I'll be presenting at The Ajax Experience. This is an Ajax conference taking place in Boston from October 23-25, 2006.

My topic will be "Unobtrusive Ajax", which I've described as so:

Learn how the separation of content, presentation and behavior can not only make your web applications more accessible, but also easier to develop and maintain. See how to implement modern web interfaces so that they are enhanced by JavaScript and still work fine without JavaScript.

Jesse will walk you through lots of examples and show you solutions for some common problems in Unobtrusive Ajax development. Although some of the examples will use a bit of PHP, Jesse will focus on the JavaScript and HTML, so you'll be able to apply the lessons learned to any server platform.

I'll mostly be talking about the practical benefits of separating JavaScript, CSS and HTML, as well as why you shouldn't assume people have JavaScript, and how to design (or re-design) some common Ajax interfaces to avoid this assumption.

I'm a bit worried I'll be the party pooper at the conference.. everyone'll be so excited about using JavaScript, nobody will want to be reminded about the minority that doesn't have JavaScript. But I think the presentation will be a lot of fun and I'll hopefully show people that it's not a big deal to support non-JavaScript users, and it may even make your code more stable and easier to manage.

If you'll be attending, please, let me know. I'd love to meet some fellow Ajax hackers.

Update Oct. 26, 2006: Click here for a write-up and links to my slides and examples.

It's been two months now since I announced I would start freelancing full-time, and hardly anything has gone the way I expected. Here's a little list of some of the things I've learnt or found surprising:

1. You don't work as many hours in a day as you think

   Originally, when trying to figure out how many hours I'd be working per day, I just figured I'd do the same I did at my day job: 8 hours, from 9 to 5.

   The first time I tried to work that long, I realised it just wasn't going to happen. I discovered that it takes me about an hour of checking email, reading news, etc. to wake up enough to start working. Then, I can only work about 2 hours straight before my mind turns mushy and I have to take a break.

   I quickly realised that my prime working length was around 5 hours in a day, spread out over a period of 7 or 8 hours. But when you're billing by the hour, you really should only charge for the time worked, not the time eating lunch or surfing the web. This is a major difference between freelancing and a regular job.

2. Scheduling can be very hard

   Scheduling is a juggling act based on a few difficult tasks: estimating how long it takes to do something, and figuring out when you'll have time to do that work. Multiply these simple looking problems by the fact that you'll occasionally be stuck waiting for something from clients. This can create these weird bubbles in time where you have nothing to do, but know that a few days from now you'll have way too many things to do.

   With web development, the size of projects can vary from an hour or less to over 400 hours of work. It's especially hard to deal with very large projects. You can say it'll take 100 hours, and that it'll take a month to work those hours. What do you do while you wait for the client to get back to you - tell everyone else who asks for work that you're all booked up? Then what happens if the project never happens? You get screwed!

   I'm starting to figure out I have to just explain my situation to my clients, tell them I don't know exactly when I'll have time, but that I should be able to finish within the next month or two. I'm also being careful not to commit more than maybe a third of my time to any one project, because anything can happen. The more flexibility I can work in, the better.

3. Freedom isn't free

   Probably the best part of freelancing is the freedom to work when and whereever you want. While this is true in theory, when you schedule work for yourself, you have to make the commitment to actually work those hours. If you don't, well, you'll either have to work extra hours later or else deliver things late. These are the only stresses that really force you to work, but I'm glad that they're there, or else I would probably be taking off way too many days.

   Freedom also gives you the opportunity to find your own rhythm. I'm starting to think that I may work better in the evenings, though my girlfriend isn't so excited about that idea. It's actually not so easy to figure these things out, something you don't have to think about when you're told exactly which hours you have to work at.

4. No time for blogs

   When I had a day job, and I wanted to take a little break, I just loaded up Bloglines and tried to catch up on the 200 or so feeds I subscribe to. Now, I can say I haven't read any of them since I went completely full-time. You may also have noticed that I've hardly blogged at all during this time, either.

