like a twitter website but in a corporate or business ways. LinkedIn is not just building a profile portfolio, but also clients use this for hiring freelancers. LinkedIn ProFinder is used by the clients to post jobs in which automatically match the freelancers’ skills. That’s why freelancers can easily access and see the job posted by the clients in which they can send their resume and cover letter easily. LinkedIn is a free website and you can also upgrade to Premium/Pro to access more information. Onlinejobs.phLike the Freelancer.com, onlinejobsph is a free website that freelancers can build up their portfolio. You have to take their required test and verify your profile by uploading government ids so your points will increase which makes the client trust you when you are sending them a proposal. Also, the more points you have, the more you can apply for the job that requires 70points up by the client. Now here's your time, head over to your preferred job-hunting sites that I mentioned above, build your portfolios and start applying for jobs. Goodluck! Welcome back again for another trivial post about being a Freelancer. In this post, I chose to tackle a topic in which everyone especially if you're a Customer-Service Representative (Both Newbie and Pro) can relate to this. I've been dealing with a lot of people ever since I was young due to my parents owning a small business. So I knew these types of toxic customers and saw how my parents dealt with them. Now, being a young entrepreneur and owned an online store, I happened to encounter just one toxic customer on whom became a toxic Godzilla because of the courier's fault. (Hello, Shopee and Xpost!). Although it wasn't my fault as I updated him with his shipping status (in which the buyer aka him who's already responsible on that), still, he isn't satisfied and started to bragged about him being a licensed doctor. For goodness sake, I was able to calm myself and just reported it on Shopee for them to offer the Godzilla customer a refund instead. I also claimed dispute and I won. (Well, it was your fault actually for not contacting Xpost. and as a buyer, you also have to communicate with me so I can help you with your order. I don't really care if you're a licensed doctor or even if you're a CEO. Manners Maketh Man. I wish you well (hell) and I hope your future patients won't get scared because of you. Karma will be the one getting back at you.) 1. Unethical and Dishonest Customer."Why does my order takes forever? I've already sent a lot of messages from your email and yet my order isn't here yet." "May I know your email address please? and when did you send your message?" - the customer provides an email address, I've sent it two weeks ago. - - checks the email that the customer provided. NONE appeared. - "I'm sorry but according to our support team, there's no result prior to the email address that you provided." And that's how the toxic customer starts to send his/her inquiries via email. An Unethical and Dishonest Customer shows off and brags about who he/she is (like the example given before this post, and the example given above). Which takes a lot of time for the team to answer the given query. Also, be alert of this kind of customer as they can tell lies, threatened, and starts to give options for them to be able to exploit within your company. 2. Abusive Customer."I'm so gonna report this to the authority." "I'm gonna blog and rate your shop a 0 star!" "You guys are so dumb redirecting me from here and there." "You need to compensate for my demands." Says the customer who drains your shift by sending you threats. Of course, if you're a newbie, you won't feel good and get scared due to your Godzilla Manager might fire you. But hell nope, just like what my co-worker says, you have to be used to this kind of customer. An abusive customer tends to give threats, posts malicious and dishonest reviews about your store. When you started to check his/her inquiries and investigate, it's the customer's fault in the first place which made the support team's decision not to support that customer's demand any longer. The abusive customer tends to expect instant responses with their queries. So be wary yet Let Karen go berserk. (Facials and Skincare are expensive, so don't stress yourself.) How to Deal with Them?
Conclusion:To be honest, I've been into this industry for quite a while. As I observed, you will know how entitled people can be. And as a result of this, especially for the newbies; it consumes time, effort, energy, etc. which you can use to the good customers. I also learned how toxic this industry that I am in. You're lucky if you have a manager who can understand as he/she was once in your position well. But be mindful of the cultural differences.
