I’m sure as everyone is aware that sometimes even as a freelancer finding work can be troublesome at times depending on what market you’re supporting. I myself am more IT Hardware and Networking focused, I’m working on my degree in Network Administration and all of my professional experience has been with Help Desk support. When I started freelancing, I had web development, software development and IT backgrounds but I focused mainly on IT because I enjoyed it, had certifications in it and was going to school for it. Little by little I slowly got back into web and software and now the majority of my projects come from doing web design and development. Over the last few months I’ve learned the benefit of being able to adapt, learn new things and find work because I didn’t just narrow my view to IT. As most know, I use Elance the most in getting freelance work and since starting back in August I’ve had 26 projects the majority being Mobile Web Development. Now as I said, I had a web development background when I first started getting into computers back in the 8th and 9th grade so I had some knowledge and had a CIW Web Design Specialist cert which to be honest isn’t that great but it gave me some foundation to work with and show potential clients.
Since I didnt know much about mobile web, I started studying, learning HTML5, CSS3, diving into PHP and JavaScript more and more and as I done this, I started building a portfolio, making a mobile version of my own website to show to client, doing basic HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP projects until I built up enough knowledge I could comfortably bid on the bigger stuff. Since starting this I’ve been able to focus mostly on just doing the Mobile Web Projects each week I bring in more and more money because of this. To learn more about mobile development, I started using tutorial sites like TheNewBoston, Nettuts+, buying books on Amazon and going through books I already had. I have to admit since I’ve started doing this I have awoken that fire I used to have for doing web stuff and forgot how good it felt to do it. I’m not and never going to be a designer, I’m not very good with colors, graphics or even layouts for that matter. However, when I can focus just on the development side, writing out the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, ASP.NET or whatever, actual coding I feel better about it and am able to focus more on it and knock out some CSS webkit gradients 
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I’m still focused on IT, still going to school for my degree in IT but it’s made me realize that I still have a passion for more than just It or Networking. I love doing web and software development so I’m going to keep learning and expanding my knowledge on it to become more competitive, offer a more vast skill set and ultimately be able to truly offer clients more skills than having to hire individual people to separately do their IT setup, Website and custom software application.
