Reactions to story from Mirificam Press - Technique, Business and Worldview for Web Designers

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  Business. Not Family

  http://caphrim.net/tim/?p=181
  259 days ago in Tims Blog · Authority: 1

  Business. Not Family March 17th, 2008 Cry me a river mac people. So Splunk 3.2 is really pissing me off. For the life of me I can’t figure out how to use the REST API. There’s something (ok a lot of things) that the online documentation just doesn’t tell you. I figured the syntax to create a new search would be similar (said identical) to how you use it in the Web UI…but it isn’t. The documentation on the site is literally starved for examples. I’d like to know how exactly they’re using the query parameters they describe, because I’ve used just about every incantation I can think of, and my searches don’t return didly squat. You could say I’m very frustrated. I need to have it ready for a potential dire need at work and frankly it doesn’t look like it’s going to be ready. I don’t think Splunk is using their own REST API in their product either. The reason I say that is all the requests to /v3/ in 3.2. Didn’t you guys say that was deprecated? simplexml and namespaces gltrail monitor webpage changes with specto tuning postgresql for performance amazon drm free music and linux firecookie taffy db javascript database php predefined constants php universal feed generator git revert is not equivalent to svn revert command line automation with expect-lite pay me please 7 reasons you shouldn’t charge by the hour include - pack your javascript with ease highlight search results with javascript invoice machine porticus 5 steps to a DIY lifelock checkpoints and the background writer spec viewperf 7 ways to decrease your hours without harming your career pulling truly random rows from a table Posted in doesnt-quite-fit dept
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  2008-03-16 Sunday Links Folder

  http://freelancefolder.com/2008-03-16-sunday-links-folder/
  260 days ago in Freelance Tools, Advice, and Resources | Freelance Folder · Authority: 450

  Hi everyone, I hope you’re having a great week-end and are taking some time off to relax and recharge. I thought I’d write a new ‘links folder‘ post because it’s been 3 weeks since the last one. :) Cory Miller, who runs the Premium WordPress themes store, iThemes, is giving a 25% discount on all WP theme purchases, just enter the discount code ‘FREELANCE‘ and voila! (the prices are already very reasonable anyway). I know many of you are bloggers, so if you’re looking for a cool WordPress theme, check it out. Maybe you already knew this but I thought I’d make it more ‘official‘. Now the list: 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Charge by the Hour Freelance Bloggers: 12 Tips to Promote Your Work With Social Media People are the Bottom Line The Open Source Online Finance Guide: 50+ Freeware Online Tools to Manage Your Money The Top 100 Freelancer Blogs Offline Sources for Design Inspiration 101 Hilarious Ways to Get Fired Face to Face Business Networking 101 Matt Jones from BloggingFingers wrote a great ebook on the topic of blog monetization. It’s only 16 pages, but it’s packed with very useful information and insights, and it’s free! So if you are a blogger I’m sure you’ll find it interesting, go grab a copy! To stick with the WordPress and blogging stuff, SP, who runs WPDesigner, one of the leading blogs about WordPress (PR7, 70k uniques per month) has put his site up on SitePoint. The BIN price is $65k, and it looks like someone wants to buy it. Congrats SP, you did an awesome job with WPDesigner. Good luck with your future projects. Also, in case you have a Twitter account, why not follow me? I know this is totally counter-productive, but so far for me it’s proven to be a nice networking tool. Just don’t abuse it. :) That’s it for this week folks! Have a great week-end! Jon ****** *If you read or wrote a great post, please send me the link, and I’ll maybe add it to the next ‘links folder‘ post. Thank you! Please Take A Minute To Visit Our Sponsors
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  7 Reasons You Shouldn't Charge by the Hour

  http://blog.satyr.nl/post/89554269
  270 days ago in satyr.nl · Authority: 1

  7 Reasons You Shouldn't Charge by the Hour So if you would like a deeper look into the melee of hourly billing, you've come to the right place. Here are seven reasons I avoid hourly billing like the plague.
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  7 Reasons You Should Charge by the Hour

  http://www.myintervals.com/blog/2008/03/04/7-reasons-you-sho...
  271 days ago in Project management and time tracking blog for web designers and small business :: the Intervals Blog by Pelago · Authority: 11

