No more clients

If I've learned anything from the recent client that has been giving me so much trouble it is to make sure you document EVERYTHING. I've been working on this site since March, why? Because they refuse to simply talk through email or IM like normal clients. Now don't get me wrong I don't mind on-site visit or phone call once in a while, but these people wanted me to come to their shop for every little revision. It has gotten to the point they want me to call in every single thing that was completed or changed. It is insane.

But by far the icing on the cake is that they're threatening cancellation and legal action if the site isn't done by December! Keep in mind that I've remade the site twice, completely overhauled the database 3 times, made multiple small revisions to the site, gone on site at least 4 times, sent an un countable number of (unread) emails. I'm just plain sick of these people.

If I had enough money to return the original down payment, I would, and then I would ask them to never contact me again. But unfortunately the big disadvantage of being a college student is that when you get money, you have someone who wants it for a bill. Honestly, I've been looking to sell personal belongings just to get enough money to get them away from me.

Since I can't though, I've decided to take a more agressive approach. I'm going to call them everyday until I get the site approved and launched. I'm also going to be enforcing my times, generally I reffer clients to a time table on my site of when I'm available for a phone call, but I usually answer anytime. Not any more, I'm going to send any calls straight to voice mail until my normal hours. No more specially made manuals explaining basic computer skills. And no more running right over to help then when they don't understand something or their mistyping their password in the login form (yes, that really happened).

After this is all over, I think I'm going to take a nice long break, not take on any more clients and just mess around with my site.

How Steve Jobs affected my future

I know I said I wasn't going to write a post like this, but I changed my mind now that all the post funeral ranting had subsided.

Whether you love Apple or hate it you probably know of the infamous CEO Steve Jobs, or at least the black turtle neck an jeans he was famous for. But what most people don't know is how Steve Jobs changed the world. Now I know alot of people will argue Microsoft is better, but that isn't what I mean. Mr. Jobs life story is always what captivated and inspired me.

In 1976 when Jobs was just 21, he and
Steve Wozniak started Apple Compters. They only had the Jobs family garage to work in, but that didn't stop them. They funded their ventures by selling Steve's Volkswagen bus ands Wozniak's authentic scientific calculator. With this the two created a series of personal compters called the Apple I. This inital model earned earned them $774,000! Three years later, the Apple II released, earning 139 million! Apple Compters then became a publicly traded company worth 1.2 billion on the first day.

The next few products from Apple didn't do as well though, and IBM overtook Apple's sales. In 1984 Apple released the Macintosh, styling the computer as something youthful, romantic, and creative. Though it had superior performance, it was still IBM incompatible, and that didn't work in a IBM dominated market. John Scully, the then president of Apple, believed Steve Jobs was the problem and began phasing him out.

In 1985 Jobs resigned as CEO, sold his market shares in Apple and left the company he and Wozniak created in his garage. Jobs always looking for the next thing to change created a new company called NeXT Inc. The following year he purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in Pixar, Jobs invested 50 million of his item money. After many big hits, the studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Jobs Disney's largest share holder.

Although Pixar flew NeXT fell. In 1997 Apple bought NeXT for 429 million, thay same year Jobs took the position of CEO again. With Jobs return Apple flourished. With a new management team, altered stock options, and a self imposed annual salary of $1, Apple was back on track.

Even on his death bed he was sketching new accessories for the iPad and trying to learn new things.

I think it is a truly inspiring story. He builds the company, had someone take it away, makes another company, merges with one of America's largest companies, and finally revitalizes his originally company; bringing it back from the brink of death.

His story taught me to follow your passion and stock to your  belifs.

It taught me that even if everyone blames and kicks you out, get back up and keep moving forward.

And most importantly, take pride in everything you do, make excellence an expected standard, never settle for letting your products be mediocre.