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About twelve years ago a friend set up a telephone business (he's a salesman at heart). I was working in Hong Kong as an IT project manager at the time. On my return to the UK he told me how well it was going: he had about twenty customers signed up and using the service.
Problem was, being a typical sales-type he'd got the service and sold it but had no way to rate and bill the data he got from his suppliers. One friend had been trying to rate and bill the call records using Excel (and not using VBA either!).
I offered to write (for free) a simple Access database, with about five tables and some forms and reports so he could record the customers, their lines and rate the calls. This is despite the fact I wasn't really a developer. That was 1997.
To cut a long story short, his business grew and he asked me to work with him full time in 1999. In 2004 we sold the business for £20m (about US$40m at the time). He had given me a small shareholding as thanks for the original system, so as you can guess I was quite happy with the arrangement.
So before you say 'no' just think about it!!
'Howard
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thats what we do here .. help friends
"Opinions are neither right nor wrong. I cannot change your opinion. I can, however, change what influences your opinion." - David Crow Never mind - my own stupidity is the source of every "problem" - Mixture
cheers,
Alok Gupta
VC Forum Q&A :- I/ IV
Support CRY- Child Relief and You
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when i read that topic i was hoping for some very dirty story
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I've been coding for most of my life. I was in this business before this business was cool( ). Whether you define what we do as a profession or a trade, depending on your personal prejudices, we are relative new comers and not many people still understand what it is we do. If you have a brother who is a plummer and you spring a leak in you basement, you call him for help. Assuming of course, he isn't the village idiot. Is there that big a difference between a plumber and us, other than they make a lot more money? All of the so called professions have found ways to establish value for what they do. As a result, they are less likely to be taken advantage of. We are starting to do that in this business, but we aren't there yet. We certainly are not on a par with dr's or lawyers yet. Many of us are certainly on a par with professional engineers (electrical, mechanical, etc), but they don't carry the stature the first 2 I mentioned either. I have a brother in law who is an MD. He is always being asked for free medical advice from family and friends. Family he generally accommodates, friends he always asks them to call his office. At that point he's out of the money loop, since his office handles the billing. If and when we ever get to the point where we enjoy that level of professional detachment we can get away with the same thing. Until then we have to decide how much and to whom we will give away. Personally, I try to help family whenever i can, and an occasional very special friend, the rest I ask to call me monday for an appointment.
Larry Miller
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Larry, let me introduce you to the return key, it's the big one on the right of the keyboard, like to be used, we like it to be used, use it sometime.
A plumber, MD can usually give advice or fix a problem within a limited time frame. I rarely write an app in a couple of hours and they do not need to support the app ad infinitum. I am happy to give advice (see the forums) there is almost no personal cost.
I have often helped friends with apps, some have been written over a period of months, all have been a PITA supporting them. Yet I still do it.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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If a friend wants a big app writing so they can go off an sell it and make themselves a stack of cash then they can either pay me a full fair rate, or they can bog off.
If on the other hand they have a business idea and need someone to help develop it and share in business, then bring it on, as long as I think the business plan is valid.
Or perhaps they just want something written to solve a problem they have. Well, then perhaps I'll reduce the rate (possible right down to £0) if I can have ownership of the finished app and it's something I think is worthwhile doing.
Basically, what I'm saying is if I see that app as something worthwhile, I'll accept a share of ownership as a percentage of the payment.
(If it's something really small, then maybe I'll just knock it up for free anyway.)
Simon
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This really works! Here's the best reaction:
-->"Where do I click on this thing to open it?"
And while my answer felt satisfactory to me, with hindsight, it might have been to heavy-handed:
-->"It's an image of the guts of one of those things you're always trying to click-on in order to open"
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It's a mixed bag. I wouldn't do any huge project for free, but little programs are okay. (I would do a big project for myself, if I had the time, though.)
I just make sure they watch me program, sometimes. They don't often realize that it takes hours of work to make something. They think, like all things computerized, it's just a click here, and a click there. So, what I do is fire up the text editor, and let them stare at the white screen as I type and test.
They'll leave, and return 3-4 hours later, and my ass is in the same chair, as if I haven't moved (because, chances are, I haven't moved). Then, they usually understand, and won't ask for more favors.
