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My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

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Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#91

Post by obituary_latte »

passerinelabs wrote: post #56
chops wrote: post #44

This is something I actually offer to my clients, and I do it for fun. I guess I was inspired by watching some of Notch's screencaps over a few days. So I capture it with RecordMyDesktop (I run xubuntu), and run through an ffmpeg script ( https://github.com/choptastic/watchmecode ) that resizes the video to be the same length as an MP3, and makes an X minute screencap montage for the client. Then it produces somethin…

Watching Notch's Ludum Dare videos inspired me to create my first OS X app store app. It takes screenshots at a configurable interval and than creates H.264 encoded video of the resultant timelapse. Here it is: http://appstore.com/mac/ScreenshotTimelapse Here are 25 promo codes if anyone wants to try it out: http://pastebin.com/K6Xx59jY

Very cool. I had been thinking for a while I wanted something like this. You are Thanks.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#92

Post by M4v3R »

skisly wrote: post #88
chops wrote: post #44

This is something I actually offer to my clients, and I do it for fun. I guess I was inspired by watching some of Notch's screencaps over a few days. So I capture it with RecordMyDesktop (I run xubuntu), and run through an ffmpeg script ( https://github.com/choptastic/watchmecode ) that resizes the video to be the same length as an MP3, and makes an X minute screencap montage for the client. Then it produces somethin…

ODesk have time tracking software. This system makes screenshot every minute I guess. It's very helps when you working with new developers. And you want to know for sure that he works on your project.

oDesk does one screenshot in each 10-minute period, at random. So you can be sure to have 6 screenshots per hour, but you can never know when the screenshots will be shot by oDesk software.

Source: I work for an agency that does this.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#93

Post by michaelochurch »

ryen wrote: post #46
berntb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a boss who was a bit too ... stressed ... for a while. You just couldn't reason with him about it. In the end I solved it. I wrote in an email that he was just too stressed and really needed some time off, so he started to attack me personally. I wrote to him then that he should take what he just wrote and show it to his parents or some other persons he had trust in, and ask them how he was doing. He finally re…

Why were you playing therapist when you could have told HR?

In a small company, "the boss" is the owner and there is no HR. If you don't get along with him, you leave.

In a large company, HR's job isn't to help you but to keep the company from getting sued. They will almost always side with management. You might make a dent in a manager's reputation and, if 5 or 6 people come forward with the same complaint about him, he might be "promoted away" into a role with less direct people management... but you're fired by that point, so it means nothing to you.

HR is not your friend.

Your best move if you have a bad boss is to work out a transfer behind his back, and leave on good terms. Find someone with more clout who will request sponsor you. Don't "apply for" transfer. Get requested. Never say anything bad about your boss in the process, just that you're looking for work that's more relevant to your skill set.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#94

Post by passerinelabs »

agravier wrote: post #87
passerinelabs wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Here's 25 more: http://pastebin.com/r2KVSmXp I'm happy to hear any feedback: andrew at passerinelabs.com or @passerinelabs on Twitter.

Thank for those codes, Andrew. I have grabbed LYAEFN4PPWHW. I will use it to self-monitor my procrastination. My first feedback to you is that the first contact is great thanks to the app's minimalism. It's really unobtrusive. A second piece of feedback is that the menu bar icon looks poor on a retina display. I believe that one can use vector graphics (in PDF) or double the resolution (I always feel weird saying tha…

Thanks for the feedback. I made the icon in Illustrator and then used photoshop to create the various icon sizes. Scaling down to the very small sizes (16x16, 32x32) didn't seem to produce great results. If the app ever turns a profit my first step will be to pay an actual graphics person to redo the logo and icons.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#95

Post by lnanek2 »

This is very common on remote work sites like Elance. Elance calls their version WorkView. It's not strange at all and actually beneficial for both sides of the interaction. This is because if you accept an hourly job with WorkView, Elance guarantees you'll get paid for your hours. For the employer it is obviously beneficial as well because you have more piece of mind the worker is actually spending their time working.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#96

Post by michaelochurch »

new299 wrote: post #63
michaelochurch wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $50,000 per hour, I'd do 40 hours of work for a hideous client. We're not talking about murder or anything with risk to life. We're talking about dealing with assholes. There is a price (theoretically) that makes that OK, so long as it's time-limited. Of course, the client will almost certainly not agree to $50k per hour, but isn't that kind of the point?

assholes often don't pay their bills.

With $50k on the line, you collect upfront.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#97

Post by jroseattle »

Devilboy wrote: post #6
downandout wrote: post #2

In this case, it's probably a good idea to fire the customer. These types of outrageous requests don't exist in a vacuum. People like this are very difficult to deal with, tend to be very miserly, and will be a non-stop headache. The customer will question everything you do, why you did certain things a certain way (even if he or she has no idea what they are talking about), etc. Drop kick this customer from your lif…

If the client is 'not worth it' you're just not charging enough. Just work out what your price is and send them a new quote. Don't ever fire a client, that's just silly. Make the client say no.

It's far more important to tell the client "no", because a client will expect that you have no boundaries. The set-the-bill-rate-massively-high approach is a passive-aggressive way of telling a client "no", and it doesn't work well -- it can backfire.

Having been independent for 5+ years, saying "no" is a learned skill.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#98

Post by redblacktree »

mikeash wrote: post #69
nnq wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious: If the client asks you to also plumb hist toilet, you'd say "yes, but I'll bill you at $5k/hr for the toilet project"? You really want to be the "do anything for enough money" guy? ...cause this is how you're labeling yourself by going this route more than one time. Imho, taking some pride and saying "no, fuck of, I don't do this, find someone else" makes you feel 1000x better as you realize you don't d…

I'd definitely accept toilet jobs for $5,000/hour, then subcontract out to a plumber for their going rate, and pocket the difference. IMO a bad example.

Yes, but what if they demanded that you do it, personally. While wearing a French maid costume.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#99

Post by goofygrin »

urza wrote: post #58

Switch from being paid by hour to being paid by task. Client describes a project, together you split it into a list of small tasks, you assign value to each task, client agrees to it, and you get paid by task. Then it is up to you how productive you are..

We're quickly migrating to this model. You have to be (much) better about estimating work, but switching from cost+ to value added pricing really makes better sense (and your margins increase).

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#100

Post by mikeash »

redblacktree wrote: post #98
mikeash wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd definitely accept toilet jobs for $5,000/hour, then subcontract out to a plumber for their going rate, and pocket the difference. IMO a bad example.

Yes, but what if they demanded that you do it, personally. While wearing a French maid costume.

Then I'm no longer a contractor, and they have to hire me, put me on a payroll, etc. I doubt they want to do that.

I probably would walk away from that, but my point is that if you are a contractor, then the requirement is simply that the work be done, not that you do it personally. If they're willing to pay absurd money for something you don't want to do but other people will do, subcontract.

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