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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

#151
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…

What language were you using when coding the site ?

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

#152
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…

What language were you using when coding the site ?

The language in that video is Erlang using the Nitrogen Web Framework (http://nitrogenproject.com)

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

#153
God is my customer. I am done.

Once I prove God, I need prove nothing else.

God says...

7:5 For neither did his brethren believe in him.

7:6 Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.

7:7 The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.

7:8 Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come.

7:9 When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee.

7:10 But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.

7:11 Then the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he? 7:12 And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people.

----

I was denied my window on the Market. I guess God's gonna have to kill people and stuff to bring His temple back to working order.

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

#154
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

FFMPEG is the key, here: http://superuser.com/questions/343955/converting-images-to-v...

Ooh, shiny. I had been using MonkeyJam, which has no CLI and an annoying user interface. Out of curiosity, using ffmpeg, do you know how one would both combine a series of still images and add an audio track to it?

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

#155

As absurd as this situation was, it really doesn't surprise me in the least. Having been an independent consultant for several years, I've had some client requests that were real humdingers. My favorite of all-time (I'm paraphrasing, but this was a real conversation): Client: We would like a fixed-price bid on this project. Me: Well, let's talk about your project. What's the scope? Client: We're working on a list, wh…

Was this on a freelancing marketplace website by any chance? I see a lot of tenders on these for fixed price projects with stuff like "winning bidder will receive NDA and project description". So the seller is expected to bid a fixed price before they know what work needs to be done?

No, it was a small client. I was doing a friend a favor (an investor in this business.)

Yes, they wanted me to agree to a fixed price, then they would ask me what to do. The term "rent-a-slave" came to mind.

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

#156
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…

Just to be clear here. I will gladly plumb a clients toilet for 5k/hr. I won't, on the other hand, go around killing people. I won't make the next big brother for 5k/hr. I won't develop viruses or spam for 5k/hr. Those are ethical reasons, not pride. No one would ever think less of me for plumbing a clients toilet for 5k/hr.

I'd definitely do plumbing for anything more than $100 an hour. Plumbing is kind of awesome.

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

#157
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the polite way to tell them "there's not a chance I, or any other reasonable person, would consider this request" and keep the door open to future work? Or is it not worth keeping that door open?

I used to give them one attempt at education as to why software development isn't off-the-shelf if it seemed reasonable that they might simply be new to that sort of project. In practice, though, it was almost always the case that they were simply being unrealistic and hoping to find someone new / desperate who would give them more than what they paid for.

How well do those projects go? I've had bids rejected for being too high, even when other developers failed to deliver due to underbidding. Some people never learn.

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

#158
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

For OS X users, you can take a screenshot from the command line with /usr/sbin/screencapture, so putting together a little script to make a screenshot timelapse is pretty trivial. With that and ffmpeg you can replicate most of the functionality of my program in just a few lines of bash. :-)

I put something like this together a while ago. I think it still works. Just two scripts, ffmpeg, and a cronjob. https://github.com/msmith/caps.

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

#159
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Let's face it, if someone has hundreds of hours of footage of your work, they can find problems. Yes but they will have to spend hundreds of their own time to do that (and if they intend to sue you to get their money back, also a lawyer's time.) I wouldn't worry - they will lose their own job long before they find enough evidence to harm your reputation.

Do not underestimate the amount of determination or free time available to an unreasonable client. If they were able to do cost-benefits analysis and good-faith estimates of the value of someone's time, they probably would not have made a request like this to begin with.

In short, do not expect reasonable behavior from unreasonable clients. :)

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

#160

Just send him an endless loop of the scene in Swordfish where Hugh Jackman is coding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO_O4AD1MhI

It is an amazingly realistic depiction of life as a software programmer. "No, no....yes!"
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