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If you're in a rural area, honestly you might find it difficult. To get any kind of freelance work that'll make even a living wage is really hard, because the market is flooded (take a look at the quotes people give for bespoke development etc on sites like people per hour and you'll see what I mean).
If you want to be able to work from home, you'll need to have made enough contacts in the industry to get the kind of independent work that can support you, so asides from that I think that I would recommend the following.
1. Work out where you can handle living - does it have to be within X hours of home? If so, what does that open up.
2. Really think about point 1 - if you've had a rough time and needed the peace and support of the home environment, make sure that when you move away you're still not too far if you need that support (and hey, if you're working, maybe you can think about airports and so on that are easier to get to, when you're getting a wage plane tickets might not seem as extortionate!)
3. Keep working in your free time - work on projects on your site, find other projects you're interested in and get on GitHub - fork, contribute and blog as much as you can, share opinions and learn from others. When it comes to applying for jobs, interviewers will almost certainly look you up on the internet.
4. Get on LinkedIn and find recruitment agencies. Tell them what you're looking for and where you want to be - get them involved. They'll make a commission on your role, but it will be the company not you that pays it. They're financially motivated to get you a job and they've got the contacts, so get them on the case.
Point 4 is probably the most useful in terms of practicalities, point 1 in terms of health and stability.
Search for any freelance work you can do at the same time, but make getting that first job a priority, and use recruiters. Don't use freelance work as a way to get money - you'll end up disappointed, use it as a chance to build a portfolio of things you've done, look for short, sweet, simple projects, explain that you're young and will essentially do them for cost just for the experience. Avoid anything where people can make demands of you that last more than a couple of weeks, you won't get paid enough for the hassle.
Once you've got the interviews, you'll be OK. I've been running interviews at the company I work for for a while, and generally we're looking for experienced guys to hit the ground running with complex projects, but also junior people with a hard-working enthusiastic attitude.
Good luck!
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Thanks for the great advice and thanks for trying to see it from my point of view. Health and stability are my biggest concerns and are my #1 priority. I am trying to do just as you say "Work out where you can handle living"
I will look into a recruitment agency on linkedin for an area where I am comfortable.
Thanks for the encouragement!
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go to dice.com
relocate
talk to recruiters
do contract-to-hire
be willing to work for peanuts
There's a lot of work out there. I know because I'm looking (but not willing to relocate at this time and am focused on C/C++, which are hard jobs to find.)
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Thanks, Ill look into those.
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It's probably a combination of being in a rural area and not having any experience that's really getting you. Try applying in bigger cities, if anything comes up, then figure out how to relocate then. Usually a lot of companies will cover relocation expenses or will assist with temporary living until you find a place (I had my first job pay for a month or two of living in a hotel until I got an apartment).
Good luck and happy hunting!  
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Thanks for the advice. I will do just that.
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Best advice is don't get discouraged.... all it takes is one "yes" to make all those "no's" not matter. As your first job hardest thing is getting your foot in the door. I graduated from college during the dot com bust time and there were hardly any jobs (dot coms were falling left and right so there was a surplus of engineers and developers), so I started grad school in the mean time until I found something.
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Thanks, I'll try not to get discourage. After all, as you stated, there are lots of different possibilities. I'll put this in my mind now, in case I eventually feel that way. Thanks for the encouragement! It helps me!
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Start interviewing in big cities and plan to move to the big city where you get a job. Getting your first job is going to be the hardest, and you're making the problem worse by not being where most jobs are.
For software developers, a good cover letter and resume don't usually go very far; most people just scan it to see what skills and technologies you list. Instead of focusing too much on your resume, focus more on interviewing skills and job skills.
It sounds like you already have a good focus on your job skills; now, just try to land as many interviews as you can and focus on reading your interviewers and figuring out what kind of employees they want to hire; you'll eventually figure out how to sell yourself to them.
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Good ideas. I will look into improving my interviewing skills and job skills.
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It's got to be one of us lot: XKCD OTD[^] - Gliese 667C/e
Had to be one of us...
[edit]  Got the star name wrong...[/edit]
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
modified 19-Aug-13 12:00pm.
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I vote for PILF. Too funny!
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I thought of posting a snarky comment about the naming of Gliese 667C/e, but I thought better of it.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Abraham Lincoln
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I blame Randall Munroe...his handwriting is difficult... 
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
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I don't see why any of us would want to name anything Pilf.
[Edit]
Oh it was Mike.
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I don't see what's so wrong about naming the planet 'e' **ERROR: TABLE 'PLANETS' NOT FOUND** uh...what were we talking about?
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Randall Munroe is my spirit animal.
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Unicorn Thresher is a great planet name. 
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Not a single Star Trek reference. Impossible! Especially because ';DROP TABLE PLANETS;' clearly shows that code monkeys are not far.
Sent from my BatComputer via HAL 9000 and M5
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And the only Star Wars®©™ (and probably $¢¥£Σ as well) reference was corrupted...
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
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Pilf - Planet I'd Like to terraForm. Works for me.
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OriginalGriff wrote: Had to be one of us...
Nope, no bacon.
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I bought the Surface RT when it came out. While I get more use out of the iPad mini and before that the Motorola Xoom, the Surface does have its moments, particularly where remote desktop is concerned. I have Win 8 installed on a test box but don't use it. All my boxes run 7.
Win 8 is the new Vista, the OS people love to hate. I don't use it beyond the Surface because it doesn't really do anything for me on a PC or laptop. Sure, I can zip past Metro and go into the desktop in Win 8, but it doesn't give me anything that Win 7 isn't already doing. It also bears a striking visual resemblance to Win 3.1. Yuck.
I see 8 more as a bridge OS than a right now endeavor. In another year or two, that's the OS average people will be running since that's what they'll get on their new boxes. At which point Metro will seem normal.
That's where I think MS is playing the long game, which I hope will benefit both Windows Phone and tablets. A massive installed base will lead to familiarity and the possibility that people will want their computer, phone and tablet to have a common look & feel. It's not a killer strategy, but it's a reasonable one.
Personally, I don't know any other way MS could do this beyond the schizophrenic creature that is Win 8. You have to have the desktop. There are too many apps out there, and a great many of them would be diminished by a phone UI (I'm going to write a book, produce a feature film, mix an album or sling code on a tablet or my phone? Unlikely.) So, if you want to get in the tablet game, you have to have a second UI suitable for mobile, and somehow try to munge them together.
MS is trying to bring Windows into the mobile era, but it's no small challenge. If they fired Balmer and hired you, how would you approach this problem?
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