   The reason is, now that the computer at home is where I work, when I take breaks or stop working, I want to get as far away from the computer as possible. It's like blogging and even reading blogs is a part of work that I need to schedule in or make time for, except it seems like the least important thing I have to do, so I never end up with time for it.

5. It's not so hard to find work

   I once told a guy who worked at a web development company that I was about to start freelancing. He said, "That won't work. When will you have time to find clients?" I haven't had that problem at all.

   Okay, I do have the advantage of having this blog. Nearly all of my clients come from my Hire Me page. But I'm not scared that this will stop. I know that I can easily find more work through sites like Rent A Coder or Guru, even if it pays a bit less than I prefer. I could also step up my marketing efforts at any time (which means doing any, since right now I'm doing practically none).

   Okay, it's true, I don't have a lot of time to go find clients. But if I ever ran out of work, I'd certainly have the time to find new clients. It should balance itself out quite well.

So there's some of the things I've learned. Do any other freelancers out there have anything to add to this list?

Welcome to the fourth Carnival of the Web.

First off, Jonathan Snook explains how to maintain an ideal source order while still displaying web site elements in the appropriate positions with Stackable CSS Columns.

Next, Joe Kissell at Interesting Thing of the Day explains just what is so unconventional about text-based ads.

Violeta of All Tips and Tricks shares her results of A personal experiment on internet traffic sources, trying to understand how social software fits in to web site marketing.

Dave Gooden wonders Am I missing something?, giving a skeptical look at the use of map mash-ups for real estate web sites.

Renata Vincoletto at A geek Family wonders what effects the internationalization of companies has on the freedom of nations to enforce their own laws, when Google has bad moments in Brazil.

Dominic Foster shares a simple checklist outlining how he set up WordPress.

And finally, Benjamin Yoskovitz helps non-designers understand the importance of choosing a look and feel of a web site, explaining How To Pick the Best Theme in WordPress For You.

Even though I'm a web developer for hire, I'm not really interested in making really simple web sites. I believe most people could do it themselves, if they just learn a few things. I'd rather spend my time coding web communities or Ajax enhancements or whatever.

So your aunt or some of your clients are bugging you for a free web site (and you don't want anything to do with it), then think about passing these tips along.

1. Get a free web design

   There are a bunch of sites out there with free web designs available to the public. The Internet is so big, it really doesn't matter if you have a one-of-a-kind unique web design. Check out Open Source Web Design, Free Site Templates, or just search Google for free web design.

2. Find really cheap (or free) web hosting

   There's a bunch of places that offer free web hosting, but a lot of them won't let you get your own domain name, or they might put a banner on your site or whatever. Plus, you'll want to have hosted email, and the only way to get that is by paying for it. Web hosting is the only thing you really have to pay for.

   The good news is, web hosting is pretty cheap. DreamHost, only charges $9.95/month ($7.95 if you pay for 2 years in advance). Plus, you get to register your domain name for free. There are other companies out there that are even cheaper and offer different things as well, so if you shop around you can find a good deal.

3. Create the web pages yourself

   Get a copy of Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression or something similar. This way you can put in your content yourself. You can even learn a bit of HTML and CSS and get your hands dirty. HTML is really easy to learn, and there are thousands of books and free web sites that can get you started.

Ten years ago, the only web sites out there were ones people made for themselves. Nowadays, with so many web companies out there, most people think they have to pay big bucks to get a web site. There is so much free information on the Internet that really anyone can learn how to make a web site, and it only takes a few hours for people to learn how to do it themselves.

When the first beta of Internet Explorer 7 came out, the biggest complaint was that there was no easy way to have it run as a standalone browser. You're pretty much forced to upgrade your whole system to use it.

I took the plunge anyway, deciding I'd rather run IE7, but I ran into all sorts of situations where I really needed IE6 for debugging.

There are a lot of hacks and instructions for taking apart the IE7 beta so that you can run it standalone. I've decided that the extremely easier solution is to just install IE7, then download the standalone of IE6.

Now that the Release Candidate is out, you probably don't want IE6 to be your main browser anymore, right? So why not just have it around for the few times when you really need it?