Rentacoder & Mentoring

[soniceffect]

Thought I would ask the opinion of you guys on here as I know there are a lot of extremely good web designers and coders.

OK, so I need some advice. I can, to a basic level write some of my own html and currently work writing sql reports in transact SQL, so I am not a novice to the coding world however I have never tried (other than my job) to particularly make money through coding. I have set myself the goal this year of learning xhtml properly and have therefore started from scratch to ensure I write it to w3c standards. Once I have this grasped I am going to learn php, then start some of my own projects in vbulletin.

So here are the questions:

Is rentacoder any good for gaining work? And if so what kind of money can I expect to earn from there? I know this is a difficult question to answer as a lot would depend on skill level, so assume that I can write xhtml to a decent level and php to a basic level to begin with.


Secondly, and more importantly from a personal point of view. I want to start writing my own products for vbulletin and give something back to the community that I know and love. Is there anyone on here that would be willing to mentor me on how to code for vbulletin? I realise I need to ensure I am up to scratch on xhtml first and that I will at least need to have an understanding of coding php.


Any opinions on the above are greatly appreciated. I only hope one day I can be as good at this as you's lot