  Matthew Griffin has posted “7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Charge by the Hour.” Pelago’s experiences and struggles over the last eight years have taught us to avoid flat-rate billing like the plague. Here are 7 reasons why you should bill hourly. It’s a long-term, personal investment Starting and stopping timers is a discipline that takes some practice. Training yourself to track your time effectively gives you and your client invaluable insight into a project, and gives you historical data for estimating future work. Tracking your time also makes you better at managing your time. If you find yourself constantly starting and stopping timers, it is your work habits that are counter-productive, not the timers. Using flat-rate billing to circumvent timers is short-sighted. It makes clients trust you If you’ve managed your time well in the past, you should have a solid idea of how much your client is going to spend. If your flat-rate billing is based on a ballpark figure, than neither you or the client really knows how much it is going to cost. You will lose money on projects. It enourages a better balance of work and personal life This is especially important if you are a freelancer. How do you know when to stop working? If you are getting paid by the hour, you have plenty of incentive to work faster and smarter; it’s called life. If you bill hourly, you can schedule your workload and manage cashflow better. Scheduling flat-rate projects is more complicated, and will have you up late at night racing to meet deadlines It lends itself to reliable and predictable website update work Nobody likes doing updates on ugly sites they didn’t design. Once you’ve launched a web site, it makes sense to bill hourly to maintain the site. Web site maintenance is a dependable income stream for any freelancer or business. Getting paid on time is a struggle. Billing hourly for update work is a great way to regulate cashflow. It stops feature creep Unless your flat-rate estimate details every feature to be included, your definition of the project is going to differ from the client’s definition. Flat-rate billing gives you very little contractual backup for saying no to the client. Billing hourly allows you to put a price tag on additional features, encouraging the client to evaluate their requests in financial terms. Often times, their have-to-have features aren’t that crucial at all. It enables billing potential There are ways to handle your billing as you become more effecient. First, raise your rates. Billing hourly is a different mindset in that you are being paid for your time and expertise more than you are the finished product. Clients aren’t hiring you because they need a web site, they are hiring you because they need a web site built by you, someone they trust and enjoy working with. Second, it makes sense that projects will go faster as you reuse your existing code library and become better at design. Include a base fee to compensate for your intellectual investment. At this point you should have a strong client list and a good reputation, both good reasons why clients will be willing to pay the base fee to work with you. It stops clients from abusing you When you use flat-rate billing, clients will take advantage of you. And then only the client is happy, because they are getting everything they want, and you are growing increasingly frustrated with each change. When you charge by the hour, clients can see every little change on the invoice. The grumbling usually stops immediately once they realize each change was at their request. It is important to realize you are offering a service, not a product, that is difficult to quantify in terms of value. How do you put a price tag on a web site? You can’t, because every web site is different. There is a reason why IT companies, law firms, PR groups, and other professional service companies all charge by the hour. Billing hourly resolves many of the shortcomings created by the over-simplified practice of flat-rate billing. It takes discipline to manage timers, and using a desktop or web-based time tracking service like Intervals is a necessity. But, the rewards of tracking your time and billing hourly are long-term and certainly worth the effort. Related posts The Library of Congress' photos (0) All Things To All People (0) Elements of Design (0) Client profile overhauled with mapping and vCard support (0) Interface Tuning Continues (0)
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  Freelancers & Hourly Rates

  http://news.bscore.net/contributors/freelancers-hourly-rates...
  279 days ago in Newpress Blog of tHe woRld · Authority: 9

  Freelancers & Hourly Rates Posted by adii at February 26, 2008 I just stumbled on a gem of an article by Matthew Griffin, who argues 7 reasons why freelancers shouldn’t charge their clients by the hour. I’ve always avoided a per hour billing situation, because I don’t really believe in the technique and therefor I really relate to the article. But whereas I would’ve been more subjective in my arguments, Matthew has come up with 7 well-thought-out reasons not to do the hourly thing… Comments Off Asides, Contributors
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  Freelancers & Hourly Rates

  http://www.adii.co.za/2008/02/26/freelancers-hourly-rates/
  279 days ago in adii · Authority: 2,319

  I just stumbled on a gem of an article by Matthew Griffin, who argues 7 reasons why freelancers shouldn’t charge their clients by the hour. I’ve always avoided a per hour billing situation, because I don’t really believe in the technique and therefor I really relate to the article. But whereas I would’ve been more subjective in my arguments, Matthew has come up with 7 well-thought-out reasons not to do the hourly thing…
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  7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Charge by the Hour

  http://www.xemion.com/blog/7-reasons-you-shouldnt-charge-by-...
  279 days ago in Xemion Web Design Blog · Authority: 16

  Matthew Griffin has written an absolutely great post with 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Charge by the Hour.  It’s great reading for a freelancer or any company that often uses hourly billing. Share This

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