How close do you have to zoom on http://maps.google.com/maps?z=1&t=h&ll=10.903707,19.933068 until you recognise what you see? I was about 3 zoom levels from the end before I recognised them…
Found via PlanetPostgresql of all places! 😀
Richy's Random Ramblings
I’d just like to say thank you to Tesco’s Beaumont Leys store for supplying me with a Lexmark Wireless All-In-One X4850 printer for just £69.97 – it should retail for £129.99 according to Lexmark (and, according to Tesco, £129.97).
So how do I get it so cheap? Well, I saw a yellow “Discount” shelf edge label promoting the printer for £99.97 so I thought, since I’ve been looking for a cheapish wireless printer for a while, I’ll buy it. Got to the checkout and it was rang up for the normal full price of £129.97. So I wander over to the Electrics customer services – point out that they’ve overcharged me by £30 and they check and agree. They then remind me (although I hadn’t forgotten and would have reminded them if necessary) that Tesco’s pricing promise means that if they make a pricing mistake – you get refunded double the difference. So my £30 over-payment became a £60 credit in my favour.
I’ve just finished setting it up, and the setup was very simple (hardest part was finding where in the house to situate it) and it works well with our SSID hidden WPA2 protected wireless network (much better than the Nokia N95 Series 1 phone which needed the SSID to be visible). Print quality is as good as you would expect from an inkjet on nearly 10 year old cheap 80gsm white laser copier paper (I brought a whole box full from Office World when I was at college and I’ve still got over a ream left) and scanning seems ok. Only disappointment is that the PictBridge software on the printer won’t talk directly to my Japanese-brought Ricoh Capilo RX camera over USB: I’ve got to eject the SD card and insert it into the printer: but at least it gives the option to manipulate/change the photo a bit (borders/frame, red eye reduction, cropping, rotation etc).
Not too bad for £69.97 IMHO!
Do you trade on Paypal at all? If so, you may find taking into account the transaction fees Paypal charge into your product price difficult. Not to fear though – I’ve come across a Paypal Fee Calculator site which will do it all for you. It’ll calculate the different fees in affect in the different countries Paypal operates – and even which level of “Merchant” you are in Paypal: and it’ll tell you how much you need to charge (or will receive) to take into account the fees.
It doesn’t do currency conversions yet, but it’s a good system to use (if you don’t mind all the complaints about Paypal.
Wake Up Later has a list of 10 Absolute “Nos!” for Freelances which include (with my comments):
- Can you show me a mock-up to help us choose a designer/developer?
When I worked for a web hosting company, we did waste a lot of time doing web site designs for people as “mock ups” and a few times we did see the ideas “recycled” in their finished design even though they hadn’t paid us. The percentage of “mock ups to completed projects” was quite low as well – meaning wasted time. Oh – and the number of people that said “I don’t like that mock up, can you do another”… Grrr… On the plus side, I’ve just realised that an insurance company that I wrote the billing system for nearly a year ago whilst at my previous employer is still in use, despite the pet insurance company having very little (if anything) to do with my previous employer now. Go me! - Can you give us a discount rate?
Am I the only person in the world that thinks “The price you see is the price you pay”? You don’t expect Tescos or Sainsburys to “haggle” the price of your food do you? Well, don’t expect web designers, programmers, hosting companies etc to do the same! - Will you register and host my site?
I slightly disagree with this one – the designer will be able to register the domain name and host it with a third party: but as long as they make it totally clear they are just performing the “payment side” of things and the client needs to contact the appropriate company if there is any “non-design/code” issues then it should be ok. - Can you copy this site?
Straight coping is a “no-no”, but trying to get a “similar look” to a site isn’t too bad. I.e. if you are doing a shopping cart: do you like the look of Amazon, Tesco, Play will help speed the design work along. - Can I pay for my e-commerce site from my website sales?
A big no from me here as well! If the designer/freelancer says to the customer “I’ll do it cheaper if you’ll split the sales” that means the designer/freelancer thinks the customer has a very good ideas. However, if the customers asks for it – then the customer must think it’s not such a good idea and hence doesn’t really want to risk their money. - I have a great idea. Do you want to…?
To me, this’ll depend on the circumstances. If they came to me (as a programmer) and said they’d like to partner for me and they can supply the design and backend content, and I’ve got to figure out how to get the content online and handle the promotion of it – then I may do. However, if it’s a case of “I want a shop to sell books via Amazon. I can design the site, can you do the back end…” then IMHO they won’t be contributing that much to the project. If they added their own book reviews then that’s another kettle of fish. - Do you have an IM account?
I’ve practically given up on IM clients (such as Yahoo, AOL, MSN Messenger and ICQ) mainly because of the Spam (Yahoo especially) and the fact that when I am logged in I’m not always available to chat (away from the machine) or I’m busy working on something. I tend to have my PC on a “always ready” state (i.e. text edit, browsers etc already loaded and positioned) so opening and closing Trillian (which I used to use to log me into all the different networks) will be an extra thing to remember… - Can I just pay the whole amount when it’s done?
- Is there any way you could get this done tonight or this weekend?
- Can I be sure you won’t use this work in anything else?
I tend to do the same as Samuel (the other of the original post) in that “(1) their code has utilized code from other projects which I haven’t charged them for, and (2) I will probably use code from their project on other projects, and (3) they own the code and implementation of the project (finished website), but not the actual code pieces (login system, image uploader, etc.). I pride myself in productivity and speed, and I need to use other code all the time to accomplish this.”. However, in most circumstances I do “copy my own code” but in a slightly different manner – so the “jist” of the code may be the same, it’ll be slightly different for each implmentation.