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All they ask are various problems with hardware devices, which I have no clue. For software problems, they all know (better than me) how to download free programs from the internet. One person asked me why his laptop became slow and unusable, I told him not to download those free programs. He replied (not exact words) "You are a professional, that's the best advice you can give?"
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That happens a lot to me too. People will tell me that their USB port isn't working and ask how to fix it. I have no clue about hardware. I can install RAM and hard drives, but that's about it.
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I have done something like that for a relative close to me, and the relative (I am not revealing the gender here!) thinks they're good at computers when in fact they're terrible! Am always plagued by their pleas because they screw up settings etc...anyway, the relative started spouting out things (really, bluffing their way through the points about the work I did for them) that I should have done and shouldn't have done (has no right to do that as have no knowledge of subject matter at hand) with the work that I did for them, things got heated (twisted up all my words and threw it back in my face) and a row escalated! To this day, the relative never acknowledged my professional work, time put in and thus was discarded like a piece of rag.
So guys and gals here at CP, DO NOT DO ANY WORK FOR THEM....obviously personal and business do not mix here especially if you happen to know that relative very well! Have been there, and never again, steer clear of this kind of thing when it comes to people you know personally!
#define STOOPID
#if STOOPID
Console.WriteLine("I'm stoopid!");
#endif
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Just because this happened to you doesn't mean it would happen to everyone else, so how can you tell people
Tomas Brennan wrote: DO NOT DO ANY WORK FOR THEM
I've done stuff for my brother and for friends, and I've never had any problems. I have turned certain people down if I knew that they were the sort of people who would not appreciate the time and effort involved and would likely become a pain in the backside. If you know the person who is asking, you should be able to assess whether or not it would be worth getting into, or best avoiding.
Words fade as the meanings change, but somehow, it don't bother me.
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Thanks Boro_Bob for your reply and I have taken your comments on board. Yes, I do accept everyone's experience is different, after all we are all different! For me personally, it was a case of once bitten, twice shy and was voicing my experience and opinion. I knew what kind of person that was and wanted to give that person a chance. Have tried, didn't work for me.
Thanks again and kind regards,
Tom.
#define STOOPID
#if STOOPID
Console.WriteLine("I'm stoopid!");
#endif
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I've done stuff for freinds and had the favour returned, that is work on my house.
That's just about paletable and any thing else leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
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Too dangerous. "for family/friends" + "for free" = "you are responsible for a lifetime"
Ok, not always but most of the time yes. Especially if they aren't developers themselves.
Oh, and of course your program should handle all future changes to operating systems, file formats and weather changes
--
"My software never has bugs. It just develops random features."
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Yes. Very much.
They would start expecting you to serve as a bonded labor for lifetime.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep!
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weather changes heh
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it's root searching i think bisection or newton raphson - the guy didn't really know how to program anything, I wrote him a app which does this + an User Interface. The instructor found out he failed the assignment!
dev
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I too done that .. but guy was lucky as his instructor never able to caught him
"Opinions are neither right nor wrong. I cannot change your opinion. I can, however, change what influences your opinion." - David Crow Never mind - my own stupidity is the source of every "problem" - Mixture
cheers,
Alok Gupta
VC Forum Q&A :- I/ IV
Support CRY- Child Relief and You
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my friend (who's my best friend) wasn't so lucky
if I just coded a console app he'd be fine, back then i gave him a MFC GUI - which basically tip off the instructor. Perhaps I should have purposedly gave a few bugs too! Just to make it look like real life student work
dev
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Writing software take a lot of time. Not many neighbors are willing to help me construct a house these days but you would be surprised at how many people would ask for several hundred hours of software dev time like it was no big deal. Personally, I would rather change a family members alternator than write them software. It is easier for them to see and appreciate the effort.
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Lots of people work with wood or leather or paint and give those items they produce to friends and family as presents (i.e. wooden toy train for grandchildren). I don't do any of those things, but I can write programs. I wrote a windows background changer and populated it with pictures from our family and ancestors. I think it was a good idea, but haven't really heard from my siblings as to whether they enjoyed it. If I count the amount of time I put into it, it cost me more than most presents I give.
SS => Qualified in Submarines
"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
"Real programmers can write FORTRAN in any language". Unknown
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You should sell the software.
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