Always remember, it's just a job. nothing personal. So as much as possible, you have to be ready if you're going to apply as a customer service representative. Ready your mind, your mood and yourself. Things will get better and you'll learn from your experience. Share your thoughts by commenting down below. Having a Problem Where to Start? How To Start and What To Do? In this blog post, we’ll be talking about the basic information, tips, and tricks on how to score a job being a freelance virtual assistant. Especially for newbies like me in this kind of industry, let me help you tackle and write down the ways that I’ve also learned and still learning from being a student of the FVA. Right now, I’m currently having a job as a transcriptionist and a part-time writer of different types of niches because of these tips and tricks that I’ve learned. Don’t worry if you’re a newbie. I got you, fam! 1. Identify your Strength. What are your strengths? Highlight the best qualities that you can show off to the clients. Are you good in taking care of the customers especially with their concerns? Or are you the techy one who loves coding and doing javascript or HTML, or just love doing programming? Do you love writing and expressing your thoughts based on your experiences on a particular thing or situation? Or you’re the one who loves using Social Media for Marketing Purposes. Then you must know what is your greatest strength that you can show off to the respective clients. Add it on your resume and your cover letter. You can also add your past work-experiences. If you’re a fresh graduate, then you can add the past seminars that you’ve attended or even the organizations that you belong to. Trick: Use Canva in doing your Resume and Cover Letter. Clients won’t hire you 100% if you’re still using a blank document as a canvas in your resume. Hi! It’s already Millennial Year and you’re still stuck at 19ish cave. 2. Update Your Portfolio/s: It is really important to do this. It attracts the clients about the services that you can do and the ones that you excel to do. Build up your portfolios and focus on your branding. Examples are some of the basic contact details that you can put on MS Excel if you’re focusing on data entry. For Social Media, You can also put the images that you captured. For Content Writing and Blogging, you can also add the articles that you submitted. Just like mine when I’m still working as a Content Creator in a Korean Website. I’m also planning to add articles that I wrote in the school publication that I was previously in. Tip: You can add samples from your previous work/s. Just make sure to contact the company first for approval. 3. Get a Referral from your Previous Work/Personal Testimonies from your Networks: Consider this like your good-moral character certificate when you’re still studying at school. There are also recommendations and certificates that your previous company can give you. If you haven't got terminated from your previous work then you can request for one. Tip: Some companies don’t give one. Especially if your previous HR manager is a Godzilla. You may just key in your previous workmate’s phone number. Just make sure he/she can be trusted so they can give you good remarks. 4. Build your Social Media Platforms. As I’ve mentioned in the tip above, We’re now living in a world wherein Social Media Sites are the main source of everyone’s needs. From news, businesses, influencers. Social Media Sites aims to connect people and business platforms. Build your Facebook page, your LinkedIn accounts, Your Instagram and Twitter Accounts. Post relevant topics and niches according to your branding. May it be about Codings or SNS Influences. It’s all about your branding. Make it more lively and attractive. Also, don’t forget to join Freelancing Job Platforms such as Upwork, OnlineJobsPh, etc. and put your desired brandings and portfolios to make the clients invite you for their job openings. Tip: Make use of your branding/s. Highlight it and Put it on your Social Media Accounts and Freelancing Job Platforms. Tricks: Don’t forget to use Canva. 5. Learn How to say “No”.
Just like how CL’s part in ‘I am the Best’: “No No No No, Nah Nah Nah Nah!”, you need to learn how to say No. When you feel like it’s already making you feel uncomfortable during working hours, or the vibes is totally off especially during working hours or in the live meetings. Always trust your instincts. It’s best to say NO than being unhappy during your working times. And there you go, these are only 5 of the many picks for tips and tricks to have an idea for your freelancing journey. I will be tackling more information and tips on my next blog post. For the meantime, focus on these 5 tips at first. For your questions and concern, you may comment down below so I can answer your inquiries right away. You may also follow me on my social media accounts. (clickable) Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or you can email me at [email protected] See you on my next post and Goodluck! Links/Photos used: Canva, Billboard (2NE1), Filipino Virtual Assistance (FVA) |
AuthorElin @ E's Digital Creatives Archives
January 2022
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