Whilst downloading a huge Silverstripe site to debug, I was at a loose end, so I decided to clean out both my fish tanks.

Impressed? My fish are.

There are 1,001 pages on the web for hints, tips and advice about starting off as a freelance web developer - or freelance anything to be honest, and they are so much better than anything I can spout off on.  But I have been freelance for nearly 5 years now, developing many different projects for a wide range of clients, and would like to pass on some hints and tips that I've learnt (often the hard way) over the years.

Been a while since I updated you on my latest freelance work, so here it is.

• A very in-depth voucher system, conversion routine and other modifications for an e-commerce website
• SEO work on a range of new and existing client websites
• An online newspaper website, which will be based on Wordpress with custom plugins
• Redesign of an Estate Agency website including easy search functionality
• Update to expand an online food website to be multi-regional including work with the Google Maps API
• Expansion of an existing CMS to generate and print customer letters automatically and create PDF files
• Hosting and maintenance of a golfing website

I hope to have some URLs to add to my portfolio in the coming weeks to present the new development work being finalised at my office here in Amble, Northumberland.

Today I have released a complete redevelopment of the website for local animal rescue charity PARRT - The People's Animal Rescue & Rehoming Team. A more modern design, increased CMS functionality and the addition of interactive functions were the main elements undertaken for this project.

Most projects I undertake involve integrating php based websites with other systems. The reasons for doing so are varied but most work has the intention of automating a process that would have to be done either offline or with a delay. The whole point of the Internet as an end-user is to allow users to perform tasks simply and as quickly as possible.