Just send him an endless loop of the scene in Swordfish where Hugh Jackman is coding.
My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
111–120 of 175 posts
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
See also: http://www.timesnapper.com/ for Windows (Classic version 'free forever'; doesn't seem to support stitching all the images together to export a video but should be do-able manually.)
No mention of "video" on the page for the paid version either.
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#113This answer is great: "This is the right answer. In business, when someone asks you do something extra the correct answer is "Yes I can do that. It will cost you $X." Make the other person say no if you really don't want to do something. Charge a ridiculous amount for it. Of course, there is the danger that they will agree which is why you charge something that would still be happy with. I would probably want it up-f…
The problem I'd have with doing this is that it would be difficult to think of a price I would be happy with.
The customer sounds like the type who would use this video to nitpick everything.
------ On June 1st from 11:03-11:07 you spent your time on google searching for something called an API. I demand you deduct 4 minutes from my bill. ------
Then if you get tired of dealing with it he can trash your reputation and he has edited video to back it up. Let's face it, if someone has hundreds of hours of footage of your work, they can find problems.
The whole thing sounds like a nightmare that could easily spiral out of control.
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is extremely common in corporate software engineering, where a contract specifies exactly what will be delivered. In practice, those change requests are usually rejected, because the people with control of the money aren't the people using the product, and the customer ends up paying for something they aren't happy with. A lot of Agile methodologies are a response to this extremely strict change control.
A lot of Agile methodologies are a response to this extremely strict change control. The problem, from what I've seen, is that developers understand agile development, but the "money people" don't. To them, "agile" is just a buzzword that means "good" and they aren't actually interested in participating in the process. So now you get people who don't understand, or aren't interested in, attending demo sessions, prior…
If you want to do Agile development, then you also have to do Agile billing - i.e., not a pre-agreed price limit for "thingamajig that does X, Y and Z", but in essence renting the team for each sprint with an understanding of what you'll get in each development (and billing) cycle.
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#115In 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.
If the client is 'not worth it' you're just not charging enough.
Some things aren't worth doing, at any price. Compromising my professional standards is one example. Working with a client who doesn't trust me to do my job properly is another. This sounds like an example of both.
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#116In 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.
I generally agree with this principle, but in practice, it's really hard.
You only find out how difficult a client is after dealing with them. And in many cases, if you have a feeling that this client is not going to be a very generous one, firing them might be most profitable thing to do.
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is always some amount of money that is worth the trouble. Now, it may be some amount of money that cannot be paid by any entity aside from governments, Exxon, Apple, and a few others, but it is some amount of money nonetheless.
True. The problem is getting paid. The client can agree to a ridiculous rate, but actually collecting is a whole different story. My gut says clients with red flags like this will be exceptionally difficult to collect from.
You could perhaps deal with it by insisting on being paid up front. But then I'd worry about the potential for lawsuits, if the client really is that crazy, and that's a potentially unlimited downside you can't work around with higher rates. The more he's able to pay you, the more he's able to pay his lawyers when he sues you.
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#118This answer is great: "This is the right answer. In business, when someone asks you do something extra the correct answer is "Yes I can do that. It will cost you $X." Make the other person say no if you really don't want to do something. Charge a ridiculous amount for it. Of course, there is the danger that they will agree which is why you charge something that would still be happy with. I would probably want it up-f…
The problem I'd have with doing this is that it would be difficult to think of a price I would be happy with. The customer sounds like the type who would use this video to nitpick everything . ------ On June 1st from 11:03-11:07 you spent your time on google searching for something called an API. I demand you deduct 4 minutes from my bill. ------ Then if you get tired of dealing with it he can trash your reputation a…
> The problem I'd have with doing this is that it would be difficult to think of a price I would be happy with.
Just add zeroes until you get that warm fuzzy feeling. Myself, I'd be able to never work again :P
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#119This reminds me of an observation I made while out at lunch one day. I was at a local restaurant having lunch and realized that two tables away, there were some of the ladies who were janitors at my work. After a couple of minutes of over hearing them talk about my work place, they were pretty outspoken, one of them said "....and they just sit there and stare at the screen all day......and they get paid all this money - I don't get it...."
Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product
#120This 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
Thanks for the promo code! Works great! ...will post a review for you.