While the UK job market has seen a slump in recent recession years, a burgeoning online trend in freelance exchange is changing the way creative professionals and businesses work with each other.

Europe’s largest online service exchange website, People Per Hour, reported in April that it’d had its most profitable quarter to date, which seems to indicate that trust and confidence between businesses and freelancers is now also flourishing.

While the last three years has seen many of the UK’s most talented workers lose their jobs, and countless university students graduate into a jobless market, the gap is slowly being filled by the service offered by the likes of People Per Hour.

Businesses that can’t afford to commit to a salary are able to use this website in order to find the best people in the world for every job they need completing. They are drawn to the site because they can be incredibly specific about what they want, and watch as talented freelancers bid for those jobs. It’s a win:win situation.

And businesses don’t need to enter into a transaction blindly, either. In true Internet fashion, businesses and businesspeople can rate each other on a number of areas, from communication to work quality, expertise and timeliness. Future transactions can be entered into (or not) based on previous ratings and comments, which means that the service has been and will only continue to get better and better.

People Per Hour also claim that the most sought-after freelancers are those with digital-based skillsets, including web and software development, search engine optimization and expertise in social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

And not only are UK businesses benefitting from the talents offered by UK freelancers, but those in the US, India and Brazil are, too. According to People Per Hour, the first three months of 2011 saw the number of American businesses seeking UK-based digital freelancers rise by 714 per cent, compared with the same period in 2010. Similarly, India’s numbers for this period rose by 771 per cent on last year, while Brazil rose by 250 per cent. So companies seeking freelancers to complete things like programming jobs and graphic design jobs, for example, are able to find the best people in the UK.

Xenios Thrasyvoulou, founder and CEO of People Per Hour, believes that these latest figures indicate a fast-growing trend for what’s been dubbed ‘reverse offshoring’, in which economically developing countries outsource their digital projects to UK workers instead of the reverse, as has always been the case in the past.

Thrasyvoulou commented: “There was a time when hiring freelancers to deliver digital work online was universally perceived as western businesses outsourcing to inexpensive offshore labour – particularly from the subcontinent or Eastern Europe.”

“However, we’re seeing the reverse happening more frequently than ever before. It’s partly due to the economic strength and growing confidence of the BRIC nations, but it’s also influenced by the positive reputation of British digital skills internationally. This is evidenced by the rise in demand for UK talent from mature markets also – most notably the US.”

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It can be quite overwhelming when it comes to choosing the right mobile plan or option for your lifestyle, especially when we are seeking benefits such as unlimited texts or phone calls.

With countless phone providers offering pay as you go and a wide variety of long term contracts to choose from, it seems as though there are simply too many tariffs to consider, which can make it difficult to select the best one for our needs.

Having a mobile phone is a necessity, and often we just want what we think will be the most cost-effective plan to save money yet still remain in contact with our friends and family members.

Many times, the first idea that pops into our heads for this money saving route is to go with a pay as you go SIM card so that we have control over what we are spending, and not invest a penny more into our phone bills.

However, as time persists, it begins to unfold that these plans do not exactly offer the best value, as minutes tend to run out rather quickly and top up credit does, in fact, run dry.

Thanks to giffgaff, a new mobile phone company that works on a SIM-only platform, we are now afforded a new money saving option that is flexible to our needs as we move from month to month.

giffgaff works on the idea of a pay monthly scheme, but without being tied down to a long term contract. There are several goodybag bundle options you can chose from each month, all of which offer different services at the best possible prices.

A £5 goodybag will allow you to send unlimited text messages for an entire month.

If you choose a £10 goodybag, you will get 100 minutes to use between UK mobiles and landlines, as well as unlimited texts and Internet access from your phone.

The value continues with the £15 goodybag, where you will receive 300 minutes to use between UK mobiles and landlines as well as unlimited texts and unlimited mobile Internet access from your handset.

Arguably the greatest value, however, is the £35 unlimited option. For this price, you will have access to unlimited phone calls, texts and Internet. You’ll never have to worry about using up your minutes and you’ll have the luxury of chatting away for hours with all of your friends and family members.

With giffgaff, you chose what suites you, your income and your phoning needs by the month. You can test and try which options seem to work best for you and change accordingly from month to month with this flexible SIM plan.

Aside from the goodybag offers, standard giffgaff text messages cost just 4p, while calls to UK mobiles and landlines start at 8p – so even if you don’t utilise one of the goodybag offers, you can look forward to making some pretty hefty savings. In addition, calls and texts to other giffgaff mobiles are completely free, ensuring that using your mobile regularly won’t break the bank.

You can start to change your mobile habits today by going to giffgaff.com to request your free SIM card pay as you go offer, and soon you’ll just watch in delight as you save money and chat more.

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As usual with all things in our lives there is a catch, with good quality printers the catch is that the original manufacturers cartridge refills may cost more than half as much as the cost of the printer itself.

This is of course the way that the printer manufacturers make their profits, they sell the printer at a very attractive price because they know that the buyer will not think about the cost of a replacement black or colour ink cartridge.

Cartridges can cost anything from £10 up to £40 if you do a considerable amount of printing these costs can spiral out of control and make that cheap printer very expensive to run.

There is however a very viable solution that can cut your costs considerably and make it again viable to use your printer without being overly concerned about its running costs. That solution is to make use of refilled cartridges that are supplied by third-party companies and not the original manufacturer.

Of course the manufacturer prints a warning not only in the instruction manual but actually on a sticker found placed on the top of many new printers which states that you should only use the manufacturer’s original inks.

The reason they want you to use their inks because as we have just stated that is where their profit lies. Making use of third-party ink jet cartridges is a far more cost-effective method of keeping your printer running.

Compatible cartridges as they are known cost considerably less than those produced by the original equipment manufacturer, known as the OEM. The manufacturer will have you believe that theirs are the only cartridges that will actually work in your printer and usually state that other cartridges “may cause damage” to your printer.

Professionally produced compatible inkjet cartridges do not damage printer’s any more than those produced by the OEM, it is true that several years ago the poorly produced replacement inkjet catches did cause clogging and other problems with printers. But such issues have now been resolved and good quality replacement inkjet cartridges are available for every brand of printer on the market.

Making use of refilled cartridges makes good financial sense and does not lower the quality of the printing on paper or even for high-quality photographic prints. They are simply a way to avoid spending a small fortune each year on keeping your printer running.

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