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clientSurfer wrote: This latest opportunity is very exciting
Then obviously you should offer to do it for nothing as a pleasurable learning experience empowering you to better benefit your glorious nation and all mankind at a later date. That's the trouble with people today. All these entitlement issues. In my day you were lucky to get a plate of dripping a year and you were bloody grateful for it!
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 ROTFFLMAO
... having only that moment finished a vigorous game of Wiff-Waff and eaten a tartiflet. - Henry Minute
I'm still looking (eagerly) for wisdom in terms of best practices in OO design; and I doubt I'll ever quit looking. - BillWoodruff
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. - gavindon
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First time customers always want a Bid from me. I do about 5 quotes a month, and I'm pretty good at it now. So I use the Mechanics method, where I have a spreadsheet of past jobs with bid hours and actual hours that I keep updating. One of the secrets to staying profitable is to sell code already written as a job for predetermined hours and not give it away. So the new code you write that goes over the quoted hours is balanced by selling the code again for a predetermined amount of hours.
One method I've been using over the last 3 years is the Bid warning. I tell customers that I can Bid the job or match a competitor, but in the long run, the job won't be feature rich and it won't be bullet proof against your most problematic employee. So I give them two quotes, one to match and be competitive and one for a feature rich project that is dummy proof.
After a couple of projects for the customer, they always end up asking for quote 2, because it less of a headache for them.
So for code projects, we do flat fee. For HTML and artwork, we do it by the hour. HTML and artwork has proven to be impossible to quote because the customer always changes their mind. And on that note, during the development of a project, change orders are not allowed until the written scope of the project is complete and they have paid their invoice. Then they can purchase change orders.
I use to be a data contractor, and we allowed change orders during the build, but that was easy to figure out. With programming, the job will never end if you allow them, and it gets harder to get paid.
[Edit]
As for OriginalGriff's 30%-40% extra as a safe buffer margin, I use 20% to 30%, but not that often, and just for uncharted waters, new technology.
And no I don't feel like I'm ripping off the customer. To me reselling already written code is no different than McDonalds selling the same copy of a burger over and over.
modified 10-Nov-15 13:53pm.
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Excellent well-thought answer... I see I have a lot to think about and you guys as usual have given me good food for thought. I really appreciate it!
Cheers!
... having only that moment finished a vigorous game of Wiff-Waff and eaten a tartiflet. - Henry Minute
I'm still looking (eagerly) for wisdom in terms of best practices in OO design; and I doubt I'll ever quit looking. - BillWoodruff
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. - gavindon
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I've been doing then for awhile, if you need help with your quote or want a double check, feel free to send it over.
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Thanks so much jkirkerx, that's very cool... I will indeed take you up on that; I've already signed an NDA but I think I can make it generic enough for a double-check without violating it.
Thanks jkirkerx!
clientSurfer
... having only that moment finished a vigorous game of Wiff-Waff and eaten a tartiflet. - Henry Minute
I'm still looking (eagerly) for wisdom in terms of best practices in OO design; and I doubt I'll ever quit looking. - BillWoodruff
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. - gavindon
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Check out their annual report and base your rate / bid upon that.
The smaller the outfit, the more you can or will have to barter.
There should be some sort of "plan"; with a go / no go decision at each milestone and a revised estimate / budget. Have clear deliverables. You wouldn't hire a building contractor and tell them to just "build me something to live in".
Charge based on the hat you will have to wear during a particular "phase".
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: There should be some sort of "plan"; with a go / no go decision at each milestone and a revised estimate / budget. Have clear deliverables. You wouldn't hire a building contractor and tell them to just "build me something to live in".
Definitely - I'm working on that as we speak...
Thanks so much for replying
... having only that moment finished a vigorous game of Wiff-Waff and eaten a tartiflet. - Henry Minute
I'm still looking (eagerly) for wisdom in terms of best practices in OO design; and I doubt I'll ever quit looking. - BillWoodruff
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. - gavindon
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"The NSA wants to ensure young students are getting science, technology, engineering and math skills; at a camp in California this summer, one of dozens of camps across the country, girls from low-income communities “went home with little Raspberry Pis, a $65 computer that actually works,” Reinsfelder said. They also learned how to hack drones."
Washington Post: today: "The NSA school: How the intelligence community gets smarter, secretly:" [^]
«I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center» Kurt Vonnegut.
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... having only that moment finished a vigorous game of Wiff-Waff and eaten a tartiflet. - Henry Minute
I'm still looking (eagerly) for wisdom in terms of best practices in OO design; and I doubt I'll ever quit looking. - BillWoodruff
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. - gavindon
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I've been curious about Win 10, so I think I'm going to install it on my laptop.
Then I can evaluate it without mucking up my Dev PC, and if all goes well, I can use my laptop as a Win 10 test area.
Any reason not to upgrade?
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If you are moving from 8.1 to 10, then none.
From 7 to 10 can be a PITA...and 10 is still an ugly OS in comparison. There are some posts of mine in this forum earlier this year which describe the hassles I had.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Ya I'd be going from 7 to 10
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I went from 7 to 10 on all my machines with zero issues. Reasonably quick and very painless.
Do yourself a favour [^]though.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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I personally think some of the things on 10 look a lot better than 7 (just a change of scenery), but the things that are absolutely ugly just outshine the pretty features. Honestly, they should just make 7 more efficient, and then give it a facelift, rather than changing everything that people love about it.
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Not as long as you have a recent backup to use for recovery purposes if something gets elephanted up; or you just decide you don't like it.
You might want to wait one more day though; the Theshold 2[^] update is supposed to launch with tomorrows patch Tuesday. It has assorted quality of life updates and is a rollup patch; so you shouldn't need to do any extra post-install patching after the upgrade.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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I was gonna bring that up - some are expecting it to be included as part of tomorrow's set of patches, but MS has never confirmed it - but it is expected to be out this month. So either way, I'd wait for that to be available.
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I don't mind the new UI and all, but some important things seem slower (at least on my laptop).
Sometimes when you click the start button, it does not open immediately. PC searching functionality seems slower as well (even if I disable the web search).
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zephaneas wrote: Any reason not to upgrade?
It's Win10!
New version: WinHeist Version You didn't fall from the stupid tree you got dragged through the whole dumbass forest.
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I've been using Win10 on 2 desktops and my 3 surfaces since the day it was made availavle. No issues to rerport!
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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I've had no issues with Win10 at all. Go for it. 
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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I have it on my main game machine at home with no issues at all. I did the upgrade 32-bit -> clean install 64-bit path to add more RAM to my system, and all seems well.
My long term goal is to live forever. So far, so good...
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Upgraded my laptop from 8.1 to 10... And nothing changed.
Upgraded my desktop from 7 to 10... My BSOD problems vanished, and it generally feels a little faster and more stable. On the other hand, it likes to shuffle windows between monitors when I turn on the connected TV, often comes up out of hibernate at random times of the day or night (Even though I turned off wake-on-LAN), and likes to pop up web search results instead of applications when I hit the start key and type a few letters of an application name.
But in terms of things exploding and eating all of my data... Nope, went nice and smoothly. Considering Microsoft's track record with OS updates, I was actually fairly impressed.
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The only issues I've had with Win10 are from third-party idiots vendors testing in production. (I'm looking at you, NVidia).
I've also had to help people who had Win10 and were having crashes and found that ALL of them were running programs written for Windows 98/ME! I told them to wait for the singularity, to which one suggested defragging the keyboard! (  )
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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De-fragging the keyboard isn't that stupid an idea.
If you turn the average keyboard upside down and give it a good shake, it's revolting what fragments fall out... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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