Hi ALL,
I'm curious to know what peoples' opinion is on the market for freelance web programmers. DO you think it would be tough to find projects to work on for small companies looking to develop a website? I don't strictly mean html work either. I mean either ColdFusion, ASP, or JSP work.

-Amos

Hi amos, funny you should mention this topic since that is what I do here.

I am more oriented towards the graphic and esthetic end of the webs I design but let me tell you, if you are fluent in Spanish it is not hard to get web clients on a freelance basis.

I have loads of projects underway for clients and I am even a bit overwhelmed by the work I have to do over the next few months.

Truth be told, I know less than nothing about cold fusion, have no idea about ASP and know less about JSP than both CF and ASP put together but I can make a site attractive and dance the jog if I want to.

I would not mind adding some ASP functionality to my sites and it can not hurt to have a guy like you in case a client asks for something I can not do.

I have not come across that yet since I usually get clients that want simple websites, besides, when they hear what heavy duty programming will cost them they freak

If you know your stuff and speak Spanish you should do fine. The hardest part is making the contacts.

Saludos
jer...

Jer,
In general who hosts the sites that you work on? As you probably know, to add ASP functionality to a page, the server needs to have IIS, to add JSP the server needs a Java server, and for Coldfusion you need a coldfusion server. I'm guessing you know cgi since this forum was done with cgi. All those languages are pretty much the same thing. CGI in my opinion is just a little bit more complicated, but the server still needs to understand cgi requests. Anyways, I'd like to see the types of sites you have worked on.
The greates thing about all these programs is that you can access databases with them.
Sorry for posting this. This isn't really a Spain related posting. But I just wanted to follow up.

Thanks,
-Amos

Hey Amos...I'm more of a CGI guy like Jer (Perl as well) though I don't really care for any aspects of DB administration personally(That's why we'll have you around, I guess, huh?! ), but I can tell you that you can find a fair amount of work around here dealing with asp, jsp and CF.

Asp is still more common place (not to mention commercially in demand) than jsp as you might expect, but you're starting to see both being asked for in different projects and environments from what I've observed.

That's my 2-Euro cents worth at least...

Hi guys,

quote:

"...I'm more of a CGI guy like Jer"

tony my man, that is the funnies thing I have ever read I know absolutely nothing about CGI, you guys are giving me more credit than is due. These message boards come almost ready to use, just gotta upload files and change permissions, very user friendly, heck... even I figured it out

Amos, multimadrid is hosted in London on a UK server (the only ones that offered me unlimited data transfer) but when I design a website for a client and they do not have hosting, I put it on my virtual server here in Spain. You see, I have a virtual server that I pay a yearly fee for and that allows me to host as if I had my own server but the best part is that it is in a server center and they do all the maintenance.

Since you asked, here is a list to some of the sites I have done:

� www.aeeem.com
� www.nasla.net (coming soon)
� www.onspanishtime.com
� www.onspanishtime.com/web (cellphone rental thing)
� www.in-madrid.com
� www.academiacordoba.org
� www.acentoespanol.com
� www.institutohernancortes.es
� www.click-on-it.com (this one used to be nice but they destroyed it).
� www.puentespain.com
� www.actraductores.com

Nothing spectacular(except multimadrid of course ) but it pays the rent.

You can also see some of my ad designs at www.multimadrid.com/jersportfolio

Saludos,
jer...

I personally find programming to be a huge bore and am much more into graphic design.

Saludso,
jer...

Hey guys, new here and have a quick question on this topic.

Can you get a work visa in Spain working for yourself?

I currently have a contract with a company in the US, I live in Nevada, the company is in Washington, and I do all of my work over the Internet. I could theoretically do my work from any where as long as I have a good connection. Are there good connections in Spain? Cable modem equivalent maybe? Also, I make about $3000 US(after taxes) a month. Would that be enough to live on over there?

I mostly do ASP and SQL but I also have experience with c++, perl, web design, etc, and would like to do freelance stuff as well.

Thanks and I guess my 'quick question' turned into many

Mark

Hey SlideNV, welcome to the board

There have been other posts asking about the self employed visa but nobody (myslef included) seems to know the answers.

I know that setting up a business here allows you to be here legally but that is not your situation.

In your case, I would have to say that you would not be allowed to become legal here and would not get that self employed visa. This is because, even though you can work from anywhere in the world, your employer would have to give you a job offer to work in Spain. This is the same whether it is a Spanish company or a foreign one that has offices or does business in Spain. The way things are these days they (the employer) would also have to prove that they needed you (an American) for the position and a Spaniard would not do, making things even tougher.

As for good connections, we have them all here as well, it depends on the money you are willing to dish out See the following threads for more.

� ADSL lines and service providers.

� ADSL reliability & country wide 56k dial up

� linea fijo vs. cyber cafe

You will find all you need to know on those 3 threads

Yipers! $3,000 U.S. "Dollas" is a FORTUNE here. You can live like a king!

Here are some threads to prove it:

� Average Salary in Madrid (this one got heated and out of line so it was cut off but is fun to read).

� Monthly costs for Madrid in Euros

� price of living

There are many more but those are the most useful.

The "official" (govt. statistics) average salary in Spain is approximately 1,200 Euros (the Euro being about equal to the dollar) but that is not true (as most stats are faulty) and I would put the real figure around 1,080. So just imagine what you could do with $3,000

Man! That is 500,000 of them old pesetas

Hope your dream comes true

Saludos,
jer...

Thanks for the quick reply, jer. Your service here is invaluable!